by Lily Foster
We eat this amazing blueberry ice cream in companionable quiet for the next few minutes. As I scrape the last bit from my bowl, I work up the nerve to ask, “So what’s the real story behind the career change and the move?”
“The part about law enforcement not being my true calling isn’t a lie. I never loved my job. But after you confronted me about Timmy, about my part in all that…It just left me with a lot to think about.”
He puts his bowl down on the deck and sits back, fixing his gaze over the water. “I’m not a good person, Charlotte.”
“Wes—”
“Let me speak,” he says quietly. “I’m not going to walk into the precinct and turn myself in, tell them my part in everything or tell them I lied for Christian. Timmy is dead. Nothing is going to bring him back. I’m just trying to move on and live my life as best I can.”
“I would never want you to do that. I know you, Wes, so I know you’ve punished yourself for what happened. I’d never want you to go to prison.”
“Timmy should never have gone to prison either. Maybe we didn’t kill him outright, but we all had a hand in his death.”
I don’t contradict him because it’s true. I feel for him, but he has to live with what he’s done.
“I don’t talk to your brother anymore.” He pauses and traps one hand with the other like he’s trying to control his fist when he speaks again. “I was always in his shadow growing up…All of us were. We treated him like he was a golden god or something…So pathetic.” He shakes his head, the regret etched on his face. “And now every time I think about him, I have a hard time remembering the good kid, the friend he was when we were young. Somewhere along the way he turned mean, and he doesn’t show any signs of changing.”
I’m not surprised by his words, but they sadden me. In a way, Wes was Christian’s conscience, the only person who called him on his bullshit. If Wes has given up on him, then it’s as bad as I thought. “I get it.”
“He’s not a positive influence in my life. And while it pains me to know I’m losing him as a friend, I’m willing to accept it for what it is. I’m moving on.”
I nod, reaching out to take Wes’s hand. We have a long history. And without question, there is far more good to our story than bad.
“So, the reason I drove all the way out here.” He looks at me and then looks away. He’s nervous. “I couldn’t just up and leave town without talking to you…Didn’t want to risk the chance of never seeing you again. You know I’ve always cared about you. And I think you also know that at some point that caring turned into something more.”
“Wes.” It comes out sounding like a warning. I want him to stop before he says too much, but he’s not having it.
“I’d be missing out on, who knows, maybe the best chance at happiness I’ll ever have if I left and never spoke my truth to you. And the truth is I’ve loved you even when I shouldn’t have, and I love you still. Your baby, his baby…You know I would love him like my own.”
I’m dumbstruck. Wes stands, tall and unburdened. “I’m going to leave now. I don’t want to pressure you. I just want you to know that you have a place to go, a person who wants you, and someone who’s willing to make a good life for you.”
He leans down and kisses me on the cheek before I hear him close the screen door behind him. I hear him thank Janelle. Hear him say he’s going to get some miles behind him before he stops for the night. I hear him say his goodbyes to Lawrence and listen as Ethan lets out a happy yelp when Wes does something to make him laugh.
I’ve been sitting there for some time before Janelle and Lawrence come outside. Lawrence hands me a cup of tea as Janelle places a piece of paper in my other hand. “He left this for you.” It’s a phone number and his new address. “That boy is in love with you.”
Nothing else is said as the three of us sit and watch the sky turn from pink to purple to midnight blue.
Simon
Samantha clinks a fork against her champagne flute. “A toast to the man of the hour.”
I swallow my discomfort. All eyes are on me as Professor Westfield stands at the head of the table, and I’m not much for being the center of attention. Samantha’s smile stretches clear across her face, as does Mrs. Westfield’s. Brett smiles though clenched teeth, though I know he’s probably fantasizing about doing me in with his steak knife right about now. He sees me as the guy who stole his scholarship. According to Brett, it’s his year, not mine. Winnie, my West Virginia friend, leans in and whispers, “You’ve earned it.”
