Ask Him Why (17 page)

I was puffing desperately by the time I got back up to the cottage. I rapped on the door, but he didn’t get up to answer it. He just called out to me.

“Come right on in, Ruthie.”

I stepped into his living room, and I looked at him and he looked at me, and we were silent for a moment, absorbing the fact that it was still just us and not Aubrey. We had tried something and failed, which was hard on me for a split second, because I wanted to think of Hamish MacCallum as someone who didn’t fail.

Then I realized it was only me who had failed, because I was the only one who thought I could take what I’d found and force it into my little brother. Hamish MacCallum had even warned me I was trying to do the impossible, so that left his record suitably clean. At least, that was the conclusion I reached at the time.

Looking back I see the real, clearer message that
everybody fails
, and I see that he’d been trying to tell me that all along.

“It’s not like you didn’t warn me,” I said, pasting on a little smile that I hoped didn’t look as unnatural as it felt.

“It’s not like I wasn’t hoping to see him come tagging in here behind you, in spite of what I predicted.”

I just stood a moment.

Then I said, “I think we need to get back now. I just wanted to say good-bye.”

“If you think you’re getting out o’ here without a hug, Ruthie, you’re more daft than I had you pegged.”

He rose to his feet with some obvious effort, and I covered the ground between us and wrapped my arms around him. It was different from other hugs in my life. I’m having trouble finding a better way to say it than that. I’d hugged my friends, back when I had some, but they were my age and felt more familiar in my arms. More like hugging myself. I had hugged older people, always older relatives, but this was still different. It took me a minute to understand the difference. My older relatives grabbed me and latched onto me, and I felt like they wanted something from me. Their love felt like a demand. Then I let go and they pinched my cheeks and kissed them, and it only made me feel drained, like I had all the love and they only wanted to refill their tanks by taking some of mine.

This was the first time anybody had given me as much as—or more than—they wanted in return.

Oh. Except Isabella. But somehow that felt different because I’d known her all my life. This was a man I’d only met that day.

I stepped back and felt tears right behind my eyes, and I didn’t want them. I wanted them to go away and not complicate things.

“I hate to leave,” I said. “I feel like what I got here will go away again. You know . . . like . . . expire.”

“But you know where I live,” he said. “So there’s no excuse to be a stranger anymore. And I’ll write down my phone number for you. You can give my address and phone number to Aubrey, too. Tell him there’s no obligation and no pressure. It’s just in case he changes his mind.”

He picked up his cane and shuffled over to a little white notepad by the phone. He picked up a pen that was tethered by a string—so it could never turn up anywhere else but by the phone, I assumed.

“No, I take that back,” he said. “Don’t give it to him, at least not yet. He’ll just tear it up and throw it away. Because he only knows how he feels now. He doesn’t know that feelings change over the years, because he hasn’t lived enough years to see that for himself. So just tell him you have it, and it’s for him, too, if he should ever change his mind.”

He shuffled over and handed me the slip of paper. It had his name, postal address—which was a PO box—house address, and phone number. The letters and numbers were astonishingly neat, almost as if done by a machine that produced perfect block printing.

I wanted to hug him again, but I wasn’t sure if that would sound greedy, so I never asked.

“Thank you for saving my brother Joseph,” I said on my way to the door.

“Now that I can honestly say was my pleasure, Ruthie.”

The minute I stepped out into the sun and closed the door behind me, the tears broke through. There was nothing I could do to hold them. I didn’t even know what they were for, or exactly what had caused them. I just knew that, like the only other tears I’d cried since Joseph came home, they weren’t fresh. They had been angling for their freedom for a very long time.

On the drive home, I sent a text to Sean’s phone.

It said,
Sooner or later the reporters will get bored and wander away. Let’s talk then, when I don’t have to be your little secret.

I didn’t say,
Assuming you haven’t wandered away by then as well
. I figured I didn’t need to. When you’re fifteen, the impermanence of ideas and relationships more or less goes without saying.

Part Three

Be Quiet and I’ll Tell You

Remembering Summer 2004

Chapter Fourteen: Aubrey

You would think it would’ve all blown over a year later. Ruth swore it would.

You would be wrong. Ruth was wrong.

Yes, things sagged in between. An investigation into who said what to whom wasn’t going to stay on the front page of anything for very long. Especially when the army didn’t need to share all the details.

But by the following June, the court-martial had begun. And we were back into the fray.

To be much more specific, we were back at Aunt Sheila’s. But I wasn’t sure why. Because the reporters were totally onto us. The jackals were there, too.

