37. Dallas
DALLAS
If Lucy and the kids had been home, Mason would have slept well his first night back.
But as it was, he tossed and turned, discovering sometime in the middle of the night that he was not alone in his insomnia; through the bedroom window, he saw Greta—his guest?
his tenant?—still sitting out by the pool, sometimes looking down at her phone, mostly staring up at the stars.
Morning finally came. “Hey, Captain,” he said, “turn on the lights,” and he got up and ready for a day of travel.
He shaved and showered and dressed in his regular clothes.
He went through his things in the back of the walk-in closet and put socks, boxers, and his favorite T-shirts in his backpack, still searching high and low, every drawer and shelf, for his wallet and phone.
The dogs followed him to the kitchen, where he made a cappuccino, piping hot and so much better than that watery, tepid instant coffee of Alpha Red Canyon.
The dogs were asking to go out, so he followed them out the back door, closing it behind him to keep the cats and the AC in.
Greta had finally left her lounge chair, but there was Mickey the pool guy, kneeling on the flagstones to check the chlorine levels.
“Hi,” Mason said.
Mickey looked up and pushed his headphones off his ears. “Whoa,” he said, “you’re back.”
“I’m back,” said Mason. “For now. I’m on my way to meet Lucy and the kids.” He looked over his shoulder and saw Tank and Bunny doing their business in the pachysandra. “Everything okay with you, Mickey? Good summer?”
“Sure,” Mickey said, smiling broadly. “Can’t complain. You either, right? Mr. Sexy!”
“Sorry?” said Mason.
“I admit, I didn’t see that coming.” Mickey shook his head and shrugged. “But then there’s hope for me, right?”
“Sure,” Mason said, pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose and shrugging back. “Wait, what do you mean—hope for… what?”
But Mickey had put his headphones on and turned back to his chemicals.
Did the pool guy find him… sexy ? This was flattering, of course, but certainly out of the blue.
Mason brought the dogs back inside and checked the time. He was about to put his mug in the dishwasher when he heard footsteps on the stairs. He hoped it was Greta, coming to offer him a ride to the airport.
Instead, whoever it was walked through the entry to the garage door, and he could hear a plaintive voice saying quietly, “ Konnen wir das sp?ter besprechen? You know I can’t be late for surgery.” It was the German husband, Otto, and he sounded distressed. Mason froze, the mug still in his hand.
“ Sp?ter werde ich nicht mehr hier sein .”
That was Greta. Mason didn’t speak German, but he could hear grief and exhaustion in her voice.
“Please,” Otto said, “ bitte. Du machst keinen Sinn .”
Mason had stopped breathing, wondering whether he should alert them to his presence on the other side of the wall. It felt strange to be an intruder in his own home. An eavesdropper, a snoop.
“ Ich liebe dich ,” Greta was saying. “You’re happier than I’ve ever seen you. You’ve found so much joy. I’m proud of you.” Her words seemed harmless, kind even, and yet Otto let out a heartbreaking moan.
“ Ich verstehe gar nichts ,” he said.
“I know,” Greta said. “I don’t understand either. And I’m sorry, Otto. Es tut mir sehr leid .”
Mason didn’t move as he heard choking sobs and the rattle of keys.
The door to the garage opened and then quietly closed, and a few moments later, the front door did as well.
And then the house was utterly still. Mason hadn’t understood much of the exchange, but he was pretty sure he’d overheard something shattering.
And also worrisome, his potential ride to the airport had just walked out of the house.
He went to find the Tesla fob, thinking he would just drive himself, but when he went out to the garage, he found the car battery completely dead.
He was heading back in to find the Prius key when the doorbell rang, and the dogs went berserk. Mason followed them to see who was there.
Three young women were standing on the porch. He recognized one, Nell, a longtime classmate of Jack’s who had always exuded a mature confidence. Lucy had dubbed her an old soul when she was only a fourth grader.
“Hi, Mr. Holt,” she said. “I didn’t know you were back.”
“Me neither,” he said. “I mean, I didn’t plan… What can I do for you?”
“We’re hoping we can get a message to Jack,” Nell said.
“Okay,” Mason said warily. Tank and Bunny pushed past him, greeting the girls by licking their hands; Mason was not as receptive to these visitors, unsure whether they were friends or foes. Gosh, he wished Lucy were there.
“Just tell Jack that Emmi contacted us,” Nell said. “She explained everything.”
“Emmi?”
“His lawyer,” Nell said, putting her hands in the pockets of her baggy jeans. “Kidding, but the girl can make an argument.”
“She sent us Jack’s formula,” said the girl next to her. She had red hair and definitely looked familiar, but Mason couldn’t come up with her name.
“A formula for—”
“The one that got all twisted up and overblown,” Nell said. “We just want to talk to him about it.”
“About what exactly?” Mason said.
“The list,” said the redhead. “We should’ve been more mindful, instead of listening to Sam. Dude’s highly questionable.”
“I hate to say I told you so,” Nell said to her coolly, “but… I did tell you so.”
“ Nell ,” she said, “we’re sorry, okay?”
“Also we think the tampon thing is way cool,” the third girl said. She was holding a Starbucks iced coffee and chewing on the straw.
“Tampon thing?” Mason said, thinking this conversation might as well be in German too, given how little he was grasping.
“Totally. So can you let Jack know we came by?” she said. “We’re the three cheapest girls on his list— Wait, that came out wrong—”
“And welcome back from Mars,” Nell added with a smile. “You slayed.”
The girls turned and walked down the path to a parked Bronco, and for a second, Mason considered asking them for a ride to DFW. But no, that was a terrible idea.