“A near perfect score on the LSATs. A stellar undergraduate academic record, a degree earned with honors while conducting research, tutoring fellow students and holding down a job. And completed one year early no less!” He shakes his head, smiling. “I’m in awe of this young man. Raise your glass, everyone, and join me in congratulating this year’s recipient of the Honorable James W. Crawley Memorial Scholarship.”
“Here, here,” Winnie chimes in, clinking her glass with mine. “I hope I’m sitting in your place next year.”
Samantha sits on my other side and touches her glass to mine. Her free hand lands on my upper thigh, giving me a reassuring squeeze. “I’m so proud of you.”
How did I get here?
“I feel like I’m an ESPN commentator asking the top recruit which team he’s going to play for next year,” Professor Westfield jokes. “Is it going to be U Penn, Duke, Michigan, UVA, Cornell or good old Northwestern?”
“I’ve narrowed it down some, but I’m still not sure. U Penn is out, Cornell too.”
“The two ivies? I’m surprised.”
“I don’t want to be in New York, I’m sure of that, and for some reason Penn doesn’t appeal to me.” The reason is that mere mention of the word Pennsylvania turns my stomach. I blame the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections for that. I am not going back. And I throw New York under the bus because Cornell and NYU have top ranked MFA programs for creative writing, and Samantha has mentioned both in passing when she talks about her future. “My mother is down in South Carolina now, so Duke and UVA are still contenders, but I’d say Northwestern and Michigan are my top two.”
Samantha is my girlfriend now. There’s no let’s not put a label on this with her. The distinction was made after a bout of pneumonia that literally knocked me on my ass this past January. I was basically running myself ragged between taking on extra credits and then getting my applications together. School broke for the semester, and so did I. Samantha called an ambulance for me when my fever was still running wild after four days and my wracking cough turned into a wheeze. She tells me that I said, “I have to go to work,” as they were loading me onto a stretcher. I don’t remember it that way, but hell, I was out of it. She loves that story, tells it whenever she gets the chance. It’s always followed by the tale of her nursing me back to health. And she did. It was two weeks before I was fully back on my feet, and she was with me every step of the way. Samantha did my laundry, made me homemade soup, registered me for classes with the help of her dad, and lugged my textbooks back from the bookstore at the start of the semester when I was still too weak to do it myself.
I’ve never been sick like that in my entire life, and it did something to me. With my brother and Brandon having left for Oregon the year before, I was truly without family. I could scarcely get out of bed and I was alone. And for the first time, I was actually suffering from it, from loneliness. She swooped in, made it all better.
As I recuperated, we spent nights watching television together and talking. I saw her in a different light, I guess.
Three months later and I’m doing everything in my power to land myself in a different state. She has another year left before she graduates, so if I choose somewhere other than Northwestern, I can extricate myself from this relationship in a relatively painless way. Career wise, though, Northwestern is where I should be. I’ve made connections here, and since I’m not a fortunate son with a daddy on the bench or in corporate law, I need every hand
up I can get.
The fact that I’m even considering another school is proof of how much I want to be free of her. And I care about her. I do. I care enough that the idea of hurting her pains me. Initiating a break-up literally fills me with dread, so much so that I play a game with myself sometimes. It’s called: What if I did wind up with Samantha?
Would it be so bad? I get along great with her parents, know I’ll fit right into the fold. She’s good to me, has proven time and time again that she cares about me. Samantha doesn’t come with the baggage of a fucked-up background like I do, and I reason that can only bode well for a relationship. Fact is, I can see how my life with her will play out, and it’s not a bad life. But deep down I know it will be like a custom-tailored suit that still doesn’t fit quite right.
I’m back in my room now, exhausted from the effort it took to keep the smile on my face tonight. I slip the picture out of its frame. I keep it tucked behind the one of me, Tim and Mike that sits on my desk. It’s been so long that I don’t know if I’d be able to see her face if I didn’t have this picture to remind me. It feels ridiculous to think of her the way I do. I’m still stuck on a sixteen-year-old girl when she’s not that person anymore.
