April & Oliver (26 page)

He remembers the day after April left his apartment, when he came back after an early morning run. He was still sweating and
wanted to cool off before getting into the shower. He looked around for something to read. The newspaper was not on the piano
where he thought he had left it. Something looked different. The stacks of books atop the instrument were more orderly than
before; someone had tried to make them look undisturbed. The light slanting through the window illuminated patterns in the
dust. A clean rectangle on the varnished wood revealed where a stack had been removed to open the ledge. A cold wave passed
through Oliver. He was sure he hadn’t touched these piles since school let out. He noticed long streaky lines running through
the dust, and moved this own fingers in the same pattern until they came to the knob. He hesitated for a moment before opening
the lid. The keys did not have their usual inert aura. A powerful, inexplicable sensation came over him, prickling his skin.
She had been here. She had touched the keys.

He placed his fingers on the ivory where he imagined her hands had been. Ever since Nana had hummed one of his songs at Christmas,
he’d felt these peculiar moments seeping back into his life, a kind of undertow. He grazed his finger over the keys without
depressing them. He heard notes in his mind, felt the presence of an entire song just on the other side of it.

He closed the lid.

Oliver balls up the T-shirt and runs it around his neck to soak up the sweat. His father looks up at him curiously. “How’s
Bernadette?” he asks.

Oliver sits on the cutting block. “Roman or Gothic, she’s trying to decide the font for the invitations.”

His father nods, squinting in the sun. “Any nerves?”

“You know her. Forever calm.”

“I meant you.”

Oliver shrugs. “People get married all the time, right?”

“Not you.” His father winks, placing a nail against the wood. He sinks it in with three taps. He pauses, then, noticing Oliver’s
stillness.

Oliver cups his hands together. “April stayed over one night last week.”

His father lowers his hammer.

“The night she left the hospital. I didn’t think it was a good idea for her to go back to her place.”

His father nods.

Oliver looks at his own hands, dirty from the wood. “Al thinks she brings on her own troubles, that chaos is what feels normal
to her.”

“If so, then it’s her choice, isn’t it.”

“I’d hardly call it choice.”

“We all have habits we’d like to break.”

“Coffee and cigarettes, that’s one thing. Men who beat you up is another.”

“You’re assuming a lot.”

Oliver bows his head in his hands. “It’s weird having someone back in your life after so long. Not that she is,” he adds quickly,
“back in my life.”

His father says nothing.

“All the time we spent together as kids, that feels like a dream now, like someone else’s past.”

His father looks at him carefully, drawing his hand down the side of his face in that thoughtful way of his. “Come on,” he
says, standing. “Let’s go inside and cool off.”

Oliver follows, sure now that he has blurted out too much without having any idea what he means.

He sits in his father’s kitchen at the same table where he ate many breakfasts as a child. On the wall near the telephone
is a photograph of his parents taken during their honeymoon, outside a rented cabin in Vermont. It appears they are having
a leaf fight, laughing, their hair and sweaters covered. His mother’s hair was long then, auburn like the leaves. His father
hands him a glass of iced tea. Oliver sees that his father is trying to formulate a question, but Oliver isn’t sure he wants
to hear it.

“Why did you give us Mom’s portrait?” Oliver interjects. “You could have kept it yourself.”

“It’s too perfect,” his father says. “This is more like her—her hair tangled, slightly off balance, laughing.”

“She always was perfect to me.”

“No one is, Oliver.”

Oliver stands and looks out the window. “Did you have any doubts when you got married?”

“None.”

“What about later?”

“Not me.”

“But even when you’re married to someone you love, you’re bound to be attracted to other people, right?”

His father licks his lips, glancing at Oliver uncertainly.

“I’m speaking hypothetically,” Oliver adds.

“The world is full of attractive people.”

“So?”

His father straightens in his chair. “I suppose I enjoyed a bit of flirtation, conversation. Sure, I admired other women,
but I drew the line. For your mother, it wasn’t so easy.”

Oliver blinks.

His father looks out the window. “Maybe she ought to have dated more before we got married. I was only her second boyfriend.”

Oliver feels confused. Perhaps he shouldn’t have brought this up.

