Pack Up the Moon (19 page)

Thursday, May 15, 2014
10:45 a.m.

N
olan walked last, behind the two women. That determined walk—they both had it. Their feet landed fully and pushed off the sand purposefully. They were practically the same height, Kate and Pree, Pree only an inch or so taller, and if Pree’s curls weren’t so vividly colored and just a bit shorter, their hair would be almost identical.

The cold salt wind slapped against his cheeks.

The last time Kate and he had been here together was two weeks before Robin had come home from USF for the last time. He’d been sleeping off a new medicine in his hospital bed and the health aide assigned to him said he wouldn’t wake for hours and that she’d stay with him every minute—she said they should go out, do something together. In unspoken agreement, they came to the beach. Once they were down the trail, on the sand, the waves crashing in, sending cold spray against their faces, Kate had started to run south, her feet bare, her curls tangling in the wind. Nolan chased her, never trying to stop her, just trying to keep up. A half mile, maybe a mile down the beach, she’d veered right, dashing into the waves.

No one swam here. No one surfed here. The tides were too dangerous, the current too strong. She knew it. She’d told Robin a million times it wasn’t safe for him to go in.

Nolan had gone after her. She’d battled the waves, but they beat her backward, relentlessly, until he could catch her, putting his arms around her. They fell twice on their way back in, huge waves knocking them over, but Nolan hadn’t broken his hold on her. Not once. She wasn’t going anywhere without him, and sure as hell neither of them was going without Robin.

He’d been so furious by the time he’d dragged her out that he’d released her to the sand and moved away from her, many yards, before dropping down himself. He’d breathed hard, trying to figure out what to say to her when he could finally speak again.

Kate had gotten up, dripping water and tears, and had walked up and slapped him across the face as hard as she could. She’d never hit him before and later told him she’d never hit another human being in her life. “You shouldn’t have,” she said, her voice breaking.

“Shouldn’t have saved you?” Nolan rubbed his cheek and tried to look around her, anywhere but at her face. “Screw you.”

“Shouldn’t have let me have him in the first place, just to lose—” She’d sobbed, dropping to her knees, then rolling to her side, still streaming water.

He’d gathered her to himself, cradling her sand-coated form in his lap, and they’d sat there in the cold wind until both of them were shaking so hard they could hardly drag themselves up the path to the car. They’d never spoken of it, not a word. And they’d never come back here together as a family.

Kate had had another child. She’d kept the fact from him somehow. Why? That’s what escaped him entirely. But there would be time for that later.

Now he walked behind her daughter.

Thursday, May 15, 2014
7 p.m.

I
t was weird, all of it. Not bad weird. It actually felt good, Pree thought. Just odd. The three of them, in this big backyard in Oakland, grilling burgers. Just like anyone else, just as Pree had done about a million times with the moms growing up. As if it was normal.

And even stranger, they were small-talking as if there was nothing so fucking bizarre as an evening where you sat down with your biological mother and the man who caused your half brother’s death. But that’s how it had gone since Nolan had knocked on the front door, since he and Kate had done that weird step-shuffle dance in the foyer. Pree assumed it was the first time he’d been to the house since the trial—or maybe it was since Robin died? Was that why Kate kept looking at him like he was something breakable she was about to drop on a tiled floor?

At least out here in the backyard, if Kate dropped him, he’d fall only onto soft grass, of which there was so
much
. A swath of it rolled out from the edge of the small porch like a putting green, running to the edge of the trees that lined the yard space. The fading sunlight cut through the tops of the trees, and a songbird sang its heart out in the golden light. So many trees, thought Pree, craning her neck to look up. It was like a dang nature preserve, right here in the middle of town. There were so many trees and bushes that even now that she knew where the sky blue tub was, she couldn’t see it from where she sat, hidden behind the hydrangea as it was. It was a property that money had bought.

