she said. "I know." "I have a million things I want to ask you." "Me too." "I saw online about your wife," she said. "I'm sorry." I nodded. "How's your father?" "Not well." "I'm sorry to hear that." "All that free love and drugs-eventually they take a toll. Ira also... he never got over what happened, you know?"
I guessed that I did.
"How about your parents?" Lucy asked.
"My father died a few months ago."
"I'm sorry to hear that. I remember him so well from that summer."
"It was the last time he was happy," I said.
"Because of your sister?"
"Because of a lot of things. Your father gave him the chance to be a doctor again. He loved that-practicing medicine. He never got to do it again."
"I'm sorry."
"My father really didn't want to be part of the lawsuit-he adored Ira-but he needed to blame someone and my mom pushed him. All the other families were on board."
"You don't need to explain."
I stopped. She was right.
"And your mother?" she asked.
"Their marriage didn't survive."
The answer did not seem to surprise her.
"Do you mind if I put on my professional hat?" she asked.
"Not at all."
"Losing a child is a ridiculous strain on a marriage," Lucy said.
"Most people think that only the strongest marriages survive that sort of blow. That's not true. I've studied it. I've seen marriages one might de scribe as 'crappy' endure and even improve. I've seen ones that seemed destined to last forever crack apart like cheap plaster. Do you two have a good relationship?"
"My mother and I?"
"Yes."
"I haven't seen her in eighteen years."
We sat there.
"You've lost a lot of people, Paul."
"You're not going to psychoanalyze me, are you?"
"No, nothing like that." She sat back and looked up and away. It was a look that sent me right back. We would sit out in the camp's old baseball field, where the grass was overgrown, and I would hold her and she would look up and away like that.
"When I was in college," Lucy began, "I had this friend. She was a twin. Fraternal, not identical. I guess that doesn't make much of a difference, but with the identical, there seems to be a stronger bond. Any way, when we were sophomores her sister died in a car crash. My friend had the strangest reaction. She was devastated, of course, but part of her was almost relieved. She thought, well, that's it. God got me. That was my turn. I'm okay for now. I gave at the office. You lose a twin sister like that, you're sorta safe the rest of your life. One heartbreaking tragedy per person. You know what I mean?"
"I do."
"But life isn't like that. Some get a lifetime pass. Others, like you, get more than your share. Much more. And the worst part is, it doesn't make you immune to even more."
"Life ain't fair," I said.
"Amen." Then she smiled at me. "This is so weird, isn't it?"
Yes.
"I know we were together for, what, six weeks?"
"Something like that."
"And it was just a summer fling, when you think about it. You've probably had dozens of girls since then." "Dozens?" I repeated. "What, more like hundreds?" "At the very least," I said. Silence. I felt something well up in my chest. "But you were special, Lucy. You were..." I stopped. "Yeah, I know," she said. "So were you. That's why this is awkward.
I want to know everything about you. But I'm not sure now is the time."
It was as if a surgeon was at work, a time-warping plastic surgeon maybe. He had snipped off the last twenty years, pulled my eighteen year-old self up to meet my thirty-eight-year-old one, done it almost seamlessly.
"So what made you call me?" I asked.
"The strange thing?"
"Yeah."
"You said you had one too."
I nodded.
"Would you mind going first?" she asked. "You know, like when we messed around?"
"Ouch."
"Sorry." She stopped, crossed her arms over her chest as if cold. "I'm babbling like a ditz. Cant help it." "You haven't changed, Luce." "Yeah, Cope. I've changed. You wouldn't believe how much I've changed."
Our eyes met, really met, for the first time since I entered the room. I'm not big on reading people's eyes. I have seen too many good liars to believe much of what I see. But she was telling me something there, a tale, and the tale had a lot of pain in it.
I didn't want any lies between the two of us.
"Do you know what I do now?" I asked.
"You're the county prosecutor. I saw that online too."
"Right.