Chapter Twenty-Five
Allie
Life was undeniably good.
I wanted to shout this from the rooftops, I wanted to skip down the street, I found myself wanting to go up to perfect strangers and just start talking to them. I could not remember ever feeling this good, this happy, about things before. I’d wake up in the morning, and there’d be a smile on my face. I’d lounge around in bed, luxuriating for a few moments before happily getting up. It didn’t matter if I was going into work or had errands to run, or—even better—was going over to see Cole; I felt as though this sheen of happiness had settled over me and followed me around wherever I went.
“It’s because you’re in love,” Amy said to me. We were sitting at the Black Cat Café, getting dinner after work one evening. We had Caesar salads with grilled shrimp and were both drinking chilled white wine, which was undeniably refreshing on this rather humid day. “When you can’t get the grin off your face and everything seems great, well, that’s how you know you’re in love.”
“I have definitely never been in love before,” I said. “Is that really what this is?”
“Of course. And why not? I’ve seen the two of you together; you guys definitely have some serious chemistry. Which is awesome. In fact, I’d even say I’m a little jealous. Everyone would be, though. Cole is so hot.”
I felt myself blush a little, and I took a sip of my wine. Just talking about it made me feel giddy, and I remembered, in high school, the way some girls would get sometimes, around certain boys, their laughter, the way they couldn’t get the grins off their faces...at the time, I’d wondered what the hell was wrong with them, but now, it seemed I understood.
“Have either of you... you know, said it yet?” Amy asked.
“Said what? I love you? No. I mean, it seems a little soon for that, don’t you think?”
She shrugged. “I don’t like to be put a timeline on it. Like, it’s okay to say it after three months? Six months? Six weeks? I think it depends on each situation.”
“Well, this is the first time that I’ve ever been in this situation.”
“Really, what I mean is that you should say it when you feel it. I went out with this guy once, and I think we dated for about seven months. I liked him, but I wasn’t in love with him, so I never said it. That didn’t stop him from saying it, though.”
“Ooh,” I said, wincing. “Yeah. That must’ve been a little awkward.”
“It was. I had to pretend that I didn’t hear him, and luckily, he didn’t try saying it again.” She laughed. “Not my proudest moment, but yeah, it is wicked awkward if you say it and the person doesn’t feel the same way! That always seems to happen with me. I’m ready to say it and the guy isn’t, or vice versa.”
“I don’t want that to happen.”
“I don’t think it will. I’m not a mind reader or anything, but you and Cole just really seem to be on the same page. I would be very surprised if you said it to him, and he didn’t say it back.”
I finished my glass of wine, and when the waitress came over and asked if I wanted another, I said yes. I didn’t know if I was ready to say it out loud yet. I’d never been in love with anyone before, and though it was definitely exhilarating, there was a tiny part of me that was afraid of it, too. Because everything I was feeling right now seemed to be magnified, seemed bigger, seemed more intense, and what if I said it to Cole, and he pretended he didn’t hear me? Or told me that, while he did like me, he wasn’t in love with me?
I gulped down half my glass of wine after the waitress dropped it off. “You know, I think I might just hold off,” I said. “I don’t know if I have the nerve to do it yet.”
“It can be kind of nerve-wracking,” Amy said. “But I really don’t think that you have anything to worry about in terms of him not feeling the same way.”
“I hope you’re right,” I said.
I stopped drinking after I finished that second glass of wine because I wanted to be able to drive home and not put anyone else’s life in danger. Once I was home, though, I rummaged through the fridge and got out the bottle of Pinot Grigio I had bought the last time I went to town to grocery shop. I didn’t have any wine glasses, so I drank out of an old jelly jar.
I sat out on the deck, bringing the bottle of wine with me. I wouldn’t drink the whole thing, but I would allow myself another glass or two. The air still felt so hot and heavy, even though the sun had set a while ago.
I wouldn’t go over to Cole’s, I told myself, unless I saw the garage light go on. It was late enough that I knew Declan would be in bed, sound asleep, but I wasn’t going to go over there and knock on the door. If I saw the light go on in the garage, though, I’d know that he was out there, probably working on his bike or something, and I could at least go over and say hi.
