The Art of Adapting (6 page)

Lana would try a few times to get Jack back into the realm of the relevant, but there was no stopping him once he started talking. Eventually she'd hang up, unfulfilled, frustrated, vowing to stop setting herself up for disappointment. Then a week later she'd miss his booming voice and rants about old ladies feeding pigeons off their balconies, and the bird droppings all over the walkways below, and give him another chance.

As for Graham, it was time to stop waiting for him to come around. He had a totally new wardrobe. He had reinvented himself. He wasn't coming back for these things. Lana had bought five large plastic bins with snap-on lids months ago, then forgot about them. She hauled them up from the garage and started stowing Graham's clothes in them. With each armload carefully folded into a bin, the weight of the room lifted. She finished in record time. Months of procrastination resolved in a half hour of effort. She stood back and admired her handiwork. The closet was wide open, spacious as a promise.

She emptied his dresser drawers next: socks, underwear, an array of ties and cuff links he'd never worn. And that's when she found it: Graham's wedding ring. A simple gold band resting in
a carved wooden bowl they'd picked up on a trip to the Grand Canyon, mixed in with paper clips, a memory stick, a brown button, some change. Had he forgotten it? Left it on purpose? She set it on her dresser and tried to decide what to do with it. Ignoring it seemed like the best option for the time being. She still had the bins to contend with.

She hadn't thought about how to get the bins downstairs. They were heavier than she'd expected, crammed so full that some of the lids wouldn't latch. She dragged them to the top of the stairs and considered her options. She was tempted to shove them down the stairs, sledlike, and see what happened. But if they caused any damage to the walls on the way down she'd have no one but herself to fix it. It wasn't like she could ask Graham to help her carry them when he came to drop the kids off. Or she could, but she wanted this to be hers, this cleansing act. He could fetch his things from a dusty corner of the garage like a proper ex.

Matt sat by the front window, staring out at the world passing by, a fish safe inside his aquarium. His blond curls and green eyes were set aglow by the sun, his pale fluttery hands busy in his lap, tinkering with some object she couldn't make out. Lana cleared her throat, wanting to get Matt's attention without startling him, and got no response. Throat-clearing was one of those signals that had to be learned, and Asperger's made it harder for Matt to absorb social cues.

“Matt?” Lana said. He jumped, as always. She hated startling him, but hadn't figured out how to draw him back from his reveries without doing so.

“What's in the bins?” he asked. Lana smiled. How he knew exactly what she was up to without knowing that she was about to say his name was one of the many Matt mysteries.

“Some of Graham's things. I need to put them in the garage, but I'm afraid if I try to lift them by myself I'll fall down the stairs.”

“Do you remember when Grandma fell down the stairs?” he asked. Matt had been only four when that had happened. Their grandma had broken her hip, and had never fully come back from it. Lana wondered if Matt remembered visiting her in the hospital afterward, or if he just remembered the stories.

“Yes, maybe that's why I'm afraid to try.”

“You're much younger than she was, so I bet it wouldn't hurt you even if you fell,” Matt said. Lana nodded, waiting. He turned back to the window, rotating out of the conversation. Lana was being too polite, trying to get him to offer to help. She knew perfectly well that she needed to be direct and blunt with Matt. Subtlety was wasted on him. She'd been so good at dealing with Matt when they were younger, but years of marital diplomacy had taken their toll. She'd become too mousy.

“I was wondering if you could help me carry them,” she said.

Matt turned as if surprised to see her still standing next to him. He leaned around her and looked up the stairs at the bins perched on the landing. He nodded. “I can carry them,” he said, making no move to leave his window. He tracked a bird fluttering from one branch to another in the big tree out front. Just as Lana was about to prompt him again, he rose and headed toward the stairs. Lana followed him. Halfway up the stairs he turned and glared at her shoulder. “You can wait in the other room,” he said. His way of telling her to back off. Motherhood had made her into a hovering nurturer. Being married to Graham had bred a need for attention that she loathed in herself. Matt liked personal space, and lots of it.

“Sorry,” Lana said. “Of course you can do this yourself.”

Lana had just made it into the kitchen when she heard a crash. She found Matt sprawled on the floor at the bottom of the stairs, a bin on top of him.

