chapter
10

When school began again the following September, Lily had high hopes for her junior year. Age sixteen was such an improvement over age fifteen: Lily could drive her own car, earn her own money and leave the babysitting to others. Along with the pleasure of new notebooks, new pencils, new clothes and, best of all, totally excellent new shoes, was that first-day-of-school joy. A fresh new year in which to get things right for a change.

Of course, no sooner had the satisfying rhythm of class begun than they had a Teacher Work Day.

Students didn’t have school, but Lily’s mother had to show up at her school for Teacher Improvement, and Kells didn’t have the day off, so Mom and Kells were out the door and into their cars as early as ever. Michael had been invited to go on the last all-day sail of the season with the Mahannas, while Amanda had agreed to keep Nathaniel for the hours that Lily was at work.

For Lily had a job.

Since both Reb and Lily had had four years of orthodonture, Dr. Alzina knew Lily well. The day she graduated to a nighttime-only retainer, her orthodontist said, “So, Lily, you want to work for me? Two afternoons a week and alternate Saturdays?”

Lily loved the orthodontists’ office. Her first job was to answer the phone and say cheerily, “Good afternoon! Doctors Bence, Alzina and Gladwin, orthodontists. This is Lily! How may I help you?”

Her second job was to hand out free toothbrushes on the off chance that an actual living kid would voluntarily brush his or her teeth.

Her third job was taking the Polaroids of Befores and Afters.

Befores were hideous: gap-toothed, beaverish, crooked-mouthed urchins with terrified eyes.

Afters were beautiful: each smile perfect and each face wreathed in pride.

Not only did Lily get to skip the icky parts of dental offices, like saliva, she earned money. Almost a year after the terrible plane flights, she had finally earned back the airplane ticket money.

It was nice not to have to babysit Nathaniel for free. Then not only could Lily turn him over to Amanda, but also she could go earn money that, at last, she could spend on herself. Lily was working all day on Teacher Work Day, because the receptionist hadn’t found a sitter and had to stay home with her kids. Lily strapped Nathaniel into his car seat (he was a three-car-seat kid, since he got strapped down wherever he went). She braced herself. He would now burst into song.

Nathaniel had started nursery school over the summer. He was an old hand now—he knew how to sit in a circle around the keyboard and everything. But did he learn fun little rhymes like “The Farmer in the Dell” or “In and Out the Windows”? No. He came home singing ditties like “Stay home; lock the doors; wear your safety helmet; help with chores.”

This was the most depressing list Lily had ever heard. How come they weren’t teaching kids to go everywhere and do everything? All previously brave three-year-olds were going to become scaredy-cats.

How contradictory were the orders of teachers. Here in nursery school, teachers did everything they could to tamp down energy and daring. Then in high school, teachers tried to retrieve it. Be free! they cried. Find your own life. Set your own boundaries. Be spontaneous. How, Lily wanted to know, when school had so busily been destroying all those skills since age three?

Nathaniel sang lustily, “I always use a seat belt, it keeps me safe and sound. It really is a great belt! It holds me all around!”

“We’re going to Amanda’s,” she told him.

Nathaniel clapped. He loved Amanda, and her collection of yellow rubber duckies, and especially how Amanda was willing to bob for hours in the shallow end of her pool playing Escape the Sharks.

Lily’s cell phone rang.

“It’s me, your sister, Rebecca, reminding you before we even start talking not to call me by the nickname I discarded last year, a rule you have not observed even once, and which if you were ever going to give me a gift, it would be to call me Rebecca.”

“Give it up, Reb,” said Lily, laughing with delight at her sister’s voice. “Nobody’s ever going to call you Rebecca.”

“Please? If I beg and grovel?”

“You’ve never begged or groveled in your life.”

“Today’s the day. I’m flying into LaGuardia tonight and I beg you—I’m groveling—can you tell Mom to pick me up at four-thirty? I hate taking the bus.”

“You’re coming for a visit? How fabulous! I’ll come and get you.”

“You’d drive into LaGuardia by yourself?” said Reb. “I wouldn’t dare.”

“Doesn’t scare me,” said Lily, although it did. It was almost exactly the one-year anniversary of Lily’s flight to get Michael. “Mom will be thrilled to see you,” she said, trying not to sound reproachful, because after Reb spent Christmas with Freddie, she also spent January break in Texas with Freddie’s family. Spring break, Reb went to Florida with friends and, of course, the perfect Freddie. And at the end of Reb’s freshman year, just when Mom and Lily were aching to have her around all summer, Reb came home for precisely three days and then caught up with Freddie in Labrador, of all places, where they both had summer jobs. “Labrador?” Lily had said. “Isn’t that awfully far north? Up past Anne of Green Gables?”

“Camping on an ice field,” Reb had confirmed. “Are we tough or what?”

Lily was fond of the environment and all that, but she preferred the environment of cities. Freddie and Reb could have the wilderness.

Mom had said sadly, “She likes Freddie’s family better.”

“She expects them to be different,” Lily pointed out. “She didn’t expect us to be different.”