I ended up drinking two more jelly jars of wine. I didn’t realize how tipsy I was until I went to stand up and go back inside. How much had I had at dinner? I couldn’t remember. A couple, I thought. I wasn’t completely obliterated, but I was definitely buzzed. I was about to go in through the slider door when I looked over to Cole’s and saw that the garage light was in fact on, and a rectangle of yellow light was spilling out onto the driveway. Meaning, not only was he out there, but the garage door was open.
I nearly tripped and fell as I navigated the deck steps, and then almost fell again, this time into the blueberry bushes that separated our two yards. When I finally untangled myself, I stood there for a moment, trying to get my bearings. I took a deep breath and then continued my journey to his garage. He was coming out right as I stepped onto the driveway.
“Oh, hey,” he said. “I thought I heard something out here.”
“That would be me,” I said. “Falling into the blueberry bushes.”
He had an amused look on his face. “Party for one over there tonight?” he asked.
“It would’ve been a party for two if you had come over,” I said. “I would’ve liked that very much.”
“I would have, too. My invitation must’ve gotten lost in the mail.”
I went right over to him and put my hand on his chest, feeling his smooth muscles underneath his T-shirt. “It’s an open invitation for you,” I said. “Or standing invitation. Or whatever the correct term is. You can come over any time that you want.”
“Why, thank you,” he said. I felt his arm encircle my waist, and I tilted my head back a little to look at him. I started to laugh. “Do I have something stuck on my face?” he asked.
“No,” I said, between fits of giggles. “I was just thinking that we probably looked like the cover of one of those romance novels you can buy at the grocery store. You know, the damsel pressing herself up against the big strong man, the wind blowing their hair.” My hair was, in fact, getting blown back from the fan he had running on his work bench. “This is probably a very photogenic moment right now.”
“You’re no damsel in distress, though,” he said. “Well, maybe at this moment you are. You seem a little...intoxicated.”
“Only a little,” I protested. “I was just enjoying some libations because it’s was so hot today. And still is. Maybe I should take my clothes off.”
“I could help you with that, you know.”
“No, you’re going to sit over there.”
I nudged him toward a weight bench that looked as though it hadn’t been used in quite some time.
“All right,” he said agreeably. He sat down.
“Is your phone out here?” I asked.
“No, it’s inside.”
I looked over at his work bench. “Does that stereo work?”
“Yeah. There’s actually good, old-fashioned CDs in there.”
“Which ones?”
“I don’t know. Are you looking for anything specific?”
“Um...something with a good beat.”
“Well, let’s see what’s in there.”
He got up and turned the stereo and the receiver on, and the first CD that started to play seemed to be an 80’s hit mix. He skipped over Billy Idol and the Cars, until “Obsession” came on and I told him to stop.
“Okay, go sit back down,” I said.
I didn’t know why I was doing this, other than I wanted to, and I thought that it might make him laugh. I never went out to clubs or anything, but I was pretty good at moving with a beat, and as the music played, I started to gyrate my hips and run my hands up and down my sides. I slowly worked the hem of my shirt up and then I pulled it off, lobbing it over my head where it sailed through the air and landed unceremoniously on a red wagon full of pool noodles.
Cole laughed, then clapped, biting down on his lip, looking at me appreciatively.
I stayed in beat with the song, pushing my shorts down, stepping out of them. I danced around in my underwear, going over to Cole, straddling him, letting my face get close to his but never quite touching.
When the song ended, he ran his hands down my flanks and kissed me.
“You know,” he said, “I think this is the nicest thing that anyone has ever done for me.”
“Happy to oblige,” I said. “I love you.”
The words just slipped out; I certainly hadn’t been planning on saying them right then. But maybe this was like what Amy had been talking about at dinner; that you just needed to let it happen organically.
“Oops,” I said, smiling. “Did I just say that?”
It was probably the alcohol in me, but I didn’t feel afraid of him not saying it back; I didn’t care, I loved him, and that was not contingent on whether or not he felt the same way back to me.
