The Shortest Way Home (12 page)

“Okay,” she said, taking a little breath. “You’re probably wondering why I didn’t say anything before, and the whole deal with today’s appointment and everything.” She crossed her arms again. “I was just . . . caught off guard the last time, when you turned over and it was . . . you. And you were in a deep state, a really healing place—I could feel everything loosening up and starting to hum at the right frequency again. I didn’t want to disturb that. You really needed it.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” he said. “It was amazing. I felt like a new man.” He chuckled. “Well, new—I suppose that’s a relative term once you’re past forty, right? But better than I’ve felt in months.
Way
better.”

A look flitted across her face—pride, satisfaction, gratitude—he couldn’t tell which. Maybe a mixture of all three. But then her smile faded. “Sean,” she said. “There’s another reason I didn’t say anything, and I didn’t want to treat you again.”

What?
he thought.
What’s wrong?

She seemed to be forcing herself to look at him. “Back in high school you told me . . . you said you’d be dead by now. Were you lying? Was it some sort of weird joke you were playing? Because if it was . . .” Her mouth went tight, and she looked away. “Well, that’s just unbelievably sick, and I can’t expose myself to that kind of toxic—”

“No!” he said quickly. “God no, I would never joke about . . . Jesus, no. I just . . .
I thought I had it.
I was
sure
of it. Growing up everyone always told me I was just like my mother. I looked like her, sounded like her. My father used to say ‘The image of Lila.’ He used to mutter that at me all the time.”

Sean stared at Becky, remembering now the times they’d hung out in her basement, and she’d fiddle around on her guitar and he’d just . . . talk. Or at the end of a party, the two of them often the only ones not making out with some random classmate, her driving him home in her beat-to-hell Plymouth Horizon. They’d idle in his driveway for an hour or two before he went in to face the music of curfew breakage and Aunt Vivvy’s wrath. He vaguely remembered talking about Huntington’s. What a shock it must have been for her to see him after all those years—naked, no less—when she assumed he’d gone to his grave.

“Swear to God, Beck,” he said. “It was no joke.”

Her expression softened. “So you don’t have it?”

“Well,” he said, “I don’t have symptoms. It could still surface, I suppose, but it’s unlikely. Most people start showing signs by their early forties. My mother was thirty-three.”

“But there’s a test now.”

“Yeah.” He scratched his arm, looked around the room. Why was it always so hard to explain to people? “I didn’t take it. I don’t want to know.”

“But you thought you
already
knew.”

“Trust me, I’ve had this conversation before,” he said. “It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to people who haven’t faced knowing for sure if they’re in for a long, slow death.”

“Okay,” she said, not as if she understood, but with a willingness to be all right with
not
understanding.

“Becky Feingold.” He shook his head in wonder.

“Yep,” she said with the faintest hint of resignation. “It’s me.”

* * *

H
e did get his massage after all. It was a little strange at first to be lying naked with nothing but a thin sheet over his butt while little Becky Feingold worked her magical fingers into the angry hard places across his shoulders and down his spine. But it wasn’t long before high-school-Becky seemed to recede into the background. With his eyes closed and his body practically levitating in relief, he could listen to her melodic voice—a trait he’d never noticed in their teen years—and believe in this new person, Rebecca the Pain Tamer.

“How’s your family?” she asked.

With his face in the doughnut, he noticed she wore clogs now. Blue ones. He told her about Deirdre working at Carey’s Diner, never having left home. “Oh, and she’s an actress now.”

He heard a little chuckle. “She was only about seven or eight the last time I saw her, but she seemed pretty dramatic, even then. Didn’t she keep getting into trouble for wearing your aunt’s clothes as dress-ups?”

“I forgot about that! You have a good memory.”

She dug a little harder into a spot just above his hip bone. “What about your brother—the one who sank that guy’s boat in Lake Pequot.” The feel of her thumb pressing into a knob of molten pain made him jerk reflexively. “Sorry,” she murmured, backing off.

“Yeah, Hugh.” Sean had occasionally told people about his brother’s death before, of course. But he’d never had to tell anyone who’d actually known Hugh. “He died six years ago.”

Her hands stopped moving. “Oh God, Sean,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. I know how much you loved him.”

