“Something else,” Mike says astutely, and I wonder how we’ve leapfrogged to this stage of a relationship, where we sense each other’s moods, where we care so much. I don’t think Marco and I ever got there. I doubt he even tried. It makes me feel even more anxious, and I wonder if I should have agreed to this Thanksgiving. It feels like a step too far.
“Have you told your mom and sister about me?” I ask, my face still turned towards the window. “About Dylan?”
“No. I didn’t think it was my information to share.”
“Thank you.”
“But they wouldn’t judge you. I don’t judge you.” He pauses, an unhappy silence. “I feel like I shouldn’t have said that thing about you being intense, back at Barb’s.”
“You were just stating your opinion.”
“I didn’t mean it badly—”
“I know.” I draw a raggedy breath. “Anyway, it’s probably true. You’re not the only one to say it. Susan said the same thing. She… she sort of implied that his anxiety is… my fault.”
“What?” Mike looks outraged. “Beth, that can’t be true.”
“Why would they have taken him away from me otherwise?”
“Because they’re dumb,” Mike says robustly, and suddenly I am laughing, a creaky, unpracticed sound.
“Yeah,” I agree, shaking my head. “They’re dumb.”
He smiles at me, and I smile back, and even though I know that’s not the real reason, I feel it in my gut, today I need to believe it. Today, just for a few hours, I need not to live under the shadow of my own failure.
Mike’s mother, Deb, lives in a hundred-year-old house of white clapboard with a funny little round tower room in front, on a street near the center of Windsor with a lot of pickup trucks and barking dogs leashed on chains. It’s a funny mix of quaint and hick, and as we get out of the car, she comes to the door, wreathed in smiles.
She’s completely hairless from the chemo—her head as smooth and shiny as a new egg, her eyes lashless and browless, but her smile makes up for it all because it’s the kindest, homeliest thing I’ve ever seen, crinkling nearly up to her ears. As I walk towards her, she comes forward and takes me by the shoulders, as if inspecting me, and then she hugs me hard before kissing me on both cheeks.
“I am so glad to meet you,” she says, and I know she means it utterly. I don’t know what Mike has told her about me—not about Dylan, obviously—but whatever it is, I’ve already become important to her, and instead of making me more anxious, it makes me feel relieved.
Mike’s sister, Kerry, comes out to say hello almost as warmly, followed by her two children, eight- and ten-year-old girls, who hang back, smiling shyly.
“Come in, come in, it’s freezing out here,” Deb says, and we all head into the house, which is full of lovely, family kind of smells—roast turkey and cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie and cinnamon.
In retrospect, the afternoon passes in a blur of good will. Deb asks me about my family, my job, everything, and I find myself telling her more than I expected. I hint at where Dylan is, not wanting to put it into stark words, and she nods in understanding and doesn’t press. I don’t see any judgment in her face, and that feels like a miracle.
I find myself watching Kerry, a single mom with two seemingly happy, well-adjusted kids. I watch her give them quick, careless hugs, and then how they run off to play and she doesn’t track them with her anxious gaze; she just lets them go. I have absolutely no doubt that she loves them as much as I love Dylan, but from my vantage point now, I can see how that love looks very different. I don’t know what to make of it, and I don’t want to think about it too closely today, so I file it away for another day and try to stay in the moment.
After Thanksgiving dinner, the table groaning with food, Deb shoos Mike and me out for a walk around Windsor. We end up driving to Windsor Meadows State Park, and walking along the steel-gray ribbon of the Connecticut River. It’s bitterly cold, but the sky is clear and there is something starkly beautiful in the barrenness, something I don’t think I was able to see before. A flock of Canadian geese take flight from the river, arcing up into the sky in a perfect V, with the accompanying honking and flapping of wings. Mike and I both stand still to watch, and then he turns to smile at me.
“I’m glad you came today,” he says, and then, fumbling a bit, he reaches for my hand.
We walk hand in hand along the river like two teenagers, but it doesn’t feel as weird or forced as I might have once feared. It’s nice, and I feel happy, although it’s a happiness that’s tangled up with sorrow and regret and a fearful what-if I can’t even name yet, and choose not to.
For today, Mike is holding my hand, and his family has been kind, and the sky is blue and I am happy—and amazingly, that is enough.
22
ALLY
The Saturday morning before Thanksgiving, having barely slept, I wake up and stare at the ceiling, feeling as if the rest of my life has started and I don’t want any of it. I don’t even want to get out of bed.
Nick is already up; I can hear him talking to Dylan downstairs with the same cheerful running patter that I use. When I finally rouse myself and peek in Josh’s room, my heart swells with both love and pain at the sight of him sprawled on the bed, innocent in his sleep.
How could he hurt us like this? How could the family I’d done my utmost to nurture and protect fail so spectacularly? I could cry out with the pain of it, doubled over as if someone had punched me in the stomach. In the end, I just go back to bed, pulling the duvet back over me, wanting only to block out the world.
I don’t know how long I lie there, huddled and heartsore, but at some point, I realize I am being watched. I roll over and see Dylan staring at me unblinkingly from the doorway.