by Sophie Gunn
Annie loved him when he agreed with her? Withdrew her affection when he stood his ground?
He wasn’t hungry anymore.
“So you’re saying it’s okay to keep the money?” Annie bit into the bacon with her front teeth, like a teenager splitting a piece of gum to share with a friend.
Meghan had lost interest in eating and was busy mashing pieces of potato on her tray.
Tommy needed more from Annie. He didn’t want to fall in line behind her like a meek puppy dog, starved for affection.
Even if he was that, just a little bit.
He shook his head. “It’s not okay. The money might not even be hers. It’s just a hunch. But I gotta tell you, I didn’t like this girl. She seemed careless, uncaring. So if it’ll make you happy, we won’t turn in the money. But let’s do something good with it. Charity.”
“Oh, God, no! Let’s do something reckless and irresponsible. Let’s take this new Tommy all the way.”
The challenge hung in the air between them. Tommy pushed back his chair and took his plate to the sink. He scraped his food into the trash. “Like what? You want to blow it in a spa? On a fancy dinner in New York City? It’s all empty, Annie. It’s nothing.” He rinsed the plate and put it into the dishwasher, his anger rising. She wanted to challenge him? He’d challenge her. But how?
He went back with a sponge for Meghan’s tray.
“No, no, no. Stop cleaning and think of something crazy, Tommy. You be the one. Make it something wild.”
“Is this some kind of test?” He looked out the window over the sink at the play set he was building in the back yard. Wild. She wanted wild…
“Yeah, I guess it is.” Now her arms were crossed.
He thought of all the important things they could do with the money. Give it to the food kitchen, the church. Or maybe a hundred hours of babysitting. Give the money to Paige so she could do two hours a week all year long and give Annie a break.
Or maybe blow it all on marriage counseling.
He wasn’t ready to have that fight. Plus, it seemed like reconciliation, and he was in no mood to reach out to Annie. So instead he said the first thought that entered his mind: “Let’s throw it off the Campus Road Bridge and back into the gorge.” The wave of anger that had been roiling in his gut stopped cold as if it had been flash-frozen. An odd, chilly peace descended over him. He unstrapped Meghan from her seat and took her to the sink to wash her hands and face.
Annie’s mouth dropped open. “No way.”
“If you don’t want to, then don’t. It’s your money. But don’t bug me about it anymore. I don’t want to hear about it. I’ve said my part. I’ve done what I could. You know what I think.”
“Drop a thousand bucks off the bridge?” she asked. Her voice was breathless. “Why?”
“Do it and see what happens. Watch to see where it goes. Watch to see who finds it. Watch to see what they do with it.”
“Why, Tommy?” she repeated.
“Annie, if we don’t get rid of this money, we’re done. We can’t ever agree on it. Ever. We have to get rid of it.” He sat down, adjusting to the new climate in the room as if he’d opened a window. The idea had come to him blown in on the breeze, changing the air around him.
“You’re saying, toss the money or toss me,” Annie said.
Meghan looked up at him and flashed the sweetest baby smile. Tommy smiled back, mesmerized by Meghan’s soft, wispy blonde hair, her tiny hands, her perfection. “Make a choice, Annie. The money or us. I choose us.”
Annie hedged. “I don’t know, Tommy. How would it work? Would we drop it as a package, or open it and let the bills float around? Would we do it when there were lots of people around? Or at midnight?”
“It doesn’t matter how we do it. All that matters is that we do it.” He felt remarkably calm, cleansed even. “Next time Meghan wakes up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep, we bundle her up, go out, and do it.”
“You’re crazy, Tommy. It’s a waste.”
“It’s not. It’s necessary. And then, once it’s gone, we figure out what’s left.”
CHAPTER
38
I can’t do this anymore,” Tay said. They were naked on his bed, spent from their intense lovemaking.
“Rather unconvincing,” Lizzie said, glancing down at him. She had been dreading this conversation ever since he’d told her about seeing Candy.
