Suddenly, I remember that I don’t know what happened to Nick. “Do you know where Nick is?” I ask.
He grins. “Oh, your dad rolled him off the couch this morning and told him to go home. He said he’d see you tonight.”
I scratch my head. “Dad rolled him off the couch?”
He laughs. “You should ask him about it.” He waves again. “See you later!” Then he disappears.
Now I need to find Nick and ask him what happened between him and Dad. But Mom will be home soon.
Nick
My mind isn’t on work at all. It’s on Carrie. Last night, I slept in her bed until her father came home. Holding her next to me felt…right. It’s the only thing that has felt right for me in a really long time. I feel like my days are all work. My nights are more work. And all so I can hold on to my parents’ place at the beach.
I remember when they bought it. They were so excited. They paid for it in full and we were supposed to stay there only while they worked to get something a little larger. But that day never happened. We were happy anyway. I’d be happy there forever, but now the property taxes and insurance are killing me.
When I look at Carrie, I see possibilities. I see a future I forgot I might be able to have. I see college and dating and marriage. I might even see kids one day. But right now, I’ll never have the future I want because I’m working too damn hard.
I toss a can of tuna onto the shelf just a little too hard and the store manager scowls at me. “You dent it, you buy it,” he says.
I look down at it. I could actually use a can of tuna because my cupboards are bare. I live mostly on favors. There are so many people who owe me favors that I always have enough to eat, but not much else. Just like when I took the firewood to the Reeds—I do that all the time. I get from one person to give to another, building up favors. Then I sometimes collect. The rest I keep on account. For the firewood, I helped a guy clean fish he caught after a day on his boat. I smelled like fish for what seemed like a week, but he gave me some fish to take home, and I got the firewood from him when I needed it.
That’s the way my life works. Sometimes I feel like I’m robbing Peter to pay Paul. I’m tired. So tired.
Speaking of Pete and Paul, I see two of the Reeds walking through the aisles of the store. Each one has a kid on his hip, and there are three little girls at their feet. “Hey Nick,” Paul says, and he high-fives me as he walks by. He sets one of the kids down so he can look at some buckets, and the kid toddles across the floor faster than anything I ever saw. Paul jumps up and scoops him into his arms right before he can up-end a display of goldfish crackers. Paul tickles his belly and he scrunches up, his little face breaking into a grin.
“Can I help you find something?” I ask them, getting to my feet.
Paul holds the kid out to me, his feet flailing. “Hold this for a second,” he says. I take him and settle him on my hip. He jams his fingers into his mouth, and then he reaches up and jams them into my mouth. Yuck.
“Does it have a name?” I ask around the kid’s fingers.
“That one is Matty,” Pete says. He holds the other one out. “Hold this one for a sec, too.” He settles the little girl on my hip. “Behave, Hoppy,” he says with a shake of his finger. He follows Paul and the three little girls to the other aisle.
This one doesn’t like me nearly as much as the other one does and her eyes fill with tears. “Um, guys,” I call. But they have gone around the corner. Crap. I have no idea what to do with babies. “Hey,” I call.
“Hey,” the little girl echoes, and she grins.
“Oh, you can talk,” I say and she jumps in my arms, flopping her hands around. She’s wearing a bathing suit and a little sun hat, and they must have just put sunscreen on her because she smells like coconuts and she’s a little slippery. Particularly when she does that jumping thing she’s doing.
Matty still has his fingers jammed in my mouth, and I realize he tastes a little like peanut butter. And jelly? Yep. Definitely jelly. I guess it could be worse.
Paul comes around the corner with a bucket and holds it up. “Blue okay, Hop?” he asks.
She swings her arms a little harder and he puts the handle of the plastic bucket in her fingers. She immediately flops again and hits me over the head with it. Paul laughs and walks back around the corner. He comes back with a yellow one. I run around to the other aisle before he can give it to Matty. One kid beating me over the head is bad enough.
