Sully experienced some serious déjà vu when he walked into the San Antonio Taco Company, known in his divinity school days as SATCO. The customer still had to walk down a narrow corridor and check off his choice of future heartburn on a printed form to be handed to the cashier. Sully picked the bottled water and leaned against a post, more to stem the tide of memories than to look for a table.
They used to come here a lot, he and Lynn and their divinity school friends, not for the food or the atmosphere, but for the price. How many late nights and Saturday afternoons had they spent here, feeding themselves soggy tacos and unspeakable guacamole and debating things like free will vs. the sovereignty of God?
There were three tracks in the divinity school—for ministers, academics, and seekers—and all three had been represented in the group. Sully bristled at the memory that he had been the academic.
He found a corner table and sank into a red plastic chair. His eyes went to an object hanging from the ceiling over the cash register, a replica of a handgun with a sign that read, WE DON’T CALL 911 . . . A whole chunk of conversation dropped into his mind.
“I don’t get that,” Lynn had said the first night they went in there after the thing went up.
“That’s because you’re the kind of person who doesn’t need to get it.”
Who had said that? Anna—or that guy she ended up marrying? What was his name? He’d called himself a recovering Catholic.
“Why don’t I need to get it?” Lynn said.
“Because, darlin’,” he himself said, “you’re not going to come in here and try to hold the place up or take out somebody eating an enchilada.”
Everyone else chimed in.
“They’re saying you don’t get a chance at a trial.”
“Or an ambulance.”
“They just shoot you.”
Sully recalled Lynn blushing up to the roots of her hair. “Oh,” she’d said. “Du-uh.”
“What duh?” He was sure Anna had said it. “The fact that you don’t get it is what I love about you. You’re so innocent.”
Lynn laughed then—the bell of a laugh he’d loved so much. “Good,” she’d said. “I thought I was just being stupid. As usual.”
Sully scraped at the wrapper on his water bottle. He couldn’t remember what he’d said then. He hoped he’d taken her in his arms and assured her she was far from stupid. He truly hoped so.
“No—no bucket today,” a familiar voice said.
Sully looked toward the counter, and there she was. The San Antonio Taco Company had changed less than Anna Thatcher-Dickinson had. The only thing he recognized about her was the signature out-of-control hair, thick and poodle curly and barely kept in line by several devices that looked to Sully like chopsticks. Some gray shot through the dark brown now.
Her face, however, made her look as if she’d exchanged her former self for a new one. She used to travel everywhere on a ten-speed bike and eat only food that had never had a face, all of which had left her as bright eyed as the Energizer Bunny. Either the diet or the mode of transportation had evidently gone by the wayside over the last thirteen years, because her eyes sagged as she navigated the tables to get to him, and her mouth had settled into a discontented line.
“Sully,” she said when she finally reached him. “I would have known you anywhere. Why have I aged and you haven’t? There’s no justice.”
Sully grinned as he accepted her hug. That was why he and Lynn had liked her so much. She always saved people the trouble of being diplomatic.
“Have you ordered?”
At the shake of his head, she waved him off.
“That’s okay, I probably got enough for both of us and a small third world country.”
She then gave a thumbnail sketch of the last decade of her life, which revealed that whatever she’d been looking for as a “seeker” at Vanderbilt Divinity School still had not been found. She was interrupted by the announcement that her order was ready. She started right in on the chalupas without missing a beat in her monologue.
“What about you? You said over the phone you wanted to talk about Lynn.” She dabbed sour cream from her chin. “Are you writing your memoirs or something? I’ve read some of your books, by the way. Not bad.”
“Thanks.”
She pointed to the Spanish rice, but he shook his head.
“I just have a couple of questions,” he said. “Just to button some things up.”
How cheesy did that sound? Why didn’t he at least pretend to want to give her a personal update? He was really bad at this.
“So, like what?” she said.
“Like—did Lynn seem happy to you? Did she ever say anything to you about—not being—”
“You’re not writing your memoirs.”
“No.”
Anna set the chalupa down in the paper dish it hadn’t touched since she took the first bite. “Look,” she said, “if it were me, I’d want to put that whole period of my life behind me and move on.”
“This is part of my moving on,” Sully said.
