Touching Stars (18 page)

“Oh, come on, none of this is natural.”

“Look at your friends, Noah. You know how many of them are from families like ours. And I’m afraid any kind of family life is occasionally messy and uncomfortable. Unfortunately, sometimes that’s what it takes to make things come out right.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter, because we aren’t a family anymore.”

“Yes, we are.” Gayle set him free. “Maybe not the kind we started out to be, but for better or worse, we’re connected forever. We can’t ignore it. And in lots of ways, your dad and I still care about each other.”

“Yeah. Just do me a favor, okay? Don’t care too much. This is just one summer to him. And we do fine without him.”

Gayle watched as Noah stomped back to the pickup to get the final supplies. How well
had
they done? Whether he would admit it or not, each boy had missed having Eric in his life in a different way.

Had she missed him, too? Was that what Noah was sensing? She thought she’d gotten over Eric early in the divorce, that she’d been relieved to put her life on a different track. Now she thought about what Sam had said and wondered just how lonely she
had
been all these years. The only thing she knew for sure was that at this moment she felt as if she were the only person left standing on the earth’s surface.

Eric had a hot temper, which over the years he had learned to control. Anger for him was quick and clean, a shooting star blazing a fiery trail, then disappearing—at least to the naked eye. People who didn’t know him well sometimes missed the signs of it entirely.

Today was different. By the time lunch was finished, he was still angry, and Gayle seemed to know it. She’d stayed away from him since arriving at the site, spending her time talking to the counselors about food or chatting with Travis Allen, who seemed to be something more than a casual acquaintance.

He wondered if there was a romance there. If so, they were keeping it a secret. They didn’t touch, didn’t find excuses to brush past each other or engage in intimate whispered conversations.

And why did it matter, anyway?

“Mom said to ask if you’d help me pack up.”

Eric pulled his attention back to his surroundings. Noah was planted in front of him, his stance cocksure and borderline threatening.

“No problem.” Eric assessed his son. He suspected Noah wasn’t finished growing. He was going to be shorter than his brothers, but probably not by much. He was bigger-boned, perhaps not as classically good-looking. But Noah had a presence Eric associated with other socially adept creative people, and Eric had known many.

At first glance Noah was approachable, warm, a good listener. Then, after a while, it became obvious that this boy, like other artists, writers and musicians before him, was sucking the marrow out of every moment. He listened because he was fascinated by life, because after each word he was putting his universe into a different order, because he was learning something that, someday, he would give back to the world in a distinctive and brighter form.

“When you’re done staring at me, we should get moving.” Noah sounded polite enough, but it was a taunt all the same.

“Sorry about that. I like trying to figure out who you are.”

The honesty threw Noah. He looked less assured. “Instant analysis, huh? Is that how it works when you don’t have much to go on?”

Eric was determined to ignore the insults. “So what do we do about cleanup? More or less what we did before, only backwards?”

Noah turned away. “Yeah, more or less.”

“Let’s get on with it, then.”

The counselors had brought all their dishes to the closest picnic table, and Noah and Eric worked in silence to pile them in the same crates and boxes they’d carried them over in. Noah worked with efficiency. Eric guessed his son hated repetitive work, just as he himself certainly did. But Noah could perform mindless chores like this one quickly and correctly, so that he wouldn’t waste a moment he didn’t have to.

“I can see why your mother asked you to be her assistant.” Eric heaved a box of plasticware into the back of the pickup. “You don’t fool around.”

“I’d rather be a counselor. Galley slave’s no fun.”

“I’ve noticed you’re your mom’s right-hand man at the inn, too.” He’d meant it as a compliment, but Noah arched a brow, and his eyes were angry.

“Yeah? Well, somebody needs to be.”

Eric thought about his answer carefully. In the end, though, he simply said what he thought.

“You don’t like me very much, do you, son?”

“I don’t know. I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about you.”

“We’ve had some good times together. I’m just curious. What about the vacations we took? The World Series tickets? Those scuba-diving lessons last summer?”

“
Two
summers ago. That was the last time we spent more than a day with you. And by
we,
I mean me and Jared. Dillon wasn’t even invited.”

“Dillon was too young for the scuba program. And considering that he doesn’t swim—”

Noah stopped collecting plates and interrupted his father. “Wow, what a classic example. You chose something he couldn’t do. Do you think there’s a message there? We do stuff together that
you
want to do, Dad. That’s the way it always is. If you want to scuba dive and we happen to have a vacation then, fine, you invite Jared and me to come.”

