She told herself she would tell the truth if her mother pushed harder. But her mother was always stoic on the phone.
She never even spoke of missing Lena. After she’d made Lena profess that she was a) being a good girl and b) studying hard, her mother used the rest of the fifteen minutes to fill Lena in on all the family gossip she was missing out on—which cousin had just given birth to a baby boy, which cousin had just gotten engaged, which uncle had just purchased a new German car.
Lena, who when she’d lived in Jordan had found that gossip inane, now lived for it. She’d cradle the phone as close as she could to her ear, as if willing her mother’s voice to reach out through the phone and embrace her. Her mother would often end the call by saying something that loosely translated to “Enjoy your life in the rain.” Lena knew she meant it goodheartedly—it was her mother’s way of expressing just how different America seemed.
Lena once told Julian about this and he’d lit up. “That’s so harsh,” he’d said. “And so beautiful.” A handful of years later, Julian would steal this phrase and use it for his hit song “Your Life in the Rain.”
For months, Julian had actually seemed to be making progress with his band. He’d assembled a ragtag group—Lena had actually introduced him to the keyboard player, Marty St. Clair. Marty had been her lab partner sophomore year and she knew he was itching to join a band. She’d put him and Julian in touch.
The band had been practicing several nights a week and managed, thanks to their bass player, Chris, to book a gig at a local dive bar. It wasn’t much. But they would be opening for a more popular campus-based band and hopefully inherit some of their fans.
Lena arrived with Julian’s family. His sister, Sarah, intertwined her arm with Lena’s and whispered, “Isn’t this so exciting? Can you believe it?” Debra seemed equally excited, but Mr. Oliver, in typical fashion, hung in the back, quietly observing everything.
It felt like they waited forever for Julian’s band to come on, standing around in a small room with a low popcorn ceiling; the room smelled aggressively of cheap beer and pot. But finally, Julian appeared on the stage. His eyes found Lena’s, and he smiled.
“Hi, y’all,” he said into the microphone, which Lena found weird. He’d never said “y’all” the entire time she’d known him. “I’m Julian Oliver and we’re Staring Into the Abyss.” There was a smattering of applause that seemed much bigger thanks to Debra’s big yelp.
The band started to play and at first, everything seemed fine. Not great. But fine. But slowly, Lena could tell that something was off. The beat—it wasn’t matching the pace of the lyrics. Julian would no longer look at her. His face was screwed up with frustration.
The crowd began to fidget. Everyone looking at one another as if to say, “Are they really this bad?” They all hoped the next song would be better.
It wasn’t.
It was worse.
Slowly the crowd started to talk among themselves. People peeled off to gather by the bar, to wait for the next band to come on. There were a few “boos,” but nothing dramatic. Later Julian would tell her that he’d wished there had been more “boos,” wished it had been more dramatic. Instead of just the sad, slow unspooling that it was.
After that gig, Julian quit his job at Mickey’s. He started working for his father.
“You’re not quitting music, are you?” Lena would press him.
He’d shrug her off. “I’m not quitting. I’m just being realistic.”
Lena swallowed her disappointment. She hadn’t fallen in love with him for his realism.
So she wasn’t that surprised when he told her he wouldn’t be moving with her to New York right away. But she was angry.
“I can’t leave my family,” he said, his voice knotted with tears.
“Just tell your dad that you want to be a musician. Not a goddamn woodworker!” Lena shouted at him. Her anger was palpable. She felt like she had betrayed and abandoned her family. Why couldn’t he do the same? Why couldn’t he just own who he was?
“I can’t, habibi,” he said, and he fell onto the ragged old armchair that was piled high with his dirty clothes.
She knew it was him, sitting in this chair, solid as ever, but she felt like she was seeing a stranger. “Then I can’t do this anymore. I’m going to New York and I never want to hear from you again.”
