“So how’s school?” he asked Cameron, trying to shorten the gap of silence between them.
“Okay, I guess.”
Sean grinned over the arch of the steering wheel. “Bad question. I ought to know better than to ask how school’s going.”
“I don’t mind it.”
Communication in the form of meaningful conversation had never been a forte in the family, Sean reflected. Apparently Cameron was carrying on the tradition.
Sean pulled into the smooth asphalt drive of the house on Candlewood Street. He had every intention of dropping Cameron off and heading home for a quick shower and a bite to eat before going back to work. But some indefinable impulse made him shut off the engine and get out.
“I’ll grab your clubs,” he offered, opening the tailgate of the truck.
“Thanks.” Cameron shouldered his backpack and went to unlock the side door.
Sean followed him inside, leaning the clubs against the wall of a small mudroom crowded with shoes in varying sizes, a fold-up baby stroller, a selection of umbrellas and hats, and a basket filled with gloves and mittens. From somewhere in the house, a distant beeping sound pierced the silence.
“Answering machine,” Cameron said. “I’d better go check it.”
They stepped into the kitchen, and Sean took it all in with a glance. This was the house of his boyhood dreams, but he’d never been inside it. Now here he was, and the whole place seemed to enfold him. The cluttered kitchen had a wooden floor and glass-front cabinets filled with Martha Stewart–style
green glassware. A refrigerator was plastered with a calendar, various lists and kids’ artwork. As he followed Cameron to the front entranceway, he noticed wood paneling, an imposing staircase, framed pictures of the kids everywhere.
Cameron hit Play on the machine. The first message was from someone who identified herself as Lily. “Hello, Crystal, I was just calling to see how you’re doing. I hope you think the meeting went all right, so call me.”
“Charlie’s teacher,” Cameron explained.
She did sound sort of prim and proper, Sean thought, picturing a blue-haired woman with bifocals. “You don’t want to tangle with a woman like that,” he said, nudging Cameron.
Next: “Crystal, this is Jane Coombs…” In the background, fussy baby noises punctuated the message. “I was expecting Derek to pick Ashley up this afternoon, but he seems to be running late. Anyway, I have a class to teach tonight, so I’d appreciate it if you’d come and get Ashley as soon as you get this message.”
“Oh, Mom’s going to love that,” Cameron said.
The third message was from someone RSVPing for Ashley’s birthday party. It seemed strange, like planning a party in a war zone. Sean’s younger niece had been born into the turmoil of an exploding marriage, but of the three kids, she was the least affected, too young to understand what she’d lost.
Then Charlie had called the machine. “Pick me up,” said a petulant voice. “I’m at Lindsey’s house and you said you’d pick me up and you’re still not here. Pick me up, you’re late.”
The final message was nearly unintelligible, but Sean could tell it was from a girl who was more articulate at giggling than at speaking. Clearly, she wanted to talk to Cameron. Just as clearly, he was mortified that she’d called for him. Sean could see the heat of embarrassment in Cameron’s red ears, his averted gaze, his hands pushing into the pockets of his jeans.
“End of messages,” said the mechanical voice in the machine.
Sean felt a weird tightening of his gut. “Call your mother again.”
Cameron shrugged and dialed the phone. “No answer,” he said.
“Now your dad.”
As he held the phone to his ear a second time, Cameron showed the first sign of worry—a small tick in his jaw. “No answer,” he said again. “I’ve already left them messages.”
“Any idea where they might be?”
“Nope.”
It figured. Kids tended not to keep tabs on their parents. Now what? Sean wondered.
The phone rang, startling them both. Cameron snatched it up.
“Hello?” His face flashed momentarily with hope, then fell. “Oh, hi, Jane. No, my mom’s not here. You can drop Ashley off with me, I guess, since I’m home.” A pause. “You’re welcome.” He hung up. “I have a ton of homework, but I won’t get anything done now,” Cameron said. “Ashley’s a pain in the neck to babysit.”
Sean’s tiny niece was so cute you’d have to be made of stone not to like her. Babysitting her, though, was another issue entirely. The prospect of looking after a barely verbal toddler was terrifying to Sean. “I bet your mother will be home any minute,” he said.
Cameron shrugged again.
“What about Charlie?” Sean asked.
“Sounds like she wants to come home.”
“Any idea who Lindsey is? Where she lives?”
