Mom grabs his hand and he stops, heaving a sigh. “You can’t tell her. If you do, she’ll hate us both.”
Dad leans his forehead on her arched knee and breathes heavily. I can barely hear his voice, and he’s stuffy like he’s been crying. “I have to tell her,” he says. “I’m going to do it when she gets back. Right away. I should have told her a long time ago.”
Mom has dark circles under her eyes and she’s sniffling, too. I don’t know what happened when I was gone, but I do want to know. I just don’t want to know
this
.
“I don’t think you should,” Mom says.
Dad soaps the washcloth and picks up her arm, washing her tenderly and slowly. Intimately. Like lovers. Like husband and wife. He drags the cloth across her mastectomy scars in slow, sweet, tender sweeps. “I wish I’d been with you through this,” he says.
“
I
wasn’t even with me when I first found out, John.”
“I know. That doesn’t make it any better.”
“It won’t get better.” She grabs his hand again and holds it tight against her heart. “I have a month, if that long. Can you stay?”
Dad breaks. A sob shakes his shoulders.
“Come here,” Mom says, and she opens her arms, sitting up a little. She holds him to her and he runs his hands up and down her naked body.
“So much wasted time,” he says. “I don’t want to waste anymore.”
I can almost see Mom visibly relax. She sits back a little and looks into his face. “Are you sure?” she asks quietly.
“I love you, Pattycakes. I’ve always loved you. Let me have this last month, will you?”
“Okay,” she says quietly. Then she kisses him. And he kisses her back. It’s soft and sweet at first, and then it becomes more. More than I am comfortable seeing. I leave the roses on the dresser and back out of the room. Then I leave them a note and go to find Amber and Rose, and I pretend like I didn’t just see what I saw. Mainly because I don’t know what to do with it.
***
At eight o’clock, I leave Amber and Rose, despite their protests. I go home, but only because I know Nick is going to be there. He’s going to come and find me, and hopefully take me away from whatever is going on between Mom and Dad.
I let myself in the back door and find Mom standing in the kitchen. She looks up, and her cheeks redden. Does she know that I know? Dad is standing beside her chopping vegetables. She’s drinking a glass of wine, and I can’t help but remember that this is how it used to be before she messed it all up. We were happy. We were like this.
“Carrie,” Mom says. “I’m glad you’re back. Just in time for dinner.”
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
“Much better. I’m sorry I scared you last night.”
I nod and steal a piece of the zucchini Dad’s chopping. He swats my hand with a roll of aluminum foil.
“You look much better than you did last night,” I say to her.
“They gave me some blood. Plasma. Something. It feels better just having stopped the chemo, honestly.”
Dad passes her the knife. “Feel good enough to chop?” he asks.
“John,” she warns. “Don’t.”
I look from him to her. “Don’t what?”
She shakes her head and starts to chop.
“Let’s take a walk,” Dad says. He jerks his head toward the sliding glass door that leads to the beach.
Mom bites her lips together like she wants to say something, but she doesn’t. She just chops.
Dad and I step out onto the sand and he’s quiet as we walk down to the water. “What did you want to talk about?” I ask as we turn toward the lighthouse.
He doesn’t say anything. He just looks toward the horizon and gnaws the inside of his cheek. I wait him out. Finally he looks at me.
“It takes two people to make a marriage,” he says.
I wait, because I don’t think he’s done.
“And two people to break a marriage,” he goes on to say.
“O-kay,” I say slowly, dragging out the word as a prompt.
“Your mom and I had settled into a rhythm. One I’d got used to. So had she. But she was struggling more than I realized.”
We walk in silence.
“I should have known,” he says. “I should have paid more attention, but I was busy with work, and we were both busy with you.”
Walk. Silence.
“Your mom was really depressed, and I didn’t realize it. She came to me and told me how unhappy she was, and I blew it off because we had the perfect life. We had a wonderful daughter and great jobs and a big old house. We had the American dream. But her dream was a nightmare and I didn’t realize it.”
More walk. More silence.
“I thought she would come around. But she didn’t. Then one day, she left. I know now that it was her way of isolating herself, fueled by her depression. But at the time, I blamed it on a man that didn’t even exist. Your mom never cheated. She did leave. But she did it because she felt alone even in a house full of people. Even in a crowded room, she felt like no one was there with her.”
