Now You See Me (10 page)

He needed to move.

He peeked in on Iris, then, satisfied she was okay for the night, sat on the front steps and strapped on his Rollerblades. As soon as he hit the road he knew he’d made the right choice. The streets were quiet, the air, cooling, and the night beckoned.

He stayed away from the river, away from downtown. He didn’t want to see tourists tonight. He skirted the lights and the noise and glided down the back roads, losing himself in the rhythm of his feet skimming over the deserted pavement. He used to ice-skate on the frozen river when he was a kid. When he moved to Tucson he’d feared his skating days were lost forever. The day he’d discovered in-line blades was one of the best of his life.

He didn’t know what to do for his mother. He didn’t know how to make her believe she would be able to go on. But as he pushed himself to go faster, crouching and hurtling into the night and the stars, he realized there was someone who could help.

And he was only mildly surprised when he looked around and saw that he’d unconsciously skated almost to her doorstep.

It wasn’t until he was picking his way carefully among the gravel of the driveway that he realized this might not be good timing. Lyddie could be busy. Her mother-in-law would probably be there, ready to give him one of those glares she dispensed every morning when he came for Ben.

But he had to give it a shot. The women in this house knew what Iris was living. He couldn’t help, but they could.

He sidestepped his way up the porch steps and clomped past the chairs where he and Lyddie had sat and struck their deal—the first time he’d been tempted to kiss her. He couldn’t let himself think of that now. He needed to keep his head on an even keel, stay focused.

Though that might be a lot easier said than done.

A knock on the door brought the
slap, slap
of rapidly approaching flip-flops. In a moment little Tish came to a dead stop in the hall.

“Hi. Is your mom home?”

Tish looked him up and down. She was off at day camp before he arrived in the mornings, so she was probably trying to figure out if he was friend or foe.

Her and a lot of other people.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“A friend of your mom’s. Is she around?”

She squinted. “I know you.”

“That’s right. You do. I’m J. T. Del—”

“Oh!” She lunged forward and reached for the door. “Graveyard man!”

Okay, so it wasn’t the best thing he’d ever been called, but neither was it the worst. And it got him inside.

“Mommy’s in the kitchen.” Tish pointed toward the back of the house, then started to run upstairs.

“Wait! I can’t just walk in on her. I’ll scare her. Could you tell her I’m here, please?”

She gave a heavy sigh that conveyed her opinion of useless adults. “I guess.”

With a roll of her eyes, she flounced off. J.T. finally released the grin he’d been holding back. That was one little lady who would never let the world boss her around.

In an instant Lyddie hurried into the hall, her surprise matched only by his pleasure at seeing her. He’d expected to feel relief, or maybe nervousness at the topic he had to broach, but instead he slipped into the comfort that always seemed to surround him when she was near.

At least, he was comfortable until he realized she was wearing some of the best-looking cutoffs he’d seen in a long time.

“Hi.” She seemed flustered. “What’s up?”

“I wanted to talk to you about something.”

She pressed her lips together but her expression said it all too clearly:
Now?

“I’m sorry, I should have called first, but it was kind of an impulse thing. I can make it another time if—”

“No, that’s okay. I just—” she looked down, brushed at a smear on her shorts with a briskness that made him ache “—we’re making jam. Can we talk while I work? The pectin has been sitting and I need to mix it now.”

“Not a problem. Thanks.”

He unlaced the blades and padded after her into the kitchen where the table and counters were cluttered with measuring cups, bowls, a sack of sugar and box after box of shiny strawberries. It was a sight straight out of Norman Rockwell—

—until the refrigerator door, which had been open, closed to reveal Ruth glowering at him.

“Evening, Mrs. Brewster.” He would stay respectful tonight if it killed him.

“J.T.” She nodded. Why did everyone do that? Was it their secret code, the greeting they all used for an outcast?

“I’m sorry to intrude, but I need some help. From both of you, actually.”

“What is it?” Lyddie asked. Ruth merely tightened her lips.

“It’s my mother. She’s... I’m dealing with things that are out of my league.”

“What do you mean?” Lyddie emptied a small saucepan of pectin into a stainless steel bowl filled with strawberry mush.