When I round the corner, I run into Carrie.
“Oh my God,” she breathes. But she immediately breaks out with a laugh.
“I’m dying here,” I say.
“You want some help?”
“Please.”
She stops in front of Hoppy and claps her hands and makes a silly face. Hoppy jumps and that damn bucket beans me in the eye. But she goes to Carrie without any complaints. Thank God.
“That’s a big bucket,” Carrie says, talking in baby talk. I rub my eye. It’s a huge bucket. She pries the bucket out of the kid’s hand and replaces it with a soft, squishy ball she took off a nearby shelf. Hoppy immediately stuffs it in her mouth. “They have to taste it before they can play with it, I guess,” Carrie tells me.
I point to mine. “This one tastes like peanut butter and jelly.”
Carrie shrugs. “Could be worse.” She laughs.
“True.” I heave a sigh. Around fingers.
“You left before I could say goodbye today,” she says quietly.
I bounce Matty on my hip, because he’s starting to squirm. “Oh, yeah. Your dad threw me out.”
“He did not,” she protests.
I nod. “He did.”
Her brows form a vee. “Why did he do that?”
“Um, well…” It’s terribly inappropriate to tell her that guys wake up with morning wood and that dads don’t like it much. So I just say, “He didn’t like me sleeping over.” I shrug. “Can’t say I blame him.”
“I liked having you there,” she says quietly. Her face goes red and I can see the pulse at the base of her neck jumping.
“Can I come see you tonight?” I ask. “If your parents don’t mind.”
She nods. “I’d like that.”
I look at my watch. “I have to lifeguard from two until eight.”
“Okay,” she says.
Paul and Pete come back around the corner. “Oh, hey, Carrie,” Paul says. He takes the baby Carrie has, but he leaves me with mine. “You’re good with her. You ever do any babysitting?”
She nods. “Sometimes.”
“Well, let us know if you’re interested. We could use some help.”
She nods again and smiles. “Okay.”
Paul narrows his eyes at me. “Nick, you ever do any babysitting?”
I nod, too. I do just about anything that will earn money. “Sometimes.”
“Good,” he says with a nod. “It might take both of you to keep all of them in line.”
“How many are there?” Carrie asks.
“Lots,” Pete says drolly. “Sometimes I can’t count them all.”
Carrie laughs. “Let us know if you need help.”
“Will do,” Paul says. Pete takes Matty from me. Then Matty lets out the loudest fart I ever heard, and Pete groans.
“I swear to God that wasn’t me,” Pete says, holding up one hand like he’s testifying.
“I can’t believe you’re blaming a fart like that on a helpless baby,” Paul says, but he’s laughing too, and I suddenly can’t keep from doing it myself.
“You’re changing it,” Pete warns as they go out the door. The girls follow them, with their buckets, shovels, and other beach toys in their hands.
“Do you need help finding something?” I ask Carrie. I really just want an excuse to talk to her a little longer.
“Flowers,” she says. “I want to get my mom some flowers.”
“What’s her favorite?”
“I don’t know.” She bites her thumbnail. “She likes roses.”
&
nbsp; My mom liked roses too. So I know just where she can get some. I give her directions to my house and tell her to take whatever she wants.
“I can’t do that,” she complains.
“Yes, you can. Someone needs to enjoy them.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. My mom would like that your mom is enjoying them.”
“Okay, thanks.” She smiles tentatively at me.
“So I can come and see you tonight?” I ask.
She nods. Then she steps onto her tiptoes and presses her lips to my cheek. She lingers there just long enough for me to catch the scent of her, and then she’s gone.
But I’ll see her later. That thought warms me all over, and I feel something I haven’t felt in a really long time.
Hope.
Carrie
When I get home, Dad’s car is already there. I have a big bouquet of roses and several pricked fingers. Roses have thorns when you cut them directly from the bush, apparently. I lift my wounded thumb to my mouth and try to suck the pain away. It doesn’t work.
