“I was so proud of you, Cup. I’ve been telling people. I’ve been telling everybody. About my son and his girl.”
“I know, Dad.” My voice gives out. “I know. That’s why I had to be the one to tell you.”
And he doesn’t say anything. It’s the hardest silence I have ever made myself stay inside of.
“Robert,” my mom says, gently, “give us a minute, would you?” A shift, a door, and then it’s just her on the line, and I brace, because if my father’s disappointment could level a building, my mother’s has always known how to find the one wall left standing and take that too.
“How long has it been real?” she says. Not was any of it real. How long.
“I don’t know exactly. A while. Thanksgiving, maybe before it.”
“Mm.” And I know that Mm. I’ve been hearing it my whole life. It’s the sound she makes when something confirms a thing she already knew. “I told your father, after Thanksgiving. I said, whatever that is between those two, it’s the real thing, and he laughed at me. Of course it’s real, Margaret, they’re dating.” A dry, sad little sound. “I didn’t know I was right for the wrong reason.”
“Mom, I lied. I let—”
“You did. And you and I are going to talk about that, at length, when you’re not in whatever state you’re in tonight.” Steel under the gentle. The way it’s always run. “But it doesn’t matter how it started. I know what I watched at that table. I watched her look at you when she thought nobody was looking, and a lie cannot do that. A lie can put two people at a table. It cannot do that. So whatever you built it on, the thing standing on top of it is real. And it still counts.”
I have to put my hand over my eyes.
“You said something to me a few days ago,” I manage. “About wanting a thing that was mine. You didn’t know how right you were.”
“I know now,” she says. “And it still counts. That’s the entire point I’m making, Stanley, so be sharp enough to hear it.”
“I have to tell Coach Linwood,” I say. “Myself. To his face — not let it travel, not let him hear it off a rumor or from Dad. I owe him that much.”
My mother’s quiet for a moment. “Where are you,” she says then, because something in the background has reached her — the gate noise, the boarding call starting up. “Stanley. What is that? Where are you right now?”
“The airport. I’ve got a connecting flight, Mom. I’m going to Connecticut. Tonight.”
“You’re going to Bart.”
I nod. “To his face. He has to hear it from me.”
I hear her take it in. For a second, I think she’s going to tell me to wait, sleep on it, do something else. She doesn’t.
“Then be sharp,” she says. The highest thing she’s got. “And he is not going to make this easy. Don’t miss your flight, son. I hope everything works out.”
“Me too.”
“I love you. Call us later.”
“I will. Bye.”
“Bye.”
It’s dark by the time the cab drops me at the Linwood house, Sunday evening, porch light on and the windows gold.
I stand in the driveway longer than I should.
What am I doing? I think up the walk. I reach the front door and knock anyway.
Carolyn opens the door.
And the first thing she does — before hello, before anything — is look past me. Around me. Down the steps and out at the dark street, for Aspen, because there is no other reason on this earth for Stanley Ermington to be standing on her porch on a Sunday night. And when she doesn’t find her daughter out there in the dark, something crosses her face — a small flicker of wrong, of why is he alone, why is he here without her.
“Stanley.” Warm, but careful now. “Sweetheart. Is everything—”
“I’m sorry to come by with no warning, Mrs. Linwood. I know it’s a Sunday and it’s getting late.” My voice is steadier than I am. “Is Coach home? I need to talk to him.”
