“How’s Drew?” he asks—always the first thing he says.
“Good,” she says, because she hasn’t decided if talking to him about what she found would be helpful or set him off in some unknowable way.
“He never comes up. He said he would when he got his license,” Raff says.
“He will. It’s been a little chaotic,” is all she says, because he won’t know about Tia or the school bomb threat or anything else. He thinks he’s being spied on by the government through his cell phone, so he refuses to turn it on half the time. Or maybe it’s all a show and he does it so Sasha will still come up to see him in person.
“Your fridge is empty,” she says. “I ordered Instacart. Nothing healthy, don’t worry. Promise you’ll make something later,” she says. Even though she sees a flash of embarrassment in his eyes, it’s never enough for him to change. There’s not enough shame in the world to pull him out of the depths of his addiction.
“Sure, Sash. Thanks,” he says, and then she suddenly can no longer stand the stench of bodily fluids mixed with disinfectant and she tells him she needs some fresh air and goes out to the back and sits on one of the Adirondack chairs that circle the firepit they used to roast marshmallows in a hundred years ago. He pops another beer and puts on a coat and follows her out. He throws a few logs on the fire. As he fiddles with lighter fluid and kindling, she sees glimpses of the man he once was. Until the day that changed him.
On one rare occasion when Drew was young, Sasha left him with her mother and accompanied Raff to Mexico, where they stayed at one of the renovated beach properties for a much-needed getaway. At the airport on the way home, they got tipsy on rum punch at the airport bar and almost missed the flight. As they rushed to the back of the dwindling line to board, there was a man, practically in tears. He said he’d lost his passport and it was his grandmother’s first trip to the US. “Marta,” he said, pointing at a small woman sitting in the wheelchair in front of him, and asked if we could help her onto the plane and keep an eye on her. “She’s ninety-two,” he said. “She’ll be so scared but has to get there for a funeral.” They agreed. Of course they would help, Raff said immediately.
There had been some tip-off, of course, and that’s why the guy was trying to get rid of the bag in the poor woman’s wheelchair. He vanished. She was unrelated to him and clueless about what was happening. Sniffer dogs came, police. Sasha and Raff were both arrested. The only reason they let Sasha go is because Raff, after hours and hours of interrogation, took the blame to protect her because he knew it was over for him whether she went down or not, and he’d never let that happen.
Three years in a Mexican prison, and he turned into someone else, someone who would never recover from the trauma. They tried. But at some point, she had to do what was best for Drew and let Raffy drown in his own pain. If they didn’t have Drew, maybe there would have been enough therapy andtime and love and hope in the world for him to have survived it, but he didn’t survive. Not really.
She just could never bring herself to explain this to Tom. She wishes she could forget it herself. Maybe she’s still in some eternal denial that it all happened. Sometimes she has trouble understanding how she could possibly live this whole other life so separate from the life she lived with Raff. Some days it seems impossible.
“I wanted to show you something,” she says, pulling a 5x7-size piece of paper out of her bag with a photo printed on it. She printed it only because she knows he won’t look at her phone like a normal person. It would turn into an argument, with her begging for him to “just fucking look, for God’s sake,” she knows. Cameras, Big Brother watching, electronics bugged—the conversation would take a paranoid turn, and she needs him to focus, so she just printed it and shows him Jack Hoffman’s face. “Does this person look familiar at all to you?”
He squints at it, then takes it from her as he sits back down, still bent over, poking at the fire with a stick with his free hand. He holds it back out to her.
“No. Should it?”
“I don’t know... I saw it and... I just know I’ve seen him before— Like, I’m sure.”
“Okay?” Raff says.
“He’s dead,” she adds.
“Oh,” Raff says. “Am I supposed to know what you’re getting at here?”
“No. I just wondered if it’s someone you used to know, maybe, and I’d only met him in passing. I just can’t put my finger on it.”
“Sorry.” He hands it back. They sit together for a long while. Raffy steadily drinks until his eyes are hazy and his trembling has subsided, and Sasha makes small talk about a television show they both like and about Drew trying out for basketball and about winter coming, and then the sun has sunk behind the red maples and dusk sets in. Raff places his hand on top of hers, resting on the arm of the chair, and she feels the warmth and weight of it and lets it be. And they sit some more, saying nothing at all until it’s almost dark, and then she goes into the house and collects the grocery delivery from the front step.
She makes him a pot of pasta and puts a loaf of parbaked garlic bread in the oven and tells him not to burn the place down and that she set a timer. He’s back in his well-worn spot on the couch with a blanket around his shoulders. She almost leaves, but then she sits and waits the ten more minutes because she doesn’t trust that he won’t forget and burn the place down. She slumps next to him in her big coat and they stare at an episode of the Carol Burnett show until the lonely, hollow ding of the timer pierces the air from the kitchen, and then she gets up and fixes him a plate and places it on the coffee table in front of him.
“You don’t have to do this,” he says. She doesn’t respond. She kisses him on the top of the head, leaves some cash on the countertop, then quietly exits the front door and drives home.
She tries to put him out of her mind the way she does each time she leaves him, and she keeps the radio off and just sits in the silence as she drives.
When she arrives home, she hears video game noises from the living room. She thought maybe she’d ask Raffy’s advice about Drew at some point, but she couldn’t, and she knowsshe needs to confront the situation. She hears the game pause, and she pulls off her coat and puts her bag on the counter. As she heats up some water to make tea, Drew comes into the dim kitchen and takes a soda from the fridge, then leans against the counter.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey. Chloe get to bed on time?” Sasha asks.
“Yep,” he says, about to go back to the living room.
“Thanks,” Sasha says, and then, “Hey... Drew.” He pauses and looks at her. She has rehearsed the best way to ask him about this without making him shut down completely. There is really no way. It will sound like an accusation even though she’ll frame it as a question that could have a reasonable explanation.
“You were at that closed-down restaurant, Hefty’s, the other night and I happened to pass by and saw you... talking to some guy...”
“Oh, you happened to be passing by?” he says with a humorless little laugh.
“First, I’m the mother in this situation and you won’t talk to me with that tone. If I want to follow you everywhere you go every single day, I can do that. Second, I saw you give some guy money and he gave you something, and I could have leaped to every conclusion and grounded you and jumped out of the car like a lunatic embarrassing you. I could have taken your phone, yet here I am, talking to you about it calmly. So try again,” she says.
