Dry as Rain

  “She’s my wife, not his,” I said, now feeling defensive. Something lumpy pressed into my lower back. I reached behind me and grabbed the small, round pillow and set it on my lap. “I love her more than anything, Marnie. I’m doing everything in my power not to hurt her. Hershing doesn’t know her like you and I do. He’s only speculating on what he thinks is best for her. She’s doing fine. Better than fine. She’s happier than she’s been in years.” I leaned forward locking eyes with her. “You know I’m right.”

  As she spoke, I saw something in her I’d never seen before—the mother she might have been. “I am my sister’s keeper, Eric. Just like she would be mine if the situation were reversed.”

  “Maybe I will have that coffee,” I said, cringing inside. I loved Marnie, I did, but there were days I wished I had married an only child. Her heels clicked in rhythm against tile as she followed a few steps behind me.

  She pulled a stool from beneath the kitchen island and sat as I poured myself a cup of Colombian. Still standing, I held my warm mug, wishing I was anywhere but here.

  Marnie combed her fingers through her hair. Even though she was adopted, the look on her face right then reminded me so much of Kyra. “She remembers the chasm between you two. Did she tell you that?”

  I took a sip of the coffee that was almost as strong as espresso. I tried not to choke on it as I forced it down. “She alluded to it, yes.”

  She nodded as if she already knew this much. “I don’t think she remembers just how long it’s been going on, and she definitely doesn’t remember your affair.”

  My face caught fire. “It wasn’t an affair. It was a stupid e-mail!”

  She cleared her throat. “Whatever you say. She doesn’t remember it. I would have told her, Eric, but after talking with Hershing, I’m just as afraid to do it as I am not to.”

  My gut cramped at the confirmation of what I had already known in my heart of hearts. I wasn’t as forgiven as I had hoped.

  Marnie continued, “Do you know they had her on suicide precautions the day she went into Batten Falls?”

  I simply nodded.

  “Even as bad as things had gotten between you, thinking you had died about killed her.”

  Unable to look at her, I studied her leather boots bobbing up and down under the counter.

  “Even though she deserves to know the truth, I don’t think I can be the one to tell her.”

  I tried to smile. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me. I’m not doing it for you.”

  Relief filled me. “I won’t let you down.”

  Fruit rested in a wicker basket in the middle of the granite-topped island. Her fingers traced the peel of one of the oranges. “You already have.”

  Seventeen

  A waffling customer who finally decided to buy right at closing time kept me at work even later than usual. The house was dark and quiet when I arrived. The only sound was the creak of a loose floorboard as I walked into the foyer. I started to toss my wallet and keys on the hallway table, as I always did, until I remembered Marnie. Instead, I laid them down softly.

  I slipped my shoes off and left them paired along the wall of the entryway. Tiptoeing into the living room, I found my sister-in-law snoring softly on the couch, a blanket covering everything but her head and toes.

  Walking as light-footed as I could, I headed up the steps, the carpet a cushion beneath my stocking feet. Thankfully, the bedroom door had been left cracked open. I held my breath and slowly pushed it, cringing as it squealed. I’d been meaning to oil it the better part of a year, but who could really blame me for wanting to spend the one day a week I didn’t work relaxing instead of playing handyman?

  Poking my head through the doorway, I peered inside at blackness. The only light was that which stabbed in from the hallway behind me. I opened the door wider to allow more of it to enter the room. The light fell across the floor like a golden road leading right to her. I opened the door further still, causing the path to widen until it covered most of the floor and part of the bed, killing the illusion.

  I exhaled when I saw her long silhouette motionless on the mattress. My eyes hadn’t yet adjusted enough to make out her features, but even cloaked in shadow, she looked beautiful, lying there in her customary position—one leg bent, the other stretched out—with her hair fanned around her face like rays of sunshine.

