The Book That Matters Most (13 page)

“I didn't live here then,” she said.

He nodded. “Okay. Well, there was this girl named Chloe Doon. A nice kid. Worked as a lifeguard and swimming instructor at the Y. She always went early, to set up for her Tadpoles class. The little ones.”

“And?” Ava said.

“It was just a summer job. She was only sixteen. She left early, to set up for her Tadpoles, like she always did, and she got there, to the Y. Her car was in the lot. Her clothes were in her locker. The noodles or whatever you call them were lined up at the edge of the pool, ready for the kids. But no Chloe. She was gone. Just like that.”

“Look, Detective Bingham—”

“Hank,” he said. “You're an adult now. You can call me Hank.”

Ava sighed. She didn't want him in her kitchen, in her life. She didn't want to go back where he was determined to take her. For years she'd been able to put it behind her. Why did he have to show up now?

Detective Bingham leaned closer to Ava.

“I have to find out what happened to your sister that morning,” he said softly.

T
he first person she wanted to talk to after Detective Bingham left was Jim. Who didn't know anything except that her sister had died long ago. Who didn't know that Ava herself had been questioned that morning, right at the kitchen table. So had their mother and Aunt Beatrice. Jim only knew that the year had been marked by tragedy, the double deaths, first Lily, then their mom jumping off the Jamestown Bridge the next summer. So close together that Ava's father never really recovered.

Ava called Jim's office. As the phone rang she could picture him there, in the yellow Victorian on Parade Street where Pathways to Success was located on the ground floor. Above them was a yoga studio; above that, an acupuncturist. At this time of day, he was probably at his desk with takeout pho from the nearby Vietnamese place, helping a kid with his college essay, or arranging a school visit to reach out to more students who, without Jim, would never go to college.

After half a dozen rings, Jim picked up with a hurried, “Pathways to Success.”

“Jim,” Ava said. Was he wearing his usual black turtleneck over worn jeans? Had he remembered to shave today, something he often forgot to do? “It's me. Ava,” she added, as if he might have forgotten the sound of her voice.

“I know who it is,” he said warmly. “It's not a good time, I'm afraid. I've got an entire Hmong family in the next room up in arms about me helping their kid get in to Mount Holyoke. I've got a guidance counselor in the other room with a stack of profiles of high school freshmen and I can only fit three of them into the program next year. And college decisions have started coming in so I've got sixty anxious seniors emailing me every three minutes. Sorry.”

She had always felt like an intrusion into Jim's more important world, guilty about bothering him with the small details of the household: a tooth falling out, a missing electric bill, needing to know when to expect him home for dinner, and then him always late because something important came up. Even then, guidance counselors and high school seniors and anxious parents had taken precedence over Ava's domestic and personal worries. So did shoes that needed to get shipped to Honduras, dinner with the woman who was helping tsunami victims, a meeting to improve education or health care or small business loans. How many times had she and the kids sat waiting for him, dinner on the table, only to discover he'd been with a family trying to convince them their child could get into college? How many weekends had he opted to go to college fairs or take a stranger on a college tour instead of spending time with her, with the family? It felt wrong to be angry at someone for helping people, even if she was sad or lonely or overwhelmed sometimes.

But she'd grown used to it, which was why she heard herself saying, “I completely understand. But something's come up and I hoped we could discuss it. Maybe after work?”

How easily she fell back into accommodating him, she realized even as she spoke.

“I've got a meeting over at Hope High School at five, and then a social with the juniors at seven. Damn. Maybe tomorrow morning?” She heard papers shuffling and then Jim said, “No, I have to be in Central Falls all day. How about the day after tomorrow?”

She heard him slurp. Pho, she thought.

“Look,” she said, “it's not important. Go help your families.”

“The kids are okay?” he asked.

“As far as I know. Will keeps posting pictures of his gorillas
and Maggie is having too much fun to call very often. But she must have gone to Barcelona last weekend because her Instagram is full of Gaudí lizards.”

