As I got dressed, I thought about things we’d done on other July Fourths. We’d never really made a big deal out of it. Usually my mother had to work. Sometimes at night, she and whoever her boyfriend was at the time would take us to see fireworks, sitting on the hood of the warm car. Her boyfriends always said the same thing to her, as if they were the first ones to ever think of it. “Later we’ll make fireworks of our own.” And she always laughed like it was the first time she’d ever heard it.
Once we went to a family picnic back when my mother was still speaking to her family. We ate hot dogs and hamburgers that my mom’s dad cooked on the grill, and my mom’s stepmom, a woman she insisted was evil but seemed nice enough to me. She made apple pie for dessert. We ate big, warm slices with rivers of vanilla ice cream melting into the crust. The pie made me feel good inside: warm and full and happy. Then my mom said her stepmom probably made those pies from poisoned apples, and I spent the rest of the night thinking of Snow White eating the poisoned apple and sleeping for years. I was afraid to go to sleep that night. Instead, I lay in my bed and looked up at the ceiling, replaying the fireworks we’d seen, trying to recall the patterns of color they’d traced across the night sky. Cutter had been scared of the fireworks, hiding his eyes.
I tried not to think of Cutter, how he was missing the Fourth of July this year and how much he would’ve wanted to be there. No matter what Zell said, I didn’t want to go back to that pool, to see the spot under the water where Mr. Lance had found him, to watch other kids have fun and worry Cutter would never get a chance to have fun like that again, to watch the fireworks over the lake and know he wasn’t scared of them at all, because he couldn’t see them. And to know that it was all my fault.
LANCE
Lance hated the pool on the Fourth of July. People came out of the woodwork, jostling for space in the water, taking up all the available chairs, and generally causing mayhem in a place that was normally quiet and restful. Debra had dragged the family there year after year after they’d moved into the neighborhood. She’d marveled over how quaint it all was, delighting in the old-fashioned traditions—the pie-eating competition, the greased-watermelon contest, the coin and egg tosses, the prayer before the potluck dinner, everyone’s heads bowed in unison. “This is all just so southern,” she’d gushed happily.
He’d gone along with it, but he hadn’t been happy about it, and he’d let her know it. When she left, she’d called him “passive aggressive.” She’d silently stored up his transgressions throughout their marriage, then spewed them at him all at once, a human hydrant.
So it was ironic that this year of all years, he actually wanted to be there. Without Debra there to drag him, he went of his own accord, hustling the kids up there as soon as the parade was over in an effort to secure a good spot. He’d even saved a chair for Jencey, having promised to do so when they’d parted ways after the parade. Shy as a schoolboy, he’d asked her if she was planning to come up to the pool for the festivities. She’d shrugged nonchalantly and said, “Not much else to do.”
“Come on,” he’d said, and elbowed her. “It’ll be fun.” And when he did it, he thought of Debra doing and saying the very same thing on previous July Fourths. In that moment, a shock traveled through him, the shock of Debra being right. It wasn’t the first time it had happened since she’d left. There were many times since she’d gone that he’d been struck by the evidence that all those things she’d said just might’ve been true. If he knew where she was, he would say he was sorry.
But Debra had gone into hiding, and he’d given up trying to find her. Her sister had assured him that she was safe, and that was all he needed to know. Debra wanted to be gone, and she would stay that way until she didn’t want to be gone anymore. He understood this more with each passing day, and hated her less the more he understood. He even respected her just the tiniest bit for having the courage to go.
He sprayed the children with sunscreen as they wiggled and complained, then released them to play. He tried his best not to look over at the deep end of the pool where he’d found the still form of the boy under the water. From the looks of things, the pool management company had stepped up their lifeguard presence and done some serious training on vigilance since the near drowning. The lifeguards sat alert and attentive in their high chairs, surveying the crowds with whistles around their necks and flotation devices at the ready in their laps. Their postures were that of attack dogs barely restrained on leashes. Good, he thought. He tried to relax, trusting his services would not be needed again.
Every hour on the hour, a new contest took place, with James Doyle—a neighborhood fixture—officiating. Known for his devotion to his elderly mother and mentally delayed brother, he was particularly invested in the Fourth of July celebration. He used personal money to buy the fireworks for the neighborhood show and made sure that there were plenty of eggs for the egg toss, and snack cakes for the pie-eating contest. He kept everything on schedule and even purchased trophies for the winners of the various contests. Everyone seemed to appreciate his efforts to keep the tradition going, because the truth was, no one else would if he didn’t.
Lance caught James’s eye and gave him a friendly wave, as he always did. They were neighbors, but Lance had never made an effort to do much more than wave at him from a distance, across their respective yards. It wasn’t like they had anything in common. Sure, he felt sorry for the guy, who’d certainly gotten a raw deal in life. And he respected him because he seemed to make the best of things in spite of it. But he left it there, which was admittedly not the most neighborly way to be.
A volleyball game of middle-aged men formed in one of the pools, and he turned his attention to it, idly taking in the action more as a way to keep his attention off the empty chair beside him. He tried not to care about Jencey showing up, but more than once, he’d turned someone away who wanted it “if you’re not using it.” He felt the slightest bit selfish, taking up a perfectly good chair that others could use in the hopes that Jencey would show. But then he would think of seeing her that morning, and how he hadn’t been that glad to see someone in a long, long time.
“I’m sorry,” he said again and again. “I’m saving this one for someone.”
The first game ended, and the men all climbed out of the pool to swig beer and trade barbs, their guffaws echoing even over the noise and hubbub of the crowd, calling to him, or at least to part of him. He supposed he could join them, if he was so inclined. He had, after all, fallen into the category of middle-aged man, a fact that still surprised him.
He heard a female voice say, “Is this seat taken?” and turned his head in the direction of the voice, but it wasn’t Jencey. He frowned, explained yet again that he was saving the chair, then pulled the cooler from underneath the umbrella where he’d stowed it and added it to the towels and beach bag that were already marking the chaise as “taken,” in hopes it would make it more obvious. If she didn’t show soon, he’d have to surrender the chaise. And maybe that would be for the best. He was, after all, technically a married man. And judging from the rock she wore on her left ring finger, she was a married woman. He suspected they each had stories to tell, about missteps and miscommunication, about regret and resignation. He wanted to hear her story, and reasoned there could be no harm in that. They could be friends.