Pack Up the Moon (24 page)

No one came. No one saw. No one helped.

She felt incredibly small, as if the grass were falling away beneath her and Robin. The only thing left was her, pumping his chest, putting air in his lungs—above them, a vast sky of blue that reached so far into the heavens that not even God could see them.

When the engine pulled up, a firefighter who looked barely old enough to drink had to hold her in his arms, had to lock her there while two full crews attended to each of her men. Two police officers helped him hold her—she was a wildcat, a banshee, a hurricane—while more, so many of them, stood along the lawn’s edge watching. She fought the firefighter so hard she knew his face and arms were bleeding by the time the ambulance left the scene, sirens blaring, but she didn’t apologize.

Nolan was put in the hyperbaric chamber. The carbon monoxide was forced from his hemoglobin so that regular carbon dioxide could reattach as it was supposed to. The chamber was used for divers who had the bends, they told her. Kate wondered if they would let her borrow it someday, since she was at the bottom. She’d float up eventually, right? Wasn’t that what she would have to do? Bodies underwater bloated and, at some point, surfaced. But while they saved Nolan’s life, no one could bring Robin back. The doctor said his lungs were too weak. It had been too much for his body to handle. Robin hadn’t felt a thing, he said. Not a thing. He’d just drifted off into his last nap.

Kate felt a jealousy that she’d never felt in her whole life, an envy so thick and viscous she could almost see it, a film in front of her eyes. Robin drifted off.

R is always, always R is always for Robin.

Saturday, May 17, 2014
7:45 a.m.

F
red Weasley looked at Nolan with rheumy, wary eyes as Nolan dressed to leave Saturday morning. “Never seen me like this, have you?” He meant the way he was dressed, although he was never this deeply furious, either. Nolan put on his one pair of slacks, a thrift store find, dun-colored with a slight stain at the right hem, and a nice blue shirt he’d bought in the city on a whim one day when he’d passed Brooks Brothers in Union Square, remembering all the money he’d dropped there over the years. He’d thought maybe he’d someday need an outfit for a date, though it had felt like an impossibility even then. Now it just felt ridiculous. The knot forming of the dark blue tie came back to him as if he’d done it yesterday instead of more than three years before. He tugged it harder than he needed to, rage coursing through his upper arms and into his fingers. He watched his face turn red in the mirror. Only then did he loosen it. His eye was deeply purpled, and he felt satisfaction that one part of him, at least, looked the way he felt.

Other than the black eye, he looked okay. For a funeral.

It was still early, before eight, when Nolan pulled up in front of the house. Only one cameraperson had come out, was still waiting on the sidewalk.

“Mr. Monroe! Do you have any statement about whether or not you’re reconciling with Kate?”

He gave what he hoped was a crazed smile and waved with only his middle finger. Tomorrow there would be none of them left.

When Kate opened the door, she looked almost happy. It was just for a second, and then she brought the lines of her face back under control. It made him even more furious.

“Come in,” she said.

Inside, through to the kitchen—it was tidy, the dishes put away. As if she’d sent that e-mail and then gone about her business cleaning up. All of it was so unlike her.

“Coffee?” she asked, holding out a cup—his blue mug—the way she had a million times before.

“Were you ever going to tell me?”

She said nothing. Just stood there, her eyes swimming with tears he didn’t want to see.

“You kept my
daughter
from me?”

“She wasn’t ours. She couldn’t be.”

“You sure seem to have her now.”

Kate shook her head. “Up until the day she turned eighteen, it was a closed adoption. Still is, technically. I
couldn’t
tell you.”

“She found you somehow.” Nolan’s feet remained planted rigidly apart.

“Internet. You know, like the kids do.” She smiled again, thinly. “I put my info in. Late one night. I was drunk—I barely remember doing it. I wanted to tell you a thousand times.”

His hands balled into fists at his sides, then starfished out. “You told me everything else.”

“I did.”

“Everything. You were the most honest person I’d ever met. Too honest.”

