She sighed. “You’re so much better at this than I am.”
“Better at what? Reading?”
“Taking care of Daddy.” She took a small pill out of her pants pocket and swallowed it without water. “I could move out today, and he probably wouldn’t even notice.”
There she went again, playing martyr so she could escape. “Dad needs you.” The elevator doors opened. “He loves you.” We stepped out into the palatial lobby. “More than he should.” In my flip-flops, I could walk quicker than she could in her stilettos.
Her heels clicked behind me. She was almost running to keep up. “What are you saying?” The doorman opened the doors for us. She stopped on the sidewalk. “Jensen?”
It was one of those days when it was too hot to argue, almost too hot to speak. The streets were empty. I looked at her in that perfect silk dress. “You left him behind after Will died.”
Confusion crossed her face. “I know that was hard for you.” She took a step forward. “But you don’t understand what it was like—”
“What don’t I understand?” I could feel sweat rolling down my stomach. “Losing someone I loved? Feeling like if I tried hard enough I could stop breathing?”
We stood in front of the building with her name in gold letters on the side and stared at each other. She was blinking very fast. “I’m sorry, honey,” she finally said. “I’m just not good at this part.”
“Then go back to your fucking brownstone.” I started toward the car.
I could hear her heels in back of me. “That’s not fair,” she said.
“Could you hurry up?” I asked. “I’m going to be late to take Daddy to the foundation.”
Jamie and I didn’t speak the whole way home, and when I dropped her off at the house, she only said, “I’ll get your father.” I stared straight ahead, waiting for my dad to get in the car and berate me for fighting with her. Whenever Jamie and I fought, she got my dad to lick her tears. It drove me crazy.
But she must not have said anything, because while I drove up Route 1 to A Will to Live, he only told me about the boat he and Luke had been thinking about buying: a 1938 catamaran with handmade sails. He hated the name Miss Majestic, but it was bad luck to change it. Finally, he laid his head back, closed his eyes, and by the time I pulled into the foundation, he was snoring.
I parked in his reserved space and turned off the ignition. He was so vulnerable, slumped against the door, his mouth slightly open. Ryder said he’d tire easily, and in the past few weeks his eyelids had gotten heavy whenever we drove farther than the center of Colston. He hadn’t rented a fun car in ages. When we went out on Luke’s boat, he stayed quiet, watching the waves. I tried not to think of it as a bad sign. If I let it, everything seemed like an omen. A WILL TO LIVE was ornately painted on the sign beside the vast front door of the Victorian home turned center for kids.
My dad had decided to start the foundation a month after Will’s funeral. He’d been sitting at the breakfast nook, his hair greasy, as if he hadn’t washed it in days. He hadn’t gone back to work for ESPN, and I had a feeling he never would. He’d been sitting there staring at absolutely nothing. It was this stare, among other things, that had motivated me to fill out the application for Andover. That morning, though, the stare broke, and he glanced at my mom. “Let’s build something,” he said. “For kids.”
Jamie was sitting at the counter, drinking black coffee in her robe, beautiful in her messiness. “What kind of something?” She flipped the page in her magazine.
It was a windy November day, and the goalposts appeared isolated and lonely. “We’ll build someplace where kids can play,” he said. The New Haven Register was sitting on his place mat. 17-YEAR-OLD KILLED AT EDGERTON PARK. “And we’ll name it after Will.”
Ten months later, I’d come back from Andover and stood between Jamie and Luke while my father cut the huge red ribbon and dedicated the facility to Will. It was this building that got him showered and dressed again.
At the reception, I’d scanned the crowd for Ryder. Jamie had casually mentioned, when I’d come down to breakfast in a shapeless pink dress, that his mother was planning to attend. I’d run back upstairs and changed into a clingy black skirt and sleeveless silk top. But as my high heels sank into the freshly laid sod, I saw neither Ryder nor Mrs. Anderson.
“Hey, Daddy,” I said now, gently shaking his arm. “Wake up sleepyhead.”
