Table for five (15 page)

“My brother trusted me with these kids. Whatever you and Crystal might have thought of him, he was a caring father. I’m not going to let him down.”

She crumpled the paper cup in her hand and dropped it into the wastebasket. “There’s no money. You understand that, right?”

“Hey, I’m a dumb jock, but I can add and subtract.” He loosened his tie and glared at her. “You’re starting to piss me off. No, I take that back. You’ve already pissed me off a number of times today.”

She glared up at him. “You’ve made me angry today, too.”

“Pissed, Lily. The word is
pissed.
” He spoke so loudly that heads turned in their direction.

Her cheeks burned. “How mature of you. That will probably go into the report to the probate judge.”

“What, that you have a way of pissing people off?” He of
fered a disarming smile despite his words. “Let’s end this discussion and go see the kids.”

“This discussion is not over.”

“Yeah, it is. You’re off the hook. You can go home now. I’m not going to walk away from this.”

“You’ve walked away from everything else in your life,” Lily pointed out. “Crystal told me so. She said you walked away from your career.”

“We’re talking about kids here, not a career. You don’t walk away from kids. I won’t be perfect at this but I’ll put everything I’ve got into it.”

She drew herself up, already thinking of a counterargument. Then his words sank in and her shoulders relaxed a little. “Good answer.”

“L
ily and I have news,” Sean announced to Cameron and Charlie when they arrived home. He tried to sound positive and upbeat. That was what the social worker and the counselor advised him to do. Sound positive and upbeat without denying the tragedy. Reassure the children that life would go on and things would get better.

Like they could get any worse. What was worse than being a kid and losing both parents on the same day?

Sean had been an adult when his mother died five years ago, and he still bled from that wound. One of the last things she’d said to Sean had always puzzled him. She told him to fall in love, settle down, make a family. “It’s what you were made for, more than any of us.” Over the past five years, he’d done his best to ignore that advice. Now, looking at his nieces and nephew, he thought of her. She’d always had a great sense of humor.

“Hi, Lily,” said Ashley, playing with a plastic spatula on the floor by her feet.

“So what’s the news?” Cameron asked, his arms tightly folded across his middle.

“We had a meeting with your mom’s and your dad’s lawyers today to read their wills. They both left you pretty much everything they possessed.”

“Everything?” Charlie’s eyes goggled.

“Almost. Your dad left me his golf clubs, and there were bequests to Red, Travis, Grandpa and some others. And your mom remembered her mother and Lily, here.” Good old Lily, he thought. He was still ticked off by the things she’d said to him, challenging his fitness to take care of this family. It was like she wanted to undermine his confidence.

She offered a hard-won smile. “Your mother wanted me to have her clothes. She was always after me to dress more fashionably, you know.”

“And that’s all?” Charlie asked. “That’s absolutely all? There wasn’t anyone else who gets something?”

“Not that I recall.” Sean looked at Lily. “You?”

“I think that covers it.”

“Phew.” Charlie slumped back against the sofa cushion.

“Is there someone else who should have been mentioned?” Sean asked.

“Nope, not at all, no way,” Charlie said immediately.

She was a funny little thing, Sean reflected. In a lot of ways, his niece was hard to know. Cameron glared at her and mouthed something Sean couldn’t discern. She stuck her tongue out at him.

“So are we getting placed in foster homes or what?” Cameron asked.

“Of course not,” said Sean.

“Why would you think such a thing?” asked Lily.

“We’re in the foster-care system. I was wondering if we’d be farmed out to foster parents.”

Charlie’s chin trembled. “I don’t want to be in foster care.”

“Your brother’s full of sh—crap,” Sean said. He tried to be patient with Cameron’s attitude, but it was hard. “Nobody’s going to farm you out anywhere. You’re going to live with me. Or actually, it would be more accurate to say, I’m going to live with you. Right here in this house.”

It felt surreal to be saying it. Sean had gone from having no one but himself to having a house in the suburbs and three kids. He couldn’t quite get his mind around that. Like Lily said, this was a life sentence.

“Is Lily still going to sleep in the guest room?” Charlie asked.

“She’s not staying, genius,” said Cameron.

“You’re not?” Pigtails flying, Charlie whipped her head around to face Lily.