The words unsettled her as she said them out loud. But they were more like a wish than the truth at that moment. It took her more than two months to actually leave. There would be more nights like this. Worse nights. And long, painful days. There would be shouting matches and crying and apologies.
But in the end, she did leave. She packed up her bags and boarded a plane. On the flight, she gritted her teeth and reminded herself that this move was nothing.
You’ve crossed an ocean before, Lena, she reassured herself. What’s a couple of hundred miles?
VII.
“Oh,” Debra said, interrupting Julian. She squeezed his shoulder and got up from her chair. I followed her eyes to see three figures moving toward us.
Aunt Sarah and two boys who looked nearly identical—same cornmeal-blond hair, glacier-blue eyes, angular faces, and willowy build—pulled open the screen door and stepped onto the back porch.
“Brady! Carter!” Debra said, and raced over to them, scooping them up into one big bear hug.
“Hi, Nana,” they said unenthusiastically.
“Sorry to just pop in on you like this,” Sarah said. She touched her hair self-consciously.
“Don’t be silly, sweetheart,” Debra said. “You guys are welcome anytime.” She gestured toward the table. “Take a seat! I made pie.”
Sarah tumbled into one of the wooden rockers and the boys also sat down, albeit reluctantly.
“The boys wanted to come over and see you, Mom,” Sarah volunteered. “And of course they wanted to see their uncle and their newfound cousin.” She smiled at me.
They both kept staring at me, a sour expression on their faces. Despite what Sarah said, I was getting the distinct impression they hadn’t been that eager to see me or Julian. We all sat there in awkward silence. Debra served the boys a large slice of pie each, and they slowly dug into their respective slices.
In between bites of pie, one of the twins looked at me and said, “Don’t you feel weird?”
“Me?” I said, my voice a little squeaky. I stared at my feet.
“Carter,” Aunt Sarah hissed. “Be nice.”
“I mean,” the other boy said, as if continuing for Carter, “you never even knew Grandpa.”
“Brady,” Sarah hissed again. “Knock it off. Where are your manners?”
“It’s okay,” I said quickly, looking at Sarah and then at Julian. Julian gave me a reassuring nod. “They’re right, after all. I didn’t know him.”
“Sweetheart, you met him today,” Debra said, standing back up from her chair and walking to stand behind me. She squeezed my shoulders.
“Yes, she did,” Julian said. “And we’re here now. We both are.” He gave me an encouraging smile.
“A little late,” Carter mumbled under his breath. He shoved a forkful of pie into his mouth.
I’d expected Sarah to let out another exasperated sigh, reprimanding Carter, but instead we all turned our heads toward the porch door. Toby, the boy from this morning, was standing in the doorway sheepishly.
“Hi,” he said, and gave a little wave.
“Toby!” Debra said. She greeted Toby with a hug. She cradled his face in her hands and gave him a kiss on each cheek. “What brings you over here?”
Toby leaned against the side wall of the porch. I envied how relaxed he seemed. His eyes found mine. I snuck into my seat as I felt everyone else look at me.
“The twins texted me to say they were coming over. And I thought I’d stop by and see everyone,” Toby said. He slid one hand into the pocket of his jeans.
“Are we still going to go down to the lake?” Carter asked. He shoveled the l
ast of his pie into his mouth and finished it in three large chomps.
Toby turned toward Sarah. “Would that be okay? We’d thought it might be fun to walk down to the lake Tom loved so much. If it’s easier for you, the boys can spend the night at my place and I can drive them back to your house in the morning.”
“Nonsense,” Debra said, waving her hands in the air. “They can stay here. You all can. Sarah, why don’t you call Todd and let him know you guys will be home in the morning.”
“Mom, are you sure?” Sarah asked. Her voice revealed hesitance but her face showed relief. She wanted to stay here. At her childhood home. And that was perfectly understandable to me.
“But . . .” I saw a look of concern flash across Brady’s face. Presumably I was staying in the room the boys always stayed in when they slept over.
