The Good Goodbye (22 page)

“Arden has a right to her privacy. She’s going to experiment.”
Just like Rory,
I want to say. I look pointedly at Vince. Rory had been upset when I caught the dishwasher handing her the plastic Baggie. She’d been afraid I would tell Gabrielle. But I hadn’t. And from the look on Vince’s face, I guess he hadn’t said anything, either.

“If I thought that drugs had anything to do with it, I would have told Detective Gallagher when he asked,” Gabrielle says. “But what he didn’t ask and what I didn’t tell him was that something was going on with Arden. She was different. She was…harder.”

Harder?
I don’t even know what that means. “Please don’t try and sound like you know my daughter, because you really don’t.”

“I knew how she felt about Hunter. I knew he was encouraging her, leading her on. I thought it was very unhealthy. I worried.”

“If that’s true, why didn’t you say anything?”

“I wasn’t sure how you’d react. I know how you are about Arden.”

“And how is that?”

She shrugs. “I tried to keep an eye on the two of them, but I couldn’t be there all the time. They should never have roomed together. It was a mistake and I knew it, but Rory said she couldn’t let Arden down. She’s loyal to Arden, despite everything.”

We had all loved how close our daughters were. Vince and I used to talk about it all the time.
Like sisters. Just like sisters.
He said it as often as I did. It made us both happy. Arden had told me it was Gabrielle who wanted the girls to room together, but does it matter anymore? I look to Vince. “You can’t really believe Arden would try to hurt Rory.”

He throws up his hands. “It’s all a fucking mess, Nat. What Gabrielle’s saying makes a little sense. You remember what it’s like to be eighteen. Everything feels like the end of the world.”

I don’t want to be in here. I want to be in Arden’s room. I need to be with her. “Arden knows Rory’s terrified of fire.”

Gabrielle folds her arms. “Exactly.”

—

“She meant it, Theo. They both did.” I’m pacing in Arden’s room, three steps one way and three steps the other. I glance to my daughter and lower my voice. “Aren’t things terrible enough?”

Theo stands staring at the monitor on the wall as though he can make it tell him something new. “Well, I think Arden was a little jealous of Rory.”

“Stop it. You’re her father.” He’s got his back to me, a dark shape. I’m sick of swimming in shadows. I want to
see.
I want everything laid out in brightness, clearly defined.

“Honey. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.”

“Your own brother…”

“Vince loves Arden. You know he does.”

Vince taught Arden to snorkel, fitting the mask over her little face, counting
one-two-three
before disappearing beneath the waves. I’d come down early Christmas morning to find the two of them in the kitchen, aprons tied around their waists, flour everywhere, the sweet scent of cinnamon rising in the air. “I wish you’d stop defending him. You do it all the time.”

“I’m not defending him. I’m just trying to calm you down. This isn’t the time to relaunch a vendetta against Vince.”

“You think I’m the problem? Really?” We shouldn’t be talking like this in front of Arden, but she’s asleep. I correct myself. She’s not asleep. She’s in a coma. She’s far, far away from me. It only makes me want to grab her and haul her up to the surface, wrap her tight in my arms and never let go.

“No, of course not.” He sighs. “The last time you talked to Arden…did she mention Hunter?” His voice is casual, but I hear the words underneath.
Is Gabrielle right?

“What are you saying, Theo? That I
should
have kept a closer eye on Arden?”

He glances at me, his features hidden. “Of course not. I just wanted to know if she said something about him.”

“Arden never talks about boys. You know that.”

He nods, looks away.

I hate this, the way he edges into criticism. He doesn’t come right out and tell me. He makes me work for it. I can’t help myself. I say it. I spell it out. “You think I wouldn’t have picked up on it?”

“You’re busy. You get focused on work, the restaurant.”

“You wish I’d been more like Gabrielle, always checking up on our daughter? That’s what you’re saying? That if I’d pushed and pried, I might have saved Arden?” I’m shaking with anger, with dread, too. Because isn’t this my secret worry? That Arden had tried to tell me and I hadn’t been paying attention. That I’d let everything else take priority over her. “
Now
you want me to know more about our daughter’s life?
You
were the one who thought she was depressed and you never said a word.”

