by Nancy Star
better than me. Both of you do. Sorry. This isn’t the
dinner conversation you were expecting. This must be
your worst nightmare. A Dear Roxie letter, the worst you
could imagine, come to life in front of you.”
Lane laughed. “I’ve gotten this letter already. From
you and from your ex-wife.”
“You got a letter from Ruth?”
“From someone like Ruth. Someone like you.” She thought about it for a moment and then explained, “I
used to think the letters were a rotation of agonies. But
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now I think there’s just one. One agony. The agony of
letting ourselves down. We want to do better but we
don’t know how. There’s so much suffering.”
“Maybe people who hurt people should suffer. I hurt
Leo. I don’t deserve happiness.”
“I don’t see it that way. Sounds to me like Leo doesn’t
either. Sounds to me like he’s ready to give you another
chance. He’s just working out whether he can trust that
this time you’ll be there for him. I think you and Leo
are going to end up okay.”
“I like the way that sounds. Thanks, Lane. You’re
pretty good at your job.” He smiled. “Okay, your turn.
What is it I don’t know about you?”
Right. This was why she never asked people about
their problems in real life. The interaction called for
reciprocity. How much to share, was the question. “My
husband was a drunk.”
“I gathered.”
“When he died, it was at a moment when we’d both
forgotten we ever loved each other.” Was that true? “Or
maybe it was just me who forgot.” Nathan nodded with-
out judgment. She took a breath. “It’s possible it was my
fault he drank the way he did.”
“I don’t think it works that way.” Nathan smiled and
she smiled back at his kindness. “But even if it did, I can’t imagine you doing something to him that would drive
him to drink.”
“I didn’t do anything to him. But I told him what I did to someone else.” She closed her eyes against the memory
of it. Sitting on the pullout couch with Aaron the night
they moved into their second apartment, the one that
would be Henry’s first home. Feeling so safe and tucked
away, on the eleventh floor; she’d chalked it up to that,
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the odd sensation of feeling safe. That and the wine and
the candles and the takeout pizza they swore was the best
either of them had ever tasted. Aaron shared first. She
already knew some of it; the part about losing his second
parent as a teenager, about moving in with his aunt and
uncle. What she hadn’t known was the rest, that Aaron
felt a constant pressure to entertain his aunt and uncle and cousins. That though no one had explicitly told him, he
felt it clear as talk: the cost of shelter in that home was to keep the household laughing. After Aaron’s disclosure, it
was Lane’s turn to share her own never-told story. The
memory switched. Aaron and the pullout were gone. In
their place was Ivy.
She opened her eyes. Nathan was smiling, waiting,
patient as always, for her to say more. There wasn’t much
more she was willing to say. “I told him a story he found
unsettling. Disorienting, was how he put it. Not too long
after that, he started drinking. So, connect the dots.” She left it there.
Nathan nodded. She assumed he was wondering what
she told Aaron that had so derailed him, but he didn’t ask.
She weighed the risk of telling it again. She and Nathan
hadn’t yet declared any feelings for each other. Theirs was a friendship tentatively leaning toward the possibility of something else. What would she lose if she shared? What
would she lose if she didn’t? Her phone buzzed. A text.
i’m here with henry. at the house. where are you? you
need to get here now.
“My sister,” she said as her fingers moved quickly,
texting back, what’s wrong? She pressed Send. “I knew she was coming but I didn’t know it was tonight.” She
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watched as the status line moved and then stopped halfway, stuck. A moment later an exclamation mark appeared. An
alert: Message Not Sent! “I just lost service.”
Nathan checked his phone. “I don’t have any either.”
He looked at the sky. “Must be because of the storm.”
At the first crack of thunder, they jumped. As the
skies opened, they ran inside. By the time they settled the check, they were soaked. Nathan’s arm draped around her
shoulder, they raced to the car while their food, neatly
packed up in a to-go bag next to the cash register, stayed behind.
h h
h h
The deluge had turned to a drizzle by the time they
reached the house. Lane quickly counted half a dozen
emergency vehicles parked at strange angles, three on
the road before the turn, two in the driveway, one rest-
ing at a slight incline, on the grass. As they pulled up, an ambulance marked oak bluffs turned around and took
off into the night. A pickup with a west tisbury ems
sticker above the bumper beeped as it backed up.
Lane caught a glimpse of the face of the passenger as
the truck raced off. “Aggie.” She got out of the car and
ran to the house. It took several minutes for her to register what she saw inside: her parents, mother and father, sitting side by side on the couch, talking to two policemen.
Sylvie looked up. “Henry’s okay. He’s upstairs. With
your sister.”
