The Shortest Way Home

by Juliette Fay

  * * *

  The credit card bill came in, and it was much higher than Sean had anticipated. He checked it twice. He had made a lot of purchases. And now that he was doing Aunt Vivvy’s bills, he knew that they did not have much of a cushion to play with. She was getting Social Security, which basically covered the house bills, but not much else, and her inheritance had dwindled to the vicinity of an emergency fund. He called Cormac. “Hey, load me up with shifts,” he said. “Baby needs a new pair of shoes.”

  “Bad news, buddy,” said Cormac. “All the staff vacations are over, and they’re all asking me for extra hours now, too. I can give you some, but I gotta keep my permanent people happy.”

  “No problem. Let me know if somebody calls in sick or something.”

  Permanent people. Damn.

  Life in the States was ridiculously expensive—and that was with him serving as unpaid housekeeper, cook, errand runner, plumbing fixer . . . he was basically the wife in this situation. And admittedly he’d been avoiding thinking about Deirdre leaving. If he didn’t find some sort of caretaker for Kevin and Aunt Vivvy, he’d be trapped in Belham forever.

  His aunt had never wandered or left a stove burner on, and she seemed to be fine in the house with only George there. When her memory dimmed she just got quiet and drifted in her own world. It was like a mental brownout. If he could get someone to spend a few hours there in the afternoon, do some housework, make dinner, and help Kevin with homework, that would probably be enough. For now. It depended on how fast Vivvy deteriorated. He could be in touch with Kevin by e-mail to check on how things were going on that score.

  There was money left in his trust fund to pay for a caretaker—the question was how long it would last. Sean decided to limit his foreign work search to positions that paid a little more—that is to say, more than virtually nothing.

  The other concern was getting Kevin used to the new school. Sean thought of his slacker pothead brother scrupulously preparing Kevin for kindergarten. Kindergarten—where the biggest stressor was whether there’d be enough blocks to go around. Middle school was practically combat by comparison. Sean would have to stay for at least the first few weeks until Kevin made the transition and the school had him on their institutional radar.

  A thought flickered in the back of his mind, a memory of junk mail that might, on second thought, have some value . . . He dug through Kevin’s school packet and found the flier for the temporary school nurse position. It was short-term—only until October. He could handle doling out ice packs and sanitary pads for that long.

  Staying for another six weeks had an added benefit that he didn’t like to ponder too deeply. Rebecca. More time with her. He knew the longer they cocooned themselves in the fantasyland of Let’s Just Enjoy This, the harder it would be when he left. Already he was in deeper than he’d ever been with anyone. There were women he’d slept with off and on for months at a time . . . but none that made him feel like some pining idiot from a pop song the minute she left for work.

  Anxious to solve at least the immediate problem of income, Sean dialed the middle school. He told the secretary that he was interested in the sub nurse position.

  “For yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re a registered nurse? Because we can’t take an EMT certificate. You have to be an RN.”

  Sean rolled his eyes. Was a male nurse still such a surprise? “Yes, I’m an RN. I’ll submit a copy of my license with the application.”

  “Okay, then,” she said tightly. He heard papers rustling. “The posting says you also need five years of experience, preferably in ­pediatrics.”

  “I’ve been a nurse for twenty years, much of it with children. Can you tell me what the position pays?”

  “Fourteen dollars an hour.”

  Fourteen? That was a 50 percent raise from the Confectionary! Come to think of it, he’d never made that much in his life. “I’d definitely like to apply.”

  * * *

  Later that afternoon, a package arrived.

  “Kev!” Sean yelled. “Come here a minute!”

  They struggled to open the box. “Run and get a knife from the kitchen.”

  Kevin pulled a jackknife out of his shorts pocket and flipped it open.

  “Hey, where’d you get that?”

  “Bodie gave it to me. I forgot to tell you—I got my Totin’ Chip at camp, so I can use knives and axes now. He has about four of them and he says this one’s kinda dull anyway.” He slid the knife blade under the box flap to sever the tape. “See, you always cut away from yourself so you don’t get hurt,” he explained.

