My Life Next Door

by Huntley Fitzpatrick

  “Kid?”

  I peer out the screen at the ember glow from Tim’s cigarette.

  “Come on out. I don’t want to smoke indoors in case George wakes up, but I’m chaining, I can’t stop.”

  I step out, surprised by how fresh the air smells, the leaves of the trees shifting against the darkened sky. I feel as though I’ve been locked in stale rooms, unable to breathe, for hours, days, eons. Even at McGuire Park, I couldn’t take a deep breath, not with knowing what I had to say to Jase.

  “Want one?” Tim asks. “You look like you’re gonna puke.” He offers me the crumpled pack of Marlboros.

  I have to laugh. “I definitely would if I did. Too late for you to corrupt me, Tim.”

  “Corrupt” comes back to slap me—the Garretts know now. Have they called the police? The press? Where’s Mom?

  “So.” Tim flicks the lighter open, crushing the previous butt under his flip-flops. “The truth is out there, huh?”

  “I thought you’d gone home.”

  “I booked it outside when you and Grace left. Thought Jase was going to spill it all, and it was a family time and all that shit.”

  Yes, a nice little family gathering.

  “But I didn’t want to go home in case, you know, somebody needed me for something. A ride, a punching bag, sexual favors.” I must make a face, because he bursts out laughing. “Alice, not you. Babysitting, whatever. Any of my many talents.”

  I’m touched. No Nan, but here is Tim. And after so much time away.

  He seems to interpret my feelings, because he rushes to continue. “The sexual favor part is purely self-interest. Also, I fucking hate going to my house, so there’s that…Where’s Gracie?”

  Being read her rights?

  My eyes fill. I hate this.

  “Hell. Not this again. Stop it.” Tim waves his hand at my face frantically, as if he can shoo the emotions away like flies. “Did she go to the hospital to ’fess up?”

  I explain about the ICU. He whistles. “I forgot about that. Well, is she home?”

  When I tell him I have no idea, he drops the cigarette to the ground, mashes it, sets his hands on my shoulders, and turns me toward my own yard. “Go find out. I’ll man the fort here.”

  I walk down the Garretts’ driveway. Mom isn’t answering her cell. Maybe it’s been confiscated by the police who have already patted her down and fingerprinted her. It’s ten o’clock. The Garretts left here over an hour ago.

  There are no lights on at our house. No sign of Mom’s car, but that could be in the garage. I climb the porch steps, planning to go through the side door and check for it, when I find her.

  She’s sitting on the wrought iron bench by the front door, the one she bought to reinforce the fact that we should sit there and take our shoes or boots off outdoors. She’s wrapped her arms around her bent knees.

  “Hi,” she says, in a quiet, listless voice. Reaching beside herself, she picks something up.

  A glass of white wine.

  Looking at it, I feel sick again. She’s sitting on the steps with chardonnay? Where’s Clay? Heating up the focaccia?

  When I ask, she shrugs. “Oh, I imagine he’s halfway back to his summer house by now.” I remember her saying that if I told, she’d lose him too. Clay plays for the winning team. Mom takes another sip, swirls the glass, looking into it.

  “So…did you guys…break up?”

  She sighs. “Not in so many words.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “He’s not very happy with me. Though he’s probably coming up with a good ‘resignation from the race’ speech. Clay does thrive on a challenge.”

  “So…you kicked him out? Or he left? Or what?” I want to pull the glass out of her hand and toss it off the porch.

  “I told him the Garretts deserved the truth. He said truth was a flexible thing. We had words. I said I was going over to talk to you. And the Garretts. He gave me an ultimatum. I left anyway. When I came back, he was gone. He did text me, though.” She reaches into the pocket of her dress, pulling out her phone as if it’s proof.

  I can’t read the screen, but Mom continues anyway.

  “Said he was still friends with all his old girlfriends.” She makes a face. “I think he meant ‘previous’ girlfriends, since I was probably the oldest. Said he didn’t believe in burning bridges. But it might be good if we ‘took a little time to reassess our position.’”

