The Last September: A Novel

I dressed us both in our bathing suits and we headed downstairs. Maxine had set the coffeepot to brew automatically, so I poured a cup and hoisted Sarah to my hip, not quite ready to let her practice walking on the steep slate steps to the water. I put her down where pebbly dirt met sand, and dumped our towels. Lightfoot rushed forward, touching the top of the water with one delicate paw. A pink plastic shovel rested near the bottom of the steps, making up for my absentmindedness in forgetting to bring toys, and I handed it to Sarah. She knelt in the inch or two of water, scooping up the silt and watching it plop back through the wavelets. She babbled to herself, some words recognizable and some not. It felt so strange that something so devastating could have occurred without her knowing.

From up above, I heard a car pull into Maxine’s driveway, and turned, putting one hand over my heart. I didn’t know where Eli’s car was now—impounded in Hyannis, it would have become evidence. A door slammed, and in a moment Ladd appeared at the top of the steps. He must have seen us from the road. With Sarah so close to the water, I couldn’t keep my eyes on him as he walked toward us.

“Brett,” Ladd said. He stopped several feet short of me.

I didn’t feel like small talk. “Why didn’t you go?” I asked, still not looking at him.

“What do you mean?” Ladd said. “Go where?” I glanced over as his face shifted, confused.

“To the funeral,” I said, turning my eyes back toward Sarah. “You should have been there.”

“I was. I was there. I promise. I got there just after you, I saw you go to the front with Maxine. I had to stand in the back, it was crowded. You didn’t go to the receiving line. I thought I would see you at the reception.”

A fat cloud blew overhead, white and empty of rain, but for a moment blocking the gathering sun. I stepped back toward Sarah, noticing for the first time that Lightfoot was gone. I lifted my hand to shade my eyes as the cloud wisped away, looking out toward the lake to see if a little black dog was struggling in the water.

“They read the Twenty-Third Psalm,” Ladd said, as if he needed to prove it to me. But don’t they read the Twenty-Third Psalm at every funeral?

“Charlie wouldn’t have cared about that,” I said.

“No,” Ladd agreed.

I knelt down next to Sarah, digging my hand through the little trough she’d made where the water met the soaking sand. “No,” she said, pushing my hand away. “No, Mommy.”

I looked up. A red-tailed hawk swooped in lazy circles, and I wondered if it was the same one that nested in the cranberry bog by the Moss house, less than two miles away. Maybe it was heading back there right now. What sort of activity would it find below if it executed the same meandering wing flutters it did now? Did the house stand empty, yellow crime-scene tape rustling under heavy sun and vague wind? Or did the police have more business there? Was someone stationed, waiting for Eli, in case he came back? Was Bob there, collecting whatever last items he wanted to take with him?

“I told you not to come back here,” I said, keeping my eyes fixed on Sarah’s shovel, not wanting to see any kind of expression on Ladd’s face. “I told you to leave me alone.”

“I know,” he said, very quietly. “I know you did. I’m sorry.”

“Did you think I was joking?”

Ladd’s shadow, elongated on the sand, quivered. I spoke to it, refusing to be moved by the way it had brought one hand to rest on top of its head, a characteristic gesture of helplessness.

“I wasn’t joking,” I said. “There’s nothing you can do to help. You are not my boyfriend.”

The shadow’s hand came down, its body spilling wider as another cloud moved overhead. Sarah still sat beyond its reaches, concentrating, her hat falling nearly over her eyes. And I finally stated the most obvious thing, which I’d never had the courage to say aloud, to Ladd, not even when I’d left him.

“I don’t love you. I love Charlie.”

The shadow shifted, uncomfortable. Several sharp retorts floated down from Maxine’s house. Ladd, Sarah, and I all turned our heads toward the noise. We saw Maxine, standing at a back window. She held Lightfoot under one arm and lifted her hand to rap on the window again, frantic. Unimpressed, Sarah went back to her digging, but Ladd and I both looked around, obediently, trying to locate whatever had alarmed her so. It took us almost a minute to realize it was just us, out here and vulnerable in the open air.