House of Wonder (26 page)

“Thank you,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

He gave me a nod. “Take care,” he said. Then he shut the door behind him.

Later, we would learn that Detective Dunn had it mostly all sorted out by the time he first spoke with Warren. After all, Zack mowed the lawns of many of the homes in the neighborhood. He had access to garages and, in the case of the Doogans, had found the house key that they kept under the fake rock near their deck. Really, he would have been the obvious suspect had Warren not been a more appealing one. But it was Bill Kotch's cooperation that helped the detective get his warrants.

Bill had trouble sleeping.
Fresh air and exercise!
his doctor had told him, so during the day, he would take to his bike, going round and round the neighborhood, hoping to tire both his mind and his body. It seldom worked. And Bill would find himself standing outside and breathing in the sharp night air, hoping not to wake Carol. That's what he was doing the night he saw Zack go into my mother's garage. When he saw him come out with less rather than more.

The Reckoning

A
fter Warren and Mom left the hospital, after they gave me the bag that they had brought for Rose and me containing dry clothes and my wallet, after they promised that they would stop at the store and get Gordo his senior formula dog food, and that they would give him two cups at six o'clock, after Rose and I watched endless episodes of
SpongeBob SquarePants
, I sat in the chair in Rose's room, eating the hummus and carrots that had accompanied her dinner, and listening to the sounds of the family in the room next door. They were the happy, unintelligible murmurs of a father and a mother and two children. Every once in a while, there was laughter, clear and distinct. Every once in a while, the door would open and footsteps would pass in the hallway.

Rose had woken and eaten her dinner, then fallen asleep again by the time I again picked up the phone in her room, dialing zero for the hospital operator.

“Hi, I'm trying to make a call,” I said, my credit card in hand.

My father answered on the first ring. I supposed that there was something about calling from a hospital that got people to pay attention.

“Stewart Parsons.” His greeting was alert and ready, tinged with concern.

“Dad, it's Jenna.”

“Hey, kiddo,” he said. “What's wrong? Why are you at Hewn?”

“Listen, Dad,” I said. “We need to talk.”

“What's going on?” he asked, his voice increasing in gravity. I could hear him shutting a door. “Have there been any developments with Warren?”

I took a deep, steadying breath, but my words still came out sounding sodden with emotion. “You could say that.”

“What happened?”

Maybe I savored for a moment the fact that my father was assuming the worst. Maybe I wanted to make him wait. To let him think that Warren was guilty and had been caught. Maybe I wanted him to regret everything that he was thinking about Warren and have to take it all back. Just like I did.

“Warren saved Rose's life,” I finally said.

“What?!”

“She fell in the pond in the park and she could have drowned. But Warren saved her life.” And from that dim little room, humming with the breath of the hospital, with its machines and
generators, I said, “Mine, too, really.” I hadn't known it was true until that moment.

“You know, Mom really needs more support from you,” I said.

There was bitterness in my father's voice when he spoke again. “Jenna, I've been supporting your mother for twenty years.”

I pictured Mom, her hand on Warren's back as she walked him into the auditorium for our high school graduation, into the restaurant for our grandfather's retirement party, into the church for his funeral. I pictured Mom with her hand on Warren's back as she walked him into Hewn Memorial, bleeding and hurt. “I don't mean financially, Dad.”

In reply, I heard only my father's breath.

“They arrested a kid down the street for the thefts. Warren didn't have anything to do with them,” I said. Then I added, a concession to his cooperation, “He actually helped the police in their investigation.”

“You're kidding,” he said, without thinking first.

“No, Dad. I'm not kidding.”

I watched the tidy lines of advancing white headlights and≈retreating red taillights. “You know, Warren's your son, too.”

His cracked voice came through the line. “I know.”

“I realize that he's not who you wanted him to be, but . . .” I paused, remembering the look on Warren's face when I came home, on that very first night all those weeks ago. “He's actually amazing.”

“I know,” Dad said again.

“No, you don't, Dad. But I really hope you will.”

And then I told him that I loved him. And then I said good night.

My mouth was dry and so I gently opened Rose's door and, shutting it behind me, walked to the little kitchen in the hallway where nurses filled cups of apple juice and parents microwaved their coffee. Blinking against the permanent artificial day of the fluorescent lights, I pulled a foam cup from a sleeve and filled it with ice from an enormous machine that spat frozen shards with such force that my cup overflowedin just three seconds. Then, opening the fridge, I pulled out a carton of cranberry juice cocktail and poured myself a glass.