“I'm fine,” he said before she could say anything. He waved her away. Matt was a strange mix of clumsy with lightning-quick reflexes. He was always knocking things off tables and desks, but catching them before they hit the floor. His gross motor skills were a trouble area. His fine motor skills highly developed.

“Maybe I should be helping you,” Lana told him.

“I'm younger than you,” he said. “I can fall down the stairs and not break anything. You go wait in the other room.”

Lana sighed. What did she care if he dropped them all? They were Graham's things, left behind for her to contend with. Her sister Becca had been telling her to clear out Graham's belongings
for months. Then she was supposed to light sage and spread the smoke throughout the house to cleanse it of the leftover bad energy of their troubled marriage. If only it could be that easy to clear away two decades of built-up memories, plans, arguments, wishes that never came true.

When Graham arrived to drop the kids off, he stopped on the doormat like there was a force field before him. He rarely offered more than a brief wave through the open door as the kids passed from his world back to Lana's. They usually exchanged a few words of small talk before he turned to head down the porch steps. He seemed to no longer feel welcome in his own house, and Lana wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. Tonight Lana needed to hit him up for money, so this time she waved him inside. He came in, just barely, his heels resting on the metal threshold strip.

“A couple of things. For one, I wanted to warn you not to speed down the street here in your new car,” Lana said. It was such a loaded statement that it made her cringe, but then she patted her front jeans pocket, where Graham's discarded wedding ring rested, and it seemed less petty. “I guess they've set up a speed trap.”

“Here? Who are they hoping to catch?” Graham asked.

“Well, sadly, me,” Lana said with a shrug.

“A ticket? How much was it?” Graham asked.

“Luckily, I got out of it. Turns out the officer was Nick Parker, if you can believe that.” She waited while Graham processed the name.

The first time Lana saw Graham she was nestled in Nick's arms at a party. Graham had done a double-take as he walked by and Lana had smiled at him. She and Nick were days from breaking up, in the tender tail end of their summer romance. Nick had just enlisted in the family business. He was shipping out soon and wanted no strings. It was a bittersweet ending. They were parting as friends. But Graham didn't know that as he flirted with Lana at the drinks table while Nick was in the bathroom. Graham was competitive, confident, determined to steal Lana from chiseled, brawny Nick and his six-pack abs. He pursued her relentlessly. Lana had been loved before, but never like that. Never with such
hunger. Graham had been so proud to call Lana his girlfriend, so jealous when other guys talked to her. When had that vanished?

“Nick Parker,” Graham said. He shook his head. “Out of the Marines and into the force.”

“Yeah, it was strange running into him. Funny thing is, I think he recognized Matt before he realized who I was.”

“Well, good that you got out of the ticket,” Graham said. He backed up a step, nearly stumbling out the open front door.

“So, the other thing. Byron's swim team fees are due, and Abby's soccer team is taking pictures, and for some reason the water bill is higher than usual this month. I was wondering—”

“I'll take care of it,” Graham said. He looked behind him, toward the darkening street. Was he looking for escape, or Nick Parker?

“Oh, thanks. The car also needs an oil change. It's actually overdue.” It wasn't, but if Graham was feeling generous, Lana figured she should ask for something extra.

“Yeah, okay. I don't have my checkbook. I can bring it next time. Is three hundred dollars enough?” Lana hesitated, shrugged. He'd always insisted on managing the finances. How was she to know what everything would cost? “Let's make it four hundred.”

“Great. Thanks. That extra hundred is probably cheaper than a ticket would've been,” Lana said with a laugh. Graham smiled, a humorless pinch of his features, and headed out.

Lana still felt the occasional swell of loss when she watched Graham leave the house. She was fine during the day, as the house had always been her domain during daylight hours. But watching him walk away during the same time frame he used to be arriving home reminded her how much her life had changed, without her permission.

She found Byron settled at the kitchen table, his pen in his left hand, curled into a clublike fist that seemed incapable of creating the fine sketches and beautiful drawings that he left in the margins of every page, on the backs of junk mail envelopes, in the corners of her shopping lists. Matt was the only other left-hander in the family. And the only other one with any artistic skill.