“I can’t, sweetheart,” Lily said. “But I promise I’ll be here for you. I’ll see you at school every day, and I’ll come on the nights when your uncle is working.”

Sean let out the breath he’d been holding. They’d gone over something called a preliminary parenting plan with the social worker. Sean could tell Lily wasn’t happy with the arrangement, but she didn’t let the kids know how she felt. That was the thing about Lily. She definitely put the kids first. He knew she was furious about the terms of the will, yet for the sake of these kids, she was keeping her disapproval to herself.

“Who’ll take care of us when we go to Dad’s?” asked Charlie.

“We’re not going to Dad’s, moron,” said Cameron. “He’s not there. Don’t you get it?”

“Hey,” Sean told him. “That’s enough.”

Charlie hung her head.

“Look, we’re going to make this work,” Sean said, but no one was listening because Ashley chose that moment to flip the waist-level switch of the garbage disposal. The buzz of the
machine startled her into wide-eyed silence. Then her face crumpled like a wadded-up Kleenex and she let out one of those armor-piercing howls.

Everyone in the room went for her—Sean, Lily, Cameron and even Charlie—all desperate to console her. Sean reached her first, scooping her against him. Around midweek, she’d decided he was all right and now let him hold her whenever he wanted. She clung to him and eventually the fearful sobs shuddered into silence. Then she pushed her fists against his chest and looked him in the eye.

“Da,” she said.

An eerie sensation crept over him. “Uncle Sean. That’s my name. Can you say it? Un-cle Sean.”

“Da,” she said again, and stuck her thumb in her mouth.

Charlie came into Cameron’s room late that night, looking scruffy and a little lost in their mother’s nightgown, her eyes wide in an expression he would have laughed at if he hadn’t recognized the terrible fear she was feeling.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “What are you doing up?”

“It’s about Ashley,” Charlie said in a small, frightened voice.

Oh, man. Not Charlie, too. Who else knew about this?

Cameron felt sorry for her so he put his arm around her and hugged her close. She felt warm and solid against him and her hair smelled of baby shampoo.

“What about her?” he made himself ask, even though he knew. God, he knew and he was getting just as scared as Charlie.

“Mom said dad isn’t Ashley’s father. She said Ashley has another father.”

Cameron took a deep breath. What was he supposed to do, tell the kid their mother was a liar or let her know she’d slept around?

“When did she say that?”

“After spring break. She was all mad that dad took us to California.”

A cold fist squeezed Cameron’s gut. “Did she say that to Dad?”

“No. Just me. She, um, she was sad and mad and there was nobody else to talk to.”

She’d probably had a bottle of wine that night, like the night she’d told Cameron. Anger at his mother burned like acid in his stomach. It did no good at all to feel pissed at his parents anymore, but sometimes he couldn’t help himself.

“There’s probably some mistake,” Cameron said. “You heard it wrong. She didn’t mean anything.”

“She told me,” Charlie said. “People think I’m stupid but I’m not. She said Ashley has another daddy and I’m scared he’s going to come and take her away.”

Cameron was afraid of that, too. “The most important thing is to keep quiet. It’s just a story and you’ll only cause trouble if you say something.”

“I won’t tell,” she whispered.

“You don’t need to. Nobody’s going to take her away,” he vowed, putting his other arm around her. Saying so made him feel the way he always felt—he didn’t even know whether or not he was telling the truth.

Charlie sobbed so hard that she choked, so he hugged her again. “Hey,” he said, rubbing her back through the silky, too-big nightgown that still had their mother’s scent. “Hey, try to calm down, okay?”

“I try that all the time, but I
want
them, Cam. I have to talk to them and hug them. I miss them so much.” She seemed to be having trouble breathing between sobs.

“I miss them, too.” He stroked her hair. In a way, Charlie was luckier than he was. Her feelings for their parents were
simple and clear. She adored and worshipped them. Even the fact that she knew something was up with Ashley didn’t tinge her adoration. When she remembered them, she would think only of their perfection, not their flaws.

Cameron, on the other hand, was old enough to know his parents were human and very flawed. Still, he found himself wishing he hadn’t had that stupid fight with his father on what turned out to be their last morning together. He wished he’d been more sympathetic to his mother when she broke down and told him about Ashley.