  Just the top sheet covered her. The blanket lay in a heap on the floor beside the bed. She was forever kicking that thing off, then accusing me of stealing it in the night. With a smile, I shook my head at the achingly familiar sight and bent to pick it up.

  It was then I heard the mattress shift under her weight. “Samurai?”

  I stood. She leaned over and turned on the reading light. Gold washed over her face, revealing puffy, red-veined eyes. My stomach dropped. She’d been crying, which meant . . . she knew? Danielle told her. Or maybe Larry, thinking he was doing the right thing. The Christian thing.

  “Listen, Kyra,” I whispered.

  “Did he call you?” she asked, wrapping her arms around her bent legs. She wore my Dallas jersey as a nightshirt. I’d seen her in it at least a dozen times, but I couldn’t remember her ever looking so good in it. Even with my stomach full of worry, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. “Larry?” I finally asked, unsure.

  Her eyebrows dipped. “No, our son.”

  My head swam trying to decide how to answer this question. “He called?”

  Her eyes filled with tears, and her words were barely decipherable. “He’s being medically discharged.”

  Feeling light-headed, I sat on the edge of the bed. “Over ant bites?”

  “You knew?” Her question was more inquiry than accusation.

  “He called while you were in the hospital and told me it was a possibility.”

  She wiped her eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “He wasn’t sure yet; didn’t want you worrying over nothing.”

  She looked down at her wet fingers, then at me. “Nothing?”

  “He didn’t really think . . . I mean, ant bites . . .” My voice trailed off as I lost myself in thought, considering the magnitude of the bombshell I’d just been dropped.

  We sat there so silent that Marnie’s snores sounded like they were in the next room rather than downstairs.

  Finally she said, “He’s devastated.”

  An unexpected surge of jealousy bit me. “I’m surprised he called you instead of me.”

  “Why should that surprise you? When a boy’s hurting, of course he wants his mother.”

  Of course, I thought. Hadn’t he always? I slid closer to her.

  “He sounded so broken, Eric. I’ve never heard him that way.”

  I kissed her forehead and pulled her against my chest, taking in her warmth and vanilla-almond smell. I began to wonder if somehow this was my fault. If my family was being punished for my sin. I shook the thought off and peeled Kyra from me.

  I kissed the salty tears from her face and did my best to smile. “He’ll be okay,” I said, trying to comfort myself as much as her. “It’s his biggest disappointment in life, but it won’t be his last. God has other plans for him; that’s all. Better plans.”

  Fresh tears replaced the ones I’d just kissed away. It was obvious that she wanted to believe in that. To believe in me. I felt like I could puke.

  “I know you’re right,” she whispered, “but it’s going to be a long crawl through darkness before we see that light.”

  “It’s going to be tough,” I agreed. “For all of us.”

  She laid her head back down on my shoulder.

  I wrapped my arm around her waist and rubbed her back. “Did he say when he’d be home?”

  She shook her head. “He didn’t know. Whenever they get him processed, whatever that means.”

  I started to explain, but she cut me off.

  “Being a sailor was all he ever wanted. It’s not fair.”

  “I know.”

  She t
ook my face in her hands and looked at me so long and hard, it felt like she could see right into my soul. “Make love to me, Eric.”

  I doubted it was right to oblige her, but the vulnerability in her eyes made it impossible to say no. And so I closed my eyes, found her mouth, and allowed myself to forget what I hoped she would never remember.

  Eighteen

  “Let me get this straight. You’re pretending that what your wife forgot about really didn’t happen?” My mother played with the end of the long white braid draped over her shoulder and gave me the look that had been curdling my blood since childhood.

  “I know how it sounds,” I said. “But what are my options?”

  “You might try the truth.”

  I pulled a chair from the dining room table, turned it around, and straddled it. Her apartment was the only place I sat that way. I guess it made me feel a little more like a man riding a Harley and a little less like a child sitting at his mommy’s table. “You want me to remind her that our marriage is falling apart right after she gets out of a psychiatric hospital and finds out her son is in the worst crisis of his life? Against medical advice?”