I was slugging it down as I walked back to Rose's room, the bottom of the cup lifted past my chin, when I saw Bobby coming toward me from the opposite end of the hallway. My pace slowed and his eyes met mine. In his hands were two plastic clamshell containers, each containing a sandwich. He was still in his scrubs and the skin beneath his eyes looked like the shadowed portion of a half-moon. His chin was darkened with stubble and his body seemed to be bearing a weight greater than his own. We both stopped, almost simultaneously, in front of Rose's door.

“Hey,” I said, my eyes already wet, my voice shaking.

“I figured you were probably hungry,” he said, lifting the sandwiches.

“Bobby, thank you,” I said. I swallowed and started again. “For what you did for Rose.”

He tilted his head back down the hall. “Do you want to go somewhere . . . and talk?” he asked.

I hesitated, glancing at Rose's door.

“After the day she's had, she'll sleep till noon,” he said. “And if she does wake up, the nurses are here. A lot of parents go home at night.”

“Okay,” I said, nodding.

After Bobby asked me his clinical questions about Rose's recovery, we were mostly silent as we walked. He led me through the hospital's narrow corridors. “It's just over here,” he said, pointing to a wide doorway above which hung silver letters.
VINCENT C. SMITH ATRIUM
.

I followed Bobby into the space, its soaring glass walls revealing the night outside. Around the room were banks of slender trees.
It's bamboo,
Warren would say.
Which is actually a member of the grass family.

“This is beautiful,” I said, looking at the stars and moon visible beyond the clear ceiling.

“Yeah,” said Bobby. He seemed leached of energy. “No one ever comes in here at night.” In front of a love seat was a low coffee table scattered with faded old magazines. He lifted his chin toward it. “Do you want to sit?”

We each took a place on the small couch and Bobby lifted the sandwich containers, peering into them. “They're both turkey,” he said. “I hope that's okay.”

“It's great,” I said, trying to be cheerful.

He slid one to me and then opened his own only to stare down at the dismal little meal, the white bread sliding off a limp leaf of iceberg lettuce.

“Bobby,” I started awkwardly, “I'm sorry I haven't called.” He didn't move. He sat there with his forearms resting on his knees. “I just want you to know that it's not because I didn't . . . really want there to be something between us.” I took a breath.
Bobby was listening. He wasn't going to say a word until I had finished. “I know I haven't told you much about Duncan, but he left when I was seven and a half months pregnant with Rose. He moved to Japan. And it wasn't like we were going to try and stay together or try to work it out. He just left.” I felt my face redden, my eyes rim with tears. “And it was hard.” I was going sentence by sentence, thought by thought, trying to move them past my lips one at a time. “And so when you said you were going to California, I just . . .” I stopped. Then, seeing his expression soften, I began again. “I thought it would be better, you know? For you, too.”

Bobby's whole body seemed to exhale and he slung his arm around my back. “Come here,” he said. He leaned into the sofa and I angled my body into his, feeling its solidity, its mass. “You could have told me,” he said.

“I know. I should have,” I said, curling my arm across his chest.

After a minute or two of silence, I felt him grow stone still with thought. “You know, I don't really want to go to California.” I kept my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. “Mia and I . . . ,” he started, his words tapping into a vein that was painful and deep. “We split up because she was having an affair.” He let that sit there for a moment. “She wanted out of our marriage so badly she said that I could have custody of Gabby. But now she's remarried and pregnant. And I got a call from her lawyer saying that she wants to talk about the custody arrangement.”

“Oh, God, Bobby,” I said, realizing that there were worse things than neglectful, irresponsible Duncan. “I am so sorry.”

Bobby put his hand on my shoulder, pulling me back again.
“It's all right. There really isn't anything she can do. Legally, I mean. They don't change custody agreements just like that. But . . .” I felt his hand tap once on my shoulder. “I thought my moving there might make things easier. Stop it from getting ugly.”

We sat for what felt like a long time, gazing up at the feathery tops of the bamboo extending toward the stars, as the tips of his fingers ran up and down my arm. “How is this going to work?” I finally asked.

Bobby turned to me, looking at my face as if searching for an answer. “I don't know,” he said finally. Then he pushed the hair off my forehead and brought his mouth to mine.

Birthday

Seven months later

I
lay in the thick grass at the top of the hill, seeing the sun through my closed eyes. My shoulders were bare and I had kicked my flip-flops off, letting my toes run back and forth over the grass. Bobby reached over and took my hand. I could hear Gabby's and Rose's voices beside us, oblivious and giddy. From the sky came the hum of a small plane. Today was my and Warren's thirty-seventh birthday. My mother was clearing the cake plates from the picnic table she had set up in the backyard, while Gordo canvassed the ground in search of frosting and hamburger buns.

“Hey, War!” I called. “What time is it?”

I opened one eye to look at my brother. He glanced down at his slender wrist, his plane's controls still in his hands. “Four twenty-eight,” he replied.