There was a woman in the yard next door picking up her newspaper at the curb. “Hi,” she called out as she walked back up her path. “You’re the astronaut, right? I was at the party when you got home last night.”
“Hello,” Mason said. In his shock the night before, he hadn’t been able to take in the faces of all the strangers sitting around his dining table.
“Welcome home,” she said.
“Thank you,” he said. He scratched the back of his head. “I’m sorry, but I was wondering if it would be possible…” And then he stopped; it was too much to ask. He didn’t even know this woman’s name. “Never mind,” he said.
“Tell me, hon,” she said, walking from her property over to his. “What do you need?”
“I’m flying to Germany in a few hours,” he said.
“How exciting,” she said.
“Yes, I wondered, would you mind calling me an Uber? I don’t have my phone.”
“Did you leave it on Mars?” she said with a wink.
“In my spaceship actually,” he said, though this was no time for jokes. “But I’ll Venmo you as soon as—”
“I know where you live,” she said, and laughed. “When do you need to leave?”
“Now,” he said, practically barking out the word.
“Well then, let’s see.” She pulled her phone out of her skirt pocket. “It says… your driver can be here in four minutes in his black Toyota Camry. I’m Sylvie, by the way.”
“Mason,” said Mason. “And thank you, Sylvie. Really, I appreciate this so much. I better go grab my stuff.”
“Have a good trip,” she said.
Mason rushed back into the house, where he noticed that Greta had left a neat stack of mail—mostly bills, along with a thick envelope from a solar energy research group in Norway—on the hall table; he grabbed it all, said goodbye to the dogs, the guinea pig, and a cat who happened to run by, and then he stood outside in the shade of the portico in the wilting Texas heat to wait for his Uber.
A car—a white Suburban, not the promised Camry—came down the street and stopped right in front of the house.
The back door opened, and Alice!—his adorable Alice!
—climbed out of the car. Mason’s breath caught in his chest. She was so tall, and she flashed a grown-up, stern gaze back into the car just as Fred tumbled out and landed face-first onto the street.
Zoe, her hair tangled and her smile revealing a missing tooth, leapt out next.
She picked Fred up, brushing the dirt from her hand onto her floral leggings.
Irene stepped out behind her, stretching her back with a groan, as Rex came around from the other side of the car and began unloading the suitcases.
Then Jack appeared, looking handsome and well and strong. He thanked the driver before going to help his grandfather with the growing pile of luggage.
Mason felt a swell of love for his family and smiled in wonder as though a flock of endangered birds had landed on his lawn.
The passenger door opened next, and there was Lucy, laughing to herself as she checked to see that nothing had been left behind in the car.
She pulled her sweatshirt off over her head, and her hair clip caught on the collar.
When she finally untangled herself, she looked up at the house and gasped.
Mason ran to her, dropping everything—his backpack, the mail and passport—in the grass as he went.
He and Lucy met in the middle of the yard, almost knocking each other over.
“You’re here!” she said, touching his face and hands. “But I’m on my way to New Mexico to bring you home.”
“I’m on my way to you,” he said as the kids came rushing over. “I got a plane ticket and—”
“We spent the night on the floor at JFK,” said Alice, his little news reporter tugging on his T-shirt. “Also, we stole a car and left the country and didn’t tell Mommy where we were.”
“Wait,” said Mason, “you did what—”
“Look, Daddy!” Zoe was holding her hands up in his face, waving her fingers. “Emmi put on polish,” she said, “and I get to leave it on until it chips.”
“How pretty,” he said, holding her hand to see, silently vowing never again to be this out of the loop on his family’s acquaintances and exploits and jokes and memories. “And very grown-up.” His heart ached at the sight of her little sparkly fingernails.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” Jack said, looking him squarely in the eye. “I screwed up, and you’re going to be really disgusted with me—”
“Never,” Mason said, wanting to shield his son, but he did not know from what. “Jack, I would never be anything but proud of you.”
Jack had tears in his eyes, and he dropped his head on Mason’s shoulder.
Mason too was overcome with emotion. He pulled them all in for a hug, closing his eyes and holding on as tight as he could.
But after only a moment, Zoe wriggled away to go see the pets, Rex called for help with the bags, Mason’s Uber driver pulled up to the curb in his black Camry, and Alice started picking up all the mail Mason had dropped on the lawn.
“Ummm, Jack,” Alice said, looking down at an envelope in her hand. “You got a letter from MIT.”
Mason watched as they all stopped whatever they were doing and turned to stare, as though Alice were holding a ticking bomb in her hand.
Jack approached her slowly. “You open it,” he said.
“Me?” said Alice, her eyes wide.
Jack nodded, and Alice tore the envelope open. “It says… it says your math is pretty good,” she said, scanning the letter, “and something about a housing form?”
Jack grabbed the letter, reading it quickly. “So they’re taking me?— Even though—” He whooped so loudly that the dogs started barking from inside the house. Jack dropped to his knees on the grass, gripping the paper, looking skyward, and smiling.
Mason watched the moment unfold—Rex tousling the hair on Jack’s head, Alice jumping up and down, Irene and Zoe squealing.
He held Lucy’s hand, looked into her eyes, and kissed her with all the passion and longing of an intergalactic hero who’d blasted through space, traveled where no man had gone before , and returned safely with a newfound appreciation for what it means to be home.
Lucy blinked up at him dreamily. “Wow,” she said.
“Eww,” said Alice.
“Get a room,” said Irene.
Lucy leaned in to kiss him again, and for a moment Mason felt like he really was the sexiest man alive. In any case, he was far and away the happiest.