Table for five (18 page)

L
ily kept trying to shake off the sight of Maura Riley, looking like Medical Student Barbie, coming out of the bedroom she’d so obviously shared with Sean the night before. But Lily couldn’t forget. Nor could she keep silent the minute she got him alone in the kitchen.

“I think it’s a bad idea to have your girlfriend living in the house with you,” she said. Crystal’s house, she thought, her resentment firing up.

“She doesn’t live here.”

“She shouldn’t even be spending the night.” God, she sounded so sour and judgmental. “What I mean is, it’s bad for the kids.”

“Get off it, Lily. Not that it’s any of your business, but last night is the first time she’s stayed. The kids don’t care. They like Maura.”

“What about Maura?” asked Charlie as she came into the kitchen. “She stayed over last night, didn’t she?”

Lily pursed her lips. Sean acted as though he hadn’t heard.

“She’s boring and she doesn’t have time for kids,” Charlie said, sending a sidelong glance at her uncle.

“It’s the truth. I asked her. She said she wasn’t ready to have kids, but when she was, then she would like them.”

“She didn’t mean you,” said Sean. “So you watch your mouth.”

Charlie gave an offended sniff, then shrugged and went trolling for breakfast. She gravitated toward a box of Pop-Tarts, and Lily was too preoccupied to object.

If this had been Lily’s problem to solve, she would have launched into a detailed explanation of how inappropriate it was for Charlie to talk like that about an adult, and how hard Maura worked at becoming a doctor, and how important it was for Charlie to respect her. Lily discovered that Sean’s curt imperative worked just as well.

“You look pretty today,” she told Charlie, admiring the creative combination of red sneakers, pink sweater and purple clam diggers. Her hair was braided and adorned with a sparkling array of tiny barrettes.

Charlie held out her hands. “Uncle Sean did my nails.
And
my hair.”

Lily nodded in approval. “I see.” Over Charlie’s head, she caught Sean’s eye, but he was acting busy as he organized the baby’s diaper bag. A bit of self-conscious color touched his cheeks.

Uncle Sean, it seemed, was developing an unexpected talent for doing hair. It had started with Charlie’s return to school. Lily never knew what the child would look like on any given morning. Over the past few weeks, she’d arrived in the classroom sporting any number of looks—B-52s, Princess Leia, Pippi Longstocking and Alicia Keys were favorites.

“We should get going,” Sean said.

Cameron was the last to join them, sliding into the car just as Sean was about to lose his patience.

“Hey,” Charlie squawked, “get your muddy feet off me.”

“They’re not on you,” Cameron muttered. “Move over.”

“On the way home,” Sean said, “maybe you’ll do some of the driving.”

Cameron opened a can of Coke and took a slug. “I forgot my learner’s permit.”

Sean held up a small leather sleeve with a plastic window. “You’re in luck. I found this on top of the refrigerator.”

Sean had told Lily that Cameron was avoiding driving. Most boys his age couldn’t wait to get behind the wheel. But of course, most boys hadn’t lost their parents in a horrific accident.

“I don’t feel like it,” said Cameron, and he turned to glare out the window.

Lily shifted sideways in her seat so she could talk to the kids. The social services supervisor had given Sean permission to appropriate Crystal’s car. Since his truck only had three seat belts, they couldn’t go anywhere as a family in it.

She told herself not to resent him for moving into her best friend’s home, looking after her kids and taking over her life. It seemed to be the most compassionate arrangement for the children at this time, maybe for good. But being pushed out of the picture didn’t feel right at all. She didn’t know where she stood—teacher, family friend, fifth wheel? After encountering Maura this morning, she was more confused than ever and more bothered by the fact that she had no authority here, no control.

“How’s school going?” she inquired, trying to engage Cameron’s interest.

“Okay,” he said, predictably.

“I deserved that,” Lily admitted. “All right, let’s try this again. How’s your state-history project coming?”

“It’s coming.”

“He hasn’t even started,” Charlie said.

“Shut up.” Cameron elbowed her.

“Don’t talk like an ass,” Sean warned him. “I mean, a jerk.”

“Do you need help with it?” Lily asked.

“I don’t need anything.” He took a slug of Coke.

