She said, speaking past a sudden ball of agony in her throat, “Tomorrow. I think it’s best.”
“No.”
She broke their gaze, afraid that someone would appear; she could hear voices not too far away, and surely even a blind person would see the air vibrating between them. Matthew said, low, “Please don’t go yet, Bryce.”
Her heart was throbbing so hard she could barely hear her own response. “I have to.” And a flash of sudden anger gave her the fortitude to hiss, “I can’t stay here and be this near you when I can’t have you!”
He breathed hard through his nose, angry suddenly, too, but only on the surface; beneath that was a chasm of swirling panic at the thought of her exiting his life for good. She looked up at him, her own eyes just as tortured, and whispered, “I just can’t.”
And then she turned and forced herself to walk away.
Cody ended up saving her that afternoon; they were supposed to have lunch at the Rose Lake Lodge, an event which Bryce was dreading with white-hot intensity, but in the car on the way Cody said, “Mommy, I think I have to throw up!”
Erica made it to the shoulder just in time; she hopped deftly out and got him bent over the ditch as Bryce, unable to remain sitting, joined them and put her hand on Cody’s back beneath Erica’s. He heaved and heaved as his sisters watched out the car window, Evelyn in sympathy, Emma offering commentary. “Yuck, Code. I told you not to eat all that syrup this morning. Eeeewww, now it’s all chunky!”
“Shut-UP, Em—” he swung around to say, but another wave of nausea hit him and Erica said firmly, “This way, buddy.”
All in all, it was the perfect excuse not to go; Bryce heard herself volunteering to drop Erica and the girls at the Lodge and then take Cody home.
“Oh, honey, are you sure?” Erica looked exhausted, back in the hot car again, her hands dangling limply from the steering wheel. Cody, who’d been given the passenger seat, tilted his pale face at the open window and Emma said, “Ug, you smell!”
“I’m sure,” Bryce said. “I don’t feel all that well, either, if you want the truth.”
Coward, she berated herself.
“Thank you, sweetie,” Erica said.
Cody was tucked into bed 30 minutes later, a glass of cola on the nighttable. His eyelids fluttered, and Bryce asked softly, “Do you need anything else, kiddo?”
He shook his head weakly.
“I’ll be on the porch, okay?”
Outside the day had drifted into afternoon, and Bryce, after changing into a pair of jeans, curled herself on the swing and smoked, keeping her ears perked for any sounds of Cody approaching; she felt reasonably sure he was asleep, but still. For whatever reason, she didn’t want the kids knowing she smoked. She gave in and lit a fourth with the tail end of the third, wanting to punish herself, seeking refuge in the familiar bad habit, determined not to think about the look in Matthew’s eyes as she told him she must go.
Oh, God, the way he looked at her. She drew her knees to her belly, drew deeply on her cig, her hand trembling. The force of it made her feel limp and helpless. Her heart pounded and suddenly she couldn’t be sitting here with just her thoughts for company. She rose and ground out her smoke in the soil of a nearby planter, one full of purple petunias, which gave off a fragrance nearly as sweet as the lilacs. She pit-stopped in the downstairs bathroom to flush the butts, and then wandered into the living room, her eyes catching sight of a wooden bookshelf jammed with photo albums.
Like a pirate plunging both arms into a chest of gold, she stacked five under her chin, reclaimed her seat on the swing and proceeded to torture herself further. Greedy for any picture of him, she turned pages and pages.
Imagine someone cataloguing life like this, she thought intermittently. Someone who cared enough to capture these moments, get them printed out and then slip them in albums to be preserved for years. God, do they know how fucking lucky they are? Do they?
