by Bill Clegg
Outside the subject of her family, Lolly was lighter and more open, so we tended not to bring them up, so when we finally met Adam, and later, June and Luke, we knew little about any of them. Mimi and I had pieced together that relations were difficult between June and Adam. He had various girlfriends whom Lolly didn’t respect; and once June began her relationship with Luke, Lolly at first refused to acknowledge him and for the most part avoided her mother. She talked to Pru about it the week before the wedding and, of course, Will, but I don’t really know what went on between Lolly and her mother. Clearly they had much to resolve, and according to Pru, among the many sad things about what happened is that they had, in those months leading up to the wedding, just begun.
When I spoke to Lydia in January, she told me June had been gone since early summer and that she had not seen or heard from her since the funeral. She said that what remained of the house had been demolished, and a chain now blocked the driveway from the road. She reported the news dispassionately, as if she had little to do with any of it, or with June, which surprised me, since the two of them, from what I could see in those few days before the wedding, seemed close. At the rehearsal, June fixed Lydia’s hair and both of them laughed secretively, like old friends. I can still picture them, side by side, talking in the church, on the lawn, at the sink, on the porch. I remember them more with each other than apart. They were a funny pair, very different in superficial ways—one sleek and blond, the other earthy, with long, dark hair falling down everywhere; one poised and stoic, the other needier, less sure. Still, they were much the same in how they approached their children: formal and timid, careful, as if they had only just met them. But with each other they appeared relaxed, natural. So to hear Lydia talk about June with such distance was a surprise, but then I remembered June at the funeral and the days before. She didn’t speak. Not to us, not to Lydia, not to anyone. I remember how she pivoted away from each of us when addressed, and if hugged, she held still, hands at her sides, until it was over. We reached out to her as best we could, but we were in shock, and instinctively we closed ranks among ourselves. We were out of our minds and away from home. Our boy was gone.
There had been rumors right away about Luke causing the explosion. The day we left Wells, the woman at the front desk at the Betsy told us she always knew something terrible was going to happen the moment she heard Lydia Hannafin’s boy moved into June Reid’s house. Bound to end badly, she said, shaking her head and sounding perversely satisfied. The four of us stayed quiet and left the small lobby as quickly as possible.
We chose to believe that what happened was a horrible accident, nothing more and nothing less. Anyone who had ever been in that kitchen knows it had to have been something to do with the stove. It looked like something from the Depression era. Rusty and white, tilting at an angle. I remember the afternoon before the rehearsal watching June fussing over one of the burners to boil water for tea, muttering when it wouldn’t light right away. If I blame anyone, it’s June. She should have taken care to replace that treacherous appliance. It was so clearly not safe. She had the means, and the rest of the property was well maintained, meticulous even. I try not to think about it, but at times I catch myself wondering how on earth could she have missed this one thing. How could she have been so careless? Knowing that June must agonize over these same questions dulls with pity, but does not eradicate, the anger I can still feel.
What was left of that old stove, the house, and any clues to what exactly caused the explosion were destroyed the day after the accident, bulldozed and dragged away by the state, though no one knew why. Our family is certain that Luke did not set out to hurt anyone. He was a decent man, and despite tensions in the house that night and even the days before, he was no killer. If it was due to some carelessness on his part, the boy paid a high price and God bless his tortured soul. His time in jail and his being black made him an easy scapegoat in that town, which you could hardly call racially diverse. Will, who planned on becoming a public defender in communities that didn’t have adequate representation, would have been livid to see how swiftly the finger was pointed. So with so much unknown, our family chose to follow Will’s lead and let go of any theories or blame. This doesn’t mean we haven’t suffered, we have. And it doesn’t mean we’ve found peace.
After we returned to Portland, there was a period when Mike wouldn’t speak to us because we hadn’t pressed for more of an investigation right after the accident. He insisted we hire a lawyer to sue the fire department, or the town, I can’t remember now exactly who he had in his crosshairs. Maybe we should have. But when I question our choice to walk away, I realize that whatever punishment we might have unleashed on the clumsy small-town officials responsible for destroying our chance for answers, or even if through some great show of force or determination or luck we actually found out what happened that night, there would be no changing the awful truth: Will is gone. We will never again see or hear or be with our magical son.
Mike has come around, but it’s still not easy. We see him less, but Mimi and I know it’s just for now. Pru has taken time away from graduate school and moved back home. Her friends from Moclips and college call and occasionally drop by, but she keeps to herself, reads novels she’s read before at the kitchen table until after midnight and sleeps in late. For now, we just give her space and let her be. And Mimi and I still teach—her third grade and me fifth—and we do what we’ve done for years: encourage and discipline, scribble what needs to be learned on chalkboards, and keep watch as the young people who come under our care for a short while hurry by on their way to the world.