His father turns to him. “Oliver, if you have any doubts, work them out now before you wed, because infidelity can devastate
a marriage. Even if you resolve it, forgive her, turn the page, it’s the trust that’s destroyed. You never get her back completely,
not the way it was before.”

Oliver’s mind clamors to make sense of what he has just heard. “Dad, I’m sorry.”

His father waves a hand. “Over twenty years ago.” He takes a sip, wiping his wet palm on his shorts, but Oliver sees that
his father’s hand is trembling.

Oliver wants to ask questions, but doesn’t. The dog comes into the kitchen, laps water messily, then sits panting at Hal’s
feet. Hal rubs her ear and Cricket leans into him.

“She wanted to be a singer, you know, but her parents steered her toward secretarial school. After we got married, I always
encouraged her to sing, but she was afraid she wasn’t good enough.” He sighs. “I never thought it was a good idea to start
a family so soon, but she didn’t want to wait. Those were hard years for her. I was preoccupied with my dissertation. I didn’t
pay enough attention to her.” He puts his head in his hands.

Oliver reaches out to touch his father’s shoulder.

His father straightens up, rubbing his face. “It was a onetime thing, not something she planned on. Someone took advantage
of her loneliness, and I wasn’t around to stop it.”

“Dad,” Oliver says. “Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

“I never wanted to hear the details. I was glad she gave her journal away before she died; I never wanted to read it.”

“Journal?” Oliver says.

“It was her confidante.”

“Where is it now?”

“I told her to give it to someone she trusted. It wouldn’t have been right for me to read it.”

Oliver thinks for a moment. All at once the hair rises on the back of his neck. “April.”

His father doesn’t answer, which Oliver takes for affirmation.

“But she was a kid.”

“You remember how close they were at the end. She was like a daughter.”

“April,” Oliver says quietly. Then he sees it, the green fabric cover shiny and tattered, Daisy’s arms folded around it and
the empty space in the drawer where he had lifted it from April’s belongings a decade ago. “Oh, God, it was Mom’s.”

His father touches his arm. “Don’t think less of her, Oliver. I never did.”

“I’m going to ask April to give it to me.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. For all I know, she asked April to destroy it.”

“I’m the son,” Oliver says. “April’s not even related.”

“Mom couldn’t have loved you more, but if she chose to give the journal to April, she had a reason.”

Oliver stands from the table, suddenly restless.

“I’m sorry, Oliver. I shouldn’t have told you this just as you’re about to get married. You know I would marry your mother
over again in a minute.”

“It was obvious you loved her, Dad.”

“Bernadette’s a good woman.”

“I know that,” Oliver says. He looks at the photograph next to the phone. He can almost hear his parents’ laughter, the crunching
of leaves as they fall into them. Then the sudden descent of dusk and the first frigid gust of night.

A
N HOUR AGO, APRIL CALLED NANA
to remind her to dress for the trip, but when she arrives, her grandmother is in her bathrobe, sifting through a paper bag
of birthday cards collected over the years. They are yellowed and sentimental. Nana is separating them into piles. Those from
Nick, Spencer, Hal and Avila, Bede and Faith, the grandchildren.

“Nana, what are you doing?”

“It’s my birthday,” she says. “See?” Using lipstick, Nana has drawn a vertical red line on her stomach, similar to April’s
scar. “I’m having another child,” she says.

“No, it’s your neighbor downstairs who’s pregnant. I told you yesterday.”

“Two husbands, two wombs,” she says. “Two wounds.”

April shivers. “Let’s wash that off. They’re waiting for us at the beach house.”

“Whose house?”

“Hal’s time-share. Remember we went there last year, and the year before?” April leads her to the bathroom, Nana unsteady
without her leg brace. April soaps up a washcloth and gently wipes the lipstick from her grandmother’s slack abdomen.

“You never replaced my pillow,” Nana says.

“I’ve bought you three new pillows.”

“None of them is the same.”

“The old pillow is ruined, Nana. What can I say?” She pats her dry.

“Is that boyfriend of yours coming?”

“There’s no boyfriend, Nana. No husband, nothing. Got it?”

“I saw him kissing you by the side of the house. I saw him stick you with the dandelion fork, and you bled all over my pillow.”