At home, in LA, Marta and Isi had never had that much money. Their 1920s bungalow had old, warped windows and an attic full of spiders that Isi hated to spray. They’d taken Pree camping instead of to Disneyland—cheaper, she knew, but Pree’d honestly thought there was nothing better than sleeping on the beach, listening to the waves as she fell asleep. She bet Robin had gone to Disneyland plenty of times, but she didn’t envy him, not at all.

Pree slipped out of her shoes under cover of the picnic table and curled her toes into the grass. It was perfect, cool and springy. Kate had to have a gardener, didn’t she? The woman barely did dishes—Pree couldn’t imagine her keeping the outdoors so neat.

As if he’d heard her, Nolan said, “You kept the yard guy, huh?”

Kate nodded as she took the last burger off the grill. Pree wondered if she’d always done the grilling, or if it was something she took over after Nolan left. He looked awkward, moving his hands as if he wanted something to do.

“He’s good. He’s online now, even the payment system. So—”

“So you never have to see him. Do you need pepper?”

Kate smiled and shook her head. “Why do in person what you can do on the computer, right?”

Pree opened her hamburger bun and added a bit more mustard, then wiped the knife on the side of her plate. So far they’d talked about the weather (a touch crisp, but with a promise of sun on the weekend), Kate’s health (good, she was getting fewer headaches now, thanks), and Pree’s job.
I like my coworkers,
she’d said, feeling a twist in her stomach at the thought of Jimmy, which only got more painful at the follow-up thought of Flynn. She’d been gone from the house a whole night and a day. Now, going into the second night away from home, she knew she should go back, but Pree just wanted to sit here, on a wooden bench, on a mild spring evening in Oakland, watching the colors change in the sky. Kate and Nolan and she had things to say—she could feel them underneath everything they said—but there was time. It wasn’t even full dusk yet.

“Damn, forgot drinks. Wine?” asked Kate. “Nolan, white?”

Nolan looked surprised. “Oh. Yeah. White’s good.”

“Pree?”

“No, thanks.”

“Sure?”

A nod. Of course. Pree wasn’t sure of anything, though.

“Can I help you?” Nolan asked. It was a thin excuse.

Kate nodded, and Nolan followed her inside.

They kept their voices down at first, but the side window of the kitchen was open—Pree doubted Kate had noticed or they would have been whispering. If she held her breath, she could catch almost every word.

“I still can’t believe you followed us.” Kate’s voice was lipstick red.

“I told you already, I was going there anyway.”

“You were watching us?”

“We go to the beach every week on one of my days off.”

“You go with your dog with the stolen name.”

“You wanna talk about Fred Weasley?”

“Let’s,” she said. “You know he died? In
The Deathly Hallows
? Does that make it an even better name? What right do you have—”

“I have no right. I know that better than anyone.” Nolan’s voice was suddenly outraged. “But what about you, Kate? A daughter? You have a fucking
daughter
?”

Another silence and then Nolan said, “Whose is she?”

Kate’s answer was quick. “It was when . . . in college. Before you came back.”

“She’s not mine?” A pause. “I’m sorry, but I have to ask. She looks too young. She’s only, what, nineteen? Twenty? You’re
sure
she’s not mine?”

She couldn’t hear what Kate said in response to him.

“Jesus . . .” Nolan said. “That guy, Greg what’s his name.”

Kate moved away from the window, saying something Pree couldn’t make out, then said, “It always comes back to that, doesn’t it?”

Nolan’s voice went darker, shaded dark purple with something that sounded like regret. “When I found you again, so long ago, everything made sense. And you know what? I never kept a secret from you in my whole life.”

“You know that’s not true.” A
pop
of a cork exiting a bottle. “You didn’t tell me the story of every girl you fucked while we were apart. You didn’t tell me their names, or where they lived, or what you liked best to do to them because you knew I didn’t want to know. We didn’t talk about that time. We promised we wouldn’t.”

“I would have if you’d asked me. I would have told you every single thing you wanted to know.”

