Where We Belong (41 page)

“Wow,” I said. “This is even better than the pizza we used to get.”

“Yeah, that old place went out of business. I think this is better, too. More expensive but better.”

“So, do you remember the first question you ever asked me?”

“Um. Let me think. I asked if you were getting beaten up at home.”

“No, that was the second one. Or the third.”

“I give up. What was it?”

“You asked me if I was going to go to Tibet when I grew up.”

“And you said no. Which surprised me.”

“Can I get a do-over on that?”

“Absolutely.”

“I think I’m going to go to Tibet.”

“Wow. You’ve made progress. What about your mom and Sophie?”

I stretched my legs out in front of me and stared at my socks for a second, and thought about my mom, at home, plenty pissed at me. I hoped she wasn’t having a bad day with Sophie, who’d been more Sophie-like lately.

“I think maybe Sophie won’t live at home forever. I mean, I won’t live at home forever, so why should she? I think I’ll go off and get a job and a life and go on a trip to Tibet. And I think Sophie will grow up and live someplace different. Like maybe in a group home with other people who have problems like hers. And where they can teach her to do stuff on her own. However much she can learn.”

“That’s a pretty sane decision. What does your mom think about that?”

“She wanted to find a place for her a long time ago. Around the time we got thrown out of Aunt Vi’s. She got totally overwhelmed and just wanted to give up. I was the one who wouldn’t let us give up. I feel like if we’re going to do a thing like that, it should be because the timing is right. And because it’s really best for all of us. Not just because we got to the end of our rope. You know? But things aren’t as good with Sophie as they were before Rigby died, so—”

“Rigby?”

“The dog.”

“Right. The dog.”

“So that’s assuming we can even wait that long. We’ll just have to see.”

She shook her head a few times. I wasn’t sure why.

“What?” I asked.

“I just forgot. I forgot how you’re, like, twenty years older than you are.”

“I’m sorry I went running out of here and never talked to you again. The weird thing is, I can’t even exactly say why. I mean, I know how it felt and all, but I don’t really know why it needed to feel
that
bad. Sometimes I think the way I handled what happened didn’t quite match what happened.”

We ate in silence for a minute or two. I was glad for the silence, because I was starting to feel scraped out inside. I remembered what Paul said about opening up to me, and then feeling like his nerves were being sandpapered. And having to withdraw just to get some rest.

I was starting to need some rest.

“Try this on for size,” she said. “You overheard two people telling each other your secret, out loud, and it was a secret you hadn’t even told yourself in the privacy of your own head yet.”

“Wow. I think you actually get it.”

“Been there, done that. So where are you living now?”

Like she knew I needed to talk about something easier than all that.

I took a deep breath, and swallowed another bite of pizza, and told her all about living in the mountains. Which took awhile. Because, believe me, when you finally get to live in the mountains, there’s a lot to tell.

Just as I was leaving, she said, “You didn’t come back just for this, did you?”

“No. I have to talk to somebody else.”

It made me feel tired. I’d barely even started.

She handed me one of her business cards.

“You don’t have to call or write all the time,” she said. “But every now and then, it would be nice to know where you are. And how you are.”

“Tell you what. Make you a deal. I’ll send you a letter from Tibet. I mean, I’ll try to say hello sooner than that, but whatever else happens, I promise I’ll send you a letter from Tibet.”

We shook on that deal.

I stepped out on the sidewalk and let out a big breath. Like the first good exhale in a long time. And I thought, Oh, my God. I did it. It’s over. I got it behind me.

Then I remembered, again, that it wasn’t even the main thing I’d come here to do. It wasn’t even the hard one. Because the thing with Nellie, if I’d done it all wrong, probably nobody would have gotten hurt except me. It’s always easier to take a risk when it’s your own stuff you’re risking. Nothing is harder than risking something that belongs to somebody else.

I looked at Aunt Vi’s house, and then I looked at Rachel’s house. And then back at Aunt Vi’s. I tried to decide.

It would have been a lot easier to go sit with Aunt Vi for a while. Rest my sandpapered nerves. But it was weighing heavy on me, this thing I had to do, and I knew I wasn’t going to be even a little bit okay until I got it done.

I marched up the walkway to Rachel’s door, raised my hand to knock, and froze solid. This jolt of panic cramped up in my stomach. I thought I might be about to be sick. I thought, Don’t do this. This might be incredibly wrong. You’re breaking a huge confidence. You’re risking your friendship with Paul, that apartment your family needs. The happiness of two other people. Well, five. If you count Sophie and my mom and me.

I thought, How did I ever convince myself I had any right to do this?

I turned and walked two steps back from the door and sat on the edge of the stoop with my face in my hands. Hauling back all the months of thinking I’d put into this.

It was reasonable thinking. I was there for a reason.

It’s not like I hadn’t known it would be risky. I’d just kept coming back to the fact that I had to do it anyway. Over and over, I just kept ending up there.

Okay, I thought. I have to do it anyway. But just in that moment, I didn’t get up.

Before I could, I heard Rachel’s voice saying, “Angie?”

I jumped up and spun around, and we looked right into each other’s faces.

“Angie, what are you doing here? Did something happen to—”

“No! It’s not an emergency. Nothing like that.”

“You’re the last person I expected to see.”

