“Eight years ago I was only three. I might not have said that same thing. You know. That advice you liked.”
She didn’t answer him. Only smiled a little smile at one corner of her mouth, but Stewie didn’t quite know how to interpret it. She seemed to think he was funny, but he wasn’t sure why.
“This feels like really talking,” he said. “We didn’t used to talk like this.”
“We know each other better now.”
He sat with that for a moment, contented. Then a difficult question came up in him. And he thought he might know her just well enough now that he could ask it.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“I suppose.”
“If you were in that same situation again . . . like if you could go back to the moment you stole money and ran away . . . would you still do it? Or would you not do it this time?”
“That’s a complicated question,” she said. “First of all, I’m not sure if you mean if I had a second opportunity, or if I had the first one to do over. If a second chance arose, I wouldn’t take it. It got me exactly nowhere, and I got in trouble, and I hurt people more than I realized I would. But if I had that first time to do over, and I didn’t do it the same, then I would never have met you.”
“Oh,” Stewie said, genuinely surprised by the answer. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
Then they didn’t talk much for the rest of the visit, because it was complicated, and Stewie was busy thinking about it.
“She’s not happy,” Stewie said.
They were at the kitchen table, eating dinner. Spaghetti with plain marinara sauce, because it was getting near the end of the month, and Stacey couldn’t buy anything very fancy at the grocery store until her next paycheck.
His words seemed to wake her from some kind of daydream.
“Who isn’t happy?”
“Marilyn.”
He thought he saw a faint cloud blow by behind her eyes, but then he told himself it might only have been his imagination. Theo seemed to be listening, but he clearly did not plan to step into the conversation.
“Well, I’m sorry to hear that, honey. But I’m not sure what we can do about it.”
“She hates where she’s living.”
“But didn’t a judge say she needed to live there?”
“Yeah. But maybe if she had people to look after her . . .”
“Stop right there,” Stacey said. She had one hand up like a crossing guard—like a stop sign—and her voice was firming up fast.
“I just—”
“Don’t even go there, Stewie. We can’t. We just can’t. It’s out of the question. We have enough on our plate as it is.”
“But we have Gam’s old room and it’s just sitting there empty.”
“But she needs someone to look after her.”
“I could look after her. I sort of did anyway when she was living at Sylvia’s, but I could just do it more. And it would be easier, because she’d be here.”
“No. You couldn’t, Stewie. You’re not thinking clearly. Because you’ll have to go back to school in the fall.”
“Oh,” Stewie said. “Right. But maybe she’d be okay on her own. You know. Just part of the time. Just a little bit.”
“Stewie . . .”
“What?”
“You remember when Gam started forgetting things, don’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“Did it get better? Or did it stay the same? Or did it just keep getting worse?”
Stewie never answered.
He twirled spaghetti onto his fork until it turned into much too big a nest to ever shove into his mouth. He had lost his appetite now, and his stomach felt twisty and tight.
“I wish you would eat that instead of playing with it,” Stacey said.
“I’m not hungry anymore.”
“Try. Please.”
He picked at the food for another couple of minutes, watching her at the corner of his eye. Then he saw and heard her set her fork down with a slight clang.
“Look. Stewie. I know you feel like when somebody has a problem you need to fix it for them. But sooner or later there’s going to come a time when you need to accept that people will have problems you can’t solve.”
“I already did that,” Stewie said. “I couldn’t help Gam remember things and not get older and sicker and have to die.”
He braved a look up at her face, but it was a mistake. She had that look again. The one he hated so much. The pity look.
“I guess that’s true,” she said. “I’m sorry. Maybe it’s something you can talk to Dr. Briggs about.”
“Maybe. I don’t know how much that helps, though. I mean . . . he doesn’t really know how to fix any of this stuff, either. He just listens.”
“What I’m trying to say, Stewie, and I think you’re not quite getting it yet . . . is that sometimes we need to accept things the way they are and not let it tear us apart.”
“I don’t know how to do that.”
“I know you don’t. That’s why I got Dr. Briggs to help you with it.”
“Oh,” Stewie said.
“Now please eat your dinner.”
He ate most of it, because her concern over his refusal to eat was the only problem in his life he knew how to solve. It didn’t taste like much of anything, though, and it sat in his stomach in a lump, as though he’d forgotten to chew.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Don’t You Get Tired?
Marilyn
That little boy came bouncing into her room at a few minutes after nine in the morning. He had a plastic trash bag full of something heavy-looking over his shoulder—her belongings from Sylvia’s, she assumed—and he held the Stuart Little book up proudly with his free hand.
She couldn’t help noting that there was something almost elating about his presence now. As though he figuratively turned on the lights in this dim and drab place every time he walked into a room. Then she put the thought away again because it embarrassed her to feel emotional about anything or anyone. Especially anyone.
“I brought the book,” he said.
“I see that,” she replied.
“We can do a reading lesson.”
“Good.”
“And I brought about half the stuff you left at Sylvia’s.”
“Thank you. That was very thoughtful.”
He dropped the heavy trash bag on the floor of her room and crossed to the window, seeming relieved to be out from under all that weight.
“Oh, look! The mom bird is feeding the babies!”
“Or the dad bird,” she said.
“Does the mom or the dad feed them?”
“I think either. Or both. But I confess I’m not entirely sure I know.”
“I thought confessing was when you had to say something bad you’d done.”
“It can be. Or it can be anything you’d be happier not having to admit.”
She stepped over and stood beside him and watched the display. Just for a moment she had a flash of why he found it so exciting. Why he was so completely drawn in by the smaller moments in life, the ones she’d spent her years ignoring.
There were five babies, all tweeting up a storm, trying to get the attention and a piece of the worm. With their tiny beaks stretched open absurdly wide, they reached out for feeding. The adult bird seemed to do more than simply present food for them to take, or drop it into the waiting beaks. Instead she, or he, seemed to stuff it down their throats with several sharp plunging movements.
“You’re so lucky,” the boy said. “To have this happening right outside your window.”
“Yes, I suppose I am.”
“Even though I know you don’t like it here.”
“Thank you for pointing out that there are small things to like about it, though.”
He stood looking around the room for a moment, as though it had never occurred to him to notice it.
“How come you have two beds but no roommate?” he asked.
“I had a roommate. But she died.”
“What was her name?”
“Marilyn. Her name was Marilyn.”
“That’s a coincidence,” he said, sounding a bit confused.
“Not really. My name is really Jean, don’t forget.”
“Oh. I did forget that.” He stepped closer to the window, seeming to rivet his attention to the nest of birds again. She got the impression that he saw them as a path onto more solid emotional ground. “I never really understood that,” he said.
“What’s not to understand? I was on the run, and I used somebody else’s name.”
“Did you purposely use her name? Your roommate who died?”
“I suppose I did.”