But this faded picture in my hands is everything. It’s a reminder that I’m capable of love, the kind of love for another person that consumes you. It’s a reminder of why I can never make a life with Samantha.
When I took her home tonight, I wanted to leave her at the door, avoid the lie I’ve be telling her with my kisses and with my touch. She was happy tonight, happy for my success and envisioning her place in the future I have, one that is all but guaranteed now. I couldn’t do it, couldn’t hurt her tonight. So when she drew me into her room, when she undressed and invited me in, I went to her. I closed my eyes and saw the face of another girl, remembered the feel of someone else’s skin when I held her body beneath mine.
I made love to Charlotte.
I always do.
Part Three : A Sort of Homecoming
Chapter Twenty-Three
Charlotte
“We should get going, Charlotte. Long drive ahead of us.”
“Yeah, I’m coming.”
Lawrence looks as sad and as washed out as I do. The past three weeks have been among the most trying of my life. Right up there with finding out I was pregnant, my baby’ life-saving surgery, and the harrowing weeks spent last winter nursing Ethan through a respiratory infection that landed him back in the hospital.
I’d been on such a high. Half-way through my sophomore year, I’m kicking ass in school. I’ve made friends, a few guys and girls in my dance ensemble group mostly, and a few acquaintances from study groups. Ethan, now almost three, has weathered storms but is healthy and happy. It’s like the rug has been pulled out from underneath me just when I was starting to feel so…normal.
I’m sitting in the passenger seat now, wishing we’d gone straight home after the appointment with Janelle’s lawyer this morning. But Lawrence spotted a billboard for the Pablo Picasso exhibit at the Art Institute and decided we should go there as a tribute of some kind, being that Janelle had a few of his prints hanging in the house. It did nothing to lift the mood. Janelle collected funky prints for our home, bright contemporary renderings of a rooster, a horse and a bull. This exhibition was subtitled Mother and Child. Every piece, spiritual and somber, spoke to me. I could feel the pain Janelle must have endured over the years, her prayers to have a child of her own never answered.
The call from Janelle’s lawyer came out of nowhere. We had to venture to Chicago for the reading of her will? My grief still felt paralyzing, like being trapped shoulder-deep in quicksand, so I didn’t connect the dots until this morning. Once I did, I was ashamed of the way my heart raced. And I was being ridiculous. Me and roughly two million other people walking the streets of the city of Chicago—what were the odds of seeing him?
It figures the one time luck was on my side, it would leave me doubled over as if I’d been kicked in the gut.
“You all right?”
“Yeah…No.”
“That’s how I feel.”
I change the subject, not wanting to reveal what’s really dragging me down. “Do you think she knew?”
“Knew what?”
I look over my shoulder to make sure Ethan is sleeping. “Don’t you think it’s odd that she contacted her lawyer just six weeks ago? And then dies a few weeks later?”
Lawrence keeps his eyes on the road but nods. A moment later I see his left hand go to wipe at an errant tear. “You think she had some kind of premonition?”
“An aura, a premonition…I don’t know. I just keep thinking she might not have been feeling well and didn’t say anything.” I hesitate, not wanting to say what I’ve been thinking. “Was I so wrapped up in my own life that I didn’t notice?”
“You know she’d hate it if she heard you talking like that.” He clears his throat and meets my eyes when we slow to a stop at a red light. “And the doctor said it was very likely she had no warning. She never even complained of a headache. Sometimes these things just happen.”
Lawrence is no stranger to tragedy, but this has to be hitting him hard. Janelle once mentioned that his wife died years ago of a sudden, massive heart attack, and now Janelle of an aneurism. No warning whatsoever.
“She did everything for me.”
Lawrence reaches over and grabs my hand. “You gave her something to live for, you and Ethan. You know that, don’t you?”
