How to Love (23 page)

Sawyer shrugged into the pillows like he didn’t want to answer. He was still holding on to my hand. “Long enough,” he said after a minute. I didn’t ask any more questions after that.

We came downstairs for food a little while later and found Iceman and Lou sacked out on the futon,
Judge Judy
blaring on the TV and the smell of weed thick in the air. “Sorry again!” Iceman called gracelessly. I cringed. “You want in on this?” he asked Sawyer, holding up the bowl. Then, to be polite I guess: “Reena?”

“Oh.” I shook my head before I even really thought about it, as instinctive as not taking candy from strangers. “Nah, I’m okay,” I said.

“You sure?”

I was. Sawyer wasn’t, though, so I settled myself in a bean-bag chair in the corner while he smoked, watching a lady in a lime-green tube top argue for child support on Channel 5. “Don’t pee on Judge Judy’s leg and tell her it’s raining,” Lou said. Sawyer laughed.

I picked at my cuticles, bored and antsy. All of a sudden I was acutely aware of everything I’d blown off. I wasn’t
somebody who skipped quizzes or didn’t show up for meetings, not ever. By the time Judge Judy awarded tube top lady her back payments, I could feel a full-on anxiety attack nipping at my heels.

I checked my watch—it was only two thirty. If I left right this minute, I could make my newspaper meeting, at least. Maybe catch Ms. Bowen before she left for the day and explain to her that I’d been sick but felt better now. I looked around for my backpack, trying to remember if I’d brought it upstairs when we came in, and my fidgeting caught Sawyer’s attention. “S’wrong?” he asked, already mellowing out. I wondered if hanging out with me all day was something he needed to mellow out from.

“I should go,” I murmured, trying to climb out of the beanbag as gracefully as possible. “It’s getting late.”

“What?” Sawyer frowned at me from where he was sprawled on the dingy carpet, ankles crossed and back against the arm of the futon. “Why, ’cause of the weed?”

Right away I blushed, glancing at Iceman and Lou. I didn’t want them to think I was some uptight killjoy—even if I kind of felt like one, like somebody who couldn’t enjoy something as ostensibly harmless as cutting one day of school. “No,” I said quickly, “it’s not that, I just—”

“It kind of seems like it’s that,” Sawyer interrupted.

“Okay, well,” I said, finally laying eyes on my backpack—it was right near the bottom of the staircase, where I’d dropped it before Sawyer and I stumbled up to his bedroom
earlier. I got up and hefted it over my shoulder. “It’s not. I just skipped a lot of stuff today, is all. I’ll see you at work, okay?” I headed for the front door, backpack clutched close like the protective shell of a turtle. It felt like this day had turned around really fast.

Sawyer caught up with me on the tiny front stoop of the bungalow—a good thing, probably, since I’d realized as I crossed the threshold that I had no idea how I was getting home. “Reena,” he said, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Come on, don’t leave mad.”

“I’m not mad,” I said, and I wasn’t, really. I didn’t know exactly what I was. I couldn’t figure out how you could go from feeling so close to a person one minute to not being sure if you even knew them the next. “I honestly do need to go. I had a lot of fun today, seriously.”

Sawyer wrapped me up in a hug instead of answering, the blue T-shirt warm and soft against my cheek. I felt myself calm down some as soon as he touched me. Let myself sink into it. “Okay,” he said finally, mouth at my temple and not sounding entirely convinced. “I did, too.”

It’s ballsy, Sawyer coming here for dinner. To be honest, I’m almost impressed. For a second I thought my father might actually slug him, but if Sawyer notices, he doesn’t let on—smiling affably, telling stories, everybody’s favorite prodigal son. I wonder what was going through Lydia’s mind when she invited him, if it’s so important to trick him into believing we’re all one big happy family. If she’s trying to convince him not to take off again.

We sit at the table, get the baby settled in, fill our glasses and our plates. My father recites a quick, simple prayer. I’m only half listening to the conversation around me—Lydia’s low opinion of the new Woody Allen movie they saw recently, Soledad’s laugh like the tinkle of wind
chimes. It sounds like I’m hearing it from the bottom of a well.

“Do you feel all right, Serena?” Lydia asks as she hands me the basket of rolls; her short nails are painted a deep, glamorous crimson. For a second I imagine throwing the entire thing at her head. “You’re very quiet.”

“I’m fine,” I murmur, glancing down at my lap. My own nails are ragged, cuticles bitten down so far they’re nearly bloody.