Three weeks into the summer, my mom called me to freak out. I thought it was interesting that she never called until all hell broke loose. Never rang us up just to say hello. To see how we were doing. She waited until she was ready to flatten me and then hit with both barrels.

I was lying on my back on the cot in the basement. Half watching the fish swim. Half not watching anything. Definitely not thinking anything.

My cell phone rang. I thought it was Luanne. I was waiting for her to call me with a cancellation. I mean, when she had one. I had no idea when that would be, of course. But still. Who else ever called me?

I was so sure it was her, I didn’t look. I just answered. It was like leading with your glass jaw. Not even putting your fists up to guard your weakest places.

Enter Mom. Swinging.

“What the hell are you doing to us, Aubrey?”

“Mom?”

“Yes, it’s your mom. What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I . . . what? I didn’t do anything. I’m just lying here.”

“Who said you could keep seeing that therapist over the summer?”

Quite frankly, it had never occurred to me that anyone needed to. I thought stuff like that was exactly what everybody
wanted
me to do.

It’s just impossible to keep track of what people want. What will make them happy with me. I still think so. Even now.

“I . . . I needed to talk to her. Why would you not want me to talk to her?”

“Because it costs money.
Money.
Get that? You have any idea what she costs?”

“But . . . it was your idea that I see her.”

“Your principal’s idea, so we went along. A year. You know? It costs a fortune. We never said we’d keep paying for it over this second summer. We had no idea until we got her bill.”

“I don’t . . .”

I couldn’t finish the sentence. There was a big piece of the puzzle missing on my end. It was such a mystery to me. I didn’t even know how to ask a question about it. I didn’t even know how to get a step closer to what I needed to know.

“You don’t what, Aubrey?”

“Understand. Doesn’t insurance cover it?”

“No, insurance does not cover it. It’s mental, not medical.”

“But we had that really good coverage.”

“Yes,
had
. The key word there being
had
. It cost a fortune. We had to go with a bare-bones one. No dental or visual, either. And a huge deductible.”

“So I can’t ever talk to her again?”

“Not unless you’re independently wealthy and holding out on us.”

I sat up. Looked at my fish for a moment, which had come back to Aunt Sheila’s with me. Only one was an original from the previous year. They were in a bowl on one of the shelves. Surrounded by bottles. But it was too late by then. I’d been looking at them for more than a year. The bulk of the magic had been lost. You can only go to the same well just so many times, I’ve found. Though that’s a more recent observation.

“I have to at least call her and tell her why.”

“I already called her. I told her the therapy is over. Terminated.”

“You
what
?” I was on my feet, pacing. But I swear I missed the moment when I stood up. I must have done it in an emotional blackout. “You humiliated me in front of her?”

“I don’t have time for your ego, Aubrey. I have your father’s to deal with, and he’s the king of that terrain. And lay off the cell phone. I got the bill today and I nearly died. Three fifty-minute calls to her, roaming. You never thought what that would cost us? I haven’t shown it to your father yet. I don’t even know how to break it to him. It might just be his last straw.”

“Wait,” I said. “Wait, wait, wait. Wait. Wait.” I seriously could not stop saying “wait.” But at least she waited. “Could you please stop yelling at me? Because I honestly don’t know why you’re yelling at me. There was never a rule about how much I can use my phone. You didn’t tell me I had to stop seeing Luanne.”

“I’m telling you now.”

“No, you’re yelling at me for breaking a new rule you forgot to tell me about in the first place!”

Now
I
was yelling. But it had its advantages. She shut up.

I heard hurried footsteps upstairs. Someone had heard my shouting. And they were headed this way. Maybe even both someones.

I opened my mouth to say I wanted to come home. And started to cry. It twisted my mouth, which twisted my words. I had just been so unprepared for this assault. I hadn’t had my guard up.

“I don’t want to be here anymore,” I said through tears. Humiliated, but what could I do? “It’s boring here. I don’t have anything to do. I don’t know anybody. It was boring enough last year. I can’t do it again. And the reporters are here, anyway. So what’s the point? I don’t even know why you sent us here again. I want to come home.”

“You can’t come home,” she said. To her credit, she didn’t yell it. “There’s no home to come home to.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

“There’s no house.”

“How can there not be a house? Where’s our house?”

“It’s right where it always was. But it’s not ours.”

“You sold it?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because we were about to lose it to the bank. We’re lucky we found a buyer so fast. It was days to the beginning of foreclosure proceedings. We lost our shirts on it, but it was better than foreclosure. Anything is.”

