Home Fires (16 page)

“Dad, can I borrow the truck?” he asked.

“Sure, Ned.”

“Thanks.” He turned to Anne. “It was nice meeting you,” he said.

“You, too. And thank you for dinner.”

“You're welcome,” he said, his expression sad and distant.

Anne waited until she heard the truck start before she said anything to Thomas. The engine caught and revved. Ned drove down the road.

“I'm sorry for telling him you saved me,” Anne said.

“I did,” he said, holding her tight.

“He's thinking of his mother.”

“I know.”

Anne felt Thomas's arms loosen around her. He walked to the window, to watch the taillights disappear down the road.

“I'm sorry,” Anne said again, feeling empty.

“We can't change the past,” Thomas said, staring into the distance, and Anne heard the emptiness echo in his voice as well.

N
ED
sped cross-island with no destination planned. In his mind, he replayed the last goal he'd made against Exeter. He saw it from the ice, he saw it from the stands, he saw it on national television with himself as commentator. His lips still sizzled from the Mouth-Burners, and he licked them, thinking of dinner.

Of his father and Anne.

Kids at school had stepmothers. That's the first thing he'd thought, the minute his father had admitted he had a girlfriend. Ned had steeled himself, prepared to meet anyone.

Mark's stepmother had turned Mark's bedroom into an office. Stephano's stepmother had brought her twelve-year-old son into the family and let him play with Stephano's Matchboxes, Tonka trucks, and remote-control speedboats. Jane's stepmother had enticed Jane's father to move to London, away from Jane in boarding school in Connecticut.

So, prepared to meet a typical stepmother type, Ned had been amazed by Anne.

Anne had seemed sweet, funny, easy to talk to. She liked hot food, and she'd made a good joke of it. She obviously liked Ned's father, and Ned had to admit, he thought she liked him, too.

So, why was he shaking? His entire body, every nerve under his skin. His teeth were chattering. Driving his father's truck, he tossed his head, to throw the coldness.

Why did his father have to meet Anne at a fire? He had had years of nightmares about flames, and he squinted, dispelling them now. He turned on the radio. The stations you could get out here were squat. He fiddled with the dial, trying to find something decent.

Why was his father able to save Anne, and not his mother? Just one of those things, Ned told himself.

He found WBRU, the Brown University FM station. An old Talking Heads song, a favorite of his parents, blared out of the speakers. He drove toward town, blocking his father, his mother, and Anne from his mind. He was on vacation. It was Tuesday night, and he didn't have to get up early the next day.

Chapter 13

O
n Friday night, while Anne was waiting for Thomas and Ned to pick her up for a movie, the telephone rang.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Anne,” Matt said.

“Hi,” she said, trying to sound steady.

“We haven't talked in a long time.”

She didn't speak, waiting for him to continue. The sound of his voice was familiar, alien, infuriating, and endearing, all at once.

“Don't you think we should talk, Anne?”

“Do you have something to tell me?” Suddenly she felt positive that he was going to say he wanted a divorce.

“Lots of things. How are you?”

“I'm fine.”

“I've left you alone, because you've made it clear that's what you wanted. But it's gone on long enough. We have a lot to talk about.”

“You're right. I've been meaning to call you about the apartment. We should do something about it. Sell it, or rent it out. Unless you want to live there.”

“How can you say that? We love that place. It's where we were a family.”

“Were,”
Anne said, emphasizing the word. She had a piercing vision of the apartment, with all of them in it, and she pressed the heel of her hand into her forehead.

“Do you want it this way?” Matt said. “Living apart?”

“If you had asked me that one year ago, I would have said it was impossible. I would have said that I couldn't imagine life without you.”

“I made a terrible mistake,” Matt said. “And I've continued to make it by not asking you to forgive me, to take me back. Right after Karen died, I wasn't thinking at all. That's when I should have begged you to let me help you put things back together. Put
us
back together, Anne.”

“But you didn't, Matt. I've been doing it alone, but I am doing it.”

“Doing what?”

“Deciding to live.”

“You don't just decide a thing like that,” Matt said. “You might decide where you want to live, or who you want to be with. But you don't just decide
to
live.”

“Oh, yes you do,” Anne said. “That's what happened when I came out to the island. I saved my own life.”

“Anne, please.”

“You think it's bullshit?” she asked, her voice rising. “I wanted to be with Karen so badly. I wanted to follow her.”

“Why didn't you come to me?” he asked.

In spite of the agony in his voice, Anne heard herself laugh. “Why didn't you come to me? Didn't you feel it yourself?”

“It was the most horrible time of my life,” Matt said.

“Well, you had Tisa to help you through.”

