How Many Letters Are In Goodbye? (50 page)

You can see the house in the distance and we're walking slower than before, and I wonder if it's because it's hotter or because we're both heavy from the sea water or if it's something else. She doesn't say anything the whole way back and I'm glad, I don't know if I have room to listen to any more or get into some discussion about Columbia or Laurie or anything. It's easier just to walk and watch the kite surfers. And watching them, I'm thinking of the first time I saw them with Amanda, and how that was only five weeks ago and in five weeks so much has happened, so much of my life has happened, here on this beach.

“Where have all the children gone?” Aunt Ruth goes, when we get to the part of the beach with the volleyball nets.

“It's Arts and Crafts now, then dinner.”

“What's the food like here?”

“It's good,” I go. “David's a great chef.”

“As good as Jaxson's?”

There's a smile in her voice and I look at her and smile too. “Not quite.”

“After you left, I kept replaying that day in Jaxson's. How what you wanted to know was so simple and I couldn't even tell you. I'd grown used to never talking about her and that wasn't fair. So many secrets, all that shame. I can't go back and erase all that, but I can tell you more about your mom, Rhea. I can add more to the other side of the scale.”

It makes sense what she's saying, reminds me of something Jean said before, about how the letters—the feelings in the letters—are only one part of you, not the whole you. I know that if she's going to tell me these things, I need to tell her something too and it needs to be before we are back at the house.

“Aunt Ruth, there's something I haven't told you. I lied to you.”

On the sand in front of us, a big lump of seaweed has washed up and the seagulls peck at it. As we walk around them, I glance at her. Her arms are folded around her stomach, like she's bracing herself for the force of what I'm about to say. It's something I've been meaning to say for a long time, and the only way to say it is to say it fast and say it all.

“I lied to you about the safety guard. It was on.”

“What?” I know from her face this wasn't what she'd been expecting.

“Dad put it on. He always put it on. I knew how to get it off, I'd watched him do it so many times. That night you asked me about it, I lied.”

Her face is clearing, picking up the thread of a conversation that happened eleven years ago and thousands of miles from here.

“You lied?” She frowns when she says it. “Why? Why did you lie?”

My mouth is dry. “I don't know. I didn't mean to.”

One step, two, three, exhale. A half-lie is still a lie. Say it fast and say it all.

“I was afraid. I was afraid that if I told you the truth, I'd get in trouble. That you'd leave. I wanted you to stay.”

I can't look at her. I look at my feet, in deeper sand now, sand like the brown sugar David uses in his muffins.

“I think that I thought you might come and live with us. Or take me with you. That you might decide to take care of me.”

It's out now, all of it, my words carried away by the breeze, into the sea. My feet keep walking, my breath keeps moving, in and out, in and out. I don't want her to touch me and she doesn't.

We are almost at the trail back to the house when she speaks.

“Thank you for telling me, Rhea.”

“I'm sorry it took so long.”

She stops and I do too. “That's okay. The truth is worth the wait.”

Her face looks red and it could be from the sun or from crying, you can't tell. The Aunt Ruth in Coral Springs wouldn't have forgotten sunglasses or sun screen but this Aunt Ruth might, and somehow it feels like this is the version of her I know better than any other, the version that I have always known.

She reaches out to put her hand on my shoulder. It feels soft, solid.

“I understand,” she says. “We all do things we don't mean when we're scared. I'm sorry I couldn't be there for you the way you wanted then. And that I wasn't there for you that night with Cooper, that I didn't stand up for you. But I can be there for you now, really there. If you want me to be. If you'll let me.”

I don't know how long we stand like that. Her eyes are brown like your eyes, the ones in the Columbia photo, the same shape. I have Dad's eyes, I always wanted yours. Hers. We stand there so long, I forget that maybe there was a question in what she said, maybe she's waiting for me to answer her.

I nod. I smile a little smile and she does too. She doesn't hug me. I don't tell her I love her. She squeezes my shoulder and lets go, so she can walk ahead of me on the narrow path. I follow behind this time, and I notice that her trousers are already drying in the sun.

