Tumble & Fall (31 page)

“Dad,” Caden says simply. “He had these guys come get me at the beach one night. They knocked me out with something and brought me to his beach house on the Cape. He’s got this whole bunker thing, he thinks he’s going to survive the asteroid down there, and he wanted me with him, I guess.”

Ramona stares at him blankly. Caden hadn’t given much thought to what she’d look like when he told her, but now that the moment is here, he’s surprised. She doesn’t look shocked, or scared, or outraged. She looks, mostly, sad. Sad and sorry. Like she was the one who threw him in the back of a car and locked him up.

“He had all these crazy ideas.” Caden almost laughs. “He thought we were gonna, like, bond, or whatever. I think he really, truly, believed it, like he wanted me to be all grateful and, I don’t know, happy to be there.”

Ramona nods quickly. “Were you?”

Caden scoffs. “No,” he says. “I mean, I guess there were a couple times when I was, like, curious, maybe. He took me to his lodge, trying to show off, and we played catch in Fenway Park…”

“You did?” Ramona asks. Her eyes are teary again and she’s pursing her lips together, so hard that the color in them drains to a clear, pale white. All of a sudden, Caden knows what the sorry face is about. She’s sorry he was kidnapped, sure, but she’s also sorry he had to wait so long. Sorry it’s the first time he’s spent with his father, the first time they cooked a meal together, the first time they played catch. Sorry, because she knows it’s mostly her fault.

“Mom.” Caden holds her hands tighter and looks her hard in the eyes. “He told me what happened. He told me about Carly.”

Ramona hangs her head. There’s a patch of faded gray spread out along her center part. “Shit,” she says quietly, to the speckled linoleum floor.

“Is it true?” he asks. It’s not like there’s a part of him that believes, or even hopes, that it isn’t. He wants, he needs, to hear her say it out loud.

Ramona stares at the floor for a long moment. “Yes,” she whispers. “It’s true.”

“Why didn’t you just tell us?” Caden asks. “Did you really think it would make a difference? Carly is my sister.”

“I know,” Ramona says. “I didn’t do it for you. Or Carly. I did it for me. As long as you didn’t know the truth, I had an excuse. I could be broken, and useless, because I got left behind. I didn’t do anything wrong. It doesn’t make sense, but in a way I guess it did to me.”

Caden takes a deep breath. He wishes this could be the end of it, but he knows it’s not. “It’s not fair, Mom,” he says. “She deserves to know the truth.”

Ramona nods. She untangles her fingers from Caden’s and grips the tops of her knees. She still hasn’t looked up. “You’re right,” she sighs. “I’ll tell her.”

“Tell who what?”

Caden looks over Ramona’s head to the deck. Carly stands with her hands cupped over her eyes, her face tight and squinting as she tries to identify the dark shadows on the other side of the screen door.

“Hey, Carly,” Caden says, clearing his throat as she steps inside the room.

At the sound of his voice she flings herself toward him. He opens his arms, as if to catch her in a hug. But she’s not interested in hugging, and he quickly realizes he’ll need his hands to block the fast, sharp blows she’s delivering to his shoulders and face.

“You stupid, fucking asshole,” she screeches, battering him with slaps and closed-fist jabs. Caden dodges her as best he can, folding her arms together and pinning them across her chest.

Ramona stands off to the side, holding her face in her hands. “Carly,” she says. “Carly, stop.”

“Stop?” she shouts. “Why should I stop? He has no idea what he put us through. He doesn’t care about anybody but himself. He’s selfish. You’re so fucking selfish, Caden, you know that? You’re a selfish little baby who doesn’t care about his family. And you know what? We don’t care about you. We don’t need you. This week has been … incredible. Right, Mom? Tell him how much better everything has been since he left.”

Ramona shakes her head and covers her face with her hands. Carly struggles to catch her breath, and Caden holds her, feeling her small lungs fill and empty, her shoulders heaving up and down.

“Carly,” he says finally. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t my fault.”

Carly sniffles, something between an angry chuckle and a sob. She wrestles free from his hold and slaps his hands away. “Of course it wasn’t,” she spits.

“It wasn’t,” Caden insists. “I was with Dad. He took me and he wouldn’t let me leave. I had no choice.”

Carly freezes. “What?”

“I know.”

“What are you talking about?” she asks, falling into a chair behind her.

Caden shakes his head. “That’s what happened, I promise,” he says. “I wanted to come back. I wanted to call. But…”

Carly waits for more. Caden glances at Ramona, standing with her back to them, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling above the electric stove.

