by Lisa Tucker
When he’d called, it was a Tuesday night in March, a little after eight o’clock; Ashley was trying to finish the dishes and trying to keep Maisie from falling apart before she could get her in the bathtub. Kyle was watching some sports thing on TV. William had his boom box blasting upstairs, and Pearl was freaking out about a book she couldn’t find that she needed for a homework paper.
They’d been fighting for so long she didn’t know how to talk to Billy without yelling, but this time he didn’t give her a chance to say her usual “Dammit, why are you calling here?” or “What the hell do you want?” As soon as she said hello, he said, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” She turned off the faucet and wished she had something that would record his answer. The cops had said to let them know immediately if her estranged husband said anything new about what had happened with William. They’d already arranged to have Billy charged with seven counts of child endangerment, but that number could always be increased.
“Everything,” he said. “What I’ve done to our family. And to you.”
She was surprised, but she didn’t buy it for a minute. Was he trying to soften her up to help his case? It wouldn’t work, that was for sure.
Pearl was going through the giant stack of papers on the counter, still looking for that book. Ashley turned to her. “Take Maisie upstairs.” The little girl was tearing apart a plastic sponge and screaming that she wanted to watch cartoons. “Run her bath and keep an eye on her.”
“Mom, I have homework!”
“Just do what I told you to do!”
Pearl picked up Maisie, but she gave her mother a dirty look. Nothing new there. Ashley expected Billy to give her shit about the yelling he must have overheard, but he didn’t call her a barbarian or any of his usual put-downs. He didn’t say anything other than repeat that he was sorry.
“I never became the man I wanted to be.” He sounded incredibly sad; Ashley could hear that now that she was alone in the kitchen. “I just couldn’t escape.”
“Are you talking about the curse? ‘Cause I don’t believe in that anymore.” She’d told him this several times during their fights, but he never listened.
“No, Ash. I’m talking about myself.”
He hadn’t called her “Ash” for months and months, maybe even a year. She slumped down at the table and started picking at a juice stain with her fingernail. She wasn’t sure what he meant by escaping himself, but she couldn’t help it; she felt sorry for him and blurted out that he could still get his life together. “You’ll probably have to see a shrink to figure out why you did all that dangerous crap with William. The cops told me that’s the first step, and it won’t—”
“It’s too late. I’ve been this way since I was William’s age. I never had enough courage.”
“What do you mean?” Her voice rose, thinking about all the shit he’d made William do, shit her son still believed showed he was brave. She wished Kyle would talk to William and convince him that jumping off cliffs wasn’t brave, it was dumb. She hoped maybe Kyle could make her son understand that being a man was about more than taking stupid risks with your life.
“I never had the courage to do what was right.” Billy paused. “I still don’t. I’m sorry.”
Upstairs, Maisie was screaming like Pearl was drowning her. Kyle’s sports show and William’s boom box were still going strong. It was way too loud for her to figure out why Billy was telling her all this. She said she had to go now, and before she could offer to call him back later, he was already gone. So she’d walked away feeling like a fool because he’d hung up on her without even saying goodbye.
But now, lying under the quilt, talking to angel Billy, Ashley hoped he would ask God to forgive her for not paying better attention to her husband’s cry for help. “You know I’m not that smart,” Ashley said. “I just didn’t put two and two together.”
How many times had Billy told her that if he knew he was immoral and he couldn’t change, he’d kill himself? More than a few. And yet she really hadn’t understood that that was what he was saying that night, which turned out to be the last night of his life. Maybe she still wouldn’t have figured this out if she hadn’t had so much time on her hands without the kids. Then she could have lived forever without feeling like God was punishing her for not trying harder to stop her children’s father from committing suicide.
It was like an eye for an eye. The kids had lost Billy, the most important person to them—at least the most important to Pearl and William—and Ashley had lost the kids, the most important people to her. She knew she deserved this, but she hoped Billy could fix it. “If not for my sake,” she prayed, “for theirs. They didn’t do anything wrong. Does God want to punish them, too? Why?”
