The Last September: A Novel

I laughed. Looking at Ladd, I also steeled myself. Professor Keith had an uncanny memory for every student, and if I changed his grade she’d suspect I’d either been intimidated or seduced. Before the semester started, she’d lectured me about favoring the white males in the class, a common pitfall, she said, for young teachers, especially young female teachers. I leafed through the paper, showing him the mistakes I’d circled and explaining Keith’s grammar policy, my finger tapping the paragraph where I’d already written all this down. Ladd suggested that since it was the same mistake repeated I should only count it as one.

“It doesn’t work that way,” I told him.

He sat there, looking at me very intently. So intently I started to suspect he’d done this on purpose, thrown his grade so he could come in and complain to me about it. I wished I could remember his previous papers.

“You could go to the Writing Center next time,” I said. “They’ll read the paper over with you, catch these kinds of mistakes.”

Ladd sat with one broad hand on each knee. He had a kind face, sincere and listening. I found myself not wanting him to leave just yet.

He said, “Maybe you could read it for me first. Next time.”

I blinked at him, trying to think what I’d said that made him think such a request was appropriate. Maybe he felt like he could ask because he was older than me? Or maybe he could tell I liked him. I looked down at my stack of papers, hoping the warmth at the back of my neck didn’t mean I was blushing.

“Or not,” he said, sounding sincerely apologetic. “I’m sure you’re really busy.”

I paused, not wanting to be a pushover but also not wanting to disappoint him. Or embarrass him. So I said, “Maybe I could just once. Next time.”

I looked up at him. His brows were raised, worried that he’d offended or compromised me.

“You sure?” he said. “It won’t be too much trouble?”

“It’ll be fine,” I said, trying to sound definite, which I ruined by adding, “Don’t spread it around, though.” If Professor Keith found out she would kill me.

“No,” he said. “I won’t. Your secret is safe with me. Thank you, Brett. I really appreciate this.”

“You’re welcome,” I said, and smiled.

IF LADD HAD NEVER grabbed me the day I left, if he had never hurt me, I would have been forever etched as the villain in our history. Anything good between us would have been erased by my treachery, so much so that we might never have communicated again.

But he felt so awful; it leveled something between us, and created a kind of matching regret, each of us with this knowledge—each having done something to the other we wouldn’t have thought ourselves capable of. So that over the years when the chance summer meetings occurred in Saturday Cove—in restaurants or grocery stores or on the beach—they occurred with an awkward kind of carefulness, an examination of faces. How much we wished things had unfolded differently. I sometimes resisted going to Saturday Cove in the summer, with the inevitability of running into Ladd, or his parents, or his uncle Daniel. All that pageantry of decorum, with the memory of everything that had been so base, so uncivil, just below the surface.

We did go to Saturday Cove, though, because Charlie loved it. That’s where we were when my mother died in Ireland, three summers after our wedding. Charlie and I had come down the week before his father arrived. Our second day there, I’d woken up around nine thirty to find Charlie gone. My phone rang while I was making coffee, still wearing Charlie’s Herring Run T-shirt. The woman, a secretary from the University of Cork, was crying a little herself, and her Irish accent was so thick. It was very difficult to understand her.