by Rachel Kane
Mason dropped the flashlight, and the white beam bounced crazily when it hit the floor. “What? What? Don’t be crazy, Renee.”
“Oh, I saw how he was looking at you. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice. I always say what this town needs is new blood. Just a shame he wouldn’t stick around. Cute man like that, with a baby to boot? Heckamaw, if you didn’t want him, I know at least three other guys who’d be interested.”
He retrieved the flashlight. “I wasn’t— I’m not— That was business.”
“Mm-hm. Felicia Walker said she saw you two driving up to Cooper’s Folly the other night, pitch-black outside. What kinda business were you doing then?”
This was the whole problem with Superbia. Everybody knew your business, and nobody would let it go. Alex thought Mason coming out of the closet would make things better, but no, it would only mean more people curious about his life, poking their noses in. And once the wrong person poked their nose in…his life was over.
“What else did Felicia say?” he asked, trying to keep his voice steady.
“Oh, I swear,” Renee huffed. “She doesn’t know your little secret, Mason. She just mentioned it because everybody’s talking about the big house and what’s to become of it. She didn’t say anything about you two going at it like teenagers. It’d shock the bottle-blonde right off her hair if she’d seen that.”
“Not that I owe anybody an explanation, but nothing happened,” he said. “Absolutely nothing.”
That took her aback. “Did y’all fight?”
“No, we didn’t fight. We just didn’t… We couldn’t… Sometimes things just aren’t meant to be, all right? Sometimes people just wind up lonely, and that’s gotta be okay. Not everybody finds someone to love, do they?”
“Boy, when Alex told me this morning that you were a mess, he wasn’t kidding. Look at you, wallowing in self-pity.”
“I’m doing no such thing! Look at me,” he said, shining the flashlight on his face. “Do I look like I’m crying? Do I look like I’m pitying myself? I’m being very grown-up about all this.”
But then she laughed, and when Renee laughed, it filled up a room. In this case, it echoed off the old reinforced cinder-block walls. “Oh, hon. Just because you don’t know how to talk about your feelings, doesn’t mean you don’t have them. I know you like to dress everything up all practical, but it’s all right to be disappointed. He really was cute.”
Mason felt the tension leave his shoulders, felt himself slump a little. “He really was. Renee, he was the whole package. And he just sort of…left. And it’s my fault, because I scared him off. If I’d lied about how much work the house would take to fix, maybe he would’ve stayed, maybe I would’ve had a chance—”
There was a moment all the boys in Superbia experienced at least once in their lives, and that was the Renee Hug. She’d seen every broken heart and bruised ego in town, and in her world, the best cure for that was human contact. Mason found himself suddenly enveloped in her arms, pulled close to her, his cheek resting against her shoulder.
“There, there,” she said, and he had the most ridiculous sense of being nothing but a little boy who had skinned his knee, requiring a little reassurance before getting on his bike again.
“I’ll be all right. I am all right. It’s not a big deal,” he said, voice muffled by her hair. “Seriously, I’ll live. He’s just a guy.”
She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to. Just a guy. It wasn’t quite true, was it?
He had to have another chance. Just one. Whether it was through Alex finding some kind of grant to fix the house up and get Liam to come back, or…or…Mason rushing up to the city to ask Liam out.
He had to see if this could work, if there was anything there, if there was a spark.
He had to.
13
Liam
The last person he expected to see in his living room was Violet Mulgrew, sipping tea from his good china, but then again, it fit with how miserable his day had been.
Coming back home from Superbia should’ve been a relief. The old familiar buildings, the streets, the parks. Pushing Roo in her stroller, watching her little fingers point things out to him (especially her new favorite word, ”Daw!” for dog), getting back into the routine rhythms of life, diapers and work spreadsheets and night-time TV.
Something wasn’t working.
Something didn’t fit.
The brief break had brought the city into sharp focus, but it wasn’t the buildings themselves he could see…
…it was how much everything reminded him of Richard.
There was the hot-dog cart where Richard always threatened to get a dog with mustard and extra onions. You never did do that, though.
The coffee shop where they’d spent Saturday mornings, bringing novels to catch up on their reading, but mostly just passing Roo back and forth, enjoying the early days of fatherhood. The last book you said you’d read is still sitting on the nightstand, and I dust it every time I clean up, but I haven’t had the heart to move it yet.
That one curb where he’d tripped during a rainy night—this was before Roo, before the wedding, before everything—and they’d sat there in the rain, Richard holding his ankle, wincing as Liam checked to make sure it wasn’t broken. I told you I’d carry you to the hospital in my arms if I had to.
All Superbia had done was given him a brief break from all this, a moment to forget his life had become some combination of hallucination and photo album, a thousand memories obscuring his view of the real world around him.
Had Superbia Springs been any different? The house was a mirage. As much as he wanted it—and god did he want it, it hurt him to let it go—it would forever be just out of reach. There was a vast desert between him and that mirage, a desert called practicality, and the more he ran through that sand, the further away the mirage got.