She scratched at her chest, revealing a tattoo of a Celtic cross. “Okay—all I know is Lynn was nuts over you, like, over-the-top nuts. You know why she never got her degree. She majored in you. You were all she wanted.”
Sully felt the thickening in his throat again. Why had he even started this?
“I told her she was an idiot, of course.” Anna stabbed the corner of a tortilla into the guacamole. “You don’t build your whole life around somebody else. If I’d done that with Tom Dickinson, I’d be a basket case right now. You knew we were divorced.”
“No, I didn’t. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. We’re both better off. We were never like you and Lynn were at first.”
Sully felt something stir. “At first?”
“You know, before the shine became patina. How poetic is that?” She laughed. “Look, you two were good together, Sully. Just go with that. You know how to love, so take that into another relationship. Have you even dated since Lynn died?”
“Uh, no.”
“Then there’s your trouble. What are you doing Saturday night?”
Before Sully could get his tongue untangled, she laughed again. “Just kidding. I always thought you were a remarkable person, but you and I, I don’t think so.”
Sully tried to smile. “Do I even want to know why?”
“Oh, it’s nothing against you. I always told Lynn she got the last good one. I just need a guy who can take care of himself so I can do my thing.”
He couldn’t even begin to sort that out.
“You know what?” she said. “Lynn and I weren’t that close after—gosh, when was it? Sometime after that retreat up at Fall Creek Falls. You remember that? It was you, Lynn, Tom, me, and that Ukrainian couple. What were their names?”
Sully shook his head.
“It’s probably not important. Right after that, Tom and I got married, and it was hard enough keeping up with him and going to school, much less devoting time to friends.” For a moment she looked sad. “Lynn always managed, though. I wish in some ways I could have been more like her.” She tossed her head back and laughed once more. “If I were, we’d be going out Saturday night.”
Sully stayed long enough to be polite, but in the end it was Anna who took off, after getting his phone number out of him and saying they ought to get the old gang together.
“I’ll arrange it if you want,” she said.
“I’ll call you,” he said.
“Ten bucks says you won’t.”
And with a kiss on his cheek, she left Sully to wonder if the meeting had been a complete fiasco. All he’d gotten out of it was Anna’s impression that he was a man who needed to be taken care of, which had at least let him out of a duty date. He looked dismally at the Spanish rice she’d left for him.
She was the only person he’d been able to get in touch with.
Lynn might have taken all her secrets to the bottom of the Cumberland after all.
Wesley appeared with a bag of swimsuit choices the next day, but the sky dumped rain and treated us to a lightning-and-thunder show. Bethany, James-Lawson, and I took shelter in the playroom, where they set up a fort with blankets and chairs, and I attempted my Family Feud list for Sullivan.
It wasn’t the kind I usually made. Mine were usually about things like:
• find out when school starts for Bethany
• figure out who pays the bills so the power company doesn’t turn off the electricity
• call Didi—see if she actually quit or if she’s just on an unscheduled sabbatical
The biggest difference between that and the thing Sullivan wanted me to do was that when I wrote down the first five significant events of my childhood, I wouldn’t be able to check them off. Those pieces of my life were always going to be there, and I couldn’t do anything about them.
I clicked my pen aimlessly. My childhood memories were less like a game show than MTV. They came out in disconnected flashes I couldn’t even focus on before the next one flickered in and out.
Flash: my mother wailing in the hallway in the middle of the night that it was too early, and my only later realizing that she meant too early for the baby to be born.
Flash: Grandma Broc taking me to my first dance class, probably to distract me while my parents anguished over the premature baby struggling for her very young life. That was probably the only time in my life when I danced through the days aware only in some narrow place that something was amiss.
Flash: my mother bringing home the ugliest little being I’d ever seen. Another “only”: the only time I was ever prettier than my sister.
I put down the pen. I still wasn’t convinced that exhuming my past would help the present—or Bethany’s future. So I looked back at the list I had made. The results of that one had been depressing too.
A call to Trinity Christian Academy revealed not only that classes started next week, but that Bethany was enrolled in first grade, when she’d never been to kindergarten. Or, for that matter, preschool.
No arrangements had been made for her to be picked up by their bus program—though they were sure they could fit her in—and since no one had attended the parents’ orientation event, they would be happy to e-mail me the particulars about uniforms, supplies—oh, and the process for paying tuition.