“I know. I’m just surprising people all over the place today. Including myself.” I added that last part under my breath. But I think she heard.

“Are you here to see your aunt?”

“No. I’m here to talk to you.”

“Oh.”

I could see her surprise register. I think she was too polite to say, “Why?” So for a moment, she said nothing at all.

Then she said, “Well, in a way, that’s good, because your aunt isn’t home. She’s out of town.”

“Out of town?” I think my tone made it clear that I found that amazing.

I walked the two steps back to her door, because I had something else to focus on now. Something safer.

“Yes, she’s on her honeymoon.”

I felt my eyebrows go up. I said nothing, because the words would only have gotten tangled up.

“You didn’t know she remarried?”

“No. I didn’t. I’m kind of surprised, but I guess I don’t really know why, come to think about it. She lost Charlie quite awhile ago now. I guess everybody has a right to be happy.”

“You should come in.”

But I froze there for a moment more. I had a sudden terrible image that I’d walk into her living room, and there’d be a man there. It was possible. Aunt Vi found someone. It sure wouldn’t have been hard for Rachel.

“Look,” I said. “It’s not that I don’t get that this is weird. And kind of rude. You didn’t know I was coming, and I would hate it if somebody dropped in on me without calling like this. If this is a bad time, I’ll just go away. I’ll come back later. Or even in the morning. Whenever you say.”

Only, I realized, that plan had hinged on being able to stay at Aunt Vi’s.

“It’s not a bad time. I was just reading, and I saw you through the window.”

I followed her into her living room and looked around. It looked completely different. More feminine now, with flowered curtains. And colors. And it wasn’t cluttered, exactly, but it was pretty filled with stuff compared to Paul’s house. Then again, just about every place was filled with stuff compared to Paul’s.

“Have a seat,” she said. “Can I get you something to drink? Milk, water, iced tea?”

“Iced tea would be nice. Thank you. If it’s really no trouble.”

“It’s really no trouble. Are you hungry?”

“No. Thank you. I just had pizza with my friend at the bookstore. But it was very nice of you to ask.”

She disappeared into the kitchen, and I fidgeted on the couch and tried to accept the fact that I was in it now, whether I liked it or not. I had passed the point of no return.

When she came back out, she stood over me and handed me a glass of iced tea and a coaster.

“Nellie?” she asked.

That completely threw me. I had no idea where it had come from, or why she’d said it, or how she knew. I swear, I thought she was looking right through my skull and reading what was written inside.

“Why did you just say that name to me?”

“I wondered if that was your friend from the bookstore. The one you had pizza with.”

“Oh. Yes. You know her?”

“I go to that bookstore all the time. Usually every week.”

“Ah.”

I ran it around in my head a bit, and it made a degree of sense. It was less than a mile from her house. But it felt weird. Like the universe was lining up in some new way, and everyone I was connected to was connecting with everyone else, with no earthly reason why it should be that way.

She sat across from me, in an old-fashioned wing chair, and I tried to stop my head from spinning. I felt like I wanted to physically hold onto it. Like it might fall off, or fly away.

“I know this must be about Paul,” she said. “Because that’s the only thing that ties us together.”

“Yes. It is.”

“Is he all right?”

“He’s just the same as when you last saw him.”

“But you don’t think that’s all right?”

“Paul’s in love with you,” I said. And then I just kept talking. To dull the echo of that huge piece of information. “And he can’t bring himself to tell you. So, no. I don’t think he
is
all right. Look. He doesn’t know I’m here. He’d be horrified if he knew. I’m kind of taking my life into my hands by doing this. But I don’t think he ever will. Tell you, I mean. And I just can’t get my head around the idea that a thing like that could go unsaid forever. Here he is, alone. He doesn’t even have Rigby anymore. And I’m not saying you two should be together, because what do I know? Only you two know that. But that’s the thing. You
two
. It’s a thing two people have to decide. But how can two people make a good decision when only one of them knows what’s going on?”

I stopped. Breathed. Sneaked a look at her. She had a cup of tea on a saucer in her hand, and she was running the tip of her index finger back and forth on the handle. Looking where she was touching. I couldn’t read anything by her face. She just looked lost in her own thoughts.

After what felt like a year but was probably ten or twenty seconds, she said, “How sure are you that what you’re saying is right?”

“Positive. We talk about it.”

“That doesn’t sound like Paul.”

“I know. I thought that, too. But we really do. I guess he finally had to talk to somebody. Did he really manage to keep it a secret from you all these years? I can’t imagine that. I would think it would’ve come out in a million little ways.”

She sighed. She didn’t look up from the cup.

“Not entirely secret. I knew when I met him how he felt. But so many years went by… Honestly? I don’t know. I thought he either still loved me or didn’t like me much at all anymore. Because he always had these ways of holding us a little distant from each other. After Dan died, I kept expecting him to say something. But that was two years ago. So I decided a long time ago that I was wrong.”

“You weren’t wrong.”

“Well, why didn’t he say? You say you talk to him. Did he tell you why?”

“He told me a reason. I’m not sure if it’s the real one. He said it would be like gambling with the good friendship you two have. He said he has half of what he wants. But if he told you how he felt, and you didn’t feel the same, it would be so awkward and horrible for him, and then you might feel guilty for hurting him. And he worried he might lose your friendship.”