After his parents left to go watch the search, Thaddeus plunked down on the couch in the family room and stared at his phone. He had lied about having a call scheduled but debated calling Nicole.
He could, he thought, act like he was just checking in to let her know he’d made it there safely, then maybe they’d continue the conversation, and in doing so start to sidestep the exposure he felt whenever he thought about her. They had to get past this. She would be in his meetings when he went to New York. She was the one he spoke to the most about his tour arrangements. He shook his head at himself. Why had he revealed so much to her?
The answer came from somewhere deep inside him: Because you wanted her to know.
But why? He pressed himself. Why had he wanted her to know? Before he could come upon an answer, the telephone on the end table next to him began to ring. Thaddeus eyed it skeptically, wondering if he should answer it or just let it go to the answering machine. He didn’t live there anymore; no one expected him to answer.
He decided to let it go, then went back to staring at his phone as the ringing stopped, only to start again almost immediately. He glared at the phone until it stopped ringing a second time. He decided he was thirsty and rose from the couch to get something to drink from the kitchen. Before he could take a step, the phone rang for a third time.
Annoyed, he reached for the receiver and raised it to his ear with a gruff “Hello?”
“Thaddeus?” his sister, Kristyn, asked, clearly taken aback by his tone.
He cringed and apologized. “I thought it was the press calling.” Which was not exactly a lie. It could’ve just as easily been an annoying reporter hoping to catch one of them off guard and get a scoop. “What’s up?”
“I was calling to give Mom—or Dad since I guess he’s there too—an update on our travel plans.”
“Oh, you guys are coming?” Neither of his parents had mentioned Kristyn coming. He figured she’d gotten a pass because she had a husband and kids and lived all the way in California. Or if he wanted to be cynical about it, because she’d only been four and not responsible for Davy the night he’d gone missing. Both could’ve been true.
Kristyn sighed. “Well, we’re trying to. My youngest has been sick, and Jeff’s got a meeting he can’t miss on Monday, so it’s looking like it’ll be Tuesday before we’re able to get there.” She sighed again. “To be honest, I haven’t even purchased plane tickets yet because I don’t know if I should.” She paused, probably thinking of how much she should say and how to say it.
“This might blow over and you might not need to come,” he supplied.
“Yeah,” she said. Another long pause followed before she spoke again, her voice sounding more like that of the little girl he remembered than that of the young woman he barely knew. “But what if it doesn’t blow over? What if this time’s for real?”
Thaddeus said nothing for a moment, thinking about how glad he was to be meeting Phillip at the bar later, how good a cold beer would taste.
“Tell you what,” he said. “Why don’t you give it another day before you book the tickets?”
“Um, because the cost of the tickets goes up exponentially with every day I wait?” A teasing tone edged her voice, but he knew she was not teasing. His sister was a young stay-at-home mom. She and her husband were living off one income so she could be home with Thaddeus’s niece and nephew. Thaddeus admired what they were doing. It was more than he had done.
“Ok,” he said. “Why don’t you let me buy the plane tickets?”
“Oh, Thaddeus,” she said. “I can’t let you do that.”
“’Course you can,” he replied. “It’ll make me feel good. It’s been far too long since I’ve done a good deed.”
She laughed. “Well, I mean, you are a bestselling author. You probably have money to burn.”
He chuckled. “Not necessarily. But I do have money to help my little sister. Besides, I’ve got to do something to live up to our perfect missing brother.” He stopped as soon as the words left his mouth. He hadn’t meant to say that aloud. “I’m sorry,” he blurted. “That was an awful thing to say.”
Kristyn was silent for a moment before she spoke again.
“I dunno. I think it was one of the most honest things you’ve ever said. It’s not like I haven’t felt the same from time to time. Davy was a hard act to follow. And I didn’t know him like you did. I can’t imagine how it felt to be in your shoes.”
A part of him wanted to say more, to really talk to his sister about how it felt to be Davy’s siblings. His sister was the only person who could possibly understand. Maybe, he thought, they’d get to really talk if she visited. All the more reason to buy those plane tickets and make it happen.
