and T. and walk around in his boxers, whether the button fly was undone and gaped open.
“If it’s no trouble,” said T., “Casey can show me around.”
“It’s no trouble,” said Susan, and smiled at him.
She and Jim sat and watched them go around the house to the back, voices fading.
“If you want,” said Jim, and cleared his throat, “I could come over for dinner.”
She was confused for a second. A breeze lifted the branches around them and she thought Hal was here—not gone, then gone, still gone, gone still. Old, dead leaves from last fall were also stirred, moving along the pool’s deck. She felt so grateful: the turbulence of currents—the best of weather, the best of earth, a small whirlwind. Green branches wavered and jumped in the gusts over her shoulders and at her feet their leaf litter swirled and dove like swallows.
The air was warm. She was so lucky to exist.
And Hal, Hal would have done anything to see their baby happy like this again. He had, she thought, he had done anything—was he a saint after all? He had returned to earth. A sacrifice was made, the son came home, and now their daughter was happy.
She rose on a wave of love and grief—he had accomplished it, at the greatest possible cost. He had brought it all here, given it all to Casey.
Nonsense—sentimentality. Nothing but circumstance. Accident, manslaughter, or coincidence.
But for a fleeting second she thought she felt him in the marrow of her bones, the small hairs lifting on the backs of her arms before the tingle and the chill dissolved.
Molecules, molecules and atoms, sweet tiny points of being.
It was Jim across from her, inches beyond the table edge, and yet it could so easily not be.
5
First she thought she’d have the housewarming catered, for ease and novelty. She’d never thrown a catered party and this occasion was ceremonial: an end, a start again. But then she decided to invite Steven and his son, who wanted to contest the will. She didn’t want to see them, of course; it was a purely diplomatic move, a hope that sociability would sway them. To that end she decided a caterer was out of the question: at the sight of such pretension, or at least such disposable income, the cousins might well descend upon her in fury.
So she called a cleaning crew to mop and vacuum and dust the mounts; she placed strategic vases of flowers. She enlisted Casey’s help with the groceries and they bought prepared foods in plastic trays, frozen appetizers in cardboard boxes from Costco. In the unlikely event that Steven and Tommy mistook the hummus and dips for gourmet fare, she planned to leave the empty containers, with price tags showing, piled on the kitchen counter. The slovenliness of the gesture would irritate her, but she was nervous enough for petty schemes. Would it make a difference to them? No doubt it would not: but it made a difference to her. She couldn’t help herself.
She invited a couple of women she liked from the old neighborhood and some teaching friends from way back. Casey invited friends of her own, some of whom were in chairs—the big house was finally equipped with ramps, rails and door retrofits—calculating that their presence might make the gathering more sympathetic. “That asshole Steven,” she said, as she watched Susan take a tray of small crab cakes out of the oven, “if he sees how you’re basically a halfway house for cripples here, how can he sue you then?”
“I think you overestimate Steven.”
“Oh, and you know who else I invited?”
“Who? Oh no. Wait, don’t tell me,” said Susan. “Sal.”
But she was secretly pleased. Sal was her favorite of Casey’s ex-boyfriends because he was a spectacle; Sal could be counted on to misspeak and offend. There was the possibility he should be kept from the cousins, but on the other hand, not unlike them, he was a blunt instrument.
“Who else?”
“Nancy. Plus she’s bringing Addison, but he’s a walker. And then there’s Rosie. You remember her, the one at UCLA? With the MS?”
Susan looked across the island. There were no shadows under her daughter’s eyes anymore, no purple crescents. Her insomnia must be gone, she must be sleeping again . . . but the guests, she thought: the list was familiar. It was the guest list from Casey’s last dinner party, from the night before Hal flew out of the country. The last night they ever saw him. The last night anyone did,