The Shortest Way Home

by Juliette Fay

“A little nervous. I know the packet said they’re not supposed to bring electronics, but he’s got this tape he likes . . .”

  Frank nodded. “No problem. And don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on him. He’ll be fine.”

  As Sean drove out of the parking lot, he saw Kevin standing with a group of boys, admiring Ivan’s jackknife. Kevin glanced up and raised a hand as the Caprice passed. Sean waved back.

  As he drove home Sean prayed hard, as hard as he had in a long time. Please let him be okay, please let him have fun, please watch over him and don’t let him get overwhelmed or feel sad . . . please. . . .

  CHAPTER 30

  Unexpectedly, Deirdre showed up for dinner.

  “To what do we owe the pleasure?” asked Sean, as he set another place at the table.

  “He’s been working us so hard,” said Deirdre. “He gave us the afternoon off and said we should all go home and relax.” She gave a little eye-roll at the ridiculousness of that idea.

  Aunt Vivvy sat quietly at the table, gazing out the window. “Windy,” she said.

  It was, in fact, somewhat more breezy than usual, and the air made the leaves of the red maple in the backyard do a little staccato dance. Sean and Deirdre glanced at each other.

  “So . . .” said Sean, ladling chili into Deirdre’s bowl. “You feel it’s going pretty well?”

  “No. It’s not. I’m just barely getting in stride, and everyone else has had months to prepare.” She stared down at her meal. “I’m the weak link.”

  “Come on,” Sean gently chided. “You’ve never been weak at anything. You’ll do fine.”

  She glanced up at him. “Don’t,” she warned.

  “Don’t what? I’m being supportive.”

  She snorted derisively. “No, you’re being patronizing and clueless. You don’t know anything about the pressure I’m under, so don’t act like you do.”

  Sean was slightly stunned by this declaration but recovered quickly. “You’re right,” he said. “I don’t. What I do know is that I’ve made it possible for you to do nothing but work and rehearse for the past two months. If that comes off as patronizing, I can stop right now.”

  She glowered at him for a moment, then lifted a spoonful of chili to her mouth and ate. “Pretty good,” she said.

  Sean nodded, accepting the apology. “In the developing world you get to know your way around a can of beans.” He glanced at his aunt, still staring out the window. “I think the chili’s cool enough now, Auntie.” She looked over at him as if he were speaking another language. He picked up her spoon, handed it to her, and indicated her bowl.

  “Ah,” she said, nodding, and dipped the spoon in. They ate for some time in silence, Deirdre’s gaze unfocused and slightly ­perturbed-looking.

  “Dee,” said Sean. “I know it’s a bad time to tell you, but there’s something I think you should know.”

  “Oh, God,” she said. “What.”

  “I got a phone call the other night. From Da.”

  She blinked at him a moment. “Our da?”

  Aunt Vivvy looked up from her meal.

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s still alive?”

  “Apparently. And he wants to see us.”

  Deirdre shook her head. “No.”

  “No,” Aunt Vivvy echoed. “I won’t let him hurt you.”

  Deirdre squinted at her uncomprehendingly, then turned back to her brother. “I don’t even know him,” she said. “And I sure as hell don’t want to get into it now. You know what this means to me, Sean—I can’t afford to lose one ounce of focus.” She scooped another spoonful of chili, but set it down in the bowl without eating it. “Are you going to see him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why would you? He dumped us.”

  Sean was reminded that over the years Deirdre had felt the ­repercussions of that blow more than anyone, raised from early childhood only by their stoic aunt. He glanced at Aunt Vivvy, who was staring out the window again. “Yeah,” he said. “And that wasn’t exactly agreed upon. Apparently the homeowner never wanted the package.”

  Deirdre smirked. “And you’re just figuring that out now?”

  * * *

  The next day was too quiet, especially since Sean had no interest in being alone with his thoughts and the quandary about his father. Cormac didn’t need any help at the Confectionary, and Deirdre had left early for a double shift at the diner. Aunt Vivvy came down for a cup of tea and a piece of toast. She ate silently, then went back to her room for a rest.