“Well, me, too. If you’d asked.”

“No, you wouldn’t have. That moratorium on speaking about the past was your idea.” A barked laugh of pained anger. “Jesus, Kate. I was supposed to ask if you’d had a
baby
while we were apart? Was I supposed to be able to tell? And then, oh, god. The whole time . . . when you were pregnant with Robin, and I thought it was a miracle, and that no one had ever gone through something as beautiful before, and
you’d already had a child
? How could you?”

It sounded as if Kate took a shuddered breath. “I had a
life
without you, Nolan. I was so young then, but I had a life. Just like you did. We both have our secrets.”

With shaking hands, Pree reached into her back pocket and pulled out a slap, sliding it under the top of the picnic table. She pressed it on over the bumps of wood, over the splintered cracks. She hoped it wouldn’t drop off later when the fog rolled in and curled its edges, leaving it to blow away in tomorrow’s wind.

“I just didn’t—”

“I don’t know who you are.”

Kate said something Pree couldn’t hear.

“Maybe you’re right,” said Nolan, sounding defeated. “Yeah, maybe you’re right.”

Pree ached for them. Floating from their voices was this . . . thing. She recognized it. When Isi and Marta fought—when they
really
fought—the very rare nights when something made one or the other so mad they couldn’t see straight, and they argued in low tones in their room until dawn—this was how it felt.

But with Isi and Marta, no matter how sad they got, she knew—and maybe it was childish, but she still believed it—they belonged to each other. They weren’t going anywhere. Under the fear and anger there was always that absolute bedrock of peace, and through the emotion, she’d dive down and sit on that foundation until one or the other remembered it and joined Pree down there, and they’d wait for the last one (usually Isi, of course) to come around. It seemed Kate and Nolan had that, too. As if they were in love or something. But also as if they were really, really fucked up.

Pree exhaled, pushing her palms into the table, looking at her nails with the chipped blue polish. It was bad enough that she had this decision to make, that she was carrying it every minute of the day. This, all of this, was too much. Too heavy for her hands, her shoulders to support. She couldn’t take Kate’s hunger another minute, couldn’t take the way Kate stared at her, as if she’d been starved for years and Pree was her first meal. Kate had been nothing but awesome today, taking her to the beach, bringing her back to the house, and tucking her in for a nap, for chrissake. And Pree had taken it, had accepted it as her strange due. The prodigal child returns. Kate had gone to the store while Pree slept. The bottle of wine she’d shown Pree when she woke definitely wasn’t a brand the moms bought at Trader Joe’s. The meat itself had cost thirty dollars, according to the sticker on the wrapper. Who spent thirty dollars on hamburger steak?

And now a little family dinner. In the backyard. No. She wasn’t ready for this. Yet.

Pree moved quickly, her hands fumbling inside her backpack. She took out another sticker and scrawled, “Sorry, I’ll call you later.” She attached it to the edge of her plate. Then, thinking ahead, she took a large bite of her burger. Even if she didn’t want to eat with them, it was a shame to waste such good food. She shoved another huge bite into her mouth and hiked her backpack onto her shoulder.

Then she careened down the small hill, past the tub, pushing her way through a stand of oleander until she emerged on the road. It was only half a mile to BART. She could be home in an hour. Home with Flynn. She could fill her new paint box.

Thursday, May 15, 2014
7:30 p.m.

K
ate should have told him. Fuck, she knew she should have. But wasn’t that the whole problem? That she’d
never
told him?

Nolan pointed at the half-eaten burger. “At least she ate something.”

Kate supposed it shouldn’t have been such a surprise that Pree took off. It had been a huge day for all of them. But it jolted her, seeing that sticker on her plate, her absence at the picnic table when they finally came back out.

Kate nodded and clutched the stem of her wineglass. In the growing dark, the kitchen light glowed through the open window. She pointed. “She must have been able to hear us.”

Nolan frowned and spoke around his burger. “We didn’t say anything she shouldn’t have heard.”