“Noah, I thought and thought about what to do with you and Jared. I asked my friends for advice. And no, I didn’t think about Dillon, because I figured I’d have plenty of time with him once you two were off on your own.”

“Plenty of time?” Noah gave a bitter laugh. “That’s funny. You don’t have the time of day for Dillon and never have. And you’re talking about plenty of time? When have you spent plenty of time with any of your sons? Even the one you like best?”

“I don’t like any of you best!”

Noah just stared at him, his head slightly cocked, his eyes disbelieving.

“What should I have done?” Eric asked when he could speak without saying something he would never be able to take back.

“You could have asked us for ideas, instead of your friends. You could have included our brother.”

“Maybe I made mistakes, but I spent a lot of time and money trying to entertain you.”

“It doesn’t matter how much money you spend. Entertainment is cheap. Like the commercial says? Taking us to the doctor, talking to our teachers, asking us how our day is when we come home from school? Priceless.”

Eric heard an adult voice reciting the list, not a teenager’s, and suddenly he suspected whose. “How much of that did your mother think of first?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, how much of your anger is fueled by her complaints about me?”

Noah took a step toward him, a menacing, angry step. “Don’t you dare blame this on Mom. She
never
says anything bad about you. She pretends everything’s lovey-dovey, and when you finally remember you ought to spend time with us, she’s the one who gets most excited. You didn’t deserve her when you were married to her, and you don’t deserve what she’s doing for you now.”

Eric let that wash over him, because he knew if he dove in, he would lose this son forever. As angry as he was, he knew there was truth in too much of what Noah had said. He
had
been an absent and absentminded father. He
had
depended on Gayle’s superior parenting skills and her desire to raise their sons. Worst of all, he had hoped that by trading a little time, a lot of spontaneous gifts and some exciting vacations, he would still be loved and respected. The way a father should be.

He also remembered what Gayle had told him about Noah. Noah was pushing him away. Noah was frightened to love him, because it was too easy for Eric to disappear forever.

As he almost had.

The fight went out of him; the anger drained. He felt more tired and more discouraged.

He shook his head slowly. “What can I do to make it up to you?”

Noah’s eyes opened wider. For a moment he looked surprised and perhaps a little confused. Eric thought he even looked as if he wished he could think of a suggestion, an easy answer to make things right.

Then, like his father, he shook his head. “It’s too late.”

From the corner of his eye, Eric saw Gayle heading toward them. He reached for the box that Noah had filled and clutched it against his chest.

“We’re not done here,” he told his son. “But we both have things we should think about before we talk again.”

Noah shrugged. Eric thought that, as responses went, it wasn’t the worst he could have gotten.

O
n Friday morning, Eric gunned the engine of his rental Mustang and started down an unfamiliar road. Dillon had spent the past ten minutes insisting there was no point to this trip.

“I can swim well enough. I won’t drown.” His argument finally lost steam, and he fell silent.

Eric concentrated on the road ahead of him and didn’t answer. He was grateful that, for a change, the only thing he had to listen to was the purring of the rental’s engine. He was pretty certain he’d taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way. They were climbing into foreign territory, and nobody had told him the house he was looking for was up in the mountains.

“You’re not listening to me!” Dillon said.

“Right.”

“So what’s new?”

Eric hazarded a quick glance. Dillon’s eyes were narrowed, his arms crossed over his chest. He looked as if he were plotting a murder. Eric flicked his gaze back to the road, and his hands clamped around the steering wheel. If they didn’t see the turn-off soon, he was going to have to find a spot to turn around. If they had missed the right road, he didn’t want to find out at the top of the mountain.

He slowed, keeping his eyes open for a place to turn around in the distance. “If we’re on the right road, we’ll be there soon.”

“I don’t even know where we’re going. What’s going on? Why aren’t we going to the swimming hole?”

“Wait and see.”

“This is dumb. You can’t teach me to swim any better than I already do. Nobody can.”

Eric noted a sign up ahead and slowed even more. The sign pointed to a private road and a community of houses off to the left. It was the only deterrent to sightseers. There were no gates here. With relief, he took the turn and started looking for landmarks. They passed log cabins, and expansive post-and-beam houses with windows looking out over the valley below. He almost missed the driveway and had to back up to see the sign with the owners’ name.

“Well, finally.” The one-lane driveway snaked out of sight, but Eric wasn’t worried about meeting anyone. The owner, the former station manager who had given him his start in broadcasting, was in France for the summer. He had been delighted to let Eric and Dillon use the pool at his country place while he was away.

“What are we doing here?” Dillon’s voice bounced in rhythm to the gravel under the Mustang’s tires.

