The Art of Adapting (38 page)

“She's eating again,” Matt said. “Abby.” He pointed toward her with his pen, then carefully turned a few pages of his notebook. He turned the notebook toward Lana, holding it just out of reach. He used his pen to point to a page. Yesterday's date, followed by foods and calorie counts and protein levels. Below that were smiles and laughs carefully annotated.

“You know exactly how much she eats each day?” Lana asked, reaching for the notebook without thinking. Matt quickly withdrew it.

“I'm not sure I was supposed to show you. It's ours. The notebook. I record the data and she . . . well, she eats and smiles and laughs.” He laughed, as if it were funny, as if the existence of such a notebook, the necessity of such meticulous recording, didn't break Lana's heart.

“I'm glad she's eating again. It's going to be a hard road, I suppose. But she's strong. And she has us. Hopefully I'm better support for her than Mom was for us,” Lana said. “I wish you'd known Mom before Stephen died. Back when she was happy.”

Matt closed the notebook, slid the pen into the coiled spine, hid it away in his bag. “Mom was clinically depressed. There's medication that could have helped. Or therapy. But she didn't want help. She didn't want to feel better. She wanted to be sad about Stephen. She felt guilty that she couldn't save him, so she just wanted to be sad. Being sad helped her remember him. Dad was sad, too, but he worked instead. She didn't have anyone to help her. You aren't depressed. And you have help.”

The kids started walking north, toward the dogs. They kept the pocket of distance between them, but moved as one entity. Lana knew if anything happened to one of them she'd be just as gutted
as her mother had been. Of course she'd been depressed. She had lost a child. How does anyone ever recover from that?

“I meant me.” Matt laughed, his one-huff, almost cough of a laugh. “I meant that I help. I don't actually help. I just watch. But Byron can drive now and Abby eats for the notebook and his art's getting better and he's the parkour leader and her poetry is about her and not just her body parts now and I don't see the Vizsla anymore but there are rainbows some days and I know how to send a picture from my phone now and it helps. I help them and they help me.”

“We're helping each other, I guess,” Lana said. She had no idea what Matt was talking about, but the details were less important than the love behind them. “We're a good family. We look out for each other.”

“I stopped drinking, because you said so,” Matt said. “And no more pills.”

“Good,” Lana told him. “It was making you sick. Hurting your liver. And now it can heal.”

“Yes,” he said, nodding. “I didn't understand. Why healing mattered. I mean, more than drinking. Everything hurts something else. No matter what. But this is better.” He gestured toward Lana, the waves, the kids, with three quick flicks of his wrist. “The dogs are better here, too. They prefer the water. They stay over there.”

Lana smiled at him. “I was thinking of having a family barbecue this weekend. I'd like to introduce you all to my friend Abbot. Is there anyone you'd like to invite?”

Matt sifted handfuls of sand through his fingers. “I'd like a girlfriend again. I thought after Susan that I just wanted to be alone. Because of the touching and kissing. But Abby has Gabe and Byron has Betsy and now you have Abbot? So maybe it's okay. The touching. Not always but sometimes. Maybe I could try again. Can I invite Susan?”

“I think that's a wonderful idea.”

Tilly, Betsy, Trent, Camilla, her husband Carl, Abbot, and Emily crowded into the small backyard on Sunday, but Susan was a no-show.
Matt chose to hide out inside, away from the crowd. Lana made a plate of food and brought it to Matt's room.

“So Susan couldn't make it?”

“She didn't want to meet the whole family yet. She just wants to talk on the phone with me for now. She's happy I'm not drinking anymore. Her cat Murray died. She's thinking of getting a kitten.”

“I'm sorry it didn't work out. But anytime you want to have her over, you go ahead and invite her. If you need me and the kids to disappear, we will.”

Matt smiled. “You can't really disappear,” he said. “You mean leave the house. So we can have sex.”

Lana laughed and Matt laughed with her. It was getting easier, talking with him and understanding how his mind worked. It reminded her of dealing with Byron and Abby when they were little. Nuance had been wasted on them. Everything was taken literally. Each word mattered. As it should.