She wanted to ask Cameron about all sorts of things. She wondered if he felt like talking about his worries when it came to driving, but that conversation was not for here or now. That was something she was learning about the dynamics of this patchwork family. You had to pick your moment.

As they passed Echo Ridge, Sean slowed the car. “What the hell?”

Lily was going to chide him for his language, but when she looked at the golf course, she forgot to speak. A police squad car was parked on the side of the road and an officer made notes on a pad. Someone had trenched the putting green closest to the road. The green had been charred, too, by lighter fluid splashed on the grass and then set aflame. In the water hazard adjacent to the fairway, a golf cart lay half submerged. Workers and members from the course stood around, probably trying to decide where to begin fixing things.

Sean pulled over and got out.

“What do you make of that?” Lily asked Cameron.

He shrugged. “Maybe someone had too much time on their hands last night.”

She felt a strange flutter in her stomach. “How do you know it was last night?”

He rolled his eyes. “I doubt something like this would happen in broad daylight,” he said.

“I don’t understand. Why would anyone do such a thing?”

He shrugged again. “I guess some people trash things for no reason.”

Sean returned to the car. “Vandalism,” he said. “They’re assessing the damage at five thousand dollars for now. Ten times that if they have to replace the whole green.”

“Do you need to stay?” asked Lily. By asking, she was giving him an out. An escape hatch. A perfect excuse to let her take the kids by herself.

“I told them I was busy,” he said, clipping his seat belt in place. “They’ve got my cell phone number.”

The rest of the way to the city, they speculated about what could’ve happened. They concluded that the crime was almost certainly caused by kids. The cart belonged to a member who, according to Sean, had a bad habit of leaving his cart shed unlocked. He wouldn’t be doing that anymore.

“The greens are so manicured,” Lily commented. “How will they get it back to the condition it was before?”

“They’ll never get it back to its original state,” said Sean.

“I think it’s terrible,” she said. “What were those kids thinking?”

“I’m sure they weren’t thinking at all. It can be fixed. New grass always comes in greener after burning, anyway.”

The Golden Hills care facility was beautifully landscaped, with a view of the Columbia River and the snow-clad cone of Mount Hood floating in the distance. Crystal and her mother had chosen this place together a long time ago, after the first series of strokes, from which she made only a partial recovery. In March, a massive stroke had nearly been fatal. “Sometimes,” Crystal had told Lily, “I think it would have been a mercy if it had taken her. It’s taken everything else, all her memories, everything that makes her
her.
”

To Lily, it seemed a singularly cruel existence. Her condition had stolen all the years of a rich, full life, and left Doro
thy bedridden and unaware that she had a daughter who had died and grandchildren who loved her.

“Grandma stays in bed all the time now,” Charlie told Sean as they headed for the covered walkway leading to the entrance. “She can’t even go out in a wheelchair anymore.”

He took her hand. “What was she like before she got sick?”

“Only the best grandma in the whole wide world.” There was a bounce in Charlie’s step as she walked.

“I’ll bet she was.” He lifted his arm and Charlie twirled under it.

“Now me,” said Ashley, straining to get down. “Me!”

Outside the doors of the nursing home, he twirled both girls, their images reflected in the glass of the foyer windows.

All right, so the house is a mess and he lets his girlfriend spend the night, thought Lily. At least he dances with his nieces. She glanced over at Cameron to see him watching, too, with a very slight and cryptic smile that disappeared the moment he felt her watching him. He was so angry, she thought. So unsure of himself. “When was the last time you saw her?” she asked him.

“Last month,” he said. “We brought some pictures to hang in her room. She’s not doing so hot.” He stepped in front of the automatic doors and they swished open. “She’ll probably die pretty soon.” He hurried inside.

Regardless of the pristine beauty of the gardens and the luxurious, upscale decor of the facility itself, there was no disguising the fact that this was a place where people came to endure the most difficult phase of their lives. A peculiar hush pervaded the lobby and the long hallways lined by doors wide enough to provide wheelchair access. The scent of air freshener didn’t quite mask the ever-present odor of urine and disinfectant.

The staff didn’t wear standard nursing uniforms, but rather color-coordinated sweaters and skirts or slacks. Lily thought
they looked a bit like flight attendants or casino workers. Yet everyone here seemed to treat people with compassion and dignity, a trait Dorothy used to be quick to notice back when she was capable of noticing such things.

