Whatever they had talked about, the next day it was already near noon and there was still no sign of my dad.
“We’re going to let him sleep as late as he needs to,” my mother said. The original plan had been to get an early start and be home in time for dinner.
Simon had slept on the couch in the living room and planned to take the 9 a.m. bus, but my mom had insisted that he ride back with us.
“I’m sure they’ll both really enjoy that,” Julie said. Then she smiled at me in a way that was rare for her. She usually grinned without opening her mouth, but this was a full-on, toothy grin.
When my dad finally surfaced, my mom and Angela were making sandwiches for lunch.
“There you are,” my mother said.
“I don’t think I’ve slept that late in twenty years,” my dad said. He kissed my mom and she put her arms around him.
“You okay?” she whispered.
“I’m good,” he said, then kissed her again.
I’m not one of those people who believe in parents staying married for the kids and all that crap you hear about—those people who sacrifice their happiness for their children. They just end up resenting each other even more, and maybe resenting the kids, too, which obviously doesn’t help anyone. But as I stood in the kitchen watching my parents kiss—something I have not done a whole lot of in my life—I was really proud of my mother. She had kept her eye on the bigger picture all the time. Not a lot of people could do that. I felt proud to be a woman myself—an almost-woman.
As my dad made his tea he looked at me. “Why don’t you and Simon take the bus back together?”
My mother glanced up at him quickly. She didn’t seem to think I noticed.
“Michael?” she said. It was nice to hear her call him by his name. She hardly ever did that; it was usually “darling” or “sweetheart.”
He smiled at her—his blue eyes squinted. “They’ll be fine,” he said. “But we should go soon.”
My dad was right. The only other bus of the day from Portland to Boston and beyond was at 3 p.m. It was an hour-and-a-half drive to Portland, so if we were going to make it, we needed to get a move on. After all that had happened, the goodbye to Angela and Grandpa’s house wound up being a bit rushed, but that may have been for the best. Otherwise it could have turned into another day of lingering time and sad pauses. We all hugged Angela on the front stoop. I thought of the day I first arrived, when Davis and Grandpa had picked me up and we marched right over this stoop and into the house and then right back out again to go eat meatloaf in town. It seemed a million years ago.
All of us crammed into the car. I was squeezed up tight against Simon, which had its obvious benefits. Considering that it had taken me hours and hours from Portland coming in the other direction, the trip back to Portland was a breeze. The only problem was my parents pushing to get info out of Simon. They hadn’t really gotten much of a chance to grill him until now. The fact that they were trying to be very casual made it worse.
“So, Simon, what’s the name of the school you go to again?”
“Are you into sports?”
“Which ones?”
“You already thinking about colleges?”
“What did your folks say about you coming all the way up to Maine on your own?”
I wanted to throw myself under the speeding tires of the car. Simon looked at me out of the corner of his eye. I couldn’t return his gaze. I was invisible.
“Mom,” my sister finally said, “please.” I looked over at Julie, who glanced back and shook her head. “Whatever,” she mouthed.
For some reason that really made me laugh. Then Simon started laughing, and then Julie started. The three of us were guffawing it up in the back seat.
“What’s so funny?” my dad asked.
“Nothing, Dad,” my sister said, between laughs.
“I think we’re too old, darling,” my mother said to him.
23
I had imagined Simon and me taking that first-row seat on the bus, like I had on the way up, with the wide road in front of us. Instead, Simon walked right past the open front seat and kept going. By the time we arrived at the very last row I was reminded why I had fallen in love with this guy. He was a loner who liked to mingle—mostly with me.
Time was still playing its tricks, and the few hours to Boston seemed to go by in ten minutes. I think I spent most of that time singing the praises of Honey Dew Donuts. Simon had missed them on his way up. Once we got to the space-age bus terminal, we made a beeline there. I had two. Simon ate four. They were as good as ever. I watched as Simon got that amazing glazed goo on his cheeks. I reached my hand over and wiped it off. He gave me his best goofy grin. This was one of those moments of pure joy—helping someone I loved discover one of life’s pleasures, even if it was just donuts. I suppose that after the pain of death, the simple satisfactions taste sweeter.
Perhaps it’s just that buses put me to sleep, or maybe it was the past week catching up to me, but I fell asleep on Simon’s shoulder in the back row of the green Peter Pan bus as soon as we left Boston.
I woke up in Hartford, Connecticut, a few hours later. Simon said he had been just staring out the window, but it was dark now, and there was nothing much to see.
“I went back over to that park across from Thomas’s house.”
“I know, you said.”
“But I went back again after I talked to you. I really like that park. There’s never anyone there.”
“Did you see him again?” I asked.
“Yeah. He came out with that bow and arrow and we shot it around for a few minutes. He asked where you were.”
“What’d you tell him?”
“I said you were in a galaxy far, far away.” Simon grinned at me. “But that you’d be back.”
I reached up and kissed his cheek with a loud smack.
“What was that for?”
“Just because.”