He was looking at me intently, a serious expression on his face. He didn’t say anything.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. It probably seems like it’s way too soon or something, and now you think I’m this psycho crazy person who just falls in love with anyone. But...that’s not true at all. And you don’t have to feel this way back, it’s okay, I’m not saying it because I expect you to say it in return, I just really wanted to—”
“Allie, shhh,” he interrupted, putting his finger up to my lips. The tiniest of smiles was curving the corners of his mouth. “I actually don’t think it’s way too soon because just the other day I was thinking that I felt the same way about you, too. It’s not something I take lightly; I don’t just throw the word around. I want you to know that. But I love you, too. And I love this little striptease you just did for me.”
I gave him another kiss. “Well you know, there’s plenty more of those to follow.”
“After you sleep that hangover off,” he said with a wink.
On Sunday, as I was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a coffee, I saw Cole’s parents’ Range Rover parked in the driveway, and then they left, and not long after that, I saw Cole bring his bike out of the garage and ride off, looking entirely handsome and very in shape in that brightly-colored spandex riding outfit of his. I had planned to do some stuff around the house, but when Amy texted and asked if I wanted to go to the lake with her, I said sure.
She came over and picked me up, and we stopped at the market first and got some food and a bottle of lemonade to bring with us. As we were setting our stuff up on the beach, I could hear my phone going off, alerting me that I had another text. My mother had sent me several texts already that morning, and I just had a feeling that it was going to be her again. And sure enough, when I looked down at the screen, it was.
I’ll call you later, I messaged back, and then I turned my phone off and tossed it into my beach bag.
“Everything okay?” Amy asked. She was stretched out on her towel, but looking over at me, her sunglasses perched on top of her head.
“Oh, it’s fine,” I said. “Just my mother harassing me.”
Amy laughed. “My mother was harassing me last week; she wants me to do this CrossFit thing with her. She’s always getting onto some new fitness kick and wanting me to do it with her. What’s your mom harassing you about?”
“She wants me to come down to Boston with Cole and Declan. She’s like, really trying to get me to do it. She’s acting like it’s the only thing in the world she wants, and I’m ruining her life by denying her the experience.”
“Oooh, I would love to go down to the city,” Amy said. “I don’t go down there nearly enough. It’s kind of intimidating to me, actually. But it probably wouldn’t be that way if I went down there more often.”
“Boston is a huge clusterfuck,” I said. “So far as cities go, it’s fine, but I grew up there, and I’m not dying to return anytime soon.”
“Even if it’s just for a visit? When my mom starts pestering me about the workout stuff, I usually go to the gym with her a couple times, and then she’ll leave me alone for a while, until she gets on some other kick. It’s not that bad, though.”
“I don’t know...there’s other factors involved.”
“Like what? If I’m prying, you can just tell me so, but I’m kind of an expert when it comes to ways to get your mother to stop harassing you.”
“It’s not really my mom that I have the problem with. We’re total opposites, but we have a decent relationship. It’s my stepfather that’s the problem.”
“Oh,” Amy said. “Stepfathers... I don’t have any experience with them.”
“Well, you’re lucky then. My stepfather tried to sexually assault me when I was a teenager,” I said. “Nothing ended up happening, but it’s basically ruined our relationship, which I think is kind of a given.”
“Have you talked to your mother about it?”
“I tried. And since nothing happened, and because it was so long ago now, she doesn’t believe me. I don’t know if she would have believed if me I told her right when it happened, either, but it makes things difficult. I just have no desire to be around him.”
“That’s understandable. You know, something sort of similar happened to me when I was a freshman in college,” Amy said. “I went to this party, and there was this guy there that I sort of knew from one of my classes. I had a little too much to drink—okay, I had way too much—and he kind of ended up taking advantage of me.”
“Oh, shit,” I said. “What an asshole. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. I felt pretty messed up about it for a while. I even went to see the campus counselor and everything. For almost six months, actually, but it was helpful.”
“That’s good.” I wondered if maybe it would’ve been helpful if I had gone to talk with someone, if that would’ve helped me move past it. It seems a little late for that now, though.