Thaddeus thought about how honest he’d been with Nicole and the regret he’d felt afterward, the exposure like an open wound. What would it be like to share parts of himself with another person and not feel vulnerable afterward? Maybe he could become someone who emoted instead of withdrew, someone who could dig deeper and live to tell about it. It was something to consider.
“Still,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said it.”
Kristyn lowered her voice to a whisper. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
Thaddeus smiled in response. “I hope you do come. It’d be nice to see you guys.”
“One thing you can say for Davy,” she said. “He’s always had a way of drawing us back together.”
Thaddeus felt tears prick at his eyes as he brushed his fingers against his pants pocket.
“That he has,” he said. “Just keep me posted about your plans. I meant that offer. Let that be one less thing you’ve got to think about.”
“Thanks, Thaddeus,” she said.
When they hung up, Thaddeus still had tears in his eyes but a smile on his face.
* * *
Three beers in he had started to forget why he was there, in a dive bar, in his hometown. He allowed himself to relax, to let Phillip introduce him when friends came by the table. He shook hands and hoped no one recognized him. This was the kind of place where men chatted about sports and women, not bestsellers or the latest headlines. He felt safe, insulated, lured into the kind of complacency that comes from alcohol and the company of an old friend.
Except when the old friend turned the conversation around to the one thing he was trying not to think about.
“So, do you think anything’ll come of them finding the jacket?” Phillip lowered his voice as he spoke, although between the din of music and voices, he needn’t have bothered. “I went by there today. You know, just to see. Your folks were there.”
Phillip didn’t ask why he hadn’t been there and for that Thaddeus was glad. He simply nodded and looked away, scanning the scene at the bar, looking anywhere but at Phillip’s intense, inquisitive face. Was Phillip with him because he wanted to see him or because he was nosy about Davy’s case? Thaddeus ignored the nagging sense that it was the latter, focusing instead on the patrons gathered in the bar. Some of the faces looked vaguely familiar, others were complete strangers. He’d been gone a long time.
He caught the eye of the server, a young woman with a ponytail and several piercings, and held up his beer mug. She nodded and bustled over to the bar to fetch another. If only his relationships with all women were that simple: I need, you respond. No discussion, no feelings involved.
“Are you worried about what they’re gonna find?” Phillip’s voice was gentle, tentative. Thaddeus tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he was just trying to be a sounding board, a friend who would be there for him. But Thaddeus didn’t need anyone to be there for him. He needed to forget why he was there at all.
He gave Phillip an irritated glance. “I’m trying not to think about that tonight, Philly.”
Phillip lifted his hands. “Ok, ok.”
They sat in silence for a beat. Bob Seger played on the jukebox, singing about blaming things on the moon. There’d barely been a sliver in the sky the night Davy went missing, which was why it had been so dark.
“So you keeping up with baseball? The Cardinals looked all right in spring training.” Phillip changed the subject by returning to an older, safer topic. Once upon a time baseball was the bond between them. They’d met as teammates in Little League, playing on fields just a short walk from where they now sat. So many weekends spent on those fields. They’d both been bound for greatness—everyone said so. Then his junior year Thaddeus blew out his knee in a slide into home plate. He got the run, though. Phillip had gone on and played baseball on scholarship at a small liberal arts college. But their friendship wasn’t the same when baseball no longer served as a bond.
“I’d forgotten how much you loved St. Louis,” Thaddeus said. “I was there yesterday.” Jeez, was that just yesterday?
“I’m from there,” Phillip said. “Originally.” Sometimes Thaddeus forgot that about his old friend. Like so many people in Wynotte, Thaddeus included, Phillip had not started his life there, but had made it home nonetheless.
The server deposited his beer on the table, setting down one for Phillip as well. Phillip thanked her, then leaned toward Thaddeus. “Is it cool, traveling around? I bet it is.”
Thaddeus shrugged. “It’s a lot of airports and hotel rooms. I’m in and out of a city so fast, it’s not like I see much.”
Phillip leered, looking exactly like high school Phillip, albeit with thinning hair and a doughier face. “I bet there’s lots of women at your events. Do they, like, throw themselves at you?”
