What They Always Tell Us (26 page)

“I know,” she says softly.

“Alex, honey,” Mom says, sounding scolding and exhausted.

“It’s okay,” Laura says.

“Is he?” James asks. “His father?”

“No,” she says. She looks at Alex, then at James. “He’s his grandfather.”

Alex exhales some air, and he can hear his mother do the same. James just stands there, blank-faced.

“His father is Jack’s son,” Laura says. “Danny Pembroke. We met in college in Virginia. Well, I had dropped out of the small school I was going to. I wasn’t doing that well and it was hard to make ends meet because I was paying my own way. Danny was in the law school at UVA, and he came into the restaurant where I waited tables. There was a bar there, too, where a lot of the law students came after a long week. And when I’d finish my shift, Danny would be there. He flirted with me, bought me drinks. He was a real charmer. And sweet, believe it or not.” She sounds peaceful, nostalgic, like she is relating a fond memory of childhood.

“Well, I was just a college-dropout waitress, so I should have known better. Danny was a rich boy, I knew. Way out of my league. But I still fell for him. Turns out he was already engaged. To his current wife. She was an undergrad at Alabama, a high school sweetheart. But I didn’t find out about her until I was pregnant.

“It was an accident, even if Danny didn’t believe me.” She pauses, and Alex thinks she may start crying, but she doesn’t. “We had a fight. It was awful. I kept thinking it was all a bad joke. Or a bad dream. And I’d wake up and not be pregnant and could start over. Well, anyway. Danny told me he’d help me take care of it. Those were his words—
‘take care of it.’
At first I thought,
No way.
But then I realized how hard it would be, you know, having the baby, with Danny already engaged. I certainly knew he wasn’t going to marry
me.
An impossible situation.

“He gave me the money. I found out later that Jack gave it to him. And I made an appointment and got the required counseling. I even went so far as to drive to the clinic and sit in the waiting room. Danny had offered to come with me, but I could tell he was relieved when I said I wanted to go alone. So there I was. And, I don’t know. I realized I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t.”

She starts to cry now—not sobbing, but a gentle release of tears. Mom scoots closer to her and embraces her. “It’s okay,” she says. “It’s okay.”

Alex remains frozen at the counter, trying to take in this new information. He has a hard time attaching it to Henry. He looks over at James, who is narrowing his eyes at Mrs. Burns, as if he can’t grasp what she’s telling them, either.

Laura finally pulls away and says she is fine. She wipes her eyes with her fingers and laughs a little, as if she had been crying about something trivial. “Goodness,” she says. Mom grabs her a Kleenex to blow her nose. Then she resumes the story, about how she went home and told Danny she’d done it, and he said he was sorry and that he’d see her around.

“As far as he knew, it was all over,” she says.

“Oh, Laura, I’m so sorry.”

She nods. “I decided right then that I had to leave. Had to get away from there—away from Danny and the restaurant, away from my family even, who’d never accept me being pregnant out of wedlock.”

Out of wedlock.
The phrase sounds so old-fashioned to Alex, so ridiculous.

“So I packed up my car and headed for Nashville. I had the money that Danny had given me. I didn’t feel bad about using it to get away.” She tells them about the friend she moved in with, who was waitressing and trying to be a country singer. The whole story, to Alex, almost seems like a country song, full of heartache and bad luck, dramatic gestures.

“I waited tables, too, almost up until Henry was born.”

“You were all alone,” his mother says.

“Mostly. All through the pregnancy I thought about calling Danny, telling him the truth. I even almost called my parents. But I didn’t. Each month I was more determined than ever. I was gonna make it on my own.” She laughs now and smiles. “I was young and stupid and hardheaded.”

She goes on talking, and they all listen with rapt attention. Eventually, she says that she met a man when Henry was two years old, and then moved with him to Atlanta. That lasted about a year, then it was over and she was desperate.

“I had a three-year-old to feed. Bills to pay. So I did something crazy,” she says. “I called Jack Pembroke.” She says she found his number in a phone book at the public library. She knew Danny was married now, had set up a practice in Richmond, and even had a daughter. “I didn’t want to disrupt his life. So I called Jack. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I knew he was rich, and I needed money.”

“You did what you had to do,” Alex’s mother says.