“There was no man?”
He shakes his head. “I swore there had to be, because what other reason would she have to leave, you know?” He throws up his hands. “I believed with all my heart that there was someone else.”
“She still left, Dad.”
“She left because she had to, not because she wanted to, Carrie. That’s what you need to know.”
“She never even came to see me, Dad,” I protest. “Not once.”
He stops walking and turns me to face him, holding my shoulders. He looks into my eyes. “I wouldn’t let her. She tried. But I was bitter and jealous and angry and I wouldn’t let her back in our lives. Not even yours.”
I gasp. There’s no way he did that. “She
tried?
”
“Yes, she tried. She tried really hard. She started seeing a doctor for her headaches. You remember how bad they used to be?”
I nod.
“They put her on a low-dose antidepressant for her pain, and she immediately started feeling better, like she could cope. So she started in therapy, and got the right dosage of antidepressants, and started to exercise, and she started to live again.”
“But she still didn’t come back.”
“She was about to. Then she got sick the first time. She decided that she hadn’t seen you in a while and she didn’t want you to see her sick, when it had been so long. So she went through treatment and the mastectomy all alone.” He bites his jaw together and tears fill his eyes. “I’ll never forgive myself for not being there for her through that.”
“But even then…”
He holds up a hand. “The cancer never went away. She kept getting treatment, even after her surgery, and it just lingered. She kept thinking it would get better, but it didn’t. Then she asked for you this summer even though she knew it was over. The treatments are over and she’s going to die. And it’s all because I didn’t pay enough attention when she needed for me to notice what she was going through.”
A tear rolls down his cheek.
“Dad,” I sigh, “it’s not your fault.”
“Why is it that you can forgive me, but you can’t forgive her?” he asks. His voice is accusing, and it makes me bristle. I stand a little straighter. “I’m just as much to blame as she is. I caused it just as much as she did, and I let you believe she left us for her own selfish reasons, when that’s not the case.” He holds my shoulders again. “She was never selfish, and she’s still not selfish.”
“She’s dying,” I say quietly. And my voice breaks.
He pulls me against him and lets me sob into his shirt. I feel like he just pulled my heart out through my throat. Like he has gutted me. I am absolutely choked by the hatred that I have held in my heart for so very long as I finally get to set it free.
“I’m so sorry,” he says. He runs a hand down the length of my hair.
“Me too.”
“Now what do we do?”
I turn and walk back toward the beach house, and he takes my hand like he used to do when I was three. I jump into the shallow water and kick a wave at him.
He wipes his face with the tail of his shirt. “I can’t believe you did that,” he says, but he’s smiling so I’m not worried.
“We’re going to be okay, Dad,” I tell him. Then I kick more water at him.
“Yeah, we are,” he replies. Then he runs toward me and picks me up and tosses me directly into a wave.
I come up sputtering. “I can’t believe you did that,” I say. Then a wave knocks him over, too, and he lands on his butt beside me. He laughs and laughs, until I realize he’s crying. I get up and take his hands, pulling him from the water. “Come on,” I say. “We’re wasting time not being with Mom.”
His eyes meet mine in the waning light. “You’re not angry?”
“I don’t have time to be angry,” I say, jogging backward. Then I call out, “Race you!” and I sprint toward our deck. He comes up right behind me.
“Oh my gosh!” Mom yells as we come through the door. She’s standing at the kitchen counter with Nick and they’re both chopping. Dad and I run to her and we smoosh her between us like she’s the filling of a sandwich. “You’re all wet!” she cries.
Nick throws his head back and laughs.
“Oh, you want to be next?” I taunt. He dodges around the counter and ducks me.
“Go change clothes!” Mom yells, jerking her finger toward the hallway. “Dinner is in five!”
We go down the hallway laughing. I close my door and lean hard against it.
What Dad doesn’t know is that I’d already forgiven her. And him, too.