  Kevin was notably absent.

  Sean looked at George and let out a resigned sigh. “Where’s your leash?” This caused a surprising round of tail wagging. They were almost out the door when Rebecca called.

  “Hey,” she said. “I’m about to go for a run—want to join me?”

  Sean hung the leash back on its hook, grabbed the car keys, and headed out to meet her at The Pal parking lot by Lake Pequot. When he pulled in, she was a couple of spaces down, wearing a pair of black running shorts and a pale blue tank top. Her hands were pressed against the trunk of her car, one leg behind her to stretch her calf. She switched legs and stretched the other, her movement graceful and decisive.

  She looked up when he approached. “I don’t run that fast. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “I’m pretty sure my aunt could beat me,” he said, “so you’re gonna kick my ass.”

  She smiled at him, mouth lopsided, eyes crinkling unevenly, and he felt a quick little intake of air, as if his oxygen supply wasn’t quite prepared for the beauty of her expression.

  They set off around the lake, their pace easy and relaxed. “How did it go with Kevin and the tape?” she asked.

  “Perfect,” he said. “He practically went into a trance.”

  “Sean, that’s great! I’m so glad for both of you.”

  “Yeah, it’s a huge relief. And it’ll make it easier when I leave, knowing he has that to help him.”

  Rebecca’s head turned to look out over the lake; they ran for a few minutes in silence.

  “So, I don’t think my adoption’s going to go through,” he said, but still she didn’t turn back. Sean raised his voice a little. “My father called.”

  Her head snapped toward him. “What? You’re kidding! What did he say?”

  Sean relayed the gist of the two conversations. “Deirdre won’t see him. She’s too wrapped up in her play, and she doesn’t even remember him. And he doesn’t know about Hugh.”

  Rebecca’s hand came out and rested on his shoulder for a few strides.

  “Yeah,” said Sean. “How do you tell a guy his kid’s been dead for six years?”

  “Oh, Sean,” she sighed. “So you’re going to see him?”

  “Jesus, I don’t know. I really don’t want to. It’ll be so awkward . . . and then what? He goes back to wherever, and I take off for the next place, and we send postcards a couple times a year? Why bother?”

  “Maybe he just wants to explain.”

  He considered this for a few strides. “Maybe. But is there anything he could possibly say that would justify it? And does it even matter anymore? I’m going to be forty-four in a couple of months. I’m not looking for a daddy.”

  “So he’ll never know about Hugh.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you don’t see him, he won’t know. You’d never say something like that over the phone.”

  Actually, it was exactly what he’d been thinking he’d do. But when she put it that way, he knew the option was gone.

  The houses they passed were small former camps that had been weatherized for year-round residency. They approached a couple standing on the front step of one of the houses. The woman’s hair was dark and curly, the man slightly balding; she had her a
rms crossed, his hands were in his pockets. The casual-seeming stances were belied by the looks of intensity on both faces. It was only when Sean drew closer that he realized the woman was Cormac’s cousin Janie, and the man her new love. Sean was about to call out to her but sensed he’d be intruding. She never glanced up, locked as she seemed to be in a war of wills.

  Wonder what that’s about, thought Sean.

  “Hey,” said Rebecca. “I’ve been doing a little research on sensory integration, and wanted to send you some links. You don’t have an e-mail account, though, do you?”

  Sean chuckled and shook his head. “Is there some organized campaign to get me on e-mail, or is this just a coincidence?”

  “I’m not part of a coordinated effort,” she said. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if there was one. Not having e-mail is pretty last-century, pal.”

  “In America, maybe.”

  She glanced up toward a hawk circling the shoreline. “Well, I may be wrong,” she said, “but it looks like that’s where you happen to be at the moment.”