Debra waved again. “Don’t you worry about it. I have enough space for everybody.”
“So the lake it is?” Toby said, wriggling his eyebrows in a goofy way that would’ve seemed gross on about 99 percent of the world’s population but somehow worked for him.
“Taliah,” Debra said. “Why don’t you join the boys at the lake?”
Toby’s face changed from goofy to almost challenging. He gave me a dare of a smile. “Yeah. How about it?”
I glanced at Julian, and our conversation from earlier that afternoon came flooding back to me. And my fight with Harlow. I was about to say no, but something inside me made me pause.
“Sure,” I said pointedly. “Why not?”
VIII.
“What was that back there? Between you and Julian?” Toby asked me once we were outside. The twins ran ahead in front of us. We walked down the hill toward the wooded part of the property. The light from the Olivers’ porch illuminated the swath of grass in front of us, but I knew the closer we got to the woods, the darker it was going to get.
I grimaced a little. I was surprised Toby had even noticed. “Forget about it.”
“What if I don’t want to forget about it?” His tone was light.
“It’s dumb.”
“I doubt that,” he said.
“No. It really is.”
“Try me?”
“I’d rather not.”
“Come on. Try me.”
“You’re rather persistent. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“Don’t switch the question around on me. I know that trick.”
I sighed.
“Come on. What’s going on?”
I wrinkled my nose. “Fine. So Julian was just on my case earlier today about not letting him in. He accused me of, I don’t know, putting up some kind of emotional wall.”
“Do you?”
“Excuse me?”
“Do you put up emotional walls?”
“Holy hell, dude,” I said. “Are you like the Diane Sawyer of Oak Falls?”
In the dim light, I saw Toby’s cheeks redden. There was a long pause, and I worried for a moment that I had offended him. “Naw,” Toby finally said. “Not really. I’m actually not usually one for questions.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
He grinned. “I’m full of surprises. You’ll see.”
I smiled back weakly and followed him down a narrow dirt path that cut sharply down a hill. By now, the Oliver porch light was just a twinkle behind us. Up above, the moon glowed—a perfect shining sliver. The air smelled like summer—botanical, lush, and thick.
“So aren’t you going to ask me?” he said as we climbed farther and farther down the hill.
“Ask you what?”
“Why I’m so interested in asking you questions if it’s out of my nature to do so?”
I swatted at a mosquito that I felt nibble on my left wrist. “I’m still not sure I believe you that it’s out of your nature.”
He laughed. “Trust me. It is.”
When I didn’t say anything, he let out a whistle. “Dang.”
“What?”
“You’re a tough cookie, you know? Your pops and your friend might be right about you.”
It was my turn to blush. “You don’t know me well enough to say that. Though you probably have already judged me.” I gestured farther up the path where the twins were charging through the forest. “You know they already have.”
Toby walked closer to me and nudged his shoulder against mine. “Aw. You misjudge them.”
“They seem to hate me.”
Toby shook his head, another wide grin spreading across his lips. “You don’t get it.”
“Enlighten me?”
“They’re nervous around you,” he explained. “Actually, I think the word I’m looking for is ‘intimidated.’”
“Bullshit.”
Toby braced. “Whoa. Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?”
I looked at him. “You have to be kidding me.”
“What?” He gave me a sheepish shrug. “I just think there are more interesting words to use.”
“Really? Like what?”
“Like pamplemousse,” he said. “It means ‘grapefruit’ in French. Isn’t that fantastic?”
“Pamplemousse,” I repeated, botching the pronunciation. “That’s really what you say when you get pissed off?”
Another sheepish shrug. “Sure. Why not?”
“Um, I don’t know,” I said. “Because it doesn’t make any sense.”
“Sure it does. It’s a fun word. So whenever I say it, I instantly feel better. Which makes deploying it in upsetting situations a win-win.”
