Chapter 16 #2
Ellen looked taken aback. “I’m sure . . . I’m sure I sent one!”
“I’m sure you did. Practically the whole damn town, right?
Everyone sent a card. But not a soul can figure out what happened,” he said.
He was really on a roll now, but then a figure he recognized came bounding up beside Ellen, slapping the meaty palm of his hand on her back and then reaching down to tousle the hair of the little girl.
“Ah, here you are,” the familiar man said. “I was looking near the face painting.”
It was Sticks, and Denny realized he had never seen the officer out of uniform.
He wore a pair of blue jeans and a long-sleeve red and black checked flannel shirt, even though it was August. His hunter green raincoat was open.
No gun. No badge. Not today. Sticks was off-duty, but he still held a telltale cup of that Dunkin’ Donuts vanilla coffee he seemed to prefer. Denny could smell it.
“Officer Malkin,” Denny said, using his most professional voice. He wanted to catch Sticks off guard, since Sticks was always trying the same with him.
Sticks turned around, surprise registering on his face. “I didn’t see you there, Mr. Plummer. Welcome to the Block Party. First time?”
“Not nearly.”
“Wish we had better weather. Couldn’t be more different than last year’s.”
“Might as well be the theme of the year.”
“Got that right,” Sticks said. He looked out toward the moon bounce, drinking his coffee. Without looking back toward Denny, he said, “You know my sister Ellen, here? And this is my niece. Kate.”
Ellen turned back around again, this time with a look of distinct discomfort. She put her hand on Sticks’s shoulder. “We were actually just catching up before you got here. I was saying how sorry I was,” she said. Then, in a stage whisper. “About Anna.”
“Oh, I didn’t . . . I didn’t know,” Denny said, looking between the two.
“From Rowley to Hamilton, yep. Big change in the Malkin family. I mean, more for Ellen than for me, right?” Sticks winked at his sister. “She married up, is what I mean.”
Ellen looked to the ground. “As if there was anywhere to go but up when you come from Rowley,” she said, eyes unchanged.
Denny was remembering now. Anna had found her untrustworthy.
She had trusted her—had liked her, even—and then, suddenly, she had regarded her the way one would a snake in the grass. Venomous. Dangerous.
“Were you friends? With Anna?” Denny asked. Sticks leaned back a little on his heels. Ellen was still holding Kate’s hand, swinging an arm absently.
“We were friends. We were friendly. You know. You know Hamilton.” Was it Denny’s imagination or had she looked over at Sticks first? Was her look asking for his help?
The line had been moving, snaking gradually forward. Their turn in the moon house was coming up.
“Daddy, look,” Ben said, pulling on his arm. The kids were taking off their shoes in preparation, and the trance was broken.
“Finally, our turn,” Ellen said. She looked appreciative of the interruption. “Nice seeing you, Denny. You take care.” She guided Kate inside the house and stepped off to the side, where a gaggle of moms he didn’t know had formed to wait out their kids’ exhaustion.
He felt Louisa’s arms around his waist before he saw her. “Daddy, did you do the moon bounce?” she sang. He hadn’t seen her in line.
“We did. Twice. Where are all your friends?”
“Most of them had to go home with their parents.” She had taken her raincoat off and was swinging it around her, a fantastic yellow cape, even though it had started to rain again.
“Put your coat on,” Denny urged. “It’s cold and wet.”
“I hate this thing,” she said. “It’s too small and it’s hot.”
“We’ll have to get you a new one, but I can’t do that right this second, and right this second it’s raining.”
She seemed momentarily poised for battle, the way her mother always had been, ready to fight about anything and everything, but then she saw that there was no point in this particular fight.
He watched her slump her shoulders down in concession and put the jacket on.
“I. Hate. This. Jacket,” she said indignantly, and he watched from the corner of his eye, his other eye on Ben, who was looping in big circles on the lawn, getting his kindergarten energy out.
If only his wife could see this now, this perfect family photo, all of them together, her image a tear in the fabric of space.
Denny didn’t know how long it took before a person started to feel better.
All he knew was that each day he felt worse, like life was becoming further and further away from the version of the family that he had created, that he had built.
It was as if he were consciously deconstructing a perfect piece of furniture that he had made.
Something he loved. Something he now had to destroy.
It was getting dark now. The Block Party was an afternoon and evening event, and although the crowd was thinning, some had decided to stay until dark.
“Let’s go home and have dinner,” he said to the kids.
He looked up, one last time, surveyed the party, with its Hamilton denizens, friends and neighbors and almost-acquaintances, and there was Ellen, maybe a hundred feet away, holding a burger, her face blurred from the smoke of a food truck.
Kate was by her side, the little girl hopping from foot to foot.
She looked tired, and maybe a little cold.
But what Denny noticed, as he watched the woman—the one who had maybe once been a long-ago friend of his wife’s—was that she stood in a group, talking to another woman he knew. A woman he recognized. One Mimi Mar.