Chapter 17 Micah
Micah
Friday afternoon, reunion weekend
Meanwhile, Logan still hasn’t texted or called, or emailed, or sent a note via carrier pigeon. How can he not want to talk about this? It’s sitting there like a tumor, waiting to rupture. He can’t just leave it.
Micah had planned to leave the bakery at noon so she could pick up her nice green silk shirt from the dry cleaner, go home, put on a mud mask, shower, shave her legs, use some argan oil to make her hair smooth and shiny, and dress in a way that said casual yet confident, friendly yet professional.
A no regrets look. A look that says her life turned out really, really well.
Because it has, even if it isn’t what she (and her entire graduating class) expected.
Instead, she had to stay at the bakery till 3:45 to decorate the wedding cake.
The dry cleaner closed early for the long weekend.
No green silk shirt for her. Also, her most flattering jeans have somehow sprouted a hole right in the crotch, and she cannot find the awesome gray suede boots she scored at the thrift shop last year.
Where can they be? The house is only so big. The boots are nowhere.
She slides to the floor of the now-messy bedroom, clad in James’s tatty bathrobe, hair wet and not argan-oiled. She checks her phone again, hoping for something from her son. Nothing. Still. Never before has she understood the term heartsick so perfectly.
This is, in a roundabout way, her sister’s fault.
Logan has always worshipped Auntie Eve. Since becoming a travel influencer, she’s taken Logan to Hawaii, Switzerland, London and New Zealand—all free, all first class because she’s Eve of Eve’s Suitcase, with five million followers on social media.
Logan thinks she’s funny, adventurous and generous.
And to him, she is. That being said, Eve has never given so much as a Greyhound bus ticket to Micah and James.
Last Christmas, her sister came to Stafford, as per tradition, sighing about how provincial the town was, telling Logan he must be climbing the walls since there was nothing to do.
After James’s parents and three sisters, plus their spouses and kids, had left (Christmas Eve was Micah’s favorite holiday), James and Micah cleared and cleaned and ran the dishwasher and did the hand-washables, wiped down the table and counters, and put the tablecloth and napkins in the washing machine.
Micah had never had holidays like this as a kid—too busy with the bakery, too acrimonious for her parents to put on a good front.
Since they’d moved into their own house, she and James went all out for Christmas.
Finally, they joined Mom, Logan and Eve in the living room, the tree sparkling in the corner. It was then that Eve busted out the bullshit family legend that they had an Abenaki ancestor, a claim made by just about every white Vermonter.
“I think that’s why I’m such a born traveler,” Eve said. “The Abenaki were great wanderers. Also, it’s probably why I’m such a good storyteller. Oral tradition. And maybe why you played the drums, Logan! Drumming was a big part of Abenaki culture.”
“You played the drums because your dad bought you a drum kit when you were four,” Micah said, getting a smile from James. “Also, the Abenaki traveled to follow food sources, not because of wanderlust. They didn’t want to starve in the winter.”
Eve gave her a pointed look, then smiled at Logan. “I think it’s ancestral. Maybe I just got more of their traits.”
Everything was a competition with Eve.
“Who wants more coffee?” Micah asked. “Tea? How about that Irish whiskey you brought, Logan? Let’s have a taste, shall we?”
Because Micah has always tried to avoid the topic of genetics.
Once, when Logan came home in sixth grade, asking how he could have brown eyes when both his parents had blue, she had her answer ready.
“Well, it’s not as simple as recessive and dominant genes,” she said confidently.
“It takes something like sixteen factors to determine eye color. My dad has hazel eyes, and your great-grandma and Auntie Claire have brown eyes, so that’s how you got yours.
Cool, huh?” It did the trick. Technically, yes, it was possible.
But Eve’s ancestral Abenaki garbage apparently prompted Logan to order a 23andMe kit over the summer. When the results came in, he called her, furious, asking why some guy in Nebraska seemed to be his biological father.
His question knocked all the air out of her. “Oh, honey,” she whispered.
“You lied to me all my life,” he said, and then hung up.
She called back; he didn’t answer. She texted him .
. . nothing. Called again and went right to voicemail.
That same day, she drove to Boston and asked his doorman to let him know she was there.
Logan didn’t answer the doorman’s calls.
“Seems like he’s out,” the man said kindly.
She waited for five hours, but her son didn’t come home or, if he was fuming upstairs in his apartment, come down.