Kate nodded. She looked as miserable as she had in the courtroom, her skin white, her eyes wide.

“But you didn’t tell me I was a
father
. Even after I’d lost that part of myself.”

She shook her head and sucked in her lips.

“Jesus, Kate! You took my
daughter.
The only chance I had at a daughter. You stole it from me.”

“Wait—”

“You robbed me of the chance to keep doing the only thing I was good at.” His shoulders shook.

“We couldn’t have found her. We weren’t allowed to. If I’d told you, it would have been worse. I thought I was protecting you. And I was scared.”

“Of
what
?”

“Of losing you. I was used to losing things by then. Dad. I lost Mom even though she was still around. Then you. The biggest mistake of my life was not telling you when we found each other again—it should have been the very first thing out of my mouth. When it wasn’t, it was too late. That sealed the lid of it shut. I didn’t know what else to do. You were gone. You’d left for Hawaii with your parents. As far as I knew you were never coming back.”

“We should have had her, Kate. She should have been
ours.
This whole time, she could have been our little girl. We’d be the ones sending her to college. We’d know her favorite color. She’d come to me when she was scared. There’d be no cause for her to be frightened of me.”

“She’s not scared of you . . .”

“Her brother’s dead. Of course she’s terrified of me. She has to be. Everyone else is.”

Kate jumped as he kicked the bottom of the cabinet next to the stove. It flew off its broken hinge, the one he’d always told Kate he’d fix but never got around to. It clattered across the tile with a crash.

He’d have been good with a daughter. He knew it. Crouching, he tried to put the cabinet door back on.

“This hinge is blown.”

“It has been.”

“I’m gone for three years and you don’t fix a single goddamn thing.” It wasn’t a question. “The bathroom sink still not draining?”

“Oh, love . . .”

That word was what did it. He stood and was forward, inside her space before he knew how he’d gotten there. Kate pressed herself against the edge of the counter, her back bending as she moved backward. She couldn’t go any farther. He pushed against her.

“She’s
mine.
”

“But I—”

“I could kill you for this.” The pain in his fists, in his chest, told him it wasn’t an idle threat. Her breath was warm on his cheek, and every single fucking thing he wanted to do to her was physical. He wanted to put his hand to her neck and tighten until she went as red as he had that morning with the tie, holding until she went blue. He wanted to pin her arms back and fuck her hard, standing up. He wanted to kiss her so that she couldn’t breathe. He’d never felt such a need to hurt someone. Ever. “
Fuck
.” He pushed back, the lower half of his body pressing against hers before he moved away from her. He focused on Robin’s chair. He knew she’d felt his cock and he didn’t give a shit.

She was even paler now, so white Nolan wondered if she would faint. What would he do if she did?

Kate said, “It was what you loved the best. What you were the best at. Being a father.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel
better
?”

“I’d managed to give that to you. With Robin. You never needed to know how much I’d screwed up back then. It was so long ago, and I’d had to let her go completely. I pushed her away. I almost never consciously thought about her. Only on her birthday. I’d compartmentalized my brain so much by that point that it didn’t even feel like lying. I can’t explain it. It was like it had happened to another person, someone who wasn’t me.” She paused. “It’s not something I’m going to apologize for, Nolan. Not after what you did.”

Nolan clenched his hands and then released them to hit the tabletop, which shook as if it might collapse. He roared, a noise he’d never made before, not even when he’d woken in the hospital to be told he’d lost his son. The sound went on and on, filling the kitchen, filling the house where Robin and he both used to live.

Then Nolan sank to his knees and her arms were around him. He struggled against her. He kicked, flailing against her, and his shoe hit her shin, but she didn’t cry out. She was stronger, in this moment, than he was. She held on as if she were riding him, as if there were a cash prize for staying on top of him as he thrashed and wailed. He kicked the wall and the chair; his arms beat the floor. He heard her gasp and then she twisted again, wrestling him so that he was holding her on his lap. Then she launched herself at him, this time in a kiss—not so much a kiss as a battle. The winner would be the most ferocious. Blood bloomed inside his mouth and he wasn’t sure whose it was. Kate gasped for air. In that fraction of a second, as her body relaxed for a short moment, he pulled at the top of her jeans. She retaliated by yanking his belt so hard it slapped against her forearm.

