Once they were gone, he walked back outside and sat by the pool. There were no lights on in the backyard except for the one that shone from the deep end and cast a whitish-blue glow all over Solomon’s skin. He dipped his feet in the water, watching ripples as they moved out in tiny little glowing waves and he closed his eyes to listen to the only sound he could hear, water lapping against the side of the pool.
He thought about sleeping out there again, curling up on a lounge chair and letting the daylight wake him. He’d missed the sun, realizing now how stupid it had been to think he could live without it. He felt a pang of guilt as he looked around the backyard, tracing the top of the wooden fence with his eyes. Maybe he could’ve been coming out here this whole time. It felt so easy now. All it took was one step and it was like it had never been off limits, like he hadn’t gone three years without touching the grass or feeling the sun on his skin or shivering in the night breeze. Is this what getting better felt like? And if all he had to do was close his eyes and take a step to make everything better, then why couldn’t he just do it? Just rip it like a Band-Aid. Why did the thought of walking out that front door still make him feel like his heart was imploding?
“This is all I need,” he said aloud into the darkness of the yard. But even he wasn’t sure he believed it anymore.
? ? ?
The next day, Solomon woke up to the sound of his grandma’s voice echoing down the hall and into his bedroom. His parents were at work, so he knew she was on the phone with a client or something, probably being intentionally loud to wake him up.
When he walked into the kitchen a few minutes later, she was sitting at the counter with her reading glasses barely on the tip of her nose and a newspaper in her hands. For a minute she didn’t see him, so she kept reading and humming to herself.
“Grandma?”
She threw the paper down, jumped up, and ran across the kitchen to hug him. She planted a big, loud kiss on the side of his face and then squeezed him again, so tight she took the wind out of his lungs.
“Okay, okay,” he said, backing up. “You’re freaking me out.”
“Look at you! You’ve already got a tan!”
“It’s a sunburn.”
“Sunburn schmunburn. You look alive, kid. Like somebody brought you back from the dead.”
“Thanks,” he said. “You bring your swimsuit? The pool’s awesome.”
“No, no. I’ve got three houses to show by five. I just came to see it for myself.”
“The pool?”
“Are you kidding? I’ve seen thousands of pools, Solomon. I want to see you out there. Go on. Start walking. I’m very busy.”
When he stepped out into the backyard, she did the hug and loud kiss thing all over again. He thanked her for the pool, but she wouldn’t hear it, choosing instead to take pictures of him standing in the grass and by the fence and sitting on the diving board. By the time she was done, his face was sore from all the smiling.
“I missed the mountains,” he said, pointing over into the distance.
“I never liked ’em,” she said. “Don’t get it.”
“Really? I love them.”
“Yeah, well, I always wanted to live by the beach when I moved out here. I did, for a while, you know? Back when I was trying to be an actress some girlfriends and I got a place in Long Beach. It wasn’t as nice back then, but we could afford it and it was close enough to the city to carpool to casting calls and our real jobs—waitressing.”
“So why’d you move out here then?”
“Your grandpa. This was his hometown and he wasn’t going to live anywhere else. He made that very clear when we met, and despite my better judgment, I married him anyway.”
“You know you loved him,” he said. “Why’re you always talking trash about Grandpa?”
“Tell you a secret?”
“Yeah.”
“Makes it easier. If I pretend all he did was drive me crazy, I don’t miss him so much. It works. Maybe it’s bad, but it works.”
“I wish I’d met him.”
“He would’ve loved you. You’re . . . like he was. He kept to himself, mostly, but when you caught him in the right mood, he’d talk for hours. He’d tell stories till he was blue in the face—did you hear the one about whatever. I see that in your dad sometimes, too.”
“Three generations of crazy.”
“A loony legacy” she said.
“A straight coat of arms.”
“You win.”
“Are you going to make me swim, too?” he asked. “I think my trunks are in the washer.”
“No,” she said. “Just promise me you won’t drown in this nice expensive pool while no one’s here all day, okay? Don’t give me that to live with for the next twenty years.”
“I bet you’ve got more than twenty.”
“Shhh,” she snapped. “I’m a dinosaur. Give me a hug so I can go earn your inheritance back.”