“It was. And I actually ended up talking to the guy about it. I didn’t feel threatened by him or anything, like he was going to hurt me physically, so I confronted him about it. And he apologized.”
“He did?”
She nodded. “He was drunk, too. I’m not saying that makes it better or anything, but it definitely helped me get over it. Maybe if you talked to your stepfather about it, it might help. I can understand why you wouldn’t want to, either, though. I think it helped me. Confronting him about it.”
“Yeah, I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll have to think about it.”
And I did continue to think about it. We stayed at the lake all day, going in for a swim when we started to get too hot, then returning to our towels to work on our tans. The whole time, in the back of my mind, I was weighing the pros and cons of bringing this up with Bill. Would it make things better, as Amy seemed to think? Or would it make things worse? Or maybe it wouldn’t change anything at all.
By the time I got home later, my skin felt warm and tight, and I could tell that my shoulders were slightly burned. But it had been nice to relax all day, to have a girlfriend to talk to. And I’d been thinking about what she’d said and what Cole had said the other night, and maybe they had a point. Maybe I was being too stubborn about this whole thing.
After I took a shower and changed, I called my mother.
“Finally!” she said when she answered. “I was beginning to think that you were ignoring me.”
“I’m not ignoring you. I was at the beach all day with my friend from work.”
“That sounds lovely! I went to the pool for a while. It was really too hot for me to be sitting outside for too long, though, so I didn’t stay for a while. But the lake sounds nice.”
“It was.”
“So... what do you think about coming down here? Maybe on Saturday? If we set an actual date, then I think it will happen, instead of just talking about it and saying that we’re going to plan something. How does that sound?”
“I gave it some thought,” I said. “And really, you should be thanking Cole because I don’t actually want to be doing this.”
“Well, that’s certainly a way to make me feel appreciated,” she said huffily.
“I’m just letting you know where I stand with this, okay? And that it’s not necessarily going to be easy for me. But I’m going to try, all right?”
“Sheesh,” my mother said. “You’re making it sound like you’re going off to a torture chamber or something. I just want to do something nice for you, okay? Isn’t that allowed? Why are you trying to make me feel bad for doing this?”
I sighed. “I’m not, Mom,” I said. “It’s just... it’s just more complicated, I guess, than you realize.” Or want to realize, I thought. “But I appreciate that you want to do this for us, and Declan is really looking forward to going to LEGOLAND.”
“I thought he would be. I think we’re all going to have a really nice time. We can go out to lunch, maybe see a movie, do a little shopping...”
She kept talking, unable to contain the excitement. Part of me found it a little hard to believe that she really was so excited about it, but she seemed genuine. Was she really just happy for me?
“This is going to be so much fun, just you wait and see,” my mother was saying.
“I’m sure it will be. Okay, well, I’ll text you when we’re leaving on Saturday, okay?”
“I can’t wait!”
I got off the phone and went out to sit on the deck. Dusk was settling, and though I couldn’t quite see into Cole’s backyard, I could hear that he and Declan were out there. I got up and walked over.
“Am I interrupting anything?” I asked.
“Hey, Allie,” Cole said. “Not at all; we’re always happy to see you.”
“Hi, Miss Allie!” Declan yelled. He was halfway up one of the crabapple trees. “Look how high I can climb!”
He worked his way down and dashed over to give me a hug, then ran back over to the tree. Cole and I went and sat on the deck.
“So,” I said, “I was just talking to my mother. And she would like us to come down there this Saturday. We can go to LEGOLAND, and then I’m sure there will be a restaurant she wants to do lunch at, and probably some stores she wants to shop at, and some sights she’ll want to show you.”
“Sounds good,” Cole said. “Hey, Declan!” he yelled. Declan came running over from across the yard. “Want to know what Allie just asked? She wanted to know if we would like to take a trip down to the city on Saturday and visit with her mom and stepdad and go to LEGOLAND.”
Declan’s eyes widened. “LEGOLAND?!” he said. “Really? We can go there?”
“Only if you want to.”
“Yes!” he exclaimed. “Yes, I really want to! They have so many LEGOs there! More than you could even imagine!”