Thaddeus paused for a moment but decided not to tell Phillip the truth. Instead he just said, “It’s, uh, not really like that.” He changed the subject. “Speaking of girls.” He tipped his head to indicate a table of women across the room. “Is it my imagination, or do those girls look familiar?”
Phillip looked over, then smiled and waved. “Oh yeah, we know them. Or we did. Back in the day. That’s Krista and Carrie and Amy. They’re here a lot. They come for ‘moms’ night out,’ which, as far as I can tell, means they leave their husbands home with the kids and come here to drink too much and flirt.” He leaned forward in his chair and squinted. “There’s another girl with them tonight. I can’t tell who it is, but she kinda looks familiar too.”
Thaddeus looked over as if he could help place the girl, as if he hadn’t chosen long ago to forget them all, leaving high school—and this place—as far behind as he could. He sipped his beer as he took in her face, his heart beginning to pound at the same moment his brain produced her name. He set his beer down.
“It’s Larkin,” he said to Phillip.
Phillip’s eyes widened. “No shit,” he said and laughed. He clapped Thaddeus on the back. “It’s your lucky day, man.”
“Ha,” Thaddeus said. “’Fraid not.” Larkin had probably forgotten all about him. She was married now, after all. His mom had attended her wedding several years ago, then explained the experience to him in boring detail. He’d just begun working on the memoir and was staying in a cabin in Wyoming on the arts fellowship he’d won. He’d had limited cell service, but his mom had gotten through. Very late on the night she’d told him Larkin was married, he’d written about her. What he’d written that night about the girl next door had made it into the book with almost no changes.
He looked back over, as if to confirm it was indeed her sitting right there, in the same room as him. He wondered if she’d read the book, if she knew what he’d written about her, the girl next door. He felt heat rise in his cheeks at the thought of her reading his words. The readers from the bookstore the other night would’ve loved this moment.
“Dude,” Phillip teased. “You’re blushing.” He stood and grabbed his beer. “Come on.” He swaggered toward the girls’ table without waiting for Thaddeus to say ok.
Thaddeus started to protest, but Phillip was too far away to hear over the music, and he wouldn’t have listened even if he had heard. Thaddeus thought about staying put, but that would look weird and rude. So he rose with a sigh, grabbed his own beer as a paltry shield, and headed the same way Phillip had.
By the time he got to the table, Phillip had already struck up a conversation with the whole group. Thaddeus gave Larkin a closed lip smile as they each dipped their heads in mutual acknowledgment. He’d assumed she’d left this place behind just as he had. According to his mother, her husband was in the military. (“You should’ve seen their wedding, Thaddeus. So lovely. She was in this gorgeous gown, and he was in his dress uniform. So were all his groomsmen, all lined up beside him. I always did love a man in uniform.”) Apparently, so had Larkin. Not that he was jealous.
“Y’all remember T—” Phillip stopped himself from using Thaddeus’s old name. “I mean, Thaddeus Malcor, right?” Phillip swept his hand out as if he were a nobleman introducing the gentry.
The ladies nodded enthusiastically, and he hoped they wouldn’t bring up the news about Davy. He wished he hadn’t gone out with Phillip, then quickly recalled why he had. The alternative was staying home with his parents, breathing in air thick with sadness, memories, and the tension that comes with divorced people forced to sit in the same house for hours on end, waiting for news that may never come. Rock, meet hard place.
“So no more TJ, huh? It’s Thaddeus, now?” one of them asked. He couldn’t decide if it was Krista or Carrie. Once upon a time he’d danced with these girls, drunkenly belted ’80s rock lyrics, eaten countless slices of pizza at countless parties. Once upon a time they were part of his everyday life. Now he could barely place them.
“Yeah,” he said. “Thaddeus just sounded more . . . professional, I guess.” He gave them an aw-shucks look.
“Well then, welcome back, Thaddeus,” she chided, her grin good-natured.
“Yes,” Larkin chimed in. “Welcome back.” Unlike her companions, whose fingers encircled the stems of their wineglasses, Larkin didn’t appear to be drinking. Only a glass of water sat in front of her.
“Thanks,” he said and took a nervous pull from his beer. No one said anything for a moment, and he could see they were all deciding what was safe to say to him.
