The Good Goodbye

by Carla Buckley

  Natalie

  DR. MORRIS SQUIRTS soap into her palm and pedals a splash of water into her cupped hands. She talks to us while she does this. “How are you? Have you been outside today? Did you see the game last night?” It’s clear her mind isn’t really on our responses and neither are ours. She yanks latex gloves from the cardboard box, picks up the flashlight from the bedside table, and goes over to check the machines, then Arden’s pupils.

  “How is she?” I ask, and Theo’s hand tightens on my shoulder. Dr. Morris doesn’t answer. She’s intent on what she’s doing. I want her to say, Don’t worry. Just a false alarm. Or, Here’s a nice surprise. But what she does say when at last she turns and strips the gloves from her hands is “Let’s talk in the hallway.”

  She tells us that the medication has brought the fluid buildup inside Arden’s skull back down within normal parameters, but just barely. I watch her lips form these words. Her brown hair is parted neatly down the middle and tucked back over each ear. She wears small pearls in her earlobes and I wonder if she’s taken the time to do this, or perhaps she inserted them weeks before and hasn’t yet gotten around to removing them. She tells us that she would like to see a greater drop and she’s a little concerned that it’s been four days with no real improvement. Four days. It seems like forty, the water rising and our little boat rocking dangerously to try to stay afloat. Arden’s not getting better. If anything, she’s starting to slide in the other direction. Stop it, I tell myself. Stop it.

  “You said it might take a while,” Theo reminds her.

  “Well, that’s still true. She’s young and healthy. She could surprise us, but I really was hoping to see more of an improvement by now.”

  “But she’s within normal range,” I say.

  “Yes, she is.”

  I should acknowledge this small victory with a bottle of expensive wine poured with great ceremony into a round glass. Instead, I am eyeing the choices in the vending machine and talking on the phone with my mother while Theo naps at the hotel.

  “Nothing yet,” my mom tells me. She has scanned every inch of the boys for signs of itchy red spots, despite their squirming insistence that they are fine. Henry put up a struggle, which she had quelled by telling him it was the only way he was going to be able to visit his sister. But it will be ten more days before they’re officially cleared. Where will we be then?

  “Potato chips or chocolate?” I ask my mom, and she says without hesitation, “Chocolate,” so I slot the coins into the vending machine and push the button. Mom knows about Hunter, having seen it on the news, and we’ve talked about the vigil that’s been planned. If you’re planning to attend, she said, I could drive up with the boys and meet you there. They don’t have to know what it’s about. They’ll just be happy to see you, but I had known that Oliver would understand exactly what all the candles were for and all the weeping people. Whenever I was driving and he was in the backseat, I had to avoid passing cemeteries. He’s a tombstone magnet, lurching forward in his booster seat and pointing out the window. Can we stop, Mommy? Please? If I could, if traffic was light and I had the fifteen minutes to spare, I’d pull over to let him wander through the rows of stone tablets, past the cement angels and stiff bundles of unnaturally bright plastic flowers while Henry found something to climb onto and leap off of. But Oliver’s the one who asked the questions I didn’t have the answers to. Why do people die? Will Percy go to Heaven, too? And here I am, still avoiding having to come up with the answers. What is it about me that makes me so afraid to talk about death? I haven’t always been such a coward. It’s motherhood. It tears you open; it exposes you. It tells you just how vulnerable you are.

  “Mom,” I say. “Theo’s planning to go to work tomorrow.”

  “I’ll tell the boys.”

  “I’m not sure he’ll have time to swing by the house. Mom, I want him to stay here.”

  “Oh. Well, of course you’d be worried about him on the highway, as tired as he must be.”

  “It’s not that. It’s…” I’m afraid. I’m feeling my walls of resolve start to crumble. I can’t lose faith. I can’t. Where will Arden be if I do?

  “Natalie?” my mother asks, and I say, “Nothing, Mom. May I talk with the boys?”

