Love Anthony (16 page)

Everything else is the same David. His olive skin, his dark-rimmed glasses, his pronounced Adam’s apple, his brown eyes, like hers but blacker. Like Anthony’s. Then she notices his hands, his bare hands. No ring.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call first, but I felt like I really needed to see you, and I thought you might tell me not to come.”

“Let’s go sit in the living room.”

He follows her, and they sit down next to each other on the couch, a polite distance apart. David looks up at the wall above the fireplace, at the photograph of Anthony. Love and joy and grief wash over David’s face, all at once and in equal parts, as if each emotion is fighting to possess him. He blows out a long, audible breath, trying to shake it off. He drinks some of his wine.

“I’m moving.”

“Where?” asks Olivia, immediately fearing that he’s going to say
here
.

“Chicago.”

She’s still catching up to the surprise of this unannounced visit, to David’s being here, sitting with her on the couch in the living room. And now this. Born and raised on Boston’s South Shore, educated at Boston College, and running a real estate business with his parents and brother ever since, David has ties to the Boston area that are knotted good and tight. If she was surprised at the front door, she’s shocked now.

“Why Chicago?”

“Not sure. Sully’s there, and he’s always saying I could come work for him. Mostly because it’s not Hingham. I need to get out of there. Everything reminds me of losing Anthony.”

He looks up at the picture over the fireplace, as if he’s including Anthony in the conversation, and then back to Olivia.

“And you, Liv. Everything reminds me of losing Anthony and you.”

The room becomes still. Olivia doesn’t drink her wine or eat her fudge. She stares into David’s eyes and waits, remaining still, hoping not to scare away what he’s finally ready to say.

“I gotta go somewhere new, where I don’t see you and Anthony in every room. If I even walk by his bedroom, I’m done for the day. It’s awful. And it’s not just the house, it’s everyone. My parents and Doug, they all talk to me in that sad, careful voice and look at me with worried eyes, and it’s what I would probably do if I were them, but I can’t take it anymore. I can’t be that sad guy all the time, you know?”

She nods. She knows.

“I can’t be that guy every single day. I want to be David Donatelli.” His voice evaporates when he says his own name. He wipes his eyes. “I can barely remember who I used to be. I thought it would get easier, but it’s not. It’s not even close to getting easier.”

“I know, David. I know.”

“I even had to change laundry detergent because I smelled like you guys. Isn’t that crazy?”

She shakes her head. It’s not crazy at all. She did the same thing.

“So, Chicago,” he says, as if it were the obvious answer,
four
in solution to
two plus two
.

“Moving helped me. It’ll help you.”

Nantucket has saved her from seeing anyone she used to know, from bumping up against everyone’s good-intentioned but devastating well wishes and pitying stares, from smelling Anthony’s pillow and holding his shoes in her hands, from living inside the pretty-colored walls of what was supposed to be their happy home. She’s amazed that she and David have experienced so many of the same feelings. She’s even more amazed that he’s sitting here now, able to articulate these feelings so well, communicating.

If only.

“Plus, I’m a single guy in a four-bedroom house in the suburbs. It’s time to move on to something that makes more sense, right?”

“Are you selling the house?”

It’s a bad market to sell right now, and she’s guessing that David will hold on to it, rent it, and wait for the market to improve.

“I already listed it with Doug. I can leave your things with him for now if you want.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“What about you? Do you think you’ll move?”

“Where would I go?”

“I thought maybe back to Georgia, near your mom and sister.”

She used to think that she’d eventually return home, back into her mother’s arms and her childhood bedroom, especially during those first cold weeks in March. But now, she knows she won’t. She’ll return to Georgia to visit, but she’ll never move back there. She’d end up running into the same thing David is now running from—the well-intentioned pity, the relentless reminders of grief and loss.

“No, I like it here,” she says.

“How are you doing? Moneywise. I know we said six months, but if you need more—”

“I’m okay. I’ve been taking pictures again. I do beach portraits. I make enough for now.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, it’s plenty.”

He looks up at Anthony again. “I bet you’re good at it.”

She smiles. “No one’s demanded a refund yet.”

He looks around the room, again with his Realtor eyes, but maybe also to avoid looking at Olivia next to him and Anthony on the wall. “I thought you would’ve done more with the place.”

“Hey.”

“No, it’s nice. I mean, it doesn’t look like you yet.”

In Hingham, she painted every room as soon as they moved in. Golden yellow, bird’s-egg blue, sea-foam green. Warm and cozy walls embracing every room. Here, all the walls remain unpainted, white. And the furnishings, artwork, and knick-knacks are sparse and neutral, the same items they hastily filled the place with right after they bought it, in time for the first tenants.

“I like this,” he says, referring to the glass bowl on the coffee table, filled to heaping capacity with white, round rocks. She finds them everywhere.

“Thanks.”

“I like it here. I always thought we’d end up here. Together. Someday.”

“Me, too.”

“We had all kinds of great dreams, before . . .”

Before
. The word hangs in the air alone, refusing further company.

He leans over the table and picks up one of the rocks from the top of the pile. He holds it in his fist and closes his eyes, as if he’s making a wish. He then opens his eyes and his hand and returns the rock to the bowl.

“It’s getting late,” he says, checking his watch. “I’ve got to go if I’m going to catch the last ferry.”

“You can stay, if you want.”

He tips his head and studies her, not quite understanding the invitation.

“The guest-room bed is already made. It’s no problem.”

He looks relieved. And disappointed. “You sure?”

“Yeah, we can go to The Bean in the morning before you go, like old times.”

He smiles. “I’d like that. And more wine if you have it.”

