Forrest was scraping up the last bits of Silly String on the lawn furniture when his friend Evan appeared, still wearing his bike shorts and helmet. Evan had a habit of stopping by around cocktail hour. This time he had a brochure with him.
“The club’s sponsoring a triathlon,” he told Forrest. “Raising money for some good cause or other. I can never keep them all straight. You should sign up.”
“I don’t know,” Forrest told him. “I can handle the biking and running, but that two-mile swim across the lake might do me in.”
“It’s not till Labor Day, buddy,” Evan said. “You’ve got the whole summer to train. Think what it’ll do for your abs. You don’t want to start getting a beer gut, do you?”
Forrest had no beer gut. No doubt he wanted to keep it that way.
“I wasn’t bargaining on spending the summer in training,” he told his friend.
“Look at it this way,” Evan said. “It’ll keep you from dying of boredom.”
I was out on the dock—having moved on to picking up the children’s towels, as I did every afternoon, along with the empty chip bags and juice boxes strewn near the water—while the two men discussed the triathlon plan. Forrest never treated me like an invisible person, but Evan appeared not to have noticed I was even there.
Now, hearing his suggestion that Forrest might find his life lacking in excitement, I registered a momentary stab. To me, it was enough just being in this amazing place, getting to spend time together. Those early mornings when Forrest and I got to talk over breakfast, and odd moments throughout the day when he’d ask about the book I was reading, or check my bike tires, or fix me his special Power Smoothie in the Vitamix, I never got the impression that he felt restless. I wanted to believe he was having as great a time as I was. Not simply with his family.With me.
“All that training, man. It’s a great excuse for getting out of the house,” Evan said.
“OK, sign me up,” Forrest told him. “Just no training before seven thirty. Early morning’s reserved for Frances and me.”
“Frances?” his friend said.
He hadn’t noticed me. But Forrest always did.
When I opened my journal that night, flipping to a new page, I wrote down what Forrest had said to his friend.Early morning’s reserved for Frances.After I’d written down the words I read them over a few times. That single sentence looked lonely all by itself on the page, so I thought I’d write something more, even if it was just wishful thinking.
I think Forrest loves me.
16
A Little Dog. A Redhead.
It was never easy getting the children out the door to go to the club for their tennis lessons. It was the job of Prudence to clean up the kitchen after serving Hayward and Jilly’s breakfast. This left me to pack up their things (tennis racquets, water bottles, insect repellent, sun visors, ziplock bags filled with Goldfish crackers, Fruit Roll-Ups, and M&M’s) and get them out the door for our bike ride to the club.
You could pretty much count on Jilly to have misplaced one of her sneakers or complain that she didn’t have the right socks. She needed hair ornaments to match that day’s outfit, or she’d decide she didn’t want to go to the club at all and have a tantrum because I told her it wasn’t a good idea to bring her American Girl dolls to tennis with her on account of how, the last time she’d done this, she’d lost one of the shoes and I had to spend an hour looking for it.
Getting Hayward out the door presented a different set of challenges. From the moment he came downstairs in the morning, he’d be sitting in front of the television with his bowl of cereal beside him, eyes glazed over, playing a game—the sound of popping guns and miniature characters drowning out whatever anyone tried to say to him. Sometimes I’d have to speak to him three or four times before he answered.
“Tennis sucks,” he said. “I don’t see why I even have to go to these lessons.”
“Your grandparents paid for them,” Regina said. Words that carried little effect.You have no idea how lucky you are,I wanted to tell Hayward.What I would give to take tennis lessons, to grow up with a father like yours.
Once we got out the door, things generally got better. I let Jilly lead the way, followed by Hayward. I’d bring up the rear, calling out to the two of them to slow down if a car was coming.
I loved our bike rides to the club—the perfect green lawns and the smell of cut grass in the morning, the neat, well-tended gardens and the happy-looking neighbors, trim and tanned, who waved to us as we pedaled past while they walked their dogs. We made our tires wobble on purpose, pretending to be drunk, going no hands (just Hayward and me) on a particular flat stretch. One time Jilly had us all singing “Rainbow Connection” fromThe Muppet Movie. Even Hayward chimed in.
It was late June. Seventy-eight days left in my Wonderland summer. We were partway to the club—our bodies bent over the handlebars, standing up on the pedals of our bikes, pumping for all we were worth—when a small dog darted out in front of us. Hayward managed to avoid him, but Jilly wasn’t as steady. Swerving, her bike tipped over. She landed hard on the gravel sidewalk, letting out a wail as she went down.
A redheaded woman appeared, coming from the same direction as the dog. She ran to the spot on the ground where Jilly lay, her arms stretched out, with a dribble of blood on her knee.
“Oh my god!” the redhead called out. “Is she alright?” From the sounds coming from Jilly, a person might have thought she was dying. I set down my bike to investigate.
The woman got down on the ground next to Jilly, patting her leg. I wasn’t good at guessing grown-ups’ ages, but she looked younger thanmost of the mothers at the country club. She had long rust-colored hair and was wearing a pair of short-shorts.
“He was just so confused!” the woman explained, speaking of her dog, evidently—one of those miniature breeds, small enough to fit in a pocketbook. Later I’d learn the name of the breed: a shih tzu.
“My husband and I just drove up today to spend the summer. Pumpkin spent five hours in his dog carrier. The minute I let him out he took off before I had time to stop him.”