I had been waiting to ask him the time since our father had handed him a small box. Since Warren had carefully removed its wrapping. Since he had lifted off the lid and froze, staring down at our grandfather's watch. His head had jerked up to my father's face, his eyes wide.

“That was your grandpa's,” said our father. But Warren knew what he had been given. Warren looked down at its gold face, then up again. “Try it on.”

Warren set the box down on the picnic table, then slid on the watch that had been passed from Parsons son to Parsons son. His chest puffed with pride as he admired it, angling it so that the light hit it just right. “Yeah,” he said. “That's nice.” During the rest of the party, he stole glances at it.

After Maggie and her family had said good-bye and Mrs. Vanni had helped Mr. Vanni back home; after the Kotches had gone on their way and Fung had headed back to Pizzeria Brava; after my father had gotten into his car and driven back to Lydia, Bobby suggested we take the girls to the park.

“Want to come with us?” I had asked Mom. Her eyes were closed and her face was tilted up toward the sun. In her hand, she loosely gripped a white trash bag.

“You go ahead,” she said, her eyes still closed. Her chest rose and fell with a contented breath. “I'm going to finish cleaning up.”

Mom, Rose, and I had gone to Hattie's funeral, one week after Rose had slipped into the pond. We stood next to each other in the small chapel down the street from the home in which Hattie had died. We were the only ones in attendance. I watched as soundless tears slipped from my mother's eyes.
There was sadness to them but also release. And I often thought back to the timing of Hattie's death. It was as if Hattie took her last breath the moment after Lydia first spoke of what happened to my grandmother. Lydia hadn't meant to help my mother, but she had. Mom was now free to reconcile with her origins. She was free to move on. The past had shaped her, but it would no longer define her. After more than half a century, my mother was free.

Above us, Warren's plane hovered in the sky and Bobby brought his hand to his brow to shade his eyes. “How many of those things have you sold?” he asked my brother.

“Eighty-nine,” answered Warren, without taking his eyes off the plane.

Bobby lifted his eyebrows. “At two hundred dollars a pop.”

“Warren Parsons,” I said, squinting into the sun. “Model Aeronautics Entrepreneur.” I watched the plane dive and then burst back up into the sky. “Hey, you know what I read?” Though only Bobby turned his head, I was really talking to Warren. “That the light hitting our earth right now is thirty thousand years old.”

“Really?” asked Bobby. Rose and Gabby burst into laughter that was private and their own.

“Yeah,” I said, loud enough for Warren to hear. “It starts out in the sun's core, but its surface is so huge and dense that the light takes thirty
thousand
years to break through. It only takes like eight minutes to hit the earth once it's free.”

“That's just an estimate,” said Warren. “They don't know the exact age.” And I fell back into the grass smiling, feeling the ancient light of sun meet my skin, knowing that it had existed
before I had. Before my mother or my grandmother. That it had known our stories before they were told. That it had raced through space and time to illuminate them.

We stayed in the park until the sun began to hang heavier and begin its descent in earnest. Then we all walked together back to my mother's deck, Gordo trotting out to meet us as we approached. I stood on the bottom step so that I was taller than Bobby, then turned to face him. He wrapped his arm around my waist and rested his head against my chest. “So, we'll see you tomorrow?” he asked. It was going to be our last night all together before he and Gabby left for California. He was starting at San Diego General in two weeks.

“Come early,” I said, running my hands over his hair. “We'll be back around noon.” Warren had an appointment with the therapist he had been seeing and we often went together. Many of the sessions were spent just telling stories.

Bobby's lips found my neck and he said good-bye.

Warren sat on the steps next to Rose as I picked up a few cups that had blown into the forsythia bushes. As I bent down, I heard the door to the deck open and shut. Mom's slow steps made their way over to the railing. “You know, I was thinking that maybe we should have a garage sale,” she said, leaning against the railing. “Get rid of some stuff.”

“Oh, yeah?” I said, nestling the cups into each other.

She looked out over the park. “Warren and I have been talking,” she said. “We think maybe it's time to leave Harwick.”

I stopped at the base of the deck, looking from my mother to my brother.

“Where would you go?” I asked.

“I don't know,” said my mother as her gaze rested on the
spot where the maple tree had stood. “I hear Southern California is nice.”

Rose's giggles bubbled up until she clamped her hands over her mouth. “You guys would move there?” I asked, as I stared at the cups in my hands.

“Why not?” said my mother. “There's nothing keeping us here anymore.” With her head tilted and her face soft, she looked at me. “Any of us.”

“Yeah,” mused Warren,
“California.”
As if the idea had just occurred to him, as if he and my mother hadn't rehearsed this scene again and again. Then my brother looked at me, his eyes mischievous and brilliant as he said, “I bet Warren will fit right in
there.”