The Things That Keep Us Here (3 page)

FOUR

I
HATE, HATE,
HATE
TENNIS.” KATE DUMPED HER RACKET
into the footwell and reached for her seatbelt. Her hair looped over her shoulder in a shining ponytail, her green eyes carefully outlined in black. Tiny pink earrings twinkled in her earlobes. Ann thought she looked adorable. “I have the absolute
worst
backhand of everyone. I don’t know why you’re forcing me to play.”

So it was going to be one of those days. Ann pulled the minivan away from the curb and decided to go for a light approach. “You know, Kate, you never went through the terrible twos. Maybe you were saving it all up for the terrifying thirteens.”

Maddie giggled from the backseat.

Kate frowned. “I’m serious. You
always
make me do things I don’t want to.”

“Well, I’m not forcing you to play. Your father and I have talked to you about this.” Ann pulled to a stop at the red light and looked over at Kate. “You were the one who signed up for the team. It’s important to keep the commitments you make. We don’t want you to be a quitter.”

“Oh, you mean like
you?”

Ann winced. This separation was hard on all of them. Kate lifted her chin and glared back at Ann. But beneath that arch defiance, Ann saw her unhappy little girl looking back, longing for reassurance. “Oh, honey.” She put her hand on her daughter’s forearm. “It’s not like that at all.”

The corners of Kate’s mouth turned down. She looked utterly bereft. Ann tightened her grip on her daughter’s arm. If only she could take this from her child.

Then Kate’s features smoothed out again. She wrenched her arm away and turned to the window. “Whatever.”

Maddie piped up from the backseat. “We had a fire at school today.”

“Yeah, right.” Kate lifted a hip to tug her cell phone from her jeans pocket.

“No, we really did. Ask Mommy. The firefighters came and everything.”

Kate glanced at her.

Ann nodded. “It’s true. We really did have a fire. Fortunately, it was just a small one.”

Kate looked over the seat at Maddie. “So the entire school building didn’t burn down?”

Ann glanced in the rearview mirror. Maddie had been bouncing a little in her seat, and now she stopped and looked apprehensive.

“No.”

“And you still have to go to school tomorrow?”

“Well … yeah.”

“Sucks for you.”

Maddie crossed both arms over her chest. “You used to like school.”

It was true, Ann thought sadly. Kate used to bring home perfect report cards. She never talked back to her teachers. Ann never got a phone call from the guidance counselor asking her to come in and discuss why Kate wasn’t handing in assignments.
Is there something going on at home that’s upset Kate?
the woman had asked.

“Listen, guys.” Ann braked to allow a couple of teenagers to dart across the street. “I’m thinking of pulling you out of school next Wednesday. I thought maybe we could head to Grandma and Grandpa’s a day early.”

Maddie squealed and clapped her hands. “Can we?”

“Don’t you have to work?” Kate said.

Said with some bite to it. Ann understood. Her going back to work was yet another thing that Kate had had no control over. “I’ve already talked to your homeroom teacher, and you don’t have any tests or projects due that day.” The teens reached the curb and Ann accelerated. “So I think we can do it.”

There was a sudden jangle of music. Kate flipped open her cell phone and began pressing buttons.

“Daddy’s not coming with us, is he?” Maddie wanted to know.

Ann sighed. “No, honey. Daddy isn’t coming.” It had been a year, long enough for any new routines to start feeling like old ones, but Maddie still kept asking things like that. Did she really not understand? Or was she simply hoping? “Kate, who are you texting?”

Kate’s thumbs flew over her phone’s tiny keypad. “Michele. We’re trying for the longest text-messaging record.”

“Well, stop it. We can’t afford that.”

“It’s okay.” Kate smirked. “Dad upped my limit.”

Was that true? He’d never said a word to her about it. “Since when?”

Kate shrugged. “I don’t know. Last month?”

This was one of those things she and Peter should have discussed. Letting Kate text even more than she already did might affect her schoolwork, and Ann would have said no. That was why Peter hadn’t said anything. He hated conflict.

“I forgot to tell you, Mom,” Maddie said. “Hannah can’t play today. She’s starting piano lessons.”

“Really? But Hannah’s mom and I talked about you two taking lessons together.”

“Then I guess we’re not.”

Ann heard the disappointment in her daughter’s voice. She felt it, too. “I’m sorry, honey. I should have let Rachel know we were still interested.”