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CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“…told them that it was a big mix-understanding,” Henry explained to Lane from his perch on Shelley’s lap. To
someone who knew nothing of how things had been,
it might look like an unremarkable moment: a boy, in
his room, sitting on his aunt’s lap, speaking—in a calm,
strong and unselfconscious voice. It had happened just
as Doctor Bruce predicted, without warning or fanfare.
One moment Henry wasn’t speaking, then there was a
quiet thank you, now he was chattering in sentences and paragraphs. What struck her was how unprepared she
was; she had somehow neglected to think this through.
When Henry uttered his quiet thank you in the Rec
Center, she’d run out of the room to hide her tears. Was
that right? Should the milestone pass unmarked? The
thought flashed through her head that surely this was
something Doctor Bruce should have prepared her for.
She didn’t linger on the thought. Instead, she followed
her chipped heart, scooped Henry up in a tight hug and
told him she loved him.
“Why are you crying?” he asked her when she let go.
“I’m happy. I don’t know why sometimes people cry
when they’re happy.” He stared at her face, which she knew did not look one bit happy. “I’m relieved,” she admitted.
“I’m happy and relieved that you’re okay.”
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Shelley, who’d been waiting for her turn, opened her
arms. “Hey you.” Lane w
alked into her embrace and
Shelley held her close
After a moment, Lane stepped back, wiped her cheek
and asked why there were police downstairs. “I saw an
ambulance pull away when we got here. What hap-
pened?” Before Shelley could answer, she added, “Why
did you come?”
“I know,” Shelley said. “I know. I know. I know. I
swore I would never come back.” She cleared her throat.
“But I also swore I’d finally have this conversation with
you.”
“What conversation?”
“Griffin broke his toe,” Henry piped up. Shelley nod-
ded. “Grandpa maybe broke his toe, but we don’t know
because he won’t let anyone look at it. He feels bad that
the chair fell over the railing and broke in half. He said he’ll replace it. Don’t be mad. He didn’t know.”
Lane sat on the floor and gave Henry her total atten-
tion. “What didn’t he know?”
Shelley sat down next to Lane. “Dad thought that
man was an intruder.”
“His name is Griffin,” Henry told his aunt. “He’s
just a boy. He came over to play with me. Mom invited
him to.” He turned to Lane. “Did you? Griffin’s mom
said you did.”
Lane felt like she was underwater. The facts were
coming in a fast current. She tried to keep track of all the things she didn’t yet understand. Her father and mother
were in the living room talking to the police. Her sister
was in Henry’s room. Henry wanted confirmation that
she’d invited Griffin over to play with him. Had she?
She had. She’d invited him to come over when she was
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sitting on Aggie’s dock. “Yes,” she told Henry. “I did.
What happened?”
“I think Grandpa didn’t realize Griffin was a boy who
stayed a boy, even when he got big. He probably never
saw a kid that size before. I didn’t know Griffin was a kid either the first time I saw him. But now I know. He’s a
giant-size kid. He likes to swim, like Mom,” he told his
aunt. “And draw, like me,” he told his mom. “We were
out on the deck drawing when Aunt Shelley came. We
were drawing the storm sky. Grandma Sylvie wasn’t sure
it was safe for us to sit outside when a storm was coming
so Griffin’s mom checked with Griffin to make sure he
knew what you do if it lighteninged. Griffin knew. He said, If it lightenings, we’ll run in at the first bolt, faster than the wind.
Then Grandma said she’d make Griffin’s mom some tea
if she wanted. I think that’s what they were doing when
Aunt Shelley came with Grandpa. They came to surprise
us, but instead Griffin surprised them and everything got
in a mess.”
“It looked like no one was home when we came in,”
Shelley told Lane. “I went to the kitchen to see if anyone was there. Dad saw Henry out on the deck. He went out
to say hello and saw Griffin and—”
“Griffin wouldn’t talk to him,” Henry interrupted.
“Even when Grandpa asked his name in his angry voice,
Griffin wouldn’t talk.”
“He told me Griffin wouldn’t look at him,” Shelley
told Lane. “I think they spooked each other. Dad decided
Griffin wasn’t supposed to be here, and he started yelling at him to leave.”
“Which made Griffin scared, which is why he stood
up really fast, which is how the chair hit Grandpa, which
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was an accident. But Grandpa didn’t know it was an ac-
cident and he picked up the chair and threw it at Griffin, and Griffin ducked and the chair went over the railing.
Which made Grandpa yell more, which made Griffin
walk backward to get away from him. And then Griffin
got close to where the stairs start and the deck stops, and I didn’t want him to fall off like cousin Ivy.”
Shelley opened her mouth and then closed it.
“Because the stairs aren’t as high up as a window,
but they’re high up. So I screamed loud. Like Francesca
screams when people don’t listen to her.”
Lane took his hand and kissed it.
