Flight (42 page)

Irresponsible,
she tells herself. She’s being irresponsible. A responsible wife would sit down and start talking, go back to the origin, the moment where things went wrong, and set it right. But what moment would that be? Marrying Will? Then she wouldn’t have the girls. Moving to Michigan with him? What part of her life would she lose by erasing that?

Slowly, she becomes aware of a low murmur downstairs. Maybe someone really is on the phone. She sits up. No matter what happened last night, today is the wedding day. Time to get things going.

She catches sight of herself in the mirror as she stands, but turns her back on the image to make the bed. She doesn’t spend much time in front of the mirror anymore. When she was young, she liked how she looked, spending a lot of time perfecting her hair and makeup. These days she looks in the mirror out of necessity, to make sure her hair is done right, her mascara not blotching onto her eyelids, but there’s no pleasure in it. It’s not her, the lined face, the thinning hair, any more than the young girl with the dark eyes and elegant nose was her, although she tried to believe it was.

She turns from the neatly made bed and contemplates herself, standing still, her arms at her sides. The face in the mirror gazes blankly back at her, refusing to give up its secrets. She picks up the decorative pillows off the floor and arranges them neatly on the bed. Her robe is on the back of the door. If people are already up, she should probably make some breakfast. They’re all going to need it.

From the hallway, she can hear that the voice on the phone is Margaret’s. She moves quickly to the bathroom and pushes the half-open door aside. She nearly jumps out of her skin to see someone there.

“I’m sorry,” she says quickly. It’s Kit, sitting on the edge of the tub, his chin on his clasped hands. He gives her a wan smile.

“That’s okay. I’m just sitting here.” He stands, offering to leave, holding up a hand to prevent her from backing out the door. “I’ll let you have it.” He’s tall, she realizes as he draws himself upright, taller than Will. Funny that Leanne should have a husband taller than hers.

“No, stay, I just …” She feels awkward. Something about him conveys an intensity, as if she interrupted something very private. He holds something in his hand.

“What’s that?” The words are out before she can consider them. He stops, frozen, and holds his hand out to her, palm up. In it is the ring, the tiny antique sapphire set in old-fashioned silver scrollwork that Leanne was wearing yesterday.

“It’s Leanne’s ring,” he says. The words seem to wilt him, and he plops back down on the edge of the bathtub. His voice is quiet but direct. “She told me last night she doesn’t want to go to Mexico. But it looks like that’s not all she doesn’t want.”

In spite of her confusion—Mexico? Who’s going to Mexico?—Carol finds herself moving forward, her hand reaching out to Kit’s. She closes his fist around the ring.

“Don’t say it,” she says. “It isn’t true.” She’s surprised by the conviction in her voice. It’s Leanne’s day. Margaret’s marriage is ending, and Carol’s, too perhaps, but Leanne’s is just beginning.

Kit bites his lip, looking up at her. He wears the expression children get when they want to believe in something they’re starting to doubt, like the tooth fairy.

“She’s not here,” he says. “She left.”

“She’ll come back,” Carol says. “She’s just clearing her head.”

Kit looks down at his closed fist, as if willing the ring to disappear inside it.

“You know”—Carol is taken over by an impulse to fill the silence with words—“I hope you and Leanne will come back here and visit a lot. You should think of this as your country home. There’s plenty of room. And I’m going to set it all up as a bed-and-breakfast, you know, so it will be easy as anything to have guests.” She’s babbling, but it seems to have the right effect. His shoulders
loosen slightly. He lifts his head and looks at her, and she stops talking. He holds his hand out, the empty one, palm up, in that funny way he has when he asks a question.

“Was it like living someone else’s dream?” he asks. “Coming here?”

Carol regards the young man before her. All her life, she has imagined the day when she could tell her grown girls exactly what she suffered, how much anger she held in and how much love for them it took for her to keep going on, as she felt it was her duty to do. She has imagined them putting their arms around her and saying,
Thank you. We understand.
Now is the first time anyone has asked her to tell this story.

Kit looks back at her. He’s not handsome, really. There’s something too soft about his lips. And he could use a haircut.

She shakes her head. “No,” she says. “It was my dream, too.”

His eyebrows rise, and there’s a slam from below. They both start and look toward the hall. It sounded like the front door.

