Chapter 20 Lorna Now
Mr. sanders was surprisingly easy to find.
he had to be in his seventies now, maybe even his eighties, but he was active on social media.
He was no longer a teacher, of course, but he was a church youth director at one of the megachurches in town, and he had his own website.
It announced he was putting on a musical, and rehearsals for The Curse of the Moneylenders (which, the website noted, was written and scored by Mr. Sanders himself) were happening from five to seven every night this week.
Lorna couldn’t wait to tell Bean. After their visit to Pflugerville, she’d told him there was something else she regretted and someone else she should probably apologize to. Bean was quite excited about the prospect of a choir. “I don’t have my singing badge yet,” he said.
There was a badge for everything, she guessed.
Bean wasn’t due to come over after school today as he had a Ranger Explorer meeting, and Seth was picking him up. When Lorna heard the truck on the gravel patch, she went to the door, hoping to catch him.
The front door squeaked open (Mr. Contreras really needed to oil a few hinges) at the same time she opened her apartment door and stuck out her head.
Bean didn’t see her—he slammed the front door on Seth, then stalked toward his apartment without looking right or left.
He took out a key and shoved it into the lock, opened the door, went inside, and slammed it too.
Lorna was stunned. She’d never seen Bean like that.
“Hey.”
She hadn’t even noticed Seth slipping into the house. She stepped out of her door and waited for an explanation.
Seth smiled sheepishly. “Sorry about that. Bean’s pretty upset with me.”
“Why?”
“It was his turn to bring snacks to the Rangers and I forgot to pick them up. And I haven’t managed to find a blue vest for his badges. Apparently, he is the only kid without one.”
Lorna blinked. She almost said out loud that was unacceptable but managed to hold her tongue.
Surely Seth knew there was nothing worse than being the only one who didn’t have what the other kids had.
Like a happy family, for example. “That sucks,” she said flatly, unable to let her indignation for Bean go.
“Yep. So I’ve heard,” Seth said.
“Sorry,” Lorna muttered.
“Don’t be. The condemnation is deserved.” He shifted his gaze to his door. “I guess I’d better go deal with my child’s bitter disappointment.” He gave Lorna a sort of two-finger salute and went into his apartment.
Lorna remained standing in her partially opened doorway.
Poor Bean. She knew what it was like to be the odd one out.
She shut the door and went to her small bathroom, where she dragged a brush through her hair and straightened out her sensible blouse.
Then she went to rouse Aggie from her bed.
“Come on, girl,” she said. “Bean needs you.”
Aggie leaped up from bed, her nub of a tail wagging at just the mention of Bean’s name.
Lorna took her across the hall and knocked on 1B.
Moments later, Seth answered the door. He’d removed his outer shirt and was wearing a T-shirt and some joggers.
Lorna was momentarily struck by the size of his biceps.
She hadn’t seen biceps like that up close and personal in a very long time, and they sent a tiny shiver up her spine and froze her brain. “Umm...”
Seth didn’t seem to notice her gawking; he was watching Aggie walk right past him like this was her house and disappear into the apartment. He turned back to Lorna, curious.
“I thought she might help soothe hurt feelings. She always does for me.”
“You know what? That’s a great idea. Thank you.” He opened the door a little wider. “Come in.”
“Oh no. I don’t want to intrude.” Or bore him to death while she tried to make small talk, which was more likely.
“Please, I could use the company. If you have time, that is.”
She had nothing but time. “Well. Okay. But I’m horrible at small talk.”
“I know.” He smiled, and his eyes twinkled in the low light.
Lorna resisted the urge to put her hand to her throat. She didn’t feel like herself—her limbs were jittery, her blood sparkly.
“Just come in, Lorna. I’m not exactly a master at small talk either, but I think we can manage.”
“Okay.” She took a tentative step inside.
She could hear Bean speaking low to Aggie, the sound coming from the direction of what would have been Nana’s room.
She and Seth were in the old den. If Lorna kept her gaze directly in front of her, she could imagine her mother in a chair, smoking a cigarette, flipping through the pages of a magazine.