When we arrived back to that horrible Port Authority Bus Terminal, my father was waiting. We were quiet for most of the drive home. Then I just said it.
“Simon was with me when I went to see Thomas.”
My dad looked over at me next to him in the front seat. Then his eyes shifted to the rearview mirror, where he could see Simon in the back.
“Were you,” he said. It was more of a statement than a question.
“Yeah, I’ve met him a couple of times now,” Simon said. “He’s a nice kid.”
My dad nodded that nod. I have to admit, The Nod looked good on him too. “I’m glad to hear that,” he said, “that he’s a nice kid.”
We didn’t say a lot more after that. Once we dropped off Simon, my dad spoke up. “When I saw Simon in Maine I assumed he was the one who’d gone with you to Thomas’s house.”
“How did you know I went there, anyway?”
“Because his mother called me.”
“So you talked to her?”
“Yes, she called me. She saw a girl and a boy talking with her son and she asked him who they were and he told her that the girl’s name was Lucy. She put the rest together.”
“So she knows who I am, then?”
“She knows about you, yes. Of course.”
“What’s her name, anyway?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Her name is Katharine.”
“Was Katharine mad?”
“Mad?”
“That I was there.”
“I wouldn’t say she was exactly thrilled. She just wanted to know if I was aware that you were there.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I told her the truth. I told her no, I wasn’t aware.”
We were both looking straight ahead as we drove.
“Was it nice to talk to her?” I asked.
“Lucy, it’s not like that. We don’t have that kind of relationship. We don’t have any relationship at all. I’ve told you that.”
“Yeah, but was it nice to talk to her?”
My dad shrugge
d. “It was, I suppose. It was nice to hear that Thomas was doing well.”
“Do you think about him?”
“Of course I do, Lucy.”
“Do you miss him?”
“Well,” my dad said softly. “I’ve never gotten the chance to know him, so . . .”
A light ahead turned red and we slowed to a stop. When we weren’t moving I could just barely hear my dad’s classic rock radio station playing super low. Even at a whisper you could hear some guy screaming, “Dream on. Dream on. Dream on. Dream on. Dream on. Ooooo Oooo . . .”
“It must be hard for you?” I said.
My father turned to look at me. “It is, sometimes,” he said. “But I brought that on myself.”
“So are you going to talk to her again?”
“I don’t know, Lucy. I mean, I’m sure I will, yes. We said we would talk soon.”
The light changed and we started up again.
“About what?”
“About Thomas, I’m sure. She just said, ‘We’ll talk soon.’ ”
“So it was Katharine who said it—‘We’ll talk soon.’ ”
“Yes.” He glanced over at me.
“Does Mom know you talked to her?”
“She does. I told her.”
We drove in silence for a bit, and then my dad looked over at me again.
“Simon seems like a nice fella,” he said.
“Fella?”
“A nice guy. How’s that? A nice young man. A nice person.”
“He is,” I said. “He’s awesome.”
My dad nodded. “I didn’t even know you had a boyfriend,” he said finally.
I shrugged. I’d been waiting for that one. “I guess you can never really know everything about a person, can you?” I said.
“Well, I don’t know, Lucy.” My dad seemed to be actually trying to answer the question. “Perhaps not. But I suppose the best we can do is to try and let another person know who we truly are. To let them see us. That is, if we love them and trust them enough.”
It had started to rain lightly. My dad shifted the wipers on slow speed. The pavement was shimmering a bit.
“And to do that,” he went on, “we have to make an effort to reveal ourselves to them.” He paused for a second before continuing. “I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. My withholding the knowledge of Thomas prevented you from knowing me fully. And the reason I did that was because it showed me in what I thought was a bad light. And I’m truly sorry for that. It’s my great loss that I shut you and your sister out like that. And your mother, too, for a while. I suppose that’s why I told her when I did. I couldn’t bear to have something between us that prevented our being closer. Even though it risked tearing us apart. And the only reason it didn’t was because of the amazing person your mother is. I mean we went through a tough period, but I think we’ve come out the other side stronger.”
I wondered if the reason my mom drank her wine every night had anything to do with what my dad had done.
“I felt the same about you and your sister,” he went on, “but my shame and fear of what you would think of me prevented my telling you. I’m your father, you’re supposed to be able to look up to me. I thought that you’d think poorly of me—that you’d hate me, and with good reason.”
“I did,” I said. “But even more because you never told us for so long. That made it ten times worse.”
“I know,” he said. “I just couldn’t face the idea of you feeling that way—you thinking less of me.”
“Maybe you thought less of you,” I said.
My dad chuckled. “When did you get so wise?”
“I think it was somewhere around the New Hampshire border.”
“And speaking of that,” my father said, “there are going to have to be some consequences for your little adventure.”
“It wasn’t so little.”
“No. It certainly wasn’t. I don’t mean to make light of it. I think it’s a trip that will have some very far-reaching consequences for all of us. Nonetheless, you’re grounded for a month.”
