“Oh? How’d it go?”
“You wouldn’t believe half of it if I told you.”
“What did she say?”
“You had to be there. But I learned something about her tonight.”
Dan cocked an eyebrow, waiting.
“She’s tougher than she looks,” Amanda said.
Dan laughed. “Yeah… sure, she’s tough all right. She cries when the goldfish die.”
“That may be true, but in a lot of ways, I wish I could be as strong as she is.”
“I’ll bet.”
When Dan saw his sister’s serious expression, he suddenly realized no punch line was coming. His brow furrowed.
“Wait,” he said. “Our mom?”
Dan left a few minutes later, and despite his attempts to find out what their mother had told Amanda, she had refused to tell him. She understood the reasons for her mother’s silence, both in the past and in the years since, and knew her mother would tell Dan when or if she had reason to do so.
Amanda locked the door behind Dan and looked around the living room. In addition to folding the clothes, he’d straightened up; she remembered that before she’d left, there were videos strewn near the television, a pile of empty cups on the end table, a year’s worth of magazines stacked haphazardly on the desk by the door.
Dan had taken care of everything. Again.
Amanda turned out the lights, thinking of Brent, thinking of the last eight months, thinking of her children. Greg and Max shared a bedroom at one end of the hall; the master bedroom was at the opposite end. Lately the distance had seemed too far to travel at the end of the day. Before Brent had passed away, she’d helped the boys say their prayers and read to them from small books with colorful drawings before pulling up the covers to their chins.
Tonight, her brother had done that for her. Last night, no one had done it at all.
Amanda headed upstairs. The house was dark, the upper hallway shadowed and black. At the top of the steps, she heard the broken whispers of her sons. She went down the corridor and paused in the doorway of their room, peeking in.
They slept in twin beds, their comforters decorated with dinosaurs and race cars; toys were scattered between the beds. A night-light glowed from the outlet near the closet, and in the silence, she saw again how much both boys resembled their father.
They’d stopped moving. Knowing she was watching them, they wanted her to think they were asleep, as if finding security by hiding from their mother.
The floor squeaked beneath her weight. Max seemed to be holding his breath. Greg peeked at her, then snapped his eyelids shut as Amanda sat beside him. Leaning over, she kissed him on the cheek and ran a gentle hand through his hair.
“Hey,” she whispered. “Are you sleeping?”
“Yes,” he said.
Amanda smiled. “Do you want to sleep with Mommy tonight? In the big bed?” she whispered.
It seemed to take a moment before Greg understood what she’d said. “With you?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay,” he said, and Amanda kissed him again, watching as he sat up. She moved to Max’s bed. His hair glittered gold in the light from the window, looking like Christmas tinsel.
“Hey, sweetie.”
Max swallowed, his eyes closed. “Can I come, too?”
“If you want to.”
“Okay,” he said.
Amanda smiled as they got up, but when they started toward the door, Amanda pulled them back, embracing them both. They smelled like little boys: dirt and sweet grass, innocence itself.
“How about if tomorrow we go to the park, and later we
can get some ice cream,” she said.
“Can we fly our kites?” Max asked.
Amanda squeezed them tighter, closing her eyes.
“All day long. And the next day, too, if you want to.”
Nineteen
It was past midnight now, and in her room, Adrienne held the conch as she sat on the bed. Dan had called an hour earlier, full of news about Amanda.
“She told me she was going to take the boys out tomorrow, just the three of them. That they needed to spend some time with their mom.” He paused. “I don’t know what you said, but I guess whatever it was worked.”
“I’m glad.”
“So what did you say to her? She was, you know, kind of circumspect about it.”
“The same thing I’ve been saying all along. The same thing you and Matt have been saying.”
“Then why did she listen to you this time?”
“I guess,” Adrienne said, drawing out the words, “because she finally wanted to.”
Later, after she’d hung up the phone, Adrienne read the letters from Paul, just as she’d known she would. Though his words were hard to see through her tears, her own words were even harder to read. She’d read those countless times, too, the ones she had written to Paul in the year they’d been apart. Her own letters had been in the second stack, the stack that Mark Flanner had brought with him when he’d come to her house two months after Paul had been buried in Ecuador.
Amanda had forgotten to ask about Mark’s visit before she’d gone, and Adrienne hadn’t reminded her. In time, Amanda might bring it up again, but even now, Adrienne wasn’t sure how much she would say. This was the one part of the story she’d kept entirely to herself over the years, locked away, like the letters. Even her father didn’t know what Paul had done.
In the pale glow of the streetlight shining through her window, Adrienne rose from the bed and took a jacket and scarf from the closet, then walked downstairs. She unlocked the back door and stepped outside.