  They chorus over the phone, their voices echoing and scrambling over each other, hard to disentangle because my mother has turned on the speaker. It doesn’t matter what they’re saying so much as hearing them say it. They chatter about how Caleb wouldn’t share T-ball at recess so THEY TOLD THE MONITOR who is fat but really PREGNANT, how Janey won’t be in school for ONE WHOLE WEEK because she is CONTAGIOUS, they did all their HOMEWORK even the STUPID READING so can they please watch TV now? They remind me that tomorrow’s their field trip to the zoo. “Don’t worry,” Henry tells me. “I’ll keep an eye on Oliver.” But it’s not Oliver who has an absolute gift for sneaking away when his teacher’s attention is momentarily diverted. The permission slip had come home and I had glanced at the date and thought that surely after all these long months of struggling to turn Double around every single day I could take off one morning, so I had signed up to chaperone. The three of us had been looking forward to this, our first field trip together. They don’t say anything about their disappointment that I won’t be going after all, and I realize with sadness that my little boys are growing up.

  “Goodbye,” I tell them, and they chorus, “ ’Bye, MOMMY.”

  I’m walking past the family lounge when I see Gabrielle and Vince inside. He’s pacing and she’s talking in a low voice. I’m about to continue on, to leave them to their private conversation, when Vince turns and sees me. “Natalie,” he says. “Got a minute?”

  His voice is clipped. He’s upset about something. “Sure.”

  “Close the door, will you?”

  Puzzled, I shut the door behind me and come into the room. It’s dark outside, the window black, distant lights peppering the horizon. “What’s going on? Is it Rory?”

  Vince slides his hands into his pants pockets. Gabrielle moves to stand behind him and together they look at me, unsmiling. “Detective Gallagher just left,” Vince says. “He told us the lab report came back. Paint thinner, Nat?”

  “I know, but—”

  “Hold on. He also told us about the other fire, the one in the girls’ room a few weeks ago. He’d told you, too. You and Theo, but neither of you said a word to us.”

  “What were we supposed to say, that the police think Arden’s guilty? I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know what to say. I still don’t.”

  “It just makes me wonder if there’s something else you’re keeping from us.”

  I hesitate. Do they really need to know the girls had been fighting? No, I decide. I won’t say a word. “I don’t know anything more.” I feel my cheeks warm. I’m a terrible liar. “I don’t know what was going on with our girls.”

  “Maybe that’s the problem,” Gabrielle says. “You didn’t know what was going on. Maybe if you’d paid more attention, visited your daughter just once at college, you would have seen. You might have prevented this from happening.”

  “Like this is all my fault? How? What could I have seen?” I look to Vince.

  He sighs. “It’s not like you and I have been talking, Nat. I wasn’t going to bring it up.”

  Now I feel a little frantic. “Bring up what?”

  “She was doing drugs,” Gabrielle says. “I found marijuana in her dresser. There were liquor bottles under her bed.”

  “You went through Arden’s things? You had no right!”

  “I was concerned. I knew you weren’t checking up on her.”

  “Of course I wasn’t checking up on her. She’s eighteen!” Don’t come for Parents’ Weekend, Mom. No one does. And, I’m going to spend Fall Break on campus. Is that all right?

  “She’s still a child. Your child.”

  “Arden has a right to her privacy. She’s going to experiment.” Just like Rory, I want to say. I look pointedly a
t Vince. Rory had been upset when I caught the dishwasher handing her the plastic Baggie. She’d been afraid I would tell Gabrielle. But I hadn’t. And from the look on Vince’s face, I guess he hadn’t said anything, either.

  “If I thought that drugs had anything to do with it, I would have told Detective Gallagher when he asked,” Gabrielle says. “But what he didn’t ask and what I didn’t tell him was that something was going on with Arden. She was different. She was…harder.”

  Harder? I don’t even know what that means. “Please don’t try and sound like you know my daughter, because you really don’t.”

  “I knew how she felt about Hunter. I knew he was encouraging her, leading her on. I thought it was very unhealthy. I worried.”

  “If that’s true, why didn’t you say anything?”

  “I wasn’t sure how you’d react. I know how you are about Arden.”

  “And how is that?”

