What You Left Behind (11 page)

Today is Sunday. I don't have to work. Hallelujah, amen. And there's no soccer today either. But that means I'm on Hope duty. I have no excuse.

I got basically no sleep last night, yet again. Between all the crying and feeding and diaper changing, my thoughts were preoccupied with what Alan said. Are the journals really out there? Does the checklist mean anything, or am I so desperate that I'm fabricating some big conspiracy in my head?

No. Even if it turns out the checklist was nothing more than Meg's own little journal-organizing system, even if it doesn't have some
giant, major, world-altering purpose
, it only makes sense that if Meg checked the first box on the checklist and put the red journal in Mabel's room, there are two others for me and Alan. And what harm could it do to keep searching for them?

I call Mabel again.

She answers after four rings. “What's wrong? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, why?”

“It's 7:16 a.m. on a Sunday.”

I look at the clock. So it is. “Oh. Sorry. I don't really sleep anymore.”

“It's okay.” Her voice is softer now. Fuck. I don't want her pity.

I clear my throat and get straight to the point. “So listen, is there any way you can get access to the storage unit where her stuff is?”

There's a pause. “I don't know. I don't know which storage place it's at or the unit number.”

“Can't you ask your parents?”

“I don't think you get it. They won't talk about her. Apart from a few photos of me and Meg on the mantel in the living room and the box of ashes on the windowsill—and the massive amounts of wine my dad goes through every night so he's never sober enough in the presence of my mother to actually have a real conversation—it's like she was just passing through, a visitor who moved on at the first sign of something better.” Mabel pauses again. “They've never been the lovey, fuzzy kind of parents; we all know that. But now they're… It's like they've decided feeling nothing is better than feeling sad.” She sounds bitter and exhausted.

Meg wouldn't want her ashes in a box on a windowsill in that stark, cold house. She would want them scattered at the lake, at our spot.

I
wish
we
could
stay
here
forever
, I said once when we were at the lake.

Me
too
, she whispered back.
It's perfect here.

I wish I could do that for her. But convincing her parents to let me do that would first require them to acknowledge that Hope and I actually exist. Not gonna happen.

Though the massive amounts of booze actually sounds like a pretty good avoidance tactic—I may have to try that.

“Mabel,” I say. “Listen. This book you gave me, it has a list written in the back. Your name, then Alan's, then mine. There's a check in the box next to your name, but not the others. Do you remember seeing it?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Do you have any idea what it could mean?”

“Maybe she wanted to leave us each a journal.” I can hear the shrug in her voice.

“Yeah, but
why
? Why would she have chosen three journals from the hundreds she had? And why wouldn't she have just given them to us directly?”

“I don't know. Maybe they were more important to her than the others somehow. Hmmm. Was there anything in that book that was different or unusual? I'm trying to remember.”

I decide to tell her what I figured out. “I think Meg knew she was going to die.”

“Well, yeah, there's that part toward the end of the journal where she says that.”

“No, I mean I think she knew a lot earlier than that. Maybe even before she got pregnant. I think that's why she decided to keep the baby.”

“I don't understand.” Mabel sounds leery now.

I explain the “legacy” thing.

Mabel's silent.

“You there?” I ask.

“Yeah. Just…thinking. She was always so certain that she was going to be okay.”

“Turns out maybe she wasn't.” And I never picked up on it. Add that to the list of ways I've failed her.

“She kept the baby because she thought she was going to die anyway?” Mabel whispers. “She martyred herself.”

“Yeah.”

More silence.

“I think,” I say, “she wanted us to know that, for some reason. Or at least she wanted you to know that. That's why she left the book in your room.”

Mabel gives a small little laugh. “That's my sister. Always planning ahead. She used to write these pro/con lists all the time. Did you ever see her do that? They were about things as stupid as whether she should have Mom buy long grain or short grain brown rice. They would be all over the house. Whenever the cleaning lady came she would collect them and leave them in a little pile on the kitchen table.”

I smile. “So now you see why I need to find those other two journals?”

“Let me try to figure out how to get into the storage unit,” Mabel says. “I'll call you back.”

• • •

Two hours later, Mabel still hasn't called. That's not that long, right? It's fine. It's totally fine.

I toss the phone onto the floor in frustration. It lands in a pile of dirty clothes.

Stop freaking out, man. You'll get your answers when you get them. It's not like Meg's going to magically be brought back to life if you find the other two journals within a certain time frame or anything.

True, but there could be information in those journals that will help me with Hope. Bottom line, if there's a journal out there with a check mark next to
my
name, I want it.

Must distract myself.

I change Hope's diaper, cover her in baby sunscreen, dress her in her onesie with the ladybug pattern, strap her into a carrier on my chest, and grab her diaper bag. She's not crying, exactly, but she's whimpering and fidgeting, like a cat who doesn't want to stay still long enough for the vet to listen to its heart or check its ears or whatever.

Mom's outside, pulling weeds out from between the cracks in the driveway. She's got her earbuds in and is dancing around to the beat of some unheard song. It's probably Alanis Morissette. She
loves
Alanis Morissette. All angry female rockers actually.

I watch her for a second undetected. She looks so happy, like our lives aren't completely fucked. A lot of my mom's friends don't have kids yet. Some of them are married, some aren't, and the ones who have kids, they're little, like a baby or a four-year-old. But most are blissfully child-free. They come over sometimes for “movie night.” The living room gets overrun by six or seven thirtysomething women, most of them still pretty hot, drinking frozen margaritas and talking and laughing and not really paying any attention to whatever movie is on the screen. A few times, I've overheard their conversations. They're usually talking about sex or the gorgeous new barista at the Starbucks on Fourth Street or how the men on the online dating sites are hopelessly disappointing. Not mom stuff at all.