“Good, good,” he said, distracted suddenly. “I'm sorry, a student just showed up. Great kid. I don't want to make him wait.”

“No problem,” Ava said, wondering if he had to squeeze in Delia Lindstrom, or if she somehow had managed what Ava had not—to become more important than Jim's desire to save the world.

T
he first thing Ava noticed about
Anna Karenina
was that it had a thousand pages. One thousand and eight, to be exact.

She opened the book.

She read the first line:
All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way
.

“Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” she read out loud.

Such a simple idea, but Ava wondered if she'd ever read anything more true.

“
I
brought you glazed doughnuts,” Ava told her father, offering the bag to him.

He took it eagerly. “A real treat,” he said.

“And a coffee, two sugars, extra cream,” she said, opening the tricky spout on the lid for him.

Ava's father looked at her, suspicious. His wiry white eyebrows crinkled above his milky brown eyes.

“What's wrong?” he asked, dribbling coffee as he sipped.

“Can't I buy you coffee and doughnuts without something being wrong?”

He didn't answer. He didn't have to.

“I had a visitor yesterday,” Ava said.

Her father's studio apartment at Aged Oaks looked down on the parking lot. Sunlight reflected off the handful of cars there. Ava didn't like sunny days, even in the midst of a harsh winter. She turned from the window toward her father's waiting face.

“Was it your mother?” he asked her hopefully.

“No, Dad,” Ava said, trying to stay patient. “Mom died. Remember?”

He shook his head, sending the sugary crumbs from his chin onto his plaid shirt. Ava reached over and wiped them off.

“She was here,” he said, brushing Ava's hands away. “At Christmas.”

“My visitor was Detective Hank Bingham. Name ring a bell?”

“He's the guy who couldn't figure out what happened to Lily,” her father said.

“Right. And now he's decided he can't live with himself if he doesn't solve the case.”

Her father looked surprised. “It was an accident, wasn't it? He said so himself.”

The image of Detective Bingham that rose in Ava's mind wasn't of the older balding man sitting at her kitchen table. Instead, she saw that youthful face, set hard. She saw the dark hair peeking out from beneath his cap, his broad shoulders and trim uniform and shiny black shoes. The light on the police car spun, red and white in the bright sun. Detective Bingham had stared down his full length, all six feet four inches of him, and said, “Ava? You're coming with me.” As he led her into the kitchen, she could still
hear her mother howling, like a wounded animal. When she glanced over her shoulder, Ava saw the ambulance doors gaping open, and her mother being pulled off Lily's body.

“I don't want to talk about it,” her father said. “And I'll tell Hank Bingham that too if he has the balls to show up here.”

Ava nodded, but she wasn't sure that she agreed. What if Hank Bingham could figure out what had happened that day? Maybe it would free her. Of course, she understood it could also ruin her.

“
M
aggie!” Ava said into the telephone. “I'm so glad you called—”

“I know, I know,” Maggie said. “I've been sick. I didn't want to worry you.”

“Sick?” Ava said, trying to tamp down the worry that threatened to take over.

“Some flu,” Maggie said. “Everybody got it.”

“Did you get antibiotics?” Ava asked.

“Mom,” Maggie said, “I'm fine. You know how the flu can knock you down for a while.”

That was true, Ava reminded herself. She sighed.

“Tell me about you,” Maggie said.

“I joined Cate's book group,” she said. “Did I mention that? We're reading
Anna Karenina
.”

“Count Vronsky!”

”Have you talked to your father?” Ava asked.

“Please,” Maggie said. “I don't even want to talk
about
him. Never mind
to
him.”

Ever since Jim moved out, Maggie had refused to speak to him. Sometimes Ava had to admit this delighted her. He should pay for
the mess he'd made. But mostly she knew it was important that Maggie forgive him, or try to anyway.

“Maggie,” Ava began, but Maggie cut her off.

“He sends me emails all the time. I suppose I could answer one. But I'm not going to talk to him.”