Will has been in his study. After the police left, he thought of a photograph. It’s a picture of the girls, sharing the seat of his father’s tractor when they were about six and four. As soon as he thought of it, he felt certain he needed to find it and give it to Leanne on her wedding day.

Margaret has been talking on the phone. After the police left, he looked in her room and saw her lying there, asleep with a little frown on her face, a look so worried he couldn’t bear to wake her with more questions and problems. He went instead to his study, and began rifling through the family photo albums.

When the front door opens, his first thought is that the cops have come back with a warrant. He goes quickly to the foyer.

“Leanne!” he says, stopped short by the miserable specimen standing there, dripping on the carpet. “I thought you were the cops!”

“The cops?” Margaret is there, too, standing in the hallway from the kitchen. She turns as pale as her sister.

“They were here. I sent them away,” Will says.

“They stopped me, too,” Leanne says. “They were looking for you.”

“Fucking hell.” Margaret sits down, right there at the edge of the foyer. Leanne immediately lowers herself onto the floor as well. Will feels tall and distant all of a sudden. He goes over to the staircase and sits down on the fourth stair.

“What did you tell them?” Margaret asks.

“That I didn’t know where you were,” Leanne says.

“Me, too,” Will puts in. “I told them they couldn’t search the house.”

“Oh my God.” Margaret closes her eyes and opens them again. “You guys did the right thing,” she says. “They would have taken Trevor.”

“What?” Will is shocked by the anger that spikes through him.

“It’s David,” Margaret says. “He’s reported Trevor kidnapped. Apparently, one parent is not supposed to take a child across state lines with the intent to deprive the other parent of access. Or something like that.”

“That asshole!” Leanne says. She stretches out on her side and puts her head on her arm, speaking with her eyes closed. The relaxed position jars oddly with the anger in her voice. “How could he do that to you?”

Margaret clutches her knees to her chest. Will thinks he has never seen her look so knowing and so like a scared child all at once.

“How could I do it to him?” she says. “We’ve both made a huge mess of things.” She rubs the carpet with her hand. “I’ve got to go back and try to sort something out with him,” she says. “It’s the only thing to do.” She rubs the back of her hand against her nose, then sneezes.

“Carpet dust,” Will says.

Margaret’s eyes are watery from the sneeze. “You guys didn’t even know,” she says. “But you lied anyway.” Her face twists, and she looks like she wants to say more, but Leanne interrupts.

“I came back to sort things out with Kit,” she says. “I don’t want to go forward without him.”

“What about Mexico?” Margaret says, rubbing her pajama sleeve against her nose.

“I want to go,” Leanne says. “I’m just scared.” She opens her eyes. “It’s his dream, not mine. I don’t want to end up …” She stops and closes her eyes again. “Crap, I feel sick,” she says.

“What will you do?” Margaret is looking at Leanne with a new interest. Leanne doesn’t move, and for a second Will wonders if she’s fallen asleep.

“Get a dog,” Leanne finally says. “Go to Mexico. Or not. Get a villa. A shack somewhere. One of those islands off the coast of Africa. What are they called? The Seychelles. I have no idea.”

“I have no idea, either,” Margaret says. “I mean, about me. What’s going to happen for me.” Neither of them moves.

“I wanted to find a picture,” Will says. “But I couldn’t. I’m sure it’s in there somewhere. It’s a picture of you girls on your grandfather’s old yellow tractor. It’s the happiest you’ve ever looked. I wanted you to have it, Leanne.”

“On Granddad’s tractor?” Margaret says, frowning at him. “Wasn’t his tractor green?”

“He had an old one that was yellow, but that was before we were big enough to go on it,” Leanne says, eyes still closed. “Are you sure it was us?”

“Who else could it be?” Will asks. “It was the two of you, sharing the seat, with your hands on the steering wheel. It was yellow. I can see it like it was right here in front of me.”

Margaret lies down on her side. “You know,” she says, “we’re going to have to pull ourselves together and go through with this thing now.”

“I’m not sure I can,” Leanne says. “Is there any way to just skip it?”