I let myself into the house and don’t see Mom or Dad anywhere, so I go to the kitchen and put my roses in a vase. Then I go to put them in her room, but I open her bedroom door and pause. I hear murmuring from the bathroom and tiptoe far enough inside that I can see them.
I stop short. The rose vase tilts, and water drips onto the floor. I right the vase and wipe my foot across the spot to spread out the wetness. I stand very still so they won’t know I’m there.
Mom is naked, reclining in the tub. Dad is kneeling beside her and he’s rubbing a soapy cloth over her shoulders. He’s dressed like he was this morning, but she’s not wearing anything. He’s helping her take a bath? What?
Mom grabs his hand and he stops, heaving a sigh. “You can’t tell her. If you do, she’ll hate us both.”
Dad leans his forehead on her arched knee and breathes heavily. I can barely hear his voice, and he’s stuffy like he’s been crying. “I have to tell her,” he says. “I’m going to do it when she gets back. Right away. I should have told her a long time ago.”
Mom has dark circles under her eyes and she’s sniffling, too. I don’t know what happened when I was gone, but I do want to know. I just don’t want to know this.
“I don’t think you should,” Mom says.
Dad soaps the washcloth and picks up her arm, washing her tenderly and slowly. Intimately. Like lovers. Like husband and wife. He drags the cloth across her mastectomy scars in slow, sweet, tender sweeps. “I wish I’d been with you through this,” he says.
“I wasn’t even with me when I first found out, John.”
“I know. That doesn’t make it any better.”
“It won’t get better.” She grabs his hand again and holds it tight against her heart. “I have a month, if that long. Can you stay?”
Dad breaks. A sob shakes his shoulders.
“Come here,” Mom says, and she opens her arms, sitting up a little. She holds him to her and he runs his hands up and down her naked body.
“So much wasted time,” he says. “I don’t want to waste anymore.”
I can almost see Mom visibly relax. She sits back a little and looks into his face. “Are you sure?” she asks quietly.
“I love you, Pattycakes. I’ve always loved you. Let me have this last month, will you?”
“Okay,” she says quietly. Then she kisses him. And he kisses her back. It’s soft and sweet at first, and then it becomes more. More than I am comfortable seeing. I leave the roses on the dresser and back out of the room. Then I leave them a note and go to find Amber and Rose, and I pretend like I didn’t just see what I saw. Mainly because I don’t know what to do with it.
***
At eight o’clock, I leave Amber and Rose, despite their protests. I go home, but only because I know Nick is going to be there. He’s going to come and find me, and hopefully take me away from whatever is going on between Mom and Dad.
I let myself in the back door and find Mom standing in the kitchen. She looks up, and her cheeks redden. Does she know that I know? Dad is standing beside her chopping vegetables. She’s drinking a glass of wine, and I can’t help but remember that this is how it used to be before she messed it all up. We were happy. We were like this.
“Carrie,” Mom says. “I’m glad you’re back. Just in time for dinner.”
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
“Much better. I’m sorry I scared you last night.”
I nod and steal a piece of the zucchini Dad’s chopping. He swats my hand with a roll of aluminum foil.
“You look much better than you did last night,” I say to her.
“They gave me some blood. Plasma. Something. It feels better just having stopped the chemo, honestly.”
Dad passes her the knife. “Feel good enough to chop?” he asks.
“John,” she warns. “Don’t.”
I look from him to her. “Don’t what?”
She shakes her head and starts to chop.
“Let’s take a walk,” Dad says. He jerks his head toward the sliding glass door that leads to the beach.
Mom bites her lips together like she wants to say something, but she doesn’t. She just chops.
Dad and I step out onto the sand and he’s quiet as we walk down to the water. “What did you want to talk about?” I ask as we turn toward the lighthouse.
He doesn’t say anything. He just looks toward the horizon and gnaws the inside of his cheek. I wait him out. Finally he looks at me.
