“Fall Fest.” Melanie’s voice through the phone was raspy from a cold. “I’ll never forget Fall Fest because that’s where we saw the Nearys. The mom and son, remember?”
Lena closed her eyes.
She regretted how she’d presented Annie’s invitation to Melanie like a little gift. My new friend Annie wants me to go to Fall Fest.
The subtext was that Melanie didn’t need to worry so much about Lena’s loneliness because, see? Lena had been invited to something!
(Maybe Lena had also been showing off. Hearing about Melanie’s social calendar—her golf dates and cocktail and girls’ lunches and couples’ cruises—gave Lena a hollow left-out feeling.)
“You can’t remember?” Melanie sounded worried. “It’s happening to me too. I couldn’t think of my second-grade teacher’s name last week. I loved her so much, I wanted to be her when I grew up, and it’s just—poof—gone.”
“It’s okay, Mel.”
“Let me help. Bill had a conference downtown, so I came to stay with you, and Rachel was three or four. We got to the park early, before all the events started and there they were, the Nearys. The boy had golden hair cut in bangs and a bob, like Little Lord Fauntleroy. It seared into my mind because you don’t see that haircut every day.”
Lena wished she remembered the haircut. She had a different memory of the boy seared into her mind.
“Remember,” Melanie continued, “that Rachel was obsessed with clamming, because of that book you read her every night, you know, Goodnight Sam the Clam or whatever it was called?”
“I remember the book.”
“And she insisted on bringing this little red bucket to the riverbank to fill with clams, which were really rocks. The boy thought she was hilarious. His mom said something like, creativity in motion and then complimented you for nurturing it. It was sweet but a little woo-woo, you know. You and I managed to keep a straight face, but when she left, excuse me, sneezing—”
For a brief and merciful moment, Melanie stopped talking.
“Where do unsneezed sneezes go? Anyway—you told me she was one of those magical supermoms, who sewed her own clothing and baked bread and probably made daisy crowns instead of turning on the TV. Meanwhile, you’d just screamed at Rachel for tracking in mud on the white carpet, and oops, excuse me, sneezing—”
Melanie sneezed, neat and tidy, three times in succession. “Ugh, this cold.”
“Bless you. I told you all that?”
“You tell me everything, sweetie.”
No, I don’t.
Once, Lena had believed Melanie to be the type of friend to accept deep dark secrets without judgment, but back then, Lena’s secrets hadn’t been particularly dark or deep. There had been moments when Lena had felt a pull to come clean to Mel, but it had never been worth the risk of losing her.
“Do you remember it now?” Melanie said. “I hate that feeling, one black hole where there used to be knowledge. It’s irrevocable proof that it’s all downhill from here, baby.”
Lena did remember how, for Fall Fest, she and Rachel would wake up early and get a box of éclairs from the French pastry place on Main Street. They set up chairs and a blanket on the banks of the river, a safe space away from the gazebo because when Rachel was little, crowds made her tense.
And she could never forget the clamming phase.
“Only child,” Lena would explain with a laugh, but Rachel really had been exceptionally creative, before Lena messed with her head—or maybe all parents thought their children were creative.
Probably all children were creative.
Lena certainly remembered Gary Neary’s not-yet-ex-wife and son: how they had the same compact peppiness, the way they always seemed delighted with each other.
She even remembered thinking Gary’s wife gorgeous, not because of her features, which were a little too pointy, but because of her vitality—that outdoorsy glow and sparkling eyes and her obvious unabashed love for her son. Lena had once bought a ridiculous pair of patterned tights after seeing Gary’s ex look adorable in a similar pair. (A look, it turned out, that Lena could not pull off. The tights had worn Lena, not the other way around.)
Lena wanted to ask Melanie if she’d mentioned Gary at that Fall Fest. Back then, she had only been vaguely aware of him as a dry and craggy local dentist. Once, when Dr. Marconis was out on maternity leave, Gary Neary had subbed in, put his gentle gloved hands right in Lena’s mouth. Gary remembered that, too; they laughed about it.
