Chapter 33
On the ride home we all assure one another that it was an absolutely perfect event.
I keep throwing out little phrases, because I’m afraid of the silence.
“Very fresh,” I keep saying. “The freshest yet.” My chest and my throat are full.
There’s a giant sob waiting to get out, but I am not a sobber, I remind myself.
I am the soother of sobs. The fixer. I will take off this dress and I will not hang it up.
I will not use the miles of fabric to make something else.
I will cleanse myself of this dress and this particular fantasy.
I keep with the little comments. “And the flowers, all so fresh.”
Unfortunately, you cannot hide the pain in your voice from the people who love you. We get out of the car and Gus stops me to ask if I’ve been crying.
“Yes,” I tell him, because I don’t lie to Gus, and then I immediately say, “But I’ll be fine,” switching course and telling him a blatant lie.
“What happened? Something with Stewart?”
I don’t know how to explain this to Gus without showing him the full breadth of my pain. I am going to a dark place, and I don’t want to take him with me. So I keep lying to keep him safe.
“No, not at all. I just twisted my ankle in these ridiculous shoes, and it hurt. Everything’s great with Stewart, in fact it’s payday! Tonight was the last event of our arrangement.”
Gus sits with this. He’s sorting through the mixed messages that he’s getting from my spirit and my words. He is not accustomed to being lied to, but honestly he should get used to it.
“But you liked him,” he says.
“I did,” I say, and look down at my absurd gold purse. Who carries a gold purse? “It was a very fun summer.”
“So are sailing lessons over?”
“Probably. I think he’s going to be back in Boston soon.
But you really learned a lot. We can see if there are boats to rent at the dock for the next few weeks.
Did I mention it’s payday?” I smile at him, half real, because he did have a great summer.
I pull him into my arms, my person who I get to keep for a few more years.
A little while later my dad pokes his head into the sleeping porch and catches me staring at my unringing phone. “You okay, Doll?” he asks.
“Yeah, sure.” I turn to him, and he sees it on me. The dark pit of grief that’s going to swallow me whole. “Don’t worry.”
“I’m always going to worry, Doll. I’m sorry for whatever happened.”
“Me too, Dad,” I say, and he has the grace to knock twice on the doorframe and walk away without saying anything more.
I text Naomi a quick synopsis on Sunday morning. She arrives ten minutes later through the sleeping porch door and gets in bed with me. I can tell she thinks this is a little blip and that I’m overreacting. She smooths my hair like I’m her child.
“What was the last thing he said to you?” she asks.
“That he’d drop by with a check.”
“Oh,” she says. Her sunny demeanor darkens.
“He wanted to be CEO to carry on the family vision or whatever, and now he looks like a fraud. And I know that’s all a really big deal. But he walked away from me when everyone was looking at me. I asked what this meant for us, and he said he didn’t know.”
“He knows,” she says.
I shake my head. “Really didn’t seem like it.” We’re quiet for a bit, and I love Naomi for not telling me he’ll be back. I don’t know where I’d put my dark moments if I didn’t have her to hold them for me.
“Can we bring dinner over tonight? Let the kids run around?”
The idea of that turns my stomach. It feels like moving on. “I think I want to leave the night open,” I say. “I’m sure there’s a big talk coming.”
My shift the next day starts at eleven, and there’s a boatload of scallops to unload. I like the weight of the metal bins my dad uses to transport them into the store. They’re ice cold against my legs and leave red marks where the cold has burned me. This is all I can feel today.
My phone is face up, unringing, by the cash register.
Customers come in and out, dinging the bell over the door and driving me into a madness I’ve never quite known before.
I leave the fish house at four and he is not standing outside.
I close my eyes to the sun and he does not step in and make a shadow.
I walk home to Goose Lane and his car is not in my driveway.
This is the strongest emotional pain I’ve ever felt.
It’s a horrible realization. My dad telling us my mom had decided to stay in Virginia permanently.
Niles handing me a wad of twenties and saying goodbye.
This feels like a deeper cut, even though it’s one that could be sutured with a few words.
Let me come by and explain. Miss you. But the longer this day goes on, the wider this cut grows, and the more words it’s going to take to sew it shut.
He knows how this is hurting me and he’s just letting it be.
He held me in his arms and talked about the fall and the Mariners and never being apart for a week.
He’d change the world for me? How about sending me a text?
It’s this bit of anger that breaks through my sadness, a relief, and spurs the text I send at nine p.m.
Me: How’d the board call go?
His response comes after thirty seconds. Not so long that he’s away from his phone, but long enough that he’s holding it and thinking about how to reply. This is how well I know Stewart now.
Stewart: Badly. They don’t trust me and Grant will probably get the job
Me: But things changed
Stewart: Facts are facts. I did hire you. I did bring you to a client dinner. Money changed hands, it’s fraud.
It’s the period at the end of that text that tells me all I need to know.
I could make a study of our entire texting relationship over the past two months, and I would not find a message with a period at the end.
It is currently killing me how well I know Stewart.
But I keep going, just to be sure. I cannot be in this wondering state.
Me: Are you working tonight?
Stewart: Yes, lots to do.
Another period. Me: Ok good night
He doesn’t reply.
My dad has the misfortune of walking into the sleeping porch at that moment.
“You okay, Doll?”
He’s standing there in his Red Sox T-shirt and his gray shorts, the ones I spent two days getting a mustard stain out of. And I remember that Gus doesn’t have any clean shirts to wear to lifeguard camp next week, so I don’t even have a crappy, fitful sleep to look forward to.
“I’m fine,” I say. “Did you need something from me?” It bites, like an accusation.
He narrows his eyes at my tone. I don’t think I even talked to him like this as a teenager. “Just checking on you. You seemed a little off today.”
“Yeah, well, I’m a little off.”
“Doll,” he says, and comes to sit on my bed. Just like I used to do with Christopher and Patsy when they were upset. It’s so strange to have this dynamic with him.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m upset. And tired.”
“You don’t have to be sorry.”
We’re quiet for a bit and the frog song fills the room.
I hear no rustling of leaves. Stewart isn’t coming.
“This family is stuck,” I say. He looks up at me.
“The way you’re so rigid about the business.
And the way we treat Christopher. He’ll never get off the porch.
Why would he? It’s like our world imploded thirty years ago, and then we just stayed frozen in time.
I’ve lived in Boston for twenty years, and I still know where all your socks are. ”
He’s quiet for a bit. “Last time I made a big change I lost your mom.”
“You lost money, Dad. She was leaving anyway.”
He doesn’t say anything.
“I think I’m in the middle of a pretty huge heartbreak.” My voice cracks when I say it, as if I just made it true. “And you warned me, you were right. But taking time to do different things, just for fun, I haven’t done that in a long time. I want more for Gus and for me.”
“So what does that mean? What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. But I really feel like shit right now. And I don’t want to pretend that I don’t.”
On Wednesday, a messenger delivers a check for thirty thousand dollars.