This was the closest they ever came to discussing that Lily and Michael had accepted Kells, while Reb had not; that Lily and Michael thought Nathaniel was perfect—which included being perfectly awful—while Reb simply found him awful.

Now her sister said, “Guess why I’m coming home.”

“You adore us,” said Lily.

“I do. Madly. But why else?”

“You need your laundry done?”

Reb laughed. “I’m coming home to plan my wedding.”

O lovely word of white gowns and bright flowers, blaring trumpets and joyful guests. “Reb! I’m so happy for you!” Lily saw a long row of handsome young men in black and white formal garb, their eyes fastened upon the row of beautiful bridesmaids. One of those young men—an intelligent and charming college boy, perhaps with dark hair (Lily warmed to people with dramatic coloring), perhaps a math or engineering major, because Lily had languages and history covered and there was no point in duplicating knowledge—one of those young men would see Lily Victoria Rosetti coming down the aisle, perhaps in rose satin (Reb still liked pink and Lily had begun to accept the pink end of the spectrum), so the flowers would be roses, and shoes—what kind of shoes?—well, anyway, that young man would fall in love with Lily right there in the very same church in which Lily would later marry him.

“Will you be my maid of honor?” asked Reb.

“Oh, Reb! Yes!”

Mr. Mahanna’s boat, the Saint Anne (named for Mrs. Mahanna, who told her family loudly and often that she was a saint for putting up with them), had a very powerful engine.

Over the summer, Michael had discovered the joys of fast and loud.

Trey had turned seventeen and lost interest in the expensive power toys he had previously killed Jamie for touching, so Jamie (and therefore Michael) got to use Trey’s Jet Skis and ATV. Michael had found that fast and loud could pull you in: you thought no thoughts; you worried no worries. Speed was such an answer.

All summer long, Michael rode his dirtbike over to the Mahannas’, where he and Jamie argued fiercely over who got to do what, and because Jamie wanted to be a wrestler when he grew up, this argument was often settled with violence. They took corners too fast and fell off things and got gravel stuck in their torn kneecaps. Jamie loved a good wound and was always hoping for streams of blood.

Michael and Jamie had classmates whose parents never even let them be alone in a toy store, never mind on bikes five miles from home. They had acquaintances whose only excitement in life was on a video screen and knew one boy who had never done a single thing outdoors: never fallen or tripped or bled; never even got dirty.

Mr. Mahanna let Michael drive the boat first while Jamie yelled that it wasn’t fair, which it wasn’t, and when Jamie finally got a turn, Michael sat with Trey. “Your new fourth-grade teacher?” Trey yelled over the engine. “I had the same teacher when I was in fourth! I loved fourth grade!”

Michael was always astonished when people claimed to love school. Michael’s crowd—not Jamie, of course; the Mahannas were perfect—were always getting tutored or remediated. They had to be “brought up to speed” or given some “one-on-one.” You never loved that kind of school. You showed up and eventually it ended.

Jamie wanted to motor up to Plum Island, where scientists studied infectious animal diseases. Jamie had heard that if you landed on the island, they had to shoot you because you were now a carrier of death. Jamie wanted to penetrate the island’s defenses or at least find out whether the scientists shot blanks or real bullets.

“You guys are lucky enough you’ve got a Teacher Work Day, whatever that is,” said Mr. Mahanna. “Even luckier that I can take the day off. And now you also want the joys of being shot at? Forget it.”

Trey opened a bag of Cheez Doodles for himself and tossed Michael the Fluff and peanut butter sandwich Mrs. Mahanna had made just for him.

My own father doesn’t know I love Fluff, thought Michael. Doesn’t know I’m pretty much okay in fourth. That I read almost at grade level. That I can drive a boat.

Michael had largely unmemorized the two and a half weeks spent with his father. But now and then a piece of the visit would spew forth, getting him in the eyes like chlorinated water from a pool. He remembered the testing at that new school where Dad had put him. How scornfully the principal had considered Michael’s scores. “Your son needs a special class,” he had said, and Dad had shot a look of shame and anger at the son who was stupid.

Michael was as smart as anybody else. But he could not scrape knowledge up off the page the way all the girls and most of the boys could. It just lay there, stuck in little black shapes on white paper, and he couldn’t get hold of it.

Michael held the uneaten Fluff sandwich and stared out to sea.

Then he unmemorized his father. It was too bad school didn’t require unlearning. He was a whiz.

Lily opened the high, difficult latch of the gate that protected Amanda’s swimming pool from marauding toddlers. Amanda lay flat on her chaise, her bare back facing the sun, her eyes closed.

What a contrast their lives were. Amanda’s so slow and leisurely; Lily’s so frantic and full. What if Amanda continued to be comfortable in the sun, doing nothing much, while Lily joined the footrace that was city life? What if their friendship dwindled away, like Lily’s friendship with her very own sister—and only one of them noticed?

“Hi, Amanda!” shrieked Nathaniel, attacking.

Amanda rolled over and swept him up, hugging and kissing. “Hello, most perfect short person in the universe.”

“Can I put the rubber duckies in the water?”

“You can. They’re in their net bag. See it hanging over there?”

