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C
HAPTER
34

R
ay greeted Jackie and Claire at the house later that afternoon. For a hulking man of six three, two hundred sixty or so, he had a gentle demeanor and warm smile that reminded Claire of Michael Clarke Duncan. And despite Nicky’s insistence that he didn’t need any help showering or getting dressed, it was clear from the fluidity of their communication and Nick’s relaxed body language that they had already established a good rapport.

They had been making sandwiches when Claire and Jackie had arrived, and after the requisite reacquainting with his aunt, and sizing-up of his new clothes for fit and cool factor—all of which won thumbs-up—Nick led them back into the kitchen.

“I wanted to make grilled cheese, but Berna said no . . .” He paused, his face concentrating on his search for words.

“No?” Claire bristled.

“No cheese,” he finally managed. “She had to go to the store. But, I rolled with it.” The hint of a grin spread across his clean-shaven face, and in that rare smile, Claire saw the spark of life and the boy she remembered. His eyes looked vibrant, and while his skin remained pale, the weariness had begun to vanish. Nick pointed to the butcher block. There were six peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, some cut into triangles and some into rectangles, some with lined-up edges, some less artfully constructed. He handed them each a half from the group with matching edges. Ray grabbed one of the “misfits” from the other cluster before Nicholas threw its cubist mates into the sink.

“I told you I
like
the Picassos,” Ray said, rescuing one from the water.

“This is perfect, Nicky. I’m starving,” Jackie said with enthusiasm.

Claire kissed Nick on his forehead and wiped a splotch of peanut butter from his chin. “Well done.”

They ate their sandwiches while Ray gave Claire a brief run-down on his work with patients in Nick’s situation. He loved the highly motivated patients, kids mostly, who worked hard to be normal again. The hardest part was
choosing
to recover from injury, and Nick, he emphasized, had the fight and the desire.

After they finished, Claire watched Nick pick up the lid to the jelly jar and try to screw it back on. He had difficulty getting it into the grooves, and she could see his aggravation mounting until finally the lid slid into place and he was able to twist it shut with a grunt. His expression shifted to a sort of sad resignation, and she questioned whether he would ever believe in the enoughness of his small triumphs.

“How about a walk outside, man?”

Ray took Claire aside in the front yard as Jackie held Nick’s arm and walked with him to the car near the end of the drive. “Nick was pretty restless when he got back from lunch with his grandfather, so we did some stretching and then played checkers, which calmed him.” Ray paused, seeming to deliberate his words. “Does he generally get agitated around certain family members?”

“No,” Claire responded, somewhat puzzled. “He hasn’t seen his grandfather since June, right before he came home from Andover. They live in Boston. Maybe the shift in routine threw him off?”

“I’m sure it’s nothing to be concerned about,” Ray promised her. “Patients in Nick’s stage often get anxious, as you well know. Might’ve just been seeing him after so long. Are there any other diversionary activities he likes? Mr. Montgomery mentioned the weight room, but that just amped Nick’s arousal even more.”

“He’s a beautiful artist. I just got a call that one of the charcoal drawings he did in his art therapy class at Rancho won a spot in their ‘Art of Rancho’ showcase book. But he hasn’t wanted to draw since that last week I was there with him. Maybe if you worked with him on his dexterity, we might be able to get him to pick up his pencils again. I can get out some of his sketching supplies.”

“Perfect. We’ll get him back on course, Mrs. M., don’t you worry,” Ray said with such a twinkle of confidence that Claire had the feeling she’d just sat on Santa’s knee.

“And I should probably explain”—Claire lowered her voice—“our situation here at the house. It’s a little . . . unconventional at the moment.” She imagined questioning Michael when he got home about just how unconventional things had really become.

“Look,” Ray said, walking her toward her car, “my job is to help Nick with his daily living skills. We’re gonna work on household chores and we’re gonna do fun things, maybe some driving, and definitely some art. My goal is to give him opportunities to succeed here so he can take that confidence and apply it outside.” He raised his eyebrows, as if to say that he had a firm grip on the less-than-solid situation he’d walked into. “I’ll keep him moving forward, Mrs. M, and you can get the situation to wherever it needs to be.”

