We Never Asked for Wings (19 page)

The cottage was even smaller inside than it looked. The living room was just big enough for two overstuffed chairs and a coffee table, arranged around a built-in window seat. The walls around the picture window were lined with shelves and cubbies and little drawers, all built from dark, weathered wood; it reminded her of an old-fashioned card catalog, or the inside of a toolbox. When she opened one of the drawers she saw that her second guess was correct—they were full of nails, bolts, screws, and screwdrivers, all separated by size and variety.

Far from the rest of her life, Letty felt her stress ease, and she allowed herself to be led from room to room, Rick's hand on her lower back. Three steps down a short hall and she stood in the first bedroom, two twin beds and a desk under a window. Through an open bathroom door she could see a second bedroom on the other side. She and Luna would have to share a room, but Luna wouldn't mind
—
she'd probably prefer it, and by the time she wanted her own room Letty would have both enough money and enough credit to move anywhere she wanted. If she wanted. She'd been in the house only five minutes, and already she wasn't sure if she would ever want to leave. She loved the dark wood, the windows that framed living portraits of the forest, the drawers full of tools that she could replace one at a time with trinkets and toys and photographs and memories, her life filed away in little drawers where she would never lose it again.

“What do you think?”

Rick sat down on one of the twin beds, bouncing like a little boy.

“I love it.”

“It's a little small.”

“It's teeny. But perfect.”

“You think so?” Rick asked. He smiled as wide as if he'd built the cottage himself and presented it to her as a gift.

“I do. If they'll have me, I'll take it.”

“Oh, they'll have you.” Color rose to Rick's cheeks. He hadn't meant it to sound sexual, but it had come out that way, and the bedroom felt suddenly too small, the tightly made beds suggestive. She grabbed his hand and dragged him through the house and onto the front porch, but outside she realized she didn't want to leave.

Letty sat down on the top step, and Rick sat beside her, so close their hips touched. She felt her body warm where they connected.

“So,” he asked quietly, and for the third time that day: “Are you okay?”

“I'm better now,” she said. She wanted to leave it at that, but it was unfair of her not to tell him, especially now that he'd gone so far out of his way to help her and her kids. She thought about where she should start, but everything that had happened—the knock on the door, Alex's late night, the phone call at the bar—it all felt far away here, a soap opera life that belonged to a different Letty. Not the Letty she was in this moment, sitting on a dollhouse-size front porch with a handsome, tattooed man, watching the warm afternoon light cast tangled shadows in the rose garden. It couldn't be her life; except it was. She had to tell him about it.

Rick looked at her, waiting.

“Wes came back,” she said. Then, realizing that meant nothing to him, she added: “Alex's dad. He just showed up last night, out of the blue.”

“After how long?”

Letty counted the time in her head. “Sixteen years.”

“I thought Alex was only fifteen.”

“He is,” she said. Rick was quiet beside her, and Letty studied the skin on the side of his face, so smooth he must have shaved after lunch, before he'd come to see her.

“So, are you worried about him?”

The concern in Rick's voice was genuine, and Letty realized what he must have been thinking. A man who left his son and returned after sixteen years—he couldn't be up to anything good. But of course it wasn't like that.

“No, no, I'm not worried,” she said. “He's a good guy.”

She was about to add that he was a doctor, and that before he'd moved back he'd volunteered with children all over the world, but the look on Rick's face stopped her. As much as he didn't want Letty to be in danger, she could see from his expression that he also did not want Wes to be a
good guy.
He looked hurt, and a little blindsided. She tried to think of a way to take it back, to wipe clean the expression on his face, but she couldn't think of anything to say, and in a fluster of regret, Letty leaned forward and kissed him hard on the lips.

Rick pulled away, startled, his eyes wide with surprise.

“Sorry,” she said.

He shook his head softly, a bewildered smile edging up the corners of his mouth. “Don't be,” he whispered. Running his finger along her lips, he quieted her and then, pulling her closer, he leaned in and kissed her again.

A
cross the dark field, planes waited in a quiet line at their gates; except for the occasional barking of the Canada geese traveling south, the night was silent, the Landing as empty as it had been all of Alex's life. He missed his grandparents. After the fight with his mother, he'd started using their bedroom, thinking the smell of the wax and his grandmother's perfume might help him sleep, but it had the opposite effect. The smell of Maria Elena brought on a guilt so intense he awoke hourly, sheets soaked with sweat, the words he'd spit at his mother hanging in the air like the smells of her now-constant cooking, a permanent fixture.

It wasn't how his grandmother had raised him.

