A.J. had believed in Walter’s goodness. A.J. had believed in everyone’s goodness.
I’m sorry A.J., she thought, running the fringe between her fingers. I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can help him. I don’t think I want to.
She couldn’t do all the fighting for a man who wouldn’t fight for himself. He skulked around this house like a ghost, his eyes on the ground like a kicked dog.
For a minute there, after Walter’s accident, she’d thought she could be useful again and her heart had rejoiced. Her spirit, dry and dead after living so long in that city, had swelled with purpose. It could be just like it was years ago.
But days had passed and there was no more purpose to her life here than there’d been in Los Angeles. Maybe less, surrounded by these ghosts. And Walter was either locked in his room or, rarely, briefly sitting on the back patio—refusing to even look at her. Kicking aside the food she left at his feet. Ignoring her efforts to help. To talk. She had no idea if he was drinking or if he’d stopped.
She had no idea what she was doing here.
When did I get so lost?
The easy answer was that it had been after her husband died, but the truth was an answer of a different color. Somewhere in the beginning of her marriage, when she’d dedicated herself to keeping up the pretence of happiness…that’s when she’d lost herself.
“Hey, Mama.” Lucy came into the living room. “What are you doing out here in the dark?”
“Thinking.”
“Never good, Mama. Never good.” Lucy curled up next to her on the couch, and Sandra put her arms around her youngest daughter, stroking back her hair, holding her like she was seven years old again.
“Where have you been?”
“Well, this morning I took Reese to pick up his car.”
“It’s fixed?”
“Fixed and he’s gone. And then I was giving a couple of women from the west side retirement village a ride to get their hair done.”
“What are you doing, Lucy?” Sandra asked, baffled by her daughter. Not that that was new.
“My civic duty, Mom, at twenty dollars a pop. The question is, what are you thinking about here in the dark?”
“I’m thinking about how you and Mia used to fight.” Lucy laughed and Sandra rocked her, glad that she had lied. Glad that lying came so easy to her. “Oh, like cats and dogs. You used to give your father ulcers.”
“Not you, though.”
“Nope. Girls need to know how to fight.”
Lucy was so different from Mia. Mia was a blunt instrument, hammering away for what she wanted until she broke down every wall in her way. Lucy took a good look around and figured out how to get around the wall, or if that wasn’t going to work, she found the weakness in the wall and applied the right pressure.
As children, once Lucy had been old enough to know her own power, Mia could never beat her in an argument. Which was why Mia usually started using her fists.
By instinct Sandra had so much more in common with her oldest. By practice she’d learned to be wily, like Lucy.
“You and Dad never fought,” Lucy said.
No, Sandra thought, the old wounds opening up, oozing the old resentment.
“Your dad wasn’t much of a fighter.” She’d grown so used to pretending, to forcing that fond sweet smile on her lips. So used to it she didn’t even know what the alternative was. Screaming?
That wasn’t her.
“You okay, Mom?” Lucy asked, and Sandra stroked her cheek.
“Thinking of your father. Do you miss him?”
Lucy nodded. “Won’t I always?”
The bite of grief stole her breath for a moment. Grief for A.J., for a marriage that hadn’t always been what it seemed, and never what she’d imagined for herself.
From the bedrooms in the back of the house there was a terrible crash. A thick thud.
Sandra shared one glance with her daughter and they were on their feet, running toward Walter’s room. Sandra got there first and threw open the door, only to find Walter spitting into a bowl on top of his dresser.
The light blue shirt of his pajamas was wet with sweat, a wide V down the back. His shoulders heaved over the bowl.
“Walter?”
He slammed his hand down on the dresser. “Get the hell out of here,” he muttered, wiping his mouth.
“Can I help?”
“I said get the hell out of here!” he hollered, and something in Sandra leaped at the sound. The tiger of her temper woke and it was as if she’d filled out her own skin, suddenly. It was as if she were more herself from one moment to the next.
“Hey!” Lucy cried over Sandra’s shoulder. “Don’t talk to her like that.”
Walter turned, pale and wan. The buttons of his shirt were open, revealing his chest. Still strong, despite the disease and his age. The hair there was silver, catching the moonlight like wire filament. His eyes spit fire and his muscles were still thick, and he was suddenly far more man than ghost.