“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. You go to a school like Dartmouth, and you’re surrounded by a lot of people who see the world in a certain way. There’s a sense of entitlement that comes with having so much at your disposal—all that money, all that opportunity. Don’t get me wrong, there were a lot of nice people too, but I’d somehow become surrounded by guys who took it for granted that the world owed them more. Like they lived on a different planet from everyone else.”
“Is that why you dropped out?”
“Pretty much. I didn’t think I’d survive another year. And if I did, I wasn’t sure who I would be by the end of it.” He lets out a short laugh. “I don’t want to be too grand here. It’s not like I quit to join the Peace Corps or something. I know I have my parents’ money to fall back on, and I work in an upscale restaurant where I serve guys like that every day. It’s just different somehow.”
I think about this. When he first told me about dropping out, I’d thought he was an idiot, but now I wonder if he may actually have been brave.
“Will you go back? To school?”
“Yeah. Not to Dartmouth, but I’ll finish my degree. I took a couple of classes at UMass Boston last semester.”
“So you’ll have a degree from UMass, not Dartmouth.” I think about all the doors a degree from Dartmouth could open. For the first time, it occurs to me that maybe some of the doors lead to places I wouldn’t want to go.
“My dad’s the only one who cares about that. I want to own a restaurant—you don’t even need a degree for that.” He rolls toward me and rests his hand along the length of my hip. “So you want to see where I work? It’s not far from here. They’ll serve you tonight even though you’re a day away from twenty-one.”
“Sure.” I feel a flutter of nervousness at the idea of meeting his co-workers and friends. “Is it dressy?” I mentally scan through the clothes I brought and if there’s anything in there that I can wear.
“Not really. You’re fine. More than fine, actually. They serve till ten. So there’s no hurry.” He brings his mouth down upon mine and kisses me for a long moment. I feel it rush through my body, shooting its way down my arms and legs. There’s no place I’d rather be.
32
Caroline
When I awaken, Jack is already up. I hear him in the kitchen and I lie in bed, hoping he’ll come back upstairs. Then I worry he’ll leave without saying goodbye, so I slip on my bathrobe and hurry downstairs. The hardwood floor is cold under my bare feet, and the sky is just lightening, the dusky crossroad between night and day.
Jack sits at the counter, staring into the steaming mug of tea before him. I wonder if he’s already regretting last night. Champ dozes at his feet. He’s brewed me a small pot of coffee, and even left a mug on the counter.
He looks up, a tight-lipped smile forming at his lips. “Morning.”
“You’re up early.” Despite the many years between us, I’m shy in the fragile morning light.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
I awoke only once during the night, and though we’d shifted to different sides of the bed, I felt Jack’s solid presence, and I drifted back into sleep with the familiar comfort of him beside me. I slept better than I have in months, and it pains me that he didn’t too.
I pour myself a cup of coffee, add a splash of milk and then prop my arms on the counter, without sitting down. He’s fully dressed, though not in the clothes he wore last night. He’s found a pair of khakis and a white shirt from the closet, and his hair is still damp from the shower he must have taken while I slept.
“Do you want some breakfast?” I ask.
“No, thanks. I need to go home before I head to work.” The word home must register on my face, because he adds quickly, “To the Feldmans’ place.
“There’s a storm coming. Do you have enough salt for the walkway?” he asks. I nod. “There’s a good chance we’ll lose power. Do you have new batteries for the flashlights? And extra candles and water? I’ll bring some extra stuff by later.” This is how Jack takes care of me. Not with words or affection but through simple acts that are easier to express.
“Thanks,” I say. There are times I’ve watched Ian and Evvy together, the way he holds her hand or wraps his arm around her waist, fingers playing with her hair. Their relationship is obviously more flawed than my own, but it’s those tiny moments of easy affection that I envy. It’s something Jack and I lost long ago, sometime after Connor was born, and I don’t know if we’re past the point of getting it back.
“You’re still coming over tonight, though, right? To talk with Connor.”
