Jencey moaned aloud and pulled the covers over her head. “Can’t your grandmother take you?” she said from under the sheets. She’d known today was the Fourth and had vaguely thought of the neighborhood to-do over the big day, but hadn’t actually expected to take part in any of it. Pilar and Zara had spent the day yesterday helping her mother make the traditional dishes to put out at the neighborhood potluck. Things just wouldn’t be the same in Sycamore Glen if her mother’s potato salad wasn’t among the dishes. Jencey wasn’t in the mood to participate in a large celebration that most likely would involve people she hadn’t seen in over a decade, fielding questions about her husband and why she was there, which she’d so far, for the most part, been able to avoid. But the girls were invested now, which meant she was as well.
Zara’s head appeared underneath the covers, her grin so wide her dimples showed. She scooched down to get into Jencey’s line of sight. She was her mirror child, her baby, her sweetest girl. “No, Mom, you have to come. You promised.”
It was true; she’d agreed at dinner last night, acquiescing to the girls’ pleas without much of a fight. That would teach her to drink wine at dinner. She tossed the covers back with a world-weary sigh, her eyes falling on a poster of Marky Mark before he’d become the more respectable Mark Wahlberg. “You’re right. I said I would go, so let’s go watch this amazing, elaborate display of patriotism!” she said, her voice containing so much false enthusiasm she expected Zara to see right through it.
But she didn’t. “Pilar!” Zara hollered as she hopped up from the bed. “I told you she’d come!” She scampered from the room, her little feet thundering down the hall in search of her sister. If her parents weren’t awake, they would be now. Serves them right, she thought. She was tempted to pull the covers back over her head and fall headlong back into dreamland, but she wasn’t sure her dreamland was a safe place to go.
She took her spot on the sidewalk with the other neighbors, waiting for the parade to start. Her mother had prepared a thermos of coffee for her, and a friendly man she didn’t recognize handed her a donut to go with it. She accepted the fried ring of dough and sugar just because it was the Fourth of July and the donut had red, white, and blue sprinkles. It felt unpatriotic to turn it down. She watched the parade, such as it was, begin its long trek from the entrance of the neighborhood to the clubhouse. As tradition dictated, the local fire department had sent an engine to lead the way, and she waved back at a fireman who hung off the side, pointing at her as he passed, waving enthusiastically when he was sure he had her attention.
“I think he likes you.” Bryte sidled up, pushing Christopher in his stroller. After all their days at the pool together, Jencey had come to recognize that stroller as well as she recognized other people’s vehicles.
Jencey grinned at her and said hello even though her mouth was still full of donut. She broke off a bite of the donut and handed it to Christopher without asking Bryte first. Christopher looked up at her with utter gratitude on his face, stuffing the donut in his mouth before his mother could think better of it and take it away.
Bryte laughed. “Donuts are his love language.”
“Smart boy,” Jencey said. She looked around for Everett and was glad when she saw that he wasn’t with her.
Reading her mind, Bryte explained. “We came to see Daddy ride his bike, didn’t we, Christopher?” She raised her eyebrows and gestured to the pack of paraders still waiting for their turn. A big red tractor decorated with an abundance of streamers putted by. The man driving it spit a big brown stream of tobacco juice onto the pavement. Only in the South, she thought.
Beside her, Bryte shuddered at the sight of the spit, then continued talking. “Everett got roped into riding his bike with some of the other neighborhood guys.” She looked down at Christopher, his mouth stuffed with donut. “Christopher helped decorate it last night,” she added.
“I’m sure it’s lovely.”
Bryte laughed. “It’s um, colorful,” she said with a smile. She looked around. “Your girls in the parade?”
“Oh yes. My parents decorated their golf cart. They’ll be along any minute.”
