by Claire Adams
My mother and Bill lived on Beacon Hill in a brownstone. I had mixed feelings coming back here, but I wanted to put all that to the side and just focus on having a good time. The front door flew open as we were still getting out of the car.
“We’re so glad you guys could make it down!” my mother said. “Come on in!” We followed her into the house and then the foyer. She hugged me first, then hugged Cole, and then actually leaned down and hugged Declan. She did seem genuinely happy. “Are you guys hungry? I put out a few snacks; why you come on in and you can have a quick bite, and we can talk about what we’re going to do today.”
Declan was looking around, taking in all the artwork my mother had hung on the walls, including the marble table in the foyer with a towering orchid growing out of a ceramic pot.
Bill came down the stairs, he and Cole shook hands, and he said hi to Declan. He gave me an awkward half-hug.
“Do you have a minute?” I asked. Cole and Declan were following my mother down the hallway toward the dining room, so it was just Bill and me standing there in the foyer. I hadn’t decided beforehand exactly when I was going to talk to him, but it seemed like it would be better to just get it over with. Otherwise, I’d be thinking about it all day.
“Sure,” he said, a surprised look crossing his face. “Why don’t we go into my study?”
His study was right off of the hallway, so I followed him in there. It was a small room with built-in bookshelves, a leather couch, and his desk in the corner by the window. It felt strange to be in a room alone with him. But the dynamic had changed; I wasn’t a kid anymore, after all. I was an adult, and he was an adult, and he suddenly seemed older to me, more tired than I remembered, and it seemed weird that I had ever thought of him as this menacing person.
He sat on the couch. I remained standing.
“What is it you wanted to talk about?” he asked. “Is everything okay?”
The air was heavy around us, and not just because it was humid out. As I stood there, I remembered that night when I was 15, but I was also remembering some of the good times that we’d had, how before I’d become a teenager, I had been thankful for Bill, glad that I had a father in my life, even if he wasn’t my real dad. I felt this odd juxtaposition of emotions swirling inside of me.
“Things haven’t been okay for a long time,” I said. “For almost 10 years.”
“Really?” he said. “I’m sorry to hear that. But your mother and I thought that things seemed pretty good with you.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment. I folded my arms across my chest. He clasped his own hands over his trim waist. “You’re going to have to be more specific, Allie,” he said. “Because I’m really not sure what you’re getting at here.”
“Do you remember what you did to me that night?” I asked.
He didn’t try to deny it or confirm it; he said nothing.
“Let me refresh your memory,” I said. “I was 15. Mom went out for the night. I was lying in bed, trying to go to sleep, and you came in and climbed up into bed with me. Ring any bells?”
Finally, he looked at me. He rubbed his hand across his mouth and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” he said.
I stared at him. “What?”
“I’m sorry.”
Wait—he was sorry? That had been the last thing I’d been expecting him to say, because if he was apologizing, that meant he was acknowledging that something had happened.
“I was drinking a lot back then,” he said. “I don’t know if you remember that or were even aware of it. What I did was wrong, and I’m sorry. I should have apologized to you sooner, but I just...didn’t.”
“Then why did you pretend like you had no idea what Mom was talking about when she brought it up to you?”
He looked at me blankly. “She never brought it up with me.”
“But she...” I didn’t finish my sentence. I tried to recall my phone conversation with her—I was pretty much 100 percent certain I could remember her saying that she had talked to him about it, and he said he had no clue. Hadn’t she? Yes, she had. At least, that’s what she told me, but from the sounds of it, she hadn’t broached the subject with Bill at all. And that made sense, really. She didn’t want to believe it, and since nothing had actually happened, in her mind, it would be better if the whole thing just went away.
“You were like a dad to me,” I said. “I always thought it was cool that we were able to get along, that you weren’t some stepparent that I hated.”
“And I appreciated that fact, too.”
“Appreciated it a little too much.”
“It was wrong of me. To be honest, I barely even remember that night; that whole period was kind of a blur and not in a good way. Things in my professional life were not going particularly well at the time.”
“So you thought it would be good to mess up things in your home life, too?”
He shook his head. “That’s not it. I had a lapse in judgment. A severe lapse in judgment. But I do remember enough to know that nothing happened.”
“Yeah, because I didn’t let it! If I hadn’t stopped you, you probably would’ve raped me.”He winced at the word. “Allie,” he said.
I did feel as though some of the wind had been taken out of my sails, though. I’d gone into this conversation thinking that he was going to deny everything, that he was going to act like I was making this whole thing up. Instead, though, he’d apologized. Now what?
“I don’t think we’re ever going to have some close relationship or anything,” I said. “That’s not on the table anymore. But I guess I would like to be cordial.”
“If that’s what you want, I am more than happy to oblige. I don’t want to think that something I did to you has been negatively impacting your life this whole time. That was never my intention.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have climbed into bed with me in the first place.”
“You’re absolutely right—I shouldn’t have. And I’m thankful that nothing happened. You stood up for yourself, and that was a good thing. It just wasn’t a good time in my life then. I know that’s not an excuse.”