Matthew’s mother had been gorgeous. Though most of the albums were relatively recent, jammed with photos of Erica, Wilder, and their kids, one, a white book with gold embossing, was obviously much older. Bryce held it close to examine the woman and Daniel, Matthew’s father and her grandfather. Most of the pictures were black and whites, but some were in color, and Bryce studied these minutely. Lydia had the face of a china doll: high forehead, arching eyebrows, satin cheeks and delicate pink lips. Her hair was the glistening shade of honey-blond that women spend years attempting to achieve with dye, which only made her dark, long-lashed eyes more vivid. Matthew had her eyes exactly. Daniel was much older than Lydia, and Bryce searched his face for traces of his youngest son, finding that she could see Wilder and her mother much more clearly in his eyes like a cloudless sky and the shape of his face. Something about his smile suggested Matthew, though, and he was certainly a tall, broad-shouldered man, towering over his young wife in one shot, perhaps at Easter, in which she was holding a tiny Matthew. Michelle and Wilder posed in front of them, the entire family dressed in a pastel rainbow of formal clothing.
Jackpot, Bryce thought, her heart hammering as she opened the last of the albums in the stack and found herself staring directly into Matthew’s senior picture. It was the shot for the yearbook, probably, and she smiled tenderly at the sight of his dark hair falling past his shoulders, long enough for a ponytail. Her breath caught as she lightly traced an index finger over the full curve of his wide mouth, her belly weightless at the memory of those lips all over her body. She touched his eyebrows, thick and dark over his beautiful smiling eyes, ran her fingers down the straight line of his nose, the twin dimples in his lean cheeks, his neck, just visible above a red letter jacket. He appeared to be genuinely grinning for the camera, and she felt weighted and heady with desire just gazing at this 8x10 of him.
The next page made her blood boil: here he was posing with the woman from the cemetery, obviously for their prom. Bryce felt a vindictive satisfaction to observe that her hair was terrible in a classic late-80s spiral perm, ratted and stiff with hairspray. But there was no denying her attractiveness, and the short, tight black dress left little to the imagination. Matthew’s big hands were wrapped around her waist as they posed smiling beneath an arch of red and silver balloons.
God, what was my junior-high self doing as Matthew had this picture taken? I was living every day and didn’t even know he existed, when he was here all this time…living his life, too. Moving toward the moment years later when they would meet off a four-lane stretch of I-35, in a shitty motel in Middleton, Oklahoma…the place which would now be forever enshrined in her memory; as she moved further and further away in time from the night they had shared there, it would be all she had left to cling to.
Bryce flipped the pages and jealously studied all of the pictures: Matthew on his graduation; at the campground, with Riley and Debbie; with other friends she didn’t recognize; with his father, Wilder, Erica, the kids. She felt obsessed and removed from herself, drifting to places she had never before been, and when she came across a picture of him taken as he lifted himself out of the lake and onto the dock amidst a diamond arc of droplets, snapped just as his biceps were bulging, his hands braced on the dock boards, his eyes shut and his head tipped slightly back, as though he hadn’t a clue the photo was being shot, she made a sound that she had never heard emerge from her own throat, and slipped it from beneath the cellophane.
Never again was she without that picture.
***
Hours later she and Cody were sitting on the dock chucking pebbles, watching the glinting, ever-shifting sun path over the lake lengthen slowly as the afternoon waned. Bryce found the little boy’s company utterly enjoyable; he told her everything about the campground, especially its animal inhabitants. Once, apparently, he and Emma had found two raccoon babies, which they had raised at the campground and kept as famous pets for two years.
“What happened to them?” she asked, and then cried, “Don’t fall in!”
He looked over at
her. “Can’t you swim?”
“It’s not that,” she said, glancing uneasily at the murky indigo depths around the dock. “What about the snakes?”
Cody, not yet in that stage of boyhood in which every female comment such as hers is fodder for teasing, said seriously, “Oh…I don’t think there’s any around here. I’ve only ever seen them at the beach.”
“Okay,” she said, still unconvinced. “If you say so.” She sat cross-legged, her jeans rolled to the middle of her calves, not even brave enough to dip her toes. “So what happened to the raccoons?”
“They got big enough to live on their own, so Grandpa and me took them out to the woods and let them free. They used to hang around some, but I haven’t seen them since last summer. Uncle Matty said they got married and have their own babies now.”
Bryce smiled, wrapping her hands around her bare feet. Her sandals were at the end of the dock, where it met the damp grass. She said, “What else does Uncle Matty say?”
