by Zoe Kane
"Whatever, dorks," she muttered, her face deliberately expressionless, and Annie's heart fractured in two at the sound of it.
Anya was twelve, so to her the Walter kids were babies, constantly underfoot. They were her uncool little siblings' uncool friends, and in her own home she could barely be spared to make eye contact with them. Yet she had bolted out of the house, in the middle of dinner, so fast that she hadn't even changed out of her now-soaked pink sneakers into her rain boots, because she didn't want to waste another second before reuniting them with their cat.
Anya did not show she cared about you with her words or her voice or the look on her face. Anya would never say, "I thought about how painful it would be if this was happening to me and I wanted to make it better." She had not said anything. She had barely refrained from eye-rolling. But she had shown up.
Anya, too, had a heart she was too proud to show in public. Anya, too, wore armor between herself and the world, holding everyone at arm's length. Maybe she would grow out of it, when she wasn't twelve anymore. But Annie was in no mood, right now, to endorse another woman - even one who was really still just a girl - in the act of pretending for her own pride's sake that she didn't have any feelings.
And so she did something that astonished everyone.
She took two long strides through the crowd of happily dancing children, and she hugged Anya.
Anya resisted in surprise for a moment – the Arbors weren’t really huggers, and Annie was only just barely not a stranger, and Anya was twelve – but then after a heartbeat, she relaxed, and hugged Annie back.
“You’re their hero,” she whispered into the girl’s ear.
“It’s not a big deal,” Anya shrugged.
“It is to them,” said Annie. “And to me. You are wonderful and magnificent and you have saved us all and these children are going to love you forever." And just for a fraction of a second, Anya' arms around Annie tightened even closer. "Now go home, go get dry, and tell Abe and Alexa how much we appreciate their help,” Annie said, kissing the girl on the cheek and letting her go.
Anya nodded, pulled the black raincoat hood that had so disconcerted Annie at first sight back up over her hair, and ran back up the street towards home.
Once she was gone, Annie let out a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding, and tried not to think about the way her heart had stopped when she had first seen the dark shape moving through the rain towards her. Anya was a foot and a half too short, at least, and she was wearing hot pink Converse. It was the mark of a desperate woman that even for a heartbeat, she had thought it might have been . . . someone else.
Get it together, Annabel, she chided herself. He’s in New York. He’s right where you sent him.
“Okay, chipmunks, let's get this cat home,” she said. “He needs to dry out. Good thinking on the blankets, Sophia.”
“I'm a brilliant genius!” Sophia yelled triumphantly, as they skipped down the street, heedless of the rain now that their cat was safe – if slightly miserable trapped inside Sophia’s coat, at the mercy of her aggressive petting.
“I was going to make flyers and put them up all around the neighborhood!” said Isaac.
“Well, you're also a brilliant genius,” said Annie agreeably.
“Did I help too?” asked Lucy, and Annie reached down then and lifted the wet little girl into her arms.
“Oh, my baby,” she said softly. “Yes, you did. You're the one that rescued me.”
Satisfied, Lucy wrapped her arms around Annie’s neck as the twins raced on ahead of them for home.
Chapter Twenty-Two: Here Comes the Sun
This story began with two phones ringing, thousands of miles apart.
The end of the story begins that way too.
* * *
APRIL
Annie held a latte in one hand and her cell phone in the other, checking items off her list as she pushed the shopping cart through the produce section. She had spent three days in a near-catatonic state, and the house was out of nearly everything, from toilet paper to cereal, and her own appetite – which had dwindled considerably during the months of gray fog that only Bug’s disappearance had pulled her out of – had returned with a vengeance. And the kids were home all weekend, which made this a good time to teach them how to bake something.
Helen had told Annie, way back when they first met, that part of coping with grief was to listen to the body – to eat what your body tells you it wants to eat. And Annie had emerged out the other end of her lengthy absence from the world with an irresistible craving for Grace’s plum cake.
Maybe it was time to teach the children how to make it.
Maybe Dr. Sharma was right, and left to their own devices, Danny and Grace Walter would slowly fade from their children’s memories over the decades to come. But Annie could push back against that as hard as she could. She could tell stories about her childhood with their mother, instead of shrinking back in fear from hearing her name spoken aloud. She could bring the photo albums back down from the attic. She could teach them all how to make a flawless plum cake so that when they were fifty years old and had friends over for dinner and pulled the golden, sugar-crusted masterpiece out of the oven, oozing indigo juice, and everyone said, “That looks amazing,” they could say, “It was my mother’s recipe,” and just for a moment Grace would be right beside them.
She could not bring their parents back.
But she could still, in her own way, keep them alive.
And so she heaped a bag of the biggest, juiciest plums she could find into the bottom of the shopping cart and set off down the next aisle when her phone rang.
“This is Dr. Walter,” she said, tucking the phone between her ear and her shoulder as she steered.
“Don’t hang up,” said Linnet’s voice on the other end of the phone, and Annie was so startled she almost spilled her coffee all over the Whole Foods floor.
“What – how did you get this number?”
