The Moon Pool (47 page)

“For God's sake, Col,” Andy muttered.

It wasn't much of a denial. By the time they pulled into the house, she was still trying to decide if she cared.

PAUL AND ELIZABETH
had gone to bed already when they got home, but when Paul came downstairs in the morning, showered and dressed, at eight thirty, Colleen was ready for him. She'd made a fresh pot of coffee and run out to the Bruegger's to get him a couple of everything bagels, and a whole wheat raisin one for Elizabeth.

But when he came into the kitchen, he wasn't wearing his usual perfunctory, faintly sullen expression and he didn't mumble his usual truncated greeting. Instead, his face was blank and pale.

“I'm going to the memorial, Mom. Elizabeth's staying here, her doctor doesn't want her flying this close to her due date if she doesn't have to. I'm leaving first thing tomorrow morning.”

“But we haven't even—”

He held up his hand to stop her. “Don't. Just... don't. I've still got money from my last paycheck, since you won't let me pay for anything. I already booked it. If you won't drive me to the airport, I'll take the shuttle.”

Colleen leaned back against the kitchen island, dropping the dish towel she had been holding. “Shay talked you into it?”

His eyes sparked dangerously, while he kept the rest of his expression impassive. “She just told me when it was and said she understood if you didn't come. What the hell, Mom? Seriously, you're going to blow it off?”

Colleen shook her head. “You don't understand.”

“No, that's an understatement. All summer long you've been telling me that you and Dad don't blame me for what happened. Even when I'm trying to take the blame, you won't let me. And now you won't even go out there, and what am I supposed to think? If you're too ashamed to even—to even honor Taylor's life—”

Paul lost his battle for composure, and his face crumpled the way it had when he was little, his lower lip trembling and his freckles standing out.

“He was my
friend
,” he said. “You can't even understand that.”

“Oh, honey, I—”

“
No.
” Paul shrank from her touch. “I'm so sick of you trying to make everything go away. Just once I wish you and Dad would—would... oh, forget it.” He glanced around the kitchen, didn't seem to see what he was looking for, and stomped out of the house.

For a long time after he left, Colleen stood in the middle of her kitchen, doing nothing. Then she slowly, carefully, turned the top of the paper Bruegger's bag down in several neat folds so that the bagels wouldn't get stale.

She was taking the bedroom drapes down that afternoon, sliding the hooks from the rings one by one while standing on the step stool, when the phone rang. She was down to the last two hooks, and she was afraid the weight of the drapes would put too much pressure on the last rings, so she worked quickly, getting them freed just as the phone rang for the fourth time and went to voice mail.

She stepped off the stool and dug out her phone: Shay.

She sat down on the bed, next to the drapes, and stared at the phone until it buzzed to indicate a voice mail had been left. Then she stared at it awhile longer, wondering if she should listen to the message now or let it wait. But if she did that, the day would become all the more difficult, the burden of the empty house unbearable.

Making a snap decision, she tapped Call Back.

Shay answered in two rings. “You get my message?”

“I didn't listen to it. I mean, I was taking the drapes down when you called and I couldn't get to it in time and I figured I'd call back right away instead.” Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea. Her pulse was pounding, her hands sweaty and metallic smelling from the drapery hardware.

There was a long pause, and then finally Shay said, “Why the fuck are you taking the drapes down? Is this some East Coast thing you people do in the summer?”

“I... they get dusty,” Colleen stammered. “If you put them in the dryer on the fluff cycle with a damp towel, it gets rid of the dust. And you can go a lot longer between taking them to the cleaners.”

Shay laughed. It startled Colleen, but the laugh went on for several seconds, a deep and throaty belly laugh. “Oh, God, Col, I swear, only you. I don't think I've ever washed curtains in my life. I didn't know you could. I just wait until they're disgusting and buy new ones at Penney's.”

“Oh. Well...” Colleen wasn't sure what to say next. She supposed Shay knew all about Paul's flights and arrival time. “Is... is he staying with you?” she finally asked, plaintively.

“Look, Colleen.” Suddenly Shay was all business. “This is stupid. We said some things the other night—you were right, that was a hell of a day, I had a lot of emotions going on. When I got home, I slept for fourteen hours. Anyway. I appreciate you coming out to help in Lawton. And now you need to come out for the memorial. Andy too, if he wants. But you need to be here. Okay?”

Colleen tried to answer, but she couldn't talk around the lump in her throat. “I don't want us to set each other off again,” she said. “I mean... I take responsibility. It was my fault. I just don't think that it's a good idea. You don't want—you don't want anything to add to the, ah, the difficulty of the day.”

“That's fucking ridiculous,” Shay said. “That's a cop-out. I'm asking you for something that you know you can't say no to. The memorial's Saturday at eleven. We're just doing a barbecue after, at Frank's parents' ranch. It's casual, so don't dress up too much. Definitely no heels, because the barbecue's outside. It's supposed to be nice, probably up in the eighties.”

“All right. I'll come,” Colleen finally said. She pressed a hand to her forehead. She was suddenly very tired. When she hung up, maybe she'd lie down and pull the drapes over her like a blanket and take a midday nap. “All right.”

