"Work!" she said.
Betty observed the threesome from the porch. She thought how much they looked like a family. Perhaps, somehow, against all odds, this improbable arrangement would work for Miranda. If only Miranda could find some kind of domestic peace at last. Betty waved hello to Kit and, followed by Annie, descended the cracked cement steps onto the patchy stubble of lawn.
"Hello, Kit!" they called. "Hello, Henry! What brings you here so early?"
"A part!" Miranda said, trying to smile. "Kit got a part."
"Oh well," Kit murmured. "Small part . . . Independent film . . ."
"Kit and Henry are going away," Miranda said in a bizarre singsong, as if she were addressing Henry, or were insane. "On an airplane."
Betty was visited by the swift, looping nausea she'd had when Joseph announced his departure. She saw Miranda's expression, she heard the loud crashing echo, felt the chill, the vortex. She had been married to Joseph forever, Miranda and Kit had known each other for a month or so. But however long it had been or however short, did it matter? Did it ever really matter? No, Betty thought. A broken heart is a broken heart.
"How long will you be gone?" she asked, though she thought she knew. He had that look about him, that I'm-not-sure-how-long look, that look of goodbye.
"I have to go to L.A. . . . I don't really know how long," Kit said. He turned back to Miranda. "Look, I'm so sorry about tonight . . . I mean, I'm sorry period."
Miranda took Henry's hand again. "L.A." She wanted to explain to Kit that L.A. was too far away, that even a short trip was interminable, that one day would be one day too many. She wanted to explain that she had had a vision of their lives together, she wanted him to understand what she had just discovered, that her heart had found a home at last.
Instead, controlling her voice as well as she could, she asked if Kit would like to leave Henry with her. "Won't that make it easier for you? I mean, if it's a short time . . ."
Kit drummed his fingers on the roof of the car. "Look, Miranda, I don't know how long it will be. And his mother will be back soon, so she can get him, right?"
His mother. Miranda held Henry's hand against her cheek, pressing it there, absorbing the touch of each small finger.
"I'm really sorry about all this . . ." Kit was saying. "I'll miss you, Miranda. We'll both miss you."
"Hey, don't be sorry," she forced herself to say. "A part in a movie! It's great, Kit."
"Yeah." He shrugged and looked miserable.
"What?"
"No 'what.' It's great."
"Jesus, cheer up, then. Right, Henry?" She leaned farther into the car and pressed her face against Henry's. He made kissing, smacking sounds, then pushed his sugary lips on her cheek. "I love you, Henry," she whispered.
"I love Randa," he shouted.
Miranda stood up. She felt off balance, disconnected from the little car, the man in front of her, her mother, her sister. How silly of her. They were just going away for a while. She had no claim on either of them. Visions were dreams. Dreams were fiction. Fiction was lies. "Break a leg," she said to Kit with her big public smile.
"Yeah. Thanks. Well, I'll call you." He gave her a quick hug. "I really will."
Betty noted the "really." She reached out for Miranda's hand and squeezed it.
Miranda pulled her hand away. "I'm fine."
"Randa!" Henry cried with sudden desperation as they pulled out of the driveway. "Randa! Randa!"
"Oh God," Kit was saying. "Not now, Henry, please."
Miranda waved and called goodbye to Henry, who waved a chubby hand as his father reached back and shoved a pacifier in his mouth.
Miranda stood in the driveway beneath the dying pine tree. Her smile faltered, sagged into heavy, slack resignation.
"I realize he just found out and he had a plane to catch. But, boy, that was so sudden," said Annie.
"We'll miss Henry," Betty said. She could not bring herself to say anything about Kit. "Cute little fellow."
Miranda said simply, "They're gone."
Betty tried to ignore the visceral, light-headed wave of empathy. Emptiness was so unexpectedly heavy, so solid and massive. So pervasive and muffled. So hateful. "Well," she said, trying to shake herself out of it. "We all must have boundaries, and we all must learn to separate. All the therapists on television agree on that. Anyway, the boys will be back soon. And L.A. is not very far away, is it?" The clatter of her own voice rang unconvincingly in her ears. "Not in this day and age."
"That's true, Miranda," Annie said.