When Lena had taken the time to think about the Nearys’ marriage, she had incorrectly thought that they must complement each other in the way a steady rock would ground a free spirit, that their family dinners were full of song and laughter and that on summer evenings they all went outside to make fairy traps out of dewy spiderwebs, play in the sprinklers, make those daisy-chain crowns.
Nope, Gary said later. The marriage was never horrible, but even the divorce had been more plodding than fiery. When Lena painted the picture of his ex as a free-spirit earth-mother pioneer, Gary had replied that whatever personality Lena had dreamed up, it was nothing like the woman he’d been married to.
Still, there had at one point been love between Gary and his ex. The bonds of family certainly had been stronger than Gary made it sound—Lena had observed that by the way they had leaned against each other at the funeral, bound forever by a joint grief no one else could understand.
“Games are supposed to help with memory loss,” Melanie said. “Crosswords and anagrams. We should start doing them.”
“Maybe.”
“Are you okay, Lena?” Melanie’s voice was tentative. “I was being an idiot, wasn’t I, prattling on about poor little Brian. I should’ve stopped myself.”
Even if she had amnesia, Lena would never forget his name.
“It was Bryce,” she whispered. “Bryce Neary.”
“Wait,” Jen said. “Abe wants to go to Fall Fest?”
“The whole gang is going,” Colin said. “It’s supposed to be great.”
Gang? There was a gang?
Jen and Abe had been about to start dinner when their doorbell rang.
“That’s probably Colin,” Abe had said.
“The teacher?” Jen said, but Abe was already at the door and indeed, there, under their portico light, stood Colin from the Kingdom School. He held up a giant book about video game programming.
He had, he explained, promised Abe that he’d look for it in the used book shop right by the music store on Main Street and bring it by if he found it.
“Ten tomorrow, right?” he’d said.
Apparently, the Kingdom School kids had planned to meet up at Fall Fest. The group would find each other on the riverbank. Colin would bring a picnic blanket and some instruments because everyone seemed pretty excited about learning some chords, and he’d heard there was an epic burrito stand.
“You know that Fall Fest will be crowded?” Jen asked Abe. “Crowds and gross porta-potties and children who sing loudly and off-key?”
“It’ll be fun, Mom.” Abe patted her arm as though she were the persnickety one. “Colin, do you like rotisserie chicken? We were just about to eat dinner.”
“Abe, it’s late,” Jen said. “Colin might have already eaten.”
“He’s always starving.” Abe snorted. “He eats my leftovers at school every day. Don’t get mad, Mom.”
“Why would I get mad?”
“You got upset when Isabella would eat my lunch.”
“That was different.” Jen felt a low throbbing in her sinuses at the memory. “Isabella was taking advantage.” Colin grimaced as if he’d had a bag or two of chips stolen by Isabella, too.
“If you truly have enough food,” he said, “I’d love to join you guys.”
Jen opened the front door as wide as it went. “Come on in.”
The Paganos did not excel at putting things away. The surfaces in their home were crammed with piles of books and cords for electronics and hastily discarded layers of clothing. Jen always told herself that it wasn’t dirty, just overstuffed, but seeing it now, through the eyes of a guest, she had to admit that it wasn’t exactly clean either.
Someone needed to do a deep clean before Jen hosted book club next week. Melissa Stoller, who had lived here before, had been a regular member of book club, and the entire group appeared to be creepily invested in Jen’s house.
Your countertops aren’t granite, Janine had once corrected Jen, they’re soapstone. Melissa selected them to be maintenance free.
Thank goodness, because now, those soapstone counters were littered with half-empty glasses (or half-full depending on the day), dinner takeout from Breadman’s, and opened boxes of cookies, because sometimes the cookies were the only thing getting Jen through the day, and there was nothing wrong with that, thank you very much.
“We’re always a little less formal when Paul is traveling,” Jen said by way of apology. She left out that Paul was always traveling.
“You have a beautiful home,” Colin said with earnest politeness. His affect was Boy Scoutish beneath all the grunge: floppy plaid shirt, faded jeans, the chin-length hair, the cool black nail polish on both pinkies. Again, the kohl line under his eyes.
“Is Mr. Pagano somewhere exciting?”
“California,” Abe said with a frown. “I told you that yesterday when we were sitting under the tree outside.”
