“When are you leaving?”
I swallow hard. “Friday. I promised my mom I’d be home for the weekend. Brooke’s heading back to college on Sunday.” I start to tell her about our plans to take the boat out on the bay but I decide against it. “Then I start school on Monday.”
She gives me a sad smile. “Me too.”
We’re both silent for a long time. She scoots back to her spot on the coffee table, and I think she’s about to say good night and head back upstairs, but she doesn’t move. I can tell she’s contemplating what to do next, and I should probably stay silent and not say anything that might sway her decision to stay, but I can’t help myself.
“I’m here now,” I say quietly.
She looks up from under her lashes. Then her expression softens and a smile spreads across her face. “I’m glad.” She reaches over, grabs the edge of the wool blanket, and rubs it between her thumb and her forefinger again. “There’s still the matter of this, you know?”
My heart starts racing and I laugh, happy to follow her lead. “Is that still there?” I lift up the edge of the blanket and Anna climbs underneath, stretching out next to me. Her arms wrap around my waist and she wedges one of her legs between mine.
“Much better,” she says, sliding her hands under my T-shirt, up my back, kissing me. In a matter of minutes, we both seem to forget about the complications around this whole crazy thing we’re doing. For the rest of the night, it doesn’t seem complicated at all.
I wake to the faint sound of water running. I try to lift my head off the pillow to take a better look, but my movement is restricted by the weight of Anna’s head, buried in the crook of my neck.
I kiss her cheek. “Anna,” I whisper. “Wake up.” She tightens her grip on my shoulder and, without opening her eyes, settles into my chest and lets out a happy sigh.
The water sound stops and it’s almost instantly replaced by a light plinking noise. I’m trying to place it when I hear the unmistakable—and extremely loud—whir of a coffee grinder.
Anna jumps and her lids pop open. The second she sees me, she lets out a gasp. She lifts her head and scans the living room.
“It’s okay. We just fell asleep.”
“My dad’s in there,” she whispers, her eyes darting back and forth between the kitchen and me.
“I know. It’s okay,” I repeat, thinking she didn’t hear me the first time.
Her eyes grow even wider. “It’s not okay! He can’t find us like this. He’ll never—” She comes closer, within an inch of my face. “I’m dead.”
“Come on…just tell him we were talking and we fell asleep.” I try to look at the scene from her father’s point of view. Anna’s shirt is back where it belongs but I have no idea where mine is.
“He’ll never believe that.”
I start to speak but she covers my mouth with her hand. “Shhh.” The coffee grinder comes to a stop. She looks at me, wide-eyed. Do something, she mouths. Please.
It takes a second or two for understanding to kick in, possibly because I’m still a little groggy and she’s whisper-shouting at me in the near dark. “You sure?” I mouth back, and she answers my question with a quick, panicky nod.
I find the clock immediately—God knows I stared at it enough last night—and check the time. A little after six thirty. I slide my hands under the blankets, feeling for hers, and when I find them I grip them tight.
Her eyes are already shut.
I kick the blanket onto the floor and squeeze my eyes closed as I picture her room. When I open them, we’re on her bed, wrapped up in the exact same position we were on the couch—Anna curled up into my chest, our hands clenched together, our legs intertwined. I really don’t want to move, but I have to twist away from her so I can read the clock on her nightstand. Six o’clock on the dot.
Minutes pass as we lie side by side, silent and unmoving. Then Anna bends her knees to her chest and starts quietly cracking up.
“See why you need to keep me around,” I whisper, still looking up at the ceiling.
She stretches out and throws her arm over her forehead. Her head falls to one side and she looks at me. “There are lots of other reasons to keep you around.”
I roll over on top of her, my legs straddling her hips, my face only inches away from hers. “So will you?” I kiss her. “Keep me around?”
She inhales sharply. “I’m still thinking about it.”
“Good.” I kiss her again. “How are you feeling?”
