My Life Next Door (39 page)

“I know how the baby got in there,” announces Harry. “Someone told me at sailing camp. See, the dad puts—”

“Okay, guys, enough,” Jase interrupts. “Settle down.” He looks over at Mom again, drumming his index finger on the countertop.

Silence.

A little awkward. Not to mention unusual. George, Harry, Duff, and Andy are busy eating. Joel has unzipped the cash register bag and is sorting through the bills, separating by denomination. Tim’s opened one of the cartons of ice cream and is eating directly out of it.

Which gets Alice’s attention. “Do you have
any
idea how unsanitary that is?”

He drops the spoon guiltily. “Sorry. I didn’t think. I just needed sugar. All I do these days is eat sweets. I may be sober, and not smoking much, but morbid obesity is my future.”

Alice actually smiles at him. “That’s part of the withdrawal process, Tim. Completely normal. Just…get yourself a bowl, okay?”

Tim grins back at her and there’s this funny stillness there before Alice turns away, reaching into a drawer. “Here.”

“I want ice cream. I want ice cream.” George bangs his own spoon on the table.

Patsy, getting into the spirit, whacks her high chair with her hands. “Boob,” she yells. “Poop.”

Mom frowns.

“Her first words,” I explain hastily. Then shame prickles my face. Why do I feel as though I have to explain away Patsy?

“Ah.”

Jase meets my eyes. His are stormy with bafflement and pain so intense it hits me like a slap.

What is she doing here now? Jase and I were fine, we were connected, and here she is. Why?

He jerks his head toward the door. “We’d better get some more ice cream from the freezer in the garage. Come on, Sam.”

There are two full cartons on the table. Alice looks down at them, then at Jase. “But—” she starts.

He shakes his head at her. “Sam?”

I follow him out. I can see a muscle jump in his jawline; feel the tension in the set of his shoulders as though they are part of my own body.

As soon as we’ve cleared the steps, he wheels on me. “What is this? Why is she here?”

I stumble back. “I don’t know,” I say. My mom’s acting so normal, so calm, the friendly neighbor dropping by. But
nothing
is normal. How can she be calm?

“Is this more of Clay’s bullshit?” Jase demands. “Is he having her come over here and act all nicey-nice, before everyone else finds out?”

My eyes prickle, tears so close. “I don’t know,” I say again.

“Like maybe my family will think that this sweet lady could never do something so bad, and I’ve just lost it or something and—”

I grab his hand.

“I don’t know,” I whisper. Could this be yet another part of Clay’s game? Of course it could. I’d been thinking, somehow, that Mom was making a gesture in there…a peace offering, but maybe it
is
just another political tactic. My stomach coils. I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to feel. The tears I’ve been fending off spill over. I scrub at my cheeks angrily.

“I’m sorry,” Jase says, pulling me to him so my cheek rests against his chest. “Of course you don’t. I just…seeing her sitting there in the kitchen, eating pizza as if everything’s all great, it makes me—”

“Sick,” I finish for him, shutting my eyes.

“For you too. Not just Dad. For you too, Sam.”

I want to argue, repeat again that she’s not a bad person. But if she really has come over here at Clay’s bidding to show the “softer side of Grace,” then…

“Got that ice cream?” Alice calls out the door. “I didn’t think it was possible, but we’ll actually be needing it.”

“Uh…just a sec,” Jase calls back, hastily lifting the garage door. He reaches into the Garretts’ freezer case, always loaded from Costco, and takes out a carton. “Let’s get back in before they eat the bowls.” He tries for his old, easy smile, falls short.

When we return to the kitchen, George is saying to Mom, “I like this cereal called Gorilla Munch on top of my ice cream. It’s not really made of gorillas.”

“Oh. Well. Good.”

“It’s really just peanut butter and healthy stuff.” George searches around in the box, tipping it, then heaps cereal into his bowl. “But if you buy boxes of cereal, you can save gorillas. And that’s really good, ’cause otherwise they can get instinct.”

My mother looks at me for translation. Or maybe salvation.

“Extinct,” I supply.

“That’s what I meant.” George pours milk on top of his cereal and ice cream, then stirs it vigorously. “That means they don’t mate enough and then they are dead forever.”

Silence falls again. Heavy silence.
Dead forever
. That phrase seems to reverberate in the air, at least for me. Mr. Garrett lying facedown in the rain, that image Jase added to the echo of that sickening thud. Does Mom see it too? She puts down her slice of pizza, her fingers tight on a paper towel as she dabs at her lips. Jase is staring at the floor.

My mother stands up so abruptly that her chair almost overturns. “Samantha, will you come outside with me for a moment?”

Dread snags at me.
She’s not going to march me home to face Clay’s arm-twisting again. Please no.
I glance at Jase.

Mom bends over the table so she’s eye to eye with George. “I’m sorry about your father,” she tells him. “I hope he feels better soon.” Then she rushes out the door, sure I’ll trail after her, even after everything.