“And then Grandpa grabbed Griffin and they both
fell down and the table crashed and Griffin started yell-
ing, ‘Ow, ow, ow,’ and his mom came out to see what
happened. And then there was a lot of yelling and then
there were sirens and then a woman came and said, ‘May
I check your foot,’ and then she said, ‘I think it’s broken.’
And then Grandma Sylvie said she should check Grandpa’s
foot and Grandpa yelled, ‘Don’t touch me.’ And every-
body got tangled up and then untangled. And they went
to the living room except for me and Aunt Shelley. We
came up here. And here we are.”
“And then—” Shelley said, urging him on.
“And then Aunt Shelley and I had a big talk. And
she asked me some questions and I told her some an-
swers and she said she was glad she came and I said I was
glad she came and I asked her if she could live with us
and she said, ‘I wish.’ Is Grandpa going to be mad at me
forever?”
“Why would he be mad at you?” Lane asked and
Henry shrugged.
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“We should go down and check on them,” Shelley
said. She turned to her nephew. “Want to stay up here
or come?”
“Stay here.” Henry reached for his sketchbook and
grabbed a pencil and started drawing.
Shelley filled Lane in as they walked down the stairs.
h h
h h
They found their parents in the kitchen, sitting at the table chatting, as if it were any old day. The police were gone.
Marshall was the first to see them. “I’ll replace the
chair and the table. With something sturdier than par-
ticle board. That stuff is flimsy.” Lane said nothing. “It’s because I didn’t know who that fellow was. And Henry
looked scared. Come on, Turtle. No harm no foul? ”
“Please don’t call me Turtle. Henry was scared be-
cause of you.”
“Okay. I see how this is going.” He turned to his
wife. “Shelley and I got us a couple of rooms at a motel.
Nothing fancy, but clean. Shelley, are you coming? Or
am I calling a taxi?”
“Before you go…” Lane sat down next to him. “Did
you tell Henry not to speak?”
“Why would I say something like that?”
“He didn’t mean anything by it,” Sylvie told Lane.
She tapped Marshall’s arm. “You didn’t mean anything
by it. These things happen.” She looked down into her
lap for a moment and then met Lane’s eyes. “I’ve told
you before. Things happen. We can’t always say why.
Sometimes it’s no one’s fault.”
“Tell Lane what happened when she came to visit
you with Henry,” Shelley said. Her parents sat frozen
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in place and said nothing. “Okay. I’ll tell her.” She
turned to her sister. “One night when you were fast
asleep like a turtle in
a shell—this is obviously according to Dad…”
Marshall stared at his feet. Sylvie’s arms were crossed
over her chest.
“Henry got up to go to the bathroom but he got lost.
And by accident”—she turned to her parents and repeated
that—“by accident, he opened the door to Uncle Albie’s room. And Dad heard him. And he came running out.
And when he saw Henry in the hallway, he yelled for
him to stop spying.”
“I never said spying,” Marshall corrected her.
“Spying is what Henry heard. Henry told me you
yelled at him to stop spying. And he said he wasn’t spy-
ing. And you wouldn’t believe him. You said, ‘Why
would someone peek into a room that wasn’t theirs if
they weren’t spying?’”
“Good point,” Marshall said.
“It’s because you didn’t get a new bulb when the
nightlight burned out,” Sylvie told Marshall. “Henry got
lost because it was too dark in that hall.” She was quiet
for a moment and when she spoke again, her voice was
steely. “You did get angry with him, Marshall. And it
made him very upset.” She turned to Lane. “He wet the
carpet. He didn’t mean to. I wasn’t angry. But you know
how your father can be when he’s agitated.”
Chip. Another bit of Lane’s heart fell away.
“I didn’t yell,” Marshall grumbled. “I purposely didn’t
yell because that might have woken up Turtle. Lane,” he
corrected himself, and turned to her. “If I yelled and you woke up, you would have turned the whole thing into a
big megillah. I didn’t yell.”
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“A person doesn’t have to yell to sound angry,” Sylvie
said. “You were angry. So angry. You were practically
growling. ‘Get out of the hall. Get in here right now.’ It’s really no wonder he was terrified.” She whispered the next to Lane. “I swear I’ve never hit him before. Not once.”
Lane’s eyes widened. “You hit Henry?”
“No. I would never do that. I hit your father. It re-
ally was more of a push. A shove, to get him to stop. To
get him to snap out of it. Which he did. He snapped out
of it and he fell down. I’m quite sure it was because he
wasn’t expecting me to push him. Poor Henry just stood
there. He didn’t know what to do. I told him, ‘Forget
this. Forget everything you saw. Nothing happened. The
carpet is fine. Your grandfather is fine. I’m fine. We will all continue to tiptoe around as if nothing happened.’