B0160A5OPY (A) (17 page)

He’s doing well in his swimming, too; he’s qualified for sectionals and is determined to make the national team. I go to all his swim meets, watching and cheering from the stands. Sienna often keeps me company, bringing her laptop and updating the Underground online news while I watch the heats. She chides me for not submitting more photographs to the gallery, but between homework, dating Luke and helping out at the shelter, I don’t have much time. Suddenly, my life is full to the brim.

I’ve confided in Sienna about Luke’s misunderstanding and my perfidy. I was half hoping she would advise me to keep the secret, but she only said, “Stop drowning in guilt and fear. Guilt demands confession and then paying your debts or making amends. And the only cure for fear is action. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do – and only you know what that is.”

I forced myself to tell The Shrink, but she won’t tell me what to do either, though she points out that both ‘fessing up and staying silent come with positive and negative consequences.

“I can’t make up your mind for you, Sloane, but I will say this: lasting relationships are built on mutual respect and honesty.”

She asks me every session if I’ve decided what to do yet. It makes me feel worse, so I’ve cancelled the last two sessions with her. Eileen would say I’m avoiding and evading. Eileen would be correct.

At least Sienna doesn’t nag me, but this might be because she’s been too busy worrying about the security on her website after a recent incident when someone tried to hack into it.

“Though why anyone would want to, I’ve no idea,” she complains to me crossly. “It’s not like I’ve got celebrity sex videos or credit card information stored on the site. You would think that they’d rather try to hack the school system – upgrade their academic records or something!”

“You think it’s someone from the school, then?”

“Who else would give a rat’s rotten rear about Underground West Lake?”

The pixie has not been in the best of moods lately. She’s been out on a few dates with a student from the local college where she’s taking an advanced course in digital photography, but I gather it’s not going well.

“I don’t know that I’m ready for college boys – they want it all and they want it now,” she grumbles.

There’s a flurry of dating happening lately: Luke and me, Sienna and her pushy college-boy; Miss Kazinsky and (if rumors are to be believed) Coach Quinn; and Juliet and the geeky Tyrone Carter. I’m cynical about the motives behind this last unlikely hook-up. Tyrone’s status and hallway cred have risen markedly – he gazes adoringly at Juliet, visibly delighted and amazed at his good fortune in landing one of the hot babes. Juliet mostly looks at Luke. If she’s doing this to make him jealous, she’s wasting her time. He is as unaware of the coy glances she throws his way as he is of the cuddles she smothers Tyrone in every time Luke is in the vicinity.

Back at home, all three of the triplets have a cold, which is keeping my aunt conveniently out of my business. I help her out by doing some grocery shopping for her, but she trusts no one to take care of the boys when they’re sick, so I’m off the hook when it comes to baby-sitting. I haven’t told her about Luke. Partly this is because it’s all so unbelievably bizarre – “Yes, thanks, I’d like another piece of pie, Aunt Beryl, and oh, by the way, I’m dating the brother of the boy who died along with mom in the car crash,” – and partly it’s out of a superstitious dread. If I say it out loud, if I tell anyone (apart from Sienna, who is an exception due to her pixie magic) that I’m in love with Luke, or even dating him, I’ll jinx it.

I’ve taken to finding, printing and sticking up awful news stories again. (First I had to straighten and repair the line of articles – our passionate hallway-kissing ripped a few pages off the wall.) The obsession had faded for a while, but now it’s back with a vengeance, and a twist. Before, I used to measure the degree of badness against my injuries and past losses, but now I measure it against my guilt and deceit and dreaded future losses. I stick up the latest report: “Mass shooting in cinema kills 12, injures 50”.

“Worse. Much, much worse,” I tell myself, comparing the killer’s crimes to mine.

Tomorrow is Saturday and Luke’s eighteenth birthday. I’ve bought him a present I know he’ll love and I can’t wait to see his reaction. I’m taking him out to breakfast, and then we plan on going over to his house to hang out and maybe watch videos of the swimming events in the last Olympics. I’ll probably stay there for lunch and we’ll have the whole day together. I’ll get to see his room and play with the other girl in his life – Banjo, his Beagle puppy. It’s going to be heaven!

