Chapter 17
GRAHAM
Audrey called Thursday morning while I was moving the four o'clock appointment on my calendar from tentative to confirmed.
I had blocked an hour afterward for the drive to Claire's apartment. The line beneath it was blank. I had learned not to fill the time she had not asked for.
“I was going to send you the plan for tomorrow,” Audrey said. “Your mother wants us at the cemetery at ten, then lunch at her house. Theo wants you to help choose Daniel's picture tonight.”
The anniversary had acquired a schedule because, in the first year, none of us knew how to survive an unfilled hour. Later the schedule returned because I kept making it. I drove, packed food, planned distractions, and stayed until Theo slept. I had never asked which part he wanted.
“I can take Theo tonight from six thirty to eight,” I said. “Tomorrow I'll come to dinner.”
“Not the cemetery?”
“No.”
“What could matter more tomorrow morning?”
I closed the calendar. “Something I already committed to.”
“Claire.” Her name came out like an accusation.
“Claire didn't make the schedule. I did.”
Audrey breathed into the phone. “I'll tell him six thirty.”
She ended the call before I could thank her.
At four fifty-two, I parked across from Harborside Women's Health.
I had left the office early enough to account for traffic, found the entrance Nina used, and sent Claire one message telling her where I was.
The clinic windows reflected the row of cars and the low white sky.
I could see movement beyond the frosted lower panes but not the waiting room.
Audrey called again at four fifty-eight.
“Theo wants to stay at Eleanor's tonight. Can you come now? He has the photographs.”
“I'll pick him up at six thirty, as we planned.”
“He asked why you aren't coming tomorrow.”
“Tell him I made different plans. Don't tell him Claire kept me away.”
The clinic door opened. Claire stepped out beside Nina, holding a folded appointment sheet.
Audrey let out a tired breath. “Everything is your decision now, apparently.”
“Six thirty.” I ended the call.
Nina handed Claire her water bottle. “Text me when you're upstairs.”
“I will.”
She looked at me once before crossing toward her van. I opened the passenger door for Claire, then went around to the driver's side.
“If Theo needs you, you can go,” Claire said when I started the car. “Nina hasn't left yet.”
“He and I have plans at six thirty. I have time to drive you home.”
“Audrey sounded upset.”
“She wanted me with them for the whole anniversary. I'm taking Theo tonight, and I'll have dinner with him tomorrow.” I checked the mirror before pulling away from the curb. “He isn't losing his time with me because I promised you this ride.”
Claire held the folded paper against her knee. “You don't have to cancel something with me to prove that.”
“I know.”
We stopped behind a delivery van.
“Did you used to spend the whole day with them?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Then this is a change.”
“It is.”
She rubbed her thumb along the fold in the appointment sheet. “I don't want Theo wondering where you went.”
“He'll know where I am in his life. He doesn't need to know where I am every hour.”
Traffic moved again. Claire settled the water bottle at her feet.
The street narrowed to one lane near the bridge. We moved a block, stopped, and moved again. Claire turned toward the window.
“The appointment was good,” she said. “The heartbeat was strong. Dr. Patel said everything measures where it should.”
My hands tightened once on the wheel before I loosened them. “Thank you for telling me.”
“She asked whether the nausea had improved.”
“Had it?”
“Apparently it comes back whenever I tell anyone it's gone.”
“That seems inefficient.”
“I'll submit a complaint.”
The corner of her mouth lifted. I let the silence after it remain ordinary.
At the studio, I parked beside the loading entrance. Claire gathered the water bottle and appointment sheet, then paused with her hand on the door.
“You didn't tell Audrey where you were.”
“No.”
She looked down at the paper in her lap. “Thank you.”
“Call me if tonight is bad again.”
Her gaze came back to mine. “I will if I need to.”
She got out, unlocked the studio door, and waved once before it closed behind her.
At six twenty-eight, I rang my mother's bell.
Theo opened the door wearing one sock and carrying a blue photograph box against his chest.
“Grandma said you would be late.”
I showed him my watch. “Grandma was wrong.”
He looked at the numbers and shouted over his shoulder, “He's two minutes early.”