“I told him everything. And he surprised me. He asked me how much I needed. He asked me my address, my phone number. He told me he wouldn’t tell Danny. He agreed that it was best not to.”

She looks over at Alex, then bows her head. “I knew one day I’d have to tell Henry the truth. But I kept putting it off. And as more time went by, it got harder. Jack kept sending money every month. We talked on the phone sometimes. I guess we became close. Friends. And he got it in his head that I should move here. He had a job for me. A house. I thought maybe he’d want to meet Henry. His grandson.” She stops here and exhales, as if she’s just run up some stairs. “So we came here. But Jack and I both got scared about telling Henry. We were afraid he might look Danny up, cause some trouble.”

Alex wonders if Henry would do such a thing. Yes, he thinks. Probably. But isn’t that his right? He stares at Laura with a stoic expression. She may have had it rough, but it also seems like she has made one bad decision after another. Alex wonders what his mother thinks of all this. She sits there, holding Laura’s hand, looking sympathetic, but is she silently judging her?

“Jack finally told Danny about Henry. About me and Henry,” Laura says. “This was in October.”

“How did he take it?” Mom asks.

“He flipped out, of course. Well, at first he did. He’s a big deal in Richmond now. A big-time lawyer. May even run for office. So, you can imagine.”

“It must have been quite a shock.”

“It was. But after the shock wore off, he cooled down. He still doesn’t want Henry to know. He’s not ready for all that. But over Christmas, he came by. I guess curiosity got the better of him.”

“So he met Henry?” Alex asks, recalling the mystery man who had parked outside of their house in December. The man with reddish hair. Alex looks at James, who must be thinking the same thing, because he stares back and nods.

“Well, no, he didn’t meet him. But he saw him from afar.” Laura looks at her watch. “God, it’s almost nine-thirty.” She looks out the back window, as if Henry might magically appear.

That’s when they all hear the car, a noisy engine that shuts off right out front. Laura dashes out of her seat. Alex, James, and their mother follow her to the front door. When Laura opens it, there is Jack Pembroke standing next to Henry.

Laura kneels down to Henry and pulls him close to her. She starts crying, not saying anything, hugging Henry close, like she never wants to let go again. And Henry sets his head on her shoulder and closes his eyes.

Jack Pembroke just stands there, looking down at the two of them. Not smiling, exactly, but with a warm, peaceful expression.

“We should go, boys,” Mom says, and so they all ease out the door to let them work things out on their own.

Inside the house, Dad says, “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” she says. “I’ll tell you about it in the den.” She eyes both of them, motioning for them to leave the adults alone.

Without protest, Alex and James head upstairs, walking together to Alex’s room.

“Wow,” James says, standing there.

“I know.” Alex plops down on his bed. James sits down with him.

“I wonder if they’re telling Henry the truth,” James says.

“I hope so,” Alex says. He feels relieved for Henry, but also sad. Because the mystery is over. Henry’s real dad is suddenly in his life, and that imagined father, the man Henry has dreamed about, has been swept away for good.

The next day, Alex rises early, feeling groggy and famished. Mom has sliced strawberries for him and made him biscuits and bacon, all of which he devours. No one else is up this early, just the two of them.

“You okay?” she asks, sitting at the table with him.

He nods. “I just want the SAT to be over with.”

Neither of them talks about the night before, but he feels the topic floating out there between them.

After breakfast Alex drives himself to the campus and finds parking, miraculously, not far from Comer Hall, along the quadrangle. He has his driver’s license for ID, his No. 2 pencils. He is ready, as ready as he’ll ever be.

He recognizes a number of kids from his class as they all mill about in the lobby and hallways before the test starts. Everyone looks shy and tense. Then he sees Jake and Pete, sauntering down the hallway toward him.

“Hey, Rookie,” Pete says, slapping his hand, which Jake does, too.

“Hey, we’ll probably be in the same room because they divide us alphabetically,” Jake says. “We should sit by each other.”

“Sounds cool,” Alex says.

“Just don’t cheat off him,” Pete says, “unless you want to get, like, an 870.”

Alex laughs and then sees Tyler down the hall. Tyler looks toward them, but then looks away quickly, staring at some bulletin board.

“Hey, we should go get pizza after this,” Jake says. “You wanna?”

