Everything I Never Told You (24 page)

As Hannah squinted, looking for Nath, she thought of possibilities. “Hannah Banana”—they might call her that. Or something that had nothing to do with her name, something that sounded strange but that, from them, would be warm and personal.
Moose,
she thought.
Bean.
Then Jack had strolled by, with his sunglasses perched atop his head, even though it was blindingly bright.

“Better watch out,” he said to Lydia. “You’ll have a white patch on your face if you lie like that.” She laughed and uncovered her eyes and sat up. “Nath not here?” Jack asked, settling down beside them, and Lydia waved out toward the water. Jack pulled his cigarettes from his pocket and lit one, and suddenly there was Nath, glowering down at them. Water speckled his bare chest and his hair dripped down onto his shoulders.

“What are you doing here?” he’d said to Jack, and Jack stubbed the cigarette out in the grass and put on his sunglasses before looking up.

“Just enjoying the sun,” he said. “Thought I might go for a swim.” His voice didn’t sound nervous, but from where she was sitting, Hannah could see his eyes behind the tinted lenses, how they fluttered to Nath, then away. Without speaking, Nath plunked himself down right between Jack and Lydia, bunching his unused towel in his hand. Blades of grass stuck to his wet swimsuit and his calves, like thin streaks of green paint.

“You’re going to burn,” he said to Lydia. “Better put on your T-shirt.”

“I’m fine.” Lydia shielded her eyes with her hand again.

“You’re already turning pink,” Nath said. His back was to Jack, as if Jack weren’t there at all. “Here. And here.” He touched Lydia’s shoulder, then her collarbone.

“I’m fine,” Lydia said again, swatting him away with her free hand and lying back again. “You’re worse than Mom. Stop fussing. Leave me alone.” Something caught Hannah’s eye then, and she didn’t hear what Nath said in return. A drop of water trickled out of Nath’s hair, like a shy little mouse, and ran down the nape of his neck. It made its slow way between his shoulder blades, and where his back curved, it dropped straight down, as if it had jumped off a cliff, and splashed onto the back of Jack’s hand. Nath, facing away from Jack, didn’t see it, and neither did Lydia, peeking up through the slits between her fingers. Only Hannah, arms curled around knees, a little way behind them, saw it fall. In her ears, it made a noise, like a cannon shot. And Jack himself jumped. He stared at the drop of water without moving, as if it were a rare insect that might fly away. Then, without looking at any of them, he raised his hand to his mouth and touched his tongue to it, as if it were honey.

It happened so quickly that if she were a different person, Hannah might have wondered if she’d imagined it. No one else saw. Nath was still turned away; Lydia had her eyes shut now against the sun. But the moment flashed lightning-bright to Hannah. Years of yearning had made her sensitive, the way a starving dog twitches its nostrils at the faintest scent of food. She could not mistake it. She recognized it at once: love, one-way deep adoration that bounced off and did not bounce back; careful, quiet love that didn’t care and went on anyway. It was too familiar to be surprising. Something deep inside her stretched out and curled around Jack like a shawl, but he didn’t notice. His gaze moved away to the far side of the lake, as if nothing had happened. She stretched her leg and touched her bare foot to Jack’s, big toe to big toe, and only then did he look down at her.

“Hey, kiddo,” he said, ruffling her hair with his hand. Her whole scalp had tingled and she thought her hair might stand up, like static electricity. At the sound of Jack’s voice, Nath glanced over.

“Hannah,” he said, and without knowing why, she stood up. Nath nudged Lydia with his foot. “Let’s go.” Lydia groaned but picked up her towel and the bottle of baby oil.

“Stay away from my sister,” Nath said to Jack, very quietly, as they left. Lydia, already walking away, shaking grass off her towel, didn’t hear, but Hannah had. It sounded like Nath had meant her—Hannah—but she knew he’d really meant Lydia. When they stopped at the corner to let a car pass, she peeked back over her shoulder, one quick glance too fast for Nath to notice. Jack was watching them go. Anyone would think he was looking at Lydia, with the towel slung around her hips now, like a sarong. Hannah shot him a little smile, but he didn’t smile back, and she could not tell if he hadn’t seen her, or if her one little smile hadn’t been enough.

