“But I repeat,” Paul says, “Tom was my friend, and now he’s gone. I can argue that he’s been gone for months, even years, but death gives ‘gone’ a new meaning. You know?”
I nod, although I’m nowhere near as philosophical about death as he is.
He lifts an arm toward my shoulder but it falls before making contact. Touching is something he isn’t sure he’s earned, and he’s probably right about that. Like death, perhaps, our connection gives touching a new meaning.
A quiet urgency remains on his face. “I turned seventy last summer.Now a good friend has died, and I think of my own mortality. I think about years I missed and ones I may still have.”
I think of those as well. And it isn’t that I’m brooding about mortality. I’m too young, too healthy, too optimistic. Call me in denial, but no one my age plans to die, least of all someone with a thirteen-year-old daughter. Margo and I joke about this, joke about her taking Joy, joke about a drama-queen daughter being the antithesis of her sons. The joking has a point, though. If anything happens to me, she will be a wonderful mother to Joy, and that is the sum total of my last will and testament.
No. For me, it isn’t about death. It’s about things that I’ve missed and now want.
Paul’s urgency settles into a plea. “Like I say, we have an opportunity. Do we use it or just let it go?”
Chapter 28
Just let it go,begs the part of me that clings to resentment. Granted, that part is shrinking fast, but it isn’t entirely gone. With its dying breath, it wants to stoke the hurt of being ignored by Paul all those years—to shut him out of my life as he did me and deny him the pleasure he might have had if he’d acknowledged our relationship before this.
But that, I realize, would be shooting myself in the foot. Joy has always craved family. I can see how happy she is in Bay Bluff. Even with Dad’s burial so fresh, there she is now, down on the beach holding court with her cousins and Guy. I would never spring Paul’s identity on her so soon. We need to mourn Tom first. Then, when the time is right, we’ll talk.
She’ll like having a still-living biological grandfather on the only side of her lineage that she knows. And she does like Paul. Hell, aside from this one massive sin of omission, what’s not to like?
But there’s something else. If I’m being honest, Joy isn’t the onlyone missing family. Jack’s phone call may have been the catalyst for my return home, but the trip has had its high points. The me who lives in the moment has enjoyed breakfasts at Sunny Side Up, snippets of warm talk with Anne, even Truth or Dare with my sisters and daughter before it went downhill. All I have to do is look at the photographs in the attic to remember what being with family was like. Or look into Jack’s eyes to remember what we had. The memories aren’t all bad.
I may not be philosophical about death, but I am, suddenly, about this. When we don’t have something in our lives, we tell ourselves that we don’t need it, that we don’twantit—because the alternative is aching for it, which breeds a sense of loss. So, we remove it from the picture we make of our lives. What we don’t see, we don’t miss.
Then, as Paul said, something happens, and the view changes. In the process of refocusing, we see pieces that we do, in fact, miss and want restored.
That’s where I am right now. I need to repair things with Anne. And with Chrissie. Jack is a whole other story. I’m not sure where to go with that.
Paul is the easy one. He is patient and sincere, and he isn’t going anywhere. I’m not ready to throw myself into his arms. I need time to absorb everything he’s said. For now, though, I want him to know there’s hope.
Sliding a little closer on the bench, I slip an arm through his and, feeling shy but certain, let it stay.
The rest of the world gradually reappears. The circular drive is rimmed with cars, but they are all ours—two rentals plus Anne’s, Bill’s, Paul’s, and mine—meaning that mourners have taken pity on us and gone home. The sea breeze rustles in the shrubs, the surf gathers and rolls, threads of teenage laughter rise from the beach. Margo emerges from the house and stands for a minute at the edge of the porch to listen for the kids before going back inside. She hasn’t seen us. Our funeral garb fades us into the bench.
The crunch of loafers on gravel grows closer, until Jack rounds the bench and drops into the space I’ve just left. Subtly, I slip my arm from Paul’s and, once Jack is settled, ask a quiet, “What did she want?”
He lounges defiantly—legs fully extended, ankles crossed, arms folded—and stares straight ahead. “She offered to leave town.”
“Offered?” That’s a surprise.
“With Tom dead, she has no one to haunt.”
“Did shesaythat?”
“No,” he concedes without meeting my eyes.
He saw my arm in Paul’s, I realize, and, sensing a meeting of minds of some sort, doesn’t know where he stands in the mix. Does he think it’s two against one now? Like it’s a competition?
“She didn’t say she was haunting him,” he grudgingly admits. “But she did say she’d been hoping for answers. I told her I wanted them, too, but that it doesn’t look like we’ll get them.”
“What about the book or whatever she was hoping to write?” Paul asks.
“She claims she isn’t. Claims there isn’t enough to say, so there’s no point. Claims she’s lousy at investigative journalism anyway, since she doesn’t have the guts to prod.”
“And you believe her,” Paul says mildly enough, not even a question, still Jack turns to glare.
“Yeah, I do. She didn’t call you, did she? She didn’t call the cops. She knows everyone in town from working at Anne’s, but she hasn’t called anyone.”
