“Mom …”
“And what do you think?” Lilah asked. “How come you’re ready to see me?”
Would it have been so hard to voice her suspicions? Probably not. But after years of silence, after years of lies, she didn’t want to prompt her mother in any way. She was too afraid of letting her mother off the hook, offering up some seemingly simple phrase that would allow them both to back away from this moment. So she didn’t give voice to the unanswered question that made it possible for her to sit across from her mother, a question she had not posed to Cameron either. What kind of man keeps a photograph of his wife cheating on him for fifteen years?
Instead she asked, “Did Lucas know why Dad left?”
“No,” she said. “Lucas had no idea your father knew. But really, it was Uncle Neal who killed our marriage. I mean, he was a good man and he didn’t mean to do it, but he did. All the help he gave us, it turned your father into an addict. He couldn’t turn it down, but it made him feel like less of a man every time he accepted it. I know that’s why he was at the casino every night. Because he got this crazy idea that if he just hit the jackpot, then he might be able to measure up to his brother. Or at least compete in some way.”
Lucas had made almost the exact same statements, but in reverse. Uncle Neal had been plagued by feelings of self-doubt and insecurity because he didn’t wear a gun to work, because he hadn’t held a rifle in the jungles of Vietnam. But Megan didn’t offer up this recollection; she didn’t want to stop the flow of her mother’s memories.
“We got to a point where I couldn’t just listen to it anymore. It was this endless tirade about money. About how he never got enough credit for the things he did. How he’d never get paid enough for putting his life on the line. I mean, for Christ’s sake, you would have thought he was a cop in Compton the way he went on and on.
“I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut anymore. So one day, he started in on the same old speech again, and I finally said something. I told him if that was how felt about the way we were living, then we should leave. We should all pack up and get the hell out of Cathedral Beach. I was serious too. I told him I would handle you and your brother. I’d do whatever it took for us to make the transition. Well, he couldn’t have that. He couldn’t have that at all.”
Lilah looked into Megan’s eyes, as if she wanted to be sure her daughter was still with her before she continued. Megan nodded, and perhaps the expression on her face indicated that the story was headed right in the direction Megan had expected it to go, because when Lilah spoke again, there was a new confidence in her voice. And by the time Lilah was finished with her story, Megan had reached across the table to still the tremor in her mother’s clasped hands.
There is a restaurant that sits right at the foot of the runway for Los Angeles International Airport. It’s housed inside a large wooden building with plate glass windows, and its name, The Proud Bird, is spelled out across the roof in giant red neon letters; passengers on the south side of arriving planes can catch a glimpse of the place just before touchdown. Inside, the hallways and private banquet rooms are covered with framed, black-and-white photographs of vintage planes, but the main dining rooms are dominated by picture windows that provide perfect views of each arriving jet during the final seconds of its descent.
When they were kids, their parents would take them there at least once a month and reserve a table by the window so Cameron could call out the type of each passing plane to no one in particular while Megan chewed bites of passable prime rib. At the time, she figured their parents indulged this obsession of his because they thought he might become a pilot someday.
Megan was willing to bet it was nostalgia that had driven him to pick the place for their little reunion dinner, and not the reasons he had given, which were that the restaurant was close to their father’s house and a stone’s throw from the 405 if Megan decided to drive back to Cathedral Beach after dinner. Her plan had been to arrive early, but Cameron was already there, waiting for all of them at the bar. His excitement over this dinner was the first thing to invigorate him since he had been released from the hospital in Hong Kong.
The parking lot was massive but there weren’t nearly enough cars to fill it. She parked where she could see the entrance from the street, but she stayed in her car until a black SUV pulled into the lot with her father behind the wheel. A short, plump, blond woman with a haircut similar to her own stepped down from the passenger seat. When the woman saw Megan standing a few feet away, she froze and forced a weak smile. It was Callie, her father’s girlfriend, and even though Megan had been told to expect her, the woman’s soft resemblance to her own mother was a shock, and Megan had trouble muttering even a few words of greeting.
Her father appeared around the nose of the 4Runner, breaking their awkward, frozen moment, only to replace it with another one.
“How are you?” he asked.
“I’m all right.”
Callie broke the silence. “Is Cameron inside?”
“He’s at the bar,” Megan said.
“Well, I’ll go sit with him then,” Callie answered, but she was staring at her boyfriend, looking for some kind of permission. “You two just do whatever …” She hurried off before she could finish her own sentence.
“Cameron says you might not have to testify.”
“Maybe. Walk with me.”
“Where are we going?”
Instead of answering, she started walking, and he fell into step with her without asking again about their destination, which to her mind was simply some part of the parking lot where they weren’t visible from the entrance, someplace where she could see Cameron coming should he decide to interrupt them.
“I have some answers for you,” she said. “About the stuff we talked about when I came to see you.”
“OK.”
“I know why Cameron got back in touch with you,” she said. Her father was silent. “He was taking care of Mom while she was recovering from surgery and she had a drug reaction. She started saying things, things about the past. Things about something she had done years ago. With Lucas.”
