Those We Love Most (11 page)

There was a moment when the train slowed, approaching the station, and the ride together seemed to demand some kind of mutual ending. When the train lurched to a sudden halt, she fell toward him and made a joke as she moved awkwardly toward a half embrace, a sort of air kiss, while he simultaneously extended his hand, and they had both laughed. She understood then that so many of life’s outcomes swung on a hinge; in that instant one made a choice. This was the moment she could press forward, get his number, or offer to grab a drink.

As he helped her with her luggage in the top compartment, she’d impulsively toyed with the thought of asking for his name and address, her heart like a wild creature in her chest. And then, as he turned to help retrieve an older woman’s bags behind them, she lost her nerve and let the moment pass.

These encounters with strangers had been a sobering lesson about the human capacity to love and the laws of attraction. There was not just one right person out there in the world for you, there were many people, many directions, many couplings that you could make in life and be just as happy or possibly even more so than the random one you had chosen. This thought was at first disorienting and disquieting to her. And when she had returned from her reunion, she’d made love to Pete with a concentrated fierceness, as if to assure herself that she had made the right choice.

As she rose to her feet and brushed off the sand from her clothing, Maura thought about how she had used that knowledge, the choices she had made since then and the unintended consequences of that path. She would barter almost anything she had to scroll back in time with the clarity and understanding she now possessed.

Returning from her trip to the beach, Maura pulled the car halfway up the driveway, and as she walked to the front porch, she observed the bushes and perennials that needed pruning and shaping. She’d inherited her love of growing things from her mother, and usually she enjoyed tidying the yard at the change of seasons. Now Maura tried to summon the enthusiasm required for such a task. They’d need to get pumpkins soon too and put out Halloween decorations.

Maura reached into the mailbox on the front porch and fished out the clump of envelopes, bills, and circulars. Flattened in front of the pile was a blue cardboard coffee cup, with the image of a Greek statue and the words
WE ARE HAPPY TO SERVE YOU
printed on opposing sides in the familiar diner font. Maura studied it with a puzzled expression for just a moment and then her face sagged. The word
e-mail
was scrawled on the side in pencil, so faint that it would be easy to miss if one didn’t understand the significance of the cup itself.

Maura slung the strap of her purse higher on her shoulder and dug back into the mailbox with both hands, checking to see if there was anything that she had missed in the recesses of the metal box. Heart pounding, she opened the front door and deposited her purse, keys, and the pile of mail on the front hall table. She walked swiftly into the kitchen to her computer on the small built-in desk and clicked on the symbol for her e-mail, something she’d rarely done since the accident. She groaned softly as the in-box rapidly filled with all the unanswered messages from well-meaning people, mass e-mails from the kids’ schools, and spam. She had let all of this go for so long. Maura saw it there, delivered in the last hour. “Vet Check-Up Appt” the subject said, so innocuous that Pete or anyone else would most likely leave it unopened. She hesitated for a moment and clicked on the e-mail as the words filled the screen.

“We need to talk about Rascal’s medical condition. Please call the office. Art” was all it said. She read it a second time and closed her eyes, letting her breath out in one thin stream. What an eerie coincidence that she’d just been to Gull’s Bay. Instinctively she reached toward the kitchen cordless phone and then stopped, moving her hand back to the desktop and rooting her feet to the floor. No, she told herself. Six months. She’d given herself at least six months. Although it would take every ounce of her self-command, she owed this to herself and Pete. Maura reread the message one last time, parsing it for clues, before she pressed delete.

“So I saw the kid today.” Pete said it casually, crumpling his napkin on the empty dinner plate and sliding it toward the center of the table. Outside the kitchen window, darkness had begun to arrive early and a flock of geese, honking in a sloppy V formation, flew by above the trees. “I went to the Hulburds’ house after work.” He took a pull of his beer bottle and set it down on the table too hard, looking directly at Maura with a neutral expression. There was a speck of gravy on the front of his shirt.