They stood in companionable silence for a bit as girls on horses and a man in a huge old convertible made their way past. People cheered and clapped and screamed, more for the sheer excuse to do so than because the entries were anything spectacular. Children ran up and down the parade route, shrieking their excitement and waving their arms so the people in the parade would throw them candy. She tried to imagine this sort of spectacle in her old neighborhood, but she might as well have been trying to envision a parade of elephants or spaceships traversing down the main drag of her former residence. For one thing, aliens and pachyderms would never make it past the gatehouse. For another, her old neighbors only did things with elegance, distinction, class—a hodgepodge, anything-goes parade like the one she was watching would have caused horror and dismay among the people she’d once called friends.
She felt a little foot nudge her in the back of the leg and looked down to see Christopher kicking absentmindedly as he took in the sights, his brow knit together, his face serious. She tried not to think too much about whether he looked like Everett. He was all decked out in red, white, and blue, as were most of the other kids. Her own girls had cobbled together white T-shirts and denim shorts at the last minute, and her mother had come to the rescue with red-and-white polka-dot ribbons for their ponytails, completing their patriotic ensembles. In her old neighborhood, she’d have planned weeks in advance, ordered special coordinated—heaven forbid they matched!—outfits for them to wear. This year she hadn’t given it a second thought.
A man on a unicycle rolled by them, throwing candy out of a fanny pack as he went. Bryte caught a piece of gum, unwrapped it, and handed it to Christopher, who looked like he’d hit the jackpot as he greedily stuffed it into his mouth. “Do you remember doing this as kids?” Bryte asked when she turned back toward the action. Everett still hadn’t been by.
“Oh, sure,” Jencey said, as if it was old hat, unwilling to admit all the memories the event was stirring in her. So many memories she faced each day, all coming at her like a mental assault.
Her parents came by in the golf cart with Pilar and Zara waving shyly from the backseat as they passed. Jencey attempted to wolf-whistle and saw Pilar duck her head in embarrassment, her face taking on a rosy blush. Zara hollered, “Mom! Hey, Mom!” and waved more furiously. Jencey laughed and waved back just as furiously. Zara’s ribbon had come untied on one pigtail, but the other was hanging in there, giving her a lopsided look.
She spotted the man—the one who’d saved the little boy—heading toward them, a meek and uncertain smile on his face. The unlikely hero who’d teased her about being named after a legendary one. She gave him a little wave. He looked momentarily surprised, then waved back and headed their way with a little more confidence in his step. He stopped when he got to them. “Hello,” he greeted them. “I was hoping I’d see you guys here.”
“Wouldn’t miss it!” Bryte said.
He waited until he caught Jencey’s eye. “Hi,” he said, and it felt like a special greeting just for her.
She blushed in spite of herself. “How are you?” she asked. She hadn’t seen him since the incident and hoped he was doing OK after what had happened. She hadn’t been able to get it too far from her mind, and she hadn’t been the one to pull the child out of that pool. She’d heard Cutter was not out of the woods.
He shrugged. “Hanging in there.” He gestured at the paraders going by. “Just celebrating our nation’s birth.”
She grinned in response. “Well, you’ve come to the right place.” She knew all their minds had to be on what they’d witnessed, in spite of the forced celebration. It was the only reason she wanted to go to the pool today, to be around the people who’d been there that day. “Do you come every year?” she asked, just to keep the conversation going.
“Yeah, my wife—Debra—she loved all th
is stuff. So the kids think it’s a requirement to come.” He rolled his eyes, and she could sympathize with his reticence to be somewhere people were having a good time. It took a lot out of you: celebrating when you wanted to do anything but.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” she said.
He looked at her and squinted his eyes in confusion. “Loss?”
“Your wife? She’s um . . . deceased?” She winced at her words. First she brought up the little boy, then his wife’s death. Way to keep things positive. She was definitely rusty at conversing with the opposite sex.