  She cleared her throat several times, the way she always did when she disapproved but didn’t want to come right out and say so. “That must have been some e-mail.” She ran the tip of her braid back and forth against the small mole on her cheek as though trying to sweep it away.

  “Not all of this is my fault, you know.” An iron rooster glared down his crooked beak at me from behind glass. I looked away from the strange bird and the rustic hutch.

  Mom let go of her braid and began to pick instead at the dried flower arrangement in the center of the table. Flecks of tiny leaves and petals crumbled down onto the quilt serving as a tablecloth. “I’m just not getting how one sneaky act is rectified by another.”

  “I’m up for other suggestions,” I said and meant it. No one had a problem telling me I was digging myself a hole, but did anyone throw down a ladder so I could climb out?

  She lifted a dainty porcelain teacup that looked like it had no business belonging to such a robust hippie of a woman and brought it to her mouth. “You sure you don’t want any? It’s fennel. Excellent for digestion.” My mother, the self-described granola, was all about natural remedies, holistic healing, and karma.

  “Have I ever said yes to your potions?”

  “No. And I’ll bet your colon is a mess.”

  “I’d drink a gallon of the stuff if it would help, but digestion isn’t my problem. Got anything to help an ailing marriage?”

  She looked to the side as if racking her brain. “I’m not sure they make a tea for that.”

  “Baah!” Alfred yelled.

  “Someone should tell him that makes him sound like Ebenezer Scrooge,” I whispered.

  “He knows. Where do you think he got it?”

  My mother and I glanced down the hallway where the voice came from. My stepfather emerged, wearing bleach-stained jeans sagging off his flat butt, a comb-over that wasn’t quite long enough to fully cover his bald head, and lips pressed tighter than Thompson’s wallet. He held a yellow tape measure.

  Mom blinked at him. “You got something to say, old man?”

  “I could hear most of the conversation, and for the record, keeping something like that a secret is a bad idea.”

  She stared him down. “Instead of eavesdropping, you should have been hanging that shelf. I’ve only been waiting six months.”

  Alfred held the tape measure out toward her like it was a yo-yo he was about to launch. Turning to me, he yanked on the metal lip of the tape measure, pulled it out a few inches, then pressed the button that slurped it back in. “Tell me how lying to your wife is helping your marriage?”

  “Like I told Mom, I’m not lying to her. I’m just letting her keep forgetting something that was best forgotten anyway.”

  My mother’s cup clanked as she set it back in its saucer and scowled at Alfred. “Why do you have to have an opinion about everything?”

  Rows of wrinkles formed on his brow.

  I was beginning to feel claustrophobic “Ma, Alfred, please. If this is going to cause a fight, I’ll leave. One marriage in ruins is enough.”

  “Bah.” Alfred waved his hand at her “Your stupid shelf is up, woman. You can dry your herbs now.” He shook his head and disappeared again.

  My mother smiled lovingly at where he’d been standing. “He’s something, don’t you think?”

  That went without saying.

  Alfred reappeared, this time holding a bunch of what looked like dried ragweed. “Did you give him the picture you found of Ren?”

  Here we go, I thought. My mother could not hear my father’s name without a rant.

  “He walks away from his wife and baby, and we’re supposed to frame his mug and hang it on the wall like he was a stinkin’ hero?”

  “He might have regretted what he did,” I said, surprising myself. I’d never defended him before. “You don’t know.”

  She crossed her arms. “People don’t change.”

  Though I suspected she was right, I prayed she was wrong.

  Alfred whipped his bouquet of flowers at her as though it were a club. “Oh come on, Beatrice. Let the man rest in peace. That was forty years ago. If people couldn’t change, you’d still be smoking two packs of Pall Malls a day and setting your boulder holders on fire.”

  Her face turned red as she jumped up.

