The Things We Wish Were True (15 page)

CAILEY

I asked Zell what hurt and she said, “Everything.” I tried to help out, bringing her aspirin and fixing her a Coke in the same blue cup she’d given me that first day. I even remembered a coaster. When Zell got sick, I knew that my days were numbered and I better do everything I had a mind to do right quick. I’d already been on borrowed time ever since Cutter woke up. Mama agreeing to let me stay with Zell those extra days had been nothing short of a miracle, and I wasn’t one to ignore miracles. Zell called those extra days “bonus time.” I didn’t say so, but I liked it that she felt that way. My eyes got all watery when I thought of having to say goodbye. But neither one of us wanted to talk about that yet.

We worked hard to get the yard ready to be approved as a wildlife habitat, finishing up the last items on the punch list, as Zell called it. Truth is, I was sure it was all that working outside in the heat that made Zell sick. I felt bad about it, even though she told me not to give it a minute’s thought. She took the aspirin and drank a little bit of the Coke; then she fell sound asleep, which was my chance.

I’d been meaning to get back over to Mr. Doyle’s house ever since he’d given me that Popsicle, but I swear it wasn’t to see him. I wanted to visit his mama, because he told me she’d been feeling bad. He said that she was getting weaker and weaker and he thought she might die. I drew her a picture I thought might make her happy, and I intended to take it over to her before I left. When Zell asked me about it, I told her it was for Cutter, which she said was really sweet. It was just a little lie.

I opened the door really quietly, but it still made a click when I shut it, so I stood there on the stoop for a few minutes to see if it woke Zell up. I watched her but she didn’t move. I hoped she felt better when she got up. One good thing was that she didn’t have to cook dinner for me that night, as Mama and the Ambulance Guy were taking me out. Just me. The thought of their four eyes staring at me while I ate made my stomach feel quivery, so I tried not to think about it. I didn’t see how I was going to get a bite of food down.

I looked down at the picture in my hands as I walked. I’d drawn a rainbow and a sun and some birds. I didn’t think about it till I was already across the street, but the picture was all things in the sky, which I guessed was where Mr. Doyle’s mama was headed to soon. Up to the sky, with God. I didn’t know if that was the right or wrong thing to draw. Does a person who’s getting ready to go up to heaven want to think about it? Maybe she didn’t.

I had just about convinced myself to go back to Zell’s and draw another picture entirely when Mr. Doyle came out on his front porch and called my name. He yelled it kind of loud, and I was worried somehow Zell would hear and come running outside to shoo me back into her house and get that worried look she got whenever Mr. Doyle’s name came up. Then I remembered how still she was on her couch, her chest rising and falling in a slow rhythm. I looked back at her house, saw no sign of her, turned back, and waved hello.

He said, “Well, Cailey, tell me what brings you this way?” He had a funny smile on his face, like he knew the answer to a riddle I didn’t know.

I held up the picture. “I drew it,” I said. “For your mama.”

He peered at the picture, his glasses sliding down slightly when he did. His mouth was open, and I could smell the coffee he’d been drinking. I had to work hard to keep from wrinkling my nose from the smell. He looked from the picture to me and back again. “You’re a very good artist, Cailey. I think my mother is going to be very pleased to receive this.” He started to reach for it, but I pulled it away. “I—uh—wanted to give it to her myself.” I looked at his face, to see if he was mad. I’d never been inside his house before. I didn’t think anyone had in years except Mr. Doyle, his mother, and Jesse. When I’d eaten the Popsicle, he’d seemed to want to stay outside.

He got that look on his face again, that “answer to the riddle” look, and gave me a little smile. He reached out and ruffled my hair. “Well, sure, Cailey,” he said. “You can come in and give my mother your picture.” He kept his hand on my head, and it felt heavy and warm. He didn’t seem to mind that my head was all sweaty. “You’re a thoughtful girl,” he said. “You don’t see that too much in this world.”

He beckoned me into the house, and I followed him in through the front door, which led into a front room that had a couple of couches and a big TV turned on loud to cartoons, though no one was watching it. I assumed Jesse, who was kind of like an overgrown boy, had been watching it but lost interest. Cutter did that sometimes and he never remembered to turn it off. I had to do that or else my mother lectured us about the cost of electricity and threatened to put the TV in the closet. She’d done it once before so we knew she was serious.