She'd raised him to avoid sugar and to always be early and to shake hands hard, not to talk back or question authority or stay out all night with his girlfriend. That he would even tell his mother not to wait up was proof of how far he'd fallen from the standards his grandmother had set, and the fact that he could parrot the teenage attitude he'd always despised shook him to his very core. He was not the kind of kid who flung accusations or said things that were purposefully hurtful. But that was exactly what he had done. The fact that his mother didn't collapse under the weight of his words didn't ease his guilt—if anything, it made him feel worse. She probably thought she deserved every word he'd said.

At four o'clock he couldn't lie in bed any longer. The red-eye flights had started to land, the roar a predictable rhythm. He'd never get back to sleep now anyway. Feeling around in the dark, he found the jeans with the hole in the knee that Yesenia liked best and a T-shirt that didn't smell. The kitchen was quiet as he packed his bag. Alex was surprised—all week his mother had been up almost as early as he had—but she was still asleep as he pulled on his boots and slipped outside.

He wanted to go see Yesenia, but he knew he shouldn't. Carmen would just be getting home from work, and anyway, his worry was starting to annoy Yesenia. She was fine, she said, and under a thick layer of makeup she looked fine, looked like someday she would be able to forget it had all happened. But Alex knew he never could. He couldn't sit in honors science and raise his hand and act interested in cancer gene variations and immunization patterns when, across the freeway, Yesenia was being singled out, intimidated, even hurt. It changed everything.

Crossing the freeway, he started the long walk to school. It was still dark out, too early for even Mr. Everett to be in the classroom, so when he got to Elm Street he took a detour. He hadn't seen his father since the night they had dinner. He didn't know if Wes had called again, but he hadn't been to the house, and Alex was starting to wonder if that was it—a brief, awkward dinner before they all went back to their independent lives. But when he crossed the street and looked up, Alex was surprised to see the downstairs lights on. Wes sat in the kitchen window, drinking coffee and staring outside. He was waiting for him. Before Alex could decide whether or not he wanted to be seen, Wes popped up and disappeared, reappearing a moment later on the front porch. He wore plaid flannel pajama pants and a baggy T-shirt. His feet were bare.

“Off to school?”

Alex nodded, neither of them acknowledging that it was just five o'clock in the morning, too early for even the most serious student to be headed to class.

Wes jingled a key ring. “Want a ride?”

“Sure.”

He opened the passenger door first and then walked around, and they sat in silence as he backed out of the driveway. At the end of the street he stopped, looking back and forth and back and forth again. The street was empty, but he didn't move. Alex rolled down his window and smelled the early-morning air.

“Can't sleep?” Wes asked.

“No.”

“Me neither.”

Wes stared straight ahead, no longer even pretending to drive, and Alex studied his profile, disheveled hair partly covering one eye, smooth skin freckled across his temple. What would it be like to be Wes, a busy man with an important research job and a sudden son? It couldn't be easy. Shaking his head, Alex tried to expel the thought. He'd spent his entire life worrying about his mother, and now there was Yesenia. He didn't have mental space for another.

Wes turned on the radio, a blast of local news and then a jazz station. His thumbs tapped the steering wheel. “You know what's keeping me up?” he asked. Alex shook his head no. “I can't figure out why you aren't mad at me.”

Alex considered his question. It would be the normal teenage response to so many of the things he had experienced lately: his mother's abandonment, his grandfather's decision to move home, Wes's surprise knock on the door. He flipped the sun visor down and looked at himself in the small mirror, trying to see a flicker of irritation, resentment, fury, anything. But he saw only himself, wide-eyed and worried. His entire life he'd wished for his father's return; now, he wanted only for him to stay.

He flipped the visor back up. “I'm just not.”

“But why not?”

Alex was quiet. He didn't have an answer.

Wes studied him, looking for one. After a time, he continued. “I don't know why you aren't mad, because I don't
know
you. And as much as I tell myself that life is long and I shouldn't rush it, I just keep thinking that:
I don't know you,
and even if I get to know you now, I'll never know you as a little boy, or as a baby.” His voice broke, and he stopped talking suddenly. With the car in park he revved the engine, a noisy expression of all he couldn't say, then shifted into gear, speeding through stop signs and around corners until he pulled up to the curb in front of the school.

After a long time, he said: “I'm sorry. Really, really sorry.”

Alex looked out the window. The campus was still dark except for bright lights over the pool; the swimmers were there even earlier than the scientists.

Pulling his backpack from the floor to his lap, Alex opened the door. “It's okay,” he said finally. “I'm glad you're here now.”

Wes took a deep breath. “I am here,” he said, all the speed and anguish of his earlier monologue replaced by a tiny, quiet peace. “If you want me here, I'm here.”