Cole laughed. “Well, I think you have your answer,” he said.
So the countdown to our Boston trip was on. Luckily, the kids kept me busy at work, so I didn’t have to think about it much during the day, but later, when I was at home, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of very intense trepidation. I kept flip-flopping about whether or not I would talk to Bill; if I brought it up, it probably wouldn’t go over that well. He would probably tell me I had no idea what I was talking about.
But then I thought about how much it had affected me over the years, and that if there was even a chance that I might be able to move past it if I confronted him, then I should take it. After all, what was the worst that could happen? He’d deny it and nothing would change. At least I would know that I had tried.
We took Cole’s car, and he easily navigated the busy city streets. Unlike most other cities, streets in Boston were not laid out on a grid, and people who weren’t familiar driving in the city usually got lost, flustered, and ended up taking many wrong turns. But Cole was unbothered by the weird twists, one-ways, and dead-ends, and we got to my mother’s apartment and even found a parking spot within a block.
My mother and Bill lived on Beacon Hill in a brownstone. I had mixed feelings coming back here, but I wanted to put all that to the side and just focus on having a good time. The front door flew open as we were still getting out of the car.
“We’re so glad you guys could make it down!” my mother said. “Come on in!” We followed her into the house and then the foyer. She hugged me first, then hugged Cole, and then actually leaned down and hugged Declan. She did seem genuinely happy. “Are you guys hungry? I put out a few snacks; why you come on in and you can have a quick bite, and we can talk about what we’re going to do today.”
Declan was looking around, taking in all the artwork my mother had hung on the walls, including the marble table in the foyer with a towering orchid growing out of a ceramic pot.
Bill came down the stairs, he and Cole shook hands, and he said hi to Declan. He gave me an awkward half-hug.
“Do you have a minute?” I asked. Cole and Declan were following my mother down the hallway toward the dining room, so it was just Bill and me standing there in the foyer. I hadn’t decided beforehand exactly when I was going to talk to him, but it seemed like it would be better to just get it over with. Otherwise, I’d be thinking about it all day.
“Sure,” he said, a surprised look crossing his face. “Why don’t we go into my study?”
His study was right off of the hallway, so I followed him in there. It was a small room with built-in bookshelves, a leather couch, and his desk in the corner by the window. It felt strange to be in a room alone with him. But the dynamic had changed; I wasn’t a kid anymore, after all. I was an adult, and he was an adult, and he suddenly seemed older to me, more tired than I remembered, and it seemed weird that I had ever thought of him as this menacing person.
He sat on the couch. I remained standing.
“What is it you wanted to talk about?” he asked. “Is everything okay?”
The air was heavy around us, and not just because it was humid out. As I stood there, I remembered that night when I was 15, but I was also remembering some of the good times that we’d had, how before I’d become a teenager, I had been thankful for Bill, glad that I had a father in my life, even if he wasn’t my real dad. I felt this odd juxtaposition of emotions swirling inside of me.
“Things haven’t been okay for a long time,” I said. “For almost 10 years.”
“Really?” he said. “I’m sorry to hear that. But your mother and I thought that things seemed pretty good with you.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment. I folded my arms across my chest. He clasped his own hands over his trim waist. “You’re going to have to be more specific, Allie,” he said. “Because I’m really not sure what you’re getting at here.”
“Do you remember what you did to me that night?” I asked.
He didn’t try to deny it or confirm it; he said nothing.
“Let me refresh your memory,” I said. “I was 15. Mom went out for the night. I was lying in bed, trying to go to sleep, and you came in and climbed up into bed with me. Ring any bells?”
Finally, he looked at me. He rubbed his hand across his mouth and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” he said.
I stared at him. “What?”
“I’m sorry.”
Wait—he was sorry? That had been the last thing I’d been expecting him to say, because if he was apologizing, that meant he was acknowledging that something had happened.
“I was drinking a lot back then,” he said. “I don’t know if you remember that or were even aware of it. What I did was wrong, and I’m sorry. I should have apologized to you sooner, but I just...didn’t.”