I laughed. “Dad, do you hear how silly that sounds, after all we’ve just been through?”
“I do,” he said. “But I’m still your father and I have a job to do and actions have consequences—”
“As we’ve all learned,” I said.
My dad looked over at me. The rain had stopped. We turned into the driveway.
“As we’ve all learned,” he repeated.
We were back home.
24
It wasn’t so much that I gave my dad a wide berth after we returned; it was more that there now seemed to be a space between us, a distance that hadn’t been there before. Without my anger at him filling the void, I could feel an absence—whatever it was. I knew things now, about my dad, about myself, that couldn’t be unlearned. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing; it was just different. But he was still my dad, he would always be my dad, no matter what he did or I did.
My sister had her big end-of-summer musical. This particular one was pretty good. It was about a girl in an English school who was hated by all the teachers and took her revenge on them. Usually when my sister was in one of her musicals, she paraded around the house singing all the time she wasn’t at rehearsal, making a lot of noise, but that’s about all you really got from her. But once we were back from Maine, she was different. I hardly remember her performing around the house at all, and she didn’t race up to her room after dinner to listen to her show tunes. Instead, she hung out more. She came to my room and didn’t irritate me as much. She talked about other things besides her show. She was actually a pretty cool kid to be around.
She wasn’t the main girl in the musical, just one of the classmates in the chorus, but honestly, Julie would have been much better than the girl they had chosen. Even from the back of the stage, you could see her sparkle. Simon agreed with me. Say whatever else you want about my little sister, but when it comes to the theater, she’s got it. She truly does.
I missed my grandfather. I suppose that’s a strange thing to say, since I met him twice, and only for a few days. I prefer to think that I knew him briefly, but well. Whatever it was that led me to seek him out, perhaps I’ll never fully understand. I can only say that I’m glad I did. Meeting him when I did meant a lot to me.
Truth be told, I missed the adventure of the road too. If so much can happen in such a short time, then what are we doing with most of our lives, just going on from day to day with so little variation and excitement?
One afternoon when Simon and Maxine were away on a family vacation—in Utah of all places—I made a detour over to the park outside Thomas’s house. I wasn’t sure why, but I suppose I had known since we got back that I was going to go over there sooner or later.
I had planned to just sit on the bench across from his apartment building, like I had done the first time I saw him. But when I turned the corner Thomas was already in the park, playing with a small remote-control electronic helicopter. He was having some trouble getting it to fly correctly, and when he did get the thing up in the air, it was nearly impossible for him to control. From a distance I watched as it crashed into trees, then slam to the ground. I would have been much more aggravated by this than he was. Instead of being frustrated, Thomas laughed every time the contraption went zipping off into a nearby tree trunk.
Eventually he spotted me. He appeared happy enough, but really he just seemed to take my presence for granted, the way kids do.
“Do you know how to do these things?” he asked.
“No,” I told him.
“Where you been?” he asked me.
“On the road to discovery,” I said.
“Huh?”
“Nowhere much.”
He let me have a turn at the helicopter, but I was no better at making it behave than he was. When I slammed it into the ground trying to circle a tree, he laughed. When the propeller came off, he just shrugged.
His mother came out from t
heir apartment building. She was prettier than I remembered. Her hair was down and she had on a nice skirt. I suppose she was still in her work clothes—whatever her work was.
“Come on, Thomas, we have to go,” she called.
“I just gotta fix this propeller.”
“Now, Thomas.”
“Mom, just hold on; if I don’t fix it, it’ll be broken.”
“Go on, Thomas,” I said to him softly.
“This is Lucy.” Thomas pointed at me.
Katharine took a step closer to us, but stayed on the other side of the street. She just said, “Hi, Lucy.”
“Hi,” I answered. I didn’t realize I had been holding my breath.
A car turned down the street and drove between us with its radio blasting. It went all the way to the circle at the end of the road and swung around. We watched it head back out toward Prospect Avenue.
“A wrong turn,” Thomas said.
“We should get going, Thomas,” his mom said. “We need to go and get back for dinner.”
“Aw, Mom, I’ll just wait here. Lucy can stay with me.”
“Come on, Thomas,” she said, moving to get into her car.
“Mom.” He didn’t budge.
“Now, Thomas.”
“You know,” I heard myself say, “if you ever do need babysitting, I’m pretty free these days.”
His mom stopped. “Oh, well, thank you, Lucy,” she said. She opened the door to her car.
“Yeah, Mom,” Thomas said. “Like now.”
“Not now, darling, but sometime maybe Lucy can babysit. Maybe on a Tuesday afternoon, when I have to work late.”
I decided to help her out and demonstrate some child-care skills at the same time. “We’ll do it some Tuesday, Thomas. But you go on with your mom.”
“All right,” he said, and then he stopped at the curb, looked both ways, and raced across the street. He was a pretty well-behaved kid. When his mother was halfway into the car, she stopped, stood back up, and turned back toward me. I was standing on the far curb with my toes dangling off the edge, like I had been that time with Simon.
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