“It takes two people to make a marriage,” he says.
I wait, because I don’t think he’s done.
“And two people to break a marriage,” he goes on to say.
“O-kay,” I say slowly, dragging out the word as a prompt.
“Your mom and I had settled into a rhythm. One I’d got used to. So had she. But she was struggling more than I realized.”
We walk in silence.
“I should have known,” he says. “I should have paid more attention, but I was busy with work, and we were both busy with you.”
Walk. Silence.
“Your mom was really depressed, and I didn’t realize it. She came to me and told me how unhappy she was, and I blew it off because we had the perfect life. We had a wonderful daughter and great jobs and a big old house. We had the American dream. But her dream was a nightmare and I didn’t realize it.”
More walk. More silence.
“I thought she would come around. But she didn’t. Then one day, she left. I know now that it was her way of isolating herself, fueled by her depression. But at the time, I blamed it on a man that didn’t even exist. Your mom never cheated. She did leave. But she did it because she felt alone even in a house full of people. Even in a crowded room, she felt like no one was there with her.”
“There was no man?”
He shakes his head. “I swore there had to be, because what other reason would she have to leave, you know?” He throws up his hands. “I believed with all my heart that there was someone else.”
“She still left, Dad.”
“She left because she had to, not because she wanted to, Carrie. That’s what you need to know.”
“She never even came to see me, Dad,” I protest. “Not once.”
He stops walking and turns me to face him, holding my shoulders. He looks into my eyes. “I wouldn’t let her. She tried. But I was bitter and jealous and angry and I wouldn’t let her back in our lives. Not even yours.”
I gasp. There’s no way he did that. “She tried?”
“Yes, she tried. She tried really hard. She started seeing a doctor for her headaches. You remember how bad they used to be?”
I nod.
“They put her on a low-dose antidepressant for her pain, and she immediately started feeling better, like she could cope. So she started in therapy, and got the right dosage of antidepressants, and started to exercise, and she started to live again.”
“But she st
ill didn’t come back.”
“She was about to. Then she got sick the first time. She decided that she hadn’t seen you in a while and she didn’t want you to see her sick, when it had been so long. So she went through treatment and the mastectomy all alone.” He bites his jaw together and tears fill his eyes. “I’ll never forgive myself for not being there for her through that.”
“But even then…”
He holds up a hand. “The cancer never went away. She kept getting treatment, even after her surgery, and it just lingered. She kept thinking it would get better, but it didn’t. Then she asked for you this summer even though she knew it was over. The treatments are over and she’s going to die. And it’s all because I didn’t pay enough attention when she needed for me to notice what she was going through.”
A tear rolls down his cheek.
“Dad,” I sigh, “it’s not your fault.”
“Why is it that you can forgive me, but you can’t forgive her?” he asks. His voice is accusing, and it makes me bristle. I stand a little straighter. “I’m just as much to blame as she is. I caused it just as much as she did, and I let you believe she left us for her own selfish reasons, when that’s not the case.” He holds my shoulders again. “She was never selfish, and she’s still not selfish.”
“She’s dying,” I say quietly. And my voice breaks.
He pulls me against him and lets me sob into his shirt. I feel like he just pulled my heart out through my throat. Like he has gutted me. I am absolutely choked by the hatred that I have held in my heart for so very long as I finally get to set it free.
“I’m so sorry,” he says. He runs a hand down the length of my hair.
“Me too.”
“Now what do we do?”
I turn and walk back toward the beach house, and he takes my hand like he used to do when I was three. I jump into the shallow water and kick a wave at him.
He wipes his face with the tail of his shirt. “I can’t believe you did that,” he says, but he’s smiling so I’m not worried.
“We’re going to be okay, Dad,” I tell him. Then I kick more water at him.
“Yeah, we are,” he replies. Then he runs toward me and picks me up and tosses me directly into a wave.
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