“Okay,” I said. “I guess that’s all I really wanted to talk about. Thank you for at least admitting it.”
When I stepped out of the study, I did not feel as triumphant as I had imagined I would. The whole thing just seemed kind of pathetic. He’d gotten drunk and tried to do something stupid, and I had let it affect me up until now. Put in that perspective, it seemed silly that I had let it bother me so much. I didn’t have to be close with Bill; I didn’t even have to have him in my life any more than was necessary.
I walked down the hallway and into the dining room, where Cole, Declan, and my mother were sitting at the table. Declan had a juice box my mother must have bought specially for him, and there was a platter of pastries, a bowl of fruit salad, and some little mini quiches. Cole shot me a glance as I came in, but he didn’t say anything.
“Wow, Mom,” I said. “This is quite the feast.”
“Oh, it’s just a little something. Sit down and help yourself.”
I wasn’t that hungry, but I took a plate and put some of the fruit salad on it and a croissant, since it was mostly air.
“Declan is very excited about going to LEGOLAND,” my mother said. She looked at him. “I’ve never been there before.”
“I haven’t either,” Declan said. “Do you like LEGOs?”
“I haven’t played with them much, I must admit. But I am very much looking forward to going to LEGOLAND and finding out more about them!”
I tried to hide my surprised expression by taking a bite out of the croissant, which was very good. I couldn’t remember my mother taking such an interest in a child, other than myself when I was younger, but even then, I had always felt like she was half-distracted, thinking about something else.
Declan finished eating his fruit salad and slid off his chair.
; “Hey, don’t go too far, buddy,” Cole said. “We’re almost done here.”
“Oh, you two take your time. I’ll give Declan the tour,” Mom said, dropping her linen napkin next to her plate. “Do you play the piano, Declan?”
“No,” he said.
“Would you like to give it a try? We’ve got a piano in the living room that no one has played in... well, it’s been a very long time.”
“Do you play it? Can you teach me a song?”
“I might still remember ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb,’” my mother said. She gave us a Mary Poppins grin as she followed Declan out of the room.
I set my croissant down and stared after them. “Have I stepped into some sort of parallel universe?” I asked.
Cole looked at me, then looked toward the living room where they’d just disappeared to. “She’s really good with kids,” he said. “I see where you get it from.”
“Um... yeah, I guess. This is kind of a new development.”
“Really? That doesn’t seem to be the sort of thing that you could just fake. Kids are good are sniffing that sort of thing out. Anyway, Declan is already having a blast.” He reached over and touched my hand. “And what about you...how’d it go?”
“He actually apologized.”
“He did?”
“Yes.”
“Wow. I mean, it’s shit that he tried to do that in the first place, but it’s good of him to apologize.”
“Apparently, my mother never even brought it up to him in the first place, even though she’d told me on the phone that she had. I think she was afraid if she had, he would’ve admitted to it, and then she wouldn’t know what to do. Isn’t that messed up? Is my family way more messed up than I thought they were?”
“Probably not,” Cole said. “Or, rather, every family’s messed up in some way.”
“Your family doesn’t seem to be,” I said, but then I remembered his sister, how sad his mother had been.
I was just finishing my croissant when my mother and Declan came back into the dining room.
“So,” my mother said, “everything taste okay?”
I nodded. “It’s delicious.”
“And do we know how to get to LEGOLAND?”
“I’m not sure where it is,” I said. I reached for my phone and looked it up. “Um...” I looked up at my mom. “Did you know it’s in Somerville?”
My mother blinked. “Somerville?” she said. “What? I thought it was here in the city.”
“It’s not,” I said. Somerville was about three miles north, and I knew that getting in the car and driving to Somerville had not been on my mother’s agenda.
“I see,” she said. “Well. I had just assumed that it would be here in Boston proper because, well, why wouldn’t I? It seems a little foolish that it’s not here in the city.”
“Are we not going to LEGOLAND?” Declan asked.
I didn’t say anything; I wanted to see what my mother’s response would be. She appeared to have adopted the same tactic and was waiting for me or Cole to respond.
“It’s okay if we don’t,” Declan said after a few seconds of silence had gone by. The three of us looked at him in surprise. “We can go another time. I like just getting to be here!”
“Are you sure, buddy?” Cole asked. “I know that you were looking forward to it.”
“Well... if we don’t go there, we can go somewhere here, right? We wouldn’t have to leave early, would we?”
“Of course not!” my mother said. “Have you ever been to the Children’s Museum?”
Declan shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”
“I know for a fact that one is here right in Boston, and you know what? I think that it might be even better than LEGOLAND.”
I was impressed with Declan’s willingness to forego LEGOLAND; many other kids in his position would have thrown a fit if they found out they might not be able to go, but Declan truly did seem happy just getting to be with all of us and exploring a new place.
We were getting ready to go when Bill came out of his study.
“Are you ready?” my mother asked him.