Eric waited until they reached their destination. “This house belongs to a friend of mine. The swimming hole’s too deep and too public to make this any fun. We can relax in his pool and take our time.”

“You mean splash around in the shallow end like a little baby!”

Eric turned off the engine. “Dillon, splashing around in the water isn’t acting like a baby. Whining and complaining before we even get wet? That’s pretty darned close.”

“I feel stupid.”

Eric felt a stab of sympathy. “Yeah, I’m sure you do.”

“I don’t want to do this.”

“I know that, too. But this is important.”

“Just because you told Mom—”

“This has nothing to do with your mom,” Eric said a little too sharply. “Believe it or not, I have a mind of my own. And I don’t want you falling in the river by accident someday and drowning. When I leave next month, I want to know you’re safe. Or I’ll have nightmares every single night.”

“What’s one more or less?”

That struck Eric funny. He laughed; then, before he knew it, he reached over and ruffled his son’s hair. “Come on, champ. Won’t you just give it a try?”

Dillon looked sullen, but he opened his door, and, outside, he followed Eric into the house and out through the back to a pool bordered by slate tile, and landscaped with azaleas and forsythia. Farther from the water, dogwood trees and Japanese magnolias spread their delicate branches for shade.

The house itself was small but impressive, with an open floor plan, shining wood floors and windows that took advantage of the views. But the pool and the surrounding patio and yard were extraordinary. They had climbed high enough that some of the sharp bends in the river were visible from here.

“You mean somebody owns this but doesn’t live here?” Dillon sounded as if he couldn’t believe such a thing.

“Someday we’ll do some real traveling together, Dill, and I’ll show you places where the gatehouses are bigger than this entire property.”

Dillon smiled almost shyly. “It’s not fair, you know. People shouldn’t have a place like this if they don’t use it.”

“If it makes you feel better, the man who owns it is usually here a lot. And he’s happy that we want to use it this summer.”

Dillon’s smile faltered. “What do you mean, ‘this summer’?”

“I mean until you’re swimming like a fish.”

“Not going to happen.”

“First you have to believe in yourself. You’re a strong kid. There’s nothing wrong with your coordination.”

“You just don’t understand!”

Eric considered that. Until they got past this particular hurdle, his new plan for teaching Dillon to swim wasn’t going anywhere. Dillon needed to know Eric understood his fears. And Eric knew how to make that point.

Only he really didn’t want to.

“Why are we just standing here?” Dillon said after a while. “Are you thinking about going home?” He sounded hopeful.

“No, but I want you to take a walk with me. I saw a trail a ways back. Let’s take a hike. I want to show you something.”

“This is weird. I just want to go home and forget the whole thing.”

“Yeah, me too. Come on anyway.”

Dillon was silent as they retraced their steps. Eric left the car where he’d parked it and started walking down the driveway. At the road, he turned back the way they’d come, and Dillon trailed along behind him.

“You want me to get tired or something?” Dillon said at last. “So I’ll be too tired to fight the water and just drown?”

Eric managed a smile. “What, when I hold you under?”

“That’s not funny!”

Eric stopped and pointed. “I noticed this when I was looking for the house. Looks like the community built a trail up the mountainside. We’re going up.”

“You know, I live around here. I hike a lot.”

“I don’t.”

Dillon grumbled under his breath, but he started after Eric, and when Eric turned up the overgrown path, Dillon was close on his heels.

Eric forced himself to put one foot in front of the other. He was thirty yards up the steep path when vertigo finally claimed him. He shut his eyes, but even though he was standing perfectly still and knew it, some part of him was certain he was falling through space.

“Why’d you stop?” Dillon demanded.

Eric couldn’t answer. He lowered himself to the path and collapsed against a tree, opening his eyes again once he was sure he was stable. He resisted the urge to cling to the trunk, but just barely. He put his head in his hands as a whirlwind roared through it.

“Dad!” Dillon sat down and tapped him on the shoulder. “What’s wrong? Are you okay? This was too much, wasn’t it? Why’d you want to climb right up the side of a mountain, anyway?”

Eric flung his arm out, wrist up. “Take my pulse.”

“What?”

“Just do it.”

Dillon put his thumb against the pulse point on Eric’s wrist and pressed.

“Wow! Are you dying?”

“What do you feel?”

“It’s like one big heartbeat. Can somebody’s heart beat that fast?”

“You’ve got proof.”

“Well, how come?”

“Because I’m scared sh—” He caught himself. “Scared silly.”

“Of what?”

“Of being up here.”

Dillon dropped his father’s wrist, but his hand crept to Eric’s shoulder. “How come?”