  “Good to know.” Sean made sure Kevin didn’t see him smile.

  When the contents of the package were revealed, Kevin said, “What is this stuff?”

  “Lie down and I’ll show you.” Kevin flopped onto the living room rug, and Sean gave him a throw pillow to put behind his head. “Close your eyes.” Sean gently spread the fleece blanket over the boy. It had rows of enclosed tubelike pockets filled with weights.

  Kevin’s eyes popped open in surprise, and he ran his hands over the fleecy hills of extra weight. “It’s really heavy.”

  “Too heavy? Do you feel trapped?”

  “No . . . it feels good. You try it!”

  Sean lay down and Kevin adjusted the blanket over him. To Sean it felt like he was being pinned, like his lungs couldn’t quite fully expand.

  “Not my thing,” he told Kevin. “But I’m glad you like it. It’s yours. Now you don’t have to sleep like the Princess and the Pea—with you as the pea!”

  When Sean took out the other item, Kevin grimaced. “I don’t wear socks.”

  “Yeah, I noticed. Just try these. They don’t have a seam across the toe, so they might not bug you as much.”

  Kevin tried one on and quickly pulled it off again. “Not my thing,” he said. He looked up, checking Sean’s face for dis­appointment.

  “A long time ago there was this famous baseball player called Shoeless Joe. I’m going to start calling you Sockless Kev.”

  “No, you aren’t,” Kevin said knowingly.

  “Yeah.” Sean chuckled. “Probably not.”

  * * *

  Sean set the kitchen table with china for the second time that evening. The first time the delicate dishes had looked incongruous against the old wooden table. Pulling open cabinets and drawers, he found what he was looking for—a nice lace tablecloth.

  Kevin came in red-faced, his hair sticking to his forehead in shiny black clumps. He poured water into a bowl for George, who lapped it up eagerly, and then got himself a glass. “Who’s coming?” he asked. “The president?”

  “No, smart-aleck,” said Sean. “A friend of mine.”

  “The baker guy? Tell him to bring some pie!”

  “No, someone else. Her name is Rebecca. She used to go to high school with Cormac and me. She’s nice, you’ll like her.”

  “Ohhh,” said Kevin with a teasing grin, “a girl.”

  “Yeah, try not to be too jealous.”

  “Gross!” said Kevin, but there was a little flush behind his freckles.

  When Rebecca arrived, she was wearing a pale pink cotton ­sundress printed with trails of tiny flowers. Sean had never seen her in anything so feminine, and he thought his heart might stop. It was all he could do to keep himself from going after her right there in the foyer.

  He restrained himself to kissing her cheek and murmuring, “You look amazing.” When he turned and introduced her to Kevin, he saw a strange, slightly worried look on the boy’s face as he held out his left hand to shake, then looked down and quickly switched to the right. “Sorry,” he muttered. “That’s how we do it in Boy Scouts.”

  “How was camp?” she asked him. “I heard it was disgusting but fun.”
r />   Kevin looked at Sean.

  “I told her about it,” Sean confessed. “We’re friends. We talk.”

  They went into the kitchen, and while Sean cut up Granny Smith apples for the salad, Rebecca, in her gentle way, got Kevin to talk in more detail about camp. He told them about watching the boys pile into the war canoe, an enormous Indian-looking thing big enough for ten boys and two of the leaders. They paddled out to the middle of the lake for a splash fight with another troop, and Kevin admitted that part of him would’ve liked to go. “But I don’t really do stuff like that,” he explained to her. “I’m different from a lot of kids.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’m kind of different, too.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, I’m pretty shy,” she said. “Also, I have this face thing, and kids used to tease me about it, which made me feel even more shy.”

  “How’d you get it?”

