“That’d be good,” I agree, wondering how I’ll ever make it through the next four days.
“I’ve missed you, Michael,” she says, just like the other night on the phone. I roll my eyes at that one, and don’t even care if she sees, but she’s already turned toward Andrea anyway, saying, “I’ve brought you a present, pumpkin.” I’m about to complain about the preponderance of gifts lately when she goes on to announce: “And I brought something for you, too Michael.” She holds up a large shopping bag by the handles, showing me.
I shove my hands into my pockets. “An American Girl doll’s not really my style, you know.”
She actually laughs. Hard to believe, but I can still joke with her a little and get a good reaction, which is as much a tribute to our former friendship as it is to the lack of it these days.
“No,” she says, tossing her long, silken mane over her shoulder. “Something I made for the house.”
Oh, crap. I hadn’t even thought about all those damn paintings I took down after Al’s death. She’s going to notice that right away.
“What’d you bring me?” Andrea asks, walking backwards so she can face her aunt as we move toward the baggage carousel. “Oh, and I love my Felicity doll! Love her, she’s so cool. I can’t wait to show you my room…” And she doesn’t stop, just rattles on about her life, her toys, her friends, the dangers of learning to rollerblade if you live in a hilly neighborhood.
As I stand beside them, listening, watching the same pieces of luggage go round and round, I feel like I’ve been here before. Been on the outside, face pressed up to the glass, trying to find a way back in. Laurel listens, just nodding and encouraging her niece, and I sense my child orbiting away from me. I haven’t gotten this much out of her in a month.
It’s that Richardson gift: the ability to do all the listening and make the other person feel perfectly affirmed. Alex had it—one reason he was such a good doctor, with his knack for getting his patients to open up to him. Laurel has it, uses it to “hear” her paintings, that’s what she once told me. They got it from Ellen, of course, who has always had a world of patience for listening to me.
And in this particular instance, with Andrea talking to her aunt at record speed, it only points out that maybe Laurel was right a year ago. Maybe Andrea would have been better off living with her, instead of here in L.A. with me.
***
Stepping into the kitchen, the house feels cool and quiet compared to the choking L.A. traffic we just fought our way through out on the freeways. Late afternoon heat rolled like a mirage off the asphalt, and it seemed like we’d never get here, like I’d never survive all the polite chitchat volleying between us. The 405 was log-jammed with cars because of an overturned truck, and edging past that accident only made me more cranky and irritable about this whole damn visit.
Laurel shakes out her hair, dropping her shopping bag to the floor along with her funky, beaded purse. Andie slips past me, scampering to her bedroom ahead of her aunt while I lug Laurel’s expensive suitcase back to the guest room. She follows me, wordless, as she sees her brother’s house again for the first time since his death. Her movements are pensive as she steps through the living room toward the back hallway. I know she’s wondering where all her damned paintings went, but that would require a trip to the attic for me to show her all the loving care I used in warehousing them all. Just ’cause she hurt me doesn’t mean I wouldn’t protect such a material reminder of my years with Allie.
Andrea and I’ve spent the past year steadily erasing Alex’s fingerprint from this place. Bedroom shoes, eyeglasses, razor, toothbrush, these are the things that mark a home as belonging to someone distinct, and so long as that person is alive, you take every balled-up athletic sock, every discarded tissue and half-finished Coke for granted. It’s only afterward, when you wander through each room, that you’re spooked by the illusion that your lover might simply waltz through the ether into your bedroom, slip on those eyeglasses, and finish the novel he left cocked open bedside.
Of course Laurel doesn’t understand that as she wanders through each room, admiring what I’ve done with the place since Allie’s death—which is exactly nothing. But it’s been a few years since she’s visited; the last time was when Andrea was about five. So the leather sofa we bought a couple of years ago, and the thick hand-woven rug, and the mission-style entertainment center—those are all new to her. She drops to the floor, admiring the rug. “This is great,” she says, tracing her fingers over the pattern.
“Al bought it up around Monterey.” Shoving my hands deep into my jean pockets, I rock back on my heels. For some reason it hurts, talking about that trip we made together, like it was only yesterday.
“I never knew he liked this kind of thing.”