From what I was able to get out of Marnie, who was now so stressed she could barely put two sentences together, Sonia’s accountant paid her personal bills. That would have been a relief, except that she seemed to think I should be in touch with this Patrick person.
“If he’s already dealing with her finances,” I said, “I don’t see why.”
“I just don’t know how much longer he’s going to stay on,” she’d said, eyes shifting. “He and Sonia aren’t on the best of terms.”
“What does that mean?” I said.
“I have no idea.” She’d already been halfway out of the room by then, heeding Sonia’s bark from the office. “You should call him. I’ll get you the number.”
Didi-the-housekeeper had been more difficult to locate. I wrote out a message and read it over the phone so I wouldn’t tell her she was a complete flake for terminating her employment by just not showing up anymore.
“Didi, we have no problem with your missing work,” I read through gritted teeth. “With all that’s been going on around here, and all the long hours you’ve put in, you obviously needed a break. But could you give me a call and tell me when you might be returning?”
I didn’t add, “Or if,” but I realized now that her silence was my answer. The dust collected on tabletops and baseboards, and the bathrooms exuded an unpleasant aroma. I couldn’t keep up with the laundry or do more than spray a little Lysol in the toilets, and I could find neither the vacuum cleaner nor the time to use it.
And that was just the inside of the house. Bryson Porter didn’t come back, either, after his encounter with the FBI. I assumed from Deidre Schmacker’s visit that he wasn’t their guy, in spite of whatever they had found in the garage, but he must have decided this was no longer the place for him. The lawn was ankle high, and the weeds brazenly encroached on the flower beds. I toyed with the idea of doing the yard work myself until I remembered what Wesley had said to me, and what I’d promised Sullivan Crisp I would do.
So I crossed Didi off the list and added:
• tell Sonia I’m hiring a lawn service
• and a once-a-week maid
• eat more chocolate
The doorbell rang, and despite my assurance that I would be right back, both James-Lawson and Bethany tailed me down the stairs, chattering about how they hoped it was J. Edgar. I of course hoped it was not—or that he at least had come alone. Deidre Schmacker’s was another list I was avoiding.
I peeked out through the glass in the front door. “Sorry, kids,” I said. “It’s the mailman.”
Bethany shrank against the foyer mirror.
“It’s okay,” James-Lawson said to her. “The mailman’s not a stranger.”
Bethany just shook her head.
When the carrier had handed me more mail than would fit in the box and left, I turned to her.
“Were you afraid of him?” I said.
“I’m not allowed to talk to strangers,” she said.
“That’s true.” I squatted in front of her, arms full of envelopes. “But it’s okay if I tell you the person is safe. Just like yesterday.”
She looked extremely doubtful.
“I would never let anyone hurt you,” I said.
“You might not be able to stop them.”
I could feel my eyes springing open.
“If someone wanted to take me, they just would,” she said.
I didn’t even ask where that had come from. The child watched entirely too much television.
“Come on, you two,” I said. “Snack time.”
We were pulling a sheet of chocolate chip cookies out of the oven when I heard Wesley come into the kitchen behind me.
“You’re just in time,” I said, “as long as you don’t mind a little kid-spit in your dough.”
“I think we’ll be all right with that,” Wesley said.
We.
I turned, pot holder still in hand. Sonia was with her.
Immediately something brushed past my leg: Bethany, sliding around me and retreating into the pantry. At least she wasn’t screaming.
James-Lawson, on the other hand, walked up to Sonia and offered a hand still gooey with butter. “I’m James-Lawson Kane,” he said. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Sonia still stood above him, so he couldn’t possibly have seen her face yet. What the Sam Hill was Wesley thinking?
Or Sonia, for that matter? Could she possibly still believe that any new person who laid eyes on her wouldn’t recoil in some small way? And a child—for Pete’s sake.
“Aren’t you just about half-cute?” Sonia said.
She bent over to James-Lawson, who shook his head.
“No, ma’am,” he said. “I’m all the way cute.”
Sonia smiled, a grisly affair with the prosthesis firmly lodged in her mouth.
James-Lawson leaned his woolly head to the side. “You got a boo-boo, huh?”
“Just a little one,” Sonia said.
“You know what? No. It’s a really big one.”
Sonia stood back up. “Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s going to go away.”