We talk less now. There are car rides and Sunday mornings and entire meals when Mimi and I don’t speak a word to each other. Not out of anger or punishment, but we’ve learned that grief can sometimes get loud, and when it does, we try not to speak over it.
I’m ashamed to remember that we did not reach out to Lydia sooner than we did. Good reason or not, we kept our distance from her in those unreal days between what happened and the funerals. She lost her son the same way we had, and still we had no words for her. When we spoke in January, I told her I was sorry it had been so long since she’d heard from us, and that she had been and would continue to be in our prayers. I asked her to let us know if June turned up, and she said of course and I promised the same. We stayed on the line for a few breaths of uncomfortable silence, and then we said good-bye.
A month later, from the Moonstone, Mimi dialed Lydia’s number again, but it just rang and rang. We tried a few more times but each time it was the same. This was the day after we checked in, when we first saw June. It was early, and Mimi and I had been up and showered and getting ready to go for a walk down the beach and around the old neighborhood. Just before we left the room, we saw June cross like a ghost in front of our window. She was wearing the same clothes she wore the night of the rehearsal and the unreal days after. It was just a moment, but she looked the same, only thinner, less animated. We didn’t see her again until that evening, just after the sun had gone down. The four of us had walked to the water’s edge at sunset to spread Will’s ashes. The surf was rough and the cloud cover was thick, so there was no grand ceremonial sunset as we’d hoped. Just the chilly surf and a pewter sky and Pru, knee-deep in the ocean, shaking the small ceramic container where we’d kept Will’s ashes all year. Once the last bit of ash had finally disappeared, Pru came back to where we stood on the beach. We circled her and, with Mike, threw our arms around each other and we wept. We stood together for a long time. I’ve never been one to go to church, but I’ve always believed in a creative intelligence behind the ongoing riddle of the world. To that great force I prayed to guide Will’s soul wherever it was and to protect my family. The second prayer was a selfish one. Shoulder to shoulder on that beach I couldn’t bear the idea of losing any of them. Yet I knew we would, one by one, lose each other. Life never felt so gifted. Mike let go first and nudged us away from the encroaching water. Reluctantly, I let go, t
oo, and we began to make our way back to our rooms.
A light mist was in the gusting wind, and by the time we reached the Moonstone we were drenched. The lights in Room 6 were on, and as we neared the building, we saw Cissy step out the door, shut it behind her, and head toward home. Before the door was closed all the way, we could see June, arms across her chest, standing very still. She did not see us, nor did Cissy. How strange it was to see such a significant figure from Will’s past, from ours, leaving June Reid’s room. And how strange that Cissy hadn’t come by to see us since Rebecca and Kelly must have told her we’d checked in. Whatever her reasons, when Mimi and I got back to the room that night, we tried Lydia’s number one more time, only to hear it ring without answer. Mimi pulled a pen from her purse and began writing a note on the small pad of Moonstone stationery. We’d get an envelope and stamp from Kelly the next morning and post it to Lydia with an address no more specific than Main Street, Wells, Connecticut. We hoped it would find her.
Lydia
The kitchen is dark. A tinny laugh track from the TV in the apartment upstairs spells the silence. Lydia pulls her chair closer to the kitchen table, and as she does, it softly scrapes the floor. She holds the receiver to her ear with both hands and asks Winton if he is still there.
Always, he answers calmly, as if he’s been waiting to say this exact word.
Good . . . just stay there. Lydia draws in a deep breath and exhales slowly. She’s still shaking from her run-in on the sidewalk with the boy who must be Kathleen Riley’s son and the woman who slapped her minutes ago, but she’s not afraid. She closes her eyes as she speaks.
I never told you about Rex. He’s someone I met at the Tap a long time ago. The Tap is a bar that’s been here forever and will stay here forever like the people who drink there. People like me. And like Earl, who went there every night until they threw him out for good a few years after we divorced. It takes a lot to get banned from the Tap, so that should give you an idea of the kind of guy he is. I guess if Earl hadn’t been thrown out of the Tap, I’d never have started going there in the first place, so if you think about it, I have Earl to thank for Rex. This was a long time after Earl, but I was still young enough to go there and not pay for drinks.
Maybe this starts with the fact that I was in my forties and still expecting free drinks. You’ve never seen me, Winton, but until not too long ago I could turn a few heads. It never did me any good, but it got me free drinks and that night it got me Rex. Rex was not from here but not from too far either. He owned a gym in Amenia and had a bunch of small businesses. I never could keep track of what he was doing, and he always had a story to explain a new car or a new motorcycle. Things sort of fell into his lap—TVs, log splitters, tires, snowmobiles—and I never understood exactly how. It didn’t matter to me. He was funny and liked to take me to nice restaurants. This was when I still thought going to a nice restaurant meant something.