I looked up to see Aunt Sheila and Ruth at the bottom of the basement stairs. Staring at me. Reading my face.

“So what are we going to do?” I asked. More calmly. Because I was being watched. “Buy another?”

“You really don’t get it, do you, Aubrey? If we could afford to buy a house, we would have kept the one we had.”

“A smaller one.”

A long silence on the line. Maybe a sigh from her. Or she might have been crying, too.

“Look. Honey. I’m sorry to break it to you this way. There’s no money. Okay? There’s no money. So please don’t spend any money. Yes, I should have told you sooner. And that’s my fault. But it’s a hard thing to tell your kids. We’re going to try to rent a place. An apartment, maybe. In a whole new place, where nobody knows us. But we need the summer to work it out. And please. Honey. I’m begging you. Don’t send any more unexpected bills home. Okay?”

I looked up at Ruth and Aunt Sheila again. I think my mouth was hanging open.

“Right,” I said. “Got it.”

“I’m sorry I yelled. I know I upset you. But it’s a very upsetting time here, too. I have no idea how we’re going to pay for these two bills on top of everything else.”

“I have my birthday money put away.”

Or most of it,
I thought. I didn’t dare say so. I was never to have touched that money in any way. And if everything hadn’t tanked with our trip to Texas the previous summer, it would’ve been gone.

“Save it for a dire emergency. We’re not so far from one. Sorry again. It’s not that I don’t love you two. I hope you know that. I just . . . I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“Whatever,” I said. “I’ll see you.”

But not anytime soon. And not anyplace familiar.

I clicked off the phone.

“Did you know Mom and Dad sold the house?”

I don’t know which one of them I thought I was asking. Either. Both.

“Without talking to us?” Ruth screeched.

“It was just about to be foreclosed.”

“Oh, crap,” Aunt Sheila said. “I had a feeling something like this could happen if Brad’s clients didn’t get over themselves and come back.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

It was so much the question in my head that I actually thought it had been me asking it. But it was Ruth’s voice. I was just standing there with my mouth open.

“There was always a chance I could be wrong,” she said. “I guess I was really hoping I was wrong.”

I lay in the basement for hours before anybody came down to commiserate with me. When somebody finally did, I was glad it was Ruth. I didn’t know how to talk to Aunt Sheila about this. Because she’d been getting by on not much money for years. How was I supposed to tell her I found the prospect horrifying?

It really wasn’t that I insisted on fancy things. Or even that I wanted them. It was just scary. My mom had said, “There’s no money.”

What if we didn’t have enough money to live
anywhere
?

Ruth came down and sat on the edge of my cot with me. I was glad, but I didn’t let on. I didn’t sit up.

“Kind of weird to think about,” she said. “Isn’t it? I never lived anyplace besides that house in my whole life.”

“It’s all Joseph’s fault,” I said.

“Maybe. But I don’t see what good it does to point that out. I just keep thinking that at the end of the summer we’ll go home, but we don’t even know where home is.”

“Mom said they’re going to try to rent an apartment.”

“I hope it has three bedrooms. If they say we have to share, that would suck.”

“I’m not sharing,” I said. “I’ll sleep in the basement if I have to.”

“I don’t think apartments have basements. I mean, if they do, it’s the basement for everybody who lives in that building, not just us.”

“Oh,” I said.

“And then we need another room for Isabella.”

I laughed at her. Because she was so slow to catch up. I guess in hindsight, it was mean. But I was desperate for some measure of control. All I had was a little bit more information than Ruth had. And nothing else.

“She’s not coming with us, Ruth. We won’t be able to afford her. And we’re going to be in a whole new city.”

I watched her eyes go wide. And pretended it was a reaction of the weak. And that my eyes hadn’t gone just as wide when I first heard. I had carefully wallpapered over the fact that I cried.

“How do you know?”

“Mom told me. She said we’re going someplace where people don’t know us. But as soon as we tell them our name, they will. So I don’t see what good that’ll do.”

“What city?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t know. She said they needed the rest of the summer to work it out.”

“Wonder where they’re staying.”

“No idea.”

“It’s weird to think about no Isabella. Mom can’t even cook.”

“You can say that again. But not everybody has a maid, you know.”

“I know. It’s not that. It’s not that I need a maid. It’s that I need Isabella. She’s . . . like, the only one in the whole house who . . .”

But then she just faded.

“What?” I asked, when I got tired of waiting.

“Seems like she likes me.”

I sat up. Looked at my sister, who wouldn’t meet my eyes. Sure, I was in a surly mood. But I wasn’t looking to land that kind of damage.