  “I was born with it. The doctors said I must have been lying funny in my mom’s tummy, and I’d grow out of it, but I never did. In fact it got worse. Nowadays they put helmets on babies who have it to make their heads grow right. But I guess they didn’t think of that back then.”

  “Do people still tease you?”

  “No, but sometimes they look at me funny, and I have to remind myself that it just takes people a little while to get used to it.”

  “I’m getting used to it already,” said Kevin.

  “Thanks,” she said with her lovely crooked smile. “I appreciate it.”

  When Aunt Vivvy came down for dinner, Sean saw a spark of recognition as he introduced her to Rebecca. She stared an extra moment at the younger woman. Then she nodded with just the barest note of triumph and said, “I take it you’ve purchased a raincoat since I saw you last.”

  When your memory kicks in, thought Sean, why not flaunt it?

  “I’m still grateful to you for that ride home, Miss Preston,” said Rebecca.

  “Anytime, my dear.” And she carefully lowered herself into a kitchen chair.

  After dinner, Sean, Rebecca, and Kevin went to Dairy Queen for ice cream. They sat at one of the plastic picnic benches, Kevin on one side, Sean and Rebecca thigh to thigh on the other, holding hands under the table. They chatted, falling into an easy familiarity. Rebecca offered Kevin a taste of her Brownie Batter Blizzard and held out a spoonful for him, which he happily accepted. It reminded Sean of a mother robin feeding her baby a worm, and it squeezed at him in a slightly ecstatic, slightly painful way.

  * * *

  That night after they’d pulled all the extra blankets off Kevin’s bed and he was snuggled happily under the new weighted fleece, Sean told him, “So you know my dad left a long time ago, right? When I was a little older than you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “A couple of weeks ago he called me.”

  “Whoa! Did you freak out?”

  Sean chuckled. “Yeah, I was pretty surprised.”

  “Did you tell him he was a jerk for leaving?”

  Sean nodded. “I kinda did. He told me he’s really sorry, and explained what happened a little better. I still think it was a pretty awful thing to do, though.”

  “Did you forgive him?”

  “Not totally, I guess. But I’m trying. Sometimes you just have to let things go.”

  “I don’t think I’d let it go. I think I’d still be mad.”

  Sean considered that Kevin’s own father had left, in a sense. “I can see how you’d feel that way. Part of me is still pretty mad. But here’s something you hopefully learn when you grow up: it takes a lot of energy to be angry—energy you could use for a better purpose.”

  Kevin’s brows furrowed in thought for a moment. “Like camping?”

  Sean smiled. “Exactly. In fact, we should have a bumper sticker made up: DON’T BE MAD—GO CAMPING!”

  “No one would get it.”

  “True.” Sean tucked the blanket in a little tighter, and Kevin’s face started to get that slack, relaxed look. “So, here’s the thing. Your grandfather wants to meet you.”

  Kevin’s half-lidded eyes suddenly went wide. “What?”

  “I know, it’s a little strange. But he’s moving back to Ireland, and he wants to see you before he goes. You’ll probably never get a chance to meet him again.”

  “Do I have to?”

  “No, you don’t. But maybe you should think about it. He’s your only grandfather.”

  “Will you be there?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “The whole time?”

  “Every second.”

  “Okay,” he said, unhappily. “I’ll think about it.”

  CHAPTER 44

  The next day, Sean got a letter from Yasmin Chaudhry, the doctor he’d worked with in Kenya. She’d been happy to hear from him, having wondered why a letter she’d sent to the hospital in the Democratic Republic of Congo had elicited no response.

  I can only imagine how dislocated you must feel! For people like you and me, our own birthplaces have become the “foreign” countries. Your description of the shop windows had me shaking my head in wonder. A whole display of fancy women’s purses—how exotic! At the moment, I’d give anything to see a full display of canned goods and unused ­syringes.

  As you can see from the postmark, I’m in Haiti now. The world seems mostly to have forgotten about the devastation here. Ah, well. The news cycle lasts only so long. And there’s no real news—things haven’t changed all that dramatically. Still so many homeless and ill.