“You did?” Colin said. “You can’t blame the rest of us mortals for not having a photographic memory.”
“Abe, will you set the table?” Jen heard her voice, a little higher, a touch tentative, and wondered if Colin had noticed.
She wasn’t scared of Abe, she wasn’t, but after thirteen years of treating him with kid gloves, she felt sheepish suddenly demanding he do chores.
“How many points will I earn?” Abe watched Jen with a hawk’s sharpness.
“Um. The usual.”
If their exchange had been awkward, Colin didn’t appear to have noticed. He had drifted over to their banquette to examine the painting above it, which was an abstract triptych, also selected by Melissa Stoller.
The Kingdom School had not yet asked for any medical records or diagnostic history, and Jen had not yet volunteered Abe’s diagnosis. Every week, after Abe’s therapy session, Dr. Shapiro asked whether she should be in touch with Nan, to provide guidance on Abe’s incentives or challenges.
Nope, Jen lied. Nan’s on board. She gets it.
Jen would schlep Abe all over town for whatever counseling Dr. Shapiro recommended. She would break down his chores in charts and point values, but still—something was stopping her from sharing the diagnosis.
Dr. Shapiro was smart and kind and wise, but she’d spent maybe five hours with Abe before slapping a label on him. Maybe it was accurate, maybe not, but either way, telling Nan was pointless.
The woman spoke in psalms, and any conversation about conduct disorder would turn into one about lambs or loaves or turning the other cheek or how we were all God’s children.
So, no. Jen didn’t even feel bad about the omission.
(Maybe she felt a little bad.)
“I love this,” Colin said about the abstract triptych.
“Came with the house,” Jen said. “It’s a mountain.” Janine had informed Jen of that, and also that Melissa Stoller had ordered the piece from a SoHo gallery.
“Can I show Colin Foxhole?” Abe said.
“Please,” Colin said, “I’ve heard so much about it and Holla123.”
“I’ll go summon him,” Abe said.
After Abe bounded upstairs, Jen said, “Please let me know if Holla123 turns out to be a creepy fifty-year-old man.”
“What?” Colin’s face was stricken.
“No, no.” Jen sometimes forgot how to act with people who weren’t Paul. “It was a joke in very poor taste, mostly about how Paul and I should be a little more careful supervising Abe’s online time. Holla123 is a kid from Michigan. Seems sweet enough. So, it’s going okay? At school?”
“Abe is a great addition.”
“He is?”
“Are you surprised?” Colin’s brow crinkled. He raked his hair behind his ears.
“I’ve never seen him so…” Jen reached for a word that wouldn’t make Abe sound like a total freak. “He’s usually not a fan of big group activities like Fall Fest.”
“Maybe he’s been overwhelmed at other schools? He’s a really good fit with Kingdom. It’s small, which for a kid like Abe can be much easier to navigate.”
“A kid like Abe?”
“Anxious,” Colin said. “Shy. Into his passions. I didn’t mean to assume anything—”
“No, no,” Jen said, “that’s Abe.”
“Creating a five-level video game from scratch is pretty ambitious, but I have every faith he’ll do it.”
“I thought it was supposed to be ten-level.”
Colin grinned. “We’re in negotiations.”
“I bumped into Nan the other day,” Jen said, “and she quoted a psalm that I think was about patience? I worried it meant he wasn’t fitting in.”
Colin bit his lip. “Nan is amazing, but sometimes … I don’t know … the psalms are a little—”
“Vague,” Jen said diplomatically. Inside, she was screaming, Yes, exactly!
“Abe is doing fine. I was like him when I was younger—you know, other kids didn’t know what to do with me—and I would have thrived at a place like Kingdom.”
“Abe might have something called conduct disorder,” Jen said. “We’re still figuring it out.”
“What’s that?”
“He has to work a little harder than others to learn empathy and consequences.”
“Oh.” Colin shrugged. “Doesn’t that describe like half of the people in the world?”
“It might.” Jen smiled.
“I don’t mean to make light. People are complicated, though.” Colin swallowed roughly and forced a smile, but it was wistful. “And folks sure do love their labels.”
“Don’t they just,” Jen said.