“Mom?” Caden prompts. What’s the use in dragging it out?

Ramona leans against the countertop and takes a deep breath. “Yeah, okay,” she says. She steps one bare foot on top of the other and presses down, knees bent, as if she’s trying to jump out of her own skin.

“Yeah, okay, what?” Carly asks. She eyes Caden searchingly. “What is this?”

“Mom has something to tell you,” Caden says. He tries not to sound like a brat. It’s not his secret, not his place. But all of a sudden he feels in control, like his family is something in need of attention and safekeeping and he’s the only one able to provide it.

Ramona joins them at the table. She sits across the table from Carly and looks her in the eyes. “Carly,” she says. “You know how much I love you, right?”

Carly rolls her eyes. “Jesus, Mom, yes,” she sighs. “Please just tell me what the hell is going on.”

“Okay, okay.” Ramona wipes at imaginary crumbs on the table, scooping them into her open palm. “So. When your father left … Arthur, when Arthur left … he didn’t just, you know, up and leave us. For no reason.”

“I know that,” Carly says. “He left because he’s an asshole and he had more important things to do with his life. Do we have to talk about this again?”

Caden shakes his head and Carly glares at him. “What?” she asks. “Are you guys best friends or something now? You got that kidnapping disease where you fall in love with your captor?”

Caden sits back in his seat. “Can you let her finish, please?” He looks at Ramona and gives her an encouraging nod.

“We do have to talk about it,” Ramona starts again, with difficulty. “Because it’s not the truth. And Caden thinks, we both think, that the truth is important, now. Just like I don’t want to go up against, whatever we have to go up against, tonight, as a pathetic, miserable drunk, I don’t want to be there as a liar, either.” She bites her lower lip and traces the pale lines of a water stain on the table with her finger. “So, here goes. After Caden was born, things with me and Arthur got really … messy. We were both unhappy, all of the time. I loved my son, we both did, but it didn’t make us a family. At least, not a real one. And instead of trying to fix anything, I ran away. I ran away, and I started … seeing … other people. I was a wreck. And then…” Ramona forces herself to look up at Carly. “And then I got pregnant.”

Carly stares back at Ramona, frozen in her seat. She doesn’t say a word.

“I didn’t know what to do,” Ramona says quietly. “I came back. I came home, and I told him everything. He knew the baby … he knew you weren’t his daughter, but he stayed anyway. He stayed as long as he could,” she says, a thick, phlegmy bubble caught in her throat. “And when he couldn’t do it anymore, he left. But it wasn’t his fault. Because I left first. And then I lied to you. To both of you. And I’m sorry.”

Carly looks at her small hands in her lap. She picks at the frayed bottom of her short jean skirt. Caden watches as the skin around her lips gets splotchy and red, the way it used to when she was little and on the verge of a tantrum. “Why?” she says softly, and coughs. “Why did you lie?”

Ramona sniffs and sits back, resting her head against the wall behind her, beneath the spots of chipped paint where a poster was long ago torn down. It was a copy of a painting, Monet, or Manet, Caden could never remember which, the kind you’d buy in a museum gift shop. Ramona and Arthur had bought it together. It managed to survive years of screaming insults, as if it were somehow to blame for all that had gone wrong.

Then one night, when Caden was eleven or twelve, during one of her infamous, drunken fits, Ramona had ripped the poster from the wall and stormed onto the deck, holding a match to one curled end. Caden watched the growing flames from his bedroom. He remembers thinking he should do something. But there was something about Ramona, waving a flag of fire, her eyes wild and her hair a tangle of moonlit curls as she tossed it into the soggy grass … he couldn’t move. She was beautiful.

Ramona’s eyes are wet and cloudy. “I lied because I couldn’t give you another reason to hate me,” she says. “I couldn’t be the bad guy all of the time. It was wrong. It was disgusting. And I’m sorry,” she says, a single tear trailing down her rosy cheek. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Caden reaches for his mother’s hand across the table. Her fingers twitch and tremble and she hides them in her lap.

He looks sideways at Carly, who is still studying the tops of her knees. Her lower lip quivers slightly but her eyes are dry and steady.

There’s a sharp drop in his gut. The silence is too much. What has he done? All of his life, Carly and Ramona have been a team. A dysfunctional team, where one carried the other almost every step of the way, but they were together. They were a family. And in one moment, with one demanded confession, he’s screwed it all up.