No, they hadn’t. How much worse would it have been if Kate had told the truth? She’d meant to tell him. She’d had every intention of doing so. She was going to say,
Nolan, she’s your daughter.
The words had been right there on the tip of her tongue. In the kitchen, she could have reached out and touched his cheek, right there where the stubble started. She could have said,
She’s your daughter. I’m so sorry, love.
That’s what she’d hoped she’d be strong enough to do. Tell him first, lead him back outside, and tell Pree.

Instead, she’d let Nolan believe that Pree was younger than she was. Another lie. To protect him. To keep him from pain. Jesus, how long could this go on? Now that she’d failed, would she have to maintain vigilance? Keep them separate forever? It was almost a relief that Pree had left. Nolan, in making small talk, would have probably asked something awful: whether she wanted to go to college or what Pree wanted to major in. Kate’s lie wouldn’t have held up for even an hour.

Kate drank her wine too quickly and she felt it go to her head.

“Eat your burger,” Nolan urged in his it’s-good-for-you voice. He’d used that exact tone to cajole Robin into drinking his protein shakes how many times? Hundreds?

Kate picked up her burger and then set it down again. She wasn’t hungry. It was possible she’d never feel like eating again. “I’ll just keep it for later.”

“Then you’ll never eat it.”

He was interrupted by the beeping of Kate’s cell phone.

“Pree,” said Kate, digging frantically in her pocket. But it wasn’t a text from Pree—it was from Vanessa. Probably something about the art show. She clicked to open the message.

Nolan’s on TV, channel 7. You should watch.

“Nolan.” She stared at him. “What did you do?”

“Nolan!” The unseen man’s shout came from behind them, from the driveway. “Nolan Monroe! Are you here? Can we ask you a few questions? Kate? Are you out there?”

Kate and Nolan stared at each other. Only a certain kind of person yelled like that, with that much authority. Without discussion, they bolted for the house, leaving the plates and wineglasses behind, slamming the kitchen door behind them.

“What did you
do?
” Kate said again, her voice only a breath.

Nolan bit his bottom lip. “Shit.”

•   •   •

There were three news vans parked in front of Kate’s house, and if she wasn’t mistaken another crew was just down the street filming at the corner. After seeing the segment on Channel 7, it made sense. It was a short piece, but even Kate could see it was powerful, the way Nolan’s face had turned to raw pain as the reporter sucker punched him with the surprise twist, the way he’d stumbled backward into his apartment (that ratty apartment, was that really where he lived?).

They were a hot story again. There had been so many reporters after Robin died, and this had the potential for being even bigger. Every media outlet loved a follow-up. “Where Are They Now?” segments sold papers. A reporter had actually told her that once, to her face.
If I could just do a follow-up piece on you, it could be huge. I might even get a promotion.
Why on earth would Kate have cared if a reporter advanced her career? For opening her private box of demons? No, she didn’t think that would be good idea, she’d said, and when the woman had shoved a microphone in her face anyway, she’d let loose a string of expletives so filthy not one could have been aired on cable.

Nolan pulled the curtain back an inch to peek out again.

“Careful,” said Kate. “Don’t let it move too much—”

Too late. They’d seen the motion.

“Mr. Monroe! Is it true you’re reconciling with your wife?” one shouted in a voice loud enough to be heard through the glass.

Another one yelled, “What do you say to the people who still think you’re the children’s Kevorkian? Was it really accidental?”

“Will you have another child?” shouted the one knocking at the door.

Nolan stood still, only his fists moving as they clenched in rhythm with his jaw.

“It’s okay,” said Kate. “We’ll just wait them out. They always leave eventually.” She needed to hold herself together. For just a little while longer. “Why don’t you sit? For a while.” Her voice shook and she hoped he didn’t hear it.

Nolan sat on the couch politely, as if it were a social visit. “If you don’t mind, then yeah. I’ll wait the fuckers out.”