“Marcus is dumb about passwords,” said Linnet dismissively, as if this fact was of no importance whatsoever. “Listen. We need to talk.”
“Is he okay?” Annie asked, unable to keep the rising note of panic out of her voice. “Did something happen?”
“Nothing happened. Not like what you’re thinking. I mean he wasn’t like hit by a train or got cancer or something.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
“But he’s not okay,” Linnet went on as if Annie hadn’t spoken. “I’ve known him for five years. He’s not okay. He misses you.”
“I don’t know what to do with that.”
“I didn’t have sex with him while I was in Portland, by the way.”
“Jesus, Linnet!”
“I wanted to make sure you knew that. And we haven’t done anything since.”
“I’m not having this conversation with you in the pet care aisle of a Whole Foods.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Linnet, temporarily distracted, “how’s the cat?”
“Impossible,” said Annie. “But cute.”
“Well, you know what they say,” said Linnet irrepressibly. “Pets resemble their owners.”
“Was that about me, or him?”
“If the shoe fits – “
“Linnet, you hacked into Marcus’ phone to get my number, you must have had a reason besides just a new audience for all your sass.”
“I mean, you can hardly call it ‘hacking’ when he uses the same pin for everything, I could clean out his checking account if I wanted to – “
“Linnet.”
“He’s miserable without you, Annie,” she said abruptly, and Annie stopped short, her cart in the middle of the aisle, oblivious to the irritated shoppers trying to navigate around her. “He’s a wreck. He misses those kids like crazy. He can’t stop talking about them. And he hasn’t said anything about you at all, which is how I know he misses you even worse.”
“I’m not doing this with you right now.”
“I care ab
out him too, Annie. And I’m worried. He’s never been like this before.”
“Look, Linnet, you seem like a nice girl – “
“I’m legitimately impressed at how sincere that sounded, go on – “
“You seem like a somewhat nice girl,” Annie amended dryly, and Linnet laughed, tricking an unexpected fraction of a smile out of Annie too. “And while I am middle-aged and old-fashioned and will admit that I don’t quite have a handle on your relationship with Marcus in all its glorious modern complexity, I know he’s important to you. And you want him to be happy. But what happened between him and me is between him and me.”
“He’s in love with you, Annie,” said Linnet, and her matter-of-fact words sent a shockwave through Annie’s body.
“Linnet –“
“He’s in love with you,” she said again, more firmly. “He wants to be with you. He wants to be with those children.”
“I wanted that too,” she said, trying hard to keep her voice from wavering, trying hard not to be the crazy woman who bursts into tears in the middle of a Whole Foods. “We all wanted that. But it’s just too hard. Everything’s too hard.”
“You love him, he loves you, you both love the kids,” said Linnet impatiently. “I’m not seeing the downside here.”
“You sound like Danny,” she said before she could stop herself.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“He got a letter from him,” said Linnet, “isn’t that weird?”
“He what?”
“Yeah. From the lawyer, I think. There was a letter in the safe-deposit box for him with Danny’s will and stuff. He wouldn’t tell me what it said but I couldn’t get him to answer his phone for like three days after he got it. I finally had to just go over there and bang on his door. He was a mess. I stayed around for a couple days to make him feel better. Not with sex,” she assured Annie again. “Just with, like, takeout dim sum and Vin Diesel movies.”
“Does he know you have my number? Does he know you called me?”
“What am I, an idiot?” snorted Linnet. “Of course he doesn’t. He would have told me to mind my own business. He would have said the same thing you said. Only he would have said it and then hit me on the head with a rolled-up newspaper like I was a bad dog.”
Against her will, Annie burst out laughing. Linnet laughed too.
“I can’t believe I’m talking to you and enjoying it.”
“I’m very lovable,” said Linnet sweetly. “You’ll see when you get to know me a little better.”
“I wanted so badly to hate you,” said Annie, in a thoughtful voice. “I’m genuinely surprised that I don’t.”
“It was a terrible first impression,” admitted Linnet. “I had no idea that you didn’t know. A sane, non-stupid person would have told you that I was in town and then texted you from the bar to say ‘I'm drunk as a skunk, Linnet’s driving me home and then crashing on the couch.’”
“A sane person might have,” said Annie. “But not a person who was that pissed at me.”
“I felt awful,” Linnet said frankly. “I’m not the kind of woman who would ever do that to another woman. Not ever. I don’t have a lot of rules, but that’s one of them.”
“Well, I appreciate that. But truly, Linnet, there’s nothing between me and Marcus that would get in the way of – I mean, you two – if you –“
“Look,” Linnet cut her off. “Marcus is one of my best friends. We’ve known each other for years. And every once in awhile, when neither of us is entangled with anybody else, we’ll engage in some casual, uncomplicated messing-around with each other. It’s light. It’s easy. But he’s not my boyfriend. It’s not a relationship. He’s in love with you, Annie. Like stupid, crazy, over-the-moon, terrible-Lifetime-movie in love with you. And like I said – I’m not the kind of woman that would ever do that to another woman.”
