What You Remember I Did (5 page)

Nan retreated into the kitchen to get coffee. Catherine took the opportunity to talk about Nan. "She's very capable, you know," she said, "and talented."

"And beautiful," Matt said. "Like her mother."

"I bet you say that to all the girls."

"Only the beautiful ones."

Catherine laughed but would not be deterred. "She was a terrific student. Could have been anything she wanted. She's a very good mother, you know and–"

"Don't believe everything she tells you."

Leaning toward each other on the sofa, Matt and Catherine started like guilty lovers.
I should be so lucky
, Catherine thought.
I have been so lucky. Who's to say I won't be again? Who's to say–

With an "oh, God!" expression on her face that Catherine knew well, Nan was bracing three mugs in a somewhat precarious triangle between her hands.

"Don't disrespect your mother." Catherine tried to sound breezy, but she really didn't like it when Nan didn't believe her.

Looking annoyed, which didn't become her, Nan handed a mug of coffee to each and sat down–rather petulantly, Catherine thought–on the other side of the room, although there was a perfectly comfortable chair right beside the couch.

Matt's eyes twinkled over the mug. "I didn't realize I knew a famous tennis pro."

"Hardly famous."

"She was!" Catherine crowed. "She had her picture in the papers and everything! Wait right here, I'll get them."

"Mom, please–"

Catherine ignored her and swept out of the room to find her scrapbooks. Behind her, Nan said to the young man whose name and purpose here Catherine had forgotten but didn't need to know, "You'll have to excuse my mother."
How rude. I'll speak to her about this later.

"Not at all," she heard him say. "She's quite delightful."

"You know, she is, isn't she? I think so, most of the time, but I'm always afraid other people won't be quite so taken with her."

"She told me all about your daughter–Ashley, right? And your granddaughter–Jordan?–she showed me pictures."

It was harder now for Catherine to hear what was being said. What had she come in here for? Ah, yes, the scrapbooks. She burrowed into her closet.

Nan talked about Ashley and Jordan and watched Matt's face, hoping to learn something about him. He was into his social mode and betrayed nothing. "Ashley and I have always been close," she told him, "except for a period when she was about fourteen. Fourteen-year-old girls are nuts, and so, coincidentally, are their parents."

True as that was, it was also a shameless ploy. She hoped he would reply that he knew nothing about raising daughters, which would give her an opportunity to ask about raising a son. But she saw that he was bent on a different conversational goal. "Your mother also told me about Gary."

Nan waited.

"That must have been a difficult time."

"Once in a while it would be nice if she'd let
me
tell people about
my
life," Nan said, though she was actually pleased to have been spared the task of covering the basics.

"I'll bet there are still plenty of discoveries to make." His smile might have been a request, an invitation, a promise. Or, she told herself, a come-on. Whatever it was, she felt a pleasurable tension.

"You have the advantage," Nan said. "Your turn. Tell me about you. Tell me about your son. All I know is his name."

Something changed in Matt's face. He took a long, slow sip of his coffee before he answered. "He lives in a small town in Pennsylvania with his wife and two children. I think I mentioned them to you once before."

"A grandson of five, you said. What about the other one?"

"She's three."

"Isn't it fun being a grandparent?"

"I wouldn't know, except in theory. I've never met my grandchildren."

"Oh." She decided to take a chance. "Why?"

"My son and I are–estranged."

Again she waited. He didn't explain. Tempted to ask "why?" again, she said only, "I'm sorry."

"So am I."

"Nan! Nan! Help!"

Catherine's voice floated into the room. Nan leaped to her feet. Matt followed her, and they rushed to the back of the house, where the old woman was sitting on the floor in tears.

"Mom? What's wrong? Did you fall?" Nan knelt beside her.

Catherine furiously indicated the scrapbooks scattered on the floor around her. "I can't find them! Someone's taken them!"

"Taken what, Mom?" By now Matt had crouched beside Nan. She could feel his body heat, smell his after-shave. Despite her concern for and irritation with her mother, she wanted more than anything for him to put his hand on her thigh.

"The clippings! All those clippings of you in your tennis glory days! Someone's stolen them!"

Trying not to laugh or cry, shaking off the distraction of Matthew Mullen, Nan kissed the top of her mother's hair, reached up, and pulled two large brown scrapbooks from her days on the circuit off the top bookshelf. "They're not stolen, Mom. Here they are. Come on, let's get you up."

"They're here? They're not stolen?" Catherine kept whimpering as Nan and Matt together helped her into her chair.

"What happened?"

Hearing her brother's voice behind her took Nan by surprise. It never failed to annoy her that her siblings felt free to just walk into her house. The fact that it was also their mother's house kept her from saying something about it. "What are you doing here, Stu?" she snapped, answering his question with one of her own. "I was expecting
Becca
."

"She asked me to sub for her," he said.

"
Mmm
. Okay. Thanks." Nan felt a small twinge of guilt at her earlier tone. She was well aware that their mother's odd behavior and increasing disorientation made him nervous, yet he had agreed to stay with her tonight. That counted for something. Not all that much, but something. A corporate executive, championship archer, and husband to a state senator, Stuart had no tolerance for anything other than being on top of things. He generally avoided all situations that made him feel the tiniest bit uncertain. Even when they were growing up, he hadn't known what to do with Catherine, and now he was totally out of his league.

"What happened?" he asked again. "Did she fall? Mom, did you fall?"

Catherine looked at him as if she had never seen him before, and Stuart actually took a step backwards. Nan felt sorry for them both. "She was looking for something she thought was on the bottom shelf and she lost her balance, I think."