Alex nodded, and even though they weren't looking at each other, he knew Wes could see it: the small consent. His father was here to stay. Whatever he'd said about international travel and research, he was here now, if Alex wanted him to be. And he did.

Alex stood up and put his backpack on. “Thanks for the ride.”

“Anytime,” Wes said and then, leaning over the passenger seat so he could see him, added: “And listen. I remember being fifteen. It's not all about hanging out with your dad on a Saturday night. You don't have to worry about offending me if you've got other things going on.”

“You've met my mother,” Alex said, frowning as he thought about Letty's recent ban on all things Yesenia. “I've got absolutely nothing else going on.”

Wes smiled. “Then I'll pick you up on Saturday. We'll go paint the town red.”

It was just an expression, but Alex imagined them, in matching plaid pajamas, lugging around a bucket of red paint. Waving good-bye, he turned toward the now lit science wing, backpack suddenly light.

Mr. Everett jumped up when Alex entered the classroom. Even with the slow drive and wrong turns, Alex was the first to arrive that morning, and Mr. Everett locked the door behind him and pulled a chair up to his desk. He motioned for Alex to sit down.

“Just the person I wanted to see.”

“Should I be worried?”

“I am.”

Alex swallowed hard, preparing for the lecture he should have known was coming. Their project ideas were due in three weeks, and he hadn't even started. He'd planned to dive in this week, but with everything that had happened, it was all he could do just to sit through class every day without falling asleep.

“I was going to start, I just—” He unzipped his backpack, rustling around for some kind of proof of his intention, but there was nothing. He hadn't brought a single book.

“I'm not worried about your project. I'm worried about you.”

Had the change in him been that obvious? It was the problem with being always positive, always eager, he realized now: everyone noticed when you weren't.

His teacher waited until he'd dropped his backpack and looked up. “Listen. You can't let it get to you.”

Alex startled. How did he know? Had his mother called the school? But she didn't even know; at least he didn't think she did. Confused, he tried to think of another explanation and waited for Mr. Everett to explain. Finally, he did.

“I know the competition is intense,” he said. “No matter how I rant against it, it's always this way, every year. But you can't let it get to you. Jeremy's got a bigger ego than you do, but not a bigger brain—don't let him make you feel like he does. And Miraya—she has a great idea, but she won't be able to pull it off. She's involved in too many other things and doesn't have the patience or the time for the kind of data collection her project demands.”

Alex nodded, filling with understanding and relief: Mr. Everett was talking about the competition, not Yesenia. His teacher thought he'd shut down under the pressure. It was good. Not true, but good because it was believable.

“It's hard,” he said, not meeting his teacher's eyes. Alex was talking about something else entirely. Before Yesenia, he'd gotten a thrill from the intensity of the class, enjoyed both the high stakes and the pressure. It was only because she'd been hurt that he found it hard to care; it had nothing to do with anyone else's ego or ideas.

“So ask for help, then. When I tell you all on the first day of class to act like scientists, that doesn't mean you have to do everything on your own. In fact, you shouldn't. The best scientists know how to collaborate.” He paused, but when Alex said nothing, he kept going. “Let's brainstorm. Think about what you have to work with.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean: tell me what you know, what you love, what you're interested in. And we'll go from there. Tell me about the birds.”

Alex didn't want to talk about it, not any of it. But he could tell from his teacher's expression that, until he talked, he wasn't going anywhere.

“It was my grandfather,” he said finally. “He's a feather worker, or at least he used to be. He left last year.”

“What's a feather worker?”

Alex was surprised that Mr. Everett didn't know about the feathers, since he'd had his mother as a student. But then Letty had never been as interested in the feathers as he was—she probably had never told her teacher about them. “It's a kind of artist. He makes mosaics out of natural bird feathers. No dye. He left me his feathers when he moved home.”

“How are they organized?”

“By color, date, and species. He's been collecting them for over thirty years.”

Mr. Everett let out a low whistle.

“Well, there's your project,” he said. “The first thing you need to do is make a list of everything you can learn from a feather. You'll be surprised, I think, when you look into it.”

Mr. Everett studied him, waiting for confirmation that the conversation they'd had would end in Alex returning to some semblance of the student he'd first met. It was against his principles to give such direct advice. Alex had heard him say more than once that coming up with the right questions was even more important than coming up with the right answers. But Alex had needed direction and he'd given it to him; Alex was grateful.

“Okay,” he said. “Thanks.”

Mr. Everett nodded. “Good. Now get to work and leave me alone before Miss Faye comes in and yells at me for not taking attendance again. I'm trying to catch up.”

“Do you need any help?”

“You know I won't turn down an offer of free data entry.”