“I read your book,” one of them ventured. “It was good.”
“Thank you,” he said stiffly, wishing he could bolt from the scene. The other girls nodded but didn’t say they had read it, which he was grateful for. He didn’t want to have a Q&A session in the middle of the bar.
“I’ve been meaning to read it,” another one offered. “I just don’t have the time; I’ve been so busy.” She rested one hand on her bosom and made a dramatic face as the others affirmed that they, too, had very little time to read or do anything else they wanted to do because of their children.
“That’s fine.” Thaddeus chuckled. “It’s not required reading.”
“Well,” the one who’d read it said, “I mean, it’s not every day that someone you grew up with writes a bestselling book. I mean, I remember so much of what you wrote about.” He watched as something dawned on her, crossing her face like a shadow.
“Wait a minute.” She pointed from Larkin to Thaddeus. “Didn’t you two grow up next door to each other?” She nudged the woman next to her. “This is all coming back to me now.”
Thaddeus knew why, if she’d read the book, she was asking. He hoped against hope that Larkin had also been so busy, far too busy to read.
“We did,” Larkin said, then reached for the glass of water sitting in front of her. A lone lemon slice bobbed on the surface. She took a drink. “But that was a long time ago.” She set the water glass back down.
Carrie or Krista added excitedly, “I picked Larkin up tonight, and the press was already at your house. It was a zoo!” She dialed down her tone, looking at him with large, sympathetic eyes and saying, “I feel so bad for your family, dealing with all this again.”
Thaddeus nodded curtly. “Yeah, well, it’s weird to say we’re used to it, but . . .” He paused, shrugged. “We’re kind of used to it.” He decided to use the moment to attempt an exit. “So, hey, it was good seeing you guys.”
But instead of the women letting him go, one of them shouted, “No, wait! There’s Lee Watkins! Y’all need to say hey to him. You remember him?” She waved her arm and hollered, “Lee, get your ass over here!”
Thaddeus looked over to see the man in question making his way over. His head was shaved, and Thaddeus could see several tattoos on his arms. Being that he probably had far fewer tattoos and a lot more hair in high school, he didn’t look familiar at all.
“What’s up?” Lee Watkins called out as he approached the table. “What is this? A reunion?”
The girl who had called him over said, “It is now!”
Lee Watkins held out his hand to Phillip. “Good to see you, man.”
Phillip shook his hand, and Lee quickly turned his attention to Thaddeus. “And you are?”
Before he could answer, one of the girls—Amy?—called out, “You know TJ—I mean, Thaddeus.” She hurried to correct herself. “Everyone knows Thaddeus,” she added just as Lee reached for his hand.
It seemed as if, upon hearing his name, Lee Watkins’s grip on Thaddeus’s hand loosened for a fraction of a second. He recovered so quickly it left Thaddeus wondering if he’d imagined it.
“Of course, of course,” Lee said. “The prodigal son returns.” He let go of Thaddeus’s hand and turned to scan the table of girls, pausing when he spotted Larkin.
“Don’t believe I know you,” he said, winking at her. Thaddeus suppressed a grin as Larkin’s face registered her distaste at being winked at.
“This is Larkin. She used to be Thaddeus’s next-door neighbor,” the one Thaddeus was almost certain was Krista said. He’d had a brief crush on her in high school, but now he couldn’t remember why.
Thaddeus decided to attempt an escape a second time. He lifted his now empty beer in a salute to them all. He was drinking too much too fast, but he couldn’t help himself. There was such a thing, after all, as drowning your sorrows.
“Well, it was good seeing you guys,” he said again, then added, “Take care.” He walked away from their chorus of parting words, heading back to the table he and Phillip had occupied. The server stood waiting for them, new beers sweating on her upheld tray. Phillip was right behind him.
“It looked like y’all were wrapping up over there,” she said. “So I figured I’d just meet you back here.”
Phillip thanked her and lifted his beer from the tray, then stepped back so she could hold out the tray to Thaddeus. Thaddeus grabbed his own beer, looking up just in time to notice how Phillip unabashedly ogled her chest before she fled with the empty tray, cheeks aflame.
“I see you haven’t changed a bit,” Thaddeus said.