Crystal had admitted the cost of the care facility was wiping her out, but she didn’t care about that.

Lily glanced at Cameron as they headed toward Dorothy’s room. “That was a pretty rotten thing to say. I hope your sisters didn’t hear.”

He surprised her by saying, “I wouldn’t have said it if I thought they could hear.”

Lily touched his sleeve. He was being painfully honest, and he probably had the facts down better than anyone. What she really wanted to do was hug him, but she doubted he’d tolerate that. He was pushing her and everyone else to treat him normally, to dare people to get mad at him. And in Cameron’s anger and isolation, she recognized a little of herself, and that worried her. “Cameron—”

Charlie rushed past them, breaking the moment of connection. “Come on, Uncle Sean. I’ll show you where Grandma lives. She knit me this sweater. It used to be extra big because she wanted me to wear it as long as possible.” She showed off her pink cardigan, holding out her arms. “It’s getting really small on me.”

“Then you’d better quit growing,” said Sean. He gave one of her pigtails a gentle tug. “Be sure to thank her again for making it.”

“She won’t understand.”

“Thank her, anyway.”

The door to Dorothy’s sunlit room, which she shared with another patient named Mrs. Withers, was plastered with cards and notes of sympathy, a storm of silver, gold and white fluttering as they walked past it. Ashley chortled with delight.

An orderly had wheeled Mrs. Withers out for a walk. Someone else had readied Dorothy for company. The mattress was raised nearly to a sitting position, and Dorothy wore a pretty pink robe tied with a satin bow below the cervical collar that supported her neck. Her hair had been combed, her nails done and the blankets folded precisely across her lap.

Lily’s heart tightened. All her life Dorothy had been beautiful and was proud of that beauty. It was a curious, unsought blessing that she was no longer aware of her circumstances. She would hate to be here, institutionalized, looked after by others, no longer capable of dealing with her own most basic needs. She would hate to know that she had outlived her daughter.

“Hello, Dorothy,” Lily said, trying to sound natural. “It’s me, Lily. I’ve brought your grandchildren to see you. And this is their uncle Sean.”

“Ma’am,” he said, “pleasure to meet you.”

Dorothy blinked but offered no sign of recognition. Her face had a stiff, almost claylike aspect, as though it was a mask. With a thoughtful expression, Sean perused the family pictures that covered the wall at the end of the bed.

Lily took hold of one of Dorothy’s hands. It was cool to the touch, the skin dry and fragile, like onion skin. “I think about you a lot these days, Dorothy. I suppose after my own family, you and Crystal have known me longer than anyone else.” She smiled, remembering how calming it used to be to go to Crystal’s house, where everything was placid and pleasant, where tempers were quiet and no ghosts lurked. “You’re very special to me. I have to think that in some way, you know that.”

When Lily looked up and saw the others staring at her, she felt a little flustered. She had revealed too much of herself.

The baby giggled and talked nonsense as she explored the
room. Sean kept an eye on her while Lily motioned Cameron and Charlie over to the bed.

“I never know what to say,” Cameron muttered. “Since she’s been…like this, it’s just weird.”

“I know,” Lily said. “Be yourself. Tell her something you remember about her. Before she was sick, she adored you. She still does, but she can’t show it the way she used to.”

Cameron stared at her for a moment.

“What?” asked Lily.

“Nothing.” He bent down to place an awkward kiss on Dorothy’s cheek. “Hi, Grandma,” he said. He jammed his hands in his back pockets and glanced up at Lily. “I still don’t know what to say.”

“Any little memory,” she suggested.

He bent down again and said something in her ear. Dorothy looked startled at first, and then her face softened and her eyes drifted shut. A low sound came from her throat and she opened her eyes again. Lily could have sworn the old lady looked directly at her grandson, but that might have been wishful thinking. Then again, maybe Cameron really had connected.

Charlie came up next to him, the squabbling in the car forgotten. “Hello, Grandma,” she said, her expression solemn. “My name’s Charlie and you used to know that. I’m wearing the sweater you made me. I miss you lots, Grandma. I really do.” She touched Dorothy’s hand and then drew Ashley forward. The baby chortled and touched the ring on Dorothy’s finger, smiling up at her.