“Did you really want to know, Natalie? Did you? You might have had to think about something other than the restaurant for a change.”

Everything laid bare, stripped to the bone. I find my voice. “That’s not fair. That is so not fair.”

He’s silent a moment, angry, too, then he sighs. “I’m sorry. All this…Arden. It’s killing me. I just want to know what happened.”

I inhale, struggle to get some control. “We should have come up for Parents’ Weekend. We could have met Hunter, warned Arden away. That boy had to have been in trouble.”

“Maybe, or maybe something else happened.”

“What does
that
mean?”

“I’m saying we don’t know. I’m saying she’s our daughter and we love her, but we don’t know.”

“How can you say that?
I
know.
I
know.”

“We don’t know what was going on in any of these kids’ lives.” He sounds tired, defeated. “We don’t, do we? Not ever. Not really.”

I want to protest. I want to tell him he’s wrong, absolutely wrong, but how can I? Sending a child to college is drawing that line in the sand. Your child walks over it and she’s not your little girl anymore. She’s just not.

Arden

I’M AT REHOBOTH BEACH.
I’ve got my easel propped before me in the sand. The wind whips the hair across my face and scatters sand across the wet paint. The waves smash the shore and collect themselves. They wrap around my legs, sucking and then releasing. Seagulls sweep circles above my head, squawking and beeping. Around and through these noises comes a voice. I’m not at the beach. I’m in the hospital. It’s Aunt Gabrielle talking. My mom and dad were here earlier, but now they’re gone.

“I don’t know how much longer I can pretend,” she says.

Aunt Gabrielle sounds so sad. I need to make her understand.

—

She comes by during my last shift at Double, which is a shock. My aunt almost never stops by the restaurant, especially not lately. At first I think she’s there looking for Uncle Vince, to give him more bad news, but instead she walks straight over to where I’m rinsing vegetables in the sink. She stands there watching me, which makes me nervous. Does she think I’m not getting the lettuces clean enough? Has there been a complaint? When Liz goes into the dining room, Aunt Gabrielle reaches over to switch off the faucet and I realize that that’s what she’s been waiting for.
You have to keep an eye on Rory,
she tells me very seriously, her eyes the shapes of almonds.
Thank God you will be with her. It is the only good thing to come out of all of this.
I’m embarrassed by her intensity.
Promise,
she says. I know what she’s really asking.
Promise me,
cherie.

Promise.

—

I’m coming out of the bookstore when I hear a familiar voice. “Darling! Do you need some help with that?” It’s Aunt Gabrielle, coming down the sidewalk toward me, the sides of her coat blowing open in the wind. She’s so pretty. Rory doesn’t see it, or won’t.
Thank God I took after my dad,
Rory will say, but who wouldn’t want red hair?
It comes in a box, little cousin,
Rory has told me.
You could have it, too.

“It’s okay.” I hoist my English book more firmly under my arm. It’s a rental. I’ve been waiting for a copy to show up for weeks. I’ve got the rest of my books in a heavy plastic bag, hanging from my crooked finger turning cold and stiff. Aunt Gabrielle’s got another important client. She’ll shake open
The Washington Post
and point out a beautiful woman wearing something lovely.
To think, the trouble I had convincing her to cut her hair.

“Not a problem.” She takes the heavy bag. “Let me buy you lunch somewhere. You are looking too thin.” There is no such thing as too thin in Aunt Gabrielle’s mind, and I wonder what she’s really after. But I can probably guess.

“So tell me about this boy,” she says when we are seated at the little sandwich shop with its rickety tables and smeared picture windows that would give my mom a heart attack. Aunt Gabrielle has ordered a cranberry Brie sandwich I know she will just nibble.

“Hunter?” I say, before I can stop myself.

She tilts her head and studies me. My cheeks flame. I should have waited for her to say his name first. Rory’s so good at keeping stuff from her mom. She says the trick is to confuse Aunt Gabrielle with partial truths. It puts her antenna out of whack. But this doesn’t work with my mom. Whenever I feed her bits of truth, I always wind up telling her everything. And there are just some things my mom can never know.

“Hunter, yes. Do you know about his family, where he’s from?”