“I need them, Cam,” Charlie whispered against his chest. “I need them to come back.”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice gravelly, his eyes stinging. “Me, too.”

S
ean regarded the splat of Gerber oatmeal on the kitchen wall, then glared at his younger niece. “Everybody’s a critic,” he said.

She glared right back. “It’s yuck.”

“Eat the damned oatmeal,” he snapped.

She gasped audibly, as though he’d struck her, then burst into tears. “It’s yuck,” she sobbed. “It’s yuck.”

“Aw, come on, Ashley,” he said pleadingly. “I didn’t mean to yell at you.” But she was lost to him, lost in a world of misery. “Damn it,” he muttered.

“Damn it,” she howled. Before he could stop her, she flung another spoonful of oatmeal. This time it hit him smack in the face, the lukewarm cereal sliding down his cheek.

Ashley went silent, her teary eyes wide with apprehension. She was only two, but she knew what naughty was.

Sean felt himself losing it. He’d gotten up extra early today and dressed in a good shirt and tie, because he had to take Charlie and Cameron to school. Slowly, the oatmeal dripped
down into the corner of his mouth. He could tell the baby was winding up for another howl.

“Oh, man,” he said, getting a taste of the cereal. “It
is
yuck.” He made a terrible face and clutched at his throat.

Ashley couldn’t resist that, and she giggled until she got the hiccups. Sean made a big production of cleaning the oatmeal off his face and out of his shirt collar, which made her laugh even more. Relieved, he talked her into eating a piece of banana bread, one of the dozens of things brought by concerned friends and neighbors. He was running out of space in the freezer for all the stuff people were bringing. At this rate, Sean reckoned, he wouldn’t have to learn to cook for a year. He sure as hell intended to cross oatmeal off his list.

Charlie wore a foul expression as she marched into the kitchen and dropped her backpack on the floor.

“Next crisis?” he said.

“Cameron’s taking forever in the bathroom and I didn’t even get to do my hair.”

“Do what to your hair?” Sean handed her a hunk of banana bread and poured her a glass of milk.

Charlie’s chin trembled. “Mom always did my hair, except when I was at Dad’s.”

Sean knew he had to do something fast or she’d start crying. When she cried, Ashley always joined in, and then he’d be back to square one. “Did your dad do your hair?”

She scowled at him. “No way.”

“I bet I can do it,” Sean said.

“Uh-uh.”

“Uh-huh.” He opened a utility drawer, where he’d spied a jumble of hairbrushes and shiny hair clips and ponytail holders. “Have a seat, madam.”

Shooting him a look of suspicion, Charlie sat on a counter stool. Ashley watched, rapt with fascination. Sean wondered
what he’d gotten himself into. His niece had bright, silky curls that looked just fine to him, but she insisted she wanted braids and barrettes. It had a kind of softness he’d never felt before. He didn’t know how to braid hair but he figured out what a barrette was. “This is the best braid ever,” he assured her, twisting two ropes of hair together. He picked the shiniest, gaudiest barrettes and ponytail holders, and when he was finished, she didn’t look half bad.

“Done,” he said. “You look like Cher.”

“Who’s Cher?”

“One of the best-looking women ever,” he said. “Eat your banana bread.”

“I don’t want to go to school,” Charlie said, picking at her breakfast.

Cameron ambled into the kitchen, his hair still damp from the shower. “Me, neither.”

“Fine. You can stay home and clean this place up.” Sean gestured around the kitchen. Lily had left only yesterday, yet somehow the dishes in the sink had multiplied and clutter had gathered on every available surface. “Your choice,” he said.

Charlie eyed the smear of oatmeal on the wall. “School,” she said sulkily.

“Whatever,” said Cameron.

“I wish I was going to Italy,” Charlie said.

“Why Italy?”

“’Cause it’s not here. Lily’s going to Italy for the whole summer.”

Good for Lily, he thought with a spike of envy.

Lily watched Sean striding down the corridor to her classroom, with Charlie in tow. He held her hand but walked so fast she practically had to run to keep up. They both looked grim, and Lily’s bright smile of greeting failed
to impress them. “Go on in, sweetie,” she said, “your friends are waiting for you.”