  If, as you say, you are looking for your next “adventure,” I could certainly use your help. It would be delightful to work with you again, a trusted comrade, a dear friend.

  The letter went on to describe her clinic near Port au Prince. Yasmin was in charge, and he could imagine her competent, no-­nonsense approach, a very satisfying person to work for. But he had to secure short-term employment before focusing on the future. He walked his sub nurse application and license copy over to the middle school, leaving Kevin and George throwing a stick in the backyard. He didn’t want Kevin to know, in case it didn’t work out. He submitted the paperwork to the secretary and asked when they would start interviewing.

  “As soon as they feel they have a qualified candidate,” she said.

  Well, they’ve got one now, he thought, and hoped they might call by the end of the day. He was anxious to check this off his list.

  * * *

  After dinner, Kevin said, “I guess I’ll see him. My grandfather.”

  “What made you change your mind?” asked Sean.

  “Well, it was really fun hanging out with Rebecca last night. I figured maybe it wouldn’t be so bad meeting another new person. But you’ll be with me, right?”

  “I won’t even leave to go to the bathroom. I’ll just hold it the whole time.”

  Kevin crossed his eyes and made a pained face.

  “That’s just how I’ll look,” said Sean. “By the way, I’m going over to Rebecca’s tonight. I might be home late.” Like in the morning. “You all right with that?”

  “Oh. Sure. But why doesn’t she just come over here again?”

  “Hey—are you trying to steal my girl?”

  Kevin giggled. “She did kinda like me. Maybe even better than you!”

  * * *

  Sean was still smiling about that as he drove to Rebecca’s. Getting bird-dogged by an eleven-year-old. He told her about it when he got there. She smiled, but he could see it wasn’t a real one. “What is it?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” she said. “It just sounds funny—referring to me as ‘your girl.’ ”

  A prickle of anxiety ran up his neck. “It’s just an expression.”

  “I know.” She unplugged a huge brown ceramic lamp and brought it down to
the garage.

  * * *

  Later, after he’d finished brushing his teeth and checking to make sure he still smelled reasonably good, he came into her room to find her sitting up in the twin bed reading a book.

  Should he have brought a book? Is this what couples did after they’d been together a little while—read before sex? If he had known, he would have brought The Last Battle. He was almost finished. Now he felt like a kid at a masquerade party who’d forgotten to wear a costume.

  She looked up and there was something there, an uncertainty of some kind. Could she possibly be unsure of how absolutely giddy he was to sleep with her? Maybe she was worried that after a week of pouncing on each other every chance they got, he was losing interest. She had no cause for concern. None whatsoever. But was he supposed to come out and say it?

  And what was with the book?

  She slid over to the wall, as far as she could go in the narrow twin bed. He hesitated. “Are you sleepy?” he asked, wanting to give her a gentle excuse if she wasn’t interested in sex. Because if there was some other reason, he didn’t want to know it.

  “No,” she said. “Are you coming?”

  He climbed in beside her, every cell rising up to heave itself in her direction. She allowed his arms around her—how else would they fit? And then her hand began its customary migration across the landscape of his chest, and at last he took a normal breath.

  Their lovemaking felt self-conscious and frenetic. Rebecca gasped once, then again, and he was relieved that she was climaxing. But it didn’t quite sound the same. In fact, it didn’t sound the least bit happy or ecstatic. In another moment he realized she was crying.

  He quickly pulled back. “Oh, my God,” he said. “Did I hurt you?”

  “No.” In the dark he could hear that the pain she was feeling was worse than physical.

  “Tell me . . .” he said, though part of him absolutely did not want to know—would have paid good money to avoid hearing whatever it was she might say.

  “I thought I could do this,” she whispered, “but I can’t. I feel like I’m falling into a hole I might never climb out of.” She rolled away from him and off the bed, grabbing up a blanket that had fallen on the floor to wrap around herself.