Part 4
I recognized her car before she got out and watched her sit with both hands on the wheel. For once, she had allowed plenty of time to make the trip.
The entry buzzer sounded. I waited through three rings, then pressed the button to let her in. By the time she knocked at my apartment, I had put another cup on the table.
She took in the clean counter, the skillet on the stove, Elaine’s pictures. Her eyes rested on the quilt through the open bedroom door. I had the impression she had expected to find a man who needed rescuing, and she was having to revise the speech she’d brought.
“You look well,” she said at last.
“I’m sleeping. That helps.”
She sat down carefully and folded her hands beside the cup. “Claire told me what you said to her. Danny, do you understand what it was like when none of us could find you?”
“I understand you had to go looking.”
“We were frightened.”
I rested my spoon on the saucer. “Can you remember what you told me when I asked you to visit more? About five years after Elaine died?”
Patricia blinked, then looked at the tabletop. “I said we would.”
“You held my hand when you said it.”
“I meant it.”
“I know you did. I went to bed that night thinking you’d come. Then I kept making the same calls.”
“I was trying to keep up with everything.”
“I wanted my sister to come over now and then. That was all I was asking for.”
She started crying quietly, keeping her chin lifted as if that would prevent it. I passed her a paper napkin and waited while she unfolded it.
“I let you down,” she said. “I know I did. Can you forgive me?”
Behind her, one of Elaine’s photographs caught the light from the window. I looked at it before answering. In the picture, she had turned toward me while I was still taking the shot, amused that I hadn’t asked her to stand still.
“I can’t give you that, Pat.”
She lowered the napkin. “Even now? After I’ve come all this way?”
“You knew I was alone. I told you, and nothing changed.”
“We’re still your family.”
“I love you. I expect I’ll always love you. That doesn’t mean I can hand you my Sundays again and wait to see whether this time you’ll use them.”
She pushed her cup away without having finished the coffee. “Then you’ve decided there’s nothing left.”
“I’ve decided how I’m going to live. I spent a long time making that depend on other people getting around to me.”
We sat there for nearly another hour. She asked different versions of the same question, and I gave her the same answer as gently as I could. When she left, I held the door and watched her go down the stairs.
That evening, Claire called my new number. She stayed on the line while I dried my hands, then asked whether I had a minute to talk.
“Aunt Pat cried the whole drive back.”
“I’m sorry she had such a hard trip.”
“What happened in there, Dad?”
I told her Patricia had asked a question and I had answered it. For a moment, Claire was quiet; then she asked whether I intended to speak to any of them again.
“You reached me this evening. I’m here.”
“I mean properly. Like before.”
She was asking when I’d start keeping Sundays open again.
“I’m enjoying living here,” I said. “I’m not sitting around angry, Claire.”
Her reply came very softly. “I think that makes it harder.”
I let her say that without trying to make it easier.
Suzanne called after Patricia passed along the number. She skipped the preliminaries. “You’ve made your point, Daniel. Now you need to stop being selfish.”
I laughed before I could help it. The laugh surprised us both.
“What is so funny?”
“You’ve managed to sound exactly like yourself, Suze. I’ll give you that.”
“I’m trying to talk sense to you. You don’t get to discard your family whenever you’re hurt.”
“Do you remember telling me to grow a thicker skin? I called because I was lonely, and you told me everybody had their own life.”
She didn’t answer immediately. I heard her breathing and waited.
“I remember the conversation,” she said.
“I kept trying to understand what you meant. Eventually, I did. You had your life to look after. I’ve started looking after mine.”
“You make it sound as if I told you to leave.”
“You told me how much I could expect from you.”
Her voice lost some of its certainty. “That’s a cruel way to put it.”
“I wish you’d come when I asked, Suze.”
Neither of us spoke for a few seconds. Then I told her goodbye, ended the call, and set the phone down. I had nothing left I wanted to explain to Suzanne.
Claire called later that week to warn me that Nathan intended to come on Sunday. I didn’t tell her to stop him. Just before ten that morning, there was a knock, and through the peephole I saw my son holding a canvas bag.
I opened the door. Nathan had dark circles beneath his eyes and several days of beard on his face. He lifted the canvas bag a little.
“I brought back the camping stuff.”
It was my old equipment, the things he’d collected from the garage years earlier. I stepped aside, and he carried the bag into the kitchen. He set it beside a chair instead of offering it to me.
For a moment, he studied Elaine’s photographs. I watched his mouth tighten at one of them, and recognized the effort it took to keep looking. I had made that effort every day in the old house.
A small, unkind part of me was glad he had finally found it difficult too.
“I don’t expect you to make this easy,” he said. “And I know there’s nothing I can bring you that fixes it.” I waited beside the counter. He had driven three hours to say something, and I wanted him to have to say it. “After Mom died, being around you made it worse. I’d hear something in your voice, or see you sitting in the kitchen, and all I could think about was her. I couldn’t handle it…”
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