“I can’t believe neither of you can remember that shot,” Will says. “It was classic. The way that yellow tractor gleamed in the sun.” They both ignore him. “Maybe it fell out of one of the albums
and got behind the shelves or something.” He stands up to go back and look some more.

“Don’t go,” Margaret says without moving.

“No, stay,” Leanne says. “This is almost bearable like this.” Slowly, Will lowers himself back onto the step.

“You see?” Carol’s voice floats down from above. Will looks up and sees her gliding toward the top of the stairs. Behind her is Kit, a look of wonder on his face. Carol’s eyes meet Will’s, and for the first time this weekend, he feels like the two of them are in on something, working together. She gestures at the foyer below. “There she is, Kit, lying like a lump, with under four hours to go. Leanne!” Her voice takes a level of command Will hasn’t heard her use on the girls in years. “Come upstairs right now and talk to your husband!”

THE RAIN HASN’T EVEN HAD THE DECENCY TO COME down decisively, forcing them inside, but has throttled back to an off-and-on drizzle, misting down from a grayish sky. It makes the edges of everything look fuzzy, as if the world is in soft focus.

“Look how green and lush the plants are,” Margaret says close to Carol’s ear. “This weather has been great for them.” It’s an almost laughable attempt at optimism. Carol wants to respond to Margaret’s gesture of support. She bites her lip, trying not to feel as if some malevolent god has arranged everything to disappoint her.

“Dad’s enjoying playing host.” Margaret’s voice is slightly forced, hinting at her own anxiety. Carol has noticed her glancing around nervously. Will is holding Trevor’s hand in his as he greets people, and Carol can feel Margaret’s attention stretching taut with every move Trevor makes. She reaches a hand out to brush her daughter’s side. They’re standing in the door of the Green Lake Country Club. Carol should be out there, too, greeting guests with Will, but she can’t. She needs some time to pull herself together.

“Oh, God,” Leanne says behind them. “I think I’m going to be sick.” There’s rustling as she turns around and heads back to the ladies’ room. Margaret watches her go. The look on her face is inscrutable.

“I’ve never seen anyone have such bad nerves,” Carol says. “It’s just awful.”

“It’s not nerves, Mom,” Margaret says dryly. “It’s a hangover.”

Carol presses her lips together and gives Margaret a
no more nonsense
look. Things are bad enough without Margaret spreading tales of bridal debauchery.

“Just give her these,” she says, taking a box of mints from her purse. Margaret takes them silently and follows her sister into the ladies’ room.

Carol stands, watching guests arrive with umbrellas, raincoats covering up their dress clothes, plastic bonnets tied to their heads. This is not how it was supposed to be. It was supposed to be a gorgeous day, sun lighting joyful faces, Leanne stunning against the greenery, a blue sky whispering to them of infinity. Instead, it’s Will chasing off the police, Margaret weeping at the breakfast table, Leanne not even able to eat anything. She’d been out driving around—to calm her nerves, she said. When she returned, she acted more like a prisoner being led to execution than a bride about to marry the man she loved. She went upstairs, and for two hours the sound of earnest conversation came from the room she and Kit were sharing. Just as Carol was about to panic, Leanne emerged, already in her dress, holding Kit’s arm in one hand, a wad of Kleenex in the other.

“But it’s bad luck to see the bride in her dress!” Carol cried, and Kit smiled at her, shaking his head.

“I’m not looking yet,” he said.

The justice of the peace arrives, and Will pumps his hand. He’s acting the way he acted when the girls were born: beaming, goofy, inflated with his own importance. He places a hand on the other man’s shoulder and juts his chin at the sky. The two of them laugh. Then Will draws Trevor toward the justice and says something, indicating him with his other hand.

Of all of them, Will is the only one who seems, if anything, to have gained something from what happened. Even right after the incident with the police—what lies must David have told them to send the sheriff to kidnap Trevor?—Will has seemed more hearty and booming than he has in days. He’s acting like a man who has just dodged a bullet, not a man who has lied to agents of the law and seen his daughter transformed into a fugitive. Not like a man embarking on a trial separation. Now he’s striding around like Trevor’s guardian angel. Anger swirls in Carol’s stomach, but it’s not at Will. How dare David do this to Margaret, to all of them, on Leanne’s wedding day, too. He deserves every punishment Margaret’s lawyer can dole out.