28. Present
Chapter twenty-eight
Present
Dottie offers to drive us back to my car in Bluff Oaks, making small talk the whole way.
She’s able to intuit my nervous energy in the way I keep checking my cell phone.
I keep the mood light for Brett’s sake, but even she's not buying it. I can tell, watching her chew her thumb skin in the kind of silence that comes when the adults suck all the air out of the room with the weight of their carefully selected words. I recognize the behavior from my own childhood. Brett’s already aged well beyond her years from having dealt with her father’s illness by herself with her mother gone.
Once we’re delivered to the car, I thank Dottie for the ride and for her hospitality.
I lean over and give the old cook a hug, offering a final plea on behalf of Brett.
“I know you need to sell camp, and I get it,” I begin.
“I just wanted you to know that there are probably hundreds of kids like Brett, our kids, Lisa’s kids, Callie’s kids too, who are going to need this place.
When life got tough, this was my place. It would be a shame to take that away from the next generation. ”
Dottie sighs. “You’re right; I know.” She shakes her head sadly. “I just can’t keep it.”
“I understand. But maybe a buyer will come along who would be willing to maintain it as a camp.” I shrug. “Something to think about.”
“That’s an idea. I’ll definitely keep it in mind.” Dottie pushes a button to unlock the car doors. “Now, you go. I’ll be praying for all three of you. And Brett?”
Brett’s eyes peer up over the rims of her glasses. “Yes?”
“It was lovely meeting you, sweetheart.”
The girl smiles shyly. We get out of the car and wave as Dottie drives away. Brett resumes her spot in the back of my Subaru, directly behind the driver’s seat. I pull down the passenger side mirror so I can look at her face while talking to her.
“Hey, you. Was that fun?” I ask.
“It was great,” she replies.
“Then what’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” Brett shrugs in the rearview mirror as she straps on her seatbelt. “I’m just nervous about Daddy.”
“I’m sure he’s fine,” I reply, trying to convince myself as much as Brett. “But! I have something you can do to help.”
“What’s that?”
“You see that bag there?” I point at a shopping bag on the floor in the backseat opposite her. “Look inside it. There’s a pad of construction paper and a box of markers. Why don’t you make your dad a card, so we have a little something to give him when we get home? I know he loves your drawings.”
Brett agrees, and she busies herself with the task while I focus on the road, merging onto the highway. I turn the music up loud enough to attempt to drown out the thoughts that keep creeping into my overactive brain.
Breathe. He’s fine. He read the texts, so he must be fine.
Adrenaline pulses through my veins. I’m brought back to the worst moment of my life, a place I never dare go.
I will the thoughts away, but the open road and the music blanket the thickness of the quiet, dragging me back to that Sunday morning in Queens, sirens shrieking through the Thompsons’ cordless handset as my father explained from the emergency room that I needed to come home right away.
He wouldn’t tell me why, but I knew something was gravely wrong.
I remember Diana calmly driving me to the busy, glass-walled hospital a few blocks away from our apartment building, a place I had passed countless times on my bicycle or when walking to school but had, up until then, never been inside of.
Matt sat in the backseat next to me then, holding my hand the whole way.
It felt like the longest ride I’d ever been on, despite there being no traffic and Diana flying down the highway.
When we arrived, I was prepared to go into the emergency room alone, but Matt and Diana came with me.
I was terrified, sandwiched between them, and found my father in the waiting area, openly sobbing into a crumpled napkin with a police officer seated next to him who was scribbling on a notepad.
“Dad?” I’d said.
He looked up, his red rimmed eyes and involuntary gasps for air giving me more information than I was ready for. The police officer stood up and took a step in my direction. “I’m sorry,” he began.
I lost control of my legs then; they wobbled out from beneath me, and Matt and Diana struggled to hold me up and guide me over to a row of chairs.
My father moved to sit beside me, with Matt on the other side, and I dropped my head onto my knees as details spilled out from the officer’s distant, unfamiliar voice.
