It didn’t matter, I told myself. It was only a movie. We were only hesitantly dating, I thought, refusing to contemplate how deep I’d already fallen. I turned off the ringer and tucked my phone into my purse as the lights dimmed for the previews.
Just as the movie itself started, a shadow slipped into the seat beside me. Creeped out, annoyed, knowing there were probably no other empty seats in the whole theater, I turned my body slightly away as I gave the intruder a fake smile. Then a real one, along with a gasp of surprise that was fortunately covered up by the giant robot’s first appearance in a crash of cinematic thunder that rumbled the theater’s speaker system.
Niall leaned into my ear. “I made it.”
* * *
We took William and his friends to the food court after the movie for whatever kind of food they wanted, an offer from Niall that amused me so much I could only laugh and shake my head as the four boys took off to four separate places. Niall laughed with me. He pointed in the direction of the food court.
“You, too,” he said. “Whatever you want.”
“Oh, hey, fancy.”
“Hey, when you go out with me, you get the full royal treatment.” We followed the path of the boys so that Niall could pick up the tab for each of them. When he turned to me, though, I shook my head again.
“I’m not hungry. I had dinner before the movie then candy.” I laughed at his expression. “But you eat, if you want to. I have to wait for William to finish anyway.”
Niall ordered from the Indian place, and we sat at a small table across from each other and next to the boys. I didn’t make a big deal out of watching them, but it was something of a relief to see my nephew laughing and joking around for what felt like the first time in a year. When I glanced back to Niall, he was giving me a curious look.
“What?” I asked, and stabbed a bite of his curried rice.
“He looks like you.” Niall gave a surreptitious nod toward William.
I laughed. “He’s my twin brother’s kid. Makes sense.”
“You’re a good aunt.” Niall dug through a pile of rice and took a bite, grains tumbling from his mouth to the plate as he tried not to let them.
I handed him a napkin. “Thanks. He’s a great kid. And since he’s the closest I’ll probably ever get to one of my own...”
“You think so? How come? You don’t want any kids?” Niall wiped his mouth clean, which drew my attention to his lips and made me want to kiss him.
I restrained myself. “I don’t really think I’d be the greatest mom. You have to be pretty unselfish to have a kid, I think. If you want to be a good parent.”
“You don’t think you’re unselfish?”
I shrugged. “No. I don’t think I’m unselfish.”
“Do you think you’re more selfish than normal?” Niall pushed his plate toward me with a raised brow, inviting me to sneak another bite.
I didn’t, though I liked that he’d offered. “Maybe.”
I looked up to see him looking thoughtful. Under his scrutiny, I felt warm and flushed, watched and somehow weighed. I’d looked at men that way, I realized, but I couldn’t ever remember anyone ever taking the time to study me with such intent.
“I don’t think you are,” Niall said. “You’ve been pretty generous, in my experience.”
Before I could answer that, William’s friends collectively got up to leave, and he crossed to our table.
“Their moms are here,” he explained.
“We should get you home. It’s getting late, and I have to work in the morning.”
It pleased me and made me proud that I didn’t have to remind William to thank Niall for the food. The three of us went out to the parking lot together, but Niall had parked in a different section of the lot. William asked for my keys so he could go on ahead and get in the car while we said our goodbyes.
“The kid’s smart,” Niall said, watching William head for my car. “Considerate enough to give us time to smooch.”
“He just doesn’t want to see it.”
Niall pulled me into his arms. “Has he had to watch you kissing lots of men?”
“No.” I let him tug me closer. “I haven’t had a boyfriend around him in...well, ever, I guess.”
“No?” Niall looked surprised.
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“So how come you invited me along tonight?”
“I wanted to see you,” I told him. “And I didn’t think it was a big deal.”
Niall squinched an eye closed to look at me. “Huh. Not sure if I like that or not. I’m not a big deal or not a boyfriend.”