“A little.” I don’t know many facts about Hunter, but I know him. The way he shakes back his hair from his eyes when he’s pleased, the way he lets it fall forward when he’s interested. He’s full of restless energy, bouncing a tennis ball against the wall, walking fast so you have to scurry to keep up. He smiles at everyone, even people he doesn’t know. He’s happiness, through and through. But there’s a serious side, too. He can look at you and you can feel seen. “His dad owns an art gallery.” Is this what Aunt Gabrielle wants? “His mom works there.”

“An art gallery.” She raps the ring on her finger against her glass of iced tea, making stern little sounds. “Interesting. Do you know if it’s successful? Never mind. I can find out for myself. Is Hunter a good student?”

“I guess.” He pays attention in class. He
goes
to class, which is more than I can say for a lot of the kids here.

“So how did he end up here, at this school? Was this his only choice?”

“I don’t know, Aunt Gabrielle.” I’m uncomfortable. I’m stirring my iced tea, my spoon clattering around and around. She puts her hand on my hand, stopping me, and fixes me with her beautiful eyes. “Do you think Rory is serious?” she asks. What she means is
Are they having sex?

Rory’s been having sex since she was fourteen.

I’m six years old, maybe seven. I’m going to visit Mrs. Fitz next door because she has had her baby, a little girl named Morgan. My mom and I have picked out a cute pink dress at Macy’s, and while she wraps it up and ties the bow I make the card. It takes me forever to write
CONGRATULATIONS
. It is the longest word I have ever written. My mom spells it out for me, letter by letter. Mrs. Fitz comes to the door carrying the baby wrapped in a blanket, just the round bald top of her head peeping out, her tiny face. Mrs. Fitz isn’t walking funny anymore and her stomach is a lot smaller. I look at her and then at baby Morgan. I can’t figure it out. I wait until we get home and then I ask my mom:
How does a baby get inside a mommy’s tummy?
She’s sitting with a cookbook opened in her lap and she looks at me.
Well, when a mommy and a daddy love each other…
I know where this is going. I have heard this silly stuff before. I shake my head, stopping her.
No
.
I want to know how the baby
actually
gets in a mommy’s tummy.

Rory had sex before me, but I knew about sex first. I hold this in my hand, a prize.

—

We lie on the pontoon boat, staring up at the sky. Clouds drift past in listless stretched-out shapes that don’t resemble anything. I hold up my hands to try to frame them into interesting shapes. I will do a series of cloud paintings, see if I can make them look both hard and soft, white and filled with color.
We could have been sisters,
Rory says. This is because my mom knew Uncle Vince before she met my dad. It’s not a secret, but no one talks about it. Did they date? Did they have sex? It’s gross to think about, but Rory is obsessed.
Your mom could have been mine.

Which means Uncle Vince could have been my dad. I point this out and Rory squints at the sky.
You’re right,
she says.
This is a stupid game.

Who said it was a game?
I was there when the back grill caught on fire. I saw Uncle Vince pull my mom back. I saw the way he held her.

—

What’s that weird shushing sound? It’s all around me. I try to open my eyes. I try to swallow.

Uncle Vince says, “Let’s just wait for the tox results.”

“Why?” Aunt Gabrielle says.

“It could explain why the girls didn’t get out.”

“Every time I think about it…”

“I know, Gabby.”

He’s the only one who calls her that. His voice is serious, serious as a heart attack. He’s a good listener and he keeps secrets, even when you don’t actually tell him, when he just figures it out on his own. Not that he ever says that he knows. You can just tell. He’d sent me a birthday cake that Rory ate while I was gone—eight thin layers, each a different flavor and color, all frosted white so that when you sliced into it, it looked like a rainbow. I love Uncle Vince, but not like a dad.

Uncle Vince finds us crouched in the basement storage room, hiding from Aunt Gabrielle. Rory and I have been playing with her mom’s makeup, turning up all her lipsticks into soft shimmering tubes of pinks and reds that we touched with tentative fingertips, squealing at the stickiness. We opened the creamy bottles of foundation and sprayed perfume in waves across the room, and, sneezing, dropped one on the floor to shatter. He looked down at us with a smile I knew he was trying to hide.
You should see yourselves.
Crouching, he holds his arms wide.