I followed Mr. Doyle back toward the kitchen, still holding my picture. We passed a door that was padlocked. I looked at the lock, then back at him. There must’ve been a funny look on my face because he rushed to explain. “There’s stairs leading down to the basement on the other side of that door. My mother fell down them so I had to lock it up. I can’t always be here, you know.” He waved me on toward the kitchen, and I moved with him, away from the locked door. I’d heard of childproofing but not adult-proofing. I thought about saying that to him, but then wondered if he’d think it was funny. He might not.

The smell from the kitchen hit my nose before we rounded the corner—a mixture of rotting food and burned coffee. I walked in and tried to keep the shocked expression from showing up on my face, but I don’t think I did a very good job because he laughed. “Guess I need to hire a housekeeper, huh?” He gestured to the mess. “Like I said, I can’t always be here.” Dishes with food still stuck to them were piled in the sink and overflowed down the counters. A puddle of something was in the middle of the floor. Trash was spilling out of the trash can, and other full trash bags, loosely tied off, were lined up down the wall. Once I got inside the room, the smell burned my nose, and I had to breathe out of my mouth to keep from gagging.

He pulled a chair out from the rickety table in the corner of the room, sidestepping the spill as he did so I could sit. He waved his hand over it like a waiter in a fancy restaurant and said, “Have a seat, madame,” like he was trying to be French. I sat down and started to lay my picture on the table but then thought better of it, fearing I’d lay it in some sticky patch and ruin it. “Let me just see if my mother’s awake,” he said, and left the room. I just sat there waiting for my nose to adjust and hoping he didn’t leave me long.

I listened to his footsteps fade away and looked around the room at the mess. Part of me thought maybe I should get up and wash the dishes or do something to help. I thought of Zell’s perfectly clean house across the street. You could practically eat off her floors. And in that moment, I wished I could teleport myself back there, back to the place I’d just slipped away from. I thought of Zell, obliviously sleeping away. What if she woke up and I was gone? Would she even guess where I was? My stomach clenched with guilt and, deeper, something else I couldn’t name.

I looked around for a clock so I could keep an eye on the time and not be gone too long. There was a clock on the wall, a round black-and-white one, the kind they had in every school I’d ever been to. But it had stopped, its hands frozen at ten and two. I looked at the microwave, but the readout said “:34,” like someone had been cooking something and stopped the process before the timer ran out. I got up and moved over to the microwave to clear the readout so I could see the actual time. It was 2:22. If I hurried, I could get back before Zell woke and she’d never know the difference.

I spotted a small white bag on top of the microwave, with the letters
CVS
stamped in red on the outside. I could hear my mother’s voice in my head telling me not to snoop. But I couldn’t help being curious, and there was nothing else to do while I waited except look around. So I peeked inside.

My eyes took a few seconds to register what I saw inside the bag. I looked at the items, trying to make the things I saw in the bag fit with where I was. Inside the bag was a small box of tampons, a bag of Sour Patch Kids candy, and purple nail polish. I tried to think which one of the three people who lived there would have use for those items. Maybe Jesse liked sour candy. But I doubted any of the three of them had use for tampons or purple nail polish. I knew that women don’t get their periods anymore after they get old, and I would think that a dying old woman wasn’t going to be painting her nails. And she wouldn’t be painting them purple if she did.

I heard a door close in the back of the house and the sound of feet walking back toward the kitchen. I hurried back to the table and sat down as if I’d never moved, my heart pounding like I’d just run a marathon. I was sitting there, holding my picture, trying not to look rattled, when he came back in. “I’m sorry,” he said. “My mother’s asleep.” He held his hand out. “But I’ll take that pretty picture of yours and give it to her just as soon as she wakes up. How’s that?”

I nodded, suddenly mute and wishing I’d never gone into Mr. Doyle’s house. The air seemed to have changed, as if it were polluted by the dirty kitchen, or something else. I didn’t dare let my eyes stray to that little bag on top of the microwave, lest I give myself away. I handed over my picture, and he stared down at it for a few seconds before putting it under a magnet on the gold refrigerator.