Maddie’s voice was small. “It’s all right.”

“Maybe it’s not too late. I can call her as soon as we get home and—”

“It’s okay. Just forget it.”

“Well, we can at least see if Hannah can play tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow she’s got karate.”

Yet another thing she and Rachel had discussed the girls doing together. But maybe Rachel had forgotten. “I’ll figure something out.”

Ann turned the car into their neighborhood.

Mr. Finn was out walking his dog again. He’d stopped by the evening before, petition in hand, and Ann had shooed him away by telling him it was dinnertime. He’d promised to come by earlier tonight. Maybe this time she’d plead a migraine or something. She braked to let the white sedan in front of her turn in to a driveway. An elderly woman stood on the front porch, waving as Ann passed by. Sue’s mother, taking care of Jodi again, Ann thought, returning the wave.

“Kate?” Maddie said.

“What.”

“Would you rather step on a slug in your bare feet or—”

“Just say it.”

“—or play bingo with old people?” Maddie said, all in a rush. Kate considered as another trill of music burst into the car. She frowned at the phone display and thumbed a quick reply. “How old?”

“Grandma old.”

“Slug. Definitely.”

Ann steered the car into the garage and switched off the ignition. “All right, you two. Get started on your homework. No more texting, Kate.”

“Mom. Come on. We’re already up to ninety-seven messages. And that’s only since sixth period.”

“You were texting in class? And your teacher didn’t confiscate your phone?”

Kate shrugged. “We had a substitute.”

“Listen, honey. You really have to start pulling up your grades. When you get to high school—”

“Fine. Got it.” Kate pointedly held out her cell phone and pressed the Off button.

Ann walked out to the curb. The mailbox yawned open, its contents threatening to spill onto the sidewalk. It had been days since Ann had thought to bring it in. She worked the bulk of paper free and pressed the mailbox door closed.

“Hey, lady.”

Libby bore down on her, stroller bumping along the sidewalk in front of her. Jacob lay nestled inside, his head tipped to one side, his eyelids at half-mast, tiny blue-mittened hands curled over the satin trim of the yellow blanket tucked around him.

For one heart-stopping moment, there he was. Her own sweet William, with just the barest glint of golden hair on his bald little head, his lips pursed as though he were blowing bubbles, his cheeks rosy with sleep. She ached to scoop him up and press him to her shoulder, feel his butterfly breaths once more against her neck and the steady rise and fall of his sturdy back beneath the flat of her hand. But of course he wasn’t William. He was Jacob, her best friend’s son. Her own baby boy was long gone from her.

“Don’t you look at him like that. He’s no angel.” Libby swiped a sleeve across her forehead and stood there, jogging up and down. “He screamed all day at the sitter’s.”

“Still working on that tooth, huh?” A gust of cold air swept past and Ann tugged her sweater tight about her.

“It’s going to come in sometime, right? Tell me it’s going to come in.”

“It’s going to come in. Before he goes to college, for sure.”

“Funny.” Libby reached for the bottle of water from the cup holder strapped to the stroller handle. “Did you hear H5N1’s in Spain now?”

It wasn’t just the flu anymore. That term was too benign, summoning up all those years where the flu was just something most people didn’t think of unless they came down with it. Now it was H5N1. “It’s just a small outbreak.”

“Yeah, but it’s the third one this month.” Libby tilted back her head and drank.

“Well, at this time of year, we are going to see outbreaks from time to time.”

“And our being in Phase Four doesn’t freak you out?” Libby ran a hand below her mouth, catching a drip.

It had, at first. Ann had run out with everyone else and loaded up on the essentials. She’d taken the girls in for flu shots. But things had gradually quieted. Doctors overseas were containing the isolated cases that popped up. Scientists around the world were working on a vaccine. Little by little, other events started to take over the headlines. Terrorist activity in Japan. Two missing tourists. An
E. coli
outbreak. Life, such as it was, had returned to normal.

“Not really. It’s not until we start seeing major, simultaneous outbreaks that we should be concerned.”

Libby grimaced. “You sound like Peter.” As soon as she said it, a horrified look crossed her face.

INSIDE, THE PHONE WAS RINGING. “ANYONE GETTING THAT?”
Ann called.

“I will,” Maddie called back.

Ann shut the door behind her and kicked off her shoes. Padding down the hall, she paged through the mail, stopping at the thick envelope with her attorney’s name printed in the corner. “Hi, Grandma,” she heard Maddie say.

