I walked up the steps sure-footed but without sound, as Violet watched. I didn’t want to surprise Shay or Beck, but I also didn’t want Beck to hide in the bathroom. I wanted Shay to sense that we all got along. Even if we didn’t.
Once on the landing I noticed the master bedroom door was closed. That was good. I didn’t want to see a new bed, or new curtains, or rearranged furniture. The guest room door was partially open. Celia had spent weeks in that room on a hospital bed, so I certainly wouldn’t be going in there, but I could see new shiny dark wood furniture and taupe walls. Violet’s touch, perhaps?
I walked to Shay’s door. “Knock knock,” I said, and pressed my cheek to the doorframe.
Shay looked up and smiled, her hands tearing pieces of paper into small random shapes. “Sorry Uncle Beck was early and you couldn’t just do the photos with Dad.”
“That’s okay.” It was more than okay. “So, where is Uncle Beck?”
“In the attic looking for something.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, right? We have a date at the mall after class? It ends at noon tomorrow, right? See? I remember everything you tell me.”
“Yeah.” Shay smiled and continued with busy hands. “Dad said he’d drive us on his way to a meeting. And then pick us up. Maybe the three of us can have lunch.”
I walked to Shay and kissed the top of her head. “We’ll see.” She had stacks of paper in shades of every color around her on the floor, surrounding a piece of poster board arranged with torn pieces. It looked like—it looked like Miles. “Are you making a portrait of your dad?” She held up a small photo of Miles, Celia, and herself. I remembered that photo. Shay was three and had cut her own bangs. They were almost straight. “She’ll be an artist,” Celia had said. It made no sense to me then, but Celia’s intuition had been spot on, as usual.
“It’s my collage.” Then I saw it. The snapshot had been duplicated in a pencil outline, with numbers and words scribbled in each section, like a paint-by-number. Celia’s likeness was still empty, white, untouched. Was that how Celia felt to Shay? Like a pale outline of a mother for whom she worked to fill in the color? I felt sad, but Shay’s deliberate movements, her intentions—those felt brave.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
Shay nodded. I left the door open just a crack, then walked down the hall. That’s when I heard the creaking of the floorboards above me. Yes, Beck and I were waiting each other out. Or at least I was waiting out Beck. How long could I stay before Miles and Violet realized I was upstairs? How long until Beck returned and I could apologize for hurting him, for leaving without saying good-bye? I wouldn’t apologize for leaving. I wasn’t sorry I left.
By doing so, I’d honored Celia’s last wish for me.
But ignoring calls and texts from Beck for months?
That genius had been all mine.
I played with words that might ease the tension when I heard stomps down the attic stairs. Then, the shift of the door handle. Carpeted floors absorbed Beck’s footsteps but they came closer and closer. I felt him stand behind me, close enough to be touching, but not. I closed my eyes and tipped my head toward the floor, dwarfed by Beck’s presence, ashamed of my own. My neck shivered and my shoulders lifted to abate the chill. Beck could have stopped it, but he wouldn’t. I wanted him to say something but I wouldn’t ask him to talk. I wanted him to hug me but I wouldn’t reach back for his hands. I used the last of the wishes I’d saved, or pretended to; I used a little prayer not knowing if I believed in anything. What I really wanted was to open my eyes and see Celia there. Even dying Celia. Any Celia. Just one more time.
It had been stupid to think that tying a knot in the past would stop it from fraying into the future. Everything ran together here. It was messy.
I opened my eyes and looked up and into the mirror on the far wall. Beck glared back at me. It was the faraway Beck I longed for, the kind Beck, the loving Beck, not the one behind me with a piercing glare and deep scowl. I stared through the wall he’d built to when he’d been like a younger brother to me—laughing, teasing, cracking jokes—until everything changed. I glanced away. I felt naked, but not in the good way.
Beck placed his hands on my shoulders and leaned in. I felt his breath on the side of my neck. A quiver ran down my spine. Everything tumbled back. I smelled the soap mingled with aftershave, felt the stubble, tasted the leftover Thai he’d tried to mask with toothpaste, the morning coffee. I prayed for words of forgiveness, understanding, or even reparation. For one second I wished that we could start over, catch up, reminisce. Move forward.
Then he whispered in my ear. “Just leave.”
Chapter 8
BECK HELD A GRUDGE. I didn’t blame him, but for a moment I’d allowed myself to believe that he would forgive me.
I looked back in the direction I’d come from. Maybe Beck had decided to follow me, to make sure I was okay, to apologize for the way he dismissed me. Because that’s what he’d done, dismissed me as if he were king and I were his subject.
How dare he.
Beck had always been moody—turbulent, even. Now he was mean. Still, when he pressed into my shoulders I’d recalled his physical strength and how I’d always thought of him as steadfast. Beck was the boy who’d mowed everyone’s lawn and shoveled all the neighbors’ steps. He grew into the man who everyone turned to for advice. Beck always told you the truth, before someone else did. If the ground shook Beck hung on to you so you didn’t fall.
Unless you flung yourself so far away that he couldn’t reach.
Then there was Simon.
Even-tempered and analytical Simon with impeccable taste in everything. Simon was kind and generous. He hired kids out of high school as part of a “Learn & Work” program that subsidized college tuition, and instructed HR to hire women returning to the workforce after staying home with children. The assistant front desk manager of the Santa Fe hotel had started as a busboy. Simon offered many people opportunities to join him on the way to—and for his stay at—the top. But make no mistake—if you couldn’t cut it, he was going anyway.
These men were so different, but I’d lied to them both.
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