I’d been leaning to kiss him, but now stopped. I’d asked him this before, and come to think of it, he hadn’t exactly answered. “Do you want to be a boyfriend?”
“I am kind of a big deal,” he said.
I laughed a little uncertainly. “Niall.”
He kissed me hard enough to make me feel it, but briefly enough that we weren’t making a spectacle of ourselves. His hands settled naturally on my hips. I looked toward my car, but William must already have gotten in, because I didn’t see him. I looked back at Niall.
“Boyfriend is...a word.”
He smiled. “Yeah. It’s just a word.”
I tried to take a step back, but he didn’t let me go. I put my hands over his to get him to release his grip. He did, then, but linked his fingers with mine to trap me.
“Okay,” he said. “Just thought I’d toss it out there. See what you’d say. I mean, some girls, you take them out once, and they’re picking out china patterns and talking about the catering menu.”
“Girls like the ones who broke your heart?” I kissed him, and this time I was the one making it fierce but brief. I couldn’t stop myself from nipping his lower lip lightly as I pulled away. Not enough to hurt him, but enough to...what? I didn’t know. Show him who was boss? Make him forget there’d ever been a woman before me? This conversation had unexpectedly disgruntled me.
“Anyway,” he continued, rubbing his thumb along his lower lip while his eyes gleamed and didn’t leave mine. “You’re the girl who takes lovers instead of boyfriends, isn’t that right?”
He was poking at me, teasing, and unexpected heat rushed through me. My nipples tightened. The seam of my jeans rubbed me with a delicious pressure, and my breath caught.
“Yes. That’s what I told you.”
No music, no steps. We weren’t even moving, but this was a dance all the same. Or maybe it was more like a sword fight. Thrust and parry. Dodge and weave.
“Thanks for asking me to the movies,” Niall said and took a step back. Then another. He put his hands in his pockets and gave me a slow, sly smile that made me want to chase after him and push him up against the wall and have my way with him. “It was fun.”
“Thanks for coming. And for treating William and his friends.”
“I’ll call you,” Niall said then pivoted and stalked away without looking back.
I watched him, though, waiting to see if he’d turn at least once. He didn’t, which was the worst and best thing he could’ve done, whether he knew it or not. Because I wanted him to look back at me, of course. Wanted him to want me enough to look even if he didn’t want to. But I also wanted him to be the sort of man who didn’t have to.
What the fuck was happening to me?
“Is he your boyfriend?”
The first words out of William’s mouth when I got in the car stumped me. I put the key into the ignition and started the engine before I twisted in my seat to answer him. “No. Why?”
“He’s cool.” William shrugged. “He works with Dad.”
“I know.” I drove for a bit before saying, “What made you ask me if he was my boyfriend?”
William shrugged, looking totally uninterested. “I don’t know. I heard my mom saying she thought you needed to spend more time on your own boyfriend than worrying about what everyone else was doing.”
The way he said it, so carefully without lookin
g at me, told me a lot. But Susan was his mother, and I could be the favorite aunt from here until the end of time without ever trumping that. Still, it was hard not to sneer about it.
“Who’d she say that to? Your dad?”
“No. Someone on the phone,” William said. “I shouldn’t have told you.”
I sighed, making the turn onto his street. “Probably not, kid. But it’s okay. Your mom has a right to her opinion.”
“I don’t think you butt in, Auntie,” William told me. “Grandma and Aunt Jill do, but you don’t. It made me mad that she’d say that.”
A rush of love for him pricked tears into my eyes. “Thanks, kid. But your mom still has a right to feel however she feels.”
And had her own shit to shovel, I did not add, though the more I thought about it, the angrier I got. When we got to William’s house, I told him I needed to come in and use the bathroom. I did, then greeted my brother, who’d planted himself in his recliner in front of the TV, beer in hand. A pile of about ten pairs of dirty socks were next to him.
