At eleven o’clock that night, it was still hot—hot enough for Billy to put ice cubes in the glass of chardonnay she’d poured for herself. This was a crime, she knew. The bottle Cal had brought earlier was so much better than anything she typically bought herself; it deserved to be served properly. Chilled and aerated and whatever else it was you were supposed to do to a good wine before you drank it. But this was no time to stand on ceremony, she’d decided. Damn it, she needed a drink. What’s more, she needed Jane Austen, needed her like never before. But when she’d finished the scene she’d been reading in Emma—for obvious reasons, she’d chosen the one in which Emma hosts the disastrous dinner party for Mr. and Mrs. Elton—she was disappointed. Usually Austen offered her some escapist relief from her life. Tonight it hadn’t done the trick. Instead she’d ended up staying out on the porch, staring off into the backyard and, as she’d so often done recently, trying to fathom the unfathomable person Luke had become.
Why, she wondered, had he wanted to come home early tonight? Was it because he knew she’d invited a man over? Had he wanted to interrupt their time together or, at the very least, cut it short? It was possible, she supposed. Especially since he’d never met Cal before. He was an unknown entity to Luke. But when she’d told Luke about him earlier in the day, about how she was having Allie Ford’s brother over for dinner, he’d seemed totally uninterested. Cal, on the other hand, had seemed completely captivated by Luke, or at least by his model town. In the past, the town had been something of a litmus test for Billy. If a newcomer to their house didn’t show some kind of admiration for it, or interest in it, she figured it was because they lacked imagination. Cal had not disappointed her here. She smiled now, remembering his enthusiasm for it. He’d acted like a big kid, and she wondered how long he would have stayed there, exploring it, if he hadn’t noticed that their dinner was burning.
Maybe . . . maybe Cal wasn’t the reason Luke had come home early, she thought. Maybe it was because it was hard for Luke to see Toby and his dad together. Of course, Luke loved Toby’s dad. Or had loved him. He was a nice guy, Billy thought, and the kind of father who slipped so easily into playing with his kids and their friends that Billy used to wonder who Luke had more fun with, Toby or Toby’s dad. And that’s why when Luke had made a disparaging comment when he got home tonight, something about how Toby and his dad were “acting like little kids,” it had surprised her. Was Luke jealous of this father-and-son dynamic? And was that why his new “friends” Van and J.P. either didn’t have fathers in their lives or had fathers who weren’t very present? Were these boys easier to be friends with?
She stared at the windows to Luke’s bedroom, which faced out onto the backyard, as if they might tell her something. But no, he was asleep; his room was dark and, except for the steady hum of the air conditioner, it was silent. The uneasiness she’d felt several weeks ago when Luke had mentioned not knowing his father returned to her now. With Pop-Pop gone, was Luke feeling the absence of his father more acutely? All of this made her think of a winter night fourteen years ago, when she was pregnant with Luke.
Billy hadn’t been able to sleep. She couldn’t get comfortable, for one thing—her pregnant body felt huge—beyond huge, really—and the baby, whom she’d decided to name Luke, was so active that every time she managed to find a more promising position, he’d unleash another little flurry of kicks, some of them powerful enough to dimple the fabric of her maternity nightgown. Finally she gave up and went downstairs to sit at the kitchen table. There was a stack of books on it, books about pregnancy, delivery, and parenthood, that she’d been working her way through. She was of half a mind to read one now, but she ended up just sitting there, staring out the kitchen window onto the frozen front lawn. It was a bitterly cold December, and despite the fact that the heat was on, the cold pressed up against the kitchen windowpanes and nipped at Billy’s bare toes. Still she sat there. She was afraid. No, she was terrified. Who knew there were so many things that could go wrong being pregnant, giving birth, and raising a child? Not Billy, or at least not Billy before she’d read all of these books. Now, though, she had a whole catalog of things to be afraid of, some of which she might be able to anticipate, prevent, or remedy, and some of which, apparently, were completely beyond her control. She trembled a little—whether from the cold or the fear, she didn’t know—and that was how her father found her a few minutes later.
“Do you know what time it is?” he asked mildly, from the kitchen door.
“Late?” she suggested.
“It’s three A.M.”
“Did I wake you up?” she asked guiltily.
