Hallie seemed to be concentrating hard on her kicking, her hair falling around her face, but Clara could tell she was listening. “I mean, that’s what I always think is missing from the other news.” She forced hopefulness into her voice. “I page through all those stories about one bad thing after another and think, Where’s the kind of stuff that would make me smile? That could be your role, Hallie. You could deliver news that gives people hope.”
A tiny, sputtering wail came through the baby monitor, then escalated quickly. “Zero to sixty in a second,” Benny would tell people in restaurants. “We got the model with upgraded horsepower.” They always smiled, no matter how loud or disruptive Maddie was being. Benny was masterful at defusing tension. She wished for him now.
“Think about it, okay?” she told Hallie. “I’ll be right back.”
Up in Maddie’s room, she glanced out the window and could see a light on in Hallie’s kitchen. Good. Natalie must have gotten home from class early. They’d go now.
Hallie sulked as the four of them trekked through the backyards painfully slowly, so that Maddie could keep up, holding hands while Thomas sang out, “Five little monkeys, swinging from the tree, teasing Mr. Alligator, can’t catch meee…” Thomas, a grudging Hallie, and even little ear-to-ear-grinning Maddie all broke their link to put their hands together and do the motion of the alligator swimming through the water toward its carefree prey. The song was all the rage at preschool, but Clara found it disturbing. Whatever happened to the monkeys jumping on the bed? Was the danger of bumping one’s head not enough of a deterrent?
They made their way across the patio and around Benny’s workshop, where the Tiffins’ backyard ended and the flat expanse of Natalie and Hallie’s grass began.
The kids clapped their hands in unison and sang, “And it snapped that monkey right out of that tree!”
The back door in front of them squeaked open, and the figure that filled the doorway was decidedly not Natalie. Its broad shoulders filled the expanse of the doorway; its gray T-shirt had U.S. AIR FORCE across the front in faded letters. Hallie yelped and took off running. “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” Natalie’s husband ran down the stairs to the grass and gathered his daughter in his arms. “Daddy, what are you doing here?”
He pulled back to look at her, then hugged her to him again. Clara’s eyes filled. It was the best kind of holiday commercial come to life in the middle of September, and she pulled her children to her self-consciously, feeling as if they were intruding on a private moment.
Yet here she was, geared up for an uncomfortable yet necessary parent-to-parent conversation about what Hallie had been up to.
Hallie’s dad caught her eye. “Hi,” he said, smiling and standing, lifting Hallie so easily she might have been half her size.
“You must be Jim.”
“You must be Clara. Don’t think we met on my last leave, but I’m happy to have the chance to thank you for helping out with our girl here.” He beamed at Hallie.
“She’s a great kid.” She waited for Hallie to look over at her—maybe she’d bring up the newspaper on her own—but she kept her head buried in his shoulder. “And it’s great that you’re home. Does Natalie know you’re here?”
“I thought Hallie and I’d surprise her coming out of class. You up for that, Hallie-bear?”
Hallie nodded, then brightened as if remembering the most wonderful thing. “Daddy, you said when you came home we could—”
“Go to Lakeside Lodge? I’ve booked us for a long weekend!”
Hallie squealed. Clara tried not to outwardly blanch. Lakeside Lodge was a resort with a huge indoor water park and conference center—along with, of course, the expansive lake—east of Cincinnati. The worst night of her life had occurred there. Otherwise, it was a wonderful place.
Jim nodded at Clara. “Do you usually get her off the bus on Mondays? I’m taking them for a four-day weekend, so she won’t be back to her routine until Tuesday.”
Hallie pouted. “Only four days, Daddy? And then do you have to leave again?”
“Four days more than I thought we’d have, sweets. And I’m going to spend every second of them with you.”
Clara paused. If they weren’t even going to be in town, she sup posed she didn’t need to have the conversation about Hallie’s adventures in reporting just now. It seemed insensitive to bring it up to Jim under the circumstances, and knowing that nothing more could come of it while they were away. Best to let them have their family weekend and fill Natalie in right afterward.
“Hallie, ask your mom to call me when you all get back, okay?” Hallie wouldn’t look at her, and Clara swallowed the uneasy feeling nagging at the corners of her brain. “Have a fabulous time,” she told Jim.
He ruffled Hallie’s fine hair. “I’ve got everything I need for that right here.”
As Clara led her own little ones back home, she heard the slamming of a door from Kristin’s backyard. Apparently Paul wasn’t the most receptive audience for someone else’s happy reunion.
12
Regrets only.
—The only comprehensible line, to Izzy, of Penny and Josh’s wedding invitation, buried under the request to RSVP
Early Sunday morning, frustrated with her inability to sleep in, Izzy slowly opened the door to the spare bedroom where, with no prospects for overnight guests now or in the foreseeable future, she’d stashed everything she either hadn’t yet gotten around to unpacking or couldn’t bring herself to unload—literally or figuratively—into the untinged space of her new home.
“Be aware of the relics of your reality,” the meditation teacher had intoned as Izzy sat riveted by the sheer intensity of Randi and Rhoda’s group at the Intuitive Healing Studio. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected—soft mats, dark rooms—but the place emanated a glow of warmth and light. Seated cross-legged in rows covering the full expanse of the hardwood floor—with so many of Kristin’s coworkers from Antioch in attendance, along with parents and teachers from the Circle of Learning, they’d had to give up on forming a circle—Izzy had obediently followed along the warm-up exercises that the instructor explained would guide them in finding “the most centered spiritual space” from which to send positive vibrations to Kristin and the twins. “I am of my surroundings,” they’d all repeated in unison, earnest and transfixed, while Izzy tried not to feel skeptical about how any of this admittedly buoyant energy would ever reach, let alone help, her missing neighbors. She wanted it to work. She wanted to believe.
She wanted to belong.
“Remember,” the teacher had concluded the session, glancing around the overcrowded room and resting her eyes, at last, on Izzy, “your vibe attracts your tribe.”
Well, here were the relics of her reality. The sliding doors to the closet were open, and even in the dim light she cringed at the sight of the lone bridesmaid’s dress hanging inside. Admittedly it was a little Miss Havisham of her to leave it alone in here, but she couldn’t bear the thought of it mocking her from her own closet. The gown was quite beautiful as far as wear-them-only-once bridesmaid dresses went and would be a welcome donation at Goodwill, but Izzy couldn’t escape the nagging worry that one day Penny would ask her to dig it out and get her feelings hurt if Izzy didn’t have it anymore.