He scowled at his traitorous body. “Always the last to get the message.”
Lizzie rolled onto her stomach next to him.
He lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He had told her the whole story about running into Candy at the restaurant. “I can’t forget the look on her face when she saw me. I knew I’d run into her eventually—such a small town. But I didn’t think it would be like that. I thought I was honestly getting used to the idea that we could both be in this town.”
“What was it like?” Lizzie asked.
“Like me, so happy. And her, so alone. Liz, every night for the past week, I’ve been driving my truck a little farther out of town. But then, I always turn back.”
“How far’d you make it, Speed Racer?” she teased. But she softened her words with a kiss on his forehead. The truth was, she was terrified. He really was going to leave.
“Almost to Trumanstown,” he said. Trumanstown was less than five miles away. “Okay, so quick getaways aren’t my thing. Liz, I turn back for you. But it’s getting harder to justify, because you keep making me happier and happier, which makes me feel guiltier and guiltier. Lizzie, I don’t think I have any choice but to leave.”
“We can figure this out,” she assured him. “Somehow.”
He got up and started pacing. “I don’t know. What right do I have to hang around this town? For the next few months, it’s Candy’s town. I could come back when she’s gone—oh, hell, that isn’t much better. Every student I’d see, I’d think of her getting kicked out of school and me here, with you, so happy.”
“We’ll find a way. Candy doesn’t own this town. Just because she’s right doesn’t mean she gets to rule you.”
“You sure? I think it means exactly that. What kind of schmuck moves into the tiny town where the girl lives who—” He shook his head, unable to finish. He sat back down on the edge of the bed and let his head hang.
“It’s like everyone trying to run me out of town when I was pregnant, Tay. They don’t get to set the rules just because we made the mistakes.”
He thought about that. “It’s not the same, though. What if Ethan had stayed?”
“I’d have hated him, but I’d have gotten over it and in the end, it would have been better for Paige. Tay, don’t leave. Don’t do this.” She could hear the desperation in her voice and she hated it.
“Let’s talk about something else. Anything else. You never told me about setting Georgia on fire. That would cheer me up,” he said. He’d been down on Georgia ever since Lizzie’d told him that Georgia had warned her to stay away from him. He traced her nipple with his thumb. “Please, just talk.”
She smiled. “Actually, it’s the perfect story. Because my relationship with Georgia is a little like yours and Candy’s. Georgia was always right. Always. She had innocence and goodness on her side.”
He lay back and closed his eyes. “I hate those people.”
“Me, too. I had hated Georgia since forever. Since preschool. She was one of those kids who was a know-it-all teacher’s pet. We weren’t exactly enemies the way Jill and I were, with the constant fighting. Georgia and I mostly stayed away from each other. By high school she had turned into a fussy, self-righteous prude. She hadn’t ever done anything to me but scorn me for not being smart enough, and I never did anything to her but maybe tease her a little for being such a geek. Never to her face, though. Deep down, I hated her a little more than even Jill, because I hated how self-righteous she was. Like she thought her way was always better than everyone else’s.”
“She’s s
till a little that way,” Tay pointed out.
“She is. And she’s still usually right,” Lizzie said.
Tay shook his head. “Not about the important things. Not about us.”
“Yeah, those people never are right about the key stuff, are they?” Lizzie asked. “Anyway, when news of my pregnancy got out, Georgia was the editor of the school paper. She published a letter from the editor about the irresponsibility of teenage promiscuity that was so obviously about me, she might as well have used my name.”
“Ouch.”
“I didn’t pay it much attention. I had more important things to deal with. But it got worse. She wouldn’t leave it at that. She made it her personal mission to redeem poor little old me.”
“Why?”
“She’d found God. And of course, he took her side. She’d come to my house and bang on the door and beg to talk to me. After it became clear that I wasn’t going to invite her in for tea, she started to shove pamphlets and personal letters through the front-door mail slot. The pamphlets were mostly about hell and damnation, illustrated with red-tinged gory pictures of fire and demons. The letters were about the same, just without the pictures. Boy, could she write a scary story. I had sinned, you see, and I had to ask for forgiveness.”