“He says that when I get bigger we’ll go skiing up north,” Cody said importantly, changing positions swiftly, dropping to his belly near her and dangling his hands over the edge of the dock. “He’s a good skier. Him and Angie always go skiing. ‘Cept for last winter, when they broke up.”
Bryce swallowed hard, studied the far bank where pine trees grew densely. She felt slightly ashamed of herself, interrogating Cody this way, but she asked, “Was Uncle Matty pretty sad?”
Cody pursed up his lips, considered for a moment. Bryce realized she was holding her breath and let it out in small increments. “Noooo,” the little boy said at last. “He told Daddy she wasn’t the one. The one what?”
“Ahhh—” Bryce was at a sudden loss. “What did your daddy say?”
“Daddy told Uncle Matty that the one is Mom!” Cody giggled. “But how can Mom be the one?”
Bryce ruffled his hair. “Your dad and mom are the one for each other. It means they’re happy.”
“I know that!” he said, and peered at her over his shoulder with a freckled grin. “Grandpa said they were born for each other.”
Bryce smiled at him and from a quarter-mile away, the sounds of engines rumbled. Cody hopped to his feet. “Everybody’s back! Come on! I hope Mom brought something to eat!”
He bounded off in a flash of blond curls and Bryce hurried to catch up, stooping to hook her sandals with one hand. She didn’t bother to put them on, just jogged after Cody. In the clearing by the house, Erica was unloading paper sacks from the backseat. Evelyn and Emma, their arms full, were climbing the steps. Wilder let down the tailgate and the two huge dogs from the campground tore out of the truckbed and galloped across the lawn at Cody, barking hysterically. Bryce searched the yard for any sign of Matthew, observed none, and felt disappointment land like a leaded weight against her breastbone.
“Hey, let me help,” she said, hurrying over to grab several of the bags from Erica.
“Well, I see our little guy is feeling lots better,” his mother observed as Cody tore after the dogs toward the far end of the yard. “Thank you again, Bryce. How are you feeling?”
“Oh, better, too,” she lied, trying to smile. She was being anything but subtle, and tried to keep the desperation from her voice. “Isn’t Matthew with you guys?”
Erica headed for the porch. “Oh, he and Riley decided to stay and have a beer. He needed one. It’s been a hard day for all of us, but Matty especially.”
Our last night. And he’s not here. He’s not here. A rush of panic tried to spiral up her throat, and for a moment she knew she couldn’t walk forward another step…her knees would surely buckle under her…but Wilder came behind her and said, “Here, let me, honey,” thinking that she was carrying too much.
“Thanks,” she whispered, and followed him inside, could do nothing but follow him inside.
Erica unpacked about 20 containers of food, all left over from the lunch at Rose Lake Lodge. The girls had disappeared to change out of their formal outfits, and Cody was virtually alone with the bounty, excited to pile a paper plate with chicken legs, potato salad, spare ribs and jello squares. Bryce made it upstairs before vomiting to the point of weakness in the small guest bathroom, then tipped her forehead against the cool porcelain edge of the nearby tub, breathing shallowly, thinking that if she could make it through tonight, she would be home by this time tomorrow.
Not home, she corrected herself. That place isn’t home. But at least away from here. Oh, God… And her stomach rebelled, lashing her body back over the toilet.
Saturday, May 12, 1973 - Rose Lake, Minnesota
The girls were lying in the twin beds in Rae’s dark room. Caroline had just stuck her head in the door and told them to be quiet for the third time, and they were trying hard to restrain their giggling. Rae leaned and passed Michelle the small stainless steel flask they’d filled with wine; Rae’s boyfriend of five months, Jeremy Ryan, had lent it to her for the weekend.
“So what’s with you and my brother?” Rae demanded in a whisper, and Michelle almost choked on a swallow of sangria. She told Rae just about everything, but Bar was so concerned about what people would say, since he was 19 and Michelle two years younger. When Michelle didn’t answer, Rae teased, “Have you gone all the way with him or what?”
“Raellen! Of course not! Dad would kill me!”
Rae snorted loudly. “Shell, he wouldn’t even know. So, have you? Oh my God, you have to tell me. Are you going to be my future sister-in-law, or what?”