Mason was a mirage too. He hardly seemed real, even though the moment Liam thought of him, it was like he could feel the man’s rough skin beneath his fingers, feel the thick flannel of his shirt; the air seemed full of his scent of leather and tools. But he was an illusion, and whatever he thought about Liam, surely the memory of Liam was fading even now. If Mason was a mirage, Liam was a shadow.
Cooper’s Folly was the fitting name for the house. It was folly to think he could have something that grounded in history, something that real. No house, no Mason. No, Liam was a busy man, he had work to do: The work of coming back here, the work of remembering Richard every moment of the day, in a place that would never allow him to forget everything he had lost, everything that had been stolen from him.
Liam shook his head. There was no time for any of this. Roo was getting antsy in the stroller, he had groceries that needed to get into the freezer quickly, and mourning Richard and the great house would just have to wait. Nobody had time for grief. Certainly not Liam’s grief. Maybe other people could have the luxury of tears and sorrow, the same way other people could have the luxury of new love and boyfriends and inherited houses, but those people weren’t Liam. He had a life, he had responsibilities, and he had to be practical.
He set his jaw in determination and kept pushing the stroller home.
“Why, you must be Liam,” said the older woman sitting across from his mother. She didn’t stand up, simply stirred her spoon around her tea while looking at him. He had the feeling of being x-rayed by her sharp eyes, eyes that belied the kindness and warmth in her voice.
“Let me help you,” said Mama, rising from the couch and getting Roo out of the stroller. “Look at you, you’re a mess!”
“Bah!” exclaimed Roo, who was indeed covered in crumbs from her toast.
“She’s really working on that new tooth,” Liam said, feeling the strangest urge to apologize for the crumbs in front of this stranger who still had not taken her eyes off of him.
“Oh, I remember those days,” said the woman. “My Justin had the most ferocious teething pain. Our pediatrician suggested freezing a wa
shcloth for him to chew on, and I said, No son of mine is going around town gnawing on a rag. The very idea.”
Justin.
Oh.
Liam knew who this was.
“You must be Mrs. Mulgrew,” he said, extending a hand to her.
“Call me Violet, dear. I was just talking to your mother about your good fortune. Superbia Springs is such a lovely property. Absolutely charming, in its way.”
“You’d never know it, with how quickly he decided to sell it,” huffed Mama, in a tone that surprised Liam.
Hadn’t she told him to do whatever he thought best?
Not that he could talk to her about that now, not with a Mulgrew in the room.
Funny how he heard that name in the same tone Mason had used. Almost like Mason’s voice was in his head, gently warning him about a danger he couldn’t yet see.
Don’t think about Mason. Stop it. Now.
If today’s walk had taught him anything, it was how laughable his brief time in Superbia had been. What had he been thinking, that night with Mason? Had he thought he was going to hook up? Had he been hoping something more might come from it?
With Richard still here, in memory at least, still embedded in every brick and every window in this city, demanding that Liam eventually mourn him?
How dare he, really? You don’t get to move on, he told himself. You have managed not to deal with anything in your life, other than…well, all the millions of things you deal with every day. Maybe in twenty years, maybe in fifty years, maybe when Roo has graduated college and no longer needs you, then there will be time to think about things like grief and mourning and what happens after those.
For now, you’re stuck, and you’re going to stay stuck, because that’s the only moral thing to do.
But all these thoughts had led to an awkward silence in the room.
“I don’t mean to take up your whole day,” said Violet Mulgrew, “so let me get straight to the point, Liam. We would like to make an offer to buy Superbia Springs.”
He found he couldn’t just come out and say no. That would be rude. Fortunately Justin had given him another tack.
“Your son says the place is crumbling to dust,” he said. “I can’t imagine why you would want it.”
Mama shot him a look, while putting away Roo’s coat. Roo herself was busying herself with her toys, enjoying her freedom, unconcerned by this new visitor.
Violet, meanwhile, gave him a bright smile that did not reach those cold eyes of hers. “Yes, Justin mentioned meeting you. I understand you were in talks with the Tisdales about the property as well. No doubt they also said Superbia Springs was crumbling.”
“That does seem to be the consensus,” he said carefully. Why did talking to her feel like he was on a teetering old bridge between two cliffs, a bridge missing some of its ancient wooden slats, where one wrong step would send him plunging into the dark?
“I won’t bother you with numbers at the moment, we can do all that through our lawyers and representatives,” she said. “But as one of the founding families of Superbia, I believe we are in the best position to preserve the house.”
“So that’s your intention? To preserve it? Justin said—”
She pursed her lips and rose from the seat. “My son has his own ideas. We needn’t draw you in to our differences, I’m sure you don’t want to get entangled in our little family drama. Now, I see you’ve got your hands full with the baby, so I don’t want to take up your time. But let us be a relief to you, Mr. Cooper. Let us help you. I think we would all be winners, if you’d agree. No no, don’t answer now. Just think about it. We’ll be in touch.”
She seemed to glide away, like a ghost, like there were no feet stepping on the ground beneath her. A perfect poise that made her seem untouchable. Liam stared at the door after he’d closed it behind her, as though she might pop back through the solid wood at any moment, a phantom.