“Then why did you pretend like you had no idea what Mom was talking about when she brought it up to you?”
He looked at me blankly. “She never brought it up with me.”
“But she...” I didn’t finish my sentence. I tried to recall my phone conversation with her—I was pretty much 100 percent certain I could remember her saying that she had talked to him about it, and he said he had no clue. Hadn’t she? Yes, she had. At least, that’s what she told me, but from the sounds of it, she hadn’t broached the subject with Bill at all. And that made sense, really. She didn’t want to believe it, and since nothing had actually happened, in her mind, it would be better if the whole thing just went away.
“You were like a dad to me,” I said. “I always thought it was cool that we were able to get along, that you weren’t some stepparent that I hated.”
“And I appreciated that fact, too.”
“Appreciated it a little too much.”
“It was wrong of me. To be honest, I barely even remember that night; that whole period was kind of a blur and not in a good way. Things in my professional life were not going particularly well at the time.”
“So you thought it would be good to mess up things in your home life, too?”
He shook his head. “That’s not it. I had a lapse in judgment. A severe lapse in judgment. But I do remember enough to know that nothing happened.”
“Yeah, because I didn’t let it! If I hadn’t stopped you, you probably would’ve raped me.”He winced at the word. “Allie,” he said.
I did feel as though some of the wind had been taken out of my sails, though. I’d gone into this conversation thinking that he was going to deny everything, that he was going to act like I was making this whole thing up. Instead, though, he’d apologized. Now what?
“I don’t think we’re ever going to have some close relationship or anything,” I said. “That’s not on the table anymore. But I guess I would like to be cordial.”
“If that’s what you want, I am more than happy to oblige. I don’t want to think that something I did to you has been negatively impacting your life this whole time. That was never my intention.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have climbed into bed with me in the first place.”
“You’re absolutely right—I shouldn’t have. And I’m thankful that nothing happened. You stood up for yourself, and that was a good thing. It just wasn’t a good time in my life then. I know that’s not an excuse.”
“Okay,” I said. “I guess that’s all I really wanted to talk about. Thank you for at least admitting it.”
When I stepped out of the study, I did not feel as triumphant as I had imagined I would. The whole thing just seemed kind of pathetic. He’d gotten drunk and tried to do something stupid, and I had let it affect me up until now. Put in that perspective, it seemed silly that I had let it bother me so much. I didn’t have to be close with Bill; I didn’t even have to have him in my life any more than was necessary.
I walked down the hallway and into the dining room, where Cole, Declan, and my mother were sitting at the table. Declan had a juice box my mother must have bought specially for him, and there was a platter of pastries, a bowl of fruit salad, and some little mini quiches. Cole shot me a glance as I came in, but he didn’t say anything.
“Wow, Mom,” I said. “This is quite the feast.”
“Oh, it’s just a little something. Sit down and help yourself.”
I wasn’t that hungry, but I took a plate and put some of the fruit salad on it and a croissant, since it was mostly air.
“Declan is very excited about going to LEGOLAND,” my mother said. She looked at him. “I’ve never been there before.”
“I haven’t either,” Declan said. “Do you like LEGOs?”
“I haven’t played with them much, I must admit. But I am very much looking forward to going to LEGOLAND and finding out more about them!”
I tried to hide my surprised expression by taking a bite out of the croissant, which was very good. I couldn’t remember my mother taking such an interest in a child, other than myself when I was younger, but even then, I had always felt like she was half-distracted, thinking about something else.
Declan finished eating his fruit salad and slid off his chair.
“Hey, don’t go too far, buddy,” Cole said. “We’re almost done here.”
“Oh, you two take your time. I’ll give Declan the tour,” Mom said, dropping her linen napkin next to her plate. “Do you play the piano, Declan?”
“No,” he said.
“Would you like to give it a try? We’ve got a piano in the living room that no one has played in... well, it’s been a very long time.”
“Do you play it? Can you teach me a song?”
“I might still remember ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb,’” my mother said. She gave us a Mary Poppins grin as she followed Declan out of the room.
I set my croissant down and stared after them. “Have I stepped into some sort of parallel universe?” I asked.
