All Dressed Up (39 page)

“He’s just out
of the hospital.” Mom went and stood by the open oven door. She
kept saying the same things over and over, as they all did. “He’s
been so hungry. I don’t think he took any food.”

“Are the
blueberries ripe?” Sarah asked. “You know he loves going to
Prospect Mountain and picking them, but we always go too early in
the season, the first time, and they’re never ripe. He’d like to
live in the wild, he says. Dad’s taught him which wild mushrooms
are safe to eat.”

“You cannot
tell me he is going to stay in the woods, living on raw tree fungus
and green blueberries!” Mom yelled.

“Charlie?”
Sarah said quietly. “I would have thought you would have some input
into this, after what Lainie was telling me today.” He looked
startled and not happy. And then he talked about it, the bare
bones, with Sarah prompting. Goading him, really. Righteous in her
anger. “Tell Emma what you wrote in your note. Tell her how long
you were gone!” It felt strange to Emma to be in receipt of her
sister’s spirited defence. “Do you have any idea how much it’s
still killing your mother? Tell her, Charlie!”

“Three
months?” Emma cried out, after he had. He demanded to know what
Sarah meant about killing his mother, but she refused to expand on
it, saying he had to talk about it with Lainie herself. “My God,
Charlie, you’re having trouble forgiving me for keeping Billy a
secret, when you’ve never told me about such a huge thing in your
own past!” She knocked over her lukewarm hot chocolate as she
jumped out of the chair, and it ran across the table into his lap.
Mom lunged for a dishcloth in the sink, but Emma couldn’t stay to
help.

Something
propelled her out of the house, an attack of panic and
claustrophobia and desperation. She tripped on the threshold
between the living room and the screened porch, and again on the
steps leading to the damp ground. Outside, she discovered the
colors of pre-dawn, cool and pale and full of promise. The woods
had begun to stir. They smelled of peat and pine.

She heard
Charlie following her, wanted him to catch up to her and waited for
him, circling and trying to breathe. He stood at a distance from
her – three or four yards – and almost yelled. “It’s in the past,
Emma. I hate thinking about it. Of course I didn’t understand then
how much it would hurt her. Mom’s right if she thinks it’s still
getting in our way – hers and mine – but I don’t see a way out. I
don’t see what’s to be gained. It was such a long time ago.
Relevant to now, it just means I have a reason for thinking that
Billy’s going to be okay.”

“I want to
know what happened. Billy couldn’t hide out around here for three
months without us finding him. Not in the summer when everyone’s
around. How did you hide out for three months? What made you do
it?”

“You want us
to be standing out here yelling about this? Can we sit somewhere,
at least?”

She led the
way to his car. The light had grown perceptibly in just the past
few minutes. The metal hood of the vehicle still felt faintly warm
but the interior had chilled, she found. They both thunked their
doors shut at the same moment and it became very quiet. “I love
you,” Charlie said.

She answered
after a beat of silence, “That was unexpected.”

“It slipped
out. It’s true. It’s always been true. You know it, Emma. I just
want to say that loving you is not the issue. I think I’m stuck
with that. Just hoping we can find a place where it’s going to make
us happy instead of miserable.”

“Me, too.”

“Good. I think
we’re closer to that place, by the way.”

“You do?”

“Yes.”

More silence,
but much longer. Emma saw flame-colored fingers of light slipping
between the trees.

“I guess there
was a point a couple of years ago,” Charlie said, “when we should
have lain in bed together one night spilling our guts to each other
about the big events of our lives, but we never did.”

“We both have
issues with heroically repressing stuff, it turns out.” The car
creaked as Charlie moved. Not closer to her. So far they hadn’t
touched at all. Emma examined this fact and decided it wasn’t a
problem. She knew every detail about the way his body pressed
against the back of the driver’s seat, every angle in his elbows
and knees. “Just talk,” she said, “about when you ran away. Because
three months is a long time,” and he began almost before she
finished the words.