I’ll meet his parents for the first time, and tell them who I am (sort of – not the whole truth, of course). I’ll have to eat at the table across from them and make conversation. I’ll see photographs of Andrew and maybe even his bedroom – which Luke tells me has been kept exactly as his brother left it that November morning.

It’s going to be hell.

31

Damage

The door opens and we’re assaulted by a baying, barking ball of fur.

“Down, Banjo. Down!” says Luke, pushing the puppy back inside the house with a foot. It immediately begins chewing on his laces.

I greet the woman who has opened the door. Luke gets his caramel hair from his mother. Her hair is thick and shoulder-length, but is somehow lifeless in a way his is not. She’s an insubstantial woman – as pale as paper and almost as thin. When I shake her hand, it’s limp and without pressure. Her face is bare of make-up and there are dark shadows under her eyes.

I don’t know what Luke’s father looks like, because he isn’t there.

“He had to go in to the office. He always has to go into the office,” Mrs. Naughton says, tonelessly.

She leads us, and the crazed puppy, into the living room of their small house and we sit – Luke and me on a sofa, and Luke’s mother opposite us in a wingback chair. The puppy drapes itself across Luke’s feet and promptly falls asleep. Mrs. Naughton fiddles with a hole in the fabric of one armrest, then picks up a glass of iced water from the coffee table between us and takes a sip, looking at me over the rim of the glass. Her eyes don’t stick on me though, or on anything, but seem to wander around the room of their own accord. It’s eleven in the morning, but the blinds on the windows are lowered two-thirds of the way.

“Luke told us about you, last night.”

I am relieved; I’ve been stewing over it all night but I still hadn’t come up with the right words to explain who I am.

“We already knew that he was dating you, of course. But last night he told us who you are. Who your mother was.”

“Mrs. Naughton – ”

“I found it difficult to understand why he would want to be with you, how he could stand it.”

“Mom!” Luke startles the dozing puppy awake.

“But it’s a funny old world and here you are, in my home,” she says in that same lifeless voice. It’s like she’s gone, even though she’s here. Even her face is blank of expression. From the way Mrs. Naughton holds the glass and takes small sips, I’m beginning to suspect the clear liquid inside is not water. From the rosy blooms in her cheeks and the unfocused stare of her gaze, I’m beginning to suspect it’s not her first of the day. The fingers of her other hand stray to the hole in the armrest again and pull threads from the fabric.

“Mrs. Naughton, please, I really want you to know that I’m so sorry for the loss of Andrew. Death is always terrible, but when it’s your child, and when it’s caused by someone else’s negligence, it must be unbearable.”

“Oh it’s a tragedy when your children die before you. And you’re left alone.”

I’m puzzled by this. Did they lose another child? Why does she think she’s alone when she still has Luke, and her husband?

“He was a beautiful boy, Andrew. So bright, so good. He had such a future ahead of him. Now … it’s like the lights have gone out and there’s nothing left.”

“But what about –” I want to point out to her that she still has Luke, that
he’s
still alive, but he squeezes my hand – he’s telling me not to bother.

She’s not listening, anyway. She stares at the mantelpiece where there are at least ten photographs of a young man whom I presume is Andrew, and none of Luke, and then her gaze wanders back to me.

“He’s gone. Gone... And you’re still here.”

“I’m sorry. This is too hard for you – I should never have come,” I say, standing up. “Luke, this was a mistake. I think you should take me home, now.”

“No,” he says, taking my hand. “You’re staying. We’ll see you later, mom.”

He leads me to his bedroom. Banjo trots ahead of us. On the way, we pass Andrew’s room and I catch a brief glimpse of certificates on the wall, clothes draped over a chair, shelves jammed with books, a pair of sneakers half-tucked under the bed. There’s a half-eaten chocolate bar lying on his cluttered desk; it’s as if he might walk in at any moment. My stomach clenches.

“Luke, I shouldn’t be here. Really. It’s wrong.”

But he pulls me into his room and gives me a long, steadying hug and it feels, for a moment, like everything will be all right. Then he pulls back slightly and looks at my face, the whole of it – not just parts.

“You are so beautiful,” he says.

With a gentle finger, he softly traces my scar from my eye to my lip. Then he kisses it – a line of the softest touches along the length of it – and I feel completely beautiful. Luke sees me, not just my scar, and I know with a certainty born of this moment that from now on it will be just another part of me, like a tooth, or an ear. I try to put my gratitude and love into the kiss I give him. It is a long time before we break apart.