We clink. We eat our dinners. I sit back in my chair. I feel as trapped as the very first days of my pregnancy, like I could literally burst into flame where I sit and all anybody would say is
Boy, some weather we’re having.
Like possibly I don’t even exist.

Hannah’s not hungry, either: She’s unhappy with her rice, making a mess as she spreads it across the tray of her high chair, waving her arms in the air and chattering noisily. After a moment, she begins to whine. “Uh-uh,” she argues, completely unwilling to be distracted by anything I have to offer, pushing irritably at my hand when I try to tempt her with a buttered roll. “
No
, Ma.”

“She’s tired,” I explain when the whining turns to a shriek, high-pitched and grating. I remember that day at the Galleria and think
Oh, baby, please, not now.
“She didn’t nap today.”

“I’ll take her,” Lydia says, like it’s the most natural thing in the world, like she’s been comforting my baby for the last
year and a half and not ignoring us completely like some minor and vaguely embarrassing faux pas, the way you ignore a huge green chunk of spinach wedged in the teeth of your dinner companion. She reaches for Hannah even as I put my napkin on the table, those perfect hands under her pudgy baby arms.

“I’ve got it,” I say, standing too quickly. I can feel the blood rushing to my face.

Lydia ignores me, undoing the high chair’s safety clasp. “Serena, honey, it’s fine—”

“
Don’t.
”

That stops her. It stops everybody, as a matter of fact: The whole table is suddenly silent, save my tempestuous daughter’s wail.

“All right, then,” Lydia says softly. She holds her hands up and sits down.

“I’m sorry.” I’m embarrassed, but more than that I’m angry. I feel it pushing up from somewhere deep inside of me, red and powerful. I try to explain. “I just—you see how this looks to me, don’t you? You suddenly taking an interest after all this time?”

Lydia cocks one carefully maintained eyebrow. “I don’t think I understand.”

“Reena,” my father begins. “Let it alone.”

“No, Leo,” Lydia says, cool as the other side of the pillow in the middle of the night. “If Serena has something to say, by all means let her say it.”

“You haven’t wanted anything to do with Hannah, or with me, in
years
,” I tell her shrilly. I think of broken dams, walls caving in. “You don’t talk to me. Nobody talks to me.
About
me, maybe, but maybe not, even. I wouldn’t know, because this is the first Sunday since Hannah was born that I’ve been invited to dinner.” I glance at Sawyer, my gaze darting like a cornered animal. “So, you know, thanks for getting me back into the club.”

“Reena—” he starts, but I ignore him, looking at our parents instead. Hannah’s still crying. This is crazy—this is probably an enormous mistake—but the truth is I’m just getting started. Already I feel more powerful than I have in years.

“I’m not an idiot,” I say, lifting the baby out of her high chair and bouncing her a bit on my hip. It’s useless, though; there’s no way to calm her when I’m this riled myself. “I screwed up, but I’m not generally stupid. Don’t think I don’t know how you feel about me. You’ve all made it pretty clear how you feel.”

“Wait, what?” Sawyer breaks in again. He looks at his mother. “What did you guys
do?
”

“I certainly did not—”

“Well, Hannah belongs to both of us.” I look around the table accusingly, Roger to my father to Lydia and back again. “Me and Sawyer. We had sex. We’re not married. I’m sorry. And I know it’s incredibly offensive to all of you, and that’s fine, but I can’t sit here and put on a show and …
repent
anymore. I’ve been repenting for years.” I pause for a second, shrugging angrily. “Nobody even threw me a baby shower!”

“Serena,” says my father. His face has gone dark as his tomatoes, his eyebrows drawn together in a thick line. “Calm down.”

“I
can’t
,” I shoot back, but even as the words come out I can hear my voice start to break. God, I don’t want to cry—crying now is going to make me look crazy, is going to undermine everything I’m trying to say—but I can’t help it. I’m so hugely tired of carrying all of this inside me, all my guilt and anger and loneliness. I can’t do it anymore. It’s too much. “I’m sorry that I disappointed you, Daddy, and I’m sorry that I brought shame on this family and that you hate me and you think I’m a slut and a whore and every other filthy thing.” I’m sobbing now, big and ugly, Hannah clutched tight in my arms. “And maybe I deserve it and maybe I don’t but the point is I can’t do anything
about
it now. I really wish you would just forgive me already. How can you be my father and not forgive me?” Hannah is thrashing, grabbing at my hair, and I can’t do a single thing to soothe her. “I mean it! Why did you only love me when I was good?”