She traced another ring in the quilt, wondering if the kids felt like they were being punished. What if Pearl and William were actually better off with their grandma? She was rich; she probably had a big house and all kinds of cool stuff. Maybe they were having the time of their lives and that was why they hadn’t bothered to call her.
Billy had never said anything bad about his mother, and he wouldn’t tell her what was going on now at Barbara Duval’s house. She didn’t expect him to; she wasn’t crazy; she knew prayers weren’t answered like telephones. He couldn’t tell her how the kids were, and he couldn’t make her feel better when she got paranoid that somehow Barbara Duval was going to trick her and try to get custody of her kids. She’d only gone along with Barbara Duval’s plan because she’d heard foster care was awful and Pearl and William had to stay somewhere. They weren’t close to any of their teachers like Maisie was with the head of her preschool. Ashley’s own family wasn’t in the state. The only choice other than Billy’s mom would have been Lila and Patrick, and the court would never have gone for that after what Lila did, even if Ashley had asked them to.
It was probably dumb to be afraid that Barbara Duval was scheming against her, but Ashley had time for all kinds of dumb fears. She had time to think about each and every nightmare: from the one where William was screaming for her and she couldn’t find him, to the one where Kyle had kidnapped Pearl and was torturing her for lying.
Talking to Billy, even if he wasn’t an angel, was the only way she could calm herself down. He’d always cared about the kids, too; she knew that even when he was acting too crazy to be allowed to see them. Now that he was dead, she imagined him forever his best self, and she wished he were there to help her figure this out.
When the doorbell rang, for one stupid second she imagined her wish had come true. Or maybe it was the kids themselves? It was almost ten o’clock on Sunday night; no one from CPS and no neighbor would come over this late. No one she knew from work or any of her friends would come over without calling.
She grabbed the baseball bat under her bed when it hit her that it had to be Kyle. Sure he’d left town, but what if he was back? As she crept into the dark living room, she thought about calling the police, but she was worried that would make it worse for her somehow. Kyle could tell them she invited him here. He could lie about anything and that dumb detective might think she didn’t care about protecting her kid.
At the front door, she checked the chain to see if it was on tight; then she slowly opened the door a crack and yelled, “I’m calling the cops if you don’t leave right now.”
“We just want to talk.” It was her sister-in-law.
“But we’re going,” Patrick said. “No need to call the police.”
She was so relieved that she took the chain off and opened the door before she thought about whether she wanted those two in her house. Then she stood back when she realized that, as pathetic as it seemed, she was dying to hear any voice but her own.
But when she realized why they were there, she immediately regretted having let them in and insisting on making them hot chocolate. She was trying to be nice; Patrick was rubbing his hands together, and Lila’s bare arms had goose bumps, and no wonder, as it had dropped almost thirty degre
es in the last few hours, a freak cold snap in the middle of May that had obviously caught Patrick and Lila by surprise—and without jackets or even long sleeves. Yet as soon as she set the steaming mugs in front of them, they made it clear that they hadn’t come to see her at all; they only wanted Billy’s papers from the basement. She told them the truth, that she’d promised Pearl she could have all of that. And when Lila said she’d give everything back in a few days, Ashley snorted. “I’m not as stupid as you think. How would I know you didn’t keep the best stuff?” She shook her head. “Let’s just wait for Pearl to get back. If she says she doesn’t mind, it’s okay by me.”
“Can’t you call her?” Patrick said. “Ask her how she feels?”
“Not without checking with my caseworker first.” Ashley gave him a long look and he lowered his eyes.
“We can wait until tomorrow,” Lila said. Her voice was always soft, but there was something else in it now, too, something pitiful. “Before we leave, though, could you at least tell us where the kids are? I’m really worried about them.”
“I told you they’re fine,” she said, turning back to Patrick. “Nothing to worry about.”
