Noah's Compass (27 page)

She had arrived home in tears, Liam remembered, and Louise had been crying too, in sympathy.

He turned onto Barbara’s street and parked in front of their old house, which was a mod-est white clapboard Colonial, not half as large or imposing as most of the others. When she and Madigan married there had been some talk of their buying a place in Guilford, but she hadn’t wanted to leave her neighbors. Secretly, Liam had been glad of that. He would have felt even more rejected, more ousted, if she had moved somewhere he couldn’t picture in his mind’s eye when he thought about her.

He was just stepping out from behind the wheel when Kitty said, “Oh, shoot.”

“What is it?”

“Xanthe’s here.”

He looked around him. “She is?” he said. “How do you know?”

“That’s her car in front of us.”

“That’s Xanthe’s car?”

It was one of those new sharp-edged, boxy things, pale blue. The last he’d known, Xanthe drove a red Jetta. But Kitty said, “Yup.”

“What happened to the Jetta?”

“She traded it in.”

“Is that a fact,” Liam said. He tried to remember how long it had been since he and Xanthe had seen each other.

“This is the last thing we need,” Kitty said as they started up the front walk.

“Why’s that?”

“She’s mad at me, I don’t know what for. It would be just like her to take Mom’s side against me out of spite.”

“She’s mad at me too,” Liam said.

“Great.”

If Xanthe was including Kitty in this snit of hers, then it must be true that Damian was the reason. Someone ought to inform her that an entirely different person had been arrested for the breakin. Liam started to say as much to Kitty, but he stopped himself. Kitty probably had no inkling of Xanthe’s suspicions.

They were already at the front door when Kitty said, “Wait, I think I hear them out back,” at the same time that Liam, too, heard voices coming from the rear of the house. They turned to take the path that led through the side yard. When they emerged from under the magnolia tree, they found Barbara and Xanthe eating lunch at the wrought-iron table on the patio.

Nearby, Jonah was squatting on the flagstones to draw lopsided little circles with a stick of chalk. He was the first to spot them. “Hi, Kitty. Hi, Poppy,” he said, standing up.

“Hi, Jonah.”

Liam hadn’t realized before that Jonah called him Poppy.

Barbara said, “Well, look who’s here!” but Xanthe, after the briefest glance, took on a flat-faced expression and resumed buttering a roll.

“You didn’t use sunblock, did you?” Barbara asked Kitty. “When I told you and told you!

Where are your brains? You’re fried to a crisp.”

“Oh, why, thank you for inquiring, Mother dear,” Kitty said. “I had a perfectly lovely trip.”

Unruffled, Barbara turned to Liam. “I’ve got Jonah for the weekend,” she said, “because Louise and Dougall are off with their church on a Marriage Renewal Retreat.”

Liam had a number of questions about this—did their marriage need renewing? should he be worried?—but before he could ask, Barbara rose, saying, “Let me bring out some more plates. You two sit down.”

“No plate for me, thanks. I just finished breakfast,” Liam said.

But Barbara was already heading toward the back door, and Kitty was making violent shooing motions in his direction. “Go with her!” she mouthed.

Dutifully, Liam set off after Barbara. (It was a relief, anyhow, to leave the chilly atmosphere surrounding Xanthe.) He held the screen door open, and Barbara said, “Oh, thanks.”

As they entered the house, she told him, “I don’t think that child has the least little grain of sense. Just wait till she gets melanoma! Then she’ll be sorry.”

“Ah, well, we grew up without sunblock.”

“That’s different,” she said, illogically.

Liam loved Barbara’s kitchen. It had never once been remodeled, as far as he knew. At some point a dishwasher had been fitted in next to the sink, but the general look of it dated from the 1930s. The worn linoleum floor bore traces of a Mondrian-style pattern, and the refrigerator had rounded corners, and the cupboards had been repainted so many times that the doors wouldn’t quite close anymore. Even the plants on the windowsill seemed old-fashioned: a yellowed philodendron wandering up to the curtain rod and down again, and a prickly, stun-ted cactus in a ceramic pot shaped like a burro. He could have just sunk onto one of the red wooden chairs and stayed there forever, feeling peaceful and at home.

But here came Kitty to remind him of his mission. She let the screen door slam behind her and she gave him a conspiratorial glance but then wandered over to the sink, ho hum, and turned the faucet on for no apparent reason.