I look at Soledad then, her lovely face blurry and distorted through my tears. “And
please just think this time?
” I shake my head, desperate. “Really? Like I don’t know how hard it’s been? Like it hasn’t been hard for me?”

“Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?” Sawyer demands. He’s losing it himself, standing up now, a hint of the temper I remember from when we were together. His eyes are dark and angry.

“Ask
them
,” I tell him, hitching up my screaming baby, leaving my dinner uneaten and heading for the door. “I’m done.”

*

“Reena!” Sawyer is following me. “Reena, wait.” He catches the driver’s side door just as I’m about to slam it, and I grimace.

“I almost took your fingers off.”

“Nah.” He smiles what would be a really fantastic smile if it reached the top half of his face. “Got quick reflexes.”

“So I recall.”

He opens the door wider, maneuvers himself in between so I can’t try and close it again. “Let me come with you, okay?”

I shake my head, snuffling; there’s definitely snot on my face. I am not a pretty girl these days. “This is a long ride.”

“That’s okay.”

“I do the highway.”

“I don’t mind.”

My insides feel like they’ve been scraped with a fork, hollowed out like a spaghetti squash. I don’t know how this got so out of control. I shrug and wipe my face, jerk my head toward the passenger side. “So,” I tell him. “Get in.”

We’re ten minutes onto 95 before either of us says anything, and when he does his voice is quiet, the ocean at low tide. “Nobody threw you a baby shower?” he asks.

“No.” I shake my head. “But that was a stupid thing to say. A stupid example. It just popped into my head.”

“It’s not stupid. It blows.”

“Yeah, well. I am very, very disappointing to my family.” I concentrate on the road and try to sound collected, matter-of-fact, resigned. I’m humiliated to have lost it the way I did; I don’t act that way, not ever. I feel like I need to button up as quickly as I can. “And to yours, actually.”

He shakes his head. He looks disgusted. “I don’t know why I’m shocked. Of course they pulled all that Catholic bullshit with you. Madonnas and whores and whatever the hell else they can think of to make you feel two inches tall. They’re hypocrites, all of them.”

“No, they’re not.”

“Can you please get mad?”

“Obviously I’m mad, Sawyer!”

“I know.” Sawyer shakes his head, scrubs at his hair with restless hands. “I’m sorry. It’s just—the more I think about it, the more pissed off I get.”

“That’s why I don’t think about it.”

“You’re full of crap.”

I shrug. “Only a little.”

“Why did you put up with it?”

“Well, we can’t all run away,” I say, then realize that
there’s a fine line between flip and bitchy, and I probably just crossed it. “Sorry,” I tell him, sighing. Sometimes it feels like my entire relationship with Sawyer has been one long apology. “I didn’t mean that how it sounded.”

“Sure you did,” he says affably.

“Yeah, I kind of did.” I’m wrung out like a washcloth. I almost laugh. “Anyway, I had nowhere to go.”

“I wish you’d told me. When I first got here, I mean. I wish you’d said.”

I glance over my shoulder and change lanes. “That’s your family, Sawyer.”

“Yeah, well.” He reaches behind him to retrieve Hannah’s cloth bunny, which she’s dropped on the floor. Hannah grins. “You’re my family, too.”

We drive for over an hour, not really talking. Sawyer hums under his breath. It feels weirdly peaceful to be in the car with him, steadying, like he and Hannah and I are in our own little climate-controlled bubble, totally unbothered by the world rolling by outside. I know eventually we’ll have to go back and face the music—I know that it can’t possibly last—but Hannah’s asleep, and Sawyer’s breathing beside me, and for a while it’s nice to pretend.

I’m pulling back into the driveway when Cade’s wife, Stefanie, comes running out onto the front walk, her plump face worried and drawn. I blink in surprise: Stefanie wasn’t at dinner. A second after that I’m hit with a cold blast of fear. I get the door open as quick as I can, my thoughts
tumbling over each other and the memory of my phone ringing the night Allie died right at the center, like the eye of a devastating storm.

“What happened?” I demand loud enough to wake the baby, fumbling to unbuckle my seat belt and climb out. “Stef.”

Stefanie holds her hands up, shakes her frizzy blond head. “Reena,” she says, before I can even get out of the car. “It’s your dad.”