“Yeah? How did it go?” She kept her voice even, relieved that Pete had waited until the kids were finished with dinner and glued to a video in the family room. The dishes and Sarah’s bath could wait.

“Well, I think he was pretty scared. I gotta say, he seems like a good kid, but it was really awkward at first. Uncomfortable for all of us.”

“Tell me about him.” Maura realized she had been holding her breath and exhaled.

“I went over there after work, and they were all kinda sitting there, really stiff, like they’d been waiting for me. They had cheese and crackers, wine, stuff like that. The parents are decent people, nice. Alicia and Ray. Like us, I guess. And get this …” Pete smiled and looked down at his cuticles for a moment. “They have their homeowners’ policy with us, with Corrigan Insurance. Dad wrote their first one years ago, when they bought on Chestnut.” Pete shook his head with incredulity. “Life in a small town, right?”

“Mmmmm, go on,” Maura urged him.

“Well, he said the stuff you’d imagine he’d say, how sorry he was, how this was an accident but he can’t get it out of his head. He met my eyes when he spoke, you know? The kid is in a lot of pain, Maura. He looks … I don’t know exactly, haunted, I guess. I mean this all has obviously taken a toll.” Pete stopped to take a sip of his beer, and Maura sat still for a moment, imagining what it had cost Pete to knock on their door.

“The kid, Alex, is almost eighteen, and he goes to New Trier High School. He’s a swimmer but when he went upstairs after we talked, his parents told me they’re really worried about him. He quit the swim team, and his grades have tanked. He used to hang out with one set of guys who were athletes, and from what his mom can tell, now he’s with more of a pothead crowd, and they’re obviously concerned. I mean I guess he was never an ace student, but he was on some kind of college track before. His mother told me that she keeps trying to get him to fill out his applications to basically anywhere, and he just gives her lip service.”

Maura lifted her arm on the table and rested her chin in her hand. “I’d give anything to have those problems with James, you know? To worry that his grades are slipping, to get bent out of shape about who he hangs out with …”

“I know.”

“He’s seventeen. How can he possibly understand what it means to lose a child? He’ll go to senior prom and graduate and fall in love and …” Maura trailed off. The sound of her own voice was foreign, bitter and spiteful. Thinking about Alex Hulburd, she felt the incomprehensible injustice of their situation as if it were a sharp-toothed bite.

“Pete, I’m really glad you went over there, I am. But I’m just not there yet, I guess,” said Maura tremulously. “I can’t imagine what I would say to him, how it would feel to be with him and not want to trade everything I own to have James take his place.” She winced and Pete moved toward her in his seat, reaching around to hug her as she covered her eyes with her other hand.

“Hey, babe”—Pete’s voice softened an octave—“he’s a decent kid, and this has wrecked his life too. That’s just a fact.” Her eyes were fixed on the floor, and she nodded without looking at him. “I think the key is going to be trying to make sure that both of us don’t go down with the ship, right?”

Maura looked up, surprised by this unexpected declaration. She moved her hand over to the center of the table spontaneously. Pete reached out to grab it, and they sat that way for a few minutes, each lost in their own thoughts while a cartoon laugh track swelled at varying volumes from the family room TV.

“He’s … he’s hurting, Maura. And he’d love to see you at some point. When you’re ready.” She inclined her head slightly at this remark and began to move the remains of her baked potato around on her plate with her knife. She’d overcooked the pork chop and it was dry and leathery.

“I know it’s only been a couple of months, but I’m just going to say this even though you’ll probably get mad. I think you … you need to try to show the kids a little more happiness.”

Maura’s felt a flash of anger at the nerve of his comment, he who was so unyielding with his boys’ nights out, ceremoniously calling from the bar to announce his “one last pop.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked up. “I’m trying my best, Pete. I really am. I can’t wave this away. You don’t see me every minute of the day with them. You aren’t here to witness my parenting, I’m not always walking around weeping, or whatever it is you think I’m doing.”