Nick
It’s nice doing the family thing with the Carrie’s family. Really nice. I used to do this with my parents, and I didn’t realize how much I miss it. Mr. Michaels has grilled some steaks, and he motions for Carrie to follow him outside to check on them. I stand at the counter with Mrs. Michaels and help her arrange a salad. Which means I pretty much just watch her toss it.
“How is Carrie doing, Nick?” she asks.
I jerk my eyes up to her face. She stares at me, her eyes so much like Carrie’s that it’s startling. “She’s struggling,” I say.
She snorts. “Aren’t we all?”
Carrie and Mr. Michaels come back into the house, carrying a plate loaded with steaks and baked potatoes. They’re laughing together, and she looks so damn pretty that I can’t stop staring at her. Mrs. Michaels reaches over and closes my mouth for me. I grin at her and she smiles back. “I’ve always liked you, Nick,” she says.
“I’ve always liked you too, Mrs. Michaels,” I admit.
Her eyes soften. “You look so much like your dad.”
“Sometimes I forget what they looked like. What they sounded like.” I don’t know why I said that.
“I can understand that. I made a series of videos for Carrie for when I’m gone. Sort of a ‘your wedding day’ and a ‘your first baby’ kind of thing. Something she can look at when special days pass by and I’m not there.”
“Does she know about it?”
She shakes her head. “No one does.”
“That was smart of you. I wish I had that.”
She rubs my shoulder. “Your parents’ accident wasn’t exactly something they could plan for.”
Mr. Michaels walks into the kitchen. “What are your plans for college, Nick?” he asks. He bends and kisses Mrs. Michaels on the cheek. She blushes.
“Oh, I’m not going,” I say. I brush them off, because I don’t want to tell them how I want more than anything to go to college. I want to do everything my parents planned for me to do, and they planned for me to be a success.
His brow furrows. “Why not?”
“Too much to do here,” I murmur.
Mrs. Michaels motions everyone to the table and we sit down together. I feel a little out of place, but then Carrie reaches over and squeezes my knee under the table and I feel better immediately. I smile at her, and tangle my fingers up with hers.
Mrs. Michaels insists that I call her Patty. And she tells me to call Mr. Michaels John, but he glowers at me when she says it. I swipe a hand down my face to hide my smile.
Patty spends an hour telling me stories about when Carrie was little, and John chimes in at inappropriate moments and it makes everyone laugh. Carrie fidgets like she’s not quite sure what to do with this new family thing, but she’s enjoying it too, I can tell.
When everyone is done eating, Patty says, “John, we should let the kids do the dishes.” She stretches. “I’m really tired.” She shoots John a loaded glance and this time it’s him who squirms. “You about ready for bed?” she asks him.
He tosses his napkin onto his plate and stands up. “Can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be,” he says. He takes her hand in his and helps her up.
“You’re going to bed together?” Carrie blurts out.
John and Patty look at one another. “We’re really tired,” John says over a laugh. He pulls Patty toward the bedroom, and they close the door behind them amid whispers and giggles.
“Well, that’s just odd,” Carrie says. She stands and stares at the door.
I laugh. “I think it’s sweet.”
She’s quiet as we quickly load the dishwasher and clean up from dinner, but there’s not much to do and we’re done in a matter of minutes. I follow her to the couch. That’s when we hear the soft thump.
“What is that?” Carrie asks.
“Umm…”
“Do you hear that?” she asks. She tiptoes toward the hallway.
“Carrie,” I whisper at her.
“No, really,” she says. “What is that noise?”
Bump. Bump. Bump. Bump.
I try not to laugh, but I can’t help it.
She drops her face into her hands and says quietly, “My parents are having sex.”
“Apparently,” I say. I pull her hands down from her face, because her shoulders are shaking, and I think she’s crying. But I quickly realize that the tears are because she’s biting back her laughter.
She jerks her thumb toward the bedroom. “My parents are having sex!” she whisper-yells.
“Sure sounds like it.” I rock back on my heels.
“Like knocking boots.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Really going at it.”
“Yep.”
She giggles. “You want to go sit on the deck?”
Oh, thank God. “Yes, please!” I say quickly.
She walks out the sliding glass door and jumps down from the deck onto the sand. She’s barefoot, so I slip my shoes off too and follow her.
“Hey Nick!” a voice calls from down the beach.