Together. They were waiting out the reporters again. Together. The surprise Kate felt was deep and cold, as if she’d plunged into a river without knowing she’d jumped.

“Do you want another drink?” The words were automatic. Kate’s shock over the news piece had made her almost forget the terror she carried for twenty-two years of Pree and Nolan meeting. But it had happened. And the world hadn’t exploded, the sun hadn’t rained molten lava.

But then again, the fear had been based on Nolan finding out who Pree actually was. And neither of them knew the truth. Yet.

Nolan nodded. “No more wine, though. Just water.”

The glass she gave him was from the set he’d bought her after she’d clumsily broken most of their glassware—it was thick plastic with cheery yellow daisies on the side. He’d told her they were Kate-proof, so she’d refused to use them out of principle. It was only after he was gone that she started to enjoy them, liking the way water tasted out of them.

“Thank you.” A pause. “I thought, if we met up again, that I’d do nothing but apologize. For years, maybe . . .” He trailed off. Kate heard what he didn’t say.
I didn’t expect I’d have something to be angry about.
It was only right he was angry. And he didn’t even know the worst part of it all.

“It looks so different in here,” Nolan said slowly. “But I don’t know why. The furniture’s all the same, and the pictures are the same, mostly. That one’s new.” He gestured at the painting behind her. It was a prototype for a commission she’d done last year; she’d been happy enough with it to keep and hang it. A hydrangea. It was Robin’s favorite flower, but it barely looked like one: it was a gray-and-black landscape, bleak in its emptiness.

“It doesn’t look like you,” he said, peering more closely at it. “There’s no . . .”

She waited for him to say “color
.
”

“There’s no joy.”

All her biggest sales came after she went monochromatic. Maybe losing her father so long ago had made her a master of grays and browns. She’d seen the world that way, after all, after his funeral, hadn’t been able to see color for months. She’d been struck color-blind by grief, even though the doctor her mother took her to had said it was impossible. People’s voices lacked depth and truth without their colors. Her vision’s palette had come back slowly, first the yellow family burning faintly through the grays, followed by blues and finally reds.

Kate tugged on her diamond stud. She’d bought the earrings for herself after her first really large sale. “I got a review in the
New York Times
. Did you know that?” Of course he didn’t. “They called me ‘commercially successful.’”

“Um . . .”

“And I quote: ‘Technically talented but unequivocally soulless.’”

“Shit.” Nolan tilted his head to the side and continued looking at it. “I still like it. But I have to admit it’s hard for me to look at.”

She understood.

He turned his head. “There are more books on the shelf, but that’s not what’s different. I can’t put my finger on it.”

Kate almost hated to tell him. “The ceiling.”

“Oh,
man
. That’s it.”

The color blindness happened again after Robin died. The doctor was wrong; it wasn’t impossible. It was a relief, actually, to not have to process beauty. It felt right to not be able to understand dull gray words. When colors finally started to bleed back into her vision, slowly, she’d painted the ceilings with each hue as it came to her, as if rewarding herself. She’d been obsessed at one point, long before, with the idea of painting the ceilings. She’d wanted to leave the walls white and have color floating above, but Nolan hadn’t ever gotten on board with the idea. He believed in traditional colors on walls; he wanted white, boring, bland ceilings. After her son’s death, when she looked at her easel, her mind went quietly blank. But she’d needed a paintbrush in her hand, even if it was a heavy, thick one. She hadn’t used a roller—she’d just stood on the ladder and painted every ceiling downstairs a different color, working into the small hours until her arm shook. Her favorite was in the kitchen—it was the pale green of spring grass. The same color as Pree’s voice, down to the exact shade, she realized now.

Kate hardly noticed the ceilings anymore, but she felt them. They warmed rooms that had desperately needed warming once she was so alone. But when she’d gone back to her real work, her painting was monochromatic, as if she’d used up her allowance of color on the house.

“I was wrong about that,” Nolan said. “It looks great.”