IT’S LATE. OLIVIA’S
been in bed for a couple of hours now, and she’s still awake. She hears the guest-bedroom door open and David walking in the living room. Then she hears the creak of the back door opening. She hears the screen door thwap shut. She waits and listens. She waits and hears nothing. She gets up, walks through the living room, opens the back screen door, and steps outside. David is lying on his back on a blanket on the grass, staring up at the sky.

“David?”

“Hey.”

“What are you doing?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

She walks over to him and lies down on the blanket next to him. It’s a small blanket, and she finds it difficult to lie next to him without touching him. She pins her elbows to her sides.

“The stars here are awesome,” he says.

“Yeah. I love the sky here.”

“I’ve never seen them like this. And that moon. It’s incredible.”

The moon is just shy of fully round, bright yellow-white and glowing, the man-in-the-moon face on its surface clearly visible, the sky immediately around it lit daytime blue. The rest of the sky is ink black, dotted all over with brilliant white stars. She finds the Big Dipper first, then the Little Dipper, and Venus. That’s all she knows. She should really learn more about the constellations.

They continue to stare at the sky. Her eyes adjust, and more stars appear. And then, unbelievably, more. Stars behind stars, dusty hazes of light, layered galaxies of energy existing, burning, shining, unfathomable distances away from them. She pictures David and herself in her mind’s eye as if viewed from above—two tiny, breathing bodies lying on a blanket on the grass on a tiny island thirty miles out to sea. Two tiny bodies who once dreamed
of a life together, who had a beautiful boy together, now lying side by side on a blanket on the grass, observing infinity.

“See that?” He points, drawing the letter
W
with his finger on the sky. “That’s Cassiopeia.”

“Amazing.”

A clear night sky on Nantucket truly does amaze. If it’s even noticeable enough to draw attention upward, the sky at night doesn’t amaze in Hingham. It won’t amaze in Chicago either. She thinks about David living there, surrounded by skyscrapers and city lights, walking along the edge of Lake Michigan and looking up at the sky on a clear night and seeing only darkness when Olivia can see all of this.

It’s a cool night with no mosquitoes thanks to a steady wind. Olivia shivers, needing more than her sleeveless, cotton nightgown. David moves closer to her so that their shoulders, hips, and legs touch. He laces his ringless fingers through hers; her hand accepts his. The touch of his body, the heat from his hand, familiar and comforting, warms her.

“I miss you,” he says, still staring up at the sky.

“I miss you, too.”

“I signed the papers.”

As she has witnessed before, it takes David longer to arrive at acceptance, but he eventually gets there. And here he is.

She squeezes his hand.

“I needed to see you, to be sure you’re okay before I go,” he says.

“I am.”

“You are.”

“You will be, too.”

They hold hands and watch the night sky. The moon, the stars, the heavens, the universe. It’s a sky that could almost make her believe in God again, that the incomprehensible is actually divine order, that everything is as it should be.

If only.

CHAPTER 14

S
tartled awake, Beth sits straight up in bed, holding her breath, eyes wide, listening.
What was that?
She looks at her alarm clock: 3:23 a.m. There it is again. Her nerves jump. She sits straighter, eyes wider.

Someone is walking around downstairs, someone heavy-footed, someone big, not one of the girls. She hasn’t locked anything, not the house or the car, since she moved here. No one she knows does. Only summer people lock their houses and cars on Nantucket. Anyone could walk right in. There it is again. Someone is here. A thief? A rapist?

Jimmy?

She leaves her bedroom, her heart pounding, wishing she weren’t the only adult in the house, that she could send someone else to investigate the sound. She stops at the top of the stairs and listens. She doesn’t hear anything. Maybe she imagined it. She’s been having such vivid dreams lately. Maybe she dreamed the sound. As she turns to go back to bed, she hears the floorboards creak. Not imagined. Not a dream.

Before braving the stairs, she notices Jessica’s tennis bag in the hallway. She unzips the bag, pulls out her daughter’s
tennis racket, and holds it in front of her as if it were a sword. She’s not sure what good a tennis racket will do her if she finds an actual thief or a rapist in the house (she’s never had a strong serve), but it feels at least mildly reassuring to hold on to something.

Aiming her racket-sword in front of her, she tiptoes down the stairs, through the dark living room, and into the kitchen. At the count of three, she flips on the light, and there he is, smiling, looking caught. And really drunk.

“Jimmy, what the hell are you doing?”

He blinks and squints and cups his hand over his eyes like a visor, trying to adjust his vision to the bright kitchen lights after fumbling around in total darkness. His face is sweaty, his Red Sox hat is on backward and crooked, and he reeks of cigars and booze.

“I came to give you this.” He holds out a white, greeting-card-size envelope.

“Oh, no. You can go tell your girlfriend that my birthday is in October, and I don’t want any more cards from her, ever.”

“It’s from me, and she’s not my girlfriend.”

Beth’s heart stops. If he says,
She’s my fiancée,
she’ll beat him to death with this tennis racket. She swears to God she will.

“We broke up. I moved out.”

Blood returns to her head. She loosens her grip. “Well, I’m sorry it didn’t work out for the two of you, but you can’t just come back here.”

“I’m not. I just wanted to give you this.” He thrusts the card toward her.

Apprehensive of touching whatever is in that envelope, she cautiously holds out her racket-sword, and Jimmy drops the card onto the head. Extending the racket well out in front of her as if she were carrying a dead mouse or something gross and potentially poisonous, she walks the card across the kitchen and flips it onto the table.

“There, I have it. You can leave now.” She points her racket-sword at the door.

“Can we talk first?”

“No, you’re in no condition to talk about anything.”

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t smell fine.”