  Damn Clay. “So he’s not going to work with you anymore?”

  “He has a friend on the Christopher campaign—Marcie—who says they could use his skills.”

  I bet. “But…but Ben Christopher’s a Democrat!”

  “Well, yes,” Mom says. “I mentioned the same thing in my little text back. Clay just said, ‘It’s politics, sugar. It’s not personal.’” Her tone’s resigned.

  “What changed?” I point at the bay windows of her office, curving gracefully out to the side of our house. “In there…you and Clay were on the same page.”

  Mom licks her lips. “I don’t know, Samantha. I kept thinking of his speech about how I’d done it for you. To protect you and that Garrett boy.” She reaches out, sliding her palms down either side of my face, looking me in the eye, finally. “The thing is…you were the very last thing on my mind. When I thought of you…” She rubs the bridge of her nose. “All I thought was that if you hadn’t been there, no one would know.” Before I can respond or even let that sink in, she holds up a hand. “I know. You don’t have to say anything. What kind of mother thinks that? I’m not a good mother. That’s what I realized. Or a strong woman.”

  My stomach hurts. Though I’ve thought this myself, though I’ve just recently said it aloud to Jase, I feel sad and guilty. “You told now, Mom. That’s strong. That’s good.”

  She shrugs, brushing off the sympathy. “When I first met Clay this spring, I stalled on mentioning I had teenagers. The truth was just…inconvenient. That I was in my forties with nearly grown daughters.” She gives a little rueful laugh. “That seemed like a big issue then.”

  “Does Tracy know?”

  “She’ll be home tomorrow morning. I called her after I got home.”

  I try to picture Tracy’s reaction. My sister, the future lawyer. Horrified at Mom? Devastated at having her summer interrupted? Or something else entirely. Something I can’t even picture? Oh Trace. I’ve missed her so much.

  “What did Mrs. Garrett say? What happens now?”

  She takes another big sip of wine. Not reassuring.

  “I don’t want to think about that,” she says. “We’ll know soon enough.” She straightens her legs, stands up. “It’s late. You should be in bed.”

  Her motherly, admonishing tone. After all this, it seems ridiculous. But when I see the slump of her shoulders as she reaches for the doorknob, I can only tell her another truth, however inconvenient.

  “I love you, Mom.”

  She inclines her head, acknowledging, then ushers me into the chill of the central air. Turning to lock the door firmly behind her, she sighs, “I just knew it.”

  “Knew what?” I ask, turning.

  “Knew no good would come of getting to know those people next door.”

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Contrary to Clay’s predictions, the Garretts don’t call a press conference the next day. Or go directly to the police. They do, after all, bring out the talking stick. There’s a family conference at the hospital, with all the children down to Duff. Alice and Joel want to report Mom immediately. Andy and Jase argue against it. Ultimately, Mr. and Mrs. Garrett decide to keep the matter private. Mom had offered to cover all the medical bills and the additional expenses of hiring someone to work at the store, Jase tells me, and his parents struggle with that. Mr. Garrett doesn’t want charity—or hush money.

  For a week, they discuss it as a family. Mr. Garrett is moved from the ICU and Mom goes to visit.

  Even Jase doesn’t know what passes between them, but the next day Mom res
igns from the race.

  Just as she said he would, Clay writes the speech for her. “Certain events in my family have convinced me that I must decline the honor of running for office once again in the hope of serving as your senator. Public servants are also private individuals, and as such I must do the right thing for the people closest to home, before I try to serve the wider world.”

  There’s a lot of lurid speculation in the press—I guess there always is, when a politician resigns unexpectedly—but it dies down after a few weeks.

  I expect her to take a cruise, that trip to Virgin Gorda, escape, but instead she spends a lot of time at our house, fixing up the garden she used to care about before she got so busy in politics. She makes dinner for the Garretts, and hands it to me to bring over until Duff gets as sick of sun-dried tomatoes, goat cheese, and puff pastry as he’d ever been of pizza. She asks me how Mr. Garrett is doing, averting her eyes. When Jase offers to mow our lawn, she tells me to thank him, but “we have a service.”