“Hey, I’m married, not dead. I can look, just so long as I don’t touch,” he said. “Am I right?”
Thaddeus shrugged and let it go. What business was Phillip’s fidelity to him? He barely knew the guy anymore. After tonight he probably wouldn’t see him again for another decade. With any luck he’d be out of there and back on tour in a day or so. He thought of his conversation with Kristyn and felt a little pang at the thought of not getting to see her and her little family.
They both sank back into their chairs with the kind of weariness that accompanies the awareness that the night would end soon. What a strange night it had been. He looked over his shoulder, making sure Larkin was really there, that he hadn’t dreamed her. He caught her looking back at him and they both quickly looked away.
Phillip also looked in the direction of the table they’d just left as he took a long pull from his own beer.
“You have no clue who that guy is, do you?” he asked, probably an attempt to steer the subject away from his wandering eye.
“Who?” Thaddeus asked.
Phillip glanced over at the table again, then turned back to pick at the label of his beer. “Lee,” he said. “Watkins?” He looked up at Thaddeus. “You don’t remember him? From that night?”
Phillip didn’t have to indicate which night. There was only one he could be speaking of. Why did they have to keep returning to it? Thaddeus felt his heart rate pick up as he looked over at the man who’d shaken his hand moments ago. He studied his profile as he animatedly continued talking to the girls.
“He was there?” he asked without looking at Phillip. There were a good many guys there that night. It was possible Lee Watkins had been one of them.
“He was drinking with us. He was older, and we thought he was cool,” Phillip said.
Thaddeus felt the reel begin to play, the worn, warped memories from that night flashing in fragmented images inside his head: feet running over desiccated cornstalks, flashlight beams lighting on his friends’ faces, spinning with his arms outstretched, laughing even though nothing was funny, disembodied children’s voices emanating from the darkness as they called to each other, and later, his brother’s name carried on the wind, shouted by adult voices.
He saw himself walking over to retrieve that rock Davy had tossed when they’d sent him away. Thaddeus had tried to inspect it, curious if Davy had indeed found a piece of fool’s gold. But it was too dark to tell. Blame it on the moon, indeed. He’d put the rock in his pocket so he could give it to Davy the next time he saw him. He felt the weight of it still there, in his pocket all these years later, growing heavier with every hour he was back in this town.
“He’s the one who dared you to shotgun that beer,” Phillip said. “Remember?”
“That was him?” He resisted the urge to glance over one more time. Lee Watkins was more than just some random dude from high school. He had been there that night. And that made him significant.
“Yeah,” Phillip said, his voice suddenly hoarse. “I know you said you don’t want to talk about it, but . . . don’t you think about it?” When Thaddeus didn’t respond, he rushed to add, “I mean, of course you think about it. You wrote a whole book about it. But I read it, and—you didn’t talk about that part. I mean, about why we were really there.”
Thaddeus glared at Phillip. This wasn’t the time or the place to dig into the truth about that night. While his memoir was truthful, he had left out some damning details. To Thaddeus, the obvious stuff was damning enough. He’d been with his brother but had failed to protect him. He couldn’t underline that fact by providing the specific details of just how bad of a brother he’d been. It was his story, and he’d told it the way he wanted to, the only way he could bear to.
“I’m not doing this,” he said. “I can’t.”
“You were fifteen years old,” Phillip said, his voice softening. “People do dumb things as kids. And later in life, they wish they hadn’t. It’s part of growing up.”
The roaring began, a wind tunnel inside Thaddeus’s head. It meant he needed to get up, to walk, to flee. Instead he drained what was left in his beer bottle and slammed it back down.
“I was his older brother,” he said.
“You might’ve been older, but you were a kid too. No matter what you got up to that night, it doesn’t make it your fault,” Phillip pressed.
The cyclone’s intensity increased, the wind howled, and the twister spiraled faster and faster inside his head.
“Yeah? Well, then whose fault was it?” he asked, a question he’d turned around in his mind endlessly. Phillip opened his mouth to respond, but Thaddeus held up a hand to stop him and stood up.
