“Yeah,” I said, scratching the spot between the dog’s ears that always made his back leg thump. “It’s kind of new.” Henry just nodded, and silence fell between us again. I was about to leave it at that, but then, figuring that this was a safe and non-humiliating topic, took a breath and continued. “He belonged to the renters who had our house last summer.”
Henry glanced over at the dog, comprehension dawning on his face. “Yes,” he said, “that’s where I know him from. It’s been bothering me ever since I first saw him.” He paused at a stop sign, looking from the dog to me. “So why do you have him?”
“They left him behind,” I said. “We haven’t been able to track them down, so we’ve kind of just taken him in.”
“They left him,” Henry repeated, his voice strangely flat.
I nodded. “At the end of the summer,” I said. I looked over at Henry, expecting some kind of reaction. Everyone else’s responses—even my grandfather’s, over the phone—had been angry, distressed, concerned. But Henry’s hands just tightened on the wheel, something closing off in his face.
We drove the rest of the way home without speaking, and Henry passed my driveway and pulled into his, confusing the dog, who had sat up straight when we neared our house, his nails scrabbling against the glass of the window, eager to get home. He clearly hadn’t put it together that this was also the place where people dumped syrup on him. “Thanks for the ride,” I said, when Henry had turned off the engine, even though he made no move to leave his car.
“Right,” he said, his voice sounding far away. “Sure.” I looked over at him, wondering what I’d said, or if this was just the residual tension from earlier. It seemed that in my efforts to put the past behind us, I’d unwittingly made things even more uncomfortable. I started to say something—anything—to try to get us back to a more amicable place, when the dog started full-on whining, standing up on my lap, straining to get back home again, which must have seemed extra frustrating now that it was so close.
I pushed open the door and slid out of the car, dropping the dog down to the ground, where he immediately started pulling against his leash. I was about to say something else to Henry, but he was still sitting in the driver’s seat, looking lost in thought. So I just closed the door gently, and then headed up his driveway, being tugged by much more force than I would have thought a small dog was capable of, wondering what had just happened.
An hour later, I was sitting on the front porch with a glass of Diet Coke, extra ice, shucking the corn for dinner. My siblings were with me, and they were, technically, supposed to be helping. But instead, Gelsey was doing her ballet exercises using the porch railing as a barre and Warren was pacing back and forth, barely avoiding getting whacked in the face by Gelsey’s grands battements, peppering me with questions about his upcoming date.
“And she said yes?” Warren asked, as I peeled back the green husk from a ear of corn, exposing the yellow and white kernels underneath. I felt my stomach growl just looking at it. Fresh corn was one of the best things about the summer, and Henson’s corn was always spectacular. I dropped the husk into the paper grocery bag resting at my feet, then looked up and gave my brother a look.
“Yes,” I said, for what had to be the eighth time. “I asked her if she wanted to go to the movie on Friday, she said yes, and I took the dog and left.”
“And you’re sure she knew it was with me?” Warren asked. I met Gelsey’s eye just before she sank down into a grand plié. She gave me a tiny smile before looking away, stretching her arm over her head.
“I’m sure,” I said firmly. “You have a date. You’re welcome.” I shook my head, wondering if I’d done the right thing. After all, Warren and Wendy sounded like some kind of terrible folk duo. Not to mention the fact that she was now going to be subject to my brother’s endless wellspring of trivia.
“Right,” Warren said, as though just now realizing I had something to do with this. “Thank you so much, Taylor. If there’s something I can do to repay you—”
“There is,” I said, handing him the half-shucked ear of corn, and picking up my Diet Coke glass—I was due for a refill. “Finish these.” I headed in, through the screened-in porch to the kitchen. My mother was slicing up tomatoes, and I recognized the fixings for hamburgers on the grill.
“Corn done?” she asked as I opened the fridge to retrieve my Diet Coke.
“More or less,” I said, glancing out to the porch, where it looked like Warren was talking to Gelsey, wearing a dreamy expression, but not actually accomplishing anything.