“If you're saying that Tisa makes up for losing Karen—”

“No!”
Anne screamed. “I'm not saying that at all. Nothing, no other person could make up for her.”

Matt's hard breathing came through the wire. Anne held the receiver in her lap for a moment, because she couldn't bear to listen. She already regretted her outburst.

“I'm sorry,” he was saying when she put the phone to her ear.

“I'm sorry, too.”

“You're getting some help through it?”

“My family's been great. And friends.”

“One friend in particular, I hear.”

“Yes,” she said slowly, wondering who had told him. Gabrielle? Not that it mattered.

“Don't get involved, Anne. Please come back to me. Please? I want us to start over. I want us to fall in love again, resurrect what we had. Weren't we great?”

“I thought so,” Anne said furiously.

“I want us to have another baby.”

“No,” Anne said, and she felt fingers of ice up and down her back. The night was shattered. “I have to go.”

“Please . . .”

“Good-bye,” she said, and she hung up the phone.

Fifteen minutes later, when she heard the knock on the door, she felt glad that Thomas and Ned were a little late. She had had a chance to compose herself. She'd caught her breath, washed her face, put on some fresh mascara. She'd swallowed down half a cognac while gazing at Karen's drawing. Now her hands were steady, her facial expressions under control.

But when she opened the door and saw Thomas standing there alone, she wanted to dissolve.

“What is it?” he asked when he saw her face.

“Ned didn't come?”

“He wanted to go out with Josh Hunter and some of his old friends. You know, it's Friday night,” Thomas said with alert worry in his eyes. “Are you upset he didn't come?”

Anne shrugged, even as she shook her head.

“Tell me,” he said.

“I don't know why people have kids,” she said coldly, walking away from him. She stood by the front window, shivering as if she felt a great chill. She stared at the ferry docking, thinking of what Matt had said about another baby.

“Yes, you do.”

She gave him a hard, punishing look, for daring to question what she did or did not mean. She felt very close to a dangerous edge, and she could see he knew it.

“Okay. Explain to me,” he said.

She didn't feel like explaining anything. But she forced herself to try to be civil. She was in a rage at Matt and the imaginary baby, not at Thomas.

“Before Karen . . . well, when she was a baby, I'd go crazy worrying about things that could happen to her. I'd worry that someone would snatch her away from me, and I'd never see her again.”

“Anne—”

“Those cartons of milk? With pictures of missing children on them? I'd have nightmares of them. I always bought plastic bottles of milk so I wouldn't have to see. Once Matt brought home a carton with the picture of a little girl, nine years old, missing since the spring before, and I threw it away. I couldn't even open it, have it in my house.”

“Everything good in life comes with risks.”

“It's not worth it,” Anne said. Still looking out the window, she felt him hold her shoulders from behind.

“Would you trade the time you had with her?” Thomas asked. “To never have known her at all?”

“Yes,” Anne whispered. “I wish I'd never had her.”

“Anne,” he said, rocking against her body.

Tears splashed out of her eyes, onto his hands folded across her upper chest.

“I know you don't wish that,” he said.

“I do. I don't know how people do it. Before you have them, you have no idea. And then, you love them so much. You just want to protect them, and you know you'd die for them.”

“Yes, you would.”

“When something happens . . . when they die . . . it's like having a part of your body ripped right out. It's like you're being eaten alive. And it never ends. It just goes on, until you finally do die.”

“You're going to heal,” Thomas said. “I've seen it happening, with my own two eyes. Yes, you have days like this. You probably will forever. But I've seen you happy.”

Even as she shook her head she knew it was true. But when these raw feelings of missing Karen came upon her, it felt as if they'd never go away.

“Come on,” Thomas said softly, guiding her away from the window. “Show me
Paradise
.”

Anne went to her bag and removed the cardboard folder she had made to hold the drawing. Together she and Thomas sat on the sofa, staring at the picture. It amazed Anne that even now, the drawing could bring Karen back as nothing else could. Holding it in her hands, she could almost believe that Karen was playing in another room, under this very roof. She felt herself becoming calmer, moving away from the edge.

“If there hadn't been a Karen,” Thomas said in a gentle voice, sliding his arm around Anne, “you wouldn't have
Paradise
.”

“Those white boxes,” Anne said, almost hypnotized by the picture's power. “I've tried and tried to think of what they could be. How could I now know?” She looked into Thomas's eyes, as if somehow he had the answer.

“Maybe they're rocks,” he said. “Or maybe they're just interesting shapes.”

“Sandcastles,” Anne said, thinking of her latest collage in the
Heaven
series.

“What happened tonight?” Thomas asked. “To get you feeling so terrible? Is it because Ned didn't come? Did that hurt your feelings?”