  She shrugs. “I tried to keep an eye on the two of them, but I couldn’t be there all the time. They should never have roomed together. It was a mistake and I knew it, but Rory said she couldn’t let Arden down. She’s loyal to Arden, despite everything.”

  We had all loved how close our daughters were. Vince and I used to talk about it all the time. Like sisters. Just like sisters. He said it as often as I did. It made us both happy. Arden had told me it was Gabrielle who wanted the girls to room together, but does it matter anymore? I look to Vince. “You can’t really believe Arden would try to hurt Rory.”

  He throws up his hands. “It’s all a fucking mess, Nat. What Gabrielle’s saying makes a little sense. You remember what it’s like to be eighteen. Everything feels like the end of the world.”

  I don’t want to be in here. I want to be in Arden’s room. I need to be with her. “Arden knows Rory’s terrified of fire.”

  Gabrielle folds her arms. “Exactly.”

  —

  “She meant it, Theo. They both did.” I’m pacing in Arden’s room, three steps one way and three steps the other. I glance to my daughter and lower my voice. “Aren’t things terrible enough?”

  Theo stands staring at the monitor on the wall as though he can make it tell him something new. “Well, I think Arden was a little jealous of Rory.”

  “Stop it. You’re her father.” He’s got his back to me, a dark shape. I’m sick of swimming in shadows. I want to see. I want everything laid out in brightness, clearly defined.

  “Honey. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.”

  “Your own brother…”

  “Vince loves Arden. You know he does.”

  Vince taught Arden to snorkel, fitting the mask over her little face, counting one-two-three before disappearing beneath the waves. I’d come down early Christmas morning to find the two of them in the kitchen, aprons tied around their waists, flour everywhere, the sweet scent of cinnamon rising in the air. “I wish you’d stop defending him. You do it all the time.”

  “I’m not defending him. I’m just trying to calm you down. This isn’t the time to relaunch a vendetta against Vince.”

  “You think I’m the problem? Really?” We shouldn’t be talking like this in front of Arden, but she’s asleep. I correct myself. She’s not asleep. She’s in a coma. She’s far, far away from me. It only makes me want to grab her and haul her up to the surface, wrap her tight in my arms and never let go.

  “No, of course not.” He sighs. “The last time you talked to Arden…did she mention Hunter?” His voice is casual, but I hear the words underneath. Is Gabrielle right?

  “What are you saying, Theo? That I should have kept a closer eye on Arden?”

  He glances at me, his features hidden. “Of course not. I just wanted to know if she said something about him.”

  “Arden never talks about boys. You know that.”

  He nods, looks away.

  I hate this, the way he edges into criticism. He doesn’t come right out and tell me. He makes me work for it. I can’t help myself. I say it. I spell it out. “You think I wouldn’t have picked up on it?”

  “You’re busy. You get focused on work, the restaurant.”

  “You wish I’d been more like Gabrielle, always checking up on our daughter? That’s what you’re saying? That if I’d pushed and pried, I might have saved Arden?” I’m shaking with anger, with dread, too. Because isn’t this my secret worry? That Arden had tried to tell me and I hadn’t been paying attention. That I’d let everything else take priority over her. “Now you want me to know more about our daughter’s life? You were the one who thought she was depressed and you never said a word.”

  “Did you really want to know, Natalie? Did you? You might have had to think about something other than the restaurant for a change.”

  Everything laid bare, stripped to the bone. I find my voice. “That’s not fair. That is so not fair.”

  He’s silent a moment, angry, too, then he sighs. “I’m sorry. All this…Arden. It’s killing me. I just want to know what happened.”

  I inhale, struggle to get some control. “We should have come up for Parents’ Weekend. We could have met Hunter, warned Arden away. That boy had to have been in trouble.”

  “Maybe, or maybe something else happened.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m saying we don’t know. I’m saying she’s our daughter and we love her, but we don’t know.”

  “How can you say that? I know. I know.”

  “We don’t know what was going on in any of these kids’ lives.” He sounds tired, defeated. “We don’t, do we? Not ever. Not really.”

