After the Moment (22 page)

In front of his father.

That could not happen. People could break down on him all they wanted, but Leigh Hunter, if forced to cry, did so alone.

"I made it quite clear to Maia," Clayton said, "that you had no idea of what the Gavenlocks were asking."

"I appreciate—I'm grateful," Leigh said, in control of himself again. "Thank you."

Clayton said Leigh's name and followed with a slew of sentences peppered with
Well
and
But perhaps
and, ending, finally, with,
I don't mean to, as you see, want to intrude.
Leigh waited patiently, relieved to have left crisis status and become, once again, a person who caused Clayton emotional difficulty.

Maia, it turned out, had enrolled at Closson Hall. And it was his father's considered opinion that Leigh should make an effort, as it were, to, perhaps, if he were able, to make the time, outside of school, you see, in private, if that felt comfortable, to say goodbye.

Esme Green answered the door and looked down at Leigh with a quizzical expression. Unlike her daughter, Esme was model tall, and the heels she had on made her almost three inches over six feet. In that moment, Leigh discovered what a lot of men before him had: he didn't like having to look up in order to meet a woman's eyes.

"It's the boyfriend," Esme said. "Hello."

"Ma'am," Leigh said. "May I see—"

"She's upstairs," Esme said, and walked past him out to her car.

Leigh paused at Maia's door and then knocked, only somewhat heartened to hear her say, "It's open."

She was packing. An open suitcase lay on her bed, the walls were bare, her movie posters were in bubble wrap, and boxes stood in front of her bureau and bookshelves. Her hair was down, and when she turned from the closet, her hands full of shirts, black strands hung on either side of her face like a frame.

"Leigh," she said, letting the shirts fall onto the bed.

"Maia, I—Maia."

She walked toward him and put her arms around his neck, her face pressed against his chest. Slightly stunned at the onslaught of affection, he let his arms settle across her back, ignoring the ache from his ribs. The shelf over her bed was bare. It was where she had kept the pile of Ned Morland's postcards, a picture of her mother's parents, and a silver bowl from Josh.

He struggled for something to say, as the words
I'm sorry, I'll miss you, I wish,
and
I love you
all collided in his mind, crashing against his heart.

She spoke into his shirt so that her voice was muffled and what he heard was "I'm ginning for building coals."

"What?"

Leigh stepped back, not knowing it had been the last time he would ever hold her.

"I'm going to boarding school," she said.

"I know," he said. "Dad told me."

"That was nice of him," she said. "I thought he might rather we didn't, you know, see each other."

"Maia, about the Gavenlocks—I didn't want that."

"Of course not," she said. "But it's been a kind of gift."

Maia began folding the shirts and putting them in the suitcase.

"After all, if they thought I had no case at all," she said, "they wouldn't have cut a deal with your father."

"But that's just it," Leigh said. "You have a good case, you could have won, and I screwed it up."

"But I don't want to win," she said. "I want to forget it."

Maia looked at him for a moment.

"Right now, I'm just a bunch of parts that are a mess," she said, and ticked off a list, "Cutter, self-mutilator, anorexic, crazy, anxious, drunk girl."

"Poetry lover and dedicated gardener," Leigh said, wishing it didn't sound like they were writing her obit. "Friend to both big dogs and other people's sisters."

"Ferociously afraid of germs," Maia said.

"A loyal stepdaughter," Leigh said.

"Yes, but a terrible daughter," she said.

He wondered if he should point out that it was more that she had terrible parents. Esme and Ned made Clayton look like a great parent.

"I just won't add
raped
to that list," Maia said. "Not until I decide what happened."

"How about beloved girlfriend?" he asked her. "Can you add that?"

"Leigh, don't," she said, her sorrow swirling down his ears. "I can't."

He felt his chin tighten and a burning pricked his eyes; he half turned, as if to lean against the wall, fingering the switch for the overhead light.

"Ever since that night, all I've wanted to do is open up my skin," she said. "It's been almost impossible to think of anything else."