Abby ate grilled mushrooms, bell peppers, and grape tomatoes, juices dripping down her hand as she slid them off the brochette and into her mouth one by one, laughing with Emily. She was a wisp-thin fairy, twirling in a skirt that revealed reedy legs. But she was eating. She'd decided to become a vegetarian, and Lana was hoping that she'd get enough calories and protein that way.

Abbot brought Lana a plate of her favorite foods: Tilly's potato salad, Camilla's coleslaw, fruit salad, two brownies. He had a knack for noticing what she liked and remembering for next time. And he never begrudged her sweets.

Lana speared a piece of watermelon and smiled. “You're going to make me fat, indulging my sweet tooth the way you do.”

Abbot carefully looked Lana up and down and shook his head. “Lana, you have the body of a bombshell. You put pinup girls to shame. You're every man's fantasy. Enjoy the brownie.”

She took a risk and kissed him, right there in front of everyone, and nothing terrible happened. Maybe she could be a mom, sister, daughter, professional, and a desirable woman, all at once. Maybe this new version of Lana could have it all in a way the previous one never quite had.

The back gate opened and Gabe stepped in. Always well mannered, he strode up to Lana and thanked her for the invite. He was perfectly charming. He wandered over to Abby, both of them seeming shy for a moment. He took her hand and they looked into each other's eyes without saying a word. Lana loved seeing Abby strong, loving, and loved. She was both back to her old self and transformed into an entirely new girl, all at once. Lana hoped that meant the worst was over.

Abbot eased the empty plate from Lana's hands. “She's fine,” he said. Lana laughed. It was nice to have him around. So unobtrusive that sometimes she forgot he was there, yet he was always tuned in to her, always seemed to know which direction her thoughts had wandered, how to bring her quietly back from the brink of unhappiness.

“I should've invited you to Florida with us,” Lana said.

Abbot slid his arm around Lana's waist, kissed her temple. “Couldn't have gotten the time off, I'm afraid. But I appreciate you saying that.”

Abbot stuck around after the guests left. He packed up leftovers, did dishes, wiped down tables. When Matt emerged for his nightly ice cream, Abbot whisked a bowl of ice cream out of the freezer, already carefully scooped into three round snowballs and drizzled with chocolate sauce, and handed it over. Matt accepted it without comment. Lana turned to Abbot in surprise, and he shrugged as if it were no big deal. And really, it wasn't. It wasn't like Lana hadn't told him that around eight p.m. Matt came in for a bowl of vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce every single night. But, still, it was impressive.

“You're amazing,” she told him. “You manage things like . . .”

“A dad? A polite guest? A good partner?” he finished for her.

“Like me.”

Abbot laughed. “The best compliment I've had in a long time.”

“Is this how you were with your ex?” Lana asked. “Cook? Dishwasher?” There was nothing sexier than a man pitching in around the kitchen.

Abbot shook his head. “I was expected to help out, but when
I did I was frequently scolded for doing it wrong. And then when I resisted getting set up for failure, I was branded as lazy. Some relationships you just can't win, you know?”

Lana nodded. “I know the feeling. So many marriages end up being power struggles, don't they? Each partner just vying for ultimate control.”

Lana set the plates in the cupboard. Although the kitchen had been her domain, the entire room was arranged around Graham's preferences. His favorite plates were down lowest, the ones she liked up on the higher shelf. The glasses he liked were in front, the ones she used stored in the back. It had been her doing as much as Graham's. She emptied the cupboard, stacking its contents on the counter. It was time to rearrange.

“So how do we not do that to each other?” Abbot asked. He'd finished the dishes and was leaning against the counter drying his hands, watching her work. It was the first time they'd mentioned a future beyond their next date.

“I think we've both learned a lot in our travels. Hopefully we can be together without trying to change one another.”

“Sounds simple enough,” he said. He figured out Lana's new order for the cupboards and joined her, putting the dishes back in the new arrangement.

“What's the main thing you've learned in your travels?” he asked.

Lana thought it over. The dull ache of losing Graham. The cold business of separating finances and possessions. The ongoing fear of dangerous cells taking up residence in her body, and that awful, fear-inspiring word:
cancer
. Her mother's vocal dissatisfaction. Her father's constant distractions. The ebb and flow of her children's joy and pain and strength and confusion. Matt moving in. Rekindling her friendship with Camilla. Becca's meditation CDs. Abbot and his soft voice and broad shoulders and brown Crocs and the way he smelled like home.

