22
Though it connected both their pieces of property, the summer had made the sixty yards or so between her and Ellie’s houses feel like they no longer belonged to Mary Alice at all. And as she walked them Sunday morning, after staying up most of the night talking to Michael and Katherine about the years they’d all missed, she felt almost as though she were trespassing. As though she should be arrested. If she paused and really listened, maybe she could even hear sirens. But they never came, and after knocking, neither did Ellie.
“Good morning, Mary Alice,” Gerald said in a heavy voice that might have intimidated her if she hadn’t known him all his life.
He must have seen her walking up and watched as she built up the courage to talk to a friend who clearly wanted nothing to do with her. She couldn’t see past him, his tall body filling the doorway. The pity and judgment on his face sparred with the overwhelming friendliness of his usual outfit, a bright red polo tucked into a pair of blue jeans. It was the outfit of a man who enjoys routine and hates sleeping in. The outfit of an accountant; the perfect man for Ellie. “She doesn’t want to see you,” Gerald said. “And to be perfectly honest, neither do I.”
But in the twitch of his jaw, Mary Alice knew this was hard for him, too, and that he could be swayed. Gerald was not an angry man, just fiercely loyal, and though Ellie outranked Mary Alice, she knew that a lifetime of friendship must account for something. “Gerald,” she said, “I know you’re looking out for her, and I know she told you not to let me in, but not talking is what got us into this mess and it isn’t going to make anything better for any of us now.”
He didn’t move aside, but he didn’t argue, either, which Mary Alice took as a win. She was doing something right, finally, and would keep on doing it until he let her inside. “I need to let her know what happened. I need to tell her the whole story. I don’t expect her to want anything to do with me once I’m finished, but at least give me the chance to tell her the truth.”
A voice from behind Gerald saved him from having to respond. “The truth would be nice,” Ellie said, her voice somehow focused and amplified by the doorway. Gerald stepped outside and let the two of them meet, face-to-face.
“I’ll give you two some privacy,” he said, shuffling around to let her in.
Mary Alice walked inside and shut the door behind her, then followed Ellie as she calmly entered the kitchen. Ellie took a seat at the breakfast table, the same one where they’d met so long ago, and waited for her friend to do the same. As Mary Alice inhaled, preparing to finally unload her side of the story, Ellie cut her off at the pass. “Before you get started, I need to know first and foremost why you’re here. Is it to make yourself feel better, or to apologize for all this time you spent lying? And don’t say a little bit of both. I won’t be able to stand that.”
“I’m here to tell you exactly what happened, and to apologize for not telling you sooner. If that happens to make you feel better, great. But as for me feeling better,” she said, almost laughing, “that’s never going to happen.”
“Do you want a glass of water? Tea? Gerry just made coffee.”
“No, I’m fine,” Mary Alice said. The most wonderful woman she’d ever known, offering a drink to a woman who didn’t even deserve dirt. “Ellie, Kenny died after spending the night with Michael.”
“I know.”
“No, they left the graduation party at the Martins’ place early. They spent that night alone. At the old place.”
“Your old place?”
“Is there another one?”
Ellie nodded, then took a sip from her glass of water. She let it sit in her mouth a bit before swallowing, as if too exhausted to make even the simplest of moves. “So now we know that for sure. About the two of them.”
Mary Alice nodded back. “Yes. Now we do.”
“Then what?”
“He left that morning, early, so you or I wouldn’t see them drive up together. Michael stayed behind and by the time he left, the accident had already happened.”
“So Michael was the last person to see him alive?” She paused and looked up at Mary Alice, peering at her with a crooked head. “But that doesn’t explain anything about now. Why is he here now? Why did he leave?”
“He told me the truth the day of Kenny’s funeral, broke down at home. We had a fight. And I suggested that he leave.”
“Suggested.”
“I kicked him out.”
“For what? For falling for some boy?”
“Ellie, you’re only the third person I’ve ever told this to and I didn’t tell the first two till yesterday, but Samuel was gay,” Mary Alice said. The rest of the truth came tumbling out of her, and once she started she couldn’t even slow it down. “I knew it from the first night we spent together. He knew it well before then. And his death at the old place? That wasn’t an accident. I’m sure everyone started whispering about it when the body was still warm, but now you know.” She paused to shut her eyes and will the tears away, but they didn’t relent. “I didn’t want to lose Michael, too. So when he left, I had to let him go.”
“But then why did you let us believe he was dead?”
“It was easier. That’s all. No questions. Less judgment. Who’d second-guess a grieving mother?”
“Easier?” Ellie pushed her seat back with a squeak, anger coiling inside her. “Are you telling me it’s easier to have a son die than to know he’s alive somewhere else?”
