“When did Penny and Roger do this thing again? When did it happen?”
“When we first got here. The first day. I got in earlier than they thought. They thought I was coming in late. I walked in on them.”
“The pool is outside. They were doing it outside?”
“Listen, I don’t want to talk about it. The details don’t matter. I just want to sleep.”
“Right.” I glanced around the room, searching for something to say. “Do you remember…,” I began. “Do you remember when you didn’t get into Princeton? How disappointed you were? You didn’t know where to go, but at the last second, you just went to Illinois and you were so happy. Remember how everything turned out for the best? You joined the sorority, you became president, and you were a cheerleader. How you loved all the friends you made there.”
“I met Penny there.”
I scratched my jaw. “So, you want to take a nap?”
“Yeah.”
“Sure. That’s a good idea. Sure.” I walked over and kissed her on the forehead. “I love you, you know that?”
She nodded.
“And you’re always going to be my baby. Always. Always. Always.”
She didn’t say anything.
“We’ll have dinner tonight. All of us. Sal will say something stupid, and we can all laugh at him. Family. Family. Family.”
“USA,” she said quietly.
“I’ll send Mindy up in a bit. You guys can talk. She really wants to see you.”
“Is Ethan here? Did he come?”
“Yes, of course. He’s with Mindy. They’re out somewhere.”
“Just send him up then. I don’t want to see anyone else. Just send Ethan. I just want to see him. He can stay in my room tonight. He can stay with me.”
“Really? Oh. Okay. Ethan? Okay.”
“Just send Ethan,” she said.
*
A few hours later, after sitting on the balcony contemplating why bad things happen to good people, specifically Karen and, for the most part, me; and after I made a thorough examination of the pool/crime scene, looking for what, I don’t know (the police chalk outline of Roger screwing Penny?); and after I declined Sal’s first, then second, then third invitation to have a drink at the bar downstairs (third invite: “I’m buying, if that’s an issue”); and after I spent more time sitting on my balcony considering my Overall Plan, trying to decide exactly how and when to tell Mary, we had dinner on the roof of a restaurant whose name I never got around to learning.
Under normal circumstances, I would have been delighted with the evening. It was a warm, breezy summer night, we had a fine view of Charleston, the air smelled of salt water, and we were all together for the first time in what seemed like forever. I picked at my blackened grouper, checked my watch. Of course, these weren’t what I would exactly call normal circumstances.
“It’s. Nice. Outside.”
Ethan was sitting between Karen and Mindy who, as far as I could tell, had yet to acknowledge each other. This disappointed me to no end. In light of everything, I had hoped for some kind of truce, if not the signing of an official armistice. Instead they both kept their heads down over their plates and took turns cutting Ethan’s barbeque chicken into small then smaller pieces. Ethan, for his part, was having a wonderful time; in addition to Sal, he now had both of his big sisters fawning over him. He rocked back and forth in his chair to some private beat, a toothy smile on his face. A vibrant, rendition of “Family, Family. Family. USA” I feared, was imminent.
“Is there something wrong with your food?” It was Sally, Mary’s older sister, a dour, quiet woman who had lurched from health crisis to health crisis for a good part of her adult life, the most recent being stage-two breast cancer. Resilient and humorless, she never had much patience for me, her underachieving, and unfaithful brother-in-law. During my marriage, we had politely coexisted, but since the divorce, rarely communicated directly with each other.
I looked across the table at her. She was a less pretty version of Mary, her nose a little too long, her eyes a little too narrow. Tonight she looked particularly thin and pale. I tried hard to muster up sympathy for her—she had been through a lot—but this was difficult. She was, and always had been, a first-class bitch. “It’s fine,” I said. “It’s very good.”
Sally kept her small eyes on me, so I made a point of eating a forkful of grouper.
“How was the drive in?” she asked.
I swallowed. “Uneventful.”
“Sure took your time about it. It would have been nice if you were here.”
“I would have liked to have gotten here sooner, but I had my hands full with Ethan. Everyone seems to be forgetting that.”
“You should have flown. He’s flying back with us tomorrow.”
I gave her a very tight smile, returned to my food.
“Where. Pickle. Be?”
“So, you get to see any of the city?” Sal asked. He was as oblivious as Ethan to the mood of the moment, which was palpably tense. I glanced at my watch again.