  When they had completed the loop around Lake Pequot, Rebecca opened her car and pulled out a water bottle. Sean bent over, resting his hands on his knees. She held out the water to him; he took a couple of gulps and handed it back. “Thanks,” he said. “So what’s next? You feel like grabbing some lunch or something?”

  “Well, I was planning to do a little yoga, then meditate. Want to join me, Swami?”

  “I follow my guru wherever she goes.”

  When they got to her house, he said, “Okay, one little chore first.”

  “Look, I know how much you love redecorating, but can we give it a rest just this once?”

  “We can rest all day—after we pull the desk out of that room.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Okay. But first we sign you up for an e-mail account.”

  “No dice.”

  “No dice, no desk.”

  He shook his head. She shrugged. “Okay, just so long as you understand it’s a deal breaker. Not one stick of furniture moves until you have e-mail.”

  “Give me one good reason.”

  She gazed at him, and he sensed she was trying to decide which of several good reasons to mention first. “Kevin,” she said.

  “Nice try. Kevin doesn’t have e-mail.”

  “No, but you told me there’s nobody on the parents’ listserv from the school for him. This way you could keep up with what’s going on. You could e-mail his teachers if you needed to. And, you could get him an account, too. Kids don’t talk anymore. They text and e-mail and Facebook.” She smiled. “And it’s just a hunch, but I’m betting you’re not quite up to dealing with Facebook.”

  CHAPTER 31

  They spent the rest of the day together. Sean signed up for a free e-mail account and persuaded Rebecca to move the desk and the bed out of the room, leaving it empty of everything but the massage table. They also cleared off a small bookshelf in the basement and brought it up so she would have somewhere to keep massage oil and the CD player.

  “Next time, we pull down the wallpaper.”

  “Ha! Right,” she said. “Sol and Betty would have a cow.”

  Sean made a show of looking around. “No Sol and Betty,” he said. “No cow.”

  “You are really pushing it.”

  “Yeah, I am really pushing it. Because you deserve to work somewhere that’s actually conducive to your business and your general mental health. You could make a go of it on your own, you know. Think how great it would be to leave Eden and the Tree of Life in the dust of your highly stable energy.”

  She sighed. “Pretty darn great.”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  “Ugh!” she groaned suddenly.

  “What?”

  “It’s so easy for you! You’re an on-your-own kind of person. You just get on a plane and go to the next place and meet a whole bunch of new people—and you don’t worry! It’s not like that for me. Change is hard. People are hard. You never know what they’re thinking, or who’s going to turn out to be a jerk.”

  “Everybody’s got stuff that’s hard, Beck.”

  “Yeah, I know—of course I know. But you having stuff that’s hard doesn’t make my stuff any easier. It actually makes it harder.” She shook her head, as if it might help her thoughts sift into a more comprehensible order. “Look,” she said. “I hate that you have all this crap to deal with. Why can’t life just be easy sometimes? If not for me, for somebody I care about!”

  Her exasperation had put color in her cheeks and passion in her voice, and he felt an almost undeniable urge to wrap his arms around her and feel all that energy up against him. He wanted to be in her stratosphere, held there by the gravity of her warmth and generosity. It scared him how much he wanted it, and the fear helped him curb the wanting.

  He only put a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, somewhere out there is somebody with no problems at all,” he said. “And he’s probably annoying as hell.”

  * * *

  She kicked him out before dinner, though. She had plans. With “a friend.” No further details were offered. Sean didn’t like that at all. But even more, he didn’t like that he didn’t like it. Why should he care? But still he found himself saying in a teasing way, “Sounds like a date.”

  She looked mildly startled. “Not really,” she said.

  Not really? Not really?

  He drove home vaguely annoyed. It was sort of like when a new volunteer came to the hospital or clinic and, through no fault of their own, they just didn’t do things the way you wanted them to. But you couldn’t be angry because they were thousands of miles from home, enduring the heat or the rain, the flies and the bad food, the cot or the lumpy ancient mattress, doing their best for nothing. Just to help out. You had no right to be annoyed. And yet you were.