“Of course.” He swallows the last of his tea.
I clench the hot mug between my palms. It’s cool in the kitchen, and I suspect he hasn’t turned the heat up yet. I’ve gotten in the habit of cranking it high first thing in the morning. “Do we have a game plan?” I ask.
“We’ll talk to him. Find out what’s going on, and then we’ll decide what to do.” This morning, I find the simplicity of this more irritating than comforting. Jack rises and puts his empty mug in the sink. “I’ll be by before six.”
We stand a few feet apart, the heat from last night quickly cooled. “Jack,” I begin, though I’m not sure what I want to say.
He cuts me off. “Let’s not now, okay?” He takes a step closer and I smell the lemon-lime shaving cream he must have found in the medicine cabinet. “Let’s deal with Connor first.”
I nod, because I agree with him, but I’m also blinking back tears. I don’t know what I’d expected or hoped for, but it wasn’t this. He doesn’t acknowledge the tears, but he bends his face to mine, kissing me lightly first on the cheek and then on the mouth. “It’s going to be okay, Carrie. It will.”
Jack is very good at saying what he wants to believe. It doesn’t make it true, though.
After work I stop at the grocery store and pick up the ingredients for chicken parmesan, Connor’s favorite, then I swing by the liquor store and buy two bottles of red wine, as if this is a festive family gathering. Both stores are busy, people stocking up for the storm that’s coming. It’s started to snow, tiny flecks of white dotting the dark sky. Nearly an inch has accumulated already, and I worry that Jack or Connor will call to cancel, not wanting to be out on the roads on a night like this. The wind howls like a wounded animal, high-pitched and woeful. Back home, I turn on the radio and prep the dinner, pounding the meat into submission with the very same mallet I used just a few days ago on the pills. I make the meal with the automaticity that comes with a dinner I’ve prepared hundreds of times. The kitchen soon fills with the savory aroma of roasting meat, the familiar smell of a normal happy home. I imagine tonight is just a regular dinner with my husband and son. Perhaps if I pretend hard enough, I can will it to be true.
Connor surprises me by showing up first. I’ve already poured myself a glass of wine, a futile attempt to relax. When Connor enters, he throws his coat on top of the washing machine rather than using one of the hangers in the closet. He looks a little better than yesterday, though he’s as skinny and pale as ever.
“Smells good in here,” he says.
“Chicken parm. Your favorite.”
“You didn’t need to bother. We could have just ordered pizza.”
“I don’t mind. I wanted to cook.”
He opens the fridge and finds a bottle of beer in the door. He twists off the top and takes a long pull. “So what do you want to talk about?”
I’m not ready to do this without Jack. I top up my glass of wine. “Slow down, honey. Have your drink. I need to make the salad dressing.” Impatience flickers across his face, but I turn away from him and pull out oil and vinegar. I’m mixing the dressing with a whisk and neither of us has spoken again when I hear the front door slam.
“You said Dad wasn’t going to be here.” Panic flits across Connor’s face and then Jack joins us, still in the clothes he wore this morning, though he looks rumpled and tired now.
“Sit down, Connor,” Jack says.
“What is this?” Connor looks back and forth between us, not sitting down. “What the hell is this?”
“Watch your language in this house,” Jack says swiftly.
“You don’t even live in this house. Don’t tell me how to talk,” Connor shoots back.
“Stop, both of you.” I step between them, holding each by the arm. My frustration with Jack flares—this isn’t the way to begin. It’s not why I asked him to come. I wonder if this was a mistake after all. “Please. Let’s sit down. Let’s go in the living room.” Connor eyes Jack warily but then slouches in with his beer. He plops down on the sofa and I follow him, sitting on the next cushion. A moment later Jack appears with a beer and sits in the easy chair on the other side of the room.
“I told your father,” I say to Connor.
“What did you tell him?”
I purse my lips, wishing the answer were different. “Everything.”