Michelle snuggled her jaw into the soft pillow, still not answering, and was suddenly thunked by a flying pillow. Rae followed the pillow a split second later, landing on the slim strip of space on the mattress beside her best friend and tugging at the covers as Michelle squeaked and then started laughing, trying to shove Rae onto the floor.
“Girls!” yelled Caroline from the hallway, and they froze, shoving the covers against their mouths to muffle their laughter. She sounded about three or four drinks in; really just the start of the weekend marathon for her. Bar and his dad were still at the Lodge.
“Just tell me!” Rae demanded again. Her voice was serious, and even in the dark room, Michelle could see the sincerity in her eyes. “Seriously, Michelle, if you and Bar work out I think that would be the greatest. You want to know what? I think he’s crazy about you.”
Michelle felt a warm flood of happiness just beneath the skin, a feeling she was not accustomed to experiencing. She clutched Rae’s hands for a moment, smiling brightly. “I think I love him, Rae,” she confessed, and Rae squeaked, clutching her best friend’s hands right back.
“Oh, Shell,” she said. “But have you two…”
“No,” Michelle said. “Not yet. Probably not even soon. Bar is pretty hung up on our age differences.”
“Someday it won’t even matter,” Rae assured her. “It’s just right now. Shit, Mom and Daddy are like six years apart.”
“Rae, you won’t tell him I said that, will you?”
“No, of course not. You can tell him yourself, when you’re ready.” Like romantically inclined 17-year-old girls everywhere, they were utterly convinced and satisfied by a sudden imagined future. Rae bent and kissed Michelle’s cheek, then snuggled affectionately against her. “Bar will marry you, and you can move out of that terrible house and be happy. No more Lydia!”
A moment had passed when Rae was all at once startled out of her dreamy imaginings of Michelle and Bar’s wedding. Michelle suddenly tipped forward and buried her face in her hands. She was weeping, Rae realized, and wrapped one arm around her best friend’s shaking shoulders. “What is it, Shell? What’s wrong?”
Michelle lifted her face, tears shining in steaks, catching the faint light from the single window. “I have to tell someone,” she said then, and Rae’s hazel eyes widened into perfect circles at the tone of her voice.
“What are you talking about, Shell?”
“Lydia,” she whispered fiercely, and then, “Rae, you can never tell anyone this, do
you swear on our friendship?”
“Of course!”
“I know something terrible about her and my father,” Michelle said then, her voice low and raspy from the lump in her throat. “But I only found out by accident.”
Rae, though dying of curiosity, remained silent, forcing herself to wait. Michelle swiped at her eyes with her chilly fingertips, then continued. “It’s about Matty.”
“Matty?”
“Just wait. It’s hard to explain.” Michelle took a long swallow of the wine, found the courage to continue. “A few summers ago I heard Lydia having an argument with someone. About Matty.” Rae nodded avidly. “And I wasn’t supposed to be hearing it, it was all an accident.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Matty isn’t my father’s son,” Michelle said in a rush, the secret she’d kept severely for the last two and half years pouring out like poison, something of which she was eminently glad to be rid.
Rae was speechless.
“It’s so impossible to see Dad and not be able to tell him,” Michelle went on, after another deep drink. She was beginning to feel the small campfire glow of the booze in her belly. “But I’m scared of Lydia, Rae. She’s crazy. She made me swear I wouldn’t tell. I think she would try to hurt me, I really do.”
“Then who’s his daddy?” Rae shouted in a whisper.
“This is even worse,” Michelle said, and gripped Rae’s upper arm with clenched fingers. “You promise me on a stack of Bibles that you won’t tell a soul?”
The intensity in Michelle’s voice frightened Rae a little, but she whispered, “I swear, Shell.”
“It’s…Jere and Lew’s daddy, Rae. John Ryan.”
Rae was again speechless, her eyes so wide that Michelle could see a rim of white around her irises.
“Rae, say something!”
Rae blinked. When she spoke, her voice was low with horror. “John Ryan cheated on his wife? Shell, I just had supper with them the night before last! They seemed so normal.” Then something else occurred to her. “Does your dad know?”
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