Satisfied with where he’d placed it, he turned back. “Would you like a Popsicle?” His eyes looked eager as he spoke, and I knew saying no would disappoint him, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the bag on the microwave, and how strange I felt there all of a sudden. I thought about how upset Zell had been the last time I’d gone over, the look she had in her eyes when she warned me about Mr. Doyle. I probably should’ve listened to her.

I stood up. “I should get back. Zell was asleep when I left, and I don’t want her to worry.”

Mr. Doyle nodded, his lips pursed as he looked at me. Then he smiled and put his arm around me. I could smell the sweat under his arms, the oil from his pores, the coffee on his breath.

“Let me walk you out,” he said. We stopped in the doorway. “I don’t suppose you’d like to help me build one of those ponds like you and Zell built? I was thinking I’d do that for my mother. Then maybe she could sit outside by it in the fall when the weather gets cooler.”

I thought about how his mother would like that and how probably Zell was wrong about him.

“I’d pay you something for your trouble,” he added.

I couldn’t deny that I could use the money. That was one thing I’d never turn down. I figured Zell wouldn’t say no if I was doing a job and actually getting paid real money for it. “I’ll ask Zell,” I said.

He gave me that smile again, the one that said he knew something I didn’t, and whatever it was amused him greatly. “You do that,” he said. I took a step back, away from him and toward Zell’s house. I thought he’d let go of me then, but he didn’t. Instead his grip tightened and he pulled me toward him. “Well, give me a hug goodbye,” he said. His voice was disappointed, as if I was being ridiculous for even trying to leave without hugging him.

I let him hug me, my arms limp at my sides. He stopped hugging me and looked into my eyes. His were brown and green, both, which is the color they call hazel. “You have to hug me back or it doesn’t count,” he said.

Instead of resisting like I wanted to, I put my arms around him. I told myself I was doing the right thing, that I was just hugging a lonely man who didn’t have anyone normal in his life to love him back. I gave him a little hug, like I used to give Joe when my mom made me. Then I pulled away quickly.

“I’ll let you know when I’m going to work on the pond. Gotta get some river rocks to put around it first. Don’t you think that’d be pretty?” he asked.

I nodded. “Sure,” I said, even though I didn’t have the faintest notion of what river rocks were. But I went along with it, because sometimes that was the easiest thing to do.

BRYTE

The conversation lasted less than five minutes. She knew because she looked at the timer after she pressed “End”: four minutes, forty-seven seconds. They’d spent little time catching up on their current lives, no time rehashing the past (which was just fine with her), and most of the time deciding when and where to meet.

“As luck would have it,” he said, “I’m going to be near you for a meeting in a few days. Does that work for you?”

This had very little to do with luck. Or did it? “Yes,” she said, “I can do that.” She didn’t need to check her calendar to know there was nothing on it save another trip to the pool, another spin around the block with Christopher in the stroller and a dog cinched to her side.

“So you could do Thursday, August second? Say . . . five thirty? I should have my meetings wrapped up by then.”

She would ask her mom to watch Christopher. Everett could pick him up from her house after work.

“Sure,” she breathed. “Where?”

“I guess we could meet for a drink somewhere. A restaurant, maybe? Or we could just meet up in the lobby of the Marriott. That’s where I’m staying.”

She tried not to think about meeting him at a hotel, about his room upstairs that they could just walk right up to. That was the past. Things were different now. She was asking him to help her get back into the career she’d left behind. That was all. She exhaled. “The hotel lobby is fine.”

“OK, doll,” he said, and she could hear him smile through the phone. She remembered that smile all too well. She cringed, remembering how he called her that, how there was a time she’d found it charming.

“OK, well, see you then!” She tried to keep her voice light, happy.

“And, Bryte?” he asked just before she could end the call. “I’m, um, glad you called. It’ll be good to see you again. We never really—”

“Yeah, me, too!” she said, not wanting him to finish whatever he was about to say. She blurted a goodbye before ending the call. She held the phone in her hand and blinked at the 4:47 display, thinking about how surprisingly easy it was to decide to change your life forever, and how surprisingly easy it was to keep that decision from the one you loved the most.