His throat tightened, and at first he didn’t know why. Hugh had been gone a long time, and Sean hadn’t gotten emotional about it in years.
How much I loved him.
He’d almost forgotten.

After a moment she asked, “Was it Huntington’s?”

Sean cleared his throat, willed himself to relax. “No,” he said. “Pneumonia.”

“Terrible,” she murmured. Her hands began to move slowly, carefully across his hips. “You don’t often hear about young people dying of pneumonia these days.”

“Well, Hugh had a way of burning the candle at both ends. Apparently by the time he got around to having it checked, it was so bad they couldn’t save him.” Sean felt the familiar swell of anger when he told this detail. Couldn’t Hugh have exercised a little caution for once in his life?

“He had a son,” Sean added quickly, to move the conversation away from death and lost chances. “Kevin. He’s eleven.”

“Does he live nearby?”

“Actually he lives with Deirdre and my aunt—and at the moment, me. His mother was . . . well, what’s a nice word for it? A free spirit, I guess. She left when Kevin was two. The state tried to find her when Hugh died, but they never did, so they gave guardianship to my aunt.”

“What’s he like?”

“Nothing like Hugh. It’s kind of weird. For one, he’s particular about things. Smells and crowds, stuff like that. Loves being in the woods.” Sean told her about Kevin being chased by teenagers, and his unsuccessful attempt to get Kevin into camp. “Also, Hugh always had loads of friends—
too
many sometimes, if you know what I’m saying. Kevin doesn’t seem to have any.”

“Kids don’t always turn out like their parents. Or their uncles.”

“Hey, I was no Big Man on Campus.”

“Maybe not like Hugh . . .”

“Not at
all
.”

“Well,” she said. “You always had people around you. You had options.”

Options?
he wondered.
For what? Falling in love? Getting married and having kids? Any kind of a normal life?

At that moment she started on his feet, and though it wasn’t quite as pass-out painful as it had been the first time, it was no walk in the park, either. “Now
you
talk,” he said, gritting his molars against the urge to shriek like a twelve-year-old girl at a horror movie. “How are Sol and Betty?” He was pleased that, even with his eyes rolling back in their sockets, he could pull up her parents’ names.

“They’re happy as clams,” she said, though her voice didn’t reflect any glimmer of joy. “Living in Florida now. In one of those communities. Shuffleboard, a pool the size of a Ring Ding, all the kvetching you could want.”

“They sold the house? What did you used to call it—the split something?”

“The banana split-level.”

“With extra nuts, right?”

“Yeah.” She chuckled, glad, it seemed, that he’d remembered. “No shortage of nuttiness.” She tugged on his toes one by one. “Actually, I’m still living there. I mean, I left for
years
,” she added quickly, “but I moved back when I went to school for massage. And then they moved out, and there didn’t seem any reason for me to leave. They don’t want to sell, and I pay the utilities and taxes and stuff . . .”

“Sounds like a perfect arrangement.” It did sound pretty great, yet he could tell by her voice that for some reason, it wasn’t. He realized it could be very revealing to listen to a person without seeing them. You noticed things that would otherwise be obscured by a smiling face.

It was time for him to flip over, and she held the sheet so he’d be in no risk of a coverage malfunction. He still couldn’t decide if it was weirder to be so thoroughly explored by a complete stranger or by an old friend. When her fingers scrubbed gently across his scalp, chasing tension off into the atmosphere, he decided he didn’t care. The soft pads of her fingers pressed around his eyes and nose and cheeks, and he realized it had been a very long time since anyone had been so intimate with him as to traverse the topography of his face. It felt unbelievably good and a little depressing all at the same time.

CHAPTER 12

T
he next day was so hot and so dry it reminded Sean of the time he spent in a refugee camp in the Sudan.
Except your mouth doesn’t fill with dust the moment you open it,
he thought. By the time the Confectionary closed at four, it seemed the entire population of MetroWest Boston had stopped by in dire need of a frothy, frappy drink.

He walked home enjoying the heat-purified breeze after working in the freezer smell of air conditioning all day. He hoped there would be a message from Chrissy Stillman on his aunt’s ancient answering machine. The thing had a microcassette with magnetic tape that wound around tiny spools. Sean wasn’t a technology guy, but even he thought it was only about two steps up from tin cans connected by string. Chrissy had taken his number a little over a week ago, and he was beginning to wonder if the machine had eaten her message. Assuming she’d left one.