She crinkles her nose. “A little…twisty. But I don’t feel sick or anything.” She pushes my hair off my face but it just flops back down again. “How about you? How’s your head?”
“It’s good. But you know, I only feel the side effects on the return trip and only if I change time zones. I’m just popping back downstairs.” I look over at the clock and kiss her again. “Unless you keep me here too long.”
Anna glances at the time. “You should probably go. It’s already ten after.”
I plant a kiss on her cheek and then hop off the bed. I give her a little wave. She waves back. “See you downstairs,” I say, closing my eyes and picturing her living room.
My eyelids pop open and I’m standing next to the couch, staring at the jumble of blankets we left behind. I see my shirt on the floor and pull it over my head. Then I crawl back under the covers, where I belong.
Twenty minutes later, Anna’s dad peeks around the corner. He sees that I’m already awake and gives me a wave. I wave back and wonder if he checked in here last time and saw something quite different.
I hear the water running. The coffee beans tumble into the grinder. The whirring sound starts and stops. I wait for a few more minutes and then head toward the kitchen, where I’m greeted by the sounds of dripping and percolating and an unmistakable aroma that makes my mouth water. Anna’s dad is wrapping the cord around the grinder and returning it to its home in the cupboard when he sees me out of the corner of his eye.
“Good morning.”
I lift my chin in his direction. “Good morning, Mr. Greene.”
He leans back against the counter. “How’d you sleep?” He crosses his arms and stares at me, and I feel the adrenaline start racing through my veins.
I rest my hip against the counter opposite him, hoping I appear calm and not at all guilty. I look at him straight on. “Great,” I say. “Thanks for letting me stay last night.”
He stares at me for what feels like a full minute. I hold my breath and try not to move.
Finally he uncrosses his arms and says, “No problem. Glad we could help.” His tone is friendly, and when he turns his back to me, I silently exhale.
He reaches into a high cabinet and pulls out two mugs. “Do you drink coffee, Bennett?”
“Yes, sir,” I say, and he reaches into the cabinet again and grabs a third.
Two cups of coffee, three tall glasses of water, a bowl of cereal, and a couple of hours later, I leave the Greenes’ and walk the four familiar blocks to Maggie’s house. My heart is beating hard in my chest by the time I reach the porch, and speeds into a whole new gear when I pick up the lion’s-head door knocker.
Sweat drips down the back of my neck and my shirt sticks to my skin. Today the weather may be different, but I’m just as nervous as I was when I stood in this same spot last March, bending the corners of an index card back and forth while I waited for her to answer the door.
I’d just come from the Northwestern student housing office. I had no way of recognizing the penmanship, but as I stood in front of the giant bulletin board, one card stood out, its letters carefully drawn and perfectly slanted, as if someone who cared how it looked had written it. I pulled out the thumbtack and turned it over to verify what I already knew. Then I went straight to the address.
When my grandmother opened the door, I introduced myself as a Northwestern student and asked her if her room was still available to rent. She wore a guarded expression, but nodded, and when I handed her enough cash for the
remainder of the quarter—even though I had no intention of staying that long—she invited me in for tea and showed me my new room. But two months later I disappeared without saying a word, leaving behind a closet full of clothes, a brand-new SUV, and a bunch of questions Anna had to do her best to answer for me.
I hear the floorboards creak on the other side of the door. Maggie peeks through the curtains, takes one look at me, and disappears again. Everything’s quiet. No floorboards creaking as she walks away, but no deadbolt snapping either.
Finally, the door opens. She’s wearing a loose-fitting dress that hangs almost to the ground and, as usual, there’s a brightly colored scarf draped around her neck. I look up at her face and when I see her eyes, I lock on to them. They’re blue-gray and striking, but that’s not the reason I can’t stop staring at them. It’s because I know them well. Her eyes are exactly the same color as my mother’s. Exactly the same color as mine. I can’t help wondering if she’s thinking the same thing.
“Hi, Maggie,” I say. For something to do, I shift my backpack from one shoulder to the other.