Luke’s room is smaller than his brother’s. The unmade bed and a narrow desk take up most of the space. On the hook behind the door hang a fistful of medals on tangled ribbons, and two pairs of goggles. A clutter of trophies congests the top of a rack of shelves mounted on the wall over the desk. The rest are strewn with piles of books, a pair of big black headphones, a collection of science-fiction DVD’s and some excellent fossils – a piece of petrified wood, a fossilized fish in a square of sandstone, a delicate sand dollar, and three small ammonites.

“Snap,” I say, picking up one of these and tracing its rough, ridged curves.

“I like fossils,” he says. “They’re proof of what happens if you stop living and adapting to change. They remind me to keep moving forward.”

“So, are you ready for your present yet?” I ask eagerly.

I finger the envelope in my bag. I made a donation, on Luke’s behalf, to the animal shelter – paying for the sterilization of all the animals currently in the cages, plus enough food for a month – and put the certificate they gave me in an envelope wrapped up with a wide red ribbon.

“Save it for later, I need something to look forward to if I’m going to get through lunch.”

It’s going to be bad, all right.

“Your mom looks like she’s still really battling.”

He pushes Banjo off the bed, where she has curled up on his pillow and is gnawing on what may be a pair of underpants, and flops onto the bed. I curl up next to him, my head on his shoulder. His heart thuds under my ear as he talks about his brother’s life and his own grief.

“We don’t have much money – you can probably see that for yourself – so that’s why it was such a big thing for him to get the Harvard deal. My parents could never have afforded to send him to college otherwise.”

“Are you going to be able to go?”

“I’ll need to get a swimming scholarship, and I probably will – though I’m sure it won’t be to some Ivy League college. It’s why I’m pushing myself so hard. Well, it’s part of the reason – I also like swimming.”

“And you like winning.”

“And I like winning,” he agrees, kissing the top of my head. “Anyway, that’s assuming I can get away from them.” He tilts his head in direction of his parents on the other side of the house. “My mother battles, she doesn’t cope so well sometimes and needs someone to help take care of her. Dad’s useless at helping her, so …”

“That leaves you?”

“That leaves me.”

Then he talks about his parents, how his father has buried himself in work and his mother has “gone missing”. My heart swells painfully when he says, “They’ve never come out and said it out loud, but I know they wish it had been me who died, not Andrew.”

“Luke, how can you say that? It can’t be true!”

He shrugs. “He was their favorite.” There is no self-pity in his voice, just the acknowledgement of a sad truth. “Hell, he was my favorite.”

And the acid of my secret eats a hole into me.

32

Choice

Lunch is an ordeal. Mr. Naughton has returned from the office, bringing take-out sandwiches with him – Mrs. Naughton doesn’t look like she’s up to cooking anything. We sit at the dining room table, eating the sandwiches off paper plates and drinking soda; Mrs. Naughton’s “water” is nowhere to be seen. There is no cake or any reference to it being Luke’s birthday. Mr. Naughton is shorter than Luke, his eyes are a more faded blue. He covers his wife’s absent manner with a forced heartiness, talking non-stop about his work at a software company, and about golf and Andrew.

Interminably about Andrew.

Mrs. Naughton’s dead face shows a flicker of life when her eldest son’s name is mentioned and they both ramble on about his brilliance and his future and how they miss him. They don’t do it to be mean to me, or to wound Luke, they just can’t free themselves from their endless loop of memories and grief.

They’re entitled to their pain, and I deserve to have to suck up every detail of it, but I’m getting increasingly angry on Luke’s behalf. They don’t tell me funny stories about when Luke was young or brag about his achievements to me. Nor do they say what a consolation he has been to them in their time of grief – and surely he must have been? They don’t ask him about his life or friends or school or how his swimming is going. (They don’t ask me about my life, either, but that I can understand.) In fact, they never speak directly to him at all unless they’re reminding him about the time Andrew invented a solar heater (“at the age of eleven! How do you like that, Sloane?”), or reminiscing about when he was named class valedictorian (“they gave him a standing ovation – the whole school – everyone loved our boy”) or how his girlfriend wept at his funeral (“she said she’d never find another like him!”).