It was one of Barbara Duval’s conditions for taking the kids and paying Ashley’s legal fees: Ashley was not to discuss any of this with Lila or her husband. Billy’s mother said she and Lila hadn’t spoken for years and it was none of Lila’s business. She also hinted that Lila would be very upset to learn that any of Barbara’s money was going to Ashley and her children rather than to Lila herself. At the time, Ashley had found this strange, because she’d always thought Lila never cared much about material things, but she’d decided not to question it. She would never have believed that Patrick would tell the cops she was an unfit mother, either. There were probably a lot of things she didn’t know about her sister-and brother-in-law.
“If you don’t want to tell me because you’re afraid I’ll try to visit them, I promise you I won’t.” Lila wrapped her arms around herself. “I no longer think I would be a good influence on them. I did a horrible thing… a very selfish thing.” She lowered her eyes. “I wish it weren’t true, but it seems you were right to try to keep them away from me.”
Ashley was both surprised and really impressed that her sister-in-law had admitted this, especially since Lila knew that Ashley had obviously done a crap job of protecting her kids when it came to Kyle. Was it possible that Lila wasn’t judging her for that?
“Well, we all make mistakes,” she offered. “Me as much as anybody, I guess.” She took a sip of her hot chocolate and waited to see if Patrick or Lila would jump on the chance to bitch about Ashley’s screwups. When they didn’t—and her sister-in-law’s lips were quivering like she might cry—she said, “Hell, Lila, you know I don’t know what I’m doing. I mean, look at me. I’ve been wearing this same pair of jeans and this same T-shirt since Friday night.” She smirked. “I haven’t even showered or combed my hair ‘cause I’m too busy praying to your brother.”
“I talk to Billy, too,” Lila whispered. “In the hospital, I woke myself up more than once speaking to him.”
Patrick crossed his arms. He looked like he wanted to say something, but didn’t. He probably thought all this talking to Billy stuff was a crock, and maybe it was, but it still made Ashley feel much closer to her sister-in-law. Certainly a hell of a lot closer than she felt to Billy’s mother, who, come to think of it, had never even said she missed her dead son. Of course, Lila and Billy had both treated Barbara Duval like she was already dead. Barbara said they’d had a “falling out,” but Ashley wondered what kind of family feud could possibly end up like that.
She was suddenly nervous. Nobody was talking. Lila was staring down at the table, and Patrick’s eyes were red with exhaustion. She didn’t really decide to tell them where her kids were, but once the words were out of her mouth, she knew why she had. If this screwed her future relationship with Barbara Duval, including an inheritance the old lady hinted at, she didn’t care. She didn’t even care about the fancy do-nothing lawyer Barbara was paying for. She needed to hear that the kids would be okay at Barbara’s house. If Billy couldn’t tell her that, she would have to trust his twin.
Patrick responded first. He sounded confused. “They’re in New Jersey?”
She told him no; Barbara Duval had another house about twenty miles from here. “The social worker says it’s a nice place,” she said, looking at Lila. “I guess your mom is looking out for them, right?”
Her sister-in-law’s normally pale face had turned ashen. She looked so strange that Ashley wondered if she was going to be sick.
“I didn’t know what else to do,” Ashley sputtered. She felt frozen in Lila’s bizarre gaze. “Pearl called her first. I don’t know how she got Barbara’s number.”
“I’m sure they’re fine.” Patrick looked at his wife. “Let’s not panic.”
Ashley pushed back from the table like she was going to run, but there was no escaping this feeling. “Oh God,” she stammered. “I knew this wasn’t a good idea.”
And the weird part was, she had known. She’d ignored her instincts with Barbara Duval just like she’d ignored the feeling that Kyle was lying to her about his past, about looking for work, about how much he liked her kids. Just like she’d ignored the voice inside her head that had told her, year after year, that Billy’s dream of a happy life was never going to happen, that no matter how bad he wanted it, it just wasn’t in him.