Carly pushes her hands into her thighs and stands. She trips over the leg of her chair and it makes a sharp squealing sound against the floor. Caden wants to move, wants to stop her from leaving, but he can’t. He’s done enough already.

But Carly doesn’t leave. She walks slowly around the table and stands over Ramona’s shoulders. She puts a hand on the top of her mother’s head. Ramona looks up, her eyes hopeful saucers. Carly pats her hair in short, gentle strokes, and she smiles.

“You’re not a bad guy, Mom.”

Ramona wraps her arms around Carly’s tiny waist, pulling her onto her lap. Caden coughs and looks away. He feels like he’s eavesdropping on a conversation he started and abandoned.

“And you’re not so bad either,” Carly says to him from across the table. “We’re all okay. Okay?”

Caden looks at his sister. He wonders how something so small can be so resilient, so indestructible. “You’re not mad?” he asks.

Carly smiles and shrugs. “Mad?” she repeats. “Why would I be mad? Nothing’s different. You can’t lose something you never had,” she says. “And to be honest, I’m kinda psyched about it.”

Ramona raises an eyebrow and looks at Carly with suspicion.

“You are?” Caden asks.

“Yeah.” Carly nods, twirling a long strand of Ramona’s hair in her fingers. “No offense, Cade. But your dad sounds like kind of a dick.”

SIENNA

The day starts, hot and humid.

Sienna sits out back with Denny, the patio table covered in piles of wildflowers, picked on the long beach walks she and Dad had been taking all week long. They’ve been hard at work for an hour, creating bouquets and arrangements for an arbor, the as-yet-to-be-built structure beneath which the wedding ceremony will be performed, later that night on the beach.

They’ve been working mostly in quiet. In fact, the whole house has been shockingly calm since Sienna’s arrival. When she walked in, late last night, trembling and exhausted from her trek across the island, Dad got up from the couch where he was sleeping and wrapped her in a hug. No words. There was nothing left to say. She was home.

Ryan was in his room. As soon as he’d heard the squeal of the screen door, he bounded down the steps and into the living room. But even their reunion was understated. He hugged her shyly around the waist, told her three important facts about rattlesnakes, and shuffled back upstairs. As if he never doubted she’d make it home in time.

“What about these?” Denny asks, holding up long stalks of wild lavender and beach grass. Sienna is surprised to find Denny so calm, almost peaceful-looking. She remembers back to that first dinner, when even the mention of the asteroid was enough to send Denny running off in tears. Dad was right: a project of some kind was exactly what they’d needed, all of them, to stay busy, to keep from thinking too much.

Just like Owen. Sienna feels a sharp pain piercing her ribs. She can’t even think his name without suffering some bodily ache, a physical reminder of his absence. But every time she feels a pang of missing him, she takes a breath and remembers the truth. It’s not Owen, not really. The power of her feelings has less to do with anything real between them and more to do with the strange and terrifying chemistry of her brain.

“Nice.” Sienna nods at the flowers, forcing herself to snap out of it. She reaches for some of the long-stemmed Queen Anne’s lace. “Maybe with a few of these?” she suggests. The delicate white heads of the flowers poke sturdily through the thin green stalks, adding the perfect matrimonial touch.

“I love it.” Denny beams. She sets one bouquet aside and begins work on another. Sienna wipes a fine layer of sweat from the back of her neck. It’s not even noon and already her skin feels like it’s roasting. A thick, fluttering panic settles in around her heart as she imagines the rest of the day. She closes her eyes and tries another deep breath. There’s a hand on her shoulder and she feels the cool of Dad’s shadow fall over her face.

“How’s it coming out here?” he asks, eyeing the messy floral spread.

“It’s coming,” Denny sighs. “But I think I need a break. Who wants lunch?”

Denny wraps a slender arm around Dad’s waist and leans in for a quick hug. Dad kisses the top of her blond hair tenderly and holds her close beneath his chin. Sienna tries not to look, but somehow the display doesn’t bother her. This is what love should look like, she thinks. Quiet, practical, serene.

Dad pulls up one of the heavy patio chairs and sits down, his long legs stretching out into the grass. “Thanks for doing this,” he says, folding his hands in his lap and leaning back. Sometimes Sienna wonders what Dad must look like to people who don’t know him, his tall frame, long neck, the almost absurdly perfect waves at the front of his sand-colored hair. They probably think he’s a politician, or an actor. She’s seen people visibly reassess him when he starts to speak. He looks like his voice should be bigger.