“That's a start,” Ava said.

Someone knocked on the back door and she began to make her way through the living room and dining room toward the kitchen.

“You're sure you're all better now?” she asked Maggie.

“Positive! Did you see the Gaudí pictures?”

“Yes,” Ava said. “But next time have someone take a picture of you. Okay? I miss your face.”

By the time Ava reached the door, Maggie had hung up, promising to do that.

“Oh dear,” Ava said when she saw Luke standing there, porkpie hat low over his forehead.

“I was in the neighborhood,” he said.

Luke was already inside, not waiting for an invitation. He had a bag of food in his hand, and the smell of curry filled the kitchen.

Ava held up
Anna Karenina
.

“I'm only in part two,” she explained.

Luke took containers from the bag and set them on the kitchen table.

“Saag paneer, dal, raita, chicken biryani.” He glanced up, worried. “Sorry,” he said. “Are you a vegetarian?”

“No,” Ava said, amused. Roxy was probably a vegetarian. Half the people Maggie's age were vegetarians. Not so much middle-aged women.

“A six-pack of PBR,” he said.

Before Ava could ask what PBR was, six cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon
beer landed on the table.
Why not?
she thought, and went to get the plates and silverware.

“
Y
ou know this is ridiculous,” Ava told him later in bed. “Wonderful, but ridiculous.”

“How so?” he asked.

“I'm old enough to be your mother.”

“If you had me when you were super young, I guess,” he said. “And anyway, it's nice.”

“Yes, it is,” she said. “Very nice.”

Suddenly Luke sat up.

“It's late! I've got to go,” he said, pulling his t-shirt on, and over it a green sweater covered with pills.

“My friend's band is playing at Lupo's. They go on at midnight,” Luke explained as he yanked his jeans on. “Want to come?”

Ava glanced at the clock. 11:40. “Not tonight,” she said.

Luke leaned in and kissed her lightly on the lips. He tasted of Indian food, stale beer.

“See you,” he said. He paused at the door. “Sure?”

“I'm sure,” she said.

Ava sat a few minutes in the dark. Thinking about Luke and what she was doing, she closed her eyes, but knew right away that sleep was impossible. Turning on the light beside her bed, she picked up
Anna Karenina
. And before she knew it, wrapped up in Anna's affair, she'd forgotten about him.

C
ate, dressed in some vaguely Russian period dress, complete with an enormous fake white fur coat, sat across from Ava at a window table in New Rivers, looking worried. Between them lay
the shells of grilled Plum Point oysters and Rhode Island littlenecks. Ava had suggested they meet here for dinner before the book group, and as they ate and talked about their kids and what to do now that their Pilates instructor had left, she tried to build up her courage to confess about Luke.

When Cate glanced at her watch, Ava knew it was now or never.

“I've done something kind of interesting,” Ava said.

“That's what I was afraid of when you said you had something to tell me,” Cate admitted, looking even more worried.

Ava cleared her throat.

“You know Luke? From the book group?”

“Of course I know Luke,” Cate said.

“We . . . uh . . .” Ava struggled to find the right word or phrase.

“For heaven's sake,” Cate said. “You what?”

“Had sex.”

“You
what?
”

Ava's cheeks burned with embarrassment. “I know. It's crazy.”

Cate started to laugh.

“Did he take off his hat?” she managed.

Ava covered her face with her hands. “Thankfully, yes.”

“Don't be so embarrassed,” Cate said. “I think it's good. A step forward.”

Ava dropped her hands and smiled at her friend. “That's kind of you, but he's way too young for me, and he dredged up too many feelings I'm way too old to have.”

“Such as?”

“Does he like me? Will he call again? Stuff I thought I'd never have to deal with at this point of life.”

“You are too old to worry about that nonsense,” Cate agreed. “There's something I have to tell you. I saw Jim.”

Despite herself, Ava asked, “You saw Jim? Where?”

Cate winced. “At one of those neighborhood parties. I figured you didn't go so that you could avoid him?”