Son of Destruction

38




Bobby


Over at the Chaplin house in Pine Vista, Bobby’s on the phone with Nenna McCall, a fact that both delights and frightens him, the latter because of what prompted this call. Talking in the shotgun hallway, he can hear his sister rushing around overhead. Al is off somewhere. It doesn’t matter that they never know where.

Instead of getting to the point Nenna says, ‘I can’t talk long, just while Steffy’s in the shower.’

‘You called to tell me.’ He waits for her to fill in the blank.

‘I did. Maybe I should stop by after church.’ Her voice lifts in surprise. ‘Do you believe we’re going to church?’

‘In this town most people do,’ Bobby says sadly. He used to have a place in this tight little community of the like-minded, good people all. He left for Harvard belonging, but in the years since then he’s gone too far in this life of false steps and unexpected complications to be comfortable with them.

‘They’re inducting the new canon today with coffee and mimosas afterward,’ Nenna says. She called with an agenda, but she’s eminently distractable. ‘And sticky buns in honor of Wade. If you happen to drop by.’

Hope surfaces. He doesn’t always have to be this way. ‘I’ll try.’

‘Buffet at the club afterward?’

Then reason kicks in. ‘I wish. I promised to take Margaret to Shell Art for supplies.’ He also promised his sister brunch at the Pelican afterward, although since the misery and confusion of that stupid, botched high school party, he’s never been comfortable at the beach. The memory, he can handle. It took him years to process, but he can. It’s the flashbacks that bother him. He never knows when they will hit. ‘So probably you should tell me now.’

She can’t seem to begin. ‘Just so you know.’

‘Please. I have to go.’ Margaret will be coming downstairs dressed for the Pelican in another minute, nervously gnawing the edge of her purse. His sister feels safe there because the family went on special occasions when they were small. As Margaret clatters out of the upstairs bathroom he hurries Nenna along. ‘About the Carteret kid . . .’

‘Believe me, he’s not a kid.’

‘Neither are we,’ he says mildly when he wants to bark at her.

Nenna sighs. ‘Not any more.’

‘Could you just say what you called to say?’

‘OK. Here’s the thing. I . . .’ Another false start.

‘What!’

‘Look,’ she says finally, ‘it was an accident. I had him here for no reason, and I couldn’t just send him home, so I . . .’

From upstairs comes the sound of Margaret psyching herself up for the excursion, nervously trotting back and forth from mirror to mirror while his anxieties keep pace with her. He snaps, ‘You what?’

‘I didn’t mean to, but I told him what happened that night.’ Nenna sighs.

‘That night!’

‘You know, when Lucy was . . .’ She breaks off. ‘Was whatever she was that night.’

The sound Bobby makes comes from somewhere deeper than a groan. ‘I didn’t know you knew.’

‘When whatever happened – happened.’ Waiting for him to supply the details, she lets it hang. ‘I tried to tell him but I don’t really know.’

Then, frustrated by the long silence, Nenna cries, ‘I don’t know anything! I’m sorry, Bobby, but she was his mother. I’m just so sorry she’s dead, and besides, I got him all the way out to my house last night for no real reason, poor guy, I felt so guilty. I couldn’t send him off empty-handed. I . . . I had to give him something.’

‘I see.’

‘Maybe I was just tired.’

During the pause that follows, he hears Margaret circling like a 747 in a holding pattern. ‘Nenna . . .’

‘Look, I know it was a mistake but I ended up saying a lot of things that we don’t talk about to somebody who doesn’t know us, and that’s really bad. About that Saturday night, and Lucy coming down on the beach so late, after you’d given up on her and gotten . . .’

‘Don’t.’

‘. . . so drunk. I just thought you should know. In case he comes your way? To ask? The thing is, he . . .’ In a heartbeat, her tone veers from dark to festive. ‘Oh, Steffy, look at you! Bobby, Steffy’s here, I have to go.’

‘Thanks for the heads up.’

‘Just so you know.’

‘Just so I know.’

Nenna covers the mouthpiece while she and the girl confer. Then she says in that bright, artificial, Fort Jude way, ‘Right then. Take care, Bobby. Lovely to talk.’

‘Wait. I need to know what you told him.’ What he really needs to know is how much Nenna knows.

But his friend is caught up in her daughter’s rhythms now. Like a girl she says, ‘Later, OK?’ Giggling, she delivers a punchline dug up from the deep past when they were so young that it was still funny, ‘See you in church.’