Thankfully he didn’t look upset. Instead, he surprised her by laughing. “Debra? Dead?” He shook his head. “I might’ve wished her dead sometimes, but no, she’s very much alive. We’re just living apart while she ‘figures out what she wants out of life.’” He made air quotes with his fingers as he said the last part, his voice dripping with sarcasm. He gave her a meaningful look. “Turns out she’s not so sure she ever wanted any of this life, after all.” He gave her a “what are you gonna do?” shrug just as Bryte broke into whoops and applause, startling them both.
Jencey turned in time to see Everett ride by on a mountain bike bedecked in streamers and paper flags. He was wearing an Uncle Sam top hat, which he tipped in Bryte and Christopher’s direction.
“See, Daddy?” Bryte yelled and pointed, as if Christopher could miss him. From his stroller, his somber expression changed, and he also began waving and hollering. When he smiled, dimples creased his cheeks and his eyes danced. He clapped his hands together, marveling at the sight of his dad.
Jencey clapped as well. When her eyes locked with Everett’s, she smiled at him. He didn’t tip his hat to her, and she didn’t expect him to. He belonged to someone else now. He rode past her, but she didn’t watch him go.
CAILEY
I didn’t want to go back to the pool ever again, but Zell said I had to. She said the Fourth of July was going to be fun and told me all about the stuff they do, which I thought sounded lame. But I wasn’t going to tell her that, seeing as how she was giving me a place to stay. She gave me a pep talk about conquering my fears, and how I couldn’t avoid water for the rest of my life. She said that the longer I waited, the harder it was going to be, and the more I was going to let the fear own me. She said that part of growing up is facing your fears and doing the things you didn’t want to do. Then she got a funny look on her face, like maybe her knee was bothering her. It bothered her a lot, but whenever I told her she should go to the doctor, she just shook her head.
“Are you OK?” I asked her.
“Oh, sure,” she said, and made her face look right again. “Now go get your bathing suit on.”
Before I went upstairs, I said, “Zell?”
And she said, “Hmm?” but she sounded like she was thinking about something else.
And I said, “You don’t make growing up sound like all that much fun.”
Then she laughed and said, “Well, honey, sometimes it’s not.” Then she shooed me upstairs.
As I got dressed, I thought about things we’d done on other July Fourths. We’d never really made a big deal out of it. Usually my mother had to work. Sometimes at night, she and whoever her boyfriend was at the time would take us to see fireworks, sitting on the hood of the warm car. Her boyfriends always said the same thing to her, as if they were the first ones to ever think of it. “Later we’ll make fireworks of our own.” And she always laughed like it was the first time she’d ever heard it.
Once we went to a family picnic back when my mother was still speaking to her family. We ate hot dogs and hamburgers that my mom’s dad cooked on the grill, and my mom’s stepmom, a woman she insisted was evil but seemed nice enough to me. She made apple pie for dessert. We ate big, warm slices with rivers of vanilla ice cream melting into the crust. The pie made me feel good inside: warm and full and happy. Then my mom said her stepmom probably made those pies from poisoned apples, and I spent the rest of the night thinking of Snow White eating the poisoned apple and sleeping for years. I was afraid to go to sleep that night. Instead, I lay in my bed and looked up at the ceiling, replaying the fireworks we’d seen, trying to recall the patterns of color they’d traced across the night sky. Cutter had been scared of the fireworks, hiding his eyes.
I tried not to think of Cutter, how he was missing the Fourth of July this year and how much he would’ve wanted to be there. No matter what Zell said, I didn’t want to go back to that pool, to see the spot under the water where Mr. Lance had found him, to watch other kids have fun and worry Cutter would never get a chance to have fun like that again, to watch the fireworks over the lake and know he wasn’t scared of them at all, because he couldn’t see them. And to know that it was all my fault.
LANCE
Lance hated the pool on the Fourth of July. People came out of the woodwork, jostling for space in the water, taking up all the available chairs, and generally causing mayhem in a place that was normally quiet and restful. Debra had dragged the family there year after year after they’d moved into the neighborhood. She’d marveled over how quaint it all was, delighting in the old-fashioned traditions—the pie-eating competition, the greased-watermelon contest, the coin and egg tosses, the prayer before the potluck dinner, everyone’s heads bowed in unison. “This is all just so southern,” she’d gushed happily.