“I’m sorry, I just can’t talk about this. Not here, not now.” He started to walk away, then turned back. “Is this why you brought me here? So you could push me about this? Force me to have some sort of cleansing moment?”
It was all coming back to him, the memories, the feelings, the guilt. The roaring inside him was fueled in part by rage at himself and in part by rage at Philly—for arranging that night at all. Phillip had been his best friend, but he’d also been his idol. The younger version of himself had wanted nothing more than to be like Phillip with his good looks, effortless coolness, and athletic ability. So he’d done whatever Phillip said he should, including drinking the beer Phillip’s uncle bought them that night. He’d wanted to go so badly that he would’ve done anything. Including let his younger brother tag along just so he could be there.
He looked over at Lee Watkins, still chatting up the ladies, still smiling. At that moment Lee Watkins glanced in his direction. Their eyes met and Lee looked quickly away, his smile momentarily gone. Thaddeus looked from Lee to Phillip, who stared up at him with a frightened expression, as if he knew he’d gone too far.
All Thaddeus wanted was to get as far away from both of them as he could, away from what their youthful exploits had unwittingly set in motion that night. Phillip started to protest, to justify, to reason, but Thaddeus just turned and walked away.
* * *
He was at the outer edge of the parking lot, pacing in front of his dad’s Camry when Larkin emerged from the bar. He’d been looking back and forth from the car to the bar, calculating just how many beers he’d had that evening and debating whether to risk driving, until she stepped through the door. Their eyes met and he took a stutter step backward, throwing off his balance as he listed slightly. She hurried toward him as if she could catch him if he fell, as if he wouldn’t take her down with him.
“Everything ok?” Larkin asked when she reached him, concern lining her brow.
He chuckled, leaning on the Camry’s bumper to aid his balance. “Uh, now that you mention it, no.” It occurred to him that it was the first real thing they’d said to each other in eighteen years.
“I saw you leave and, well, I was hoping I could catch a ride home with you,” she said. He looked at her, slowly comprehending what she was asking: the two of them, alone in a car together after all these years. Maybe she didn’t hate him as much as he thought. “I’m miserable in there,” she added, a pleading note in her voice. “I rode with those girls, and they seem intent on closing the place down.”
He couldn’t dwell on what she did or didn’t mean by her request. The simple truth was, she had just answered his question of to drive or not to drive. He held out his keys.
“How about I provide the car, and you provide the driving?” He shook the keys a little, carrot before horse. Not that he saw her as the horse in this scenario. “I mean, I noticed you weren’t drinking in there, and I can’t say the same for myself, so . . .”
The desperate look left her face. “Deal,” she said as she took the keys from his hand and walked over to the car. Neither spoke as they climbed in, the sound of their doors slamming in unison like an exclamation point.
In the close, quiet space of the car he could smell her perfume. She smelled different, yet the same. He watched as she put the key in the ignition and turned the engine, then shifted into Reverse. His stomach roiled as she backed up, then lurched forward a little too quickly. He gripped the door handle to steady himself.
“Sorry,” she said without looking at him.
They drove mostly in silence. Thaddeus thought of and discarded at least twenty conversation starters before giving up and turning on the radio, scrolling through the stations without really listening to the music. He stole glances at her profile, taking in the strange sight of her there, up close. He didn’t know her anymore, but he knew her just the same. She was strange yet familiar—new and old. A phrase crossed his mind: all at the very same time. No doubt they’d already run that video on the evening news that very evening.
Larkin had been standing right beside him when that video was recorded. Even though he’d been trying to be cool around her that night, he couldn’t stop himself from laughing in response to the look of sheer joy on Davy’s face after he successfully kept all four balls in the air. Larkin had laughed too. They’d all laughed, together.
She pulled into the driveway of his house and parked. The press had given up for the night. The yard was empty and the house was dark. At Larkin’s house next door, a light was on in the den.
“Thanks,” he said. “For driving. When you came outside, I was debating driving myself even though I knew I shouldn’t. That’s how bad I needed to get out of there.”
“Well, I’m glad I could help.” She turned off the car and took her hands off the steering wheel, resting them in her lap.
He went to open his door, then stopped and turned back to look at her, curious. “How come you weren’t drinking tonight? Are you in AA or something?”
