Cary’s oldest sister—Mickey—was from his mom’s first husband, who was also named Mickey.
His mom was married to Rod the longest, for twenty-three years. Rod was older than her. He retired from the railroad. He took Cary fishing and to the barber and to have breakfast at Harold’s Cafe with the other old men.
Cary’s sisters Jenny and Jackie were Rod’s girls.
After Rod died, Cary’s mom started dating their neighbor, a guy called Simple. That didn’t last.
She was in her forties then. She went out on weekends to the bar down the street, the Walking Stick, and left Cary with a neighbor—a different neighbor—or with one of his aunts.
Men would come over. Men in the living room. On the porch. Eating fried chicken on the couch. Walking out of his mother’s room in the morning.
His first stepdad was named Andy, and he was a drunk. His teenage son moved in with them. Cary was eleven. His sister Jackie had moved back home with her kids. Cary moved down to the basement.
Andy had other women. He eventually ran off with one.
Cary’s mom went back to the Walking Stick, even though she’d never been much of a drinker. She didn’t like to be alone. (She was neveractuallyalone. You couldn’t be alone in that house. The coming and going and crashing. Kids. Grandkids. Cousins. Dogs. Neighbors.)
Lyle was the worst of them all. He beat the shit out of everything he could reach.
Cary was in high school. He was a bag boy at Hinky Dinky. He put a padlock on his bedroom door, and Lyle broke it off with a baseball bat.
His mom married him.
After Lyle—he died in a car accident, he took the other driver with him—Cary’s mom started to have more serious health problems.
Cary was in the Navy then.
He didn’t know what company she was keeping.
Forty-Five
Shiloh was going to wait a couple weeks, and then she was going to send Cary a text, asking how his mother was doing.
She wasn’t sure he would text her back. She wasn’t sure where they stood with each other.
She’d told Mikey that she and Cary were meant to be friends,justfriends. But maybe they were meant to be less than that. Maybe all they had left to offer each other was discomfort.
People come into your life, and it’s good, but it’s finite.
There’d been good in her relationship with Ryan. She got something wonderful there—Junie and Gus. But the relationship ran its course.
When had her relationship with Cary run its course? When was the last time it was easy? Nineteen ninety-one?
She’d spent more years missing Cary than knowing him. All those years burnishing his memory with nostalgia.
Cary.
Shiloh got an email from Cary a week after she’d rushed after Junie and left him standing on the porch.
The subject line was“Arrived.”
She opened it.
“I got your e-mail address off your business card.I hope it’s okay to write to you here. You can write to me at this address if you ever feel like it. We don’t get cell service at sea.”
Shiloh replied right away from her personal email address. She asked about his mother and his flight. She asked him if he’d destroyed anything good yet.
Cary hadn’t asked her any questions in his message. He hadn’t said anything that obligated a reply.