“I'll send someone out to pick you up, text me the flights. I need to go, Colleen. Just promise me you'll be there. Okay?”

“Okay,” Colleen whispered. She set the phone on the bedside table and slowly sank onto the bed. The sun slanted through the bare windows, warming her body. A breeze came through the screens. June was nice. A good season for cleaning, for clearing out the dust.

She closed her eyes.

THEY DIDN
'
T OFTEN
all have dinner together. Andy usually stayed late at work and picked something up downtown. Paul had a late class three days a week. And Elizabeth, until recently, had said the sight and smell of food at that time of day made her ill.

But tonight was the last night before Paul left for the memorial. Colleen texted Andy and asked him to be sure to come home. She stopped by Stazzo's and picked up mushroom béchamel lasagna, which both Paul and Andy loved and might be bland enough for Elizabeth too. She made a special trip to the bread stall for a loaf of their olive multigrain, and chose a half dozen fancy cupcakes from the bakery, with elaborate poufs of frosting with glazed fruit embedded like jewels. The salad she made herself, from a recipe that her mother-in-law had given her years before she died.

She took her time setting the table. She had opened the china cabinet, thinking she might use the Lenox that came out only at holidays and Paul's and Andy's birthday dinners, when she had an idea. She picked up one of the dinner plates and went upstairs.

“Elizabeth,” she called from halfway up the stairs. “Okay if I come up for a minute?” She could hear the television on quietly, the sound of studio laughter. It was silenced abruptly.

Elizabeth was sitting on the couch, knitting. She hastily set the yarn and needles down and pushed a couch cushion on top of it. She was struggling to get up, but her bulk—her stomach was perfectly round, the rest of her thin frame barely puffy—made the task difficult.

“Don't get up,” Colleen said, surprised by the knitting. What had she imagined the girl was doing up here, between her twice-daily walks and endless texting?

She sat down gingerly on the sofa. Between them the knitting peeked out from under the couch cushion: a beautiful shade of periwinkle blue. Because it's a boy, Colleen thought automatically, but then pushed away her resentment with a heroic effort. “I didn't know you knew how to knit.”

“Oh. I... my mom taught me and my sisters. I mean, I'm not very good.”

“Will you let me see?”

“It's just...” Elizabeth reached out to touch the edge, a two-by-two ribbing. Maybe the band at the bottom of a baby cardigan. “It was supposed to be a surprise.”

To Colleen's mortification, she sniffled in a way that didn't disguise the fact that she was about to cry. Colleen jumped off the sofa and got the tissue box from the table and set it in front of Elizabeth.

“About that,” she said. “I'll admit I was kind of, um, taken aback that Shay knew that the baby is a boy before I did. But really, it's up to you kids to share that when you want to and with whomever you want to.” Had the girl told her mother? Did everyone know but her?

“No, that's not what I meant. But just so you know, I didn't want Paul to tell her, I was kind of mad at him for that. I thought... we were going to have a dinner. Paul and me. It was my idea. I wanted to cook for you. Like a thank-you? For letting us stay here and everything? And we were going to tell you then. And I was going to...” She reached out and shoved the knitting all the way under the cushion. “I was making this for you, for a present.”

It took Colleen a second to understand. The knitting. It wasn't for a baby. And that beautiful blue, the color of a scarf Elizabeth had once complimented her on... hadn't she told the girl it was her favorite color?

“Oh,” she breathed. “Honey.”

“It's just when Shay texted Paul, you know, after they found him, Taylor—well, I think he wanted to give her something to hold on to. I mean we'd already talked about naming the baby after him. But that—once Shay told him, it was like, yes, that's what we're going to do. Both of us, we thought it was right. And so he told her.”

They'll be out of your house in a year one way or another
, Shay had said, trying to hurt her, and succeeding more than she could know.

She had tried so hard to keep them close. But what she had lost. Oh, what she had lost.

Colleen felt a tiny loosening inside, a relaxing of a pain she had been holding on to so hard it was practically pulling her apart from within.

“Paul,” she started, and then had to stop and collect herself. Elizabeth was dabbing at her eyes with a tissue, and she reached for one herself and cleared her throat. “Paul is
good.
On the inside. He always has been. He's made mistakes...”

Darren Terry, in the locker room. So many ruined playdates, the incidents at school. The middle school suspension, the screaming matches between Paul and Andy after every semester's report card. The hurled words and curses.

The broken dishes on the floor. Paul on his knees, looking up at her like it would never, ever be all right again between them, and then returning to the task, his fingers cut and bleeding as he swept up the shards.

“We all make mistakes,” Elizabeth said. “I did something so bad...” She squeezed her eyes together as if trying to shut out the thought itself.

Tentatively, Colleen reached for her hand. It was small and cool, the fingernails cut short and bare. She folded it in both of hers. “I know this is hard to believe now,” she said, “but after a while, that's not going to hurt quite so bad. You'll get more experience and you'll learn that everyone does stupid things when they've run out of ideas. You'll start to forgive yourself. I promise.”

Was it a lie? Colleen wasn't sure she would ever be able to forgive herself for all her wrong turns with Paul, for every time she looked at her little boy and found him wanting, every day that she spent trying to bend and shape him into something he wasn't.