  I want to protest. I want to tell him he’s wrong, absolutely wrong, but how can I? Sending a child to college is drawing that line in the sand. Your child walks over it and she’s not your little girl anymore. She’s just not.

  Arden

  I’M AT REHOBOTH BEACH. I’ve got my easel propped before me in the sand. The wind whips the hair across my face and scatters sand across the wet paint. The waves smash the shore and collect themselves. They wrap around my legs, sucking and then releasing. Seagulls sweep circles above my head, squawking and beeping. Around and through these noises comes a voice. I’m not at the beach. I’m in the hospital. It’s Aunt Gabrielle talking. My mom and dad were here earlier, but now they’re gone.

  “I don’t know how much longer I can pretend,” she says.

  Aunt Gabrielle sounds so sad. I need to make her understand.

  —

  She comes by during my last shift at Double, which is a shock. My aunt almost never stops by the restaurant, especially not lately. At first I think she’s there looking for Uncle Vince, to give him more bad news, but instead she walks straight over to where I’m rinsing vegetables in the sink. She stands there watching me, which makes me nervous. Does she think I’m not getting the lettuces clean enough? Has there been a complaint? When Liz goes into the dining room, Aunt Gabrielle reaches over to switch off the faucet and I realize that that’s what she’s been waiting for. You have to keep an eye on Rory, she tells me very seriously, her eyes the shapes of almonds. Thank God you will be with her. It is the only good thing to come out of all of this. I’m embarrassed by her intensity. Promise, she says. I know what she’s really asking. Promise me, cherie.

  Promise.

  —

  I’m coming out of the bookstore when I hear a familiar voice. “Darling! Do you need some help with that?” It’s Aunt Gabrielle, coming down the sidewalk toward me, the sides of her coat blowing open in the wind. She’s so pretty. Rory doesn’t see it, or won’t. Thank God I took after my dad, Rory will say, but who wouldn’t want red hair? It comes in a box, little cousin, Rory has told me. You could have it, too.

  “It’s okay.” I hoist my English book more firmly under my arm. It’s a rental. I’ve been waiting for a copy to show up for weeks. I’ve got the rest of my books in a heavy plastic bag, hanging from my crooked finger turning cold and stiff. Aunt Gabrielle’s got another important client. She�
��ll shake open The Washington Post and point out a beautiful woman wearing something lovely. To think, the trouble I had convincing her to cut her hair.

  “Not a problem.” She takes the heavy bag. “Let me buy you lunch somewhere. You are looking too thin.” There is no such thing as too thin in Aunt Gabrielle’s mind, and I wonder what she’s really after. But I can probably guess.

  “So tell me about this boy,” she says when we are seated at the little sandwich shop with its rickety tables and smeared picture windows that would give my mom a heart attack. Aunt Gabrielle has ordered a cranberry Brie sandwich I know she will just nibble.

  “Hunter?” I say, before I can stop myself.

  She tilts her head and studies me. My cheeks flame. I should have waited for her to say his name first. Rory’s so good at keeping stuff from her mom. She says the trick is to confuse Aunt Gabrielle with partial truths. It puts her antenna out of whack. But this doesn’t work with my mom. Whenever I feed her bits of truth, I always wind up telling her everything. And there are just some things my mom can never know.

  “Hunter, yes. Do you know about his family, where he’s from?”

  “A little.” I don’t know many facts about Hunter, but I know him. The way he shakes back his hair from his eyes when he’s pleased, the way he lets it fall forward when he’s interested. He’s full of restless energy, bouncing a tennis ball against the wall, walking fast so you have to scurry to keep up. He smiles at everyone, even people he doesn’t know. He’s happiness, through and through. But there’s a serious side, too. He can look at you and you can feel seen. “His dad owns an art gallery.” Is this what Aunt Gabrielle wants? “His mom works there.”

  “An art gallery.” She raps the ring on her finger against her glass of iced tea, making stern little sounds. “Interesting. Do you know if it’s successful? Never mind. I can find out for myself. Is Hunter a good student?”

  “I guess.” He pays attention in class. He goes to class, which is more than I can say for a lot of the kids here.