And it always hits me, in those moments, how my mother's life would be different if not for me.

The guys she's dated, the ones I've met anyway, are all losers. They seem fine at first, not particularly spectacular but nice enough. Then they find out she has a teenage son and come to the conclusion that they're “not ready for that kind of thing.” Now that she's a grandmother too? Forget it.

I've never seen my mother in love. I've seen her hoping desperately for the possibility of love. I've seen her with a tear in her eye and a dreamy smile on her face when she reaches the end of one of her vampire romance books. I've seen her come home the morning after staying at a guy's house, all moon-eyed and floating on air, telling me, “This could be the one, Ry. I
feel
it.” I've seen her introduce me to a guy and watch him and me intensely, trying to gauge our reactions to each other, hoping for a “click.” But I've never seen her completely, truly in love.

I don't think she's been in love since Michael.

I look down at Hope. She's watching Mom dancing around too, and she's sort of smiling. I wonder if she's old enough to find things funny.

Mom looks up then and sees us standing there. “Hey, buddy,” she says, dumping a handful of weeds in a pile on the side of the driveway and wiping her hands on her jeans. She takes out her earbuds. “Where you off to?”

Anywhere that will distract me from obsessing over Meg's journals. “Dunno. Just need to get out of the house.”

She nods. “Well, can we talk tonight? I'll make eggplant parm.”

That's my favorite. She only makes it on special occasions or when she's trying to butter me up. I know what this “talk” is going to be about—the same thing she's been trying to get me to talk about seriously for the whole summer. The Great Day Care Dilemma.

“All right,” I say. “When do you need me home?”

“Seven-ish?”

“'Kay.”

“Have fun!”

I walk past my car, which Mom moved from the driveway to the street to free up space for her weeding, and head out on foot. It's really nice out—not too hot, sunny, quiet, with a little breeze. I kick a rock ahead of me, meet up with it, and kick it again. The continuous impact of the rock against my sneaker is oddly soothing.

Hope's arms and legs dangle from the openings in her carrier, and her head falls against me as she starts to nod off, her little head snuggling into my chest. She's like a miniature space heater, warming up my middle. Tentatively, I lift a hand and brush it lightly across her head, being careful to not press too hard on the soft spot. But then she pulls away and starts whimpering again, her face all scrunched up and cranky.

Fine. Whatever.

As I get to the end of the street and need to make a decision—right toward the lake or left toward downtown—my phone buzzes. It's a text from Joni:
What r u doing?

Oh, just walking down the street with my daughter, whom you know nothing about.

Nothin much
, I text back.
Chillin.
You?

Same. Want to do something?

It's been a long time since anyone's texted me to hang out.

I turn toward the lake and look down at Hope. Even if I could concentrate on anything besides whether Mabel's making progress on the storage unit, and even if I didn't have a date with doom scheduled with Mom tonight, I still wouldn't be able to hang out with Joni today. Because I have a kid. How fucking crazy is that? I say the words out loud. Maybe they'll make more sense that way. “I am a parent. I'm a father.”

The whole thing makes me want to dive in the lake and never come up for air.

I really need to find those journals. Or Michael. Or both.

Not really having the best day
, I type. Not a lie.
Need to be alone, I think.

:-(
Need me to bring you some candy?

LOL. Noooo. I'm gonna get fat, hanging out with you.

Ummm have you seen you? I think it's genetically impossible for you to get fat.

I pause, my thumbs hovering over the keyboard. This is all getting a little too close to flirting. Need to rein it in.
Gotta go. See you at work tomorrow.
I type a smiley face but delete it before I hit send.

A few moments later, my feet hit grass and I'm walking directly toward the water. This isn't my favorite part of the lake—it's grassy and there are trees everywhere, not beachy at all—but it's close to home and better than nothing. It's pretty hot out today, probably one of the last summery days of the year. Before long, it will be winter again, and Hope will be too big to carry in the sling, and it'll be like when she was first born and I had to push her around in a stroller through a foot of snow. Uphill both ways.

I sit on the grass, take my shirt off, and lay it on the ground for Hope to lie on. She's sturdier now than she used to be but still all floppy, so I have to be careful whenever I put her down to make sure her head doesn't snap back or anything. I'm not sure what would happen if it did, but it seems like we're better off not finding out. She fusses, making little
ehhhh
baby noises and moving her arms and legs around a lot, but not full on crying. I give her a teething ring to gnaw on. When she's settled, I lean back on my elbows, staring at the water. The surface ripples with the breeze.

I don't know how long I stay like that, staring off into space, but the sun is warm and my mind is blank and my eyes are unfocused, and it feels really good to
not
think
. When my phone buzzes again, I snap to attention. The sun is hitting the lake at a different angle now. I have a feeling I was zoned out for a while. Good.

It's another text from Joni—but this one has an audio file attached to it.
Thought you might need this.
I hit play.

At first I can't identify the sound coming from my phone. It's not a song, I can tell that much. It's not someone talking either. I push the volume as high as it will go, and it finally hits me. It's Joni's room. The street sounds, the fountain. It's the soundtrack of Washington Square Park. I can't help it—I smile. A real smile, the kind only Joni is able to get out of me lately. I place the phone between me and Hope, and I watch, amazed, as it lulls her to sleep. Holy shit. It's like riding in the car but better.

Thank you
, I write back. Joni has no idea what a gift she just gave me. One day, I'll tell her.

About twenty feet away, a couple of girls set up a blanket on the grass. A blond and a redhead, both wearing dark sunglasses. They're around my age, but I've never seen them before. Maybe they're in college. They strip out of their shorts and tank tops and stand there in nothing but tiny bikinis, spreading sunscreen on their arms and legs and stomachs and—Jesus—their tits.