Lena stood on the steps of the Perleys’ tiny red brick ranch. She clutched the handle of a cake carrier in her right hand. In the crook of her left arm was a bouquet of peonies and a bottle of wine.
“Let me help,” Annie said.
“This,” Lena said, handing over the wine, “should go with the steaks, which smell divine even from here. I also made an ice cream cake, which will thaw during dinner.”
Annie pursed her lips in disapproval. “Can we take a rain check?”
“On the dinner?”
“Gosh, no. The wine.”
Lena tried not to frown. Annie clearly did not understand how special the bottle, a 2000 Château Pétrus, was. “Why don’t you and Mike hold on to it for later?”
“Honestly?” Annie clutched at her throat with her free hand. “I don’t even want it in the house.”
“Because of Laurel?” Lena said. She’d sounded too judgmental. Spots of color had appeared on Annie’s cheeks.
“You think I’m going overboard,” she said.
“No,” Lena said quickly. But Annie was.
That night, Lena had been drinking mojitos, and whenever she thought of the drink—even if someone mentioned it in a movie—Lena would taste in the back of her throat that once-refreshing mint sweetness and feel a wave of nausea strong enough to knock her off-balance.
She would love to be able to blame what she’d done on the mojitos, but alcohol was just an easy scapegoat.
“Rain check,” Lena said with what she hoped was an understanding nod. “I’ll run the bottle back out to my car.”
“Laurel,” Mike said, “you’re completely missing out on this ice cream cake.”
She sat spine rigid, sweatshirt zipped up to her chin, beanie pulled down over her forehead. Hank reached over to his sister’s plate and spooned off a large mound from her untouched piece, popped it in his mouth. The rest of them laughed too hard, in compensation for Laurel’s lack of reaction.
“Do you want to ask Lena now,” Mike prompted her gently.
“We have an extra ticket to my graduation,” Laurel said to Lena. Her leg jiggled updownupdown. “If you want it.”
“We’d all go out afterward,” Mike said. “The five of us, for a lunch.”
The wash of emotion was so overwhelming that Lena felt almost sleepy. She gripped the sides of her chair, pressed her back into its slats.
“I’d love that. Thank you, Laurel.”
“Yeah.” Laurel shrugged. Her amber gaze skipped around the table.
“Can Laurel point me to the ladies’ room?” Lena asked.
“I could tell,” Lena told her, when they were out of earshot, “that you were dying for an exit.”
“It’s fine.” Laurel fumbled with the zipper of her track jacket. It didn’t take an expert to observe that Annie and Mike’s heavy scrutiny was not working: the girl was miserable, itchy in her own skin.
“It’s out of love, you know,” Lena said. “All of the breathing down your neck is out of love. They just want to know what’s going on with you.”
Laurel’s face shuttered. She looked down, suddenly absorbed with the zipper.
“How’s the running going?”
“I’m slow.”
“Not true,” Lena said. “I see you working those hills. Are you getting enough fuel?”
“Yes.” Laurel’s head lifted up and those light eyes sparked to life. “Grams of protein equal to half of my body weight, so I don’t bonk.”
“Well, whatever bonking is, it sounds like something to avoid.”
Laurel giggled. “Can you tell them I went for a run and that yes, I took my phone?”
“Of course, dear,” Lena said.
“Thank you, Mrs. Meeker.”
“And if you ever need some space, Laurel, come over. My house is a certified nag-free zone.”
Laurel smiled gratefully.
Lena shook her hands dry, rather than use the threadbare bath towel hanging on the back of the bathroom door.
She was worried about the Perleys.
Fall Fest had been an embarrassing one-off. To brand Laurel as an alcoholic seemed an overreaction, no matter the family history.
As Lena had told Rachel years before: Yes, horrible things could—and had—happened because of alcohol abuse. But enjoyed in moderation, wine could be one of life’s great pleasures.
Laurel, and Hank, too, eventually, needed to learn how to drink responsibly. There was a reason you didn’t hear historians touting Prohibition as having been an especially effective movement.
The family was moving toward a crisis, but Lena had gotten Laurel to laugh for a moment. She felt a pulse of excitement: they needed her.
Other widows, Lena had read, mourned the loss of human touch, and while she respected their truth, it was not Lena’s. She was more than fine without sex. When characters in books got hot and heavy, Lena would catch herself thinking with impatience that they were all such young idiots. Lust was nothing but an embarrassing lack of control.
Lena craved feeling necessary. Melanie and Rachel would share things with her, but they didn’t need to. No one had truly relied on Lena for years and there was something healing about the naked way Annie solicited Lena’s opinion.
Lena opened the bathroom door and a heightened prickly energy directed her gaze to the collection of framed family photographs on the hallway wall.
Bryce Neary.
Lena would be able to recognize his image in the busiest crowd, from miles away. She took several steps closer, fumbled in her sweater pocket for her readers.
It was a group photo, taken after a track meet. Bryce was bottom left, in their team uniform; his maroon singlet matched his ruddy cheeks. His hair mushroomed out from beneath a baseball cap. A grinning face peeked over his shoulder. Lena recognized the Adriatic blue of Annie’s eyes, her pert nose.
Tucked inside the frame was a frayed wallet-sized picture of Bryce. He was smiling from the passenger seat of a tan jeep, binoculars around his neck.
“Found you,” Annie sang out. She stopped when she realized what Lena was looking at, clapped her hand over her mouth.
“Oh shit. Lena. I didn’t think.”
“It’s all right,” Lena lied.
“He was a year behind me in high school,” Annie said. “We were in the same group of friends, but I never brought him up because I thought it would—and see, you are upset.”
There had been a circle of young women at the funeral, neat dark suits and shining hair. Their high-pitched sobs of disbelief had lassoed Lena with shame. Had Annie been among them?
“It’s fine,” Lena said. She felt and sounded cross. “Don’t worry about me, Annie. I’m the last person you should feel sorry for.”
Feel sorry for Gary Neary. Feel sorry for Bryce, and the life he might have constructed, given the chance.
Lena could still feel, all these years later, the sickening soft bump under her tire late at night, see the boy’s empty blue sneaker planted upright in the middle of the road.