My mother appeared in the hall as Theo put on his missing sock. She wore the expression she used when correcting a server without wanting the rest of the table to notice.
“He hasn't eaten,” she said.
“We'll eat at my house.”
“Audrey thought you would stay here.”
“I'll bring him back at eight.”
Theo shoved his feet into his sneakers and held up the box. “There are a hundred and twelve pictures. I counted.”
“Then we should leave.”
He talked through the entire drive about which photographs did not qualify because Daniel was too small in them or someone's thumb covered the camera. At my kitchen table, we ate grilled cheese while he spread the pictures in rows between our plates.
There was Daniel at twelve, thin-kneed and furious beside a collapsed tent. Daniel at college with his arm around my neck. Daniel holding newborn Theo against his chest, both of them asleep in the hospital chair.
Theo found one of Daniel and me on the back steps of our childhood house. Daniel had a split lip, and I was holding frozen peas against his face.
“Why is Dad mad?” Theo asked.
“Because I told him getting punched was a poor strategy.”
“Did he punch the other person?”
“That's not the part of the story you need.”
“So yes.”
He put the photograph in his possible pile and moved it back when he thought I wasn't looking.
Theo returned to the hospital picture and touched it with a greasy fingertip.
“Mom always picks this.”
“It's a good picture.”
“Dad's eyes are closed.”
“You had been awake most of the night. He was tired.”
“Was I loud?”
“Very.”
Theo considered this, pleased. He chose a photograph from the lake instead. Daniel stood waist-deep in the water, holding a three-year-old Theo beneath the arms while Theo kicked enough spray to blur half the image.
“This one looks like him,” Theo said.
I knew what he meant. Daniel's face was turned away from the camera because all his attention was on his son.
We slid it into the small frame Theo had brought. He returned the rest to the box in no order I could identify.
“Uncle Graham?”
“Yes?”
“If you get your own family, do you still come see me?”
I set the lid beside the box. “You are my family.”
“I mean kids at your house.”
The answer rose too quickly. I made myself look at the picture in his hand instead of the future he could not know yet.
“If I have kids at my house, I'll still be your uncle,” I said. “I'll still come to your school things when we plan them. You'll still call me when your robot breaks.”
“What if it breaks when your kid breaks something?”
“Then one of you may have to wait a little.”
“Who?”
“It depends what broke.”
Theo frowned at this failure to establish rank. “The robot has wires.”
“That improves its case.”
He nodded and put the framed picture on top of the box. “Mom said people make a new family and forget the old one.”
“I won't forget you.”
“Okay.” He pushed the second half of his sandwich toward me. “I don't want the crust.”
I ate the crust while he wrote Dad at the lake on a label for the back of the frame. He spelled lake without the final e, frowned at it, and added the missing letter above the line.
At eight, I carried the photograph box to my mother's front step while Theo carried the frame. Eleanor opened the door before we knocked.
“Go show your mother,” she told him.
Theo ran toward the living room. My mother waited until he was out of sight.
“Audrey has spent all day explaining your absence to Theo,” my mother said.
“I was with him tonight. I'll be here tomorrow at six.”
“After Claire took the rest of the day.”
I handed her the photograph box. “Claire didn't make either plan. I did.”
Her fingers tightened around the blue cardboard. “Daniel trusted you to care for them.”
“I love Theo. I will keep showing up as his uncle. That doesn't make Audrey my partner.”
“So this is the price of Claire returning.”
“Claire hasn't returned. She doesn't even know we're having this conversation.”
I went down the steps. “Six o'clock. I'll bring dessert.”
At home, I washed the two plates and wiped a streak of melted cheese from the kitchen table. I did not call Claire to tell her what Audrey or my mother had said. Nothing about the evening required her answer.
At nine thirty-seven, a message from her appeared.
Are you free Saturday night? The top drawer on the baby cabinet keeps catching. I can feed you if you bring the screwdriver.
I read it twice, then opened my calendar.
I'm free. What time?
Six. No takeout noodles.
I entered the address and time beneath her name. Then I set the phone on the counter and went upstairs to find the screwdriver.