  You’d think, after all the years I’ve come to the B&T, all the Friday night hornpipe dinners, the holiday festivities, the hours logged in and by the pools, that I would have missed it more since I hung up my uniform and said good-bye to Mr. Lennox. But though Mom decides it’s the only possible place to go for a last family dinner before Tracy leaves for college, I don’t feel a rush of nostalgia as we open the heavy oak doors to the dining room, just surprise that it’s all exactly the same. The soft classical music played low enough to be nearly subliminal, the loud laughter from the bar, the chink of silverware. The smell of lemon oil and overstarched tablecloths and prime rib.

  Tracy is leading the way, which is different. Mom follows. We get our usual maitre d’, but he doesn’t take us to the table that’s always been ours, below the sea of harpooned whales and unlucky sailors. Instead he leads us to a smaller corner table.

  “I’m very sorry,” he tells Mom. “You haven’t been here in a while, and we’ve become accustomed to giving this table to Mr. Lamont—he comes in every Friday.”

  Mom looks down at her hands, then abruptly back up at him. “Of course. Naturally. This is fine. Better. More privacy.”

  She sinks into the chair that doesn’t face the rest of the room, shaking out her napkin.

  “We were very sorry to hear that you won’t be representing us again, Senator Reed,” he adds gently.

  “Ah. Well. Time to move on.” Mom reaches for the bread basket, and butters a roll with enormous concentration. Then she eats it as though it’s her last meal. Tracy raises her eyebrows at me. We do a lot of that these days. Our house is a quiet minefield. Trace can’t wait to escape to Middlebury, and I can’t blame her.

  “Speaking of which,” Tracy says, “I’m changing up some college plans.”

  Mom puts down the last bite of her roll. “No,” she says faintly.

  Tracy just looks at her. Like Mom has lost her right to say no or yes to anything, which has pretty much been her stance since she returned from the Vineyard. And Mom looks away.

  “Flip’s transferring up to Vermont. To be with me. He’s got a great job as a manny for some professors in the English department. We’re going to get an apartment together.”

  Mom doesn’t seem to know where to start with this. Finally, she says, “A manny?”

  “That’s right, Mom.” Tracy closes her menu. “And an apartment together.”

  At first glance, you could mistake this for their old battle: Tracy reserving her right to rebel, and Mom refusing to let her. But these days my mother always blinks first. She looks down at the napkin in her lap now, takes a careful sip of water, then says, “Oh. Well. That is news.”

  Pause while the waiter takes our orders. We are still too well bred or well trained to show visible emotion in front of the waitstaff. When he departs, though, Mom reaches for the silk cardigan sweater she’s draped over the back of her seat, fumbling in the pocket.

  “I guess, then, it’s a good time to show you this.” She carefully unfolds a sheet of paper, smoothes it with her hand, and positions it between Tracy and me.

  “For sale. Your house of dreams. Nestled on a quiet cul-de-sac in one of Connecticut’s most exclusive towns, this jewel of a home features the best of everything—top-of-the-line amenities, prime location near the boardwalk and beach, hardwood floors, everything of the highest quality. For price, please inquire of Postscript Realty.”

  I’m staring, not really getting it, but Tracy does, immediately.

  “You’re selling our house? We’re moving?”

  “Samantha and I will be moving. You will already be gone,” Mom says, with a ghost of her old sharp tone.

  It’s only then that I actually recognize our house in the picture, caught from a slant, a view I rarely see anymore—the opposite side from the Garretts.

  “It makes sense,” Mom says briskly as the waiter soundlessly slides her plate of field greens in front of her. “Too much house for two people. Too much…” Her voice fades and she stabs at a piece of dried cranberry. “They give it a month to sell, tops,” she says.

  “A month!” Tracy explodes. “In Samantha’s last year of high school? Where are you going to go?”

  Mom finishes chewing her forkful of salad, dabs at her lips. “Oh, maybe those new condominiums over by the inlet. Just until we get our bearings. It won’t change anything for Samantha. She’ll still go to Hodges.”