“No,” she said. “I can understand. I make him uncomfortable.”

“He just has to get used to the idea of me with someone. I've been alone for so long, he probably feels a little rivalry with you.”

Anne gave him a sweet, sad smile. She had quite a different idea, but she decided to hold it back.

“He'll come around,” Thomas said, almost mantralike, as if he was trying to convince himself. “So, if it wasn't Ned, what made you so upset?”

“Matt called,” Anne said. “He says he wants to get back together with me.”

“Who wouldn't?” Thomas asked, holding her closer.

Anne tilted her face up to kiss him. Holding his cheeks between her hands, she tried to put all thoughts of Matt out of her mind.

“We're going to be late for the movie,” Thomas said after a moment.

“No movie,” Anne said. “Make love to me, Thomas,” she said.

A
FTER
about an hour of driving around the island, trying to decide whether they should go shoot pool at the Saloon or head for a party at Pirates' Cave, Ned and Josh still couldn't make up their minds. Bobby wouldn't serve them beer without one of their fathers there, so strike one against the Saloon. There would be a keg at the cave, but lately the cops had been busting parties and booking everyone who was underage.

In other words, everyone.

“The island sucks,” Josh said. “There's nowhere to go.”

“I know. I couldn't wait to get out here for vacation, and now I can't wait to go back to school.”

“Thanks, man.”

“Hey, not you. I'm just agreeing with you—there's nothing to do out here.”

Josh was driving his family's rusty old Ford Taurus, the front bumper held on by wire. Ned listened to the engine, to a sticky valve, and wondered why Josh hadn't fixed it. Josh was a really good mechanic. When they were kids, Josh had always wanted his bike to be perfect. He was constantly giving it tune-ups. He'd even made a special stand so he could work on it in the garage. So now it didn't make sense that he'd let the family car fall apart. People who stayed too long on the island went mushy, lost their motivation.

“Anyway, next year it'll be a whole different ball game,” Ned said. “You'll come to Dartmouth on weekends, I'll visit you at URI.”

“I'll come to Dartmouth,” Josh said. “But I'm not going to URI.”

“What?”

“My dad's making me a partner. He's signing half the boat over to me.”

“You're going to lobster?” Ned asked, stunned.

“Yeah. Listen, he pulls in good money. I never realized
how
good until he started telling me about the partnership.”

“College isn't about money,” Ned said. “I thought you wanted to get off the island.”

“It'll just be for a few years.”

“Right,” Ned said. Jesus, he couldn't believe it. He and Josh were going to go out into the world, break off the island, find their dreams. Instead, Josh was finding quicksand. He was driving a rust bucket on land, and soon he'd be driving one at sea.

It's so bizarre, Ned thought. Certain people, like his father, came to the island looking for hope. They had lost their faith, or their heart's desire, and they came out here in search of whatever it was. He thought of Anne, then pushed her from his mind.

But for some people, the island was a trap. It sucked the souls out of people, drained them of the very hope the others had come here to seek. Ned couldn't look at Josh. He was afraid he'd see nothing but a shadow.

“Here's Pirates' Cave. What do you say?” Josh asked.

“Fine,” Ned said.

They parked in the sandy lot with ten or so cars. Following the bonfire's reflections, they crossed the beach. The cave was an island oddity, carved into the face of a tall, craggy cliff. Formed of red clay and reinforced, so the story went, by granite hauled across from the mainland by pirates, it burrowed twenty feet into the hill.

Waves crashed, spraying Ned's face with foam. He licked salt from his lips, as the beat of Nirvana pounded from the speakers of someone's 4¥4. Parked at the mouth of the cave, the Jeep guarded a keg wedged into the sand behind its left rear tire. Ned drew himself a beer.

Josh seemed glad to see his friends. He headed right between the Jeep and the fire into the cave, into the midst of kids Ned hadn't seen for a long time. Suddenly Ned felt out of place, and angry. He wished he hadn't come to the island at all.

He stood by the Jeep, staring into space. The bonfire threw dancing shadows on the water, skidding across the wave tops, turning the spray into fireworks.

“Ned Devlin,” someone said, and Ned turned around.

It was Maggie Vincent, pouring herself a beer.

“Hi,” he said.

“What are you doing out here?”

“I came with Josh,” Ned said defensively. Was it that obvious that he didn't fit in?

“I meant on the island. Don't you go to boarding school or something?”

“Oh. Yeah—I'm on vacation.”

“That's lucky.” Maggie sipped some beer, licking off a foam mustache. She was as pretty as ever, if you didn't count all her pierced earrings: hoops, studs, daggers, dice. Now that Ned had met her aunt, he could really see a resemblance. Great big eyes, a pretty mouth with a hidden smile.