“Stir, Lydia. What have you done now, J.T.?”

God, if he made it through this intact, the rest of the summer would be a cakewalk. Lyddie looked pissed but he jumped in before she could attack Ruth the way she had Jillian.

“This isn’t like when I was a kid, Mrs. Brewster. We were talking about my father, and the house, and she kind of fell apart on me, and I need to know—God, there’s no way to ask this without sounding like an idiot, but—”

“You want to know if it’s normal for her to still miss her husband so much that she can’t breathe?”

It was more sarcastic than he would have liked, but probably all he could expect from Ruth.

“That’s about it.”

Lyddie and Ruth exchanged glances across the bowl of mush. Ruth attacked a bowl of whole berries with a potato masher, employing such vigor that he had the feeling she was imagining his head in there. Lyddie stopped stirring and focused on him.

“Yes. It’s normal.”

Such simple words, yet they carried a world of hurt in them.

“I thought so. But it’s been a while now, and sometimes she still seems like it just happened.”

Ruth sighed. “They were together for almost fifty years. She’s not going to get over him in a couple of weeks.”

He felt his shoulders tensing at the condescension in Ruth’s voice, but again he forced himself to stay steady. Ruth didn’t know that Iris was dealing with much more than her grief. And nobody knew how much he worried that she could end up suicidal again.

Instead, he asked the question that had pushed him through the door. “What can I do to help her?”

Ruth gave him a look so filled with amazement—and not the good kind—that he took a step back. It was all there in her face. Accusation, judgment, condemnation and the certainty that he was somehow the cause for all that had gone wrong in his mother’s life.

The hell with that. He had a lot to answer for, and he knew he’d caused his share of grief back then, but not now. And if he wasn’t going to get any advice, he was out of here.

“Okay. I guess this was a mistake, so I’ll—”

“Wait.” Lyddie’s cheeks were almost as red as the berries in the bowl, though whether from anger or embarrassment, he couldn’t tell. She set her spoon on the counter and addressed Ruth. “I’d like to talk to J.T. alone for a while. You want me to finish up the jam, or do you want to do it?”

“Lydia—”

“Ruth.”

“Fine.” Ruth undid her apron, then tossed it over a chair. “Go ahead and have your little chat. But you might want to remember that it’s easier to prevent a problem than to cause it in the first place.”

With that, she pushed open the screen door and went outside. J.T. watched her go with a mixture of relief and regret. He should have known.

Though to be honest, Ruth Brewster had never been this hostile when he lived here. She hadn’t condoned his actions but he had always sensed a kind of boys-will-be-boys vibe from her back in the day. Now, though, she seemed almost eager to remind him of his guilt, to push him away.

He could think of only two explanations. The first and most likely was that the sheer magnitude of the fire and its fallout had erased any tolerance she might have ever had for him.

The second was that she knew he hadn’t been alone that night. That she knew—or suspected—that Glenn had been in on the action. And that she was terrified he might tell folks about that before he left.

If he knew for sure that she knew, he would let her know she had nothing to fear. There was nothing he could gain from tarnishing Glenn’s reputation. But if she didn’t know—well, he couldn’t broach the topic. If he’d guessed wrong, and she had no idea, he would rot in a well-deserved hell if he were the one to shatter her heroic image of her son. She’d lost enough. He couldn’t take that cold comfort from her.

“Here.” Lyddie pushed the bowl to his side of the table, bringing his focus back to her. “Harley insists on giving us berries every year, way too many. A guilt offering. We can barely keep up. Make yourself useful and start mashing.”

He picked up the masher, looked at Lyddie and raised his eyebrows.

“Is this to help you or to vent my frustrations?”

“Both. I’m sorry about Ruth. She was in a wicked mood already. Sara—my daughter—”

“The one in Vancouver, right?”

“Right. Well, she called, and everything is fine, but she’s having so much fun that Ruth is afraid she won’t want to come home when summer’s over. Which is no excuse. But I thought you’d like to know it wasn’t all about you.”

“Thanks.”