“How long had she been here before I got back?” he asked his mom.
She sighed. “Long enough to make me uncomfortable. She’s the sort of woman who makes you aware of every crumb on the table, every sock left on the floor.”
The room wasn’t that bad, although it was a constant battle to keep up with Roo’s path of destruction. Right now she was happily banging her plastic blocks together, unaware of the tension in the room. Be grateful for that, Liam thought. The time will come when you realize how serious all these grown-up conversations are, and you’ll wish everything could be happy and playful again.
“I really didn’t expect her to come. I thought maybe I’d heard the last of the Mulgrews.”
“I haven’t heard the first of them,” Mama said.
“It doesn’t bear explaining. Just some small-town history there.”
“Of course. Please, don’t think about telling me anything about it. I prefer to be in the dark.”
It wasn’t like Mama to be sarcastic. His brow showed his confusion. “Is everything okay?”
“Of course things are okay. Why wouldn’t they be?” The way she was removing sippy cups, bottles and bowls from the diaper bag and jamming them into the dishwasher showed otherwise.
Did he dare ask what was going on? He felt like one more thing might tip the balance, fill his head up too much, and it would pop right off his body like a big pink balloon, floating out over the city.
He sat down on the floor with Roo. “Can I have a block?”
“Bahhh!” she said.
“Can I? Just one? One little block?”
His urgent request made her cackle with delight, and she reached for him, as though only contact could properly share her happiness over her blocks, over him being there…
This is why I’ve got to clear my head, he thought, picking her up and holding her close. I don’t want to miss a moment of this. Sure, there are plenty of tears…and diapers…so many diapers… But moments like this? Why would I want to get so wrapped up in other people’s business that I miss out on my own daughter…
…the way Dad missed out on me?
Mama watched them from her spot by the dishwasher, her face in obvious pain.
“Tell me,” he said. “Please, whatever it is, don’t bottle it up, just tell me.”
She came in, drying her hands on the towel with the cats on it, one of the wedding presents from Richard’s side of the family. Richard had always loved cats, but Liam was hellishly allergic. Let’s compromise and have a baby instead, they’d joked in those early days. When Mama sat on the edge of the sofa, Roo looked over at her and extended her chubby arms. Liam obediently traded baby for dish-towel.
“I didn’t know who that woman was at first,” she said. “Don’t you think that’s strange?”
“Everything about the Mulgrews strikes me as strange,” he said.
“You know about them, and I don’t. That’s the problem, Liam. How can I explain it to you? You’re making decisions without consulting us. Decisions that affect the whole family—”
“I brought you down to Superbia so you could have an opinion,” Liam said quickly, interrupting her.
She smiled at Roo, but it was a tight-lipped smile. “Would you tell your daddy that there’s a big difference between telling us to come to town so we can see a house, and actually asking us anything about it?”
“Dah-dah!” agreed Roo.
“I did ask you,” said Liam. He felt a disquieting sense that he’d missed something major in all this.
“Yes. I suppose you did. We each gave an opinion, and then you went off and made the decision without us, and now there’s a strange woman showing up to your door with offers to buy the house, except apparently there’s some secret about her that makes you all tense, and… Oh, for god’s sake, Liam, why aren’t you communicating with me? This is the same thing your father did! No hint of that inheritance! Never a word about it!”
They were both careful to keep their voices low and even, so as not to worry Roo. That had been a rule he and Richard had set. No matter how
mad they might be at one another, nobody was allowed to yell, nobody was allowed to raise their voices. But the strain in Mama’s voice was clear.
“I really thought I was communicating,” said Liam.
“I thought that house was beautiful,” she said sadly. “And I hoped, I guess, that we could hold on to it long enough to find out why your father had refused it…and why he’d never mentioned it to me. But it’s going to be just one more secret he kept, one more thing about him I’ll never understand, one more reason for me to stay up all night, thinking about what he did to us—”
Liam’s hand sought hers, and he squeezed it, feeling the strength in her fingers. Both of them looked at Roo, but the baby was oblivious, playing with one of the beads on Mama’s necklace.
“I wasn’t thinking,” he said. “God, I really thought I was doing the right thing. I don’t know what I’m doing. We can’t hold on to the place, it would be so expensive—”
“I know, I know.”
“—but the thought of anyone else taking it, tearing it down? It’s like someone melting down jewelry to get the gold from it or something, all the value is in its history, in its architecture…those mosaics…” His voice trailed off.
“I’m not saying you have to fix the place up,” she said. “I’m really not. And I trust you to make the right decision on that. I just wish… I wish we could hold on to it, for just a little while. Let me walk around it again, let me at least put some of these questions about your father to rest.”
Keep the place a little longer?
It was like some lock inside him had been unlocked, a chain falling away from his chest. A sense of freedom, if only for a few days.
He could keep it.
And I could see Mason again.
At least one more time.
Just once.
That’s all I’m asking for.
14
Mason
When the news came, he nearly fell off the roof.