Then it hit her that she also knew what had driven Pearl to run to Lila’s house, and even to call Barbara Duval. It was so clear now she was angry at herself for not getting it before. The night Billy died, Pearl had gone into the basement and come up with one of his manuscripts, bound in a blue cover. An old one, written when he still used a typewriter, before Ashley had even known him. Pearl shut herself in her room and read that thing constantly whenever she didn’t have chores or homework. Her daughter never said what it was about, and Ashley didn’t think to take a closer look. She did notice that Billy had scribbled on a title—and recently, too, since he’d used one of Maisie’s stickers to write it on—but she didn’t think about what that title meant.
“For LEC: Truth Comes in with Darkness.” Now it seemed obvious. “LEC” was Lila’s initials. The rest was a quote from one of Lila’s favorite books, the one she wrote about in graduate school. Billy didn’t say it constantly like some quotes, but Ashley remembered it because he told her it came from the most heartbreaking story he’d ever read.
He must have given Pearl that sticker and told her which manuscript to put it on. But Maisie hadn’t even gotten those stickers until a few weeks before Billy died. Did he already know he was going to kill himself when he wrote this? Ashley felt sure he did. And he wanted Lila to have whatever he’d written all those years ago, but instead his daughter took it on herself to read it at least once and maybe several times. And this was why she stomped into Ashley’s room one night, when Kyle was watching TV, and said, “You never understood him, but I’m going to. He was my father and he deserved to have someone who wanted to know what the fuck happened to him!”
Ashley told Pearl to watch her mouth. She was folding clothes and she thought she didn’t have time to deal with her daughter’s anger. Were Pearl’s eyes red? Probably. She was always upset about her father. Why hadn’t Ashley paid more attention to this? Why had she only given Pearl hugs and repeated that same old crap about time healing all wounds, which she didn’t even believe?
Now Ashley felt like crying, thinking of what her little girl was up to. She’d gone to Billy’s sister, and when that didn’t work out, she’d arranged to be with Billy’s mother. Because she missed her father so badly she’d convinced herself that understanding him would make it hurt less. Even though he wasn’t there, she was still running to her crazy, magical daddy. The only one who could catch the air people queen.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The first few days at New Grandma’s house were mostly boring, excep
t the ride back and forth to Chandler Elementary. That part was awful, just William and Grandma in the big white car, driving for what felt like hours instead of fifteen minutes like it had been on the bus from his real house. He used to hate that bus because Sophie Peterson liked to grab his backpack and dump everything out on the floor, but now he knew there were worse things than crawling under seats to catch pencils and markers before they rolled away.
New Grandma talked more than anybody in the entire world. That’s what William whispered to Pearl, and she held her hand across her mouth to keep her laugh inside so New Grandma wouldn’t say, “What’s so funny?” Wherever they went in the whole huge house, they were never really sure they were alone ‘cause their grandma might just appear out of nowhere, like some ghost who could walk through walls.
If Pearl had been in the big white car, too, it might not have been so bad, but she got to stay home all day. After she told the social worker she was afraid to go to school ‘cause of what Kyle did to her, her teachers said since she already had an A+ for everything this year and high school was almost over, she could just come in to take the finals in a few weeks. So she wasn’t there when William was squeezing himself against the passenger door and trying so hard not to cry that his stomach hurt and then feeling dumb that he was such a baby that he kept wanting to cry when New Grandma hadn’t hit him or yelled or done anything but talk and talk and talk.
“I’ve made an observation about you, William,” she said one afternoon before they were even out of the school parking lot. “You want everyone to think you’re not very smart because it allows you to get away with more. Very clever.”
At first, he thought New Grandma was about to punish him. He knew trying to get away with things was bad, like trying to get out of doing the dishes. And clever wasn’t always good, because sometimes his father had said “how clever” when he and his mom were fighting and his mom would scream louder or even cry. But when he said he hadn’t done anything wrong, New Grandma smiled.
