Beneath the Night Tree (15 page)

“Is he coming this weekend?”

It took me a moment to understand that Simon was talking about Parker, not Michael. “No,” I said too quickly. “He can’t make it down.”

“That’s too bad.” Simon deflated a little and returned to his books with an unenthusiastic air.

“What are you working on?” I tried to change the subject.

“Social studies.”

“What are you learning about?”

“The
Mayflower
.”

“That sounds interesting.”

“Not really.” Simon appeared to be immersed in his textbook, but just when I was about to settle back into my own homework, he murmured a question I was wholly unprepared for. “Why don’t you like Parker?”

I swallowed. “I do.”

“No, you don’t. And he’s
your
friend. I don’t get it.”

Sighing, I closed my book with a thump. I had at least another fifteen pages to read and a five-hundred-word summary to write, but I was ruined for homework now. It felt strange to study child psychology out of a book when it was flaunting its many facets and hues right in front of me. I wished Simon had brought all this up at the end of the semester, when I was better equipped to deal with it.

“Parker was my friend,” I admitted, choosing my words with such precision, I felt like I was talking in slow motion. “But I haven’t seen him in a very long time. We’ve both changed a lot.”

“I haven’t seen Janice in a long time, but I’d be happy to see her if she came home.”

The contradiction in Simon’s confession stopped me cold. I had never before heard him refer to his mom, our mom, as Janice. Even after all the years, the enduring silence, and the gradual sense of abandonment, she had always remained
Mom
to Simon. I had assumed it was his way of keeping her close, of ensuring that her disappearance would remain a temporary state of affairs. At least, in his mind.
Mom just had to step out . . . she’ll be back soon.

But calling her Janice carried a certain weight, an otherwise-unacknowledged admission that maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t coming back. It struck me that Simon was beginning to distance himself from her memory. From the hope that she would ever find her way home.

It saddened me somehow that he was ready to give up.

“It’s not the same,” I said softly. But I didn’t know how to make him understand. “For better or worse, Janice will always be your mom. Parker was just a friend. Someone I had only known for a very short time.”

“If you love someone, does it matter how long you’ve known them?”

“I never loved Parker,” I clarified, but I knew what he was thinking: if time was the glue that held people and families together, he had a few more years to log with us before he could be considered part of the DeSmit clan. After all, our histories spanned decades of celebrations and heartbreaks, joys and sorrows. Daniel might be new, too, but he was born into the family. Simon, on the other hand, was a tagalong, like a puppy we had added to our home as an afterthought.

Simon’s question was a land mine, the sort of inquiry that I hated fielding as a young mom and purportedly wise older sister. I drew a shaky breath, knowing I had to answer, that I had to come up with something more than
It’s not the same.

“Time is relative,” I began, but that was simply too oblique. “No, Simon,” I started over, “I don’t think it matters how long you’ve known someone if that person is honest with you. Do you know what I mean? You were a part of my heart from almost the first moment I saw you, and it was because you were yourself—you didn’t hide anything from us. It was so easy to fall in love with you. It seemed to happen overnight.”

I studied his face, watching his eyes for signs of comprehension. But Simon’s features were blank, waiting. I struggled on. “Parker was different. We pretended to know each other, but the truth was we were both hiding things. And because we weren’t real, our relationship fell apart when it hit . . . a rough patch. Does that make sense to you?”

“What was the rough patch?” Simon demanded.

He had no idea what he was asking. But what could I say without sounding like I was shutting him out?
I’ll tell you when you’re olde
r
?
You wouldn’t understan
d
?
It’s a secre
t
? Weren’t secrets exactly the thing that brought us here in the first place?

“I’m sorry,” I finally said. “That’s between me and Parker.”

Simon shrugged.

“Look, it’s really hard to explain, but I think that love—true love—has a lot to do with vulnerability. Do you know what that means?”

He nodded a little, but I didn’t believe him. Intelligent as he was, the concept of laying oneself bare was a notion that I was only just beginning to wrap my own heart around. How could I expect a ten-year-old to know what it meant to be undone before another person? “It’s like being really open,” I continued. “Not trying to hide who you are—the good stuff and the bad stuff. When you can be that unguarded with someone, I think you can start to form a real relationship.”

“And you and Parker didn’t have that,” Simon finished.

“No. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like him.”

“It just means you don’t trust him.”

I stared at my little brother, gape-mouthed.
Exactly,
I thought. But I didn’t say anything.

“I don’t trust Janice either,” Simon whispered as if he was sharing the deepest secret of his heart.

“Why not?”

“Because she didn’t come back for me.”

His voice didn’t crack on the words, but I could see his heart break in the reflection of his dark eyes. I didn’t know if he wanted me near him or not, but I was drawn to him as surely as if he had reached out to me. Daniel was sound asleep upstairs and Grandma was knitting in her bedroom, so I was sure that no one would interrupt our moment alone, and I didn’t stop to think as I rounded the table and pulled a chair next to him. I slid my arms around Simon’s waist, half-expecting him to resist, but instead he curled into my embrace, allowing me to transfer his slight, seventy-pound frame to my lap.

We hadn’t sat like this since the summer after his first-grade year, when he randomly decided that he was too old for such nonsense. I was bereft of the sweet burden of his little-boy body, the angles and lines of knobby arms and legs and the wild scent of the wind in his hair. But it all came back to me in a rush as Simon bent his head over my shoulder and held on for dear life.

“Oh, honey,” I breathed. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

He didn’t respond. Didn’t cry. Didn’t do anything at all. He just held on, and I let him cling to me as if I could keep him afloat.