“This one,” Lana said, touching a thin line of a forehead, nose, chin. It was barely an outline of someone's profile, but it was a beautiful suggestion of a young woman. “This is great. Who is that?”

Byron slid his elbow forward until the picture was covered. “Nobody.”

“Matt has some very nice artwork,” Lana said, tackling the dinner dishes, silently reprimanding herself for talking, for distracting Byron from his homework. English, which he hated, but which had been her favorite subject. She wished he'd ask for help, or share his assignment, or just connect a little more, like Abby did. Sometimes. The truth was, Abby had been growing a little more distant with each passing year since about age eleven. At fourteen she could go a full day without uttering a single word. And then other days she'd talk so much Lana couldn't keep up with her.

Matt drifted into the room, handed Lana his empty ice-cream bowl, vanilla with chocolate sauce, same as always. He hesitated, watching Byron.

“Hemingway,” Byron said, without looking up. “He was kind of an ass, I guess.”

Lana turned to scold him for his language, but stopped herself. He wasn't talking to her. She didn't want to interrupt one of his rare efforts to chat with Matt. Matt mumbled and slid his hands into his pockets, then back out. He smoothed his hair, tugged an ear, adjusted his collar, and tucked his restless hands back into his pockets.

“Hemingway was unhappy. And sick. He had liver problems. Diabetes. High blood pressure,” Matt said. “He was an alcoholic. And depressed. He committed suicide in 1961.”

“Really?” Byron looked interested for the first time.

“His father, grandfather, brother, and sister all committed suicide. They had hemochromatosis. All of them. It's hereditary. Too much iron in the blood. Toxic levels. The iron accumulates in joints and organs. Supposed to be very painful. Hemochromatosis leads to diabetes, cirrhosis of the liver, heart disease, and depression. The iron affects your brain and moods. A lot of suicide
among people with hemochromatosis. It's more common in people of Irish descent. He won the Pulitzer and the Nobel prizes. He had four wives.”

“Hm.” Byron leaned back, taking in his half-written essay, and rubbed his lower lip.

“Nice. Good shading,” Matt said. “The perspective is off a little. With the background. It's morning? I see what you did with the shadow there. It's too light. But definitely looks like morning light.”

Byron looked at him questioningly and Matt nodded a few times, his head bobbing as he considered his own thoughts. Matt held his hand out, a curved index finger gesturing toward Byron's paper as his eyes took in the spinning ceiling fan overhead.

“Yeah,” Byron said. “It was this morning. The shadow of the tree's pretty good, but something's not right with the hill behind it, the building over here. The perspective is off.” He spun the paper around for Matt to get a better look. “You think it's too light?”

“Hm,” Matt said. “The hill. Yes. The hill. It's too . . .” His hand fluttered toward the page and Byron held out his pen. Shyly, Matt took the pen, made a few strokes that Lana couldn't see, and they both nodded in unison.

“Amazing,” Byron said.

“Better,” Matt said. He laughed a hoarse huff and shook his head. “Not amazing, but better.”

Byron spun the page back and lowered his head. Lana wondered if Matt had hurt his feelings, if she should explain again the bluntness that comes with Asperger's.

“Steinbeck's next,” Byron said.

“Ah, Steinbeck.” Matt nodded enthusiastically. “He also won the Pulitzer and the Nobel. But he only had three wives.”

“Is his writing better?” Byron asked. “I just can't get into all the bullfighting.”

Matt nodded. “Not just better. Amazing.”

Byron laughed, a loud bark, and Matt startled at the sound. Matt shook his head, clearing the effects of the unexpected noise, and chuckled himself, a rattle of mini-huffs, like the rumbling start
of an ancient car. As he wandered back toward his room Lana raised her eyebrows at Byron. He shrugged, grinning.

“He's funny. Who knew?”

Lana left him to his homework, headed upstairs to check on Abby, who was busy writing in a journal in her room. Abby ignored Lana in her doorway, so Lana left her alone. Lana pulled Graham's wedding ring out of her pocket and set it in the jewelry box where her ring now lived. Maybe someday she'd sell them. Or give them to the kids. Just as she was sinking into a pool of self-pity, her cell phone rang somewhere in the house. She never had it on her, and never got to it before it went to voice mail.