Lindsey Davenport, bless her, grabbed Charlie by the hand and pulled her inside.

“It’s not working,” Sean said when she was out of earshot.

“What’s not working?” she asked in an undertone. She kept her eye on Charlie, watching the little girl put up her backpack. The other kids came to welcome her back, exclaiming about her hair and treating her with the sort of fragile tenderness children instinctively showed when one of their own had been wounded.

“Everything. This whole arrangement. It’s chaos at the house, getting everyone up, dealing with the baby, getting out the door on time. It’s insane.”

“Women do it every day of their lives,” she couldn’t help saying.

“And that’s supposed to help?” He rubbed at a spot of something on his shirt. His expression changed to a smile as Charlie approached him.

“See you, Uncle Sean.”

He touched her head awkwardly but with affection. “You have a good day, sugar.”

“Okay.” Charlie was now surrounded by a few of her friends who had come to check out her uncle. In chinos and a shirt and tie, he had a sort of flustered, rumpled charm. Children seemed drawn to him, as though they recognized a kindred spirit.

“Let me know how it goes today,” he murmured to Lily.

And honestly, she decided as the day moved forward, it seemed to go well enough. She couldn’t deny her relief at being back in the classroom, her safe world, in control once again. Here, she was her best self, confident and caring with the students she loved. After the chaotic, emotional week at Crystal’s, this felt normal.

So why did she find herself missing the chaos of that house?

Lily pushed aside the thought and kept an eye on Charlie, who was subdued throughout the day, and near the end, Lily felt hopeful. Traditionally, she set aside the final twenty minutes for reading circle.

“Boys and girls,” Lily said, settling on the floor pillows and motioning everyone to gather around. “We’re going to start a new read-aloud book today.
Charlotte’s Web
by E. B. White.”

“I saw the cartoon on TV,” said Eden.

“The book’s always better, isn’t it, Miss Robinson?” said Sarah.

Lily nodded, then paused to wait for everyone to be quiet. She opened the book to the familiar first page. It was a risky choice under the circumstances, but she trusted her instincts. This was, bar none, a flawless novel and one of the best ever penned for children. Or for adults, for that matter. She hoped the story of a friendship so powerful that it transcends death would have special meaning for Charlie.

Lily took a deep breath and started reading. “‘“Where’s Papa going with that ax?” said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast…’”

There were probably worse things than coming back to school after your parents drove off a cliff, but at the moment, Cameron couldn’t think of any. This was it, right here. As his uncle pulled to the front of Comfort High School, he felt as if he’d been knocked into a dark hole, the way he’d felt the morning Sean had come home with the news.

Ignoring his babbling baby sister, he slammed the car door shut and stood in front of the school, which at this hour swarmed with students. The booster club members were stringing a banner up between two big sycamore trees, promoting
something or other. Mr. Atherton, the vice principal, led a chain gang of morning detention students on garbage patrol.

Cameron turned away and hunched up one shoulder, hoping he wouldn’t be recognized. He didn’t think he could handle Atherton’s jovial “Gee-kid-tough-break” greeting just yet. Or ever, for that matter. But it would be wishful thinking to expect people to treat him as though nothing had happened.

It was one of those blustery April days that held out the hope of a power outage and school cancellation. Ordinarily, he’d like that, but nothing was ordinary anymore. He didn’t want to be at home, and he didn’t want to be at school. He didn’t want to be anywhere.

He shifted his backpack from one shoulder to the other and headed up the walk. The wind plucked at his jacket and hair.

“Cameron?”

He kept walking, though he knew that voice.

“Cameron, I just want to say, I’m so sorry for what happened,” said Becky Pilchuk, hurrying to fall in step with him.

Becky Pilchuk. Just his luck. He glanced around to see if anyone noticed him walking with her. On the chalkboard in the boys’ locker room, where he and his friends rated the girls in their class according to relative hotness, she was in the bottom ten percent. It was a game the guys played, and it would be incredibly insulting to the girls if they knew about it.

“I tried to see you after the funeral service, but I couldn’t find you,” Becky said.