Leigh could feel the most alarming sound—a cry? a scream? a cough?—trying to come up, and he pressed the side of his hand against his teeth.

"But, you know, I'd promised you that I wouldn't," Maia said. "And I kept that promise, and I will keep it."

The sound melted, and he stopped the pressure from his hand.

"Only I can't always be signing contracts or swearing to other people," Maia said. "There's no point if I can't trust that I'll do what I've promised."

"So, is that why you're leaving?" Leigh asked. "Because you can't trust me?"

"It's not about you," she said.

"I know," he said, miserable, mortified, and desperate to know what it was about.

She smiled, asking, "How could I not trust you?"

It didn't sound like a question that Leigh could or wanted to answer.

"Think about it. You beat up Preston, which was a disaster, but because of it, I wind up signing something that proves everyone believes my side, not theirs."

"Stay, then," he said. "What are you going to do at boarding school?"

"Learn how to be the girl who eats because she wants to, not as part of a bribe," Maia said. "Become the girl who says
Thanks, no
when invited out drinking with guys she doesn't like."

"You do eat," Leigh said. "And if I had been here instead of in New York, you would have said no."

He wanted to grab her and scream
It was not your fault
over and over again, until she believed it. Although, in light of what had happened when the story spread to other schools and to the radio, maybe Maia already knew that and had, nonetheless, made the choice she wanted.

"If I stay here, I'm always that girl who Kevin Staines nailed on video," Maia said. "And all I'll learn is that I toughed it out."

In the same way that Leigh had wanted her to go to court, he now wanted her to be wrong. But here in Calvert Park, Maia didn't have much hope being anyone but the girl who lived in a house with Esme Green, furious at yet another husband for caring about her daughter. The girl who visited a prison once a week. The girl whose boyfriend had gone berserk the moment she became the girl who was raped by some boys she knew.

"Closson Hall isn't just an all-girls school," Maia said. "It's for screwups. I visited it last weekend. It's nice. And I won't be the craziest one there."

"You're not crazy now," he said. "Maia, you're ... you're amazing. Can't you tell?"

"Maybe I am," she said. "I felt that sometimes with you."

That was good, but probably not good enough to keep her here.

"But somewhere between now," Maia said, "and when I used to go camping with Josh, I sort of lost my way."

Leigh, in that moment, so far away from any road of his own, knew that he was totally unable to give her a map.

"Can I call you?" he asked. "Or come visit?"

"No," she said.

All that was left for him to do was something never done by the hero in a romance novel. Clearly, Leigh would not be going to war or to prison, and he had already failed to both protect and defend Maia, but what he could do—what he would have to do—was let her go.

"I love you," she said, which was unexpected. "But, I can't—I just can't."

~~~

They probably talked some more after that. The question of blame was, he thought, kicked around. Leigh couldn't quite believe that two months before he'd been organizing his college plans around her and now he was watching her pack. Now he was calmly accepting that if he ever saw her again, it wouldn't be because he was her boyfriend.

When he left, he said,
Goodbye.
She'd made it clear that he couldn't kiss her or hug her one last time.

"If you touch me, I'll never let go," she told him at one point when it looked like he might reach for her.

By way of farewell, what she said was
I'll see you.

~~~

When Clayton finally phoned Lillian, she and Pete, as Leigh expected, drove down. But she didn't ask him anything, only saying, "Your father says that in spite of your appalling lack of judgment, you did the right thing."

Pete hugged him—hugged him!—right in front of Clayton, saying, as if it were a natural greeting, "I'd like to tell you that love gets easier, but it doesn't."

Both of them made a point of mentioning, quite casually, that if he wanted to finish high school in Maine, he could. They all, Janet and Clayton too, went to dinner at the same place where Leigh had taken Millie on her birthday. As she bit into her dessert, Millie whispered to him that there were entirely too many parents at the table.

"It's like you have four," she said.

How could he explain that what looked like an embarrassment of riches to her was for him four people whose trust he risked betraying? He couldn't, so instead he asked her if she would let him buy that kite for Franklin.