“Why, Mom?” Connors asks. He looks so hurt, and I can’t help but feel guilty.
“I had to,” I say, but I’m not sure this is true. When Evvy convinced me to call Jack, it made sense, but now all I can think about is how easy it would be for Jack to drive our son down to the station. For a moment I wish I hadn’t told Jack a thing.
“You’re going to tell us everything,” Jack says.
“Or what?” Connor challenges. His eyes are empty, all of his anger directed at Jack.
“Or else we’ll talk about this at the station.”
“Jack,” I say sharply.
My fists clench with unspent fury that after all this time, he’s still not certain where his loyalties lie. Jack wanted a boy like himself, stolid and masculine, but Connor has always been gentle, with skin and feelings that bruise easily, his pale hair always in his face. Too often Connor has been the wedge between us as I cross sides to protect him from his father’s disappointment, unintentionally alienating Jack. At his core, I know he loves Connor more than anything, but his praise is sparse and his attempts to connect often come off like judgment. Despite their fractured history, I was hoping that Jack would protect Connor above everything, and now I’m not certain he will.
Connor lets out a laugh of disgust and shakes his head. “Whatever.”
“Honey, you need to tell us what happened,” I plead. “No one thinks you had anything to do with hurting that girl. But you need to tell us where those drugs came from.”
Connor lets out a harsh laugh. “Layla? This is still about Layla?” He shakes his head, a look of cruel disbelief lining his face. I feel a shiver of revulsion, as if I’ve stumbled upon something ugly; a black furred spider in the bed, a decomposing rodent in the attic.
“You still don’t know, do you?” Connor turns to Jack. “You haven’t told her?”
Something passes across Jack’s face, but he doesn’t speak. I turn to Connor in question. “Told me what?” I ask, but I don’t want to know. Outside, the wind has picked up and the windows rattle in their frames.
Already I can feel the ground shifting, the rug unfurling and the floorboards giving way as the foundation falls out from under us.
33
Evvy
I pile a final bag of groceries into the back of my car and head toward Egret, to the assisted living facility where my father has lived for the past two years. Though he’ll have heard about Ian, I know he won’t say much about it, other than to check that I’m okay. He is a quiet man, more so with age, and any judgment will be gentle and kind. He has always been polite and friendly to Ian, yet I know he still considers Cyrus to be my husband.
I go see my father twice a week, and I always bring a few bags of food to get him through till my next visit. The items are always the same—a container of half-caffeinated coffee, a package of sliced cheese and a loaf of bread, a bunch of grapes, a box of pasta, a stick of butter, and a few other odds and ends that are part of his weekly meals. The food reminds me of what we used to eat when I was in high school, a weekly cycle of grilled cheese, spaghetti with frozen meatballs, and Hamburger Helper. Given the basic fare I grew up on, I can’t help but laugh when I prepare Petunia’s menus. A frisée and pine nut salad with local raspberries and fig vinaigrette is a far cry from the iceberg and ranch salads of my childhood.
I can’t fault my father though, because he did the best he could. When my parents divorced my sophomore year in high school, my brother and I moved with my mother to her hometown of Pittsburgh. For a year we lived in a stuffy apartment across the street from a bus stop. At night I’d wake to the wheezing sound of the bus idling to let passengers off, the yellow streetlight flickering just outside the window. Even at midnight, the sky was a brownish gray, not a single star to be seen, so different from the view on Great Rock that it was hard to believe it was the same sky.
I went to the public high school in the district, a run-down building from the 1950s that had more children than desks or textbooks. There were some classes where we had to rotate who sat on the floor, drawing colored popsicle sticks to see who got a desk that day. It wasn’t just the school that I hated, though I never fitted in and didn’t have friends. It was the vast emptiness of the city, the anonymity of every interaction that was so startling. One afternoon, on my way home from school, a panhandler stretched his hand out to me. I’d never seen homeless people before, and to see them sleeping in the streets was terrifying and confusing. When I paused to put a few coins in the man’s hand as I’d seen my mother do, he tugged on the sleeve of my shirt, pulling me closer. I yanked from his grasp and ran the whole way home, holding back tears. I don’t know what he would have done if I hadn’t escaped—maybe he only wanted to thank me for the spare quarters, but all I could see was the desperation that penetrated his skin.