When their clothes were disposed of, strewn around them, under them, he paused, holding himself above her, right at the very edge, his arms shaking with the strain of holding himself up. He looked down. Kate’s eyes were full of tears and rage. He wouldn’t . . . he couldn’t just—

She did it for him, shoving her hips upward as hard as she could, taking him in his moment of indecision. He was in her then, and collapsing on top of her; he pinned her as they bucked against each other, their sobs disguised as gasps. When he came, there was nothing left but the feeling—he’d chased everything else out, away, and the blank silence felt like forgiveness. She clenched against him, her eyes screwed shut, her fingers digging into his upper arms, pulling him harder against her as she reached her own release on a strangled curse.

Kate shifted then, rotating on the floor so that she was tucked in against his side, her face pressed into his neck. She cried, softly, the way she’d never let herself cry in the old days. Then she’d been stiff, holding her tears back until they burst from her violently all at once. Now the tears were slow and steady.

When eventually she stilled, he sat up, taking her hand. They walked upstairs without discussion and he led her into their old bedroom. It smelled different now, but Nolan found he didn’t care. They pulled the covers back and slid in, he on the right, she on the left, as they always had. She laid her head on his shoulder and his arm still fit around her. The morning light streamed through the glass and lit up the side of her face the way it used to. Through the bed and up through the floorboards, he could feel the strength of the front door he’d chosen and hung by himself.

Kate cleared her throat. “Do you want to know how Mom died?”

His answer was a kiss to her temple.

“I was going to pull the plug.”

“Kate.”

“She wasn’t breathing on her own. Her heart was barely putting up a fight. They said she was most likely brain-dead and wouldn’t be coming back. I’d been waiting for her to wake up. I wanted her to say she wished she’d met my daughter. Or to just
look
at me and really see me. I knew she’d wake up and we’d say everything. Finally. But then she didn’t. The doctors said she never would. The thing I’d wanted from her for so long was never, ever going to happen. So I made the decision to have them shut off the machines. It’s funny, I guess I’d always kind of seen an actual plug in my mind. Like someone bends down to the wall and yanks out the cord. I was sitting here at home, sitting on this bed, choosing the time my mother would die. But then . . . I went to the hospital that morning, and she’d just died. Five minutes before I got there.”

Nolan started to say something, but his voice choked. Finally he simply said, “I’m so sorry.” It was enough. Long minutes passed as they stared up at the ceiling. Their ceiling.

“Pree doesn’t know who you are,” said Kate. “I told you but not her.”

“You should have told both of us.” But the rage had left him, the heat of it burned out by the shape of her in his arms.

“I know. And you shouldn’t have left me alone.”

“I didn’t want to.” She didn’t know it for the truth it was, and he knew he couldn’t explain it to her, not in a way she’d believe.

They kissed again, and this time it was different. It was the way it had been the first time. And on their wedding day. And over Robin’s head, the first time they met him. How they should have kissed when they let him go.

Saturday, May 17, 2014
10 a.m.

P
ree steered her car into a small parking lot along the water. Dozens of boats bobbed at their moorings. Tiny white birds battled the larger seagulls over the fish guts a guy was tossing off the pier. She had no freaking idea how to find Kate. She’d never thought there would be this many boats here and they hadn’t set up a real meeting point. She drove slowly through the lot, easing into the next one, craning her neck to look at the various people.

But then there she was. Kate was walking down a short dock. A man, his face turned toward the water, was behind her. Nolan. Pree felt her throat muscles tighten and pulled into a parking spot.