"You can give it to him for Christmas," Leigh said.

He felt that he owed Franklin something. Not for showing the video to Diana Jane Gilbor but for having taken D.C. off Maia's hands. Charles Rhoem had been willing to keep the dog while she was at Closson Hall, but with only Esme at home to look after it, the animal seemed destined for the pound.

"He'll know I couldn't have afforded it," Millie said.

"It can be from both of us," Leigh said. "After all, I wouldn't give him a Christmas present if it weren't for you."

Pete, Janet, and Lillian were talking about health care in Sweden and hospice services in Canada. Leigh thought that the last time Clayton had said anything was when he'd ordered his meal.

"Franklin will love it," Leigh said to his sister.

"You're leaving, aren't you?" she asked. "Lillian's not even going to have to yank you."

Until Millie spoke, Leigh had assumed he would tough it out at Calvert Park. That he would find a way to ignore Oliver Lexham and Preston Gavenlock. That he would finish high school and go to sleep every night in his father's house. A small part of his body's silent space was preoccupied with hoping that Maia would return and find him waiting.

The rest of Leigh, his body and his mind, looked at Millie.

"I think I am," he said. "But I need your permission."

"There're so many thing I'd change," Millie said, "but nothing about you."

~~~

The next day, Leigh went to Georgetown to buy the kite. For Millie he got a set of wind chimes with a squirrel as the object that bumped against the cylinders, causing the waterlike sounds.

The school would let him take his exams right away instead of in January. Leigh suspected that they were relieved to see him go. He thanked Ms. Kestell for the A on his art project, saying he didn't deserve it but was grateful all the same.

Leigh packed. He iced his foot, taped it along with his ribs, and ran through a pain so sharp it approached a kind of beauty. Sometimes, as he watched his breath being exhaled in bursts of white vapor, he thought of Preston and wondered if he shouldn't try to see him before leaving town. But the only thing he wanted to say to Preston was
I will never forgive you.
And probably that was all Preston would want to say as well. So, better it be left at that, with no attempts to mop up, sew, or mend the mess they had both left on the floor of the cafeteria.

~~~

Clayton came into Leigh's room one night and sat on the edge of the bed. His hands stayed in his lap, fingertips pressed together. Leigh, his boxes taped, his packing done, closed his textbook and waited. He'd like to make his leaving easier on his father, but short of turning his life into a permanent crisis, Leigh had no idea how to reach the thoughtful, resourceful man buried deep inside of Clayton.

"Do you remember the first time I showed you how to shave?"

Leigh nodded. Of course. When he'd still lived with Lillian, Clayton had let Leigh play-act shaving using foam and the handle of his toothbrush. When he was about twelve or thirteen, Clayton got him a safety razor and walked him through various ways to approach what would eventually be a daily ritual. They both had skin that got inflamed if they used cold water or skipped the foam. Leigh's face hurt whenever he saw Western movies in which the actors used creek water and a straight blade.

"You told me that it didn't matter if I rinsed the razor in running water or if I wanted to fill the sink," Leigh said.

One took less effort, Clayton had said, but was more wasteful.

"Before I met ... until your mother and I got married," Clayton said, and Leigh braced himself for a story of love found and then lost and how everything worked out.

Because why else mention Lillian? And what did his mother have to do with shaving?

"I always thought that everyone else had some kind of guide they followed," Clayton said. "One that explained how to be around people, how to treat them."

"You treat people fine," Leigh said, and it was true.

His father was stilted and odd and maybe not the right person to be with if you were crying over your ex-husband's death, but Clayton dealt with people fairly. He was, Leigh supposed, what people meant by
kind.

"What I eventually decided, what your mother helped me to see," Clayton said, "is that when you're shaving, the only thing that matters is that you can live with what you see in the mirror."

Leigh made his face as blank as possible while his thoughts tried to move past
What the hell?

"You don't have to always like it," Clayton said. "I wouldn't trust a man who loved what he saw every morning, but make sure you can live with it."