“No.” He sighed. “We seem to have an epidemic of sleeplessness in this house. Your mom is in bed, knitting, even as we speak.” And then he frowned slightly. “It’s cold in here.” He left, presumably to turn up the thermostat, and Billy heard their furnace clanging noisily as it pumped more warm air up through the heating vents. Soon, she knew, her toes would be toasty. She reached for one of the books in the stack, fully intending to read it, but when her dad came back into the kitchen, he swept up the stack of books and toted them away with him.
“Dad, where are you taking those?” she called after him as he opened the kitchen door that led to the garage.
“I’m throwing them away.”
“Dad!” Billy had a lifelong horror of books—any books—being thrown away.
He reappeared in the kitchen, closing the door behind him. “I didn’t throw them away,” he said. “I put them with the old paint cans. But you’re not reading them anymore.”
“Dad.”
“You know enough already,” he said, opening the refrigerator door.
“I don’t know anything,” Billy objected.
Her father ignored her. He removed a carton of milk. Moving to the cupboard, he found bread, peanut butter, and Marshmallow Fluff.
She watched as he poured two glasses of milk, but when she saw that he was making not one but two fluffernutter sandwiches (these had once been her favorite), she said, “Dad, I don’t eat those anymore. The Marshmallow Fluff, it’s probably bad for the baby.”
“He’ll survive,” he said, setting a glass of milk and a plate with a sandwich on it down in front of her. He sat across from her and bit into his own sandwich. “Not bad,” he said.
Billy took a tiny bite of hers, then a bigger one. They ate in silence, and here were all the things they did not say to each other:
Dad, I’m scared.
I know you’re scared. But you’re going to be fine.
I can’t do this.
Of course you can do this.
I feel so alone.
You’re not alone. Your mother and I are with you.
What if I’m a bad mother?
You won’t be. Just be yourself.
What if who I am isn’t good enough?
Who you are is just fine.
The kitchen was quiet except for the thrum of the furnace and the occasional clink of a glass as one of them set milk back down on the table.
“How’s the sandwich?” her dad asked as she bit into the second half of it.
She smiled. “It’s pretty good, actually.”
Billy shook herself out of this reverie. An almost imperceptible breeze stirred the thick, humid night air. It rustled—just barely—the leaves in the great red oak. Oh, I miss him, she thought. I miss him so much. And knowing how important her father had been to her, and how important he was still, it occurred to her now for the first time that in not telling Luke that she knew Wesley’s whereabouts, she was denying him the opportunity to have his own relationship with his father. Of course, even if Luke knew Wesley, he might never be as close to him as she had been to her father. Luke, after all, hadn’t grown up with Wesley. Then again, they would never know unless she told Luke about the unopened envelope. And here a thought crossed her mind that gave her no comfort. What if she told Luke that her father had given her Wesley’s contact information over a year ago and Luke, instead of being excited, was furious, furious that she hadn’t told him sooner? What if even telling him, at this point, entailed a loss of trust on his part? What if he couldn’t forgive her for keeping this secret from him? The truth was that Pop-Pop, the person Luke believed was perfect, or pretty close to it, had been the one to suggest that she put the envelope away, that she not disturb the balance of her and Luke’s life together. And she had agreed with him. Of course, a lot had changed since then . . .
And the person who she really wanted to talk to about all of this now was the one person she couldn’t talk to. Yes, she missed her dad. She missed his companionship, his presence, his steadiness, his humor. But what she really missed at this moment was his counsel. He would know what she should do about Luke, and about Wesley. He knew what was right. He’d always known what was right. Except . . . except if he were here now, she suddenly understood, he wouldn’t tell her what to do. He would trust her to decide instead. In her own way, and in her own time. She was Luke’s mother, after all, and they were their own family. Their own fragile, imperfect, and yet still complete family.
Murphy shifted at her feet. He looked hot, Billy thought sympathetically, fishing an ice cube out of her wine, shaking it off, and holding it out to Murphy. He gave it a few cursory licks. “Are you ready to go in?” she asked him, reaching for her copy of Emma and her watery white wine. She moved through the house, locking the front door and turning off lights. In two weeks she’d take Luke to North Woods Adventures. If they could survive until then without any major conflicts, well, she would make a decision about contacting Wesley while Luke was away. Maybe she’d go down to St. Paul, spend a couple of days with her mom, and talk it over with her, too. But one thing was clear: it was unlikely she’d be able to put this off until Luke was eighteen.