What's Left Behind (23 page)

“Maria?” Rob said, his tone softening to cushion her rising panic.

“Maybe the divorce was a mistake.”

“It wasn’t.”

Maria’s footsteps echoed through the phone, and Rob pictured her heels tapping across the kitchen floor, retracing the worn path from counter to window, out of habit.

“Are we doing the right thing?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“I don’t know. . . .”

“Yeah, you do. Put the house on the market, Maria. You can handle this yourself.”

“Okay,” Maria whispered, and she ended the call.

Rob shook his head at his cell before turning it off and slipping it into his back pocket.

At the stepping-stones, Tessa toppled from her crouched position and landed on her bottom. Abby took Tessa by the hands and pulled her to her feet. Abby raised a hand in Rob’s direction, and Rob waved back. Then she walked Tessa back to the house. There, Abby would play social director to her guests, make sure their rooms were spick-and-span, bake their midday snack, prep for tomorrow’s breakfast. Soon, she’d add an infant to her long list of responsibilities. No matter how cute the kid—they sure were cute—taking care of a baby was a twenty-four /seven job.

Abby wanted him, but she didn’t need him to fill her days.

The opposite of Maria.

Part of him wanted to follow Abby into the house, like a lovesick stray, and lie down at her feet. Part of him wanted to get in his truck and drive in the opposite direction. Not away from Abby, not exactly, but away from the potential, his potential, to make another terrible mistake.

Tessa’s mother had once sent her a postcard from Paris, a photo of a sunset blazing behind the Eiffel Tower, the famous cosmopolitan city aglow. But all Tessa could see was the man-made tower, its yellow lattice piercing, ruining the otherwise perfect sky. Electrified with artificial light, the iron monument stood as a solitary reminder of all that was wrong with her mother. For that, Meredith Lombardi had left her only child?

Tessa couldn’t help but wonder whether one day her only child would stand in this exact spot and hate her, too. She could live with hatred, knowing her child would get to live with both Abby and Charlie, and see clear to heaven.

Watching the sunset behind Briar Rose was like bearing witness to edge-of-the-world magic. Standing here, Tessa could really and truly believe that any minute now a merman might climb out of the harbor and into the labyrinth, straight out of the lie Lily Beth fed Abby.

The sun slipped into the horizon, painting fair-weather clouds the hottest pink, the palest lavender, the prettiest coral. And voices, Abby’s voice, carried.

Same as when Tessa had spied her on Sunday, Abby was kneeling in front of Luke’s stepping-stones, her head bent in prayer. Her peach dress hugged her knees, and her hair fell down her back, glowing with the last rays of daylight.

“Why, Luke? Why did you have to climb out your window? What possessed you?” Abby’s tone sounded light, too light for the question, as though she’d spoken the words so many times she’d wrung out their emotions.

But Abby’s next phrase carried a choked note of fresh despair. If Tessa didn’t know better, she would’ve sworn Abby had reached through Tessa’s rib cage and yanked the query straight from her heart. “Why did you have to leave me?”

A breeze rustled the perennial garden and stirred the scent of those purple cone-shaped flowers, reminding Tessa of Shasta grape soda.

“Hey, Abby!” Tessa called across the yard, loud enough to give Abby fair warning. Loud enough to drown out the bass note of guilt pounding through Tessa’s chest.

A little guilt, sure, for the “emotional blackmail” Abby had called Tessa out on last night—as if she didn’t know what that meant—her little ploy to get Abby and Charlie back together. Means to an end. That guilt was Lilliputian compared to the gargantuan guilt of knowing exactly what had possessed Luke’s fall.

If Tessa didn’t know better, she could’ve sworn Abby aimed a smile straight her way, as though she were genuinely glad to see her here, a thorn in the garden.

If she were the least bit paranoid, Tessa would’ve thought Abby
did
know what had happened, and this—acting nice to her after
everything
—was Abby’s kick-ass way of paying Tessa back.

Ever since this morning’s discussion about the paving stone deficit, and Tessa’s quicksilver brainstorm, Abby had been possessed with the idea. Researching the best prices for concrete paving stone kits. Estimating the cost for raw materials.

Past the arbor, fireflies flickered along the labyrinth, lighting the way. Growing up, Tessa had seen careless boys imprison fireflies in airless mason jars, and then, come morning, toss the lifeless corpses. Considering the way Abby had raised Luke, Tessa bet he’d been thoughtful, careful to punch holes in jar lids, capture the creatures for a brief show, and then letting them fly.