Now she thinks of Jack’s face as he looked down at his hands, as if something important had happened to them. No. Nath is wrong. Those hands could never have hurt anyone. She is sure of it.

•   •   •

On Lydia’s bed, Marilyn hugs her knees like a little girl, trying to leap the gaps between what James has said and what he thinks and what he meant.
Your mother was right all along. You should have married someone more like you.
With such bitterness in his voice that it choked her. These words sound familiar and she mouths them silently, trying to place them. Then she remembers. On their wedding day, in the courthouse: her mother had warned her about their children, how they wouldn’t fit in anywhere.
You’ll regret it,
she had said, as if they would be flippered and imbecile and doomed, and out in the lobby, James must have heard everything. Marilyn had said only,
My mother just thinks I should marry someone more like me,
then brushed it away, like dust onto the floor. But those words had haunted James. How they must have wound around his heart, binding tighter over the years, slicing into the flesh. He had hung his head like a murderer, as if his blood were poison, as if he regretted that their daughter had ever existed.

When James comes home, Marilyn thinks, speechless with aching, she will tell him:
I would marry you a hundred times if it gave us Lydia. A thousand times. You cannot blame yourself for this.

Except James does not come home. Not at dinner; not at nightfall; not at one, when the bars in town close. All night Marilyn sits awake, pillows propped against the headboard, waiting for the sound of his car in the driveway, his footsteps on the stairs. At three, when he still hasn’t come home, she decides she will go to his office. All the way to campus, she pictures him huddled in his wheeled armchair, crushed with sadness, soft cheek pressed to hard desk. When she finds him, she thinks, she will convince him this is not his fault. She will bring him home. But when she pulls into the lot, it is empty. She circles his building three times, checking all the spots where he usually parks, then all the faculty lots, then all the meters nearby. No sign of him anywhere.

In the morning, when the children come downstairs, Marilyn sits stiff-necked and bleary-eyed at the kitchen table. “Where’s Daddy?” Hannah asks, and her silence is enough of an answer. It is the Fourth of July: everything is closed. James has no friends on the faculty; he is not close with their neighbors; he loathes the dean. Could he have been in an accident? Should she call the police? Nath rubs his bruised knuckle across the crack in the counter and remembers the perfume on his father’s skin, his reddening cheeks, his sharp and sudden fury.
I don’t owe him anything,
he thinks, but even so, he has the feeling of leaping off a high cliff when he swallows hard and says at last, “Mom? I think I know where he is.”

At first Marilyn will not believe it. It is so unlike James. Besides, she thinks, he doesn’t know anyone. He does not have any female friends. There are no women in the history department at Middlewood, only a few women professors at the college at all. When would James meet another woman? Then a terrible thought occurs to her.

She takes down the phone book and skims down the Cs until she finds it, the only Chen in Middlewood:
L Chen 105 4th St #3A.
A telephone number. She nearly reaches for the receiver, but what would she say?
Hello, do you know where my husband is?
Without shutting the phone book, she grabs her keys from the counter. “Stay here,” she says. “Both of you. I’ll be back in half an hour.”

Fourth Street is near the college, a student-heavy area of town, and even as she turns down it, squinting at building numbers, Marilyn has no plan. Maybe, she thinks, Nath is all wrong, maybe she is making a fool of herself. She feels like an overtuned violin, strung too tight, so that even the slightest vibration sets her humming. Then, in front of number 97, she sees James’s car, parked beneath a scrubby maple. Four stray leaves dot its windshield.

Now she feels strangely calm. She parks the car, lets herself into 105, and climbs the steps to the third floor, where with one steady fist she raps at 3A. It is nearly eleven, and when the door opens, just wide enough to reveal Louisa still in a pale blue robe, Marilyn smiles.

“Hello,” she says. “It’s Louisa, isn’t it? Louisa Chen? I’m Marilyn Lee.” When Louisa does not respond, she adds, “James Lee’s wife.”

“Oh, yes,” Louisa says. Her eyes flick away from Marilyn’s. “I’m sorry. I’m not dressed yet—”

“I can see that.” Marilyn sets her hand on the door, holding it open with one palm. “I’ll just take a moment of your time. You see, I’m looking for my husband. He didn’t come home last night.”