“By the way,” Liam said. He was speaking to Barbara’s back; she was reaching into the dish cupboard. She wore white linen slacks that made her look crisper than usual and more authoritative. He said, “I’ve been thinking.”

It wasn’t clear if she had heard him over the sound of running water. She set two plates on the counter and opened the silverware drawer.

“I’ve been wondering if Kitty should stay on with me during the school year,” he said.

Assuming sole responsibility for the question—I’ve been wondering—was meant as a gesture of gallantry, but Kitty spoiled the effect by shutting off the water decisively and spinning around to say, “Please, Mom?”

Barbara turned to Liam. “Excuse me?” she said.

“She would stay on at my place,” Liam said, “just for her senior year, I mean. After that she’d be leaving for college.”

“What, Liam: are you saying you’d be willing to monitor her homework, and drive car pool to lacrosse games, and pick her up from swimming practice? Are you going to meet with her college advisor and make sure she gets her allergy shots?”

This sounded like more of a commitment than he had realized, actually. He sent an uncertain glance toward Kitty. She took a step forward, but instead of going into the prayerful-maiden act he half expected, she flung a hand in his direction, palm up, and said, “Someone ought to keep a watch. Just look at him!”

Liam blinked.

Barbara examined him more closely. She said, “Yes, what’s wrong with you?”

“What do you mean, what’s wrong with me?”

“You seem … thinner.”

He had the impression that she had been about to say something else, something less complimentary.

“I’m fine,” he told her.

He scowled at Kitty. He’d be damned if he would say a single word further on her behalf.

Kitty gazed blandly back at him.

Barbara said, “Kitty, would you take these things to the patio, please?”

“But—”

“Go on,” Barbara said, and she handed Kitty the plates with a cluster of silverware laid on top.

Kitty accepted them, but as she backed out the screen door her eyes were fixed beseech-ingly on Liam.

He refused to give her the slightest sign of encouragement.

“It’s not for my sake at all,” he told Barbara as soon as they were alone. “She’s trying to put one over on you.”

“Yes, yes … Liam, I don’t want to be intrusive, but I’m wondering if your life can accom-modate a teenager.”

“Well, maybe it can’t,” Liam said. What the hell.

“You wouldn’t be able to have a person spend the night with you if Kitty were there; you realize that.”

“Spend the night?”

“If I had known you were involved with someone, I never would have let Kitty come stay with you in the first place.”

“I’m not involved with anyone,” he said.

“You’re not?”

“No.”

“Well, the other day it seemed—”

“Not anymore,” he said.

“I see,” she said. Then she said, “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Something in the tone of her voice—so delicate, so tactful—implied that she assumed the breakup was not his own choice. Her face became kind and sorrowful, as if he’d just announced a bereavement.

“But!” he told her. “As for Kitty! You know, you might have a point. I would probably make a terrible father over the long term.”

Barbara gave a short laugh.

“What,” he said.

“Oh, nothing.”

“What’s so amusing?”

“It’s just,” she said, “how you never argue with people’s poor opinions of you. They can say the most negative things—that you’re clueless, that you’re unfeeling—and you say, ‘Yes, well, maybe you’re right.’ If I were you, I’d be devastated!”

“Really?” Liam asked. He was intrigued. “Yes, well, maybe you’re … Or, rather … Would you be devastated even if you truly did agree with them?”

“Especially if I agreed with them!” she said. “Are you telling me that you do agree? You believe you’re a bad person?”

“Oh, not bad in the sense of evil,” Liam said. “But face it: I haven’t exactly covered myself in glory. I just … don’t seem to have the hang of things, somehow. It’s as if I’ve never been entirely present in my own life.”

She was silent, gazing at him again with that too-kind expression.

He said, “Do you remember a show on TV that Dean Martin used to host? It must have been back in the seventies; Millie liked to watch it. I can’t think now what it was called.”

“The Dean Martin Show?” Barbara suggested.

“Yes, maybe; and he had this running joke about his drinking, remember? Always going on about his drunken binges. And so one night one of the guests was reminiscing about a party they’d been to and Dean Martin asked, ‘Did I have a good time?’”

Barbara smiled faintly, looking not all that amused.

“Did he have a good time,” Liam said. “Ha!”

“What’s your point, Liam?”

“I might ask you the same question,” he told her.

“You might ask what my point is?”

“I might ask if I’d had a good time.”