The waiting room of A Will to Live was where the parlor used to be. Newspaper clippings, report cards, school photos, and candids of the kids who’d passed through the center covered the walls. A woman with cropped gray hair came out of the front office and hugged my dad. “Sterling.” She was smiling as if she were a child and he had fixed her broken toy. “I didn’t think you were coming in today. Everyone’s already in the boardroom.” Jamie and I had made him late with our fight.
My dad held on to her hand. “Danielle is the best office manager you’ll ever meet,” he told me. “If not for her, I wouldn’t know what day it was. This is my daughter.” I could hear the swell of pride in the word daughter.
“Oh, Jensen.” She held out her hand. “Your dad talks about you all the time.” I felt bad that it had been years since I’d been there. I hadn’t been able to make myself come back east alone, and Nico so rarely was willing to travel with me. “Would either of you like some coffee?” she asked.
My dad whispered loudly in her ear. “The home guard has me drinking some green tea slop with soy milk.”
“So that explains the odd things in the fridge. I’ll go brew some lawn clippings right now.” As she turned to leave, she patted my hand. “So nice to meet you, Jensen. Welcome home.”
“Make yourself comfortable,” my dad told me. “This should only take an hour.” When he opened the meeting room door, a cacophony of voices rose like a cheer, and I wondered, vaguely, what it would feel like to be loved like that.
It was quiet at the center. I wandered through the arched doorways and over the shiny wood floors, touching unworking fireplaces. Along the mantels, I found scribbled sweet notes to my dad. I thought how some of the kids who came here had seen him more than I had in past years. I headed to the rec room to check out the new Ping-Pong table Sid had told me about, and when I opened the door, someone yelled “duck,” but it was too late. A ball bounced off my head, and a little girl with skin the color of creamy coffee bolted from the table, saying, “Sorry, ma’am, sorry.” She had a speech impairment, and it came out sah-wee.
“Here you go.” I handed the ball to her.
She eyed me suspiciously. “Thank you, ma’am.” Her dress had HELLO KITTY on the pockets. “You look like the lady in the picture on Mr. Sterling’s desk.”
“Is she beautiful?” I flipped my hair, but she missed the joke.
“She looks like you,” she said impatiently, as though I’d committed a crime.
I glanced around, wondering who was taking care of this child. I felt a little awkward around kids; they were so unabashed, so unashamed of who they were. “I’m Jensen. Mr. Sterling is my dad.”
“My name is Alexandria.” She tapped the paddle against her thigh. “Does that mean Miss Jamie is your mama?”
My skirt was too short to be bending down, but I did it anyway, tucking the material between my legs. “You know my mom?”
“She’s my favorite grown-up.”
“You’re kidding.” I thought about Jamie and me arguing on the sidewalk by her building. But you don’t understand what it was like—
“What grade are you in?” I asked.
“I’ll be in first grade. Fuwst gwade. She touched her hair, pulling at the ribbon woven into her braids. “I know how to spell thirty-two words,” she said proudly. “Miss Jamie helps me.” I imagined my mother examining her fingernails and saying, Manicure, darling. M-A-N-I-C-U-R-E.
The girl swayed back and forth. I had the urgent wish to hold her miniature warm body against mine. “What’s your favorite word to spell?”
“I just learned it. L-O-V-E.” Her whole face broke out into a grin. She was missing a top tooth.
“Alexandria of Prettytown.” My dad’s voice called from the doorway. “What’s up, my beautiful girl?”
She dropped her paddle and ran into his arms. He raised her in the air, hugging her, as if it were no strain at all. “Mr. Sterling, Mr. Sterling.” Mista Stuh-wing. Mista Stuh-wing. She flung her arms around his neck.
I got up from the squatting position, my quads burning. “That was quick,” I said.
He looked embarrassed. “Bathroom break.”
Alexandria seemed braver in my father’s arms. She had almond-shaped eyes that widened when she spoke. “Can I come play with the dollhouse in your attic again?”
He glanced at me. “Well now, first things first. How did your talk go today?”
“Good,” she said. “The lady gave me a lollipop.” I wondered what meeting they were talking about. “Miss Jamie said I could redecorate the dollhouse and play dress-up.”
My dad laughed nervously. “Whatever your little heart desires.”