Finally, she texted: Okay. Ball is in your court.
But your real father is Dad. He loves you. He raised you. You are his son.
Nothing. Every day since Logan told her he knew, she’s wondered if he’ll tell James, or get in touch with his biological father. She doesn’t know how he’s feeling. All she does know is that Logan is holding a grenade, and he’s not telling her if he’s going to yank the pin.
All because he wanted to see if his stupid aunt Eve was right about the Abenaki.
“Where the fuck are my boots?” she shouts at the walls of her bedroom. Could something please go right today? Please?
She shouldn’t be thinking about Logan or Eve or anyone else right now.
She’s meeting the Core Four, and Audrey is the one who really matters this weekend.
Audrey, who will be dying soon. Tears flood her eyes .
. . Ever since Logan was born, she’s cried easily.
Before that, she can’t remember a single time she cried, not even when her parents split up.
Micah pulls on her second-best pair of jeans, finds that they’ve gotten tighter and tries on a white oxford.
Boring. She has a fairly decent cashmere sweater (another Goodwill find).
It’s brown, and today, it looks shapeless and drab.
For shoes, she has black Converse high-tops.
Otherwise, she owns two pairs of those hideous and comfortable clogs made for cooks and nurses, one pair of running shoes, twenty-year-old muck boots, and a pair of black heels she wears on the rare occasion she and James go to a wedding or funeral.
She isn’t the beautiful one this weekend. She’s the frumpy one.
If you’re kind and friendly, like Beck, you might truly enjoy your reunion. If you’ve become successful and wealthy, you might like to flash that a bit and show people how you’ve landed, like Jasmine or Ché. If you are dying, like Audrey, going to your reunion makes total, heartbreaking sense.
But if the reason you never left is because you got knocked up, if you didn’t do what you’d loudly proclaimed you would, if you never had great adventures, or if for decades, you were the town pariah because of an accident that happened when you were eighteen, why the hell would you go?
Because you have to.
She pulls a flannel shirt over the brown sweater since it will get cold later.
No point in trying to look cool. Beck texted to say they’ll meet her in front of the library, where they’re parking.
Her phone vibrates with a text, and adrenaline shoots through her limbs.
Logan? Please? No, just James. Don’t worry about the food.
I’m manning the grill till Tim gets here.
Love you. She texts back a heart and You are the best, honey.
She does not deserve him.
With a sigh, Micah leaves the house and walks briskly down the street, trying not to think about her sad outfit or angry son. There’s Jasmine’s enormous SUV just pulling into the library. They all get out, all looking quite put together, and again, she feels an embarrassed pang.
“You guys look nice,” she says. “How are you doing, Audrey?”
“Not bad,” she says. “I took an Adderall. I think it helps a little. Or I’ll just be loopy and awake till three a.m.”
Stephen unfolds himself from the back seat. “Hello, Micah.”
“Stephen! Wow!” Does he blame her for the death of Dr. Kate, too?
“Great to see you.” He gives a smile, but she can’t tell whether it’s genuine or not.
Then again, he probably has a lot on his mind.
His sister is terminal. I know this will come as a shock, Micah, she can hear her sister say, but it’s not always about you.
Beck is looking at Micah, tilting her head. “Mind if I . . . ?” she says, indicating Micah’s clothes.
“Please. Go ahead. I was in a rush.” Once upon a time, she was the best-dressed one. Well, Audrey had that preppy thing going on, but Micah had an innate cool factor. She wonders when that died.
“Take off that flannel shirt,” Beck orders and slides out of her own jacket, a sumptuous yellow suede that matches the birch leaves. Beck hands her the jacket. “Shirt,” Beck says to the flannel, “you’ve been great, but we’re taking you to live on a nice farm, okay?”
Micah has to smile. “I know. I didn’t get to the dry cleaner, had a zillion things to do and just threw this stuff on.” She puts on the jacket, which feels like heaven, and cuffs the sleeves, which are too long for her. “What will you wear? Won’t you be cold?”
“I brought this. Wasn’t sure I wanted to wear it, but .
. . yeah, I do.” Beck pulls out her varsity jacket from the back of the car and puts it on, the big S on the front, the snarling bobcat that was the school’s mascot.
Four bars under the S show that Beck was on varsity every year.
Underneath her last name on the back, repeated three times, are the initials MVP.
Sophomore, junior and senior years. Beck had been quite the thing.