Lydia’s voice has risen. She is not shouting, but she speaks with purpose, and swiftly, with the energy that comes from making connections, detecting a pattern, figuring something out. It is, she knows soon after she begins, a story she’s in a hurry to finish.
Besides my son and my ex-husband, Earl, the longest relationship I’ve had with a man is with Rex. Luke was in high school then and still living with me, but he was never around. He had swimming practice and college applications and whatever girlfriend he was running with.
When Rex came along, it felt good to have my own plans, different company besides my son, who’d been my whole life since he was born. It felt a little too good because I didn’t pay close enough attention to what should have been warning signs. Rex would disappear for a few days without giving me a heads-up, and at first it seemed strange but after a while I got used to it. Also, there were stories that didn’t add up—like yours, Winton, names that would change, places and times that didn’t match—but I got used to that, too, and told myself none of it mattered. When he was around, Rex was fun. He could be mysterious and unreliable, but he made me laugh. Like Earl could. Like you.
Luke never bothered me about Rex. He was respectful, but I could tell he didn’t like him. He never said so, but with Luke you could always tell how he felt about someone by the way he listened to them. His face would either be open or closed—there is no better way to describe it—and with Rex he was closed, like he knew whatever was coming out of his mouth was bullshit. This was not a talent he got from me. I’ve only ever recognized bullshit once I was covered in it. Like now.
A few weeks after Luke graduated from high school, Rex asked to borrow the car. It was on a Saturday afternoon that he asked, and he needed it to run errands the next day. Something was wrong with his Corvette, he told me, and promised he’d have the car back by evening. I remember Luke was annoyed because our deal was that I had the car for work during the week and he could use it on weekends. I don’t remember what I said exactly, but reluctantly he agreed.
So Rex slept over Saturday night, and on Sunday morning, before I was awake, he took off. Three or four hours later he called me from a jail in Beacon. He’d been pulled over by a state trooper near Kingston, and a large amount of cocaine was found in the car. He asked me to post bail but I didn’t have access to that kind of money; so his lawyer, a man with a woman’s name, Carol, somehow got the money and he was out the next morning. What Rex told me outside the courthouse that day was that the drugs were not his. That they were Luke’s and that he’d been hiding them in the car. He even said he’d heard him on the phone arranging drop-offs and deals and never told me because he wanted to protect me. Winton, you told me you wanted to protect me, too. Do you remember? From your bosses? Why would I need you to protect me from people who run a lottery I’d supposedly won? That’s when I should have hung up the phone on you, but I didn’t. And when Rex told me he’d been protecting me from the truth about Luke, I should have turned my back and walked away. But I didn’t. I listened. Just like I listened to you. I actually listened. I listened to his lawyer, too, who told me that Luke would be in jail for ten years if he didn’t plead guilty. A few days later, I listened to the DA, who told me the drugs were in one of Luke’s gym bags with his school ID and other belongings, some swim goggles and a portable CD player. He also told me that a dealer from White Plains, a guy by the name of Ray Hale, who’d been busted around the same time, gave a statement that Luke was his distributor in Litchfield County. He said he also had two more people to testify that they’d bought cocaine from Luke. When I found out that Rex and this Ray Hale had the same lawyer, Rex told me it was a coincidence, that there are only so many people who handle drug cases in the Hudson Valley. And guess what? I believed him. I believed all of them. All of them except my son, who begged me to get him a good lawyer, who recruited teachers and coaches and friends to testify and write letters on his behalf. Everyone in his life stood by him, but I failed him. I did worse than fail him.
The afternoon after Rex’s arrest, three police officers showed up at the apartment with a search warrant. I called Luke’s public defender, who said they had probable cause because not only did they have depositions claiming Luke was a dealer, they found the drugs in his gym bag in a car that he drove regularly. He told me I didn’t have a choice but to let them search the place. So I let them in, and as if they’d been given a map in advance they went straight to Luke’s bedroom and in less than a few minutes found two more bags of cocaine stuffed in a coffee can under his bed. It was like being in a nightmare. Luke, who had been watching from the hallway with me, went crazy. Yelling that he’d been framed, that Rex must have planted the drugs there in case he was caught. He yelled at me, too. Told me I had ruined his life by bringing Rex into our lives. I don’t think I really understood how right he was until the police officers wrestled him to the kitchen floor and handcuffed him while one of them read his rights. And still, I didn’t protect him. I should have thrown myself on that car and screamed and yelled until the cops and the judges and the lawyers all
believed that I was the one responsible for the drugs. I should have been the one to go to prison. My life was nothing and Luke’s was just beginning. But I did not move. I did not yell. I did nothing as I watched the police drive my son away.