“Hi.” She stares at me for an uncomfortably long time. But then her forehead wrinkles and her eyes light up and she actually looks happy to see me. “Anna told me you’d come by this week, but she didn’t know when, exactly.” She stands a bit straighter, bracing herself against the side of the door. “Do you want to come in?”
I step into the foyer and follow her to the living room. Sunlight streams in through the floor-to-ceiling windows that look out onto the street. I set my backpack on the floor and sit on the couch.
It’s impossible to ignore the images around me. On every wall and every surface in Maggie’s living room, I see framed photos of my family. Me as an infant in my mother’s arms. Brooke as a little girl, with her long dark hair and her bangs cut straight across her forehead. My mom and dad on their wedding day. We’re everywhere, decorating my grandmother’s home, even though she doesn’t appear in a single photo. I can practically hear the words my mother said every time Brooke or I asked about her: “She only met you once.” Then Mom would show Brooke and me a photograph of the three of us at the zoo. When we’d press her for more information, she’d say that she and her mother had a falling out and that she didn’t want to talk about it.
Maggie catches me staring at the pictures and crosses the room to pick up a silver frame. “Here. You’ll like this one. It’s new,” she says as she hands it to me.
Maggie has a tiny infant me folded up in one arm, and Brooke is by her side, holding Maggie’s other hand. I stare at her. She looks happy. And then I notice the giraffes in the background.
“We went to the zoo,” she says.
I squint at the photo, realizing that it’s the same picture we have back home.
She taps her fingernail against the glass. “I hadn’t met the baby before. You remember that you two have the same name, right?” She shakes her head in disbelief like she always does when she thinks about it.
Maggie settles in to her usual chair and leans forward, like she wants to get a closer look at me, and I feel myself move away from her, my back sinking further into the couch cushions. Something’s not right about this. “You went to San Francisco?”
She adjusts her scarf around her shoulders. “Anna was actually the one who encouraged me to go,” she says, and my stomach drops. “But it might not have been a good idea. My daughter and I got into a fight while I was there and…” Her eyes lock on mine and she looks at me wearing a sad smile. “Let’s just say I’m not so sure when I’ll be going back again.”
I take a deep breath and try not to look panicked about what she just said. The only reason Brooke and I have a picture of the two of us at the zoo with our grandmother—the only reason we ever met Maggie—is that Anna told her to visit?
“So.” She leans back into her chair. “I hear you left town so quickly because of a family emergency. Is everything okay?”
I nod vacantly.
“Good. So are you back here for school, then?” Her word choice is deliberate, and the generic reference to “school” isn’t lost on me. Anna told me over the summer that Maggie found out I was really going to Westlake the whole time.
I avoid the school thing entirely. “I need to go back to San Francisco,” I say, intentionally avoiding this perfect opportunity to come clean. “But I’m planning to come back. To visit.” That is, if Anna wants me to.
Maggie doesn’t say another word, but she doesn’t take her eyes off me, either. She’s waiting me out, and I know I’m supposed to tell her everything because Anna promised her I would when I returned. I check out the photographs again and feel sick to my stomach. Does she have any idea who I am?
I take a deep breath and open my mouth to speak. “There’s—” I start to say, at the same time that she says, “Well—” We both stop in midsentence.
“Were you going to say something?” she asks.
“It’s okay. You go first.”
I wait for her to talk. To tell me she found my red notebook in its hiding place upstairs and pieced everything together. To call me out with such direct questions, I won’t have a choice but to tell her everything. It will come out sloppy and rushed, possibly as a single run-on sentence with very few breaths in between, but the words will be out there and I won’t be able to take them back. And my grandmother will become the fifth person in the world to know who I am and what I can do.
“I was just going to ask if you needed a place to stay when you visit. Your room is still available. If you want it.”
I suck in some air, feeling disappointment that I didn’t expect. “Yeah. Sure,” I say. “That’d be great.”