“I didn’t feel like being found,” he said. He’d felt like breaking something. In fact, he’d done so. Right there at the church, he’d wandered outside to the parking lot. They were loading his parents into the hearses and it was completely gross. His father had Travis, Sean and a bunch of golfers as pallbearers. His mother had the husbands of her friends from the Special Olympics committee and the garden club and
whatever the hell else his mother was into. It was too much, thinking of them sealed up inside those gleaming boxes, so Cameron had ducked away when no one was looking. He ran until his breath came in strangled sobs and wound up at the rear of the church, looking at the colored windows framed in soaring arches. At the top of the arch was a roundel. He knew it was called that because they’d studied Gothic architecture in World History. The roundel depicted a dove hovering over a flame—the Holy Spirit.

Cameron had picked up a smooth, rounded stone. He wound up and threw it as hard as he could, and the stone smashed through the window with a satisfying clatter. He wasn’t worried that the noise would alert anyone, because the recessional music blared from speakers and everyone had left to go to the stupid cemetery to bury his parents in the ground. In no hurry, he’d sauntered away to rejoin the others in the stretch limo with air freshener that smelled like overripe bananas.

He tried not to look at Becky, but couldn’t help himself. She held a sort of weird fascination for him and had ever since she’d moved here last fall. She had all the components of the uber-geek—the brains, the eyeglasses, the complete cluelessness about the way she dressed—yet he had this really strange reaction to her. His heart sped up and he felt all nervous. And when she mentioned his parents, his throat and eyes hurt, like he was going to start bawling at the drop of a hat.

“Well,” she said, her voice wavering uncertainly, “if you ever feel like talking about it, I—I’m willing to listen.”

For a wild moment, he had the urge to tell her about the church window and about the fact that ruining things had a curious way of beckoning to him. He wasn’t sure why that was. Breaking something or messing it up didn’t help a thing. It was pretty lame, because all it meant was that somebody had to fix whatever he broke. Big deal. If he told Becky, then
she’d know he was wacko for sure. “I doubt I’ll want to talk about anything. It completely sucks. That’s all I have to say.”

“Okay, sorry,” she said. “Anyway, I’d better go. I have a paper I need to turn in before first bell.” A tinsel-wrapped smile flickered and disappeared. “So I’ll see you around, okay?”

He didn’t answer, but watched her go, plucking a crisp white report from her notebook as she soldiered toward the front door of the school. When she had nearly reached the building, a gust of wind snatched the paper and blew it high overhead.

She gave chase, but the paper wafted a few yards away, where a group of jocks were pushing and shoving. One of them spotted the paper and slammed his foot down on it. Becky rushed in, grabbing it. She pulled too hard and the page tore.

The jocks laughed, giving each other high fives while Becky clutched the paper, red-faced, and scurried away. As she crossed in front of Cameron, her eyes met his briefly, and in that moment, he could tell she knew he’d seen the whole thing. He instantly felt guilty for not stepping in to help, and then he got mad, because he hated feeling guilty.

And somehow, his anger turned on her. The dweeb. She ought to know the last thing he’d want to talk about was his parents, and the last person he felt like talking to was Becky Pilchuk.

He rushed to his homeroom and tried to slide invisibly into his seat in the back. No such luck. Shannon Crane spotted him and yelled, “Cameron’s back. Oh, Cam, we missed you.”

He tried to act all normal as his friends gathered around. A few of them had been at the funeral, but he hadn’t really talked to them. He’d been too busy trying to avoid cameras from ESPN and the local news station that kept getting in his face. Now he stood in the midst of his friends, and he felt more alone than ever.

They chatted away, filling him in on school gossip—Maris
Brodsky broke up with Chad Gresham, the girls’ volleyball coach had been written up for foul language and the theme of the senior prom was Sailing Away, like he gave a rat’s ass about that. Cameron didn’t move, but he felt distant from these people, a visitor from another planet. He was a stranger in his own skin. He didn’t know how to act anymore. When was it okay to joke around with his friends again? When was it okay to think about something other than the giant void inside him? When was it okay to care again?

He had no answers, only questions rushing in to fill the void. Pretty soon his friends turned their attention away from him and he sat alone at the one-armed desk, staring at the glossy fake-wood surface. From the pocket of his backpack, he took out his compass. It was a precision instrument, his geometry teacher had lectured when he’d passed them out to everyone. Keep the cap on the sharp point so you don’t gouge anything by accident.