There was a noise in the background, and Annie heard the sound of men’s voices shouting. Linnet turned away from the phone and yelled something in Spanish. “I have to go,” she said. “I’m the only person in this whole damn shop who knows anything about European cars and if Carl so much as lays a finger on this Citroën Picasso it’s going to literally crumble into metal shavings right in front of me.”
“Well, it was nice talking to you,” said Annie. “Surprisingly.”
“Call him, Annie.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“Call him. Don’t fuck this up. You may both be stubborn idiots but you deserve to be happy.” Then there was a click, and she was gone.
* * *
The second phone rang and rang and rang and went unanswered - just like it had before.
This time, Marcus was alone, and missed the call while he was in the shower. The message was very short, and entirely devastating, and water trailed from his damp hair down his bare chest to leave a creeping dark stain on the bedspread around him as he listened to it over and over and over again.
This was all it said.
“I only asked one thing of you,” said Aunt Vera’s voice, without greeting or preamble. “Just one thing. Either come and stay, or don’t come at all. That was all I asked. I gave you an out, and you did not take it. Instead, you are one more person that my children thought they could love and rely on, who left them.”
There was a pause.
“All my children, Marcus. Not just the little ones.”
Another pause.
“Your father is dead, Marcus, he’s been dead for years. You can stop running from shadows now. You can actually have a family. If you want one.”
She gave a sigh that was somehow both exasperated and fond at the same time. “Call me when you’re done being an idiot, my darling,” she said, and hung up.
* * *
MAY
“Dr. Walter,” said Dr. Sharma, looking up from her desk. “Have a seat.”
Annie didn’t. She hovered in the doorway, a little uncertainly, holding her coat tightly around her as if for protection. Dr. Sharma didn’t comment.
“Thank you for making the time to see me,” said Annie, still standing
“What can I do for you?”
“I think I need a therapist,” said Annie, blurting it out before she could stop herself.
Whatever Dr. Sharma had expected her to say, this was not it.
She gave Annie a long, appraising look. “You realize I work with children,” she said finally. “I don’t actually treat adults.”
“I got a letter from Danny Walter,” said Annie. “Last month. From the lawyer. It was with the will. And I didn’t leave my bed for three days. The kids were feeding themselves Cheerios for dinner. I left them alone for three days because I was crying in bed. Something terrible could have happened. I could have let something terrible happen. I'm doing the best I can, but I'm still barely holding it together, and I don't know who else to talk to."
There was a pause. Then, “I’m going to ask you what will sound like a horribly invasive question,” said Dr. Sharma, “but –“
“Yes,” said Annie bluntly, before she could finish. “Yes. I was in love with him.”
Dr. Sharma looked at Annie. Annie looked back at her.
“You’d better sit down,” she finally said. “And start from the beginning.”
And Annie did.
An hour and a half later, when she had finished giving Dr. Sharma a reasonably comprehensive overview of the whole story – from the moment she met Danny Walter until last week when Bug ran away and she had finally dragged herself out of bed - she fell silent, and waited for the axe to fall. Waited for the therapist to be horrified. Waited for a comment about how it was certainly clear now why the children were such a mess. Waited for judgment.
“My God,” said Dr. Sharma. “You deserve a medal.”
Annie stared. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re saying to me,” the woman said, in her marvelously, refreshingly unsentimental voice, “that for over a decade
you were in love with Danny Walter – who was also in love with you – while he was married to your sister, who he also loved. And that for all that time, despite being each other’s closest family and seeing each other practically every week, neither one of you, ever, even once, did or said a single inappropriate thing. And when you finally realized that you had feelings for him, and that you were being emotionally unfaithful to the man you were seeing, you ended the relationship immediately; yet you never put the burden of knowing the reason why you ended it onto Danny, because it would only cause him more pain. In fact, both of you worked yourselves to the point of exhaustion to place your own personal desires – which you knew you could not act on without hurting people you cared about – on the back burner, for the good of the family. Even though it’s clear, from everything you’re saying, that you loved this man more than you had ever loved anybody before in your life. Do I have that all correct?”
Annie nodded.
“Danny put his feelings for you aside to be a good husband and father,” said Dr. Sharma. “You put aside yours for him to be a good sister and aunt. But you fell in love. That’s not against the law, Annie. That’s not something you can control. We don’t choose who we fall in love with.”
She sat back in the chair and regarded Annie with cool, appraising eyes. “Look,” she said. “If you want to, you certainly can continue punishing yourself for the rest of your life for not being able to legislate your own feelings. For not being able to make your emotions follow orders. You can do that. If you want to. You can keep beating yourself up about that forever. It’s a good one, forbidden love. It’s an ever-replenishing well of guilt. You’ll never run out of new material. So sure. Go ahead. You can keep telling yourself you’re a terrible sister, a terrible aunt, a terrible caretaker, a terrible person. You can do that. But personally, I don’t think that serves you. I think it’s time to consider what it might be like to take that weight off your back and set it down and walk away from it. Because the problem isn’t just that it’s a false narrative, Annie, the problem is that it’s getting in the way. The reason that you have struggled to help the children navigate their grieving process is that you have not given yourself permission to navigate your own. All of it.”