Her father stopped walking, and for a while, the two of them stood several feet apart, their faces in shadows as a giant American Airlines jet came in for a landing on the other side of the restaurant.
“OK,” her father finally said.
He had not rushed to tell his side of the story, and that was promising, she thought, given what she had learned that afternoon.
“He never said anything to you about it, did he? He still hasn’t said anything?”
“No. He hasn’t.”
“He lied about losing his roommate. The reason he wanted to live with you is because he was looking for evidence of why you really left. That’s also why he asked if he could move some things into your storage unit. That’s where he found them, by the way. The pictures you took of Lucas and Mom together.”
Her father went stone still; his stance was rigid, his broad shoulders set, and his legs straight and planted to the asphalt. His face was half in shadow but the long blue eye she could see was wide and unblinking.
“He assumed you decided to walk away when you found out because you knew Uncle Neal was going to bankroll our futures and you didn’t want to screw that up by exposing what his son had done. With your wife. But I had a problem with that story, Dad. A big problem. I just couldn’t understand why you would keep the pictures for fifteen years. I mean, why torture yourself like that? So today, I went to see Mom and I asked her what she thought. Now I understand.
“See, Mom told me that after you left she went down and talked to your commander and found out you had lied to her about being forced onto the graveyard shift. You’d actually begged for it. That way, Mom was all by herself on the five nights out of the week when you weren’t at the casino until four in the morning. Mom also told me that before you left you always used to joke with her about how little Lucas seemed to have the hots for her. She also told me how you aske
d Lucas to check on her every night when you were at work.
“She also told me that when you complained about how you could never measure up to your brother, Mom told you we should move. We should get out of Cathedral Beach.”
Her father turned and started to walk away. She was deciding whether or not she had the energy to chase him when he stopped at a nearby bench and sank down onto it. He wasn’t running. Not this time.
“But you couldn’t have that, could you?” she continued. “So you did everything you could to get her and Lucas in bed together, and then you blackmailed her. You sat her down, you showed her the photos, and you told her you were leaving. But the catch? If she ever left, if she ever took us away from Cathedral Beach and all the things you couldn’t provide for us, you would show the pictures to us.”
Her father clasped his hands in front of his lips as if he were praying, but he was slumped forward, his elbows about to slip off his knees. In the silence that fell between them, Megan heard all the words she had imagined her father might offer up in his own defense. At the very least, he might have pointed out that no one forced her mother to go to bed with Lucas, no one had technically forced her mother to her knees on the back porch of their tiny house in a neglected corner of Cathedral Beach. But even on this potentially ambiguous point, her father did not seek to argue his own case. He appeared to be as tired as she was.
“Someday you’re going to have a kid of your own,” he said. “And when you take it in your arms and look down at it for the first time, you’re going to know complete fear. Total, absolute fear. Only then, only once you have been through that, will I allow you to judge me.”
“Fear? Is that the test? Really, Dad? You don’t think I’ve experienced enough fear in the past two months?”
He averted his eyes from hers and bowed his head. Perhaps if he had tried for some sort of mumbled apology she might have been able to stop herself. But he just stared down at the asphalt like a wounded child.
“Do you need me to explain all the things I went through over there? Do you need me to tell you what it was like to watch Lucas die three feet away from me with half of his … Is that enough fear for you, Dad? Or are you still not impressed because I’m not mature enough to look down at my own child and see some kind of horrible obligation that can only be met with money?”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“I don’t want the right to judge you.”
“Then what do you want?”
“I want you to walk in that restaurant and tell him the truth, tell him why you really left and how. And yes, if you don’t do it, I will. But not because I want to see you punished. I don’t need anything from you, Dad. But Cameron does, and I need him.”
He studied her for a while, then he said, “I’m sorry,” he said. “About the things you saw, I mean. I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
She just nodded.
“Well …” he said as he got to his feet. “I guess I’m going to go do this, then.” He turned his back to her and looked toward the entrance to the restaurant. When he noticed she hadn’t moved an inch, he turned to her and said, “Are you going to stay or are you—”
“I’m going to go,” she said. “He knows where I’ll be.”
“OK. Well …” But his eyes lingered on her, and his hands remained shoved in the pockets of his jeans, and she wanted to turn and start for her car, but she couldn’t because it seemed like he was about to say something.
“What?” she asked him.
“I guess I wish I could take credit for you.”
Before she could respond, he turned and started for the restaurant. Cameron met him on the front walk; he had obviously tired of waiting for them, and he was craning his neck to see if Megan was coming inside as well. But their father took him gently by one shoulder and steered him back toward the entrance. Megan waited until they had gone inside together, then she got in her car and left.
27
Cathedral Beach
Cameron called her at nine the next morning. It was clear from the fatigued sound of his voice, such a stark contrast to his predinner excitement the night before, that their father had made good on his word. She was tempted to pepper him with questions about their exchange, and how he had spent the twelve hours since then, but there was wariness as well as exhaustion in her brother’s tone, as if he might gently hang up on her and go into hiding for a few days if she pushed him too hard.