Eric took a slow, deep breath. Then another. He was sitting. He was not falling through space. If he needed to, he could slide back down to the road. Even if he fell, he wasn’t going to die here. He was safe.

“You know what happened in Afghanistan, right?”

“I read everything I could find on the Internet. More than Mom told us.”

He made a mental note to tell Gayle that this was the twenty-first century and parents couldn’t pad or alter the truth to spare their technology-savvy children. He felt a moment of regret that the news business was part of that change.

“So what’s up?” Dillon prodded.

“I spent almost twenty-four hours on that ledge, Dill. And even though I was never afraid of heights before, now they terrify me.”

“Oh.” Dillon was silent for a while. “Well, that makes sense.”

“I thought you’d get it.”

“That’s why you were mad when I was up on the roof.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I wish you’d told me then.”

“You’re embarrassed you can’t swim very well. I’m embarrassed by this.”

“I don’t know why I’m afraid of water. At least you have a reason.”

Eric was encouraged that Dillon was finally talking about being afraid. He was just sorry he’d had to climb up here to start that conversation.

“You don’t remember falling in or getting dunked against your will?”

“Mom says once we were at a picnic when I was really little, and somebody swam out too far in the lake and almost drowned. That might be it.”

“We don’t always know what causes a fear. I’m not sure it matters. But you’re not alone. I just wanted you to understand. I know what it’s like to be terrified, too. So that makes me the perfect person to teach you to swim. Because I won’t push too hard, and I won’t scare you even more. I know better.”

Dillon considered. “Well, maybe. Only there’s one thing.”

“What would that be?”

“We have to get down to the road first. And I’m not sure you’re going to make it.”

“I’ll make you a deal. I’ll get down, by hook or by crook or on my butt if I have to. But only if you’ll promise to give the swimming lessons a try. Otherwise I might just stay here until I’m ninety.”

“What if I don’t get better?”

“I’ve been reading about this the last couple of days and talking to people on the phone. We’ll take it really easy. First we’re going to work on making you comfortable. You already know the strokes. So we’re not going to teach you to swim, we’re going to teach you to love the water.”

“I’d like to see you go down the hill on your butt. That would be cool.”

Eric laughed. He put his arm around his son’s shoulder and pulled him close for a moment. “Just don’t take any pictures, okay?”

By late afternoon Gayle was beginning to wonder if she’d taken on too much. With the first campfire just an hour away, she still had to pack up the food she had prepared and finish the pasta salad, fruit platters and dip. She’d bought as many things ready-made as she could, but there was still a lot of work to do.

“How’s the fruit coming?” she asked Noah.

“I never want to see another cantaloupe.”

“I’ve felt that way.” She peeked over her son’s shoulder and saw he still had three to slice. “I’ll do the dip if you don’t think you’ll have time.”

“I’ll get to it.”

“Can we safely say you won’t be going into the restaurant biz?”

“I’ll paint murals and design their space. But I’m not touching the food.”

Gayle heard footsteps approaching the kitchen. The door swung open and Dillon appeared. “Ta-da!”

“Hey, honey, back from your swimming lesson?” Gayle was surprised to see a smile on her son’s face. This wasn’t his usual reaction.

“Guess what we got!”

She didn’t have time to answer before Eric poked his head inside the kitchen. “Is Noah here?”

“He is.” Gayle glanced at her son, who was studiously ignoring the hubbub and continuing his cantaloupe dissection.

“I’m not sure I ought to bring this into the kitchen.”

Gayle dried her hands on a dish towel and started toward the door. “What?”

“Noah?” Eric called.

Noah finally looked up. “What?”

“Come out here a minute, would you?”

By then Gayle had seen the prize. She looked at Eric in question, but he gave a quick shake of his head.

She glanced over her shoulder at her son, hoping he was on his way. She wasn’t disappointed. Noah didn’t look happy, but she guessed even interacting with Eric for a moment was better than slicing melons.

“What is it?” He didn’t sound pleased.

Eric nudged the door wider with his shoulder, and Noah saw what he was holding in his left hand.

“What’s that?”

“This is Buddy.”

“Why do you have a parakeet in a cage?”

“Long story, but somebody was about to set him loose.”

“What?” Noah looked incensed. “He wouldn’t last an hour with the wild birds.”

“We stopped at a garage sale on the way back. Seems this guy belonged to the woman’s boyfriend, who took off a month ago and hasn’t been seen since. She doesn’t want it, and nobody else seemed to, either. She said she was just going to let him go. So Dillon and I bought him for you.”