  Wanting to think about anything other than his own baseless irritability, his mind landed on Chrissy, and he realized he hadn’t seen her in a few days. Now that Kevin was at camp, he supposed she had no dog-training-related excuse to pop over. She’d always been the one to initiate getting together. Maybe she was waiting for him to call now? Because he was pretty sure women did that—waited for the guy to call. Or was that considered old-fashioned these days?

  He dialed her up when he got home, relieved that neither of her daughters answered. What would he have said—“Please tell her Sean called”?

  Sean who? And what business do you have with my mother? Oh, I’ve heard about you—the guy in the bleachers trying to move in on my mom while my dad was busy scoring touchdowns. He decked you, didn’t he?

  Yes. Yes, he certainly did.

  But Chrissy answered, and though he’d only had a fuzzy idea of maybe getting coffee or taking a walk, their plan soon grew like fast-multiplying cells into dinner and a movie and possibly a nightcap at her house afterward. The girls were staying with their father.

  Sean’s visceral reaction to this last little firecracker of a revelation was a combination of Yippee! and Yikes! But he’d worry about that later.

  The night seemed to buzz by, except during the movie, The Bouquet Catcher, a romantic comedy so cloyingly sweet that Sean thought he might need insulin injections by the time the credits rolled. He focused on consuming his extra large popcorn fast enough to qualify for the free refill before the movie was over. After this personal success, he fell into a drooling, head-bobbing doze. He woke up as the violins were cued, feeling like he’d eaten a bag of rock salt.

  “I need water,” he told her.

  “Great! Let’s have a drink at my house.”

  As they exited the theater, her hand slid once again into his, and pleasant as the physical sensation was, alarm bells began to ring in his mind as he imagined the WE ARE TOGETHER sign flashing garishly over their heads.

 
Are we together?

  Together with Chrissy Stillman, he tried to tell himself. Way to go! But somehow it didn’t feel the way he’d fantasized it would. Actually, it felt a little like handcuffs. He’d been handcuffed once in India, mistakenly identified as having run out on his bill at a teahouse. It was sorted out fairly quickly. He suspected this situation would definitely take more sorting than that.

  At her house, they were soon snuggled on the enormous burgundy leather couch with the beaten metal tacks, glasses of Cabernet cradled between their fingers. He liked the smell of the leather and the wine and her perfume, the feel of her closeness, and the way her perfectly symmetrical eyes sparkled at him.

  Symmetrical?

  He realized that at the back of his brain was the image of Rebecca’s eyes, perfectly unsymmetrical, as if God’s level had been a bit off plumb as he’d made her. She was out with “a friend” tonight, he reminded himself.

  Well, so am I.

  He kissed Chrissy, and the kissing soon turned passionate, hands passing over backs and then over fronts, Chrissy’s lovely half-­cantaloupe-shaped breasts rising to the occasion, her nipples erect through her shirt. They went on like this for a bit, and he definitely wanted to have sex with her. But something kept stopping him from pressing forward. It was the hand-holding. He just wasn’t sure if he was ready for that.

  She didn’t ask him to stay, but he got the feeling she would have liked him to. He could always stay another time, he figured. He wasn’t burning any bridges. He was just . . . balking was the first word that came to mind, but that wasn’t right. He was being considerate, waiting until he’d sorted out that hand-holding/handcuff thing. It seemed like the right thing to do.

  * * *

  When he got home that night, there was a glow coming from the den. Since Dee’s computer had been left on, he decided to check his e-mail account. There was one e-mail waiting for him from Rebecca Feingold. She had forwarded the links to the sensory integration sites she’d found. Then she’d written a couple of lines.

  I’m glad you crumbled so quickly to my e-mail ultimatum. I’ll miss you when you’re gone, and it’s nice to know that now I’ll be able to find you from time to time. You never know when another interior decorating emergency might pop up out of nowhere. :)