Danielle came in, running her fingers through her short hair. “Goodness.” She took the girl from my father. “I was looking all over for you.”
A Will to Live kids never came to our house, it was a rule the board of directors had laid down. “Boundaries need to be set,” Jamie had told me once. “Or your father would let them all live with us.”
Alexandria leaned out from Danielle’s arms and gave my father a peck on the cheek. “Bye-bye,” she said before Danielle took her away.
My dad smoothed his hair. “Back to work.” He grinned at me, and I watched him walk out the door and down the hall toward the boardroom.
“Didn’t you need to go to the bathroom?” I called after him.
“Oh,” he said. “Right.” He turned around and started up the other hall.
“Dad,” I said.
He raised his eyebrows.
“Has Alexandria been to our house?”
He cleared his throat. “Well,” he said. “She’s … Her parents died in a house fire and…” His voice trailed off. “Just once or twice.” And then he turned abruptly toward the bathroom.
I sat on one of those big exercise balls next to the Ping-Pong table. It made me feel slightly sick, imagining Jamie teaching Alexandria all those words. I couldn’t identify the feeling at first. I thought of Jamie and the beautiful little girl having a tea party and getting their toes painted. I saw them doing all the things that she and I had never done together. Slowly, it came to me that I was jealous. Jealous of a six-year-old orphan girl.
19
I woke to rain slapping against my window and the fight I’d had with Jamie on my mind. Days later, her words were still buzzing in my head: But you don’t understand what it was like—Fuck her. I knew exactly what it was like.
I ran a brush through my hair, put it in a ponytail, and made my way down to the foyer, skipping the one stair that creaked. Stepping off the porch, I saw lightning traveling across the tree line, a deadly game of connect the dots. The sun hadn’t risen yet, and I knew better than to run in weather like this, but I had to shake the murderous feeling I got when Jamie and I fought. Somewhere in me, I thought it had something to do with what I’d told Mandy, but I was too mad to puzzle it out.
Walking down the driveway, I turned my iPod as loud as it would go and, not bothering to warm up, went at the pavement in a full run. I wasn’t sure what time it was, but with the rain, it still felt like the middle of the night, and my eyes had a tough time adjusting to the dim light. At the end of North Parker, I turned left onto Brook Hill, also known as “Heartbreak Hill,” a mile climb that would eventually turn into Overlook Drive and level off. Will and I used to run this route during preseason for field hockey and football. He’d run backward to see if I could catch him. Or he’d run ahead and hide behind someone’s hedges and then yell “Gotcha” when he jumped out to scare me. I missed how he’d made everything a game—the clown faces when I was on the phone, how he used to stick green beans in his nose at the dinner table, and how he’d climb the old oak tree instead of coming in through the front door.
Except that he used to pretend, too, that he was dying. He’d make me count how long he could stay underwater at the country club pool, and then he’d stay there so long, unmoving, that I’d get scared. I’d be just about to scream, when he’d pop up. Sometimes, as I tried to get him up in the morning, he’d act like he’d died in his sleep. I’d thought about it that night, when he hit his head. I’d thought about it during the funeral and for a lot of years afterward.
No one was out. I thought about that spring I dropped out of college and went on the road with Nic, when the streets were quiet like this and we’d drive for hours to the next gallery. I finally understood why no boy had ever meant more than just sex. Their need terrified me. Nic didn’t have that clawing want. He adored me, but I felt like he could do without me. The slow tenderness in his lovemaking was innate, or maybe he’d learned it from all those Tantric books. “His mother loved him,” Mandy had said when I told her. “Men whose mothers love them are always confident in bed.”
Three-quarters of the way up the hill, my lungs felt like fire, and I was ready to lie in the street and drink from a puddle. The sky had lightened to the color of nickel, and when I could see the bright green street sign, I started walking and took my pulse. Sweat dripped down my face while I counted, and I moved aside so the car behind me could pass. But it kept following me.
A scare crept up in me, and I suddenly wanted to get past Overlook Drive, to McKinnon, where there were houses, so I started jogging again. The car stayed behind, and I ran faster, my sneakers slapping the wet pavement. Finally, I got up my nerve and glanced back.