“Oh?” Louisa swallows hard, and Marilyn pretends not to notice. “How terrible. You must be very worried.”

“I am. Very worried.” She keeps her eyes trained on Louisa’s face. They have met only twice before, in passing at the college Christmas party and then at the funeral, and Marilyn studies her carefully now. Long ink-colored hair, long lashes over downturned eyes, small mouth, like a doll’s. A shy little thing. As far from me, she thinks with a twinge, as a girl could be. “Do you have any idea where he might be?”

Louisa blushes bright pink, and Marilyn feels almost sorry for her, she is so transparent. “Why would I know?”

“You’re his assistant, aren’t you? You work together every day.” She pauses. “He speaks of you so often at home.”

“He does?” Confusion and pleasure and surprise mingle in Louisa’s face, and Marilyn can see exactly what is running through her mind.
That Louisa—she’s so smart. So talented. So beautiful.
She thinks,
Oh Louisa. How young you are.

“Well,” Louisa says at last. “Have you checked his office?”

“He wasn’t there earlier,” Marilyn says. “Perhaps he’s there now.” She sets her hand on the doorknob. “Could I use your telephone?”

Louisa’s smile vanishes. “I’m sorry,” she says. “My phone’s actually not working right now.” She looks desperately at Marilyn, as if wishing she would just give up and go away. Marilyn waits, letting Louisa fidget. Her hands have stopped shaking. Inside she feels a quiet smoldering rage.

“Thank you anyway,” she says. “You’ve been very helpful.” She lets her eyes drift past Louisa, to the tiny sliver of living room she can see through the doorway, and Louisa glances back over her shoulder nervously, as if James might have wandered out of the bedroom unawares. “If you see him,” Marilyn adds, raising her voice, “tell my husband that I’ll see him at home.”

Louisa swallows again. “I will,” she says, and at last Marilyn lets her shut the door.

nine

A few months earlier, a different illicit romance had been brewing. To Nath’s immense disapproval, all spring Lydia had spent her afternoons out with Jack in his car: driving round and round town, or parking the VW near the green quad of the college, or by the playground, or in a deserted parking lot.

Despite what Nath thought, to Lydia’s smug satisfaction, despite the whispers, now and then, when someone glimpsed her climbing into Jack’s car—
She’s not, is she? No way. Her? Can’t be—
despite Lydia’s own expectations, the truth was much less scandalous. While the college students scurried to class, or kindergartners scaled the slide, or bowlers trudged into the alley for a quick after-work game, something happened that Lydia had never expected: she and Jack talked. As they sat smoking, feet propped on the dashboard, she told him stories about her parents: how in second grade, she’d traced the diagram of the heart from the encyclopedia, labeling each ventricle with magic marker, and her mother had pinned it up on her bedroom wall as if it were a masterpiece. How at ten, her mother had taught her to take a pulse; how at twelve her mother had persuaded her to skip Cat Malone’s birthday party—the only one she’d ever been invited to—to finish her science fair project. How her father had insisted she go to the freshman dance and bought her a dress, and she had spent the night standing in the darkest corner of the gym, counting the minutes until she could go home: how late was late enough? Eight thirty? Nine? At first she tried not to mention Nath, remembering how Jack hated him. But she could not talk about herself without Nath and, to her surprise, Jack asked questions: Why did Nath want to be an astronaut? Was he quiet at home like he was at school? So she told him how, after the moon landing, he had bounded across the lawn, pretending to be Neil Armstrong, for days. How, in the sixth grade, he’d convinced the librarian to let him borrow from the adults’ section and brought home textbooks on physics, flight mechanics, aerodynamics. How he’d asked for a telescope for his fourteenth birthday and received a clock radio instead; how he’d saved his allowance and bought himself one. How, sometimes, at dinner, Nath never said a word about his day, because their parents never asked. Jack absorbed everything, lighting her next cigarette as she flicked the old butt out the window, tossing her his pack when she ran out. Week after week, she tamped down a flare of guilt at making Nath seem even more pathetic—because talking about Nath kept her in Jack’s car every afternoon, and every afternoon she spent in Jack’s car bothered Nath more and more.