Or maybe, if she was lucky, she could imagine Nana knitting, like she used to do in the early days, when Lorna and Kristen would lie on the floor at her feet and cut out houses and people from magazines for their storybooks.
Before Nana was drunk all the time. When exactly had that started happening?
“Would you like a beer?”
She jerked her gaze to Seth. She debated telling him she didn’t really drink, but that, on top of no small talk, seemed too much. How insufferable could one person be? “Sure. Thanks.”
“Coming right up.” He walked into what used to be a large bath. She didn’t know where the bath was in this apartment now.
She looked around while he got the beers.
His furniture was standard, without a lot of character, one of those purchase-an-entire-room packages.
She shifted her weight, uncertain how to fit her body in this familiar yet not familiar space.
She felt stiff, like a robot. Why could she not relax?
It had been years since she lived with her family here.
So many people gone, so many things changed.
In fact, she had a sudden memory of her last time in this room.
Her mother was shouting at her to stop her damn crying.
“I’ve got some low-carb beer,” Seth said. “Hope that’s okay. It’s a thing now, I guess.”
Lorna didn’t know if it was a thing or not and said nothing as she took the beer he handed her. She looked at the label.
“No good?” he asked.
“Umm... I haven’t tasted it.”
“Well, you can trust me that it won’t be great,” he said with a chuckle. “I failed to mention that it’s also budget beer.”
Lorna smiled. She liked his honesty. She hated beer, truth be told. But she sipped it, and it wasn’t terrible. “It’s okay,” she said, noting the surprise in her voice.
He laughed. “Shocker, I know. Want to sit?” He gestured for her to have a seat on the sofa, then moved papers and Bean’s backpack off a chair for himself.
Lorna sat on the edge of the couch, her back straight.
Seth had some darkness under his eyes and the beginning of a beard on his face and chin.
She wondered how he slept, if he heard Martin’s marching band practice at night like she did.
He glanced up to see her staring at him, and Lorna quickly averted her gaze.
Great. Her awkward self was not going to let her be.
Her gaze happened to land on the windowsill and one of her Precious Moments figurines.
Oh, hello, how did you get here? Had Bean taken it without asking?
Surely Seth didn’t collect them too. She leaned slightly forward.
The figurine was of a woman in a sun hat and a boy with a puppy.
“I must look like crap,” Seth said, drawing her attention back to him. “I’ve been working a lot. Too much.” He took a long swig of beer. “I’m having trouble keeping my hours down. I’d offer you a snack, but the cupboard is bare. Turns out, I suck at the single-parenting thing.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Lorna said.
Seth sighed and shoved his fingers through his hair.
“You know, Bean’s mom and I struggled to make ends meet when he was a baby.
There was always something, right? But then I got this great promotion at the university—I work in IT—and for once, things were looking up.
It was longer hours, but we were both okay with that.
It meant more money, more freedom. She got a better job, too, and Bean was in school.
We had plans, we were doing things on weekends, we were planning trips and talking about the future, and I thought I had it made. Then— wham —she gets hit by a bus.”
Lorna managed to hide her surprise at his bluntness with a cough.
“Sorry. I thought you knew.”
“Bean mentioned it.”
“The bus was coming out of a garage, and I guess Jill wasn’t looking where she was going.
I don’t know. I’ve never been able to figure out how she didn’t see a whole damn bus.
She was on a bike—she had to notice something so much bigger than her coming out of that garage.
” He shook his head. “Anyway.” He took another swig of beer, then picked at the label.
“She was really into fitness. Cycling in particular. She’d ride for miles around town.
” He glanced off, toward the window with the figurine on the sill.
“I told her it was too dangerous to ride around Austin. We have one of the highest bike fatality rates in the country. But she insisted I shouldn’t worry, that everything was fine. Well, it wasn’t fine.”
Lorna gulped down a swallow of beer, surprised he was telling her this. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “You must be furious about that.”
Seth slowly turned his head back to her. “What?”
“You know, when you love someone and you want them to take care of themselves, but you can’t control what they do. I mean me—I feel that way.”
He looked down. But when he looked back up, he opened his mouth to speak, then paused. He squinted. “Lorna... are you crying?”