“You’re a pig,” I said flatly. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Evan gave me a bleary, offended glare. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
I kicked a foot in the direction of the socks. “You’re still doing that.”
He looked over the arm of his chair then at me without a blink. “What?”
“Your fucking socks, man. Gross.” I shook my head. “It was gross when we lived together, and it’s still gross now.”
Evan snorted. “Why should you care?”
I don’t, I wanted to say, but your wife clearly does, and you’re pissing her off enough that she’s cheating on you with some guy who looks like Ricardo Montalban in Escape From the Planet of the Apes. I clamped my mouth shut, thinking of William upstairs. Of my own parents screaming. Evan and I were fifteen when they split, though their problems had started long before that. I didn’t believe my brother would fuck off into the world without a second glance at his son, but that didn’t mean I was going to be the one to bring his world crashing down.
I found Susan on the front porch. She startled when I came through the door, turning, her face twisted in guilt of a different kind. She had a lit cigarette in her hand.
“You scared me,” she said.
“Sorry. I didn’t want to come out through the garage and not be able to close the door behind me.” I hesitated, looking her over. “You took it back up, huh?”
“Some things you quit because you want to,” my sister-in-law said kind of sourly. “Some things you give up because everyone tells you it’s bad for you, but eventually, you know you’ll go back to it. If it’s something you love.”
I wasn’t making a judgment about smoking. I’d been known to light up now and then, usually when I was drinking. For as long as I’d known Susan, though, she’d been the sort to look down at people with vices, no matter what they were. Smoking, drinking too much, overeating. Cheating would’ve been on that list, too, I supposed, though it was funny how easy it was to change your mind about something you discovered was easier to get into than you might’ve thought. We stared at each other for a few seconds while her cigarette burned, and she didn’t even take a puff.
“Tastes like shit,” she said after another awkward moment. “I wanted to love it the way I used to, but I guess I just don’t.”
I wanted to ask her if she was talking about the smokes or my brother, but wisely refrained. “It must be a relief that the Bar Mitzvah’s over.”
“Yeah. Totally.” She ashed into a small glass bowl and then took a long drag. She didn’t cough it out, but she definitely didn’t look as though she were loving it. She offered me the pack, but I shook my head.
“Your mother called me, by the way. Left a message telling me to call her back.”
“Ugh, sorry. Did you?”
William had inherited his distinctive laugh from his mother. She shook her head. “Nope.”
“You’ll probably have to, at some point.”
She looked at me. “Why? Really, Elise, why do I have to?”
“Because...she’s your mother-in-law.” I couldn’t even make myself sound convincing.
“Life’s too short to put up with people who treat you like shit, you know that? In all the time you’ve known me, has your mother ever been anything other than some degree of shitty to me?” Susan took another drag. She seemed to be getting the hang of it again anyway.
What she said was true, but still, as I’d thought earlier about William having to take sides, my mother was my mother. “It’s how she is.”
“Sorry, but I don’t think the length of time someone behaves badly is an excuse to continue to allow it. I don’t care if it’s how she’s always been.”
“I didn’t say it was how she’d always been,” I said sharply. “I said it’s how she is. If you want to know, she didn’t really start being such a bitch until my father left her.”
Susan didn’t say anything for a moment. “That’s not what your father says.”
“Since when are you and my dad best friends?” I frowned.
“We’re not. I wanted to invite him to the Bar Mitzvah, but your mother started flipping tables over it, so I had to talk to him to explain to him why we couldn’t have him there to celebrate.” Susan stubbed out her cigarette and pulled out another, tucked it between her lips, but didn’t light it right away. “It was stupid. Your dad loves William, even if he and your mother can’t stand each other.”
“He hasn’t exactly been the best dad to us, either. What did Evan say about it?” I asked, genuinely curious. I hadn’t spoken to my dad in about a year. When he didn’t show up, I assumed it was because, as my mother had said, he couldn’t be bothered.
