she loves us. Really she does. She loves us the same as the others.”
Caroline closed her eyes and drifted into a strange half sleep where she dreamed that she was hitting a tree over and over again with her fists. The tree of course did not respond; the tree simply stood there impassive, resolute as any tree, which only spurred Caroline to punch harder, kick and scream, anything to provoke a response, but all she managed were fists and feet that were sore and bloody.
Then she woke up. The phone was ringing, ringing, ringing. Renee’s number appeared on the screen. For one long minute, Caroline opened and closed her hands, thinking of the dream and her sore knuckles. She was still angry at Noni, who had always demanded so much of her children, so much, and yet refused to recognize Caroline’s genuine efforts. Noni believed so fervently in the lessons of her own experience that she could not envision a scenario where they might fail to apply. Had Noni ever loved her husband the way she, Caroline, loved Nathan Duffy? Doubtful. Had Noni ever chosen her life the way Caroline has chosen hers? Absolutely not. Noni’s life had been poured over her head like a bucket of milk.
The phone continued to ring, but Caroline still did not answer. She knew already the purpose of Renee’s call: Noni had asked Renee to persuade Caroline to stay in school, to hew her life more closely to the marvel that was Renee’s. Caroline and Renee could have this particular discussion next week or next month or next Christmas, or they could have it now. Caroline picked up the phone.
“Caro,” said Renee. She was crying.
“I’ve decided,” Caroline said in a rush. “You can’t talk me out of it.”
“What?” Renee paused. “No—it’s Joe.”
“Joe?” Caroline sat up, and the sudden movement of her ungainly weight upset the hammock. For a moment she teetered, and then she tilted out, landing heavily on all fours, her stomach grazing the grass. She grabbed for the phone. “What’s the matter with Joe?”
As Renee explained, Caroline moved herself slowly to a sitting position. She’d scraped her knee, but she did not wipe away the blood that ran down her leg.
Joe, Renee told her, was in trouble. There had been a fraternity party at Alden College with an overabundance of vodka punch, various illegal drugs, and some three hundred undergraduates. Two dozen people were taken to the ER. One girl had nearly died. Joe was one of the party organizers, Renee told Caroline, and so the dean was coming down hard on him. He was off the baseball team. He might even be expelled.
“Noni can’t know about this,” said Renee, and there was an old desperation in her voice that Caroline hadn’t heard in many years. “I’m supposed to meet with some people at the college later today, but I’ve got exams. I’m supposed to be studying for the boards.”
“Oh, Renee, I’ll help,” Caroline said, and she remembered her dream about beating the tree. She’d assumed the tree was Noni, but perhaps instead it was Joe. No matter the disruptions that swirled around him, he remained the same: imperturbable, stubborn, oblivious to the sky and earth and rain that nurtured him every day.
Caroline and Renee talked for nearly an hour, circling what they knew and what they could reasonably keep from Noni. They made a rough plan: Renee would attend the meeting, gauge how serious the college was about expelling Joe, and try her best to talk them out of it. Then together she and Caroline would devise a story. Why was Joe off the team? An injury seemed the most plausible explanation; he’d sprained an ankle late last year, and Coach Marty had always been concerned about that left knee. They would protect Noni. Isn’t this what they’d always done?
Caroline clicked off the phone. Still sitting on the grass, she realized that her lower back ached, her legs hurt. She tried to stand but stopped herself. She felt . . . what exactly? An internal stirring, a glancing discomfort. She became aware of an insect hum in the air and the swirling pollen that floated lazily across her vision and that peculiar fecund fullness to the trees and grass, even the clouds overhead, that seemed to Caroline uniquely southern. Bexley would never see a rosebush like that rosebush. Ripe. Bursting.
Again Caroline tried to stand, and again the discomfort was enough to make her pull back. She wondered if Nathan was within