“I came home
earlier than I should have because football practice was canceled.
This was early September. We weren’t living where Mom is now. This
place had a crummy deck with weeds coming up through it, that led
right into the mud room off of the kitchen. I used to come in that
way to take off my dirty stuff. So I came up onto the deck and
glanced in the kitchen window, because I could hear voices and
neither of them was Mom's. I always used to take a good look at who
was around because if Calvin was the only one there I didn’t go in
unless I really had to.”

“Calvin.”

“He was the
first serious boyfriend Mom had had in a while. I knew they were
talking about marriage, and he was quite often in the house when
Mom wasn’t. What was she doing back then? I can’t remember. Some
front desk thing that had odd hours, and just starting in real
estate. And there he was, this night, in the kitchen with… with a
woman who wasn’t Mom.”

She heard
something in his hesitation. “Someone you knew?”

He ignored her
question. “And her blouse was open, and her face was red from the
scrape of his stubble. I don’t think she ever saw me. But he did,
and I knew what would happen. I’d have the crap beaten out of me to
make sure I didn’t mention what I’d seen. I mean, you know, kids. I
knew this woman shouldn’t be standing there like that with my mom’s
boyfriend and her hair messed around, but at twelve you don’t
think, Oh my God, they’re having an affair! You just know
something’s wrong with this picture and it’s something to do with
sex and it shouldn’t be happening and you shouldn’t be seeing it,
and Mom probably doesn’t know but even if she does – because, you
know, kids have no idea what things adults know and what they don’t
– it’s still wrong. So that bit was vague, but the having the crap
beaten out of me was pretty concrete and definite. I had no doubts
about that.”

“Because it
wouldn’t be the first time. Oh God, Charlie!”

“Let’s not
take a detour for sympathy right now. I’d been desperate for her to
break up with him for months. This was the last straw. I’d been
angry that she couldn’t see what he was really like, angry about
the stars in her eyes at my expense. I was a bright kid, and I
sometimes… got angry when people couldn’t grasp things that were
easy for me. Like math.”

“You still get
angry when people can’t grasp things, or do things wrong.”

“I know. I
try, but… yeah.”

“Keep
going.”

“I crept back
off the deck and into the garage. It was one of those old wooden
ones, not attached to the house. I knew there was a bag of my
clothes in there that Mom hadn’t taken to a charity store yet, so I
took off my football gear and put on a few layers of sweats. I
didn’t leave right away because I wanted to write Mom a note.” He
quoted its contents. “I’ll come back when he’s gone. He hits me
when you’re not there, and he likes it.” He could still remember
word for word. “Calvin walked this woman out to her car and she
kept him there, talking about something. I managed to get back in
the house. No time to write much. I didn’t mention the woman,
because… I don’t know. No, I do know why. I’ve never mentioned the
woman.”

“You mean you
think your mother never knew?”

“I’m not even
sure what there was for her to know. Was it a major betrayal or
just some stupid moment?”

“A major
betrayal, if he was going to beat you for it.”

“Oh, he beat
me for much less. But don’t – ”

“I know. No
detour, no sympathy detour. Let me hold your hand.” It was so warm
and good, wrapped around hers. “Keep talking.”

“I wrapped the
note in her nightdress under her pillow and only just escaped back
out behind the garage in time. I could hear Calvin stomping through
the house yelling for me. I went over the back fence, across the
street, through another yard, more fences and streets and yards. I
just didn’t come back, headed west toward Lake Luzerne.”

“That’s
miles.”

“You know, a
lot of people don’t lock up their vacation homes real well when
they leave in the fall, especially the little cabins. They leave
packets of pasta and rice. All sorts of stuff. And you dig behind
their couch cushions or look on top of their dressers and find
loose change. Sometimes they have phones connected. Mostly I’d find
a payphone at a convenience store or a garage. I called home every
couple of weeks to see if he would answer, or to hear Mom’s voice
so I’d know she was okay.”

“But she
didn’t know you were okay.”

“Kids don’t
understand. Right now, Billy does not understand what this is doing
to you and your family, Emma, I promise. Even if he’s done it
because he’s angry – I was angry – and he wants to hurt you and
scare you, he doesn’t understand.” He squeezed her fingers.

“I know that.
Why do you think it helps?”