“He said it wasn’t worth getting your mother all worked up.” Susan fought with her lighter, which refused to give a good flame, then tossed it down with a sigh of disgust. “God forbid.”
“But you had a nice long talk with my dad about her.” It was stupid, getting agitated about defending my mother, who absolutely was a pain in the ass.
Susan gave me an exasperated and somehow defiant look. “Your mother likes to paint herself as quite the martyr, Elise. Don’t act like that’s a surprise.”
“No. I can’t say that. But you barely know my dad. You don’t know what it was like when they were splitting up. He left us,” I told her harshly, hating the way the words snagged and tore at my throat. It had been years, and I hated that the pain could still punch me in the guts. “I don’t really care what happened between the two of them, but he left us, the kids, just up and fucking abandoned us like we meant nothing. Went off to Florida, miles and miles away. We didn’t know where he was for the first six months.” Shaking, I lowered my voice. “I don’t care how much of a bitch he says my mother was. He. Left. Us.”
“Elise.” Susan shook her head and sounded sad. “You don’t know...”
“Just stop, okay? I don’t want to hear it from you. I know my mom hasn’t been good to you. I’m sorry that you have to put up with it. I’m sorry my brother doesn’t fucking stand up for you the way he should and that he leaves his socks all over the place, too, but for fuck’s sake, Susan...he’s my brother. And William, I love that kid.” Breathing hard, I stared at her, waiting for her to say something even though I hadn’t asked a question. After a second or so, I tossed up my hands. “You have a family! Jesus. Don’t throw it away the way my dad did.”
“You mean the way your mother did,” Susan said quietly, in a voice like the scratch of fingernails on sandpaper.
I didn’t say anything. She picked up her lighter. Another try and the flame caught, and she held it to the end of her cigarette. She looked up at me with the smoke filtering through her nostrils.
“She had an affair,” Susan said. “She told your dad to get out so she could move in some other guy. I don’t know what happened after that, but apparently it didn’t work out.”
“No,” I said around the t
aste of ashes in my mouth, my lips so numb I was surprised they could form words at all. “I guess it didn’t.”
32
I immediately knew the man Susan had been talking about. Sam Peters. Tall, sandy haired, big smile. He always had gum in his pocket, maybe to cover up the fact his breath was perpetually bad. He had square white teeth I realized now must’ve been dentures, hence the stench. He had a tattoo on his biceps of a little red devil, though over the years it had faded into a pale blob. You could see the tattoo because he favored shirts with the sleeves torn off, threads dangling. He was the guy who fixed my parents’ cars.
The summer before my father left, he’d traveled a lot on business. At the time I hadn’t thought much of it—parents did things, kids accepted them without question. My mother told us our dad was looking for a new job, but until he got one, he had to spend a lot of his time on the road. I’d heard them arguing about money a few times as the school year ended, so the idea that he needed to find a new job wasn’t entirely out of line, especially since my mom’s car had been in the shop.
A lot.
Sick with the memories of it now, the smell of oil and exhaust overlaid by the sweetly minty gum Sam always offered me, I sat at my kitchen table flipping through an old photo album from that year. Looking for proof. I didn’t want it to be true, but there was no denying that the moment Susan told me, I’d known it had to be.
And there it was. A picture of me and Evan standing in front of my mom’s slate-gray Volvo station wagon, both of us in matching denim shorts and white T-shirts. Normally I’d have chuckled at the sight of our mutually questionable fashion sense, but now all I could do was stare into the background of the photo. Behind the car, into the garage, in the shadows, where a hint of a familiar pattern blended enough that it was easy to pass over unless you were really looking hard. My mother’s skirt, one she’d worn to tatters that summer. It was a wrap skirt, tied at the hip, in a bright floral, and she’d always worn it with a white peasant blouse. At least until one day I’d found it smeared with grease in the pile of things to be sent to the thrift store. I hadn’t thought about it at the time, but those smears could’ve been made by dirty hands.