“Whatever you say,” I said, nearly tripping over the exposed root of a tree.
Toby reached out to steady me. “We’re getting close. Don’t worry.”
“I wasn’t worried.”
“Okay.” And then added, repeating me, “Whatever you say.”
I smiled despite myself.
“How do you know my cousins so well?” I asked.
“Oh,” Toby said. “So now you get to ask questions?”
“Well,” I said, “I think I have the right to be curious about my family that up until about forty-eight hours ago, I had no idea existed.”
“No idea?” Toby said. “Really?”
“No idea,” I confirmed. I gave him the brief SparkNotes version of The Shoebox discovery, and Julian showing up on my doorstep, and what Julian had told me so far about my mother and him.
“But it’s not adding up,” I said. “What he’s told me so far makes it seem like Mom’s the one who broke things off.”
“And that surprises you?” Toby asked.
“Hell yes, it surprises me.”
Toby braced again.
“You have to be freaking kidding. You consider ‘hell’ a swear word?”
He shrugged. “Pamplemousse,” he said with a smile. “But why does it surprise you that much?”
“Um,” I said. “Because Julian’s a rock star. And my mom is my mom.”
“So?”
“So?” I echoed back to him. “So it just seems obvious to me that Julian ditched her when he got famous.”
Toby gave me a look.
“What?”
“I dunno if you should be so sure about that. Even rock stars can get dumped, you know?”
I smiled a little. “And you’re an authority on that?”
“Maybe,” he said, turning his attention away from me and toward the sound of splashing in the distance. Toby grabbed for my hand and steered me down the last part of the path. The overgrown grass had given way to brush and tall trees. It was getting harder and harder to see, but Toby seemed to know the path by heart.
When we finally reached the lip of the lake, Toby announced, “Here we are.” And then he unbuttoned his shirt and peeled off his pants as if that was the most natural thing in the world to do. His pale, freckled skin stood out against the darkness as he ran into the water. I watched as the bony knobs of his spine disappeared beneath the dark surface of the lake.
The twins yelped with excitement and one of them splashed To
by right in the face. He shook his head, spitting out water and laughing.
“Come on in!” he called out. “The water is great!”
I studied the lake. It was small and oddly shaped. The left side was much wider and it appeared to taper off on the right side into a tiny stream. The water had a musky scent. Not rotten, or even bad, but potent all the same.
“Come on!” Toby repeated. He was bobbing up and down.
“I don’t have a swimsuit.”
“She’s too prissy for this,” Carter said. “Just let her be.”
I sat down at the edge of the lake and dipped my toe in. “That’s not fair. I just don’t have a swimsuit.”
“You big-city girls are too good for swimming?” Brady teased as he treaded water.
I dipped my toe farther into the water. “I’m not from the big city.”
“Why doesn’t Julian ever come home?” Carter asked, and his voice for once didn’t sound mean or teasing. It sounded like he really wanted to know. And I could swear I even sensed some hurt in there too. Like he took it as a personal offense that his uncle didn’t make it home for every Thanksgiving and Christmas.
“I don’t know,” I stammered, and stared at the dark water in front of me.
“And we’re really supposed to believe that?” Carter said, and some of the mean had snaked its way back into his voice. “He’s your dad.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess technically. But I hardly know the guy.”
“Us either,” Brady said.
“So that’s something we have in common.” I gave them a weak smile, which neither of them returned, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw Toby watching me.
Toby splashed his arms in the water and repeated, “Come on in.”
“I would, but I don’t have a swimsuit.”
“So?” Carter said. “Neither do we. Just swim in your underwear.”
“But . . .”
“Don’t be weird,” Brady said. “We’re family.”
A fuzzy feeling bubbled in my stomach. “Family, huh?”
“Yeah.” Carter affirmed his brother’s statement. “Family.”
Toby splashed his arms again. “Hey, I’m not family. But I promise not to look.” He swam in a circle, turning his back to me.