Souvenir (28 page)

Does learning this upset you? For me, the memory is like a beautiful fantasy, a dream I had once, a long time ago—but to you it probably feels as if a small bomb has exploded. How could I have loved Carson that way and never told you? Why would I raise you on his music and yet keep the truth hidden away? Maybe you’re wondering if Dad knows. Rest assured, he does. Rest assured, too, that when I married Dad, I put my past away. Only now is it emerging with such strength that I can’t hold it back.

Never be mistaken in this one thing: Some truths will not bear being suppressed forever. It has occurred to me that the ALS could be some cosmic penalty for the choices I made so many years ago.

It was all wrong, all wrong.

Meg closed the pen inside the journal, her eyes bleary, her hand too weak to continue. As much as she wanted to keep writing, to resist sleep—there wasn’t time enough for sleep when the hours were trickling away like blood from a mortal wound—she knew her stubbornness was futile. Pulling her sweater around her shoulders, she lay down on the chaise and closed her eyes.

Forty-seven

C
ARSON DROVE HIS RENTAL CAR UP HIS PARENTS’ DRIVEWAY AND PARKED.
The engine ticked, cooling, while he sat in the darkness looking out at the pale form of the shed. Here was his refuge, finally. What he would do next—tomorrow, the days following, he didn’t know. In theory, he would finish whatever it was and then board another flight next Friday, for St. Martin. In theory, this…this thing with Meg wouldn’t affect his wedding plans or his bride-to-be in any detrimental way. Most likely, he’d see Meg once, offer his—what? Support? What else did he have to offer, other than his need for her to find a way out of her prognosis? She didn’t need his money, he had no miraculous treatment in a black valise, he wasn’t even especially effective at prayer. He just wanted her to know he was there, that he still…cared. He wanted to insist that she not try to handle everything herself.

But of course, she had a husband to assure her, to aid her. She had her in-laws, her dad, her sisters, her child. He pushed his hands through his hair and wondered what in God’s name he was doing here.

Inside the shed, the air was cooler than he expected; someone had been in and gotten the AC working. He left the lights off and climbed to the loft. It was better to be here in the dark, where the sharp edges of the truth were muted, blended into the shadows. Here in the dark he could imagine, as he’d done that night before her wedding, that hope was not gone. That a part of Meg was still his, that she wouldn’t leave him forever.

It had taken until he was seventeen, Meg almost sixteen, for her to come around…. Not counting their tentative childhood explorations, their relationship was limited to friendship. Close friendship—the closest—but not romantic love. Then, as if because he’d willed it, everything changed.

For a year he’d watched her take an interest in someone, then lose interest and consider someone else; she’d even claimed to be in love a couple times. She’d tell him about her feelings for those other guys, her eyes moony, her head cocked as if listening for the bell her mother rang to call her home—only she was listening for something else. Cosmic confirmation, maybe, that her whim matched what the universe wanted for her. He’d already heard the truth whispering through the glossy leaves of the groves and knew that if he was patient, she’d see what was already plain to him: that the two of them were meant to be together.

And then she did.

It was May. They were in her backyard, which doubled as the chicken’s range, sitting on the stoop having ice pops. Meg wore a striped T-shirt and short terry-cloth shorts. Her hair was pulled up in a ponytail that fell onto her back like a pale copper rope. He wanted to cut the elastic and watch her hair stream onto her shoulders. He wanted to feel it against his skin, imagined how it would hide his face like a waterfall if he were to lay on his back with her above him. He wanted her to want the same thing.

Julianne, who was seven, had the sprinkler on for Beth and her to play in. Meg watched the girls chase the chickens through the wet grass, shaking her head.

“Look at that—Jules outgrew that swimsuit a year ago.” Julianne’s butt was exposed by the high-cutting legs, and the shoulder straps stretched far down front and back, showing her bony shoulder blades and chest.

“I can fix that,” he said. “Hold this.” He handed Meg his ice pop—a grape bullet, half gone—then took out the buck knife Spencer had given him for his thirteenth birthday. Not minding the sprinkler, he went over to Julianne.

She saw the knife and her eyes grew round.

“Just hold still,” he said, and with a few quick tugs at the tight pink fabric, he cut through the middle, creating a two-piece suit, albeit with ragged edges and a bottom half that only just clung to Julianne’s little-girl hips. “There. That should feel better.”