“More or less what?” my father asked, walking into the kitchen. He was holding the dog tucked in the crook of his arm and he looked a little rumpled, the way he always did when he woke up from his nap. He had also stopped dressing as though he was going to be called into the office at any moment, and today was wearing an American Bar Association T-shirt with his khakis. Without meaning to, I looked behind him to the calendar on the fridge, and saw that we had somehow ended up in the middle of June. Like every year, the summer was moving much too quickly—but I now had more of a reason to need it to slow down than just not wanting to go back to school.
“The corn,” my mother said, bringing me back to the present moment as she turned down the heat on one of the burners.
“Oh, shucks,” my father said, his pun expression spreading over his thin face. I smiled, and it looked like my mother was trying not to. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, with mock contrition, “was that too corny? Personally, I thought it was a-maize-ing.”
“Enough,” my mother said, shaking her head, even though she was laughing. “We need to get these burgers on the grill.” She left the kitchen, brushing my father’s arm lightly with her fingers as she passed, and walked onto the porch, where I could hear her telling Warren to get a move on.
“And how was your day?” my dad asked, turning to me. “Did you do great things?”
I smiled at that, pretty sure that serving people sodas and fries didn’t count. “I don’t know about that,” I said. “But I did get these.” I crossed to the table and handed him one of the movie night posters. “What do you think?” I asked, uncharacteristically nervous as I watched him reading it.
“Did you pick the movie?” my dad asked, his voice sounding a little hoarse.
“I did,” I said, and my father nodded, his eyes not meeting mine, but still on the poster. “You said it was your favorite,” I said after a minute, when he still hadn’t spoken. “And that you’d never seen it on the big screen…”
My dad cleared his throat and looked up at me. “Thanks, kid,” he said. He looked back at the poster. “This is great. I can’t believe you did this for me.”
I nodded, then stared down at the kitchen floor tiles. What I couldn’t somehow bring myself to say was all I could think about—that I had done it because I loved him and wanted to make him happy, and I had wanted him to see his favorite movie again. But implicit in that was what was staring me in the face every time I looked at the calendar—that this would probably be the last time he would see it. That it would, most likely, be one of the last movies he ever saw. I swallowed hard before I felt like I could speak again. “And,” I said, trying to keep my voice upbeat, “Warren has a date to the movie.”
“Does he now?” my dad asked. He jostled the dog in his arm. “Does that mean he’ll stop tormenting this poor thing?”
“Let’s ask him,” I said, heading out of the kitchen. My father followed behind me out to the porch where Gelsey was now stretching, her foot up on the porch railing, and her head bent toward her knee at an angle that, no matter how many times I’d seen it, always made me wince.
“Shoulders back,” my mother said, and I saw Gelsey make the correction. My dad crossed over to sit next to Warren, who appeared to still be holding the same ear of corn that I’d left him with. I couldn’t help but notice that my dad looked a little winded by the trip from the kitchen to the porch, that he already needed to rest from it. He settl
ed the dog, who seemed more than happy to just be toted around in the crook of his arm, and smiled at my brother.
“So I understand you have a date,” he said, startling Warren, who turned red and finally started shucking the corn.
“Really?” my mother asked, smiling at Warren, as she joined my dad, sitting on the arm of his chair. “Since when?”
“Since Taylor asked her out for him,” Gelsey piped up as she straightened up from her stretch.
“What?” my mother asked, frowning, and I laughed and crossed over to help my brother with the corn while he began to recount the story. And as I sat there and listened, chiming in when necessary, it occurred to me that we had somehow never done this back home—just hung out, talking over details of our lives. If we’d been at home, my father would have been at work, and the three of us would have no doubt been doing various activities. And despite the circumstances that had brought us here, I couldn’t help being glad for just a moment that we were sharing this together, as a family, at last.
chapter twenty-six
I COULDN’T SLEEP. THIS SEEMED TO BE THE THEME OF THE summer, as I found myself lying awake for hours every night, even when I’d worked all day and was exhausted and should, by all rights, have fallen fast asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. But whenever I lay down, I would find myself tossing and turning for hours, my thoughts keeping me awake. It just seemed like ever since we’d arrived in Lake Phoenix, I was constantly being confronted with all the things that I’d done wrong and had been trying to avoid thinking about for the last five years. And it was always at night, when I couldn’t escape them, that they took up residence in my head, refusing to go away.