It was Luke’s Navigator. He drove up and leaned across the console. “Somebody chasing you?”
“Jesus Christ.” I didn’t know if I wanted to hug him or hurt him. “You scared me.”
“You’re going to drown.” He held up a tray of coffee with a little white bag crammed in the middle. “Get in; you and the coffee are getting cold.”
“Lucibello’s is open this early?”
“Yeah. Starflower wanted a chocolate croissant. Even I can’t make them as tasty as those Italians.”
The rain picked up, and his wipers slapped faster. I ran in place to keep warm. “Will you make me my favorite egg and cheese sandwich?”
“I’ll make you a cooked goose if you’ll just come on.”
A crack of thunder sounded to the north, and I ran around the car, squealing, and got in. He called Starflower to say we were on our way. In five minutes, we were sitting in front of his old farmhouse.
I hadn’t been to Luke’s in a million years. His doormat still said NICE UNDERWEAR, and the kitchen smelled of oranges. Starflower was standing at the counter in front of a juicer, her hair tied back in a paisley bandanna.
“Thanks for letting me intrude on your breakfast,” I told her.
She smiled and poured me a glass of orange juice. “This will rehydrate you.” She was wearing some kind of caftan and long dangly earrings. “I started a bath and put lavender mineral salts in to help with your sore quads. I left some sweats on the basin.”
Taking the juice, I closed the bathroom door and peeled off my wet clothes. I wondered how she could possibly know my quads hurt. The small bathroom was filled with steam, and the lavender, good for my muscles or not, smelled great. I studied the purple velour jogging suit. I was pretty sure 1976 wanted it back.
Back in the kitchen, I sat at a chair that had been carved out of a wine barrel, and Luke put an egg sandwich on my plate. “I’m so glad this is one of her eating days,” he said to Starflower, who was cleaning out the juicer.
I stuck out my tongue at him. But when I bit into the sandwich, I almost spit it out. “I think a piece of wrapper got left on the cheese,” I said.
Luke laughed. “That’s what soy cheese tastes like.”
I picked it out of my teeth. “They make real cheese, you know.”
“Now you get a feel for what your old man’s been going through,” he told me, “following Starflower’s curing diet.” I’d forgotten that she was the reason we knew what to feed my father, how to make his system alkaline so it could kick out the disease. “She doesn’t let us have any dairy in the house—bad for you. Course”—he winked at her—“she gets to eat a chocolate croissant.”
She threw some orange rinds in the compost bucket. “Don’t tell my secrets,” she said. “A girl has to have her indulgences.”
“Thank you for breakfast.” Plastic cheese or not, I was starving, and I wanted them to know how happy I was to be there.
Luke rapped my elbow with his fork. “Are you going to tell Uncle Luke how your old man really is? I only got half a story when I was at Pilot’s Point Marina with him last week.”
Starflower dried her hands. “I’m going to get dressed. Kisses to both of you.” At the banister, she stopped and pulled on one of her ringlets. “Don’t worry about your mother,” she told me. “She will have forgotten all about your fight by the time you get home today.” Then she disappeared upstairs.
I sat there with my mouth open; Luke put his arm around me. “Isn’t she amazing? She’s the only person I’ve ever known who really does see with her third eye.”
I mopped up some yolk with my sandwich and told him my dad had spent Saturday afternoon teaching Sid’s eldest grandson how to hike a football. And a few days before that, two of his brothers had road-tripped up from Philly, and they’d gone to the Seafood Shack and then to a drive-in. He didn’t get in until two A.M. “He gets tired, but he seems happy.” Luke was squinting at me. I sipped my tea. “Except that I know brain tumors can be deadly…”
“You need to knock it off with the negative energy.” He took a croissant from the bag and cut it in two. “The one lesson that keeps smacking me on the head”—he tapped his dreads—“is that anything, and I do mean anything, is possible. A hundred years ago, folks died from chicken pox. Now people are living with one kidney and titanium knees and animal valves in their hearts. It’s okay to have hope, Jensen.” He popped a piece of pastry in his mouth.
Night Blindness Page 17