Go,
Jase mouths at me, lifting his chin toward the door. A
look at those eyes and it’s clear; he has to know everything.

I hurry after my mom as her sandals click down the driveway. She stills, then turns slowly. It’s almost fully dark now, the streetlamp casting a shallow puddle of light on the driveway.

“Mom?” I search her face.

“Those children.”

“What about them?”

“I couldn’t stay any longer.” The words drag slowly out; then, in a rush. “Do you know Mr. Garrett’s room number? He’s at Maplewood Memorial, yes?”

Melodramatic scenarios crowd my mind. Clay will go there and put a pillow over Mr. Garrett’s face, an air bubble in his IV. Mom will…I no longer have any grasp of what she’ll do. Could she really come over and eat pizza and then do something terrible?

But she already has done something terrible, and then showed up with figurative lasagna.
Here I am, your good neighbor
. “Why?” I ask.

“I need to tell him what happened. What I did.” She compresses her lips, her gaze drawn back to the Garretts’ house, the light a perfect square in the screen door.

Oh thank God
.

“Right now? You’re going to tell the truth?”

“Everything,” she replies in a small, soft voice. She reaches into her purse, taking out a pen and her tiny “flag this” notebook. “What’s his room number?”

“He’s in the ICU, Mom.” My voice is sharp—how can she not remember? “You can’t talk to him. They won’t let you in. You’re not family.”

She looks at me, blinks. “I’m your
mother.
”

I stare at her, completely confused, but then I realize. She thinks I meant
she
wasn’t
my
family. In the moment, it feels true. And I suddenly know I’m standing somewhere very far away from her. All my strength, all my will, is diverted into defending this family. My mom…What she’s done…I can’t defend her.

“They won’t let you into the room,” is all I say. “Only his immediate relatives.”

Her face twists and, with a jerk of my stomach, I interpret her expression. Some shame. Mainly relief. She won’t have to face him.

My eyes fall on the van, the driver’s-side door. I know who deserves the truth just as badly as Mr. Garrett, though.

Mom’s hand moves convulsively to smooth the skirt of her dress.

“You need to talk to Mrs. Garrett,” I say. “Tell her. She’s home. You can do it now.”

Again that snap of a gaze at the door, then a sharp turn of her head, as though the whole house is the scene of the accident. “I can’t go in there again.” Mom’s hand is rigid in mine as I pull at her, trying to urge her back up the driveway. Her palm is damp. “Not with all those children.”

“You have to.”

“I can’t.”

My eyes draw back to the door too, as though I’ll find the solution waiting there.

And I do. Jase, with Mrs. Garrett standing next to him. His shoulders are set, his arm tight around her.

The screen door opens and they come out.

“Senator Reed, I told my mom you had something to say.”

Mom nods, her throat working. Mrs. Garrett is barefoot, her hair sleep-rumpled, her face tired but composed. Jase can’t have told her.

“Yes, I—I need to speak with you,” Mom says. “In private. Would you—care to come have some lemonade at my house?” She dabs at her upper lip with one knuckle, adding, “It’s very humid tonight.”

“You can talk here.” Jase obviously doesn’t want his mother within range of Clay’s hypnotism. She raises her eyebrows at his tone.

“You’re more than welcome to come inside, Senator,” Mrs. Garrett’s own voice is soothing and polite.

“It will be just the two of us,” Mom assures Jase. “I’m sure my other company has left.”

“Right here will be fine,” he repeats. “Sam and I will keep the kids occupied inside.”

“Jase—” Mrs. Garrett begins, her cheeks flushing at her unaccountably rude child.

“That’s fine.” Mom takes a deep breath.

Jase opens the screen door, motioning me back in. I stand for a moment, looking from my mom to Mrs. Garrett and back again. Everything about the two women profiled in the driveway is poles apart. Mom’s sunny yellow sheath, her pedicured feet, Mrs. Garrett’s rumpled sundress and unpolished toenails. Mom’s taller, Mrs. Garrett younger. But the pucker between each of their brows is nearly identical. The apprehension washing over their faces, equal.

Chapter Fifty-one

I don’t know how my mother said it, if the truth gushed or seeped from her lips. Neither Jase nor I could hear above the clatter of the kitchen, only see their silhouettes in the deepening darkness when we had a moment to steal a look as we cleaned up pizza boxes, shooed the kids into bath or bed or toward the hypnotic mumble of the television. What I know is that after about twenty minutes, Mrs. Garrett opened the screen door of the kitchen, her face giving nothing away. She told Alice and Joel she was headed to the hospital and needed them to come with her, then turned to Jase. “You’ll come too?”

When they’ve gone, and Andy, obviously still suffering from the aftereffects of her Jake Gyllenhaal marathon, falls asleep on the couch, I hear a voice call from the back porch.

“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.”