He’d gone along with it, but he hadn’t been happy about it, and he’d let her know it. When she left, she’d called him “passive aggressive.” She’d silently stored up his transgressions throughout their marriage, then spewed them at him all at once, a human hydrant.
So it was ironic that this year of all years, he actually wanted to be there. Without Debra there to drag him, he went of his own accord, hustling the kids up there as soon as the parade was over in an effort to secure a good spot. He’d even saved a chair for Jencey, having promised to do so when they’d parted ways after the parade. Shy as a schoolboy, he’d asked her if she was planning to come up to the pool for the festivities. She’d shrugged nonchalantly and said, “Not much else to do.”
“Come on,” he’d said, and elbowed her. “It’ll be fun.” And when he did it, he thought of Debra doing and saying the very same thing on previous July Fourths. In that moment, a shock traveled through him, the shock of Debra being right. It wasn’t the first time it had happened since she’d left. There were many times since she’d gone that he’d been struck by the evidence that all those things she’d said just might’ve been true. If he knew where she was, he would say he was sorry.
But Debra had gone into hiding, and he’d given up trying to find her. Her sister had assured him that she was safe, and that was all he needed to know. Debra wanted to be gone, and she would stay that way until she didn’t want to be gone anymore. He understood this more with each passing day, and hated her less the more he understood. He even respected her just the tiniest bit for having the courage to go.
He sprayed the children with sunscreen as they wiggled and complained, then released them to play. He tried his best not to look over at the deep end of the pool where he’d found the still form of the boy under the water. From the looks of things, the pool management company had stepped up their lifeguard presence and done some serious training on vigilance since the near drowning. The lifeguards sat alert and attentive in their high chairs, surveying the crowds with whistles around their necks and flotation devices at the ready in their laps. Their postures were that of attack dogs barely restrained on leashes. Good, he thought. He tried to relax, trusting his services would not be needed again.
Every hour on the hour, a new contest took place, with James Doyle—a neighborhood fixture—officiating. Known for his devotion to his elderly mother and mentally delayed brother, he was particularly invested in the Fourth of July celebration. He used personal money to buy the fireworks for the neighborhood show and made sure that there were plenty of eggs for the egg toss, and snack cakes for the pie-eating contest. He kept everything on schedule a
nd even purchased trophies for the winners of the various contests. Everyone seemed to appreciate his efforts to keep the tradition going, because the truth was, no one else would if he didn’t.
Lance caught James’s eye and gave him a friendly wave, as he always did. They were neighbors, but Lance had never made an effort to do much more than wave at him from a distance, across their respective yards. It wasn’t like they had anything in common. Sure, he felt sorry for the guy, who’d certainly gotten a raw deal in life. And he respected him because he seemed to make the best of things in spite of it. But he left it there, which was admittedly not the most neighborly way to be.
A volleyball game of middle-aged men formed in one of the pools, and he turned his attention to it, idly taking in the action more as a way to keep his attention off the empty chair beside him. He tried not to care about Jencey showing up, but more than once, he’d turned someone away who wanted it “if you’re not using it.” He felt the slightest bit selfish, taking up a perfectly good chair that others could use in the hopes that Jencey would show. But then he would think of seeing her that morning, and how he hadn’t been that glad to see someone in a long, long time.
“I’m sorry,” he said again and again. “I’m saving this one for someone.”
The first game ended, and the men all climbed out of the pool to swig beer and trade barbs, their guffaws echoing even over the noise and hubbub of the crowd, calling to him, or at least to part of him. He supposed he could join them, if he was so inclined. He had, after all, fallen into the category of middle-aged man, a fact that still surprised him.
The Things We Wish Were True Page 9