“I know, ’cause my mama’s helping you.”
Dear God, please don’t let her start preaching at this child.
God seemed to answer for once. Sonia nodded, as best she could, and patted his head.
“I have work to do, boys and girls,” she said, and turned to go. “The kids and I baked cookies,” I said again.
“Maybe Bethany would like to give you one.”
Sonia looked around as if she’d just discovered her child’s absence. “I don’t want to push her,” she said. “Let’s just wait until I’m better.”
Wesley gave her a look hard enough to pound her into the ground, but Sonia simply drifted out of the kitchen.
“You know what, Miss Lucia?” James-Lawson said.
“What?” I said.
“I want a cookie.”
“And a cookie is all you’re going to get, boy,” Wesley said.
“But this is a special occasion!”
“You think every time you see Miss Lucia it’s a special occasion.” “It is!” he said. Only because he was a very smart child did he not add, “Du-uh.”
“Two,” his mother said. “And that’s all.”
“Bethany!” he hollered. “We each get two cookies.”
She appeared from the pantry, peering around the corner until she apparently decided that the coast was clear.
I heard Wesley sigh, and our eyes met in a tacit agreement that it didn’t get any sadder than this.
“You going to find out what that’s about?” she whispered to me.
“Oh, heck yeah,” I whispered back.
I put a plate of four cookies on the sit-down counter and helped James-Lawson onto his stool while Wesley went to the fridge for the milk. Bethany took one and eyed it suspiciously.
“What’s wrong?” I said.
“Was that white stuff we put in this refined sugar?” she said.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Then we shouldn’t give one to James-Lawson.”
He looked at her as if she’d just suggested we take away his birthday.
“Why not?” I said.
“Because it will decay his teeth and make his bones weak. I love him too much to do that to him.”
Recitation complete, she moved the plate out of his reach, to an indignant “Huh?!” and took a cookie for herself.
“Hey! Miss Lucia!”
“Thank you for your love, Miss Bethany,” Wesley said, “but two cookies are not going to rot James-Lawson’s teeth, I promise you that.”
She bulged her eyes at me.
“Ms. Schmacker was talking about her dog, Bethie,” I said. “He can’t brush his teeth like you can.” As her gaze went for the floor, I added hastily, “That was wonderful of you to think of James-Lawson, though.”
“But I have to ask you,” Wesley said, as she placed a cookie firmly into Bethany’s hand. “If you thought he shouldn’t have one, why was it okay for you to have one?”
Bethany stared down at the cookie. “Because I love James-Lawson,” she said.
“And you don’t love you?”
She looked up at her, blue eyes startled.
“Well, I do,” Wesley said. “And James-Lawson does and Miss Lucia does, so if you don’t want to be left out of this party, you better love you too.”
Bethany nodded and took an obedient bite. She, too, had discovered you didn’t argue with Wesley Kane.
But, oh, dear God, please let her believe it.
Once they’d gone, I let Bethany help me put the rest of the cookies in a bag for the freezer, lest Marnie should polish them off. I did consider briefly encouraging Marnie to eat all she wanted, so her teeth would fall out and she would no longer be attractive to my husband, but I shoved that back in with the Chip trash and looked at Bethany.
The tip of her tongue had crept to the corner of her mouth as she positioned the goodies just so in the bag.
“James-Lawson saw your mom,” I said.
“I know.”
“He wasn’t scared.”
“I know.”
“Of course, she’s not his mom, so that’s different, but—”
“I’m not allowed to,” Bethany said. She tried to press the top of the Ziploc bag together, tongue still working.
“You’re not allowed to what?” I said.
“I’m not allowed to see her without her face.”
I didn’t know which thing to scream first. I had to chomp down on my lip to keep from letting them all spew out.
“Did someone tell you that?” I said.
“Yeah—yes, ma’am.”
“Who?”
She got the bag zipped and showed it to me proudly.
“Great,” I said. I set it on the counter and closed her hands between mine. “Bethie, who told you that you weren’t allowed to see your mom without her face?”
The blue eyes blinked at me. “She did,” she said. “May I go play in the fort now?”
“Absolutely,” I think I said. It was hard to know, with everything else that shrieked in my head. I pressed my fingers to my temples. Dear God.
Just—Dear God.