Abby jumped to standing, brushed the grass from her dress. “I was just thinking about you!”

If Tessa were the least bit paranoid . . .

“Heading over to Head Beach,” Tessa said. “I’m not planning on staying long. Okay. See you later.”

“Don’t you want to try out the labyrinth?”

“Uh, I know how to walk.”

“Don’t you want to hear my latest greatest idea, inspired by your latest and greatest? Well, actually, Rob’s latest and greatest.” Abby hiccupped. Or maybe it was a snort. Either way, she didn’t sound like herself. She sounded unleashed. Like some weight had lifted. Like a firefly, released and sparking.

“Um.”

Abby looped an arm through Tessa’s and rushed her through the arbor. Then Abby’s pace slowed, and they strolled, brides walking down a church aisle.

Alternating round and spiked bushes lined the grass walking path. The stone pavers that earlier had been sitting on the sidelines now fit between the bushes. Instead of filling in the blank spaces with pea stone—what Abby had originally planned—empty spaces awaited the handprint stepping-stones.

“Aren’t the bushes kind of small?” Tessa asked.

“They’ll grow,” Abby said. “A little more each year.”

Tessa pictured the labyrinth like a time-lapse photo. The bushes tiny now in the summer months, imperceptibly bigger when the maples rained down crimson leaves, and then, end of next winter, shaking off the snow to reveal visible growth. She imagined years passing, the plantings doubling in size. And the baby, her baby, walking this path without her.

How could you miss someone you didn’t even know?

“Rob knows someone,” Abby said, “or at least thinks he knows someone who’ll give me the concrete at cost. We wouldn’t need to charge people for the kits.”

A baby cost a lot of money. Wasn’t that what Tessa’s father kept telling her, over and over? If Abby and Charlie were going to adopt her baby—

“We could still ask people to pay to have their stepping-stones set in Luke’s labyrinth.”

“I don’t want people’s money—”

“It could go for a scholarship fund. A Luke Connors—”

“HRTA!” Abby finished. Hotel, restaurant, and travel administration. Luke’s major at UMass.

“Yes!” Tessa said. Center of the labyrinth, the baby squirmed, as though casting a vote of approval. The last smidges of sun peeked out over the horizon and melted into the navy water.

Abby unlinked her arm from Tessa’s and clapped her hands together. “No wonder Luke adored you! No wonder he wanted to bring you home to meet me.”

“Luke wanted to bring me home?”

“Of course!” Abby said.

When Luke had mentioned spring break in Hidden Harbor to Tessa, she hadn’t taken him seriously. After all, they hadn’t been going out for that long. What if they didn’t last? What if he broke up with her before the middle of March? What if she’d spent months daring to hope?

Tessa stepped from the labyrinth, but Abby ushered her back inside, apparently determined to retrace every step. “The way out is the way in!” Abby said, sounding a lot like Lily Beth. “Can you imagine how great that would’ve been? Me and you and Luke at Briar Rose?”

All the time.

“The three of us watching the sunset . . .” A glimpse of Abby’s face told Tessa that Abby was paying the price for envisioning the impossible. Then Abby picked up her pace, as though trying to outrace her thoughts. “Anyway, you’re here, and that’s a good thing. More than I could’ve wished for back in February. And the fund-raiser? Touch of genius. Once Luke’s friends purchase pavers, that’ll give them a solid reason to come over to visit. Not just the labyrinth, but Briar Rose.”

According to Luke, his high-school buddies were scattered far and wide. His best friend, Joey, went to UCLA on a basketball scholarship. Another local buddy got recruited to Michigan State. And Luke’s UMass friends? A five-hour road trip to a quiet B&B on the coast of Maine wasn’t exactly an ideal vacation destination. Didn’t exactly mesh with the quad’s spring break motto kids shouted across the Orchard Hill bowl:
Get done in the sun.

Tessa’s breathing rasped, hard and shallow. Even though she’d read about the symptom, it still came as a surprise, an insult. Yet another weird pregnancy thing, the baby taking up more and more space inside of her. “I can get the word out at UMass, help kids make the handprints on campus. Put together a kit for other friends to use and mail. I don’t think many will be able to make it to Maine, though.”

That didn’t deter Abby’s excited ramblings. “It’ll be just like old times, with boys making a mess through the house, tracking mud into the dining room.”