“You know, I think I’m going to hang back here,” he said. “I’ve got a couple really important calls I need to make.”
My mother frowned. “I thought you took care of all that stuff already.”
“I wasn’t able to get through on a couple of them. But I don’t want to hold you guys up; why don’t you go on without me?”
“Are you sure?”
He nodded.
“It’s fine if you want to go,” I said, knowing that he probably didn’t have any calls that had to be made right then.
“I appreciate you saying that, but I really should stick around here,” he said.
“Well, I guess we’ll have to go have fun without you,” my mother said with a laugh, totally oblivious.
Bill smiled. “You all have fun,” he said.
And then we went out into the city. I felt as though I was able to appreciate the city more than I had in the past because I was there with Cole, and he was obviously enjoying being there very much. Declan alternated between holding his hand and holding my hand, and gazing with rapt delight at the tall buildings, the yellow taxis speeding by, the throngs of people passing us in every direction.
We went to the Children’s Museum first, since Declan had been such a good sport about not going to LEGOLAND.
“Oooh, look at all those balloons!” Declan said, pointing to a brightly-colored array of helium-filled balloons.
“Maybe we’ll get you one on the way out, bud,” Cole said.
Declan was easily distracted from the balloons, though, because there was so much cool stuff. We checked out the dinosaur exhibit, the construction zone, and the Raceways exhibit. I felt like I was a kid again, though my mother and I had only come to the Children’s Museum once that I could remember, a long time ago, when I’d been maybe 7 or 8.
And my mother was right there, taking pictures of Declan, of Cole and me, of the three of us. At one point, she thrust the phone at Cole and asked him to take a picture of us.
“I can’t remember the last mother/daughter picture we had,” she said, wrapping her arms around my waist.
We went to the Countdown for Kindergarten exhibit (since Declan would be going to kindergarten soon, he proudly informed us), and then we checked out the bubble display. Then Declan said that he was getting hungry, but since we hadn’t brought any food with us, my mother asked if we wanted to walk to the Barking Crab, which wasn’t too far away.
“I could really go for a lobster roll right about now,” she said.
We all agreed that some food would be good, so we started to make our way to the exit.
There was a group of people leaving at the same time, and we fell in step with them. “I’m going to text Bill a couple of these pictures,” Mom said, pulling her phone out of her purse. “I got some good ones.”
Declan was holding onto Cole’s right hand, I was holding onto Cole’s left, and we stepped through the glass doors and out onto the sidewalk.
“That was so great,” I said, and I turned to Cole and smiled up at him, then leaned in and gave him a quick kiss.
The smile on his face deepened, and he turned to face me, bringing his hands up to cup either side of my face and return the kiss. It was longer, though, and when he pulled back, he looked me right in the eyes. “I’m really glad we are all here together,” he said. He kissed my forehead and then looked down at Declan. “You too, bud—” he started to say, but then stopped. “Declan?”
Cole looked to his left, then his right, and I looked too, but Declan wasn’t where he had just been a few moments ago.
“Where’d he go?” Cole asked. His eyes shot past me, looking down the street. “Declan!” he yelled. The people walking past looked at us. “Declan!”
My mother had been several feet behind us, texting Bill. She looked up when she heard us yelling. “What’s the matter?” she said.
> “Where’s Declan?” I said. “Do you see him?”
She shook her head. “I thought he was with you...”
A strange calmness descended over me, even as my mother’s eyes widened and Cole continued to bellow Declan’s name. He would appear at any moment, I just knew it; he’d step out from around the corner, he’d have a big grin on his face, we’d chastise him for not staying within our line of vision... I just knew this was going to happen.
Except it didn’t.
Cole went down to one end of the block and disappeared around the corner, then came back, rushing toward me, shaking his head. My mother had gone the other way, and I looked behind us, asked the people coming out if they had seen a little boy who looked like Declan, wearing...wearing... what the hell had he been wearing? I couldn’t remember, and I didn’t want to give them the wrong information.
I went back inside to see if maybe Declan had wandered back in, past my mother without her noticing. There was no sign of him. I did see a security guard though, so I went over to him and told him that we couldn’t find Declan.
“How long has he been missing for?” he asked, his face very serious.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Not that long. Less than a minute, really.”
And then Cole was pushing his way back inside, his eyes wide, frantic, even though I could tell he was trying to keep himself under control. The security officer was speaking into his walkie talkie.
“You’re his parents?” he said to us.
“Yes, well, I’m his father,” Cole said. “His name’s Declan. He’s 4. He’s about this tall, he’s got light brown hair, blue eyes...he was wearing... I think he was wearing a gray T-shirt with a fire truck on it and blue cargo shorts. Navy blue. I’m going back out there to look for him; I don’t think he came back in here.”
Before the security officer could say anything else, Cole dashed off, this time running the other direction down the block.
Another security officer had arrived, and the two were talking together, so I went back outside, too. There were so many people. So many cars. All going in different directions, and where would a little 4-year-old boy have gone off to by himself?