Kate inclined her head. “Thanks.” If she held up her hands, she’d be able to feel the invisible, unsaid words, to push them around, move them out of her way.
Banal. Stick to banal
. “How are your parents?”

Nolan looked at her and she could almost read on his face the words he wanted to say.
You lied to me. You never told me about her. You
lied
.
But instead he said, “Fine. Still in Maui. Dad had gout, but it’s better. They don’t e-mail you?”

“I haven’t even gotten a Christmas card in years.”

“Oh. Well, they never were—”

“No,” Kate agreed. Her feelings had been crushed when Robin’s grandparents were so heartbroken they couldn’t even return an e-mail, but she tried never to dwell on it. “They weren’t.”

“How’s Sonia?”

She felt a sudden, stabbing pain behind her right eye. “She died. Last year.” There had to be a better way to say it, but there it was. “I’m going to spread her ashes on Saturday. I’m not sure how I’ll . . . I’ve hired a boat.”
Tell him about taking the rest of Robin’s ashes, too. Tell him. Tell him you’ll be able to do it. Make yourself believe it.

“Christ, Kate.” His eyes went wide, filled with real sorrow. “I’m so sorry.”

She shrugged. “It happens. She fell and got a bleed in her brain. Or maybe the bleed made her fall. They never did figure it out. She was in the ICU for two months and she didn’t wake up again.” Her casual words were belied by the way her voice shook.

“Kate.”

She would
not
let him make her cry. “Anyway.” A silence hung in the room for a long, crystalline moment. On an exhale, she said, “I’m taking Robin, too.”

Nolan’s body became absolutely still. “You did the first funeral without me.”

Nervous chills danced along Kate’s spine. This was important. Maybe this was why he was here. “That’s why I’m telling you. Meet me at the Berkeley marina at ten, and you can come. I mean, I’m inviting you.”

“Mighty big of you.”

Anger snapped through her, unbidden but welcome. “Oh, I was supposed to wait
years
to bury my son? For you to get out of prison?”

His voice was soft, but strong. “You can start by telling me how I never fucking knew you had a daughter.” She’d never heard this particular tone of voice from Nolan, and she would have sworn that she’d heard every color his voice could possibly take over the years. This was different, the cold confusion an iridescent blue-gray like the cold winter fog when it crept over the hills.

Panic spread through her veins. He’d have to learn the truth sometime, but Kate wasn’t ready yet.
Not ready, not ready.

“Does he know? That Greg guy?” His tone was darker gray with blackened edges.

“No.” A pounding started at her temples. God, she was bad at lying. But the consequences of not lying were too terrible to contemplate. Fear gripped her, the same fear she’d felt so long ago. “I never saw him again.”

Nolan kept his body still and his voice low. “You got pregnant, gave the baby away, and never, ever once thought to mention it to me? Even when you were pregnant with our son? Why should I believe that you didn’t lie about every other thing we had together?” Nolan blinked hard, lines gathering at the corners of his eyes and disappearing again as he fixed her with his bewildered stare.

But there it was—she saw it. He believed her. Relief filled her.

Nolan went on, “How could you do that to us? Pretend like that? Your pregnancy was the happiest time of my life until Robin was born, and then everything got even better.”

Kate realized she
had
lied to Nolan, in the most fundamental way possible, for many years. She wasn’t a bad liar then; she was a
good
one. A small weight lifted. “In my mind, Robin was my first. I tried to forget that whole chapter of my life. We had started a new life.” How could she make this clearer to him? Their new life was the end of her old one.

“But Robin . . .”

“Had a sister. Half sister,” she corrected herself quickly. “I know.”

“He would have loved that. He was always asking—”

“I
know
,” Kate repeated. She picked up a ballpoint pen from the coffee table and twisted it in her fingers, loosening it, then tightening it back up. A piece of metal dropped from it, skittering across the carpet noiselessly.

“How could you not tell me?”