“Nope.” Cameron looked at the small screen on the phone. “The number’s on caller ID.”
“I’d better give them a call.” Sean punched in the number. A woman’s voice answered, and for a moment he blanked,
then said, “Ma’am, this is Charlie Holloway’s uncle, Sean Maguire. I’m calling about my niece.”
“Oh! I’m Nancy Davenport. Would you like to speak with Charlie?”
“Actually, I was just calling to let you know…I’m afraid her mother might not be there to pick her up. She’s been…delayed. Charlie’s brother is here with me, so I’ll come and get her.”
“That’s no problem,” the woman said. “I’ll run her home. I haven’t started dinner yet.”
Sean thanked her and hung up. He looked at Cameron.
“No clue,” the boy said, but his gaze shifted to the door and then to the floor, a little too quickly. “My mom’s always got something going on. She probably forgot to tell anybody.”
Sean wandered into the kitchen. He studied the calendar clipped with magnets to the refrigerator. The current date had a notation. “Conf. w/Lily & D., 3:15 p.m.”
“What do you make of this?” he asked Cameron.
“Lily—the teacher on the answering machine. Miss Robinson. She was my third-grade teacher and now Charlie’s in her class. Maybe there was a conference with her. Charlie’s been doing lousy in school all year.” Cameron rolled his eyes. “How does a kid flunk third grade, that’s what I’d like to know.”
They waited. Talked golf a little, just to fill the silence and maybe distract themselves. “So you have a tournament coming up this weekend,” Sean observed, noting the team calendar stuck to the refrigerator with magnets.
Cameron turned away.
“Don’t bowl me over with your enthusiasm, okay?” Sean said.
The kid hunched his shoulders even more. “My coach is a dick, okay?”
“Greg Duncan? He seems all right to me.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
Sean dug in his pocket and took out an Indian head penny. “This was my good luck charm. I’ve used it as a ball marker since I was younger than you.”
Cameron turned, took the penny and examined it. “That’s cool.”
“You want to borrow it?”
“You just said it’s your good luck charm.”
“Was. I said ‘was.’ It kind of deserted me.”
Cameron nodded. He knew about the fiasco that had brought Sean home. “Did you like playing over there, in Japan and Indonesia and stuff?”
“Sure, while it lasted.” Sean tried to imagine what he’d be doing in his old life as a tour professional in Asia. Once he’d started seeing Asmida, he used to play in Malaysia every chance he got. After a round, there would be far too much drinking and plenty of mindless, gratifying sex in opulent hotel rooms or in expensive cars. It didn’t last, of course. How could something like that last? Especially, he remembered with a twinge of pain, with the daughter of a yakuza mobster? No one could ever accuse him of having good judgment, that was for sure. Derek often ragged on him about mapping out a career plan. Of course, in order to do that, Sean needed a career.
Cameron pocketed the token. They called both Derek and Crystal again and got no answer. Cameron drank a slug of milk straight from the carton, then offered some to Sean, who declined.
He didn’t like the unfamiliar feeling in his gut. It was a cold, hard squeeze, brief and intense, like a fist of ice. He said nothing to Cameron. No point in worrying the kid.
He took a stroll through the downstairs, checking out the house. This had been Derek’s world for more than a decade. It seemed strange that Sean had never been here. He’d been
too busy chasing prize money and easy women half a world away, and hadn’t bothered to come back even for a visit. There was a big living room and a long hallway where, Sean imagined, Derek had obsessively practiced his putts. The dining room had a table and chairs and a tall glass cabinet that was practically empty, probably because it had once held Derek’s favorite trophies. Sean shook his head, thinking about his brother, feeling love and admiration and envy all in the same heavy wave.
“You don’t have to stay,” Cameron told him. “I can handle the girls.”
“That makes one of us, then,” Sean said. “I’ll stick around until we figure out where your mother went.”
Darkness crept down and shadows crowded into the corners of the large, empty rooms. Sean switched on a couple of lamps. The tense quiet in the house was broken when Cameron turned on the radio, tuning it to a hip-hop station.
A few minutes later, a car pulled up, headlights swishing across the living room walls. Sean’s gut turned watery with relief. Crystal might not be thrilled to see him, but that was too damned bad. He had a few choice words for her.