I shook my head no in my lap, vicious laments rising and heaving out into my thighs, Matt rubbing my back, the smell of antiseptic making me sick to my stomach.
Before long, I began vomiting on the floor between my feet.
That much I remembered. Everything afterwards was a blur.
Because we shared the same small frame, I wore a black dress from my mother's closet to the funeral days later.
The house never smelled the same once she was gone.
My mom was not a heavily perfumed woman, but the scent of home mysteriously vanished, as if her soul took it with her, leaving behind stale, empty air.
The funeral and the days that followed showed the whole world just how broken my family was; my father spoke few words to me or anyone, spending his time sleeping or drinking or crying, leaving me to be consoled by Matt and his family, which was good but not good enough.
Some tragedies bring families closer; others just shine a light on the gaping distance that exists between relatives.
It was Diana who brought me to the doctor that initially prescribed me the Prozac, Matt who stayed with me in the twin-sized bed I’d had since I was 4 years old, holding me until I fell asleep every night.
Aunt Lucy cooked and shopped and kept the apartment clean, welcoming visitors, sleeping on the couch.
Despite Lucy’s overly righteous moral compass, she looked the other way when Matt stayed well into the night with his mom double-parked at the fire hydrant in front of our building for hours.
Diana would patiently sit there, reading a book, waiting to drive her son back to his happy life on Long Island, far from the grit of the city, her car idling near the spot where my mom was run down just a stone’s throw from my bedroom window.
Days passed. I completed my junior year of high school despite not taking a single final exam.
Matt took a leave of absence from his varsity baseball team but was still given the prestigious Best Character award, and Aunt Lucy came with me to his sports awards ceremony that June.
I could barely register what was going on around me.
The love missing due to my mother’s absence was about the only thing I could feel.
More time passed quietly, with less fanfare, until finally I left for camp in Matt’s new car.
I said goodbye to my dad that morning, giving him an awkward, mechanical hug and saying, “I love you.” Little did I know he would make the biggest mistake of his life and that the next time we saw each other it would be during visiting hours at MCI-Norfolk prison in Massachusetts.
I shake my head, trying to eradicate the memories like one might bang sand out of an area rug.
This is not the same thing.
Matt’s okay. He was just worried about the appointment. Even if it’s bad news, we’ll get through it together.
I will not let another person I love die while I’m busy distracting myself, looking the other way. This time I’ll bravely face whatever the universe has in store for me. Plus, it’s Matt. My Matt.
This time, things will turn out different.
I check my mirrors, merging off the highway and onto the road that leads to Matt’s house. In the pulled-down passenger mirror, I notice Brett has drawn an intricate picture on the front of a card made of light blue construction paper.
“Hey, sweetie. We’re almost there. Are you about done with your card? If not, we can bring the coloring stuff in with us.”
Brett looks up. “I’m almost finished.”
“What are you drawing?”
Brett holds up her picture. It’s a light brown foreground with specks of color against a vast blue background.
In the front area, a small stick figure with a triangle dress and two lines coming down from the head to represent hair is standing next to a bigger stick figure of the same description.
“It’s us. At the beach. I thought it would make Daddy happy to know that we made it to camp. ”
“It’s beautiful, honey. And I think he will be happy about our hooky day.” I muster up all of my acting capacity and offer Brett a genuine smile.
I follow roads that feel natural to me now, winding here, turning there, until I approach Matt’s street.
Looking at the clock, I note that it’s just after 3:00 p.m. I slow the car down as I pull up to the driveway.
Something’s amiss, but I can’t tell what exactly it is.
Everything looks the same as usual, except the lights in the living room were left on, which isn’t like Matt.
In the afternoon shadows, the small house is illuminated from within.
I put the key in the lock and push the door open. A different scent hits me. Different, but still familiar.
There on the couch, eating cold cereal from a bowl in her hand, sits a leggy, dark-haired woman with long, manicured nails. She’s studying a big, heavy book that sits, open, on her lap. It only takes me a second to realize it’s one of my camp scrapbooks.
“Mommy!” Brett cries.