“You’ve got it all mixed up, Nana. Come on, let’s get dressed.” She moves her toward the bedroom.

Out on the street, a group of boys laughs and shouts. Nana looks in the direction of the voices. “Buddy dropped by yesterday.”

“Really,” April says, suddenly drained. She sits on the bed. “What did he have to say?”

“That you killed him.”

April’s head goes light.

“Never let him win a single game of basketball, even though he was so much younger. Shame on you,” Nana says. “Just because
Al did the same to you.”

April puts her face in her hands and exhales. “I was playing honest,” she says. “Improving his game.”

Why haven’t they told Nana about Buddy? Is it idiocy or cowardice? Honoring the dead is important to her. She still visits
Spencer’s grave once a month with a single sprig of bougainvillea from a plant flourishing in the dusty sunlight of her alcove.
April glances at the plant, wondering how Nana manages to keep it in bloom amid so much forgotten clutter.

On the side table, behind a vase of plastic flowers, April notices a teakettle. She picks it up to find the bottom blackened.
“What’s this doing here?”

“I pulled it out of the trash. Can you imagine that nurse threw it out?”

“It’s burned, Nana.”

“Nothing a little elbow grease won’t cure.”

“How did it happen?”

No answer.

“Nana?”

“She must have turned it on before she left and forgot to tell me.”

“But it whistles.”

“What does she mean, throwing it out? Am I supposed to go without tea for a week?”

April sighs deeply. “Nana, how would you feel about a roommate?”

“Good grief.” Nana turns to face her. “I hope you’re not referring to Mr. Bergfalk.”

April smirks. “Actually, I was thinking of me.”

“You? Live here? Ha!”

“Ha? Why ha?”

“You think I want your crazy boyfriends traipsing through here?”

“No.” April flushes. “There wouldn’t be any of that.”

“You think I need taking care of, is that it? Just because a nurse burned out my teapot, you think I can’t cook my own peppers
and eggs anymore?”

“Fine, I just thought you might be able to help me out.”

“Do you know Hal wants me to move in with him, leave my own house? That will be the day.” She pauses. “Help
you
out?”

“My lease is up at the end of October, and the landlord is jacking up the rent.”

Nana eyes her wisely.

“Forget it,” April says. “I’ll just look for a roommate to cut my cost. In fact, there’s a guy at the bar who’s been looking—”

“Okay,” Nana says. “I’ll find room for you.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to impose.”

“Don’t worry, missy. I’ll make sure you earn your keep.”

April grins. “C’mon. They’ll be waiting for us at the beach house.”

“Will Buddy be there?” Nana asks.

“If we don’t hurry, they’ll all be gone,” April says.

“What about Oliver?”

“Oliver will be there.”

“Then why are you dawdling?”

April rolls her eyes.

She enjoys the long drive to the Hamptons, despite the traffic out of Queens. The sky is aquamarine, the breeze warm and salty.
In the passenger seat, Nana looks short as a child. One by one she takes out her hairpins and leans against the door, letting
her silken hair rise in the wind. “When I was a girl, I used to take the train out here with my friends. I hardly spoke English
then.”

April smiles.

“In Malaga, my parents’ house was half a mile from the beach. On clear days, I thought I could see Africa. My father worked
near the Rock of Gibraltar, and I used to carry his lunch to him. The Mediterranean is nothing like the Atlantic. The water
there is blue as sapphires.”

She gazes out the window.

“As it turned out my sister, the one who stayed, married a rich man from Barcelona. And me? I got Nicky from Staten Island.
He looked Spanish, but he wasn’t. Acted like he had money, but it went through his fingers like rice.”

They ride for a moment in silence. Nana looks over at her. “You were supposed to be Mae, you know. June if you were late.
No one expected April. Such an impatient baby. That’s how I knew you’d turn out the way you did.”

“And how’s that?”

“My first April in America I had to walk home from school in a thunder-snowstorm. Ruined my new shoes.”

April smiles. “So that’s me? Thunder and snow?”

Nana closes her eyes to the breeze. “When I was pregnant, I prayed for a son. But once Bede and Hal were grown, I wished I’d
had at least one girl.” She opens her eyes, glancing at April. “Someone to talk to.”