“Thank you, Ray.” She placed her hand on his arm, thinking less Santa Claus and more angel.

Nicholas got into the backseat of the Jeep with Jackie, and Claire drove them to the neighborhood park where Nick had played soccer through middle school. They walked along the bike path, Nicholas between them, a head taller and a nearly shoulder’s width broader than both of them. From behind, someone might have guessed he was a man in his twenties who’d suffered a bad ski injury and was still trying to work off his limp. It was that soothing magic hour before sundown, and a quiet had settled on the park after a throng of kids had climbed into their mothers’ SUVs and headed for violin lessons and homework and dinners.

“Allie and Miranda can’t wait to see you, Nick,” Jackie said as they rounded the bend near the playground. “We’d love to have you over for pizza this weekend.”

Nicholas stopped, then broke from them and walked over to a nearby bench, turning his head away.

“Are you okay?” Claire asked him. “Is this too much on your ankle?

He pretended to shield his eyes from the glare, avoiding both of their gazes. “It’s always too much. But I just have to . . . deal it—deal with all of it. Don’t I?” His words oozed with the naked emotion he’d been holding back since he’d gotten home. Three teenage boys dodged out onto the field in front of them and began tossing around a Frisbee. Nicholas leaned forward and watched them. “I want to get better, Aunt Jax,” he said quietly. “Before I see the girls.” He stayed focused on the boys’ rapid-fire movements. “I don’t want to see
anyone
until I’m . . . better.”

Jackie looked to her sister, and Claire signaled for compliance, completely appreciating the idea of hiding from the world until things were looking up.

“We can wait a couple weeks then for dinner, okay? But
I
plan to see you again before that,” Jackie said, sitting down and wrapping her arm around his waist.

They watched the game for a while as the sun started to dip. The boys looked to be a couple years younger than Nicholas, and were swift and athletic as he once had been. One of them launched the Frisbee toward his friend near the playground, but it glided south with the wind and landed a few yards away from where they sat. Unexpectedly, Nicholas pushed himself up from the bench and made to run for the disc. Claire stopped herself from trying to steady him before he might fall—not wanting to be one of those helicopters who, out of their fear of recurring bad luck, hover and suck the adventure out of their children’s lives.

Nick rolled on his ankle and tumbled to the gravel at the edge of the grass, his hip and palm catching most of the fall. Claire gripped Jackie’s wrist, but remained glued to the bench, as she had during hundreds of hockey and lacrosse games, waiting for her son to right himself. He reached out for the Frisbee and got to his knees. One of the boys approached, and Nick tossed it feebly toward him.

“You need some help, dude?” the boy asked, holding out a hand.

Nick pressed himself onto his feet and, once balanced, unfolded to standing. “No,” he snapped. The boy shrugged and jogged back to his buddies.

Nick wiped his upper lip with the arm of the new hoodie. A light dusting of gravel fell to the ground. “Let’s go home,” he said, starting back down the path to the car without turning around.

 

When they arrived back at the house Michael was working in the study. Nick lowered himself onto the chaise opposite the desk and elevated his leg on one of the pillows, saying nothing to his dad. Michael greeted Claire and Jackie with a distracted hello, and tousled Nick’s hair before returning to his chair.

“We had a long walk at the park,” Claire said, filling the silence that ensued, and ignoring the same discomfiting nausea she’d felt the last time she’d been in the house. She scanned the room, seeing herself still there in the pictures with Nicholas on the bookshelves and piano, in the fabrics and furniture and artwork she’d chosen—and the stasis somehow surprised her. She would start out gently, she decided.

They discussed the program for Nick’s first day at Craig and the schedule with Ray for the week, and all the other appointments and moving pieces that would be the new routine. Nick responded to everything with a series of nods and
whatever
s, the park mishap clearly still bothering him. Michael was only slightly more engaged. And when Berna poked her head in to announce that Nick’s dinner was ready anytime he wanted it, he seemed only too happy for an opportunity to escape. Jackie followed him into the kitchen.