When he got home, there was no message waiting from Chrissy or anyone else, and he was a little alarmed by how disappointed he felt. To distract himself, he decided they would eat dinner outside in the shade of Aunt Vivvy’s prized red maple. He got Kevin to dust off a card table and some folding chairs while Sean sliced vegetables for stir-fry.

Deirdre was barely home long enough to shower and grab her script, so it was just the three of them for dinner al fresco—four if you counted the ever-present George. Sean reached for Aunt Vivvy’s hand as she descended the three steps to the yard, but she batted his hand away, her feet searching for each stair as if it couldn’t be counted on not to have moved. She made her way across the lawn and sank elegantly onto her chair. Kevin plunked down next to her, serene as a saint under the bower of the maple tree, face speckled by the glittery late-afternoon light.

The disquiet Sean felt about being forgotten by Chrissy—in fact, about anything—dissipated as he surveyed the scene. Aunt Vivvy reached over and handed Kevin his napkin. He put it in his lap, and she gave him an approving little smile. The dog wandered along the edge of the property sniffing at the old stone wall that ran across the back of the yard. Then she trotted over and put her chin in Vivian’s lap, eyes half-lidded in pleasure as her head was stroked.

Everyone’s happy,
thought Sean.
Even the
dog.

* * *

D
eirdre came home that night with her face lit up like a hundred-watt bulb in a sixty-watt socket. She yanked
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
from Sean’s grasp and tossed it onto the coffee table. She pulled him up and held his arm aloft while she twirled beneath it.

“What?” He laughed. “What is it?”

“A toast!” she sang out, now towing him toward the kitchen.

“To . . . ?”

She slid a chair over to the cabinets, leaped onto it, and pulled out the vodka with a flourish. She looked at Sean. “You want this or a beer?”

“Beer.”

“Then
get
it!”

By the time he’d opened a Sam Adams, her drink was sloshing around in a short glass as she danced with herself across the linoleum. He knew she was waiting for him to ask one more time, so he said, “Please, dear sister, reveal the cause of your merriment!”

“Me,” she said with a proud grin. “I am the cause.”

“You got Mrs. Potiphar,” he guessed.

“Damn straight, I did! The stupid hack got into a throw-your-script fight with the director and stormed out.” She took a gulp of her drink, then wagged it at Sean, ice cubes clacking. “He actually
clicked his heels
, pointed to me, and said ‘It’s all about you now, Eve.’ ”

“Eve?”

“From the movie.” She waited for him to get it and rolled her eyes when he didn’t. “
All About Eve
? Bette Davis? Oh, never mind.”

Sean raised his beer and clinked her glass. “Way to go!” he said. “I can’t wait to see it. Cormac and Barb were raving about you in that wicked witch show.”

She snorted her disgust at his ignorance. “Anyway,” she said. “The show goes up in two weeks, so you won’t have long to wait.”

“I’m really happy for you.” And he was. Truly. He wanted to show her, and though they’d never been a demonstrative family, he’d become used to hugging in his travels. Patients hugged to show their gratitude. Coworkers hugged about their sadness over a particularly pitiful patient or their relief over a life saved. Bodily contact had become the norm for Sean.

He reached out to Deirdre, and for a second she didn’t seem to know what his purpose was, but then she stepped into the embrace and put her arms around him. “Sean,” she said, her cheek resting against his chest. “It really means a lot to me that you understand how big this is.”

He pulled his head back to look at her, and she lifted her chin. There were tears in her eyes. “I’m thirty-two,” she whispered. “Mom was thirty-three. Maybe this is all I get.”

He could feel his eyes well up, and shame stung at him. Because he
hadn’t
really understood—hadn’t done the math. In his mind she was still somewhere in her twenties. But that was wrong. She was thirty-two. “Is it . . . are you feeling . . . anything?”

She shook her head. He studied her eyes for telltale flicking motions, wracked his brain for any time he’d seen her twitchy or ungraceful or confused. He couldn’t remember noticing anything, but then again, he hadn’t been looking.