Cole looked at me, then looked toward the living room where they’d just disappeared to. “She’s really good with kids,” he said. “I see where you get it from.”
“Um... yeah, I guess. This is kind of a new development.”
“Really? That doesn’t seem to be the sort of thing that you could just fake. Kids are good are sniffing that sort of thing out. Anyway, Declan is already having a blast.” He reached over and touched my hand. “And what about you...how’d it go?”
“He actually apologized.”
“He did?”
“Yes.”
“Wow. I mean, it’s shit that he tried to do that in the first place, but it’s good of him to apologize.”
“Apparently, my mother never even brought it up to him in the first place, even though she’d told me on the phone that she had. I think she was afraid if she had, he would’ve admitted to it, and then she wouldn’t know what to do. Isn’t that messed up? Is my family way more messed up than I thought they were?”
“Probably not,” Cole said. “Or, rather, every family’s messed up in some way.”
“Your family doesn’t seem to be,” I said, but then I remembered his sister, how sad his mother had been.
I was just finishing my croissant when my mother and Declan came back into the dining room.
“So,” my mother said, “everything taste okay?”
I nodded. “It’s delicious.”
“And do we know how to get to LEGOLAND?”
“I’m not sure where it is,” I said. I reached for my phone and looked it up. “Um...” I looked up at my mom. “Did you know it’s in Somerville?”
My mother blinked. “Somerville?” she said. “What? I thought it was here in the city.”
“It’s not,” I said. Somerville was about three miles north, and I knew that getting in the car and driving to Somerville had not been on my mother’s agenda.
“I see,” she said. “Well. I had just assumed that it would be here in Boston proper because, well, why wouldn’t I? It seems a little foolish that it’s not here in the city.”
“Are we not going to LEGOLAND?” Declan asked.
I didn’t say anything; I wanted to see what my mother’s response would be. She appeared to have adopted the same tactic and was waiting for me or Cole to respond.
“It’s okay if we don’t,” Declan said after a few seconds of silence had gone by. The three of us looked at him in surprise. “We can go another time. I like just getting to be here!”
“Are you sure, buddy?” Cole asked. “I know that you were looking forward to it.”
“Well... if we don’t go there, we can go somewhere here, right? We wouldn’t have to leave early, would we?”
“Of course not!” my mother said. “Have you ever been to the Children’s Museum?”
Declan shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”
“I know for a fact that one is here right in Boston, and you know what? I think that it might be even better than LEGOLAND.”
I was impressed with Declan’s willingness to forego LEGOLAND; many other kids in his position would have thrown a fit if they found out they might not be able to go, but Declan truly did seem happy just getting to be with all of us and exploring a new place.
We were getting ready to go when Bill came out of his study.
“Are you ready?” my mother asked him.
“You know, I think I’m going to hang back here,” he said. “I’ve got a couple really important calls I need to make.”
My mother frowned. “I thought you took care of all that stuff already.”
“I wasn’t able to get through on a couple of them. But I don’t want to hold you guys up; why don’t you go on without me?”
“Are you sure?”
He nodded.
“It’s fine if you want to go,” I said, knowing that he probably didn’t have any calls that had to be made right then.
“I appreciate you saying that, but I really should stick around here,” he said.
“Well, I guess we’ll have to go have fun without you,” my mother said with a laugh, totally oblivious.
Bill smiled. “You all have fun,” he said.
And then we went out into the city. I felt as though I was able to appreciate the city more than I had in the past because I was there with Cole, and he was obviously enjoying being there very much. Declan alternated between holding his hand and holding my hand, and gazing with rapt delight at the tall buildings, the yellow taxis speeding by, the throngs of people passing us in every direction.
We went to the Children’s Museum first, since Declan had been such a good sport about not going to LEGOLAND.
“Oooh, look at all those balloons!” Declan said, pointing to a brightly-colored array of helium-filled balloons.
“Maybe we’ll get you one on the way out, bud,” Cole said.
