I cut through yards to get to Althea’s house. My legs were not up for collaborating with my brain, and I tripped running through Lester’s lawn, sliding on my knees. I could smell the grass, the way I’d bruised it, and knew my legs would be stained with green.
I knocked on Althea’s door and then remembered the doorbell and rang that too. I realized all the lights were out. Maybe she was still at Nan’s. Had she left Bark inside? Was there a way I could get to him?
I had my hands cupped around my face at the entryway window, trying to see in, when Althea came to the door.
“Are you okay?” she asked, tying the belt of her bathrobe in a bow.
I nodded, feeling terrible for waking her up. I hadn’t even thought about how late it was. I didn’t know how long it had been from the end of the news until I actually got off the couch.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “Bark’s fine. We went for a walk, split a hamburger. I dropped him at Nannette’s. He’s been a happy boy.”
“I didn’t mean to—I shouldn’t have—”
“One of the things I learned with my girls is that sometimes you need to hit pause. Do you know how many times I dumped them at Marta’s? I’d call her from the end of my rope. And then I’d take myself out for ice cream, like I wasn’t a grown woman.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I’m so sorry. For everything. Before.” The haze of Drambuie was starting to wear off. I could feel the tears and the headache coming.
“I know, honey. I never thought you weren’t.” Althea yawned. “I’ve got to get to bed.”
I think she read the panic on my face. “Do you want to stay in Cara’s room? Nan’s probably got a crowd over there,” she said. “And maybe you need to sleep it off?”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. My eyes welled up and I felt my drunkenness again, like a pendulum swinging back. Bark was safe and happy with Nan, and it was probably better if he didn’t see me this way, or maybe I was still being a coward because I didn’t want Nan to see me this way. I didn’t want to face her. Or Luca.
“Sometimes,” Althea said, “it’s nice to have other people breathing in this house at night.”
She made me drink a glass of water and take two aspirin before I went to bed. She even had an extra toothbrush. She said, “Sleep tight.”
I soaked it up. Althea was the kind of mom I’d always wished I had. She knew how to set rules. How to cheer her kids on. How to stay.
I climbed into Cara’s four-poster bed, under sheets covered in pink cabbage roses, and wished everything about me was different.
* * *
I woke to chatter in the kitchen. Nan’s company voice. The pillowcase smelled like lavender, a scent Nan hated because she said it smelled like “old ladies.” I sat up, my brain lurched in my head. Cabbage roses. Cara’s room. Althea’s house. I remembered. I remembered all of it. My eyes teared until the inner workings of my head settled into place again. The headache was manageable as long as I didn’t move.
The actual details from the pool were swirled together with what happened to my father. Jumbled, as if everyone had watched me fail to save him on a big projection screen. I knew what wasn’t real and what was, but the thoughts wouldn’t stay separate. I did know for sure I scared Bark. That was real. It was horrible.
There were footsteps in the hall. The cadence of Nan’s walk. Heavy on her heels. I slunk down to pretend I was sleeping, movement making my eyes tear again.
She opened the door. I lay very still. She sat on the bed and leaned over me. She never believed my fake sleep.
“Are you okay?” she asked, brushing hair from my forehead.
“I’m fine,” I said, not turning toward her. Not moving at all. I kept my eyes closed so she wouldn’t see how puffy they were. “I’m sorry.”
I heard her breathing. Not saying anything for the longest time. It was unbearable.
“I see you differently now,” Nan said finally.
The rush of shame that flooded my system made my face hot, my limbs frozen.
Nan took a deep breath. “I used to be afraid of how fragile I thought you were. Bitsie always yelled at me, ‘Stop worrying a stiff breeze will blow that kid over! She’s tough!’ ” Nan said in her Bitsie voice, and I realized that what I’d thought she was saying was not where she was headed. “Bitsie always said you had a lion heart.”
It was strange that Bitsie had used those words for me before and it wasn’t just something she thought up when we were talking at the drugstore. They were her label for me. The blood stopped rushing to my face so quickly, pressure in my head fading enough to be bearable.
“I couldn’t see how you were tough,” Nan said. “I saw your panic. The way words could break you. But when I watched you swim across that pool to save Bark, I understood what Bitsie meant. I saw your lion heart in action. It’s not about the fact that you’re scared. You were terrified and you did it anyway. You thought Bark was drowning and you were determined to save him with all you had. The same way you saved my son.”
“I didn’t.” My voice barely worked. “I didn’t save my dad.”
“Oh, Kay,” Nan said.
“I’m sorry,” I said, because I didn’t save her son. Because I ruined her big day. I made her worry about me. “I’m so sorry.”
“Kay.” She lay on the bed, wrapping her arms around me. “No one could have done more for your father.” I felt her body shiver, and realized it was a sob. “Not a grown-up. Not a doctor. No one could have.”
I held my breath, trying to stem the tears.
Nan said, “I see it now. The way you are—the worry and fear—that’s the price you pay for that lion heart. You’re always on guard to save the ones you love, aren’t you?”
I reached for her hand and held it to my chest.
“We would all save you too,” she said. “Don’t forget that.”
* * *
Althea made us oatmeal and picked a pile of kumquats from the tree in her yard. She didn’t drink coffee, but she gave us steaming mugs of jasmine green tea, and slid a bottle of aspirin across the table before I even had to ask. None of us talked much. Polite words. The silence was kind. My head was too full.
“Well,” Nan said when we were done eating. “I have to meet Bitsie and Mo at the pool to clean up.”
“Okay,” I said, getting up to rinse my bowl in the sink.
“Not you,” Nan said. “If anyone deserves a day off after all of this.”
I didn’t want to go back to the scene of the crime, but I wanted to be busy. I always hated the days after a show ended under the best of circumstances. All that work, and time, and purpose, and then, nothing. The cleanup was a process for letting go of the ideas that had been turning in my mind for months. “I can—”
“Kay, no,” Nan said, smiling. “We’re strong. We’ll manage.”
“I think that dog of yours is probably waiting to see you,” Althea said, in a mom tone, the way you offer a consolation prize to the kid who doesn’t want to leave a playdate. But I did want to see Bark. I needed to know he was okay. I needed him to know I was too.