“From her?” Tay asked.
“It sure seemed that way. Anyway, I ignored her. Stuffed her propaganda in the trash. But then, one Sunday morning, I was in bed, sick as a dog with morning sickness. And I heard singing.”
“Singing?”
“Yep. Outside on my porch. I came downstairs and my parents had pulled all the blinds and my mother was in the kitchen, weeping, saying we’d have to move. It was awful. Georgia had assembled a prayer vigil to save my soul on my front porch. They seemed to think that since I was unwed, as they put it, I was going to hell unless I repented. I don’t know what they wanted me to do—marry one of them? Hunt down Ethan and marry him? At least I was having the baby. Can’t imagine what they would have done if I’d decided not to do that.”
“So what happened?”
“I was furious. And doubly hormonal. Remember I was a teenager and I was pregnant and my mother was wailing in the kitchen. So maybe I went a little nuts.”
“I can’t wait to hear this,” Tay said.
“I probably shouldn’t have lit that broom on fire and waved it at them, screaming that the devil had arrived and he was me and if I was going to hell, then damn it, they were coming with me.” She paused. “I hadn’t meant to set Georgia’s jacket on fire, but she wasn’t as fast as the rest of them. There wasn’t any real damage. Georgia, naturally, was an expert at the drop and roll, being that kind of girl. She didn’t get burned. Just ruined the jacket, which was butt ugly anyway. Tweed, if you can imagine a teenager in tweed.” Lizzie shuddered. “Stop laughing, it wasn’t funny. She told everyone that I’d set her on fire and it was true and my parents were beyond furious at me.”
“Were you sorry?” Tay asked.
“No. It was one of the best days of my life.”
They lay side by side for a while.
“Tay, you can’t let anyone tell you what to do. Even if they’re right. I had done bad. I knew it. But no one, no one, had the right to demand I apologize. No one had the right to run me out of town.”
“I don’t know, Liz. I don’t know that the story applies. I wronged another person.”
“Sure it does. They thought I’d wronged my unborn baby.”
“So how did Georgia ever forgive you?”
“Jill and I were at the diner one Wednesday and we got to talking about Georgia and I decided to send her a letter, to invite her to our club. Poor Georgia had wanted to leave town after high school. She thought she’d go to Harvard or Yale, but her parents fell on hard times. Her dad was a Galton professor, but there was a scandal—”
Tay’s eyebrows rose.
“I know! Her dad had messed around with a student, and he’d lost his job. But her mom worked in the library, so she had Galton benefits. Including almost free tuition if Georgia stayed and went to school here. Georgia had no choice, and the family couldn’t leave and give up the cheap tuition. Georgia still had two brothers who needed to go to college, and her dad would never work at a university again. I knew she was miserable about going to Galton, because all she ever talked about was leaving here and going to Harvard, then Yale divinity school.”
“So she never left Galton after that? What about Yale?”
“She was so upset about how her life had fallen apart, she had lost her faith in God. She was a teenager. It felt like the end of the world to her to have to go to this fantastic school in this beautiful place for practically free. We laugh about it now, but at the time, she was miserable. I used to see her sometimes, scurrying around town, her head down. She was getting fatter and fatter. Sometimes, it seemed as if she was also getting shorter. She was always alone.”
“So one day, she’s scurrying by, and Jill just runs out and grabs her. Invites her in. Tells her that we’re having a reunion of sorts.”
“So she joined you guys willingly?”
“Yep. And the next Wednesday, she came back.”
“Just like that,” Tay said.
“Just like that,” Lizzie agreed. “And, Tay, if she had run away from Galton, like you want to do, no one would have ever had the chance to forgive anyone. She’s my good friend now. She has a point of view that isn’t always right, but it’s always thoughtful and deep and nuanced in ways I often miss.”