The labyrinth’s pavers blended into the earth. The shrubbery, soft and amorphous in the darkness. Across the yard, Briar Rose glowed, as if the sun were shining from its rectangular windows like a lighthouse.

Abby passed beneath the arbor, continued to the perennials and Luke’s stepping-stones. When she turned to Tessa, Abby’s voice sounded breathless, taken by an imaginary wind. “I want you to know, I’m really glad you’re here. Luke was lucky to have had you as a girlfriend.”

Sweat, sudden and soaking, cooled the back of Tessa’s neck, as though her body were trying to exorcise her guilt. If Tessa hadn’t been Luke’s girlfriend, Luke would’ve been here instead of her.

Sounded like shit for luck to Tessa.

Luke would’ve been better off if he’d never met her. If instead of veering left at the fateful dorm party, he’d veered right. Or, safer for everyone, it would’ve been better if Tessa had never been born.

Abby held a hand to her throat. “We work so well together. I appreciate your idea for the fund-raiser. I know this situ—”

“It’s my fault.” Tessa whispered; the words barely left her lips. But Abby must’ve heard her loud and clear. Why else would her voice cut out? Why else would the silence hanging between them grow tighter with every breath, a hand clutching at nothing?

Why else would Abby’s exuberant singsong tone slip-trip into angst-riddled worry? “What’s your fault, Tessa?”

The white noise of blood and oxygen, fear and desire, boxed Tessa’s ears, like every other moment before a disaster.

The moment before she opened her mother’s Dear Tessa note, sealed with a ruby-red kiss.

The moment before she’d let Luke inside her, with nothing to protect him.

The moment before she’d let Luke go.

Tessa could shrug Abby’s question off with a giggle.
Oh, nothing. I don’t know what I’m talking about.
She could make up something stupid, say she’d accidentally crushed the sand dollar Lily Beth had given her. She’d spilled syrup between the kitchen counters, inviting in a slew of ants. She’d mistaken Room 3’s queen-size sheets for the full bedding of Room 4.

She could let Abby continue babbling until the praise chased Tessa into the bay.

“I’m the reason Luke fell,” Tessa said. “I’ve heard you talking to Luke. Out here, by his stepping-stones. You want to know what happened on the day he died. I was there.”

“I know you were there. You were in Luke’s dorm room.”

“I wasn’t in Luke’s room,” Tessa said, drawing a charcoal-black line through the only thing Abby had thought she’d known about the day her son had died.

Abby didn’t move, but the tone of her voice effectively crossed her arms and widened her stance, throwing up a barrier against Tessa. “Start at the beginning, because I obviously don’t have a clue.”

“Dina told me she saw Luke flirting with another girl.” The blonde from Central, with the long legs. Guys called her Cherry, but not for the obvious reason. Rumor had it the girl could tie the stem from a maraschino cherry into a love knot with her tongue, making every guy on campus curious what else her tongue could accomplish. Making Luke curious.

Abby sighed, loud and annoyed. “Go on.”

“I don’t—I didn’t like when he flirted with other girls. I was really mad at him—Sorry, sorry.” Tessa was so angry she could’ve killed. Not Luke, but herself. How could she have been so stupid to imagine Luke would want only her? What had led her to believe she was enough?

“You weren’t in Luke’s room because . . .” Abby coaxed.

Tessa shivered, shoved her hands into the pockets of her shorts, squeezed emptiness. “I called Luke on it, told him I didn’t want him flirting with other girls. Told him I was breaking up with him for cheating on me. Luke said he hadn’t done anything wrong. Talking with another girl wasn’t cheating. We argued, and, um, I locked myself in Dina’s room.”

“What does that have to do with—?”

“Dina’s dorm room, next door to Luke’s.”

“Dear God,” Abby said, the same plea Tessa had tossed up to the heavens that day. The same plea that had fallen flat.

Tessa’s body was a series of balls. Her heart swelling in her chest. The baby pressing against her esophagus. The mass closing her throat. Tears leaked down the sides of her cheeks. “He could’ve made it through the window, but he begged me to take his hand. He begged me.”

“Trust me,” Luke had said, and then he’d slipped from her grasp. A quick jerk of movement on the way down. The crack of Luke hitting the frozen sidewalk. And then nothing.

Tessa hadn’t known silence could scream.

Abby was a statue in the low light, gray and unmoving, her face impassive. “The grand gesture. Sounds like something Charlie would do. I’m so angry with Luke I could spit.”