“I’m just saying, maybe you ought to see somebody,” Pete continued in a gentle tone. “I don’t know, talk to somebody. Somebody other than your sister and the priest.”

Maura sighed and poured Sarah’s leftover milk in with Ryan’s. She pushed her chair back and rose from the table, scraping the dinner plates into the disposal and then stacking them, arranging the silverware in a pile on top. Her shoulders were slightly hunched, as if protecting her heart. The way she held herself now gave the appearance that carrying her grief had become a physical burden.

“I don’t want to talk, Pete,” she said quietly. “Not really. It won’t change a thing. It doesn’t make me feel any better to talk to Father Durkee. I go and light candles, I kneel and say prayers. All of this is just a temporary relief and Mass mostly feels like window dressing. I sit there and my heart isn’t anywhere in that church. I’m angry. Angry at Alex Hulburd, angry at God and at the fact that no one can tell me why bad things happen. Why did it happen to us? Talking about it to some stranger or some therapist is only going to stir things back up. Father Durkee tells me to try to be grateful for what I have. But that puts a lot on Ryan and Sarah to fill that gap.” She opened the refrigerator and put the leftover glass of milk inside before returning to the sink to load the dishwasher. “And it can’t bring him back.”

Pete sighed, and his chair made a scraping noise as he stood. He moved wordlessly to the refrigerator, grabbed a bottle of beer, and twisted the top off, skittering it over the counter. He stood in front of the door for a moment after it closed, studying the magnet decals and family photos. A laminated, typed list of useful phone numbers was taped in the center of the door, containing the numbers for family members, the babysitter, the doctor’s offices, and poison control.

“You still haven’t found your phone yet, huh?” Pete asked over his shoulder.

“No.”

“We should get you a new cell phone this week.” Maura was relieved by the change of subject, although they were still on slightly dangerous territory.

“I don’t know, Pete. It’s not at the top of my list. It’s not like I’m out and about all day. I’m mostly here, and there’s a machine. I don’t really want to talk to anyone outside my family.”

“What about me? Maybe I want to reach you sometimes, Maura. What if something is wrong with the kids? You can’t be without a phone forever. It’s not practical.”

Maybe
, thought Maura. But it was more comfortable this way. There were no surprises. Communication could happen on her terms.

“Let me look for it one more time,” said Maura. “Maybe it’s still around and it’s just dead.” Though it wasn’t, she knew. She had made sure of that.

“Did you have it that morning?” Pete was glancing down at the morning paper now, still on the counter from breakfast. He was scrolling randomly through the sports page. She could see the bald patch beginning on the top of his head, the places where his newly shampooed scalp shone through.

“What?” Her heartbeat kicked up and she worked to keep her voice nonchalant.

“Your phone. You haven’t had it since the accident. Were you talking on it that morning?” He was studying her now, his voice more steely, or was she just imagining it?

“A cell phone is the last thing on my mind right now, Pete. Honestly, there was so much confusion … when … when it all happened …” Maura stopped what she was saying, stared out the window over the sink, chewing on her bottom lip, and then turned back to observe him. The sky outside was ink black and moonless. Pete looked up at her quizzically for a moment, and then shrugged his shoulders in an exaggerated gesture of surrender before he took another swig of beer and left the room.

During other periods of their marriage, they had gone through rough patches, little fights, things that had gotten blown out of proportion, starting from some slight or transgression. They had lived for an entire day, once, barely speaking to each other. She could remember the first time they had ever gone to bed mad at each other, despite their newlywed pledge never to do so. It had started over something stupid, her telling him not to drag the porch chairs or blowing up at the condition in which he’d left the kitchen.

But this was different. This was a kind of corrosive apathy, a gentle disinterest in the bonds that had once held them together. And what made it scarier was that she suspected he felt this way too. They were two people adrift, had been for a few years now, and James’s death had cleaved them further. It would take at least one of them to right the course, and she simply lacked the energy at present.