“Sure,” Alex says, still staring at Tyler, almost daring him to look his way. And then all the classroom doors open. The test proctors stand in the doorways, motioning them all in.

“Here we go,” Pete says. “Let the games begin.”

Alex sits at his desk, closes his eyes, and breathes deeply. Once the test is set down in front of him—its thickness makes a slapping sound on the desktop—he is ready. He bubbles in his name and other personal information and then listens to the proctor—a middle-aged lady wearing a jarringly bright pink sweater—read out the instructions. The test begins and he answers all of the questions, in all sections. He thinks he does okay. Good enough, probably. And he can always take it again in September, if he has to.

He and Jake and Pete gather out front after they have been dismissed, going over certain questions, comparing answers, feeling relieved when they concur, groaning or questioning themselves when they don’t.

“Okay, let’s head to Mr. Gatti’s,” Pete says. “That all-you-can-eat buffet is calling my name.”

Pete and Jake head to their cars in the opposite direction. Alex cuts diagonally through the quad, where undergrads are tossing Frisbees or lying on blankets soaking up the rays. Dog owners are tossing tennis balls for their pets to chase.

Alex hears someone walking in the grass behind him, and he turns and sees that it is Tyler.

“How did you do on the test?” Tyler asks, coming up beside him.

“Okay, I guess,” Alex says, his heartbeat quickening.

“Yeah, me too, though verbal is a bitch. What the fuck does
froward
mean anyway?”

“I said it meant, like, stubborn.”

“Damn. I missed that one.”

“I may be wrong,” he says, though he is pretty sure he isn’t.

They continue to walk side by side, but Alex doesn’t know what to say to him. Tyler is all of a sudden acting like they are still friends, comrades who have just survived a battle.

“You wanna go to Subway?” Tyler asks.

Alex can barely believe his ears. He almost stops in his tracks, because he is so taken aback, but he keeps going, Tyler keeping up with him the whole way. “I can’t. I’m meeting Jake and Pete for pizza,” he says. He fights to suppress a smile, because it feels good to tell him he already has plans, like it is some sort of small victory.

“Oh. Okay.”

And then Alex is at his car. A safe haven.

Tyler stares at him a moment, and Alex can tell he is about to say something, or that he wants to say something. “Um…Okay, well, I guess I’ll see you at school.”

“Okay,” Alex says.

Tyler nods and walks away.

Alex sits in his car, feeling baffled and relieved. But he also feels regret. He should have said something to Tyler. He should have told him to go fuck himself. He should have asked him where he was in August and ever since. Where was he when he needed a friend? Why did he leave those notes? What is his deal?

Now Alex doesn’t need or want his apologies, his explanations. Alex starts laughing to himself. Someone looking in the car might think he is crazy, but he doesn’t care. And that’s just it: he didn’t say anything to Tyler because he doesn’t care about him or the other people who still shun him, who probably talk behind his back, who think he’s a loser, a nutcase, maybe even a fag. They have no power over him anymore. He feels like he is encased in protective armor. And even if this feeling is temporary—and he knows it will be—it feels good, because he has never, ever felt this way before.

Later, after lunch with Pete and Jake, Alex drives home. He feels stuffed from all the pizza, but otherwise he feels as light as a single sheet of scratch paper. When he pulls up, he sees that Mrs. Burns’s car isn’t in the driveway, and neither is Jack Pembroke’s Mercedes. No sign of Henry.

Inside, Mom and Dad grill him about the test.

“I think I did decently,” he says, setting his bag down in the kitchen. “Better on the verbal probably.”

“How soon will you know your scores?” Dad asks.

“I think in a month or so.”

“I’m sure they’ll be great,” Mom says.

“Did you see Mrs. Burns today?” Alex asks.

“No, I haven’t seen her, actually. I thought I’d give her some breathing room,” Mom says.

“Yeah, I guess that’s a good idea.” He heads up to his room to take a much-needed nap. He’s about to pull his blinds shut when he sees Henry outside, sitting on his front steps. His nap will have to wait.

He passes James’s door on his way out, so he knocks. When James opens the door, he looks rumpled, wearing shorts and a wrinkled T-shirt, his hair messy, like he hasn’t showered yet. “I’m going to chat with Henry,” Alex says. “You wanna come?”