I wondered if we both would drown.

When Simon was spent, his arms weary of binding us together in the midst of our shared loss, our grief, he just let go. He let his arms drop and stood up, not bothering to glance back at me or even say good night. His head hung as he left the room, and though he tried to hide them, I saw him swipe away the tears that had begun to fall. I ached for my brother with the sort of soul-wrenching sorrow that left me winded and worn.

“I love you, Simon,” I said to his stooped back, but I couldn’t be sure that he heard me.

Left alone in the kitchen amid the ruins of our impromptu study date, I felt a slow rage begin to simmer inside of me. I might have forgiven Janice for leaving me all those years ago, but I burned with a righteous indignation for the pain she was causing her only son now.

I didn’t understand her. I never would. And though I had to just accept the reality of her complete detachment and admit that she would likely never come back for him—for us—the injustice of it all hit me as if I were facing her betrayal for the very first time.

My blood boiled. My heart raced. I had to do something.

I should have resurrected chapter 3 in my textbook and attempted to absorb more about psychosocial development and its emotional and behavioral impact, but I didn’t have the heart. Instead, I gathered my notebook, pencils, and the heavy psychology manual in my arms and thrust the entire messy lot into the worn messenger bag I toted to and from class. Then I cleared Simon’s side of the table, briefly wondering if I could do his homework for him. But I settled for a quick note to the teacher, a two-line explanation that would hopefully excuse Simon for any work he hadn’t completed. It was the least I could do.

The kitchen was clean in a couple of minutes, and I was left standing in the silent house with no one and nothing for company but the steady tick of the clock above the sink. It was enough to drive me mad.

I wanted to grab Janice by the shoulders and shake her. I wanted to fix everything that was broken in Simon’s life. I wanted to be all my boys needed so they wouldn’t have to look at Parker with adoration in their eyes. I wanted Michael to marry me and Grandma to live forever and everything—for once—to unfold against the backdrop of a symphony instead of the discordant notes that comprised our DeSmit family sound track. I wanted so much, it felt like an explosion inside me, a relentless breach of self that continued to spill my hopes and dreams and desires like so much debris from all the places I had been torn.

“One little happily ever after,” I muttered, my words an angry prayer. “Would that be so hard?”

Heaven was silent.

But I wouldn’t be.

It took me a while to remember where I had put it, that fat stack of ridiculous postcards that I had intended to send to Michael one by one. They had slipped my mind until now, but suddenly the Pepto-Bismol–pink pig seemed the perfect way to reach out to Janice, wherever she was. What had started as a joke felt all at once very serious.

The truth was, I couldn’t call her. I couldn’t visit her or count on her to ever come back to see what had become of the family she left behind. But I had to do something, and when my fingers finally found the smooth cardboard pages in the folds of my purse, I felt a certain rush of satisfaction that my words would find an outlet. No matter how vain or senseless or futile.

You’re killing him,
I scribbled, not bothering to open with a greeting, some formal salutation. What was I supposed to write?
Dear Mom
?

It’s not fair.

You’re being selfish.

For once in your life, think about someone other than yourself.

I filled the small space with tiny words, dark scrawls on the white sheet like deep scars that wouldn’t fade. I poured out all my frustration and longing and resentment on behalf of a little boy who needed his mommy. On behalf of a grown woman who—though she hated to admit it—still did too.

It was all over in less than ten minutes, but the postcard bore my wrath like a scapegoat. A sacrificial lamb. I stared at it for what felt like forever, memorizing the words and trying to accept that Janice would never read them. But I wrote an address in the appropriate box anyway and hoped that somehow my message would make a difference. That it would find its way into hands that actually cared.

Lord willing, three lines would be enough.

Janice Wentwood

Minneapolis, MN

USA

Crash Course

“Not this weekend.”

“But I have—”

“I’m sorry,” I told Parker, pinning the telephone between my chin and shoulder so that I could have two hands free to help Daniel zip up his coat. “It’s just not going to work this weekend. I have plans.”

“You have plans? Well, maybe I could come and take the boys—”

“No,” I interrupted quickly. “Grandma has something special in the works for them. Some other time, okay?”

There was silence on the other end of the line, then a barely concealed sigh. I rolled my eyes. What I wanted to do was give Parker a good tongue-lashing, remind him that he was still in the process of earning his way into Daniel’s life. Three quick visits had not secured him a permanent place in our home or our hearts. Well, at least not in mine.

Daniel was looking at me with his best pouting face, bottom lip stuck far out to show me how much he disapproved that Parker would not be visiting on Saturday. I grabbed my son’s protruding lip and gave it a little tug.

“Not this time,” I reiterated.

“Maybe next week,” Parker said.

“Maybe.”

Parker said good-bye, but I simply hung up, preferring to keep him dangling on a short string. A small part of me knew that I was being a bit of a sadist when it came to Patrick Holt, but I didn’t much care. I wasn’t fooled by his bumbling, cap-in-hand routine, as if he were some heart-worn traveler who had been traumatized by the road behind him. He acted as if all he needed was a glass of cold water, a little understanding. I simply didn’t buy it.

“Why can’t Parker visit this weekend?” Daniel asked the moment I had flipped shut the phone.

“Because Michael’s coming!” Though my son was peevish and sulky, I couldn’t restrain the joy in my voice. I hoped the reminder of my boyfriend’s company would elicit an equally excited reaction from Daniel. But he just looked at me. “Aren’t you excited to see Michael?”

Daniel pulled a face. “I guess so. But Parker said he was going to bring a surprise.”