  Before I had a chance to tune her out, she dug a hand into her waist and pointed a plump finger at him. “That is no man you’re talking about. A man does not leave his wife and child with no job, two months behind on the rent, and not so much as a bus ticket to their name.”

  His eyes grew large, and he tried to say something.

  But Mom wasn’t finished. “Where was he when I didn’t have anyone to drive Eric to Little League because I was pulling another night shift? Where was he when Eric broke his arm? Where was he . . .” She stopped midsentence and closed her eyes. Slowly, she opened them again.

  She left me sitting alone at the table and took a seat on the same couch she probably had since the day my father left. I’d long since stopped wondering what the thing looked like without its layers of mismatched afghans.

  I stood and turned my chair around. “Forget my father for a moment.”

  “Your father?” Hatred flashed in her eyes. “This man—” she pointed at Alfred—“was your father. Ren was nothing but a—”

  “Okay, forget Ren, Ma. I’ve got to go meet one of the guys to pick up Kyra’s car.” I turned to Alfred, who was nibbling a flower off the end of the bunch he still held. “Can I help you before I go?”

  He waved the bouquet at me. “You go on; I’ve got this.”

  “Mom, we good?” I asked.

  “Fine.” She flipped on the small television set she kept on wheels so she could hide it quickly should any of her hemp-loving, anti-boob-tube friends pop in.

  I looked around the crowded apartment that smelled of incense, chamomile, and brownies and sighed. If it was this hard explaining the situation to my parents, how would I present it to Benji? He would be home soon, and not only would I be worried about Kyra remembering, I’d be worried about Benji helping her remember. My only hope was to make Kyra so in love with me again that even if her memory returned, she would forgive me.

  “You’re delusional,” my mother said.

  Panic-stricken, I thought maybe I’d spoken my thoughts out loud. When I looked at her, I was relieved to find her bickering with Alfred, not directing the statement at me. Even if she had said it to me, she’d be right. But I could live very happily in the land of denial, so long as Kyra shared the address along with me.

  Nineteen

  It had been beautiful the day I’d first brought Kyra to Macabee Street. The smell of flowers and mulch scented the warm spring air. Her face lit up when I parked the car, and I suggested we take a walk. Hand in hand we strolled by enormous houses, pristine
yards, and couples walking designer dogs along tree-lined sidewalks. As we approached the biggest poodle I’d ever seen, a ball of sculpted fur wagged hello. The animal sniffed Kyra’s hand but was quickly distracted by a teacup terrier across the street.

  Kyra looked back over her shoulder as the dog’s owner led her away by a studded pink leash. “Fancy neighborhood,” she said.

  What my wife didn’t know was that I’d already been down this sidewalk a dozen times without her, window-shopping and daydreaming about the day I would surprise her with the keys to our dream house.

  With my promotion, we were moving up in the world, and I felt our home ought to reflect our success. The old craftsman’s cottage we lived in was fine, of course, and Kyra seemed content there, but I’d never been one to be satisfied with status quo. Maybe it wasn’t right, but it kind of annoyed me that she settled for so little back then. Like playing Rat Pack songs at Francesca’s, when she was good enough to be a concert pianist with the New York Philharmonic.

  With Kyra’s hand in mine, I stopped in front of a large stone colonial and grinned at her.

  Staring up at it, she wrapped her arms around herself as if she were suddenly cold. “What would a family need with so much space? They could spend entire days without so much as bumping into one another.” Her gaze fell on the Sold sign, and a dark look passed over her.

  I felt sick to my stomach. I’d spent almost everything we had on the down payment, believing she’d be a little miffed that I hadn’t consulted her, but secretly thrilled at my chivalry and provision. Women were always saying they wanted a man to take charge. I was beginning to think that was just in theory. I knew she hated moving from Braddy’s Wharf as much as Benji and I did, but we’d both agreed taking the job at Thompson’s was necessary if we ever hoped to pay for our son’s college education and our retirement.