Nathaniel hurried to the fence where the rubber duckies hung. The hook was too high for him. It never occurred to him to ask for help. He dragged over a chair to stand on.

“Great news,” said Lily, rubbing sunscreen into a forgotten spot on Amanda’s back. “Reb is coming home tonight to plan her wedding to Freddie!”

As always, Amanda reacted perfectly. “Do I get to go to the bridal showers and the parties? I want to be part of all the shopping. When is the wedding? Next June?”

“Who knows? Who cares? I’m just glad they’re not eloping. It would be just like Reb to hop in a canoe and meet a justice of the peace at some bend in the river.”

“Remember the first time we saw a photograph of Freddie,” said Amanda, “and I wanted to steal him? The guy is movie-star quality. What did Reb ever do to deserve him?”

Lily didn’t care whether anybody deserved anything. Love was beautiful, Reb was beautiful, the wedding would be beautiful.

“Doesn’t Freddie have a brother?” asked Amanda. “I’m sure I remember an e-mail from Reb discussing the brother of Freddie. He’ll be best man, and I totally bet it turns out he’s really the best man—for you.”

They giggled. “I cannot marry Freddie’s brother. I refuse to be Mrs. Crumb.”

“His last name is Crumb?”

“Yup. Reb’s kids will be the little Crumbs.”

“A good case for keeping your own name,” agreed Amanda. “Why don’t you leave Nathaniel with me for dinner as well? It might be easier than hauling him to the airport and dealing with him when you’re trying to have a reunion with Reb.”

Lily shook her head. “He sees so little of Reb and Reb so little of him. And he’s perfect these days, so I’ll bring him.”

Amanda raised her eyebrows.

“Well, perfect with lapses,” Lily admitted.

“Hourly lapses,” Amanda pointed out.

Nathaniel had gotten the bag down. Amanda strapped a swim vest around his waist and over his shoulders and lifted him in her arms. She walked out on the diving board over the deep end and bounced hard. On the second bounce, they cannonballed.

Nathaniel came up sputtering and shouting, “Again! Again!”

He had already forgotten Lily, who slipped out the gate and headed for work. She knew perfectly well that it was a bad plan to take Nathaniel to the airport. He’d be so exhausted by an afternoon playing hard with Amanda that he’d have tantrums.

But a person in charge of somebody else had to be brave, and that person was braver with somebody holding her hand, and a person going to the airport for the first time in almost fifty-two weeks—that person might need a hand to hold.

“Doctors Bence, Alzina and Gladwin,” said Lily over and over. It was extra busy since kids didn’t have school, so emergencies and problems had been wedged in left and right. Lily normally worked only three to five-thirty. Today she was working ten to four, and the place was insane.

“Don’t worry about missing Kelsey’s appointment, Mrs. Smith,” she would say. “Schedules are so busy these days.” Although everybody’s day was busy and they got here, so what was Kelsey’s mother’s problem? Then she would yell across the room. “Conor, brushing your teeth for six seconds doesn’t count. It has to be the full two minutes.

“No, Conor. You won’t die of toothpaste poisoning if you keep the toothpaste in your mouth the full two minutes.”

And then, because it was Conor, who reminded her of Michael once and Nathaniel now, she’d yell, “Fine! Drop dead! But you’ll never get your braces checked and you’ll never be able to leave the office and they’ll lock up and you’ll be rotting on the floor in here while other people are enjoying their Thursday off from school!”

When Lily got back to Amanda’s, Nathaniel was sound asleep on an air mattress in the shade. Amanda was standing against the pool enclosure, backlit by the sun. Shimmering light framed her fair hair. She wore a long silky robe and gleamed like some ancient seer or oracle. And then, almost regally, almost ceremonially, Amanda took Lily’s hand.

How strange it felt: escorted to a seat by the cool hand of her friend.

Amanda arranged herself on the seat across from Lily. She was clearly also arranging her thoughts. “Lily,” she said carefully. “You’ll be your sister’s maid of honor. I’ve been thinking all day what that means. I want to withdraw our prayer.”

There was only one prayer to which Lily had eagerly cried Amen.

No matter how many times you said or sang Amen, the word never felt English. It came from Latin, which took it from Greek, which took it from Hebrew. It meant “truly” or, in the King James Version, “verily.” A word for when you agreed. But the Lord evidently hadn’t agreed, because denrose was still alive and kicking. (Actually, Lily had no first-hand knowledge of this, but his address still occupied its place in Reb’s e-mail list. Surely if Reb had gone to denrose’s funeral, she would have mentioned it.)

I bet we’re dead for denrose, thought Lily. I bet at parties when other people refer to their children, he says, “I never had kids myself.”

Amanda looked away from Lily and stared up into the sky, first from one angle, then from another, frowning slightly.

“Looking for God?” said Lily.

“I’d love a glimpse,” agreed Amanda. “God!” she yelled in her demanding way. “I’m sorry!” she shouted at Him. She flopped back down on her chaise while Lily continued to study the sky for results.

“Toss me the sunscreen,” said Amanda.

Lily handed it over.

“Because the thing is,” said Amanda, “your father will be at Reb’s wedding.”