Barbara wrinkled her forehead.

“Oh,” Liam said, “never mind.”

It was a relief to give up, finally. It was a relief to turn away from her and see Kitty approaching—matter-of-fact, straightforward Kitty yanking open the screen door and saying, “Did you decide?”

“We were just discussing Dean Martin,” Barbara told her drily.

“Who? But what about me?”

“Well,” Barbara said. She reflected a moment. Then she said—out of the blue, it seemed to Liam—“I suppose we could give it a try.”

Kitty said, “Hot dog!”

“Just conditionally, understand.”

“I understand!”

“But if I hear one word about your bending the rules, missy, or giving your father any trouble—”

“I know, I know,” Kitty said, and she was off, racing toward the front stairs, presumably to go pack.

Barbara looked over at Liam. “I meant that about the rules,” she told him.

He nodded. Privately, though, he felt blindsided. What had he gotten himself into?

As if she guessed his thoughts, Barbara smiled and gave him a tap on the wrist. “Come and have some lunch,” she said.

He forgot to remind her that he wasn’t hungry. He followed her back through the kitchen and out the screen door.

On the patio, Jonah had abandoned his chalk and was sitting on the very edge of the chair next to Xanthe. “We saw an animal!” he shouted. “You’ve got an animal in your backyard, Gran! It was either a fox or an anteater.”

“Oh, I hope it was an anteater,” Barbara said. “I haven’t had one of those before.”

“It had a long nose or a long tail, one or the other. Where’s Kitty? I have to tell Kitty.”

“She’ll be here in a minute, sweets. She’s packing.”

Liam pulled up a chair and sat down next to Jonah. He was directly opposite Xanthe, but Xanthe refused to look at him. “Packing for what?” she asked Barbara.

“She’s going to stay on with your dad.”

“Huh?”

“She’s staying on during the school year. If she behaves herself.”

Then Xanthe did look at him, openmouthed. She turned back to Barbara and said, “She’s going to live with him?”

“Why, yes,” Barbara said, but now she sounded doubtful.

“I cannot believe this,” Xanthe told Liam.

Liam said, “Pardon?”

“First you let her stay there all summer. You say, ‘Okay, Kitty, whatever you like. By all means, Kitty. Whatever your heart desires, Kitty.’ Little Miss Princess Kitty lolling about with her deadbeat boyfriend.”

Liam said, “Yes? And?”

“When you never let me live with you!” Xanthe cried. “And I was just a child! And you were all I had! I was way younger than Kitty is when you and Barbara split up. You left me behind with a woman who wasn’t even related to me and off you went, forever!”

Liam felt stunned.

He said, “Is that what you’ve been mad about?”

Barbara said, “Oh, Xanthe, I feel related. I’ve always felt you were truly my daughter; you must know I have.”

“This is not about you, Barbara,” Xanthe said in a gentler tone. “I have no quarrel with you.

But him—” And she turned back to Liam.

“I thought I was doing you a favor,” Liam said.

“Yeah, right.”

“You had your two little sisters there, and you seemed so happy, finally, and Barbara was so loving and openhearted and warm.”

“Why, thank you, Liam,” Barbara said.

He stopped in mid-breath and glanced at her. She was looking almost bashful. But he needed to concentrate on Xanthe, and so he turned back. He said, “Epictetus says—”

“Oh, not him again!” Xanthe exploded. “Damn Epictetus!” And she jumped up and began to stack her dishes.

Liam gave her a moment, and then he started over. In his quietest and most pacifying voice, he said, “Epictetus says that everything has two handles, one by which it can be borne and one by which it cannot. If your brother sins against you, he says, don’t take hold of it by the wrong he did you but by the fact that he’s your brother. That’s how it can be borne.”

Xanthe made a tssh! sound and clanked her bread plate onto her dinner plate.

“I’m trying to say I’m sorry, Xanthe,” he said. “I didn’t know. I honestly didn’t realize. Can’t you find it in your heart to forgive me?”

She snatched up her silverware.

In desperation, he pushed his chair back and slid forward until he was kneeling on the patio. He could feel the unevenness of the flagstones through the fabric of his trousers; he could feel the ache of misery filling his throat. Xanthe froze, gaping at him, still holding her dishes. “Please,” he said, clasping his hands in front of him. “I can’t bear to know I made such a bad mistake. I can’t endure it. I’m begging you, Xanthe.”