– did I smile? Did I look OK or did I look awful? Beyond it, I guess, because he looked all worried, and it pissed me off.
‘How are you?’
‘Don’t ask me now.’
‘I’m sorry. I . . .’ Maybe he was waiting for me to spill so he could pour out his story; maybe he wanted to tell me what brought him down, and God knows we’re all dying to know. I should have said, Are you OK? but it was getting late, I was exhausted, everybody would be home soon and I had cut him off before he had a chance to start.
‘Don’t be.’ Oh, Bobby, don’t linger.
He kept going along beside me. ‘I thought maybe your car broke down.’
‘Not really.’
‘You looked like you could use some help.’
I did, but nothing I could tell him. If I’d shown him mine, he’d have shown me his. We could have hugged goodbye with, maybe, promises of more to come, but not just then. I had to keep going, so I did. ‘Not really. I’m fine.’
Bobby tagged along, whether or not I wanted it. Football captain, May King two years running and there he was following me like a dog. He’d been home in the Florida sunshine for three years but he must have spent it inside, he was that white in the face. He’d gotten skinny in there, but he was grinning and dancing along next to me as though no time had passed, ‘Nenna, wait up.’
It all piled in on me and I started to run. ‘Can’t, Bobby. I’m late.’
‘Late for what?’
It wasn’t just Davis I was mad at, it was him. When you were eighteen you wouldn’t even look at me. ‘I’m in a hurry, Bobby. Why should I stop and talk to you?’
‘I’ve missed you, Nenna. It’s been forever.’ He’s changed but he smiled, just like in our yearbook. Most popular: Bobby Chaplin and Laura DePew. And, this is ironic. Most Likely To Succeed: Bobby Chaplin and Lucy Carteret. ‘Nenna?’
You’ve been home three years. ‘You could have phoned.’
‘It’s. I couldn’t.’
‘And you want me to stop and talk to you?’
‘What are you doing out in this heat?’
‘It’s a nice day, I thought I’d walk.’
‘If it’s car trouble, I can call Triple A.’
‘I’m almost home.’ Home. Davis. Accusations and the fight.
‘Let me ride you, Nenna. You look beat.’
My feet were raw but I wasn’t about to stop now that I was so close. ‘I said, I’m fine.’
At First Street, which you have to cross to get into Far Acres, Bobby did stop, exactly like your dog hitting the electronic fence. ‘OK Nenna, take care.’
‘I’m sorry. I have a lot to do.’
I do. In this town, there’s a ritual checklist: call your lawyer, tell the kids, field a phone call from Coleman Rowell, who must have radar about these things, he’s like a sex vulture waiting to pounce, the list was running through my head. OK, lady, get this over with, then tell Coleman no. Change your hair and dress to kill and go looking for a good man who will for God’s sake do right by you. Bobby would be perfect, we could have started, but I wasn’t about to stop for him. I was bent on getting home. Every nerve and muscle in me was screaming but I had to end my own business before I could think about starting anything.
5
Dan
To find out about the past, you have to go there.
Dan reduced his mother to ashes in a brass box, sealed and weighted as requested, and rented a boat so he could drop her in the Atlantic off the beach at Misquamicut, where she used to take him when he was a kid. She hadn’t asked him to say a few words as the box with her in it plunged into the ocean, but he did. Never mind what he said over her. It is between them.
He did what you have to, the sad, necessary things. Filed insurance forms and settled with the funeral home. Cleaned out the apartment. Without her, the rooms were so empty that in a way it was a surgical strike. Goodwill took most of the furniture and useful small objects. He rented a storage locker for the rest. Met with her lawyer and closed up the house. His week is up, but he and his mother aren’t finished.
All his life, Lucy lived as though history began when she had him. She pretended there was nothing before life in New London, and he loved her well