What was keeping me up tonight, oddly enough, was the dog. There was something in Henry’s reaction to hearing he’d just been left behind that had stuck with me. Because as much as I’d wanted to demonize the renters for leaving their dog behind, it was basically what I’d been doing for years now—running away or quitting whenever things got hard. I’d just never had to deal with the reality that this came with a cost. In fact, most of the time, I’d done my very best to avoid ever having to confront the consequences of my actions. But Murphy was the living proof that leaving something or someone was never just free and easy.
When I couldn’t take it any longer, I rolled out of bed and pulled on a sweater, figuring that some fresh air might help, or at least clear my head a little. I tiptoed down the hall and let myself out through the screened-in porch. I didn’t bother with shoes, and just stepped barefoot out into the grass.
It was a gorgeous night, the moon huge in the sky, and just as huge reflected on the surface of the lake. There was a little bit of a chill in the air, a light breeze that ruffled the leaves, and I pulled my sweater a little tighter around me as I headed down to the dock. It wasn’t until I’d walked down the steps that I noticed the dock wasn’t empty. This wasn’t that unusual—I’d noticed Kim and Jeff out there one night, each holding pieces of paper, pacing around the dock, apparently trying to brainstorm. I slowed down as I squinted, trying to make out who was sitting on the edge of the dock. Then the figure turned slightly to the left and I saw that it was Henry.
I froze, wondering if I could walk away now without him noticing me. He hadn’t turned his head far enough to see me, but I was worried that sudden movement would attract his attention. Though a second later, I thought back to all those moments that had just been keeping me awake, reminding me that I’d run away when I should have stayed. But with Lucy, and now maybe with Henry, it seemed like I was getting an opportunity to at least try and make things right. So I took a deep breath and kept on going, putting one foot in front of the other until I had reached the dock. Henry turned toward me, and it was only then that I considered that he might not care about my need to confront my faults—that he’d probably come out to the dock to be by himself, and had most likely already had far too much of me that day. Also, that I was wearing what I had slept in—very short terry cloth shorts and a tank top with no bra. I was suddenly very grateful for the sweater, and hugged it even closer around me. I nodded rather than lifting one of my arms to wave at him. “Hi,” I said.
“Hey,” he said, sounding surprised. I made myself keep walking toward him, sensing that if I stopped or hesitated, the part of me that I usually listened to would take over and I’d turn and go hustling back inside rather than risk humiliating myself in front of him for the umpteenth time that day.
I sat down next to him at the end of the dock, careful to leave at least a person-space between us. I extended my legs until they reached the water. The lake was cold but felt good against my feet as I moved them in small circles under the surface. “I couldn’t sleep,” I offered after we’d been sitting in silence for a moment.
“Me neither,” he said. He looked over at me and smiled faintly. “Cold?”
“A little,” I said, as I hugged the sweater around me. He seemed comfortable in the cool night air, wearing a gray T-shirt that looked much-washed and soft, and a pair of drawstring shorts. I suddenly wondered if this was what he’d been sleeping in as well, and the thought was enough to make me avert my eyes, quickly, back to the lake and the moonlight.
“I’m sorry about before,” he said, looking out at the lake as well. “In the car. I didn’t mean to shut down like that.”
“Oh,” I murmured. I hadn’t known that’s what had happened. “Was it…” I started, then paused when I realized I wasn’t sure how to say this. “Did I say something wrong?” I finally ventured.
Henry shook his head and looked over to me. “Not really,” he said. “It just…” He let out a breath, then continued. “My mom left,” he said. He kept his eyes on mine as he said this, and trying not to betray my shock, I made myself keep looking into his eyes, not letting myself look away. “Five years ago,” he said. “At the end of the summer.” He broke our eye contact and looked back out to the lake. I looked down and saw that his fingers were curled around the edge of the dock, and his knuckles were white.