“Good. I haven’t rented it out yet. I’d certainly prefer it to go to…” She pauses. Say the words. Say, “my grandson.” Tell me you know who I am. Instead she finishes her sentence with “someone I already know.”
She stands up and I do the same. I comb my hair off my forehead and cast my eyes down at the ground. Tell her.
“Maggie…” I say.
Her head springs up. “Yes?”
“I’m…” I can’t do it. I can’t say it. If she already knew about me, that would be one thing. But she doesn’t. At least, I don’t think she does. “I’m not supposed to be here.”
And there it is, that warm smile I remember so well. “And yet, you came back,” she says as she reaches over and grips my arm high up by my shoulder and gives it a reassuring squeeze. Maybe that’s her way of giving me permission to not tell her. Or maybe I’m just looking to be let off the hook.
“I’m going to go get some sheets for your bed,” she says. “All of your clothes are boxed up in the attic. You can put everything back where it belongs.”
She starts to leave the room, and for some reason I start talking about logistics. “I’ll pay you the same amount, of course. Even though I won’t be here as often.”
She’s walking away, but I can hear her clearly. “It’s your room, Bennett. Come as often as you like and stay as long as you want to.” Then she stops and turns around. “You should decorate it a bit too. Hang up some posters or something. Make it your own.”
Three hours later, I’ve reassembled my bedroom at Maggie’s so it looks exactly the way I left it, a process which has left me soaked in sweat from hauling boxes from a 120-degree attic into a 105-degree bedroom. How can she not have air-conditioning?
As I suspected, my clothing options here are limited to long-sleeved flannels, concert tees, and an assortment of thick sweaters. I dig around in my backpack for a clean shirt and a pair of underwear, and then shuffle across the hallway.
While I was unpacking, Maggie must have been stocking the bathroom with me in mind. Fresh towels hang from the racks, there’s a new bar of soap on the counter, and on the shelf next to the tub I spot a bottle of all-in-one shampoo and conditioner. I turn on the water and toss my sweat-drenched clothes on the floor.
After I’m showered and dressed again, I return to m
y room and crouch down in front of the giant mahogany armoire that dominates this room. I feel around on the bottom for the lock, and inside I find everything I left behind last time: big stacks of cash, all minted pre-1995, and the red notebook I’ve used to calculate my travels for the last year or so. I pick it up, give the rubber band that holds it together a little snap, and return it to the cabinet.
The twenties in my wallet are from home, so I take them out and stuff them into the opposite comer of the compartment where they won’t get mixed up. Then I count out five hundred dollars in safe bills, fold them into my wallet, and shove all of it into the back pocket of my jeans. I put everything back the way it was.
Downstairs, I find Maggie standing in front of the narrow desk in the foyer with her purse wide open. She fishes out her car keys and then stuffs a bunch of envelopes inside. She looks up and sees me. “Are you all settled up there?”
“Yeah. And thanks for the shampoo and stuff.” She gives me a dismissive flick of her wrist as if it were no big deal.
“I have a doctor’s appointment, but I’ll be back in a few hours.” She gives her keys a little jingle but then stops cold. “Oh… Did you need your car today?” She gives me a confused stare. “I’ve been using it while you were gone.”
When I walked into the dealership last March, I paid cash for the ’95 Jeep Grand Cherokee and figured I’d leave it for Maggie when it was time for me to go home. Which is why I put the title in her name. It’s also why I chose the color blue. “That’s okay. I hoped you would.”
She gives me a funny look, and I’m pretty sure she’s about to start asking questions I don’t want to answer.
“I’ve got to run. I’m meeting Anna in town. Drive the car as much as you want. I’ll just tell you if I need it, okay?” I step onto the porch and pull the door closed behind me.
Anna and I spend the rest of the afternoon wandering around downtown Evanston shopping for clothes. Anna’s dad gave her money to buy some new running shoes, so we start there. Then we start looking for clothes for me. Plaid Bermuda shorts appear to be in style, but I can’t seem to bring myself to even try them on. Instead, I grab another pair of jeans.