“I think the main thing I've learned is that no matter what the problem is, the answer is love. It isn't about control or success or doing the most, having the most, or knowing the most. Love my
kids fiercely, protect them with all that I have, and be the kind of parent that I wish I'd had. And forgive myself when I falter. Keep my heart open. Trust my judgment. Accept others. Love myself. That's what I've learned.”

Abbot reached up to stop her hand in the steady motion of lifting mugs from the counter to the shelf one by one. He turned her toward him and placed her palm on his chest over his steadily thumping heart.

“You're right,” he said. “And that's exactly why I love you.”

The phone calls weren't working. The problem was that Matt hated talking on the phone. It seemed like it should be easier, because there was no eye contact and the caller couldn't see whether Matt was anxious-smiling or not. But after the third phone call with Susan, where she did most of the talking and Matt did most of the pacing around his room trying to figure out what to say, she said they'd be better off meeting in person.

Matt drove his red truck to the café Susan had selected. He brought himself a thermos of tea from home, because he couldn't eat or drink at the café. He didn't like restaurants or restaurant germs. As soon as he walked in and saw Susan he realized how much he missed her. She had the same brown hair, hanging straight just below her shoulders, and her brown eyes were just as he remembered them, but she looked different around the mouth.

“You're wearing pink lipstick,” Matt said. “I've never seen you in pink lipstick before.”

Susan laughed. “Hi, Matt. It's nice to see you. Can I hug you?”

Matt set his tea down so he wouldn't spill it or burn her and opened his arms. He turned his head to the side so she'd know not to kiss him. Susan didn't move.

“Tell you what. We don't have to hug,” she said. “I'll be right
over here if you feel the urge, but I don't need to touch you if you aren't up for it.”

Matt liked Susan a lot. She was funny and nice and smart. And she smelled good. Like some sort of flower and spice. He stepped forward and gave her a quick hug, smelling her hair as he did. It smelled like cherry blossoms. She raised her arms to make space for him, but she didn't put her hands on him. She had always been like that: fine with whatever he wanted as far as the touching went. Which made him want to touch her more. He even wanted to kiss her. Not her pink lipstick, though. The lipstick made him think of the lip balm he'd bought for Florida. Mint, with sunscreen in it.

“I'm going to Florida,” Matt said. He was already better in person. He hadn't even thought of telling her about the trip over the phone.

“Really?” Susan smiled and sat at a table for two. “When?”

“Tomorrow. For seven days. To visit my parents.”

“Oh, Matt, that's wonderful,” Susan said. “How long since you've seen them?”

“Two years and seven months,” Matt said. He knew that was too long to go without seeing your parents, because Lana had told him so. “They don't travel much. And I don't travel much. And we live two thousand four hundred fifty-six miles apart, according to Google Maps. If I drove. On the ten. Which I won't. I'm flying. I don't know if I like planes very much. So many people and so many germs and not enough space, but my doctor gave me a pill that's supposed to help keep me calm on the plane.”

“Do you have an iPod? If you listen to music on the plane it'll keep you busy, distracted from all those people.”

Matt hadn't even thought of that. It was an excellent idea. He pulled out his notebook and wrote it down. “Good,” he said. “What else would help?”

Susan pointed at the notebook. “That. Write down everything interesting you see. Then when we talk on the phone you can read it to me.” The sun coming in the window lit up Susan's face in the nicest way.

“My parents live close to Cape Canaveral,” Matt said. “Maybe
I could go to the Kennedy Space Center. Then I could tell you about it.” He made a note about that in his notebook. Looking at his notebook reminded him of all the other things he had to tell Susan about. The waitress brought Susan her coffee and scone. Matt made a point of smiling at the waitress when she looked at him. “I stopped drinking. And taking the pills that were bad. I don't live with Spike anymore. I live with Lana now. And I'm painting again. Oh, and I'm on Wellbutrin now.” The waitress turned and looked at Matt, so he smiled at her again. “It helps me with my impulse control. I haven't acted out in a while. And I can stop the thoughts before they come out. Sometimes. Usually. You're very pretty. Especially in this light. I wish I could do a painting of you just like this.”