Declan was easily distracted from the balloons, though, because there was so much cool stuff. We checked out the dinosaur exhibit, the construction zone, and the Raceways exhibit. I felt like I was a kid again, though my mother and I had only come to the Children’s Museum once that I could remember, a long time ago, when I’d been maybe 7 or 8.
And my mother was right there, taking pictures of Declan, of Cole and me, of the three of us. At one point, she thrust the phone at Cole and asked him to take a picture of us.
“I can’t remember the last mother/daughter picture we had,” she said, wrapping her arms around my waist.
We went to the Countdown for Kindergarten exhibit (since Declan would be going to kindergarten soon, he proudly informed us), and then we checked out the bubble display. Then Declan said that he was getting hungry, but since we hadn’t brought any food with us, my mother asked if we wanted to walk to the Barking Crab, which wasn’t too far away.
“I could really go for a lobster roll right about now,” she said.
We all agreed that some food would be good, so we started to make our way to the exit.
There was a group of people leaving at the same time, and we fell in step with them. “I’m going to text Bill a couple of these pictures,” Mom said, pulling her phone out of her purse. “I got some good ones.”
Declan was holding onto Cole’s right hand, I was holding onto Cole’s left, and we stepped through the glass doors and out onto the sidewalk.
“That was so great,” I said, and I turned to Cole and smiled up at him, then leaned in and gave him a quick kiss.
The smile on his face deepened, and he turned to face me, bringing his hands up to cup either side of my face and return the kiss. It was longer, though, and when he pulled back, he looked me right in the eyes. “I’m really glad we are all here together,” he said. He kissed my forehead and then looked down at Declan. “You too, bud—” he started to say, but then stopped. “Declan?”
Cole looked to his left, then his right, and I looked too, but Declan wasn’t where he had just been a few moments ago.
“Where’d he go?” Cole asked. His eyes shot past me, looking down the street. “Declan!” he yelled. The people walking past looked at us. “Declan!”
My mother had been several feet behind us, texting Bill. She looked up when she heard us yelling. “What’s the matter?” she said.
“Where’s Declan?” I said. “Do you see him?”
She shook her head. “I thought he was with you...”
A strange calmness descended over me, even as my mother’s eyes widened and Cole continued to bellow Declan’s name. He would appear at any moment, I just knew it; he’d step out from around the corner, he’d have a big grin on his face, we’d chastise him for not staying within our line of vision... I just knew this was going to happen.
Except it didn’t.
Cole went down to one end of the block and disappeared around the corner, then came back, rushing toward me, shaking his head. My mother had gone the other way, and I looked behind us, asked the people coming out if they had seen a little boy who looked like Declan, wearing...wearing... what the hell had he been wearing? I couldn’t remember, and I didn’t want to give them the wrong information.
I went back inside to see if maybe Declan had wandered back in, past my mother without her noticing. There was no sign of him. I did see a security guard though, so I went over to him and told him that we couldn’t find Declan.
“How long has he been missing for?” he asked, his face very serious.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Not that long. Less than a minute, really.”
And then Cole was pushing his way back inside, his eyes wide, frantic, even though I could tell he was trying to keep himself under control. The security officer was speaking into his walkie talkie.
“You’re his parents?” he said to us.
“Yes, well, I’m his father,” Cole said. “His name’s Declan. He’s 4. He’s about this tall, he’s got light brown hair, blue eyes...he was wearing... I think he was wearing a gray T-shirt with a fire truck on it and blue cargo shorts. Navy blue. I’m going back out there to look for him; I don’t think he came back in here.”
Before the security officer could say anything else, Cole dashed off, this time running the other direction down the block.
Another security officer had arrived, and the two were talking together, so I went back outside, too. There were so many people. So many cars. All going in different directions, and where would a little 4-year-old boy have gone off to by himself?
My mother hurried over to me, put her hand on my arm.
“Did you find him?” she asked hopefully, even though I could tell she knew that I hadn’t.
“No,” I said.
She set her mouth into a determined line. “He couldn’t have gotten far,” she said. “He’s got to be nearby. We’ll find him. Come on.”
We walked down the street, calling his name, but I was now overcome with the fear that something bad had happened and there was nothing I could do about it.