“What happened?” I asked softly, trying not to let the shock I was feeling seep through my voice. But inside, I was reeling. Mrs. Crosby had just left?
Henry shrugged, and kicked one foot in the water, sending out a series of ripples that grew and grew, until finally the water stilled again. “I knew she was having some trouble that summer,” he said, and I tried to remember back. Truthfully, in a summer that had mostly been defined by first dates and carnival kisses and drama with Lucy, I hadn’t been paying a lot of attention to Henry’s mother. She had seemed like she always had—a little distant and not particularly friendly. “I hadn’t thought it was anything. But the week before we were supposed to go back to Maryland, she went into Stroudsburg to do some shopping. And she didn’t come back.”
“Oh, my God,” I murmured, trying—and utterly failing—to imagine my mother doing something like that. For all the times we’d argued or disagreed, for as hard as I’d sometimes tried to push her away, it had never once entered my mind that she would go.
“Yeah,” Henry said with a short, humorless laugh. “She called later that night, I guess so my dad didn’t wouldn’t call the police. But then we didn’t hear anything from her until she contacted us two years ago, when she wanted a divorce.”
This was somehow continuing to get worse. “You haven’t seen your mother in five years?” I asked, a little faintly.
“Nope,” he said, a hard edge coming into his voice. “And I don’t know if I ever will again.” He looked over at me. “You know what the worst part was? My dad and I were at a baseball game. She just left Davy alone in the house.”
I did the math and realized that Davy would have been seven then. “Was he…” I swallowed hard. “I mean, did anything…”
Henry shook his head, thankfully stopping me from having to finish the sentence. “He was fine,” he said. “But I think it’s the reason he got so into wilderness survival after that. Even though he tells us it’s because of a show he
saw on Discovery.”
Slowly, things were beginning to come together. “Is this why you moved up here full-time?” I asked. It was also, of course, the reason that none of us had seen Mrs. Crosby the whole time we’d been here.
“Yeah,” he said. “My dad needed to do something else, find a job where he could be around more. He’d always liked it up here. We had to move houses, because in the old place Davy and I were sharing a room. Not that he ended up needing a room of his own,” he added, his lips curling in a small smile as he looked toward his yard, where Davy’s tent sat. Henry shrugged, and kicked at the water again. “My dad was kind of a mess for a while after she left,” he said, his voice quieter. I waited for him to say more, give me details about it, but he was already continuing. “So moving here… it just seemed like the right thing to do.”
I nodded, but was still trying to wrap my head around everything. It suddenly struck with a force that sent a chill through me, that only a week or two after I had suddenly left with no explanation, his mother had done the same. “Henry,” I said quietly, and he looked back at me. “I’m really, really sorry.” I hoped he knew that I meant it, and wasn’t just tuning out these words as I had been doing with everyone who had tried to offer them to me.
“Thanks,” he said quietly, but not meeting my eye, and I couldn’t tell if he believed me or not. “I just wanted to let you know why I flipped out like that.”
“It didn’t look like flipping out,” I said.
“I tend to flip out very quietly,” Henry said, deadpan, and I smiled. “Sorry to tell you all this,” he said with a shrug.
“I’m glad you did,” I said. He met my eye and gave me a small smile.
I realized there was something I had to tell him in return. I took a breath, but somehow, telling him out here in the darkness didn’t seem quite as impossible. “My dad’s sick,” I said. Immediately after I said it, I could feel my eyes prick with tears, and my bottom lip start to shake. “He’s not going to get better,” I said, making myself go on, and sparing Henry having to ask. “That’s the real reason—” My voice caught in my throat and I looked down at my feet in the water, forcing myself to get through it. “The real reason we’re up here. To have a last summer.” As I finished speaking, I felt a tear spill over, and I wiped it away, fast, hoping Henry hadn’t seen, willing myself to keep it together just a little bit longer.