  “Right,” Tracy mutters. “God, Mom. Hasn’t enough changed for Samantha already?”

  I don’t say anything, but in a way Tracy’s right. Who was that girl who trailed in here at the beginning of the summer, with Nan, her best friend, fretting about Tim, baffled by Clay, keeping secret her crush?

  But then, that’s exactly it, isn’t it? Everything big has already changed.

  Our house was Mom’s work of art, her testament to the fact that she deserved the best of everything. But what I loved was the view. And for so long, that was who I was. The girl who watched the Garretts. My life next door.

  But I’m not that watcher anymore. What Jase and I have is real and alive. It has nothing to do with how things look from far away and everything to do with how they are up close. That won’t change.

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Now it’s early dawn, Labor Day weekend. School starts tomorrow, with its cavalcade of homework and AP classes and expectations. When I open my eyes I can already feel the change, the lazy air deepened now, New England’s summer days yielding to the crispness of fall. I bike to the ocean for a predawn swim, focusing on my strokes, then floating in the waves, looking up at the stars fading in the sky. I will make swim team this fall.

  I’m back home before the sun has fully risen and just out of the shower when I hear him.

  “Samantha! Sam!” I rub my towel over my hair and walk to the window. It’s still dark but lightening up enough that I can see Jase standing below by the trellis, something in his hand.

  “Step aside for a sec,” he calls up to me.

  When I do, a newspaper swings up and in the window, in a perfect arc.

  I pop my head back out. “What an arm! But I don’t subscribe to the Stony Bay Bugle.”

  “Look inside.”

  Snapping off the rubber band, I unroll the paper. Inside is a perfect puff of Queen Anne’s lace, fragile and blooming around a center as green as spring, with a note around the stem. Come next door. Your chariot awaits.

  I climb down the trellis. There, in the Garretts’ driveway, is the Mustang, the shredded seats replaced by smooth brown leather, the front part painted a dazzling racing green.

  “She’s beautiful,” I say.

  “I wanted to wait till it was perfect, new paint job everywhere. Then I realized perfect could be too long.”

  “No dancing hula girls yet,” I note.

  “If you feel like dancing—or doing the hula—be my guest. Although the front seat is kinda cramped. You might have to go for the hood.”

  I laugh. “And scratch that
paint job? No way.”

  “Come on.” He opens the side door with a flourish, ushering me in, then jumps in himself, vaulting easily over the driver’s-side door.

  “Suave,” I say, laughing.

  “Right, huh? I practiced. Key to avoid landing on the stick shift.”

  I’m still laughing as he turns the key in the ignition and the car roars to life.

  “She runs!”

  “Of course,” Jase says smugly. “Buckle up. I’ve got something else to show you.”

  The town is still and quiet as we ride through the streets, too early for stores to open, too early for Breakfast Ahoy to unfurl its awning. But the paper boys have already done their job.

  We drive down the long shore road and wind up in the beach parking lot, near the Clam Shack, where we had our first date.

  “Come on, Sam.”

  I take Jase’s hand and we walk on the beach. The sand is cool, firm, and damp from the receding tide, but there is that shimmer of heat in the air that tells you it’s going to be a scorching day.

  We walk out on the rocky path to the lighthouse. It’s still fairly dark, and Jase holds a steadying hand to my waist as we clamber over the huge crooked stones. When we get to the lighthouse, he pulls me toward the black enameled pipes that form the ladder that takes you to the roof.

  “You first,” he says. “I’m right behind you.”

  At the top, we duck into the room where the huge light faces the ocean, then climb out on the gently slanted roof. Jase looks at his watch. “In ten, nine, eight…”

  “Is something going to blow up?” I ask.

  “Shh. Perks of being a paperboy. I know exactly when this happens. Shh, Samantha. Watch.”

  We lie back, hand in hand, look out over the ocean, and watch the sun rise over the roof of the world.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Though I never thought writing was a solitary job involving the author and a drafty garret, I had no idea before this book just how many people I needed in order to translate the words I wrote into the book in your hands. I’ve been beyond lucky.