“I am so sure
he’s safe. Does that help?”

No. Maybe. “So
even after you came back you never told Lainie about seeing Calvin
and the woman together?”

He shook his
head. “By the time I decided it was safe to show my face, Calvin
was long gone, so I left it alone. With Calvin out of the picture,
it didn’t seem dangerous any more. The first time I went to the
woman’s house after that – ” He stopped.

“So you did
know her.”

Again he
didn’t answer. “I was so scared he’d be there. I somehow thought
he’d just… be there… at this woman’s place, still ready to beat the
crap out of me, with… yeah… the woman nodding approval in the
background. But when he wasn’t, I had this flood of relief. It
really is over. I never have to talk about it now.”

“This woman,”
she mimicked.

“It’s another
detour, Emma.”

“What does
Billy think, then? That he’s suddenly going to set up house with me
in some tiny apartment and have to call me Mommy? And call Mom
Grandma, and never see her, the way we never see her parents
because they don’t care enough?”

“That could be
what he thinks.”

“How can we
tell him he’s wrong, if we can’t find him? Do we roam the woods
shouting it out, in case he’s listening?”

“We roam the
woods. We shout. I don’t know what we say.”

“When he was
two and a half, I tried taking care of him for a couple of days,
because Dad was out of town and Mom and Sarah both had the flu. It
was the weekend after Thanksgiving. But I was so bad at it, so so
bad at it, and I hated it so much. He screamed and had tantrums and
wouldn’t cooperate. It was so stressful and so boring. So boring,
Charlie.” She let out a sob at the memory, at her own weakness, at
the contrast with now when she’d sell her soul to spend a boring
day with Billy.

“And they
knew, Mom and Sarah, that I’d dabbled with the idea of taking him
and had changed my mind, and I think Mom was relieved and
disappointed, both at the same time, and Sarah… Sarah just despised
me. Because of course she’s done a lot for Billy. A lot. And I’ve
never really thanked her for it, I always had this cop out of, oh,
it was good for her, it helped her, because she had problems of her
own.”

“I shouldn’t
judge you for how you were back then.” He pulled her toward him and
breathed into he hair, kissed the top of her head with a fierce
mouth. “I was wrong to do that. You did what seemed right at the
time.”

“It was a
cop-out. It was.”

“It was a
shock to hear about, that’s all.”

Car tires
popped on the gravel and a little white Honda halted beside them.
Lainie and Mac climbed stiffly out.

Chapter
Eighteen

Charlie came up
to Lainie and hugged her hard. “I’m sorry I scared you so much that
time. I’m so sorry. I know that’s not good enough.”

“Oh God,
Charlie!” She laughed in disbelief. “You mean sorry for what
happened twenty years ago? You’re saying it now?”

“I’ve been
talking to Emma.” Who stood nearby. “About that, and about Billy.
Plus we’ve all been up all night. The barriers are temporarily
down.” He hadn’t yet let Lainie go. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“I know you’re
sorry.” She chafed his back with her hands and thought about how
different his body felt from Mac’s, and what a different kind of
love and pleasure lay in holding it. “Why did you never tell me
what Calvin did to you? Do you think I wouldn’t have believed
you?”

“For a while I
thought you knew. He acted as if you knew. Your mother isn’t going
to be happy about this, is she? Then one day he told me if I ever
said anything to you, I’d really know what punishment meant. Kids
have no idea about adults, sometimes. I’d been mad at you for going
out with him in the first place. It took me a while to process the
implications. That you didn’t know. That you wouldn’t like it. I
was gearing up to tell you.” He stopped for a moment. “It seemed
too hard. There were things I didn’t want to say. Things…” He
sighed. “I exited the situation instead.”

Emma frowned,
and Lainie realized that now was not the time for too much going
over of the past. “So there hasn’t been any news on Billy?”

“I know he’s
okay. I’m sure. I know.” He hugged her again, and let her go, and
she was ready for it and felt him slipping out of her arms with a
sense of repletion instead of loss. She had Mac for her hugs now,
also.

“Come inside,”
Emma invited them. Then she hugged Lainie. “Lainie. Oh,
Lainie!”