"Shouldn't we take her to the hospital?"

"No!" Catherine shrieked. "No, no, no! I'm not leaving this house! You hear me? This is my house and I'm not going anywhere!"

"It's all right, Mom. You don't have to go anywhere."

Nan knew she was much too eager to acquiesce to her mother's wishes. But in truth, Catherine took that sort of minor fall at least once a week these days, and so far–thanks to wall-to-wall plush carpeting–there had been no damage. They couldn't be rushing her to the ER every time it happened. The hospital environment, the long wait, the coming and going added a little to her confusion, every time.

"Do you really think it's okay to leave her here with me?" Stuart asked.

"You can be my handsome date," Catherine said, her panic of moments ago replaced by a trace of laughter. "Nanny has a date."

Matt helped Catherine into the living room, settled her into the corner of the sofa, and went back to her room to get the clippings. They paged through one of the scrapbooks while Nan filled in Stuart on the household routine. He nodded, ran his hand nervously over his chin, and made no effort to hide the fact that he didn't want to be here. Nan gave him the portable phone and the card she'd prepared with emergency contacts, set her mother's coffee on the side table and kissed her again, then shot a now or never look at Matt.

Matt raised an eyebrow, a trick he'd perfected in his salad days. He remained childishly pleased with the accomplishment. Nan tried to do the same, gave up, and used her fingers to raise hers. He laughed.

"We have to go, Mom," she said. "We'll miss the concert."

"Oh, I wish I could go to a concert!" Catherine half lifted herself off the sofa. "Could I come? Oh please, oh please."

Matt started to say something, but Nan cut in quickly. "You and I have tickets to hear that guy who impersonates Frank Sinatra, next week, remember? Just the two of us."

Catherine sent Matt a coy smile. "Perhaps your gentleman friend could accompany us."

"Perhaps," Nan said. "Matt, we really should go. Mom, Stuart will be here with you."

Stuart stepped forward awkwardly. Catherine's gaze lighted on him and a look of joy came over her face, as if she had suddenly recognized him. "Stuart! My firstborn! How wonderful!"

"She can't stay by herself at all?" Matt asked as they hurried to Nan's car.

"I'm never entirely sure," Nan said. "I leave her if I'm just going to run to the store, but I keep waiting for something to happen that will make it clear she can't be left alone at all. I don't know what we'll do then."

"I don't mind if we miss the first few minutes. Seems a small price to pay." Matt patted her arm as she stopped the car at a light. She clearly liked that. "You're great with her," he said.

She smiled over at him. "So are you. Sorry about the delay but I think we're okay. West Point's not that far."

"West Point?" The light changed. A station wagon ran the red light and narrowly missed them. Matt felt as if they had collided with it as a stab of pain in his right eye was followed by an aura of blinding lights. He dug his palm into the pain and stared out of the passenger window so Nan couldn't see his face. He'd been suffering from them since Eliot made his accusation. More often than not, they were accompanied by extreme nausea and vomiting and were debilitating. On top of that, talk of Eliot crept over his skin like slime from a stagnant pond, which was why he had become habituated to frequent showers and to scrubbing himself well nigh raw.

"Is something wrong, Matt?"

He shook his head. "I just–uh–didn't realize the concert was at West Point."

"Yeah. In the auditorium."

"You didn't mention that." The headache was taking hold. No matter how much he wanted to be with Nan, he couldn't do this.

"I didn't think I needed to mention the venue, since I'm driving. Is there a problem?"

Matt turned to face her. "I'd rather not go to West Point, Nan. My son went there, and he had–trouble. They asked him to leave. I blame myself. The place holds too many memories."

Nan looked disappointed and angry. She detoured to the college campus, found a parking place under one of the lights, and pulled in. "All of that makes sense, I guess, except the part where you blame yourself. Why would you blame yourself for Eliot's problems at West Point, for Chrissake? I mean, there are limits to what parents can take credit
or
blame for."

Matt leaned his head against the seat. "Eliot...he...had problems with authority, I guess you could say."

After a pause, Nan said, somewhat uncharitably, "Yeah? And?"

He reached for her hand. To his surprise, she didn't pull away. "I'm sorry, Nan. I'll reimburse you for the tickets."

"That's hardly the issue–"

He touched her cheek. "I like you, Nan
Jenssen
."

"I like you, too, Matthew Mullen. Very much."

His head was easing up. With luck, this wouldn't become a full-blown migraine. "Nan
Jenssen
, Matthew Mullen. Our very names are poetic. Rhyme and alliteration."

"I like that," she said.

"How about we take a walk? It's a nice night and I could use the fresh air."

She smiled sideways at him and nodded. He was pleasantly surprised by how easily she could be mollified. They met on the sidewalk. Almost at once, they were holding hands. He squeezed her fingers. "I just happen to know some of the places the kids go on campus when they want to be alone."

"Is that so? Didn't take you long to find that out."

He pulled her close. "I had a feeling the information might come in handy."

Arms around each other, they made their way into a grove of trees and flowering rhododendron bushes around the library, which was closed and blissfully dark. The gazebo was unoccupied, the encircling bench shadowed. They were kissing before they sat down, and touching each other. She let her tongue play against his lips, and he made a soft sound of pleasure before pulling back. He did not want to ask for too much too soon. "You looked smashing in those photos," he said.

"That was a while ago."

"You still have great legs." He rubbed one of them lightly.

"Don't get carried away." She placed one hand on top of his.

He cupped her chin in his other hand and looked at her seriously in the lamplight. "Actually, I am doing just that," he said. "I'm getting my hopes up, and I don't know if I dare let that happen."