For a meeting place she suggested one of the benches on the coastal trail that traveled high above the cove. The trail was down slope from the ocean-view homes along Sand Dollar Avenue and concealed by knotted pines. Hopefully, the secrecy of the location would distract Cameron from her real intention, to lure him back to Cathedral Beach so they could all have a sit-down with their mother.
A few hours later, after a brief walk through the Village, she found Cameron sitting on a bench at the spot where the trail bent before beginning its downhill descent to the beach. There was only a few yards of sea-fig-dappled mud in front of him before the bluff fell away, leaving a hundred-foot drop. It was the kind of clear morning where it’s hard to tell where the steel blue ocean ends and the cerulean sky begins, and it was also a weekday, which left the sparkling waters of the cove empty; the long line of orange buoys they had followed as young children looked abandoned.
He wore an L.A. Dodgers baseball cap and sunglasses so large he would probably discard them as soon as the media lost all interest in their family.
“You believe her?” Cameron asked.
“Yes,” she answered. “She came here that day.”
“Which day?”
“The day he threatened her. The day he showed her the pictures. She knew we were down here swimming and I guess she stood right about here. And she watched us. Seeing us down there in the water, seeing us surrounded by all this … That’s how she made her decision. She couldn’t take us away from here.”
In the silence that followed, she tried to imagine the landscape that lay before her mother that afternoon. It had been a different time of day, which meant the sunlight had been a different angle, and the water a darker shade of blue. But it wasn’t hard to envision their small, compact bodies moving through the glistening sea, to hear their peals of coughing laughter above the gentle rush of the surf.
“It wasn’t the only decision she made,” Cameron said.
“What do you mean?”
“Nobody forced her into bed with Lucas.”
“I guess that’s what Dad said?”
“He said he knew there was an attraction there. He said maybe he used it.”
“Maybe …” Maybe I should have stayed last night after all, she thought.
“He said he thought it would be the best thing for us.”
“Blackmail? He thought blackmail would be the best thing for his kids? For his family?”
“Nobody forced Mom to do what she—”
“No, of course not, Cameron. He just starved her. That’s all.” When her brother couldn’t manage a response, she sat down on the opposite end of the bench. “I’m not saying either one of us should hate him. To be honest, I don’t have the energy to hate anyone right now. And honestly, you can have whatever relationship with him you want, and I will never judge you, and I will never love you any less than I do right now. But you don’t need to fix this, Cameron. You do not need to fix our past. It isn’t broken. It’s just what it is.”
His massive sunglasses concealed his eyes, but his mouth had set into a thin, determined line and the tension in his jaw suggested he was fighting tears. For what felt like an eternity, he sat forward with his elbows resting on his knees, his hands clasped in front of him, as if he were waiting for patterns to emerge from the contrasting blues of sea and sky.
Finally, when he tried to speak, a series of muttered half-phrases came out of him, none of which he could finish. He sucked in a deep breath and stared down at the mud between his sneakers and shook his head. She wanted to t
ake him in her arms, but she knew that would be the same as pulling him back from the edge of the cliff before he could get a much-needed view over the side.
“I didn’t know what I was doing,” he managed. “I had rehearsed this big speech about … I don’t know what it was about. … But when I called him, that’s all I could say. That stupid line. It was like something I’d heard out of a movie. But it was all I could get out. I was shaking, and it’s all I’d been thinking about for fifteen hours on the flight over. Christ, I could barely even dial because my fingers were shaking so badly.”
Tell her everything or I will. It was the first time they had discussed his final words to Lucas, and she wasn’t prepared to have them cut through her again, just as they had when Lucas shared them with her for the first time, minutes before his death.
“It was a brave thing to do,” Megan said.
“No, it wasn’t, Megan. It wasn’t brave. The brave thing would have been to tell you myself. It’s just that I had seen you at that party the night before and I was so afraid of losing you to this place. So I chickened out, and I tried to make Lucas do my dirty work for me, and that’s why … that’s why all of this—”
“That’s enough,” she said, with just enough quiet authority to stop him. “You don’t get to take responsibility for what Lucas and Holder did. Not when I’m around. You made a phone call, Cameron.”
“But I should have believed you,” he said. “At the party, I told you I was afraid of you moving back here, and you told me it was only for a year. Just until you got on your feet. If I had just trusted you, I wouldn’t have panicked like that. I wouldn’t have threatened him the way I did.”
“Or maybe you were right to be afraid,” she said. This startled Cameron silent, which gave her the courage to continue. “Do you want to know what was happening when you called? He had just offered me two hundred thousand dollars to start my own nonprofit. He had rented out an entire floor of office space, and he’d even given me a receptionist from his firm. I said yes, Cameron. And while Zach Holder was making arrangements for that bomb to be transported to Hong Kong and put in your hotel room, I was online, looking at local real estate.
The Moonlit Earth Page 29