Maybe it doesn't sound like much, Mum, but it's enough.

For me, for today, it's enough.

Rhea

Dear Mum,

I told Jean that yesterday's letter was the last one I was writing to you, that I was never writing to you again. She says that saying “never” and “always” is something called “black and white thinking” and she asks me why I need to decide right now. And I guess she's right, I guess I don't need to decide. Which is why I'm writing to you again.

The other reason I'm writing, the real reason, is because I want to tell you about tonight, with Laurie. Because some day, maybe I'll want to remember everything exactly as it happened tonight, someday I might wish I'd written it down.

Laurie and Aunt Ruth drove back here this afternoon and Jean said it was okay for us to have a shorter session, so I had time to talk to Aunt Ruth before dinner.

We did a quicker walk on the beach this time and it was different than yesterday because we weren't talking about you or her and Cooper or even what to do about Columbia. We got into a conversation about music and how the two things she always wanted were a grand piano and a house by the beach with a room to put it in, and how she has neither. It sounds like it could have been a depressing conversation, but it wasn't because if she wanted, she could have both things, she just needs to decide if she wants to give them to herself.

She seems happier, Aunt Ruth. At dinner, she chats a lot to Erin about Ireland and to David about the garden. Laurie sits down at the other end of the table, in between Ezekiel and Brandy, but I don't see her talk to either of them. The only person I see her talk to is Zac, who watches her the whole time, and once I catch Amanda watching her too.

I'm helping clear the table when Laurie comes over. She picks up the empty bread basket, puts it on top of my pile of plates. “When you're done here, can we go somewhere? Talk?”

“Sure,” I go, all casual, like talking is nothing. “What about Aunt Ruth, though?”

Laurie shrugs. “Can't she stay here with her new friends? Drink tea or something?”

“I suppose she could watch the movie—I think it's
The Lion King
tonight.”

“Perfect.” Laurie smiles. “I'll go tell her. Hurry up.”

In the kitchen, David tells me I can leave the plates, but I clean all the bits of leftovers into the bin in the corner, help him stack them in the dishwasher one by one. After that, I sweep the floor, and I never sweep the floor, and that's when I know some part of me wants to delay the conversation with Laurie, that even though I've been dying for it, some part of me doesn't want to talk to her at all.

I find her in the hall, sitting in the chair by the door.

“Finally,” she goes, pushing herself up. “So where are we going—the beach?”

“We're not allowed to go to the beach when it's dark.”

“It's not even dark yet.”

“It nearly is, we'd have to be back really soon.”

She rolls her eyes. “Okay then, what about the pool? Are we allowed to go there?”

“Yeah, sure. We can go there.”

Walking down the steps to the pool, the low lights are already on and I'm thinking of the last time I came down here in the dark, the night of the storm.

“So what do you do here at night?” Laurie says from behind me.

“Not much, hang out. Play games. Watch the movie with the kids.”

“Ugh.”

I can't see her, but I know she's making a face.

“You're not allowed to go into the Hamptons or something?”

“Most of us work in the evenings, help put the kids to bed.”

“Sounds like a Nazi prison camp. Bet you can't wait to get out of here.”

The little gate that should be closed is open and I'm not surprised when I see her, sitting at the end of one of the loungers, pulled up closer to the water than the rest. It's Amanda. I hold the gate for Laurie and I walk through after her. Amanda turns around, stands up, waves.

“Hey, Amanda!” I call her name way too loud, as if there are miles in between us, as if she hasn't already seen us.

“Hey.”

We walk towards each other until we're standing there, the three of us in a semicircle between the gate and the pool. “Laurie, did you officially meet Amanda yet? She's our lifeguard. She's brilliant at teaching the kids to swim. She's going to teach me as well.”

We've talked about that—Amanda teaching me how to swim—and up until then I hadn't fully decided if I want to or not, but right then I do. The light from the pool catches Amanda's necklace as she leans forward to shake Laurie's hand. “Hi.”