At the end of the school year, I begged to return to Great Rock, and my mother finally relented, allowing me to move back to the island to live with my father, while my brother remained in Pittsburgh. The house was different without my mother. Quieter. Emptier. I missed her, but was relieved to be back home and to see faces I’d known my whole life. My mother never did return to Great Rock, not for more than a long weekend, and she still lives in Pennsylvania. It’s been years since she’s been back.
The one year away changed me, made me realize that I never again wanted to live among strangers. From then on, I understood what made Great Rock different, understood what made people move here after lives spent elsewhere.
Ian is from a little town in Western Massachusetts, similar in size and population to Great Rock. His parents still live there and he has a brother out there too, who comes to visit every Thanksgiving. Ian moved to the island fifteen years ago, when Cyrus and I were still together. If anyone asks, Ian says he moved to Great Rock because he loves the ocean and wanted to live in a place where he could spend every day on a boat. However, I know this is only part of the story.
I remember the Thanksgiving dinner when I first met Ian’s brother, Troye. We’d only been together for a year or so. Ian drank too much that night, an afternoon of beer and wine finally catching up with him, and he passed out upstairs just after dinner. Troye stayed in the kitchen and helped me clean up. Between packing leftover mashed potatoes and scrubbing the roasting pan, Troye told me how Ian had been arrested for assault and battery before he moved to Great Rock. He broke the jaw of Tina Graham, a woman he never bothered to mention to me, his live-in girlfriend at the time. Supposedly it was an accident—he pushed her and she smashed her jaw on the brick floor surrounding the fireplace. He drove her to the hospital afterward, sat in the waiting room while she underwent surgery. She ultimately dropped the charges, claiming she fell down a set of stairs. But everyone knew—the police, Tina’s family, every friend and acquaintance he had. It’s a miracle Tina’s father or brother didn’t kill Ian, though he didn’t stick around for very long before leaving town and eventually settling on Great Rock.
Troye claimed he told me as a warning of what Ian was capable
of, as a measure to keep me safe. He loved his brother but knew the force of his anger, having been on the receiving end many times as a child. I assured him that Ian was different now, that I’d never seen any evidence of such violence in him before, which was true, at the time. I wanted to forget the story, to go back to a place where every squabble or petty argument didn’t hold the potential for pain, a place where I felt safe. But there was no going back.
As far as I know, Ian never found out what Troye told me, but within a few months, I saw the cracks along the surface. The way Ian’s fists clenched when he got angry, the twitch in his chin when he was trying to control himself. I wondered if the signs had been there all along or if Troye had unleashed a beast in my home. The incident at Joe and Christine’s potluck happened just a few months later.
Sometimes, after an argument with Ian that either escalates or does not, hinging on just this side of normal, I think about Tina. I’ve googled her many times though I’m always careful to clear the browser history afterward. Tina is an insurance agent in the same little town where Ian is from, a place I’ve never visited. There’s a picture of her on the agency’s website, and she’s pretty in a wholesome kind of way, with light brown hair that falls to her shoulders. She’s smiling shyly in the photograph, no visible evidence of a broken jaw, no obvious scars from her years with Ian. Her bio says she’s married with a son. Her picture is proof that life moves on.
More and more, I’ve been imagining how Tina must have felt when Ian left. Maybe she loved him, and maybe she missed him. Maybe she even pleaded with him and tried to convince him to stay, despite the threats from her family. But when Ian’s car finally drove away and all that was visible was the distant red of his taillights, she must have been able to breathe deeply for the first time in years. She must have sat at her kitchen table and inhaled, every corner of her lungs filling with air she hadn’t even realized was there all along.
Everybody Lies Page 21