“Good.” She gave him another one of those grins that tested his resolve to stay away from her until the negotiations were complete. “Now get mashing.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He set to work, watching the berries squish into a pulpy mess while waiting. She wasn’t ignoring him. He might not know Lydia Brewster nearly as well as he’d like, but he knew this: she would talk to him. And listen. And help.

So he bided his time while she scooped the contents of her bowl into plastic containers. She worked with no hesitation, comfortable with both her activity and with him—as he was with her.

When she had settled the lid on the last container she carried them to the green linoleum counter, setting them beside four other tubs of jam. Then she wiped her hands and walked slowly back to him.

“Ruth was right about one thing,” she said. “Iris isn’t going to get over this in a matter of months. But that’s not what’s really worrying you, is it?”

“No. Are these mashed enough?”

She peeked into the bowl. “Give them another minute. So what’s bothering you?”

He frowned at the berries, measuring his words. “I guess it’s an issue of quality, not quantity. She’ll miss him for the rest of her days. So will I. But I’m worried that it seems just as strong now as it was when he first died.”

“It’s probably worse.”

That made him glance up, uncertain he’d heard her right, but she was spooning sugar into a measuring cup and didn’t return his gaze.

“Here’s the thing, J.T. Everyone thinks that grief starts off horrendous and then gets gradually easier, like going down a slide. But it doesn’t. At first you don’t really know what you’ve lost. You know he’s gone, you know nothing will ever bring him back, but it doesn’t hit home until you try to get back to reality and find that nothing is the same.”

He set the masher gently to the side of the bowl, focusing only on Lyddie.

“It’s in all the little things. Having to take the garbage out all the time by yourself. Turning on the hockey game and yelling to him that the Leafs are winning for once, but he’s not there. Walking through a store and seeing a sweater that would have been perfect for him, then remembering he’s not home to wear it.”

She looked so alone as she spoke. He wished he had the right to hold her the way he’d held Iris—not for pleasure, but for comfort. “Does it ever get easier?”

She shrugged. “Depends on how you define easy. You get used to it. After the first few times of breaking down in Wal-Mart you remember that it’s all changed. And then, just when you think you’re going to be okay, something new will pop up, like somebody losing their first tooth or someone in town giving you a free carwash just because they feel sorry for you, and then it starts all over again.”

“No forgetting, no escape, huh?”

“No. And there shouldn’t be, really. Because when you really love someone and you lose him, it should hurt. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah.”

Okay. He was still unsure what to do, but at least he knew that Iris wasn’t slipping beyond his reach.

He waited while Lyddie carried the saucepan to the stove and started it heating. “So, anything special I should do to help her?”

“Talk about him. Keep the memories alive. Listen. Really listen, not just to what she’s saying, but to what she doesn’t say, too. That’s going to tell you more than you’d imagine.”

He nodded. Who had listened to Lyddie when Glenn died? Who had held her close while she wept out her grief?

Or had she been so busy getting her children and Ruth through the loss that no one had ever done that for her?

“She’s afraid that when she moves, she won’t remember him the same way.”

A sad smile tugged at Lyddie’s lips. “I know.”

“Yeah, I figured. Any words of wisdom on that count?”

“I’m not the one to ask. Yes, I moved here, but I was coming to a place where there were even more people who shared my memories. It wasn’t the same as it will be for Iris. But...”

“But?”

She swiped her face, leaving a smear of red across her cheek, drawing his attention until she spoke again. “Okay, obviously I believe in staying with the memories. But when you’ve loved someone as long as your mom loved your dad, well, I think that person is too much a part of you to ever be completely lost.”

That sounded like something Iris would say—like something she would believe. He could give her that hope.

“I don’t know if that makes any sense, but—”

“It’s fine. Perfect. Thanks.” He peeked out the back door. “Do you think Ruth is plotting something vile against me?”

Lyddie rolled her eyes and grinned. “Ruth believes in action. If she hasn’t killed you by now, you’re safe.”

“That’s a comfort.” His focus was drawn to the smudge on her face. It started high on the cheekbone then curved to point directly at her mouth. He really didn’t need that kind of distraction. “You, uh, you have something on your cheek.”