His relief evaporated when he saw that the visitor was Jane Coombs, lugging a red-faced Ashley and an overstuffed diaper bag. Sean liked Derek’s girlfriend well enough, he supposed, though he barely knew her. At the moment she wasn’t looking to be liked. She had that tight-lipped don’t-mess-with-me expression people wore when their last nerve was about to snap.
“Oh, hi, Sean,” she said, clearly surprised to see him. “I can’t believe Crystal stood up her own kid like this. Anyway, here you go.” She dumped the baby into his arms. The two-year-old regarded him with apprehension.
“Have you heard from Derek?” Sean asked, shifting the baby awkwardly.
“Not a word. We must’ve all got our signals crossed. Listen, I’m grotesquely late,” Jane continued, “so I need to hurry.” Spying Cameron, she said, “Come and get the car seat, will you? God, thanks, you’re a lifesaver.”
When Ashley saw her brother, she squealed with delight and reached for him. “Cam! Cam!”
“Yeah, I’ll be right back,” he said, and followed Jane out to her car.
When the baby realized he was walking away, she arched her back and let out a wail that penetrated like an armor piercing bullet.
“Hey, now,” said Sean, his chest filling up with panic. “It’ll be all right. He’s coming back.”
She thrashed her head from side to side and cried harder. Her tiny fists alternately clutched Sean’s shirt and pummeled him. He was reminded of the creature in
Alien
popping from the stomach of an unsuspecting man. What the hell was it with babies? he wondered feverishly. They were like another life form to him, a dangerous and sinister one at that. She was loud and smelled funky, too. He suspected Jane, in all her self-important rush, had not bothered to check the kid’s diaper.
It felt like an eternity before Cameron returned with the car seat. The second Ashley spotted him, she quit yelling and lurched toward him, nearly leaping out of Sean’s arms. He clutched the writhing little body to keep her from falling, then quickly handed her over. “I don’t think she likes me.”
“Naw, she’s just cranky. Probably tired and hungry, aren’t you, sugar bear?” Cameron jiggled her on his hip. “I’ll go get her something to eat.”
“’Nana. Want a ’nana,” Ashley chortled good-naturedly as he set her down and led her into the kitchen. In a heartbeat, she’d turned from the Tasmanian Devil into an angel. How did she do that so quickly?
A moment later, Charlie came barreling in through the front door, a towheaded dynamo.
“Uncle Sean!”
He caught her up in his arms. Her wiry limbs felt surprisingly strong, and something—her hair or skin—had a bubblegum smell. This was more his speed, a niece who actually liked him. “Hey, short stuff. How you doing?”
“I’m starving to death,” she said, clutching her stomach and reeling in his arms. “Where’s Mom?”
He set her down carefully, keeping his hands on her shoulders. “I’m going to be staying with you until your mom gets back.”
She gave him a look of skepticism, narrowing her eyes and twirling one pigtail with her finger. “Really?”
“Yeah. You got a problem with that?”
“Maybe I do.” She yelled with delight as he chased her to the kitchen.
There, the baby was happily cramming a chunk of banana into her mouth. Charlie helped herself to one. “Did you know monkeys peel bananas like this, from the bottom up?” She demonstrated.
“I guess that makes you a monkey.”
“I wish I
was
a monkey,” Charlie said.
“You look like one,” Cameron said.
Charlie stuck her tongue out at him.
“Monkey,” Ashley echoed around a mouthful of banana.
“Why do you wish you were a monkey?” asked Sean.
“Then I wouldn’t have to go to yucky, sucky school.”
“Sucky,” Ashley said.
Sean looked at Cameron. “Is she allowed to say that?”
“Probably not.”
Sean turned to Charlie. “Don’t say sucky.”
“Okay.” Charlie bit into her banana.
“Sucky,” Ashley said again.
“I’ll be right back.” Sean hurried out of the kitchen and went to the phone in the front hall. He picked up the handset and glared at it. What the hell was going on? This was starting to be truly…sucky. He wondered how long he should wait before getting seriously worried.
With a scowl, he dialed Derek’s cell phone. Derek always answered his phone, always checked his messages. When the voice mail clicked on, Sean said, “Hey, bro, it’s me. I’m here with your kids at Crystal’s house, and she’s not home. What’s going on? Call me.” He found Crystal’s number by the phone, got her voice mail and left a similar message. He wished, just briefly, that he knew her better. He wished he knew if she was the sort of woman who would temporarily forget her kids.