“Nick was kind of up and down this afternoon,” Claire said, apprising Michael. “This is
not
an easy adjustment, you know. Even if he doesn’t complain.”

Michael was simultaneously sending a text and checking something on the computer screen. “Yeah,” he said, focusing on the computer. “But everyone’s doing fine here,” he emphasized with a brief glance. “And Ray seems very capable.”

“I picked up some new clothes for Nicky today at Neiman’s,” she said evenly.

His attention had returned to the screen.

“And when I went to pay, they told me the card was no longer valid.” She cocked her head and smiled, waiting.

He looked up. “What?”

“My Neiman’s card, you’ve had it . . . closed?”

He typed for a few seconds, clicked the mouse, and came around to her side of the partners’ desk. “I don’t know. Maybe Dana did.” The shadow of his beard and his bloodshot eyes said all-nighter, or tanking deal.

“Hmm.”

“I think it had been inactive for a while so she probably just shut it down. She’s been streamlining things.” He leaned onto the edge of the desk and shrugged.

Okay,
Claire thought. Not totally unreasonable.

“So you used the Amex, then?”

She nodded.

“Fine, crisis averted.” He walked toward the door, loosening his tie with one hand and monitoring his cell with the other. “Nicky’s got a big day tomorrow, and I’m sure Jackie needs to get back to Boulder. Let’s call it a night?”

“Sure,” she said, while commending herself for not having launched the original nuclear attack she’d composed. And despite her desire to grill him about the exact nature of his intentions and his non-recollection of Taylor, and to find out how many lawyers he’d consulted and how he envisioned the endgame, Claire repeated her new mantra of Sara Lee Clinton and kept her smile plastered in place. Which, as she thought about it, she’d been doing for a very long time. She cut past him and went to the kitchen.

“I’ve got to get your aunt back to her car,” she said to Nick in her ongoing imitation of cheerful. She wasn’t sure she’d ever get comfortable with these exits. And she didn’t believe that Nick had. “I’ll see you in the morning, honey.”

“Cool.” He flipped through TV channels, barely registering her departure.

 

“
Cool?
Are you kidding me?” Claire said to Richard’s jovial voice later that evening.

“Aw, he’s just being stoic. What else is a teenaged boy supposed to do in the face of everything he’s dealing with? It’s the ‘whatever’ approach, and he’d probably be slinging it with passionate indifference regardless of the injury.”

She had called Richard for a little distraction from all that her mind was spinning, and for a dose of the encouragement he’d always been able to supply. And because she was, at long last, resigned enough to answer his inevitable “how’s your marriage?” question. Which came within the first three minutes of the call.

“I think the clarity has come,” she responded. “You were right.”

“Well, that’s one in a row.”

“It’s finally, sadly, circling the drain. And I’m going to see a lawyer this week.”

Loud barking echoed in the background, followed by the sound of some sort of scratching. “Bring it here,” Richard said. “No,
here,
buddy. Come! Jagger!”

“Trouble with the help?” Claire asked in her best imitation of her mother-in-law.

“That,”
he said between a string of new and clearly unanswered, commands, “was the second biggest mistake of my adult life.”

“But no less unpredictable than everything else. Right?”

“When you pick out a Lab at the shelter, the only quality you’re pretty much guaranteed of is that he’ll be dying to play fetch with you, right? But we got Jagger, the Labrador non-retriever. And now
I
have said mutant all to myself.”

Claire chuckled, relaxing into her sheets and imagining how perfect it would be to snuggle up to a warm, uncomplicated cyclone of fur. “I see now that there’s no going back for us,” she said, wanting for some unexpected reason to steer their conversation back to her marriage. “Which seems so strange. This resignation I’m starting to feel, I mean.”

“Okay, Smitty. Answer me this. Who’s your best friend?”

She could hear Jagger barking. “Curious minds?”

“Humor me.”

Without further hesitation she told him that it was Jackie. And Gail and Carolyn, to a lesser degree.

“Your biggest cheerleader, the person who’s always got your back, and vice versa?”