It was an unusual time for her mother to call. Maybe she had news. Ann hurried into the kitchen and found Maddie holding the cordless phone as she wandered around the kitchen while Kate sat at the table, textbook opened before her.

“It was a real fire,” Maddie was saying. “Mom saved Heyjin’s life.” Pause. “Heyjin’s a new girl in my class. She’s from Korea.” She listened. “No, but one of the bulletin boards in the science room melted.”

Ann held out her hand.

Maddie said, “Mom’s here. Love you, Grandma. See you soon.”

Ann took the phone. “Mom? Is Dad okay?”

“Oh, he’s fine. Well, he had some trouble breathing yesterday, but the doctor said that was to be expected. He fit us in right away. Wasn’t that nice of him?”

There her mother went, sounding like a ditz so as not to worry anyone.

Maddie sat down at the kitchen table across from Kate and picked up her pencil.

“Very nice,” Ann said. “So everything’s okay?”

“Oh, yes. Sounds like you’re the one who had all the excitement today.”

“Only for an hour. Then everything went back to normal.”

“Maddie said something about you having to rescue one of the children?”

“Yes.” Ann realized Maddie was listening intently, head tilted, pencil slack. She stepped outside, the pavers cold beneath her stockinged feet, and closed the sliding glass door behind her. The aluminum chairs still ringed the patio table. This year, putting them away would be her job. She dragged one out and sat, setting the bundle of mail on the table in front of her. She tucked her feet beneath her. “A little girl from Korea. She has a phobia about being outside. She’s afraid she’s going to get bird flu like her father.”

“Bird flu! Here?”

“No, no. Back in Korea.”

“Oh, the poor little thing. It’s gotten worse over there, you know. Has Peter said anything about it?”

“Not to me. We haven’t spoken in weeks.”

“I thought he was supposed to take the girls every Saturday.”

An informal arrangement. “The last few visits haven’t worked out.”

“Why not? The girls need to be with their father.”

“I know, Mom. Of course they do. But this is his busiest time of year. Plus, the girls have had things going on, too. Maddie was invited to a birthday party. Kate had a tennis tournament.”

“Couldn’t he have gone to that?”

“Kate didn’t want him to.” Ann glanced to the kitchen and saw her oldest daughter leaning back in her chair, fitting the earbuds of her iPod into her ears. “She’s going through such a tough time, Mom.”

“I know. And Peter’s leaving hasn’t made things any better for her.” Her mother sighed. “She was always his little girl.”

Ann stared out at the birch tree in the corner of the yard. “Tell me she’ll be okay.”

“Of course she will. She’s a levelheaded girl. She’ll work things through. Besides, she has you.” Her mother gave a soft laugh. “She reminds me so much of you.”

“Well, whatever you do, don’t tell
her
that.” Ann pulled the pile of mail toward her and tugged out the lawyer’s letter. She slid her finger beneath the flap and removed the thick sheaf of papers. Heavy paper stock, lots of tiny type.

“This has got to be so hard on Peter, too. Do you think maybe …?”

Ann stared down at the pages. “No, I don’t think he’s changed his mind.”

“I just can’t understand that. I know he loves you and the girls.”

He’d promised to love her forever, but it had turned out to be much shorter than that. “He loves the girls, but … there’s nothing between us anymore.”

There was another silence, longer this time. “Maybe if you—”

Not another suggestion to go for counseling. “I’d better go, Mom. I have to get dinner started. Give my love to Dad.”

“All right, honey. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“All right. Love you.”

Ann set down the phone and paged through the papers. Post-it notes poked out from the margins like little pink flags.
SIGN HERE. INITIAI HERE
. Proof that Peter was gone.

But she was still stuck in that hot, bright hospital room ten years ago with the social worker, trying to answer her questions. Someone had given Ann a pill, and the woman kept swimming in and out of focus. She wore brown shoes and a blue suit. Her blouse gaped in the middle. Little Kate sat in Peter’s lap, hiccuping in her sleep, her small face blotchy from crying. The social worker’s voice was unceasing, a syrupy flow of southern accent. The way she kept saying “baby,” wrapping up the hard vowels in soft fluff.
Bay-bee, bay-bee
. Then she’d stood and reached for Kate. Ann had come hastily to her feet. She couldn’t possibly let this person, this stranger who couldn’t even button her clothes properly, carry off her child.