Kate waved when she saw her. Nolan smiled. He had a black eye that went from his temple down to the middle of his cheek. Pree wanted to ask about it, but she felt tongue-tied. She hid her hands inside her dress pockets. Kate held a brown Trader Joe’s bag with one hand and pushed her windblown curls out of her face with the other. Pree could have told her it was no use—her own curls were already halfway to dreads. Once they’d all said hello, she pulled an elastic band out of her backpack and snapped it around her hair.

“Do you happen to have another of those?” Kate asked.

She dug in her pocket and handed one over. It was silly and minor, but it felt intimate somehow, giving Kate the hair band.

“We’re waiting for that one.” Kate pointed at a blue sailboat slowly scudding under motor power through the gray water. Pree nudged the rubber bumper on the dock with the edge of her sneaker. Then she noticed Nolan was doing the same thing on the other side of Kate, so she stopped.

“What’s that?” she said, pointing, trying to fill the spaces in the awkwardness.

“Oh,” said Kate. She looked down. Her face twisted.

“Shit,” Pree said, getting it. Really? A Trader Joe’s bag?

Kate’s words were rushed. “They’re in nice boxes, I promise. Mom’s is walnut, and Robin’s is cedar. I just needed some way to carry them . . .”

“Shit,” Pree said again. Nothing else really seemed appropriate.

And then Nolan laughed, the reverberation deep in his chest. The air turned brighter and Pree didn’t want to hurl herself in the water anymore.

As the sailboat moored, bumping the rubber guards with a hollow sound, the fog thinned and a skinny beam of sunlight touched the edge of the dock. Brian, the guy driving the boat, looked like he was born to do nothing more than tool a boat around the bay, pulling up fish as he went. He was a little scruffy and maybe thirty-five. Pree shoved her hands into her pockets and listened to him tell them where to stand and, more important, where not to stand. Brian showed them the ropes—literally—and told them he might ask them for help. At any minute Pree was going to screw it up by getting knocked overboard by something sail related. She told herself to duck whenever anything at all happened.

This whole stupid thing was too romantic an idea. When she’d woken up that morning, she’d thought it might be cool, going to sea to bury the brother she never knew. And hey, she might turn out to be a born sailor. Maybe she’d find out she was meant to live someday on a boat in a ramshackle marina somewhere. Alone, except for one of those boat cats that prowled around the bow.

But Pree quickly learned that the motion of the boat didn’t agree with either her or her condition. From the dock, the water had looked flat, but in reality it was pocked and marred by tiny waves that instantly made her want to hurl. She took a deep breath through her mouth and told herself to hang the fuck on. Mind over matter.

Brian aimed the boat toward Alcatraz. “We’ll take the scenic route. Maybe see some harbor porpoises. They were hanging out near Angel Island earlier this morning.” He said it as if they were tourists at Pier 39 or something, as if they’d come for the view. But Kate and Nolan nodded along and looked as if there were nothing more interesting than perhaps getting to see some marine wildlife. Then Kate disappeared into the underneath part of the boat. Belowdecks, Brian had called it. Pree followed her. Maybe it was smoother down there.

Kate stood behind a tiny counter, the two wooden boxes in front of her. She looked up when Pree clattered down the stairs, and half smiled.

“You all right?” Kate said.

“Sure.” Pree wasn’t. She scoped out where the bathroom was—she could make it if she needed to. Knowing that calmed her stomach for a minute. “Are
you
all right?”

Kate pressed her fingers one by one against the countertop. “I guess when I booked the boat I didn’t expect it to be so . . . real.”

The boat lurched and both Pree and Kate toppled to the left. One box slid to the edge of the counter—Pree caught it the second before it went airborne. It was surprisingly heavy. Kate took it, propping her hip against the counter for stability.

“I’m sorry,” Pree said.

“For what? You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“I guess, for all of this. That you have to go through.” A tiny part of her felt an odd guilt for not being there for Kate when Robin died. Not that she’d had a choice in it. But the guilt remained, small and uncomfortable.