“You obviously like a challenge, trying to get this one in the water.” Laurie laughs, puts her hand on my bare shoulder. “I've been trying to get her to take lessons for years.”

“Years” makes it sound way longer than it is. Her hand on my skin has a ripple effect through my whole body and into my breath. I think about the last time we touched.

Amanda fixes a curl behind her ear and it bounces out immediately. “Thanks for the warning. Good thing I'm pretty tenacious.”

Laurie laughs again, like that's really funny, and Amanda does too, so I join in even though none of us are laughing our real laughs. And it goes on for ages, the fake laughter, like it's never going to end, like we've all forgotten what's even supposed to be funny.

Amanda's the one who breaks it. “I'll leave you guys to it.” She puts her hands into her back pockets.

“You don't have to go.”

It's a stupid thing to say and I pretend I don't notice Laurie staring at me.

“I'm beat,” Amanda says. “Long day. I think I'll take a bath.”

“At least there'll be no schmozzle in the bathroom.”

I smile and she half-smiles back. Laurie holds the gate open for her and we both watch her slow walk up the steps towards the house, a shadow of dark between the lights.

Laurie turns to me and rolls her eyes. “Who takes a bath in ninety-degree heat?”

I don't answer her, instead I walk towards the sun loungers and sit on the one that Amanda had been sitting on. I think that Laurie is going to pull over another one and sit beside me, but instead she sits on mine, but to the side, so we're facing different directions. Her back is close to mine though and I can feel her heat, as if some outer force fields of our bodies are touching even though our skin is not.

“What's her deal?” she goes.

“What do you mean?”

“I don't know, she seemed kind of edgy or something. Was she homeless too?”

“Amanda? No! She lives in Connecticut with her family.”

I sound impatient, defensive, but if Laurie hears it, she doesn't react.

“That makes sense. Her type wouldn't survive for five minutes on the streets.”

I know that Laurie is waiting for me to ask what “type” Amanda is, and in some other version of this conversation I would have asked, and Laurie would have dissected Amanda and her family and made up clever things about them and we'd both have laughed. That's what we might have done another night, but not tonight.

“What did you want to talk to me about?” My voice sounds hard, harder than I thought it would. “I have to help get the kids to bed after the movie.”

“It's only just started.”

I shrug. I don't know how to say that just because the movie will be on for an hour and a half, that doesn't mean I want to spend it all with her.

“Okay then, let's get to it.” She pulls her hair into a ponytail, lets it fall. “God, I've missed you, Rae. There are so many things I want to tell you—”

“Rhea,” I go. “I'm back to Rhea.”

“Really?” A look skims across her face. Disapproval, maybe? Disappointment? “I thought that was just for Ruth's benefit.”

I don't react. “No—I prefer Rhea.”

“Okay,” she nods, “Rhea. I can get used to Rhea, I can tell Rhea how much I missed her.”

I cross my right foot onto my left knee, feel the lace holes of my Docs, starting from the bottom, up to the top.

“Listen, I know you're mad at me. Don't say you're not—I can tell. I don't even blame you for being mad, I know I was an asshole.”

I turn my head a little and she's looking at me. In the light from the pool, her eyes are shiny.

“Yeah,” I go, “you were.”

“I'm sorry. I was scared. I just
…
I didn't know what else to do. I panicked.” Her first tear dislodges, slides down her cheek. I want to trace it with my finger, the way I always do. But she cried that night too, in the kitchen at Coral Springs. I picture it, I make myself picture it. Another tear follows the first. “I know it's not an excuse, being afraid, I know it doesn't make what I did go away.”

I cup my stump. “No, it doesn't.”

“You might not believe me, Rae—Rhea, but I knew you could handle it. You weren't scared of Dad or Ruth. You're never scared of anything.”

Jean's voice comes into my head then.
You don't do fear
. We talked about it again this afternoon, about Columbia. How “not doing fear” is not the same as not being afraid.