Julianne looked down at her bared tummy, then back up at him, and grinned. “Hey, Beth look,
I
got a bikini!” she yelled.

Carson, water running off his hair and nose and jaw, walked back to Meg. She watched him with her head cocked.

He took his ice pop, noticed that she’d let it drip purple down her hand, and smiled.

“That’s ingenuity, what you did. She’s so excited,” Meg said, looking at him closely. “Me, I was just going to make her strip. I like the way you think.”

“I like how your eyes change colors, depending on what you wear.”

She smiled shyly. “Oh yeah? Well, I like how yours turn forest green when…when you look at me like you are now.”

Without thinking, he kissed her, her mouth sweet and sticky with orange ice pop. Their first true kiss. When he pulled back, she opened her eyes and nodded.

If only it had all remained like that….

Sitting here in the love seat, he stretched his legs out in front of him and listened for the opening and closing of his door, for two telltale creaks on the stairs. He waited like this until the sun eased over the windowsill, and then he put his face in his hands and wept.

T
HE SOUND OF KNOCKING PULLED HIM FROM A DREAM WHERE HE AND
M
EG
had been digging for pirate treasure along the edge of the lake, as they’d done thirty years before. He’d pressed a shovel into her hands,
“Keep digging!”
and she’d laughed at him.
“Silly, there’s no gold here.”
Her hair, long and tangled and wild, shone like spun copper. She grinned and stripped off her blue sundress, its crocheted lace trim ripped and dangling at the back, then ran, naked and laughing, into the water. He watched her swim and wanted to follow, but someone was calling his name, holding him back. He came awake then, disappointed that the voice came from his mother outside at his door.

She knocked again. “Wake up, Car. I’ve got sausage and eggs hot on the stove.”

“Coming,” he yelled, then unfolded himself from the love seat, where he’d nodded off maybe an hour earlier. His shoulder popped as he stretched.

Shep, the mutt, trotted alongside as Carson went to the house. His parents were seated in their usual spots, his mom to the right of his dad at the square table. They’d changed many things in the house over the years—countertops, flooring, even the size of the house itself, adding a small wing to the traditional two-story structure—but the table was the same one they’d eaten at for his entire childhood, the fourth seat often-times claimed by Meg.

Val sat there most recently. Today, Shep took it, hopping up and waiting politely for whatever donations they would offer. This was a change, a dog at the table; in earlier years his dad would not have tolerated it. This morning, his dad was the first to feed Shep, handing over a bit of sausage in a manner that told Carson this was nothing new. They’d mellowed, his folks, and it brought him comfort and pleasure to see them this way, still together, still content—more content, even, than when he was a kid. In September they’d mark their forty-third year together. He admired them, and envied them; assuming he and Val got married a week from now, the odds of
them
reaching forty-three years of marital harmony were pretty slim. None of the men in his family were blessed with longevity, all of them dead before eighty. He knew, though, that the number of years you lived was no measure of how good your life had been. The measure was in
how
you’d lived. And what you left behind.

“So, you got anything in the works right now?” his dad asked when he sat down with them.

His mom said, “What, you mean besides a wedding and honeymoon?”

“I mean his music. When are you going on tour again?”

Carson dunked a corner of toast into an egg yolk, took a small bite. “Gene’s working on that. My label’s been talking about a new release of my own handpicked favorites for late this year—live recordings, probably. I s’pose I’ll have to promote that, if it comes together.”

His dad asked, “Writing anything new? Anything for Val?”

“Leave him alone,” his mom chided.

“What’d I say?”

“No,” Carson said pointedly, eyeing his parents. They’d obviously spent some time talking about the Meg situation and his unexpected return home because of her. “But I’ve been pretty busy—maybe you noticed that?”

“Of course we did,” his mom said, feeding Shep a whole piece of toast, which Shep took to his bowl near the door. “Just let us know if there’re things we can help you take care of this week. I’ve already got the flower order under control, and Dad’s getting the tuxes on Wednesday.”

“So,” his dad said, “what’s the plan for today?”

Carson stood and took his plate over to Shep. He had no real appetite. “I don’t know, Dad. I’m figuring it out as I go.”