“Oh.” Kate shrugged. “I’ve done a lot of the going-through already. This is just . . . punctuation.”

Pree stared at the lighter-colored box.

“That’s Robin,” Kate said. “I mean . . . you know.”

She wanted to see inside, and at the same time she didn’t. “Do you throw the whole box?”

Kate shook her head. “Not encouraged. You just shake out the ashes. You’re not even supposed to do that—bad for the bay and all—but we’re not asking permission. See?” She took the lid off and inside was a clear plastic bag, like the kind you put vegetables in at the grocery store. It was even sealed closed with a twist tie. Inside was gray dust that looked, from the outside, like the clay Pree had used in college during her pottery phase.

“I just have to . . .” Kate undid the tie and peered in. She took a small ziplock bag from her pocket. Turning it inside out, she put her hand inside, as if to pick up dog poop. Then she reached into the bigger bag and took a handful. She flipped the plastic bag as if it were something she did every day and sealed it. Tucking it back into her front pocket, she gave Pree a quick look. The boat swayed again, and Pree wasn’t sure what made her feel more sick, the rolling of the boat that made her knees feel like they were made of Silly Putty or the idea that Kate had just stuck her hand into Robin’s ashes and put them in her pocket.

Pree barely made it to the bathroom in time. It was harder than she would have thought, wearing a life jacket and puking in a tiny little toilet while pitching back and forth. When she came back out, Kate was leaning forward, whispering urgently to Nolan. The noise of the boat slapping through the water masked whatever it was she was saying, but Nolan looked up, and his face was transparently guilty. His hand had been resting on top of Kate’s, and he pulled it back as if he’d touched an iron.

It reminded Pree acutely of a picture at home that Marta kept in the living room, framed, on the wall next to all her school portraits. The wall of shame, Pree called it, and she hated almost every single photo. But even she could see the humor in this one: in it Pree was sitting in her cow pajamas not next to but
under
the Christmas tree. She was lit harshly by the flashbulb and she was completely caught: the partially unwrapped box still in her lap, one hand on the toe of her new Rollerblades. She looked guiltier than anything.

Nolan had that exact look on his face.

Like,
the exact look.
Pree couldn’t quite figure it out. She could almost get it, but then she shied away. “I should go back up . . .”

“Pree,” said Kate. “I have to tell you something.” Looking terrified, she gripped a brass railing affixed to the wall.

“No, that’s okay. Thanks anyway,” Pree said, as if Kate had asked her if she wanted a snack.
No, no chips for me. I’ll pass on the chocolate milk.

“He’s your father.”

It all came together in one bright flash, as if Isi’s camera had flashed again the way it had that Christmas morning.

“Nolan’s your biological father. I should have told you that right off. I know that, and I’m sorry.”

He stepped forward, and Pree ducked back into a tiny alcove next to the head. “No, no. Don’t.”

“He just found out, too. Yesterday,” said Kate.

“I don’t understand,” Pree said. She felt so stupid. And she couldn’t get away. She was on a fucking
boat
with no way off. “What about Greg Jenkins?”

“It was Nolan.”

“You lied.”

“Yes,” said Kate miserably.

“I don’t— Why?”

“I was scared. I’d been so scared—”

“Did you just want to keep me for yourself or something?” She walked past both of them to the bottom of the stairs, where she held on to the railing with all her strength. “Because you didn’t want to share?”

She saw the truth of it reflected in Kate’s eyes. And there was a tiny, shameful part of herself that liked it—that liked that Kate wanted her so much she didn’t want to share her with anyone.

But Kate had shared Pree right out of her life twenty-two years ago, hadn’t she?

“Pree, that’s not it,” started Nolan. He was holding the rail next to the sink as if the boat were going over twenty-foot waves.

“Did Kate tell you I’m pregnant?”

It was Nolan’s turn to look shocked. He shook his head dumbly.

Pree started up the stairs. “Like mother, like daughter, I guess.” She wanted one of them to stop her. But neither of them did.