“No, I—”
“Are you telling me it’s easy to look at a dead body on a rack, covered in blood and bruises? To watch your friends lower it in the ground? Are you telling me I had it easier with Kenny dead than I would have had he gone off to some other place—some real place—like Michael? In secret? Living some wonderful, exciting life far away?”
“All I’m saying is that it was easier to lie than to tell the truth,” Mary Alice snapped. After a deep breath, her body relaxed and she cowered in shame. “I shouldn’t have, but I took the easy way out. And I’ve regretted it ever since.”
“Do you really believe that? Look at yourself right now. Look at the two of us. Is any of this easy? Was twelve years of guilt easy?”
“You’re right, and I’m sorry. I am sorry for hurting you. It’s the last thing I would ever want, believe me,” Mary Alice said. “You mean more to me than I mean to myself, and that’s got to be the truth because I’m done lying. I love you, Ellie. I have always loved you.”
Ellie twisted her mouth and turned away, composing herself to an audience of tall, cedar cabinets. When she turned back, she was crying anyway, having succumbed to the very emotions she had told herself not to feel. “Oh Mary Alice,” she said, falling into her on the chair for a hug. “How in the hell could I not love you right back.”
Gerald stepped back from the corner where he was eavesdropping and let them finish their talk alone. As he crept up the stairs to the bedroom he had only recently begun to share, he looked proudly at the walls surrounding him. Life really did feel so much better with Ellie in it.
A gust of wind made all the cornstalks in the distance sway, shifting together with some invisible rhythm that almost made them forget time was moving, that everything they had ever seen or known was moving, that nothing ever really stopped. Katherine was wearing the nicest blouse she’d worn the whole trip, a pale pink thing that had never seen a wrinkle, and black slacks draped around her like liquid. Without asking, Mary Alice knew this was her usual traveling outfit, something as flattering as it was comfortable, something chosen with the utmost care and hundreds of dollars. Mary Alice looked down at her own outfit for the trip to Atlanta, jeans and tennis shoes, and wondered if she ought to switch to something that was easier to take off. Something without laces, like her sister’s flats.
“So it’s straight to Atlanta? No stopovers?”
“No stopovers.”
“And they make you take off your shoes at the airport now?”
“Well, that depends,” Katherine said with a shrug.
“On what?”
“If they let you come in line with me.”
“So you don’t have to take off your shoes?”
“No.”
“Why’s that, exactly? You slip someone some cash?”
Katherine groaned and shot her sister something between a scowl and a smile. “No, because I have a special sticker on my ticket.”
“How’d you get that?”
“I paid for it.”
“I see,” Mary Alice said. She was smiling now.
“When’s the last time you were on a plane?”
“Oh, twenty-five years. Maybe more.”
“How is that possible?”
“Didn’t have anywhere to go,” she said as her hand reached down to squeeze her sister’s. “And nobody ever bought me a ticket.”
They finished their coffee at the same time, and Katherine split the remnants in the carafe between the two mugs.
“You know you’re always welcome at our house,” Katherine said.
“I do now,” Mary Alice said, a slight smile appearing on her face.
“Good.”
Katherine flinched when she heard a creak coming from inside.
“That’s just Michael,” Mary Alice said, instantly recognizing the sound of his weight on the floorboards.
“Think he’ll join us?”
The door slid open and Michael’s voice filled the porch. “Morning.” He sounded so much like Samuel that Mary Alice didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“Good morning.”
“Mind if I join you?”
“Do you want some coffee?”
“Sure, but just one cup. Josie Kerr invited me over for breakfast. I told her we were leaving this morning but she insisted, so I’m going to walk over in a few.”
“Well, let’s make another pot anyway. Ellie’s coming over, too.”
Michael stepped barefoot onto the concrete slab and grabbed the pot, then headed back for the door.
“You know how many scoops?”
“Yes, Mom, I know how many scoops,” he said. She could hear his eyes rolling.
“Just checking.”
“We’re leaving at eleven, right?”
“Ten-forty-five if we can manage,” Katherine said. “I need to drop off the car at the rental place and don’t know what the line will be like.”
“Ten-forty-five. Got it.”
When the door closed, Katherine turned back to her sister and squinted at the sight of her. There was a lightness to her now, a smile that felt like part of her, not something painted to cover a crack.
“You should move, you know,” she said.
“Where?”
Katherine shrugged. “San Antonio? Dallas? My guest room?”
The question felt impossible to conceive of, let alone answer, so Mary Alice just shook her head. “Everyone I know is here.”
Katherine turned to her sister, her glance lingering long enough that Mary Alice returned it. “But what about everyone you don’t?”
Mary Alice looked back at the horizon and tried to imagine her next life. Her second try. All she could see were the people she would have to leave behind, though the future looked good on them, didn’t it? Of course it did. It had to. As the sun rose over the scraggly silhouettes of mesquite, she finally allowed herself to come into focus. There I am, she thought, squinting into the distance. I’m right there.