T
HE FIRST THING HE HAD TO FIGURE WAS WHAT TO TELL
V
AL
. S
HE CALLED
late in the morning, when he was back at the shed after a long walking tour of the groves. As had always been true, his dad was doing a good job of keeping the farm maintained—the fields mowed, the trees groomed, the lakes free of gators. Shep helped with that job, as did a group of college student volunteers who came out periodically to comb the grounds and “rescue” any dangerous wildlife. The increasing development all over the state made the gators bolder, more desperate for access to water. They’d been found in people’s swimming pools. Unfortunate as the outcomes were, a recent spate of attacks on humans made sense, given that it was mating season. As it was, theoretically, for him and Val.

He dialed her cell and she answered, “Hey, handsome, how’s it going? Did you get everything crated?”

“Not quite,” he said, sitting down on the stairs. “But…they should get it finished up soon. How’d things go yesterday, after you called?”

“I tried to call you later—didn’t you get my voice mail? We all went to this luau sort of thing. Wade won the limbo contest. I guess that’s no shocker!”

Wade, whose limber, muscular body was the anatomical ideal. He and Val could be twins. “Sounds like fun.”

“I miss you, though. Am I gonna see you before Friday night?” They’d left their plans for this week unfixed, dependent on his tying things up in Seattle.

“No…. Actually,” he said, peeling off his socks, “I decided to comeback to Ocala.”

“Ocala? Why?”

“A friend—you remember Meg Pow—I mean, Hamilton?”

“The one from the concert. And the tailor, right?” Her voice had a cautious tone.

He tried to tread carefully. “Right. Well, I just found out that she’s…”—he stopped and cleared his throat—“she has Lou Gehrig’s disease.” That wasn’t a complete explanation for his sudden change of plans, but he hoped it would suffice.

“That’s
awful
,” Val said. “But…but what’s that got to do with you? I mean, I don’t want to sound, you know, callous or whatever…. Are you visiting her in the hospital or something?”

He rubbed his chin. There was only one justification for his drop-everything trip, and he didn’t want to give it, but he also didn’t want to lie. “No,” he sighed, “it’s not like that.”

“What is it like?”

“It’s…the thing is, well, Meg and I used to be best friends, you know? Growing up?”

“But you said you hadn’t seen her for like twenty years. So you couldn’t exactly be close
now.
”

“Well…right, that’s true. We aren’t. But before that, well—look.” He stood and began pacing from kitchen to living room. “We were going to get married. I mean, we hadn’t set a date, hadn’t, you know, planned it all out yet—I didn’t give her a ring,” he added, hoping that would diffuse the story’s impact on Val.

“And what happened?”

“It didn’t work out.”

“Obviously.”

“Obviously.” He stopped at the table, pressed his hand to it. “She found someone else. But, when I heard she was…was dying, I just felt like I should come see her. So here I am.”

“Okay…” Val said. “Okay. So there you are. Okay.” She seemed to be pulling the details together. “Wow,” she said, “that’s such a bummer for her…. It’s really thoughtful of you to go see her.”

“I guess,” he said. He wanted to tell her how miserable he felt, and how helpless. He wanted to feel like he could unburden himself and know that she would bear it gladly. But that wasn’t the nature of their relationship. She was all upbeat energy, a woman whose struggles had been only physical: girl versus surf. A bad day was a calm sea or a better competitor or her mother pestering her about how she planned to wear her hair for the wedding. This fresh, undamaged quality was much of what had attracted him, but he knew as he stood there with his cell phone pressed to his ear that this was also why he had no business asking her to commit to him.

“Val?”

“Yeah?”

“What would you say if I told you I want to stay here, in Ocala—or someplace close by?”

“What, all week?”

“No. All the time.
Live
here.”

“Be serious, Car,” she laughed. “It’s
inland.
Why would you want that? Not because of this Meg—I mean, it’s not that, right? I mean, she’s like, dying…pretty soon.”

His stomach balled up tight. “Right, no, not because of Meg. My folks—”

“They could move to Malibu.”

“I…I just need to be
home
,” he said, not knowing until the words were out how true they were. Once, he’d run away from here, but now he was running back, praying it wasn’t too late to reclaim…what? Not Meg, no; of course he couldn’t have her. His history, then.
Their
history. It was something.

“Carson, what’s going on?” Val asked, sounding rightfully irritated.

He reached into his pocket and took out Meg’s gold chain, laid it in a circle on the table. “I owe you an apology,” he said, tracing with the tip of his finger the delicate ring it made. “I should’ve told you—about Meg. I should’ve told you it was never really over.”