“I don’t know, Lizzie. It’s not the same. I hurt Candy worse than I can imagine.”
“Don’t hurt me, Tay,” Lizzie whispered.
“Come with me,” he whispered back.
She sat up, startled at the offer. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“My life is here. Where would we go?”
“I don’t know. Come to Queens with me. I’m going to start over.”
“I can’t run around. I have a daughter. A family. A house. A life. I can’t just start over.”
He held her close. “I know. It was just a Hail Mary pass.”
The next day, Tay came for dinner. When Paige had gone upstairs to do homework, he took Lizzie’s hands. “I haven’t slept in days,” he said.
She steeled herself for what she knew was coming.
“I’ve thought it through and thought it through again. Liz, I’m going to stay until Ethan comes, so that you’ll have what you wanted—a man to be here for you so that Paige can follow her dream. But then, Lizzie, I have to leave.”
“I know,” she said. She wasn’t going to beg again. He’d made his decision. It didn’t make it hurt any less, but at least she looked brave. “I’m sorry, I can’t come with you.”
“I know,” he said. “I’m going to beat this thing. I’m going to make it right.”
“I know,” she said. “I have total faith in you.” He was like a bird that had to migrate to survive. “But I’m not a saint, Tay. I can’t wait forever.”
“You won’t have to,” he said.
The birds always came back, she told herself.
They were smart enough to come back.
She hoped that Tay would be, too.
But sometimes, smart wasn’t enough. Sometimes, life was just too full of dangers.
CHAPTER
39
The second week of November brought a freak early blizzard that dumped a foot of snow, and Paige became a stranger. The minute school let out, Paige and her friends hitched rides from whoever would take them, piling into cars for the twenty-minute drive to Meeks Peak, the local mountain. They rode their tubes or chutes or whatever they called the death traps they raced down in an unimaginable array of dangerous variations.
Tay kept putting off the lessons he’d promised Paige he’d take. Ever since running into Candy, he’d hardly gone anywhere but their house and his cabin at the lake. He’d quit his job on campus the day after running into her at the restaurant, as that, naturally, was
the most dangerous place of all. He’d taken up doing odd jobs in Trumanstown, the next town over, for various people, but he wouldn’t work in Galton and Lizzie got the feeling he did it more to keep busy than for the cash. Lizzie felt as if they were hanging on by a string that was getting more and more frayed every day, but they had stopped talking about it. There was only so much to say, and she was determined to enjoy the time they still had together.
Tommy’s grill tank had finally emptied, and they celebrated the end of Friday night burgers with Chinese food at Lizzie’s. It was a testament to Annie’s feeling better that they were able to eat there. Lizzie was still curious about Annie’s mysterious visit to her house for the sweater, but after asking point-blank, and having Annie evade her, Lizzie had let it drop.
“I saw Paige had a new board,” Tommy said.
“Yeah. I have no idea where she got it. It must have cost a fortune.”
“She couldn’t steal a snowboard,” Annie said. “She might be telling the truth that she got it from friends.” Paige had not only a new board, but also a new coat and snow pants, and most disturbingly, she was somehow paying for daily private lessons. Lizzie had only known about that since last week, when Geena’s mother had told her. It took a lot of effort for Lizzie to pretend she wasn’t shocked. When she asked Paige about it, she said she’d been making money giving informal lessons to some of the smaller kids.
“I’m worried that she’s pushing herself too hard so she can impress her dad,” Lizzie said.
White jumped onto the table, and Lizzie pushed her down. Now that the snow had come, the cat had refused to leave Lizzie’s house. Sometimes, White, Dune, and Tay would all sleep over.
She liked having the animals around, but she worried that one day she’d wake up with White and Dune, but Tay would be gone.
• • •
Tay hoped to finish fixing the staircase before Thanksgiving. He was grateful for the worn treads, the wobbly posts, every detail he could attend to so he didn’t have to think about anything else. Like leaving.
