“No, I don’t know. He dropped me off just before midnight. On the snowmobile.”
My dad relayed these details to whomever was on the line and then said, “Okay, yes. Please do,” before hanging up.
Now I was awake. “What’s going on?”
It had been Mr. Seavey on the phone. Seth hadn’t returned to the party after dropping me off, and his cell phone was going straight to voicemail. Greg had assumed he was with me.
But of course, he was not with me. He had asked to come in, and I had sent him away.
At first, my brain spun theory after theory about how Sethmustbe okay. He was too competent to be anything but fine. Maybe he just went to sleep somewhere unexpected; maybe he left town early this morning; maybe he’s out for an early New Year’s walk. But as the minutes passed, my body filled with anxiety. I was still fruitlessly trying to reassure myself when the phone rang again. After that, everything blurred.
At first, it was just a frenzy of phrases that I couldn’t make sense of:a pressure crack,soft ice in the east bay,must have happened in an instant. And eventually, the details came into relief. Based on what the snowmobile tracks indicated, Seth had continued to turn ever-widening circles around the pond for quite some time after midnight. Finally, though he was only a few yards from where he had passed earlier, he hit a pressure crack that had formed when the ice shifted during the brief thaw that day. Though the fissure was narrow, it had created a two-foot-high ridge that jutted up from the otherwise smooth surface of the ice. There was no way Seth could have seen it in the dark. When he hit the snow-covered ridge at full speed, he was thrown from the snowmobile. They found the machine around noon, partially submerged in the shallows of the bay where the ice was softest. Not long after, they found Seth: ninety feet from where the crash had occurred, lying on the surface of the ice, his body quiet as if he were merely asleep.
At one point, someone had tried to offer comfort by saying that atleast he hadn’t drowned, nor frozen to death while incapacitated—he had broken his neck before either of those things could happen. As if this would make us all breathe a sigh of relief. Just a broken neck. Thank goodness.
Even before my shock subsided, the guilt set in. If only I had invited Seth up to the house. If only I had gone back to the party with him. If only I hadn’t tried to cross the ice on foot. If only I had never gone to the party. If only I had stayed in the city. If only I had never broken up with Seth. If only I had never met him. If only I had never existed. There was no end to the “if onlys,” and I played them relentlessly, backward and forward, until they wore a deep groove in my mind.
My heartbreak doubled back on itself. There was the initial hurt that had sent me running from the party: the loss of my hoped-for love story with Seth. That seemed almost inconsequential in the days that followed, but eventually, I would return to it again and again. It was always amplified and complicated by the larger devastation of losing Seth himself—of having him leave the world entirely.
Chapter 22
After the sciomancy incident, I put an immediate stop to our divination experiments and try to convince myself there is no way my father is in conversation with Seth’s ghost. I am imagining things, and my projections have spun out of control. It is time to come back to earth, so I return to the schedule that Nina had set forth. She was right. Thereiscomfort in rhythm and repetition, both for my father and for me. We have enough going on with his Alzheimer’s. We don’t need any additional surprises or drama, and we certainly don’t need any paranormal activity.
But I can’t stop thinking about it.
With Thanksgiving approaching, I wonder if this will be the year that I oversee the roasting of a turkey for the first time. For some reason, being in charge of that task feels like a lunge toward adulthood that I am not yet ready for. Nina is appeasing our mother and going to London—for a quail dinner, I presume—so it is just my father and me. I ask him what he would like to do for the holiday.
“Well, let’s see. What does one normally do on Thanksgiving?” He needs a reminder.
“Eat, and then eat some more,” I say. “Most people roast a turkey.”
“A whole turkey? Why on earth would anyone want a whole turkey?”
So that settles it, and I am relieved. We agree to go out, and we invite Carl to come along.
Sleepy as Locust is in the off-season, Lorne’s is always buzzing; andas far as diners go, it’s solid. The menus hit the table before you’ve even settled into your booth. If you want to be in and out in twenty minutes, that’s entirely possible. If you prefer to linger at the counter all day, that’s fine, too. There’s no rush. It’s not like in New York City, where turning tables is a science, and if your meal exceeds ninety minutes, you start to feel subtle pressure from your server (“Will that be all?”) that eventually yields to not-so-subtle pressure (a check you didn’t ask for appearing on your table like an eviction notice). Lorne’s doesn’t have an agenda; it’s a place where everyone can feel comfortably indifferent.
The place is half full when we walk in. Two of the dark-green booths are occupied, and a few solo diners sit at the long laminate counter. A sign above the soda fountain displays a quote from Groucho Marx:“I’m not crazy about reality, but it’s the only place to get a decent meal.”On the radio, Bing Crosby is already crooning Christmas carols. We slide into a booth in the center of the long space, and a familiar waitress named Sandy slaps our menus down and points to the sign indicating today’s special—turkey club—before scurrying off. That’s when I notice Paula, alone at the counter with a gigantic martini—which must be an off-menu item, this being a diner. She turns and gives me a wink, and I wave her over.
“Well, happy Thanksgiving,” she says. “I see we all did the wise thing and let Lorne’s do the cooking this year.”
“Will you join us?” I ask. Having now worked with her for a few months—and taken her dance class a number of times—I now consider her my second-best friend in town after Carl.
She resists for a moment, but then accepts without any additional prodding. When Sandy comes back, I nod at Paula’s martini and inquire, “Could I possibly get one of those?”
“You got it,” says Sandy.
Carl, who doesn’t drink, orders a Coke, and my father follows his lead, saying, “Coca-Cola—what a treat. When was the last time I had one of those? It must have been years ago.” (It has been one week.)
We all order different entrees, and Sandy scribbles so hastily that itlooks like she’s joking. Then she taps her notepad conclusively. “That it?”
Once she leaves, we settle into comfortable small talk.
“No kids in town this year, Paula?” asks Carl. I knew Paula had a daughter, but I didn’t realize she had more than one child.
“Zara stayed out in California. She’s with her in-laws this year, god help her. And Max finally took a few days off, so he went to Iceland.”
“Max?” I ask.