I let out the breath I’ve been holding. “I was thinking I’d withdraw from my classes this semester, regroup a little.” Referring to the strict instructions laid out in Janelle’s last will and testament, I add, “Guess I can’t after that sermon, huh?”
He chuckles quietly. “I don’t see why you can’t lighten your load a little, but taking a semester off? No, I don’t suppose that would sit well with our gal.”
“I don’t know how I’ll manage without her.”
“We can do this.”
“Lawrence, you love it up here. I don’t expect you to upend your life for me.”
“I won’t be. I’ll be up here most of the time, but I’ll be down in Ann Arbor too. Janelle would want this...Want me to help you see it through. And Arlene is on board. She’ll be a great help.”
Arlene Gold, our neighbor. She’s a little on the kooky side, but I do trust her to babysit. She had Janelle’s stamp of approval, and that means something.
“I’m going to drop two classes, both electives. I’ll do the three that contribute towards my major. I can make the other ones up later, maybe online.”
“Sounds like a solid plan. Did you talk it over with Barbara?”
“Not yet. She’ll probably give me,” I turn again to make sure Ethan is asleep, “shit about it. I love that woman, but she is a damn pitbull.”
Barbara Ryan is a pitbull, but a wounded one at the moment. Janelle’s death was devastating to her as well. The two of them had forged a close friendship over the past few years, meeting for lunch at least once or twice a month whenever school was in session and Janelle was down in Ann Arbor with me.
“I don’t know about you, but I feel like we need her more than ever right now.”
I nod, conceding the fact. “Did you meet her kids at the funeral?”
“Yeah…Nice boys, both of them.”
“Marriage is weird, right? I mean, can you imagine any guy walking away from her and those two kids. She’s annoying sometimes, yeah, but she’s amazing.”
He shakes his head. “I shouldn’t comment because I don’t know what happened there, but you’re not a man in my book if you walk away from your responsibilities.”
Lawrence cocks a brow. “Did you just say something?”
I nod and repeat what I whispered a moment before. “I saw Simon today.”
We’re already back in town, just a mile or so from home, but this news compels him to pull over. “What?”
“I saw him. He wa
s walking out of the museum. He didn’t see me.”
“Or his son.”
He puts the car into drive and we don’t speak again until after we pick Moe up at a friend’s and we’re back in the house. “Give me the little fella.” To Ethan, he says, “Moe’s hungry. You gonna help me feed him?”
Ethan has been quiet these past few weeks, grieving along with the rest of us. He’s reverted to sucking his thumb again, which makes me, captain of the germ police, edgy as all get out. “Thumb out of your mouth, sweetie.”
He side eyes me and goes on sucking his thumb like it’s a T-bone.
Lawrence looks weary. “Some battles just aren’t worth fighting.”
“Roger that.”
I get the distinct impression that we’re not done with our conversation from before when Lawrence comes into the living room after dinner and hands me a bowl of ice cream. I love homemade ice cream but tonight it feels too thick to swallow. I forge ahead though, because I can’t look Lawrence in the eye, even if it’s to tell him I’m not hungry.
“So what are we going to do about this?”
Deep breath. “I can’t.”
“You will one day. You know that, right?” When I don’t answer he says, “You’re breaking that man’s heart every day you don’t tell him.”
“He doesn’t…”
I don’t know what I mean to say. What? He doesn’t what?
“Think of the worst case scenario, Charlotte. Worst case, he’s a rotten fool and he doesn’t want to be a part of Ethan’s life. No loss, right? He’s not a part of his life now.”
“No, Lawrence, the worst case scenario is him hating me for keeping it a secret.”
“But that can happen tomorrow, or that can—no, it will happen when Ethan is old enough to ask questions, to demand answers.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m just telling it like it is, sweetheart.” He reaches over and rubs my shoulder. “I’m not looking to upset you. You know I want the best for you. And that boy, well…He’s my heart, you know?”