She smiled and shook her head. “No.”
“Oh.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Are you, like, religious now?”
She laughed and lowered her voice to match his. “I’m, like, pregnant now.”
His mouth opened and his eyes went straight to her midsection, then quickly back to her face. “Oh, I, um, had no idea. I mean you don’t . . . look . . .” Unable to say the last word, his voice trailed off. He hoped she couldn’t see his cheeks reddening in the dark car.
“It’s early still,” she said.
Thaddeus glanced over at her house, then back, confused. Maybe she was going through a divorce. He recalled his mom saying something about Larkin earlier in the day, but he’d tuned her out. Now he regretted it. His mom would’ve given him the whole scoop and he wouldn’t have had to ask Larkin dumb questions.
“Do you live with your mom now or something?” This, too, was said in a lowered, apologetic tone.
“Sort of, yes. Not permanently, though. My husband’s deployed. He’s in the Middle East. With me being pregnant and having Audrey—that’s our daughter—to look after, and since my dad died, we just decided it would be better if I came here while he was over there. I can look after Mom and she can look after me.” She said this last part like it was a good thing. He wondered if she meant it.
Speaking of looking after, his hand went to his pocket, just making sure the rock was where it was supposed to be. Larkin watched him but didn’t ask what he was doing. He’d told Nicole about the rock that night. Even taken it out and showed it to her. Though she’d said all the right things, the memory still made his stomach churn.
“That’s a lot,” he hurried to say. “To handle.” He paused. “And I’m sorry about your dad. I should’ve said that sooner.”
She reached up and grabbed the steering wheel again as if she was going to drive away. “Life goes on.” She shrugged. “Or whatever you’re supposed to say.”
He nodded solemnly. “You sound like a grown-up.”
She laughed in spite of herself. “I guess that’s what we are now.”
He racked his brain for a way to keep her talking; he wasn’t ready to get out of the car yet. “Speaking of grown-ups, it was surreal to see all those people tonight, huh?”
“Yeah, kind of like a reunion I didn’t plan on going to.”
“No kidding.”
They both went quiet. He knew he should let her go inside her house, and he should go inside his own house. Before he could say as much, she spoke again.
“You looked like you left the bar angry.” Then she quickly added, “Sorry. I’m being nosy.” She moved her hand from the steering wheel to the driver’s side door handle.
He reached over and put his hand on her shoulder, attempting to keep her from leaving the car.
“You aren’t being nosy,” he said. The light coming into the car was filtered through dew collecting on the windshield, making her face appear pockmarked. She looked at him, saying nothing as she waited for him to go on.
He opened his mouth, then closed it. He wanted to talk like they used to on those long nights that summer before Davy disappeared. After that, he’d walled himself off from her, ruining any chance at a future with her. It was too late to make that up to her, to him, to who they might have been had things not gone the way they did. He exhaled.
“It’s been a long night. And I’ve had a lot to drink.” He rolled his eyes at himself to make her smile.
“If you ever want to talk . . . I’m right next door.”
Inside he felt a little burst of hope. Another opening, a long-closed door cracked open just the tiniest bit. Of course, she was married now and pregnant. So the crack would stay a crack. Still, it would be nice to have her there, close by, to talk to again.
“You might regret that offer,” he said and smiled even as his heart began to ache a little. When he spoke again, he had to force the words past a lump that had swelled in his throat. “I could use a friend right now.” He gestured toward his house, and all that it symbolized.
As if on cue, the downstairs lights flashed on and his mother stepped out on the porch, squinting to see who was sitting in the Camry.
“My mother’s timing is impeccable, as always,” he said.
Larkin smiled. He started to get out of the car, then stilled, remembering his manners.
“Thanks again. For the ride.”
“Thanks for getting me out of there.” She removed the keys from the ignition and dropped them in his hand. “And now you are the Keymaster,” she intoned, doing her best Sigourney Weaver impression, the joke hearkening back to so many summer days in his family room watching a well-worn VHS copy of Ghostbusters.
Thaddeus smiled and stepped out of the car, then walked quickly toward his mother, who beckoned him inside, leaving Larkin to make her own way home.