A Million Reasons Why Page 10

  “You know what I mean. My life to that point. Both our lives to that point, if you believed Keaton.” She shook her head. “How would I even approach him? It’s been so long.”

  Maureen rolled her eyes. “Friend him. Message him. People do it all the time. For way less valid reasons, I might add.”

  “And say what? ‘Um, hi, just wondering if my mom might have talked you out of marrying me?’” There went that eyebrow again. “What? Is there a different next logical step after you move hundreds of miles together?”

  “Let’s start with: ‘Long time no see. How about catching up over coffee?’”

  “But he might think…” What? What was she so afraid of? What did she have to lose?

  “Think of this as getting out ahead of fate. You’re bound to run into him sooner or later, right? This way, you’re in control. Last time I ran into an ex, I was at Kroger in PJs, buying out their supply of lice shampoo. Thank you, summer camp.” Mo got to her feet, ready for a refill, and gestured for Caroline to finish her dredges. “Besides, his profiles are set to public.”

  “Meaning?” The blood rushed from her head as Caroline got to her feet, and she had to steady herself on the chair back before following Maureen toward the bar. The last few weeks had felt this way—like a head rush that was by turns dizzying and, for that brief second before she regained clarity, bizarrely exhilarating.

  “Meaning,” Maureen called over her shoulder, “he’s a man who wants to be found.”

  10

  Sela

  At some point during the night, Brody had climbed into Sela’s bed. She must have reflexively curled around him, because that’s how she awoke—breathing him in, not minding that she’d been roused well ahead of her alarm by his little body shifting and sighing beside her.

  He nestled his tiny hands beneath her sleep shirt, pressing them into her bare stomach. When he was an infant—scarcely qualifying as a newborn by the time she’d finally, at last, been allowed to hold him—they’d practiced skin on skin as the doctors recommended, and sometimes she still felt he was making up for time lost to those long weeks when a barrier of cold plastic reality separated them. His deep, steady breathing kept her calm—the rhythm of living. Of staying here, with him. She would not think about what his life would be like if she had to leave this world. He was the reason—the only reason, she was unashamed to admit—leaving this world was not an option.

  Early mornings, Doug used to slip out of bed without her noticing, and she’d wake to him climbing back in, with a tray of breakfast and an appreciative eye on the thin-strapped nightgowns she used to sleep in, before she needed heating pads to ease her night pain. These days, she woke with the pads gone cold from the auto-shutoff and her husband gone from the same. Brody’s warmth now was an unexpected treat; she’d lie here as long as he’d let her.

  Even if her bladder was crying for relief.

  Doing her best not to jostle him, she reached for the computer tablet on her nightstand, open to the email she’d been drafting to Caroline before bed. Every word, every phrase, carried the weight of possibility, the impact of life or death. It was an enormous amount of pressure to work through—though only one of them knew it.

  Sela scrolled to reread her half sister’s last message, which contained, for the first time, a more detailed introduction to her three children. Owen, still very much the baby, thanks in part to his sisters treating him like a doll. Lucy, who had sparkle—literally and figuratively, no better word for this girl. Riley, athletic and brilliant and type A from birth. Sela envied the ease with which Caroline described them as she struggled to craft her response to the last paragraph.

  I was sad to hear about your divorce, so soon after the birth of your son—I can imagine time in the NICU would strain any marriage, and I’m so sorry it didn’t work out. How is Brody now? What’s he like?

  Sela contemplated the sleeping miracle in her arms. How indeed?

  Would Caroline warm to her more quickly if she was uncommonly earnest? Especially funny? Unapologetic? Sela was all of these things, depending on the day, except for when she wasn’t. When sincerity seemed naïve. When life got so serious that joking became disrespectful. When she had something to be sorry for.

  Caroline was looking only to bond over their shared experience of motherhood. Sela could do that, if she didn’t hold back. If she didn’t censor her every word the way she’d gotten so used to doing to keep everyone else at bay.

  If she dared to be herself—as much as anyone grooming herself like her own publicity coach could ever be—was it relatable to say that Brody was all she’d ever wanted in the world, that he was her world, or did that read as needy, like one of those women priming her kids so she could live vicariously? If she explained that he was small, still catching up, did that sniff of excuses for his shortcomings? Was it likable to concede that for now, we’re content just us two, or did that sound as if she were trying to talk herself into a happier place? Even her most authentic feelings sounded false and forced to her own ears.

  Your children sound wonderful, she’d written. Now, she added:

  How lovely, to have a home so full. Doug and I wanted a big family—him because he grew up in one, and me because I didn’t. Not that my childhood was unhappy; far from it. But I did always wonder what it would be like to have brothers and sisters around, and figured I’d have the best of both worlds if I gave my kids a chance to find out.

  Hmm. Maybe she was that too-vicarious mom. She deleted all but the beginning and tried again.

  Doug and I always thought we wanted a big family, but things didn’t work out that way. I’ve always thought of Brody as the best of us both.

  I know that sounds cliché, because everyone says that, but it’s also true, in the way that everyone wants it to be. He reminds me of myself, the way I can tell he’s dreaming his stuffed animals to life, bringing them along on his adventures. And of Doug, too, the way he acts like a little man of the house, sometimes even checking on me like I’m his responsibility, instead of the other way around. Doug is still there for us, in every way I could expect him to be, and for that I know we are lucky.

  That was better, maybe. It was amazing how many different ways you could tell the same story.

  And how hard it could be to keep your own questions in check. She hadn’t realized how much she’d been determined not to ask Caroline until she had her on the line, offering undeniably tantalizing glimpses into the other part of her mother’s past, the other side of their collective story. Sela’s disinterest in their father hadn’t exactly changed, but it had slid aside to reveal how much uncharted ground remained. What was Cincinnati even like? Ecca never talked of her time there, never took Sela on the six-hour drive to see where she’d grown up. Sela’s grandparents had fled the town not long after their daughter did, retiring to a remote area of Kentucky where, in Ecca’s words, they had “more peace and quiet to ruin” with the loud, persistent hum of their misery.

  But Ecca had spent nearly two decades in Ohio. Had presumably conceived Sela there. Sela had always thought she’d like to retrace her mother’s footsteps in Europe—so many old, beautiful schools and museums where she’d honed her talent—but she’d wanted a family of her own, memories of her own, more. First. Then it turned out Sela got the order wrong. It became too dangerous to be so far from specialist care, even if she had the energy to go. Which her depleted iron levels made certain she did not.

  Cincinnati was one last place within reach that held the gift of a part of her mother she’d never known. Sela couldn’t help thinking it would bring comfort to stand in the outlines left behind, however faintly, by someone who would never cast a shadow again.

  She had to remind herself it was a place her mother had not wanted to share with her. But it was getting harder to resist the repeated assurances of Leigh and even Doug: If your mother had known she’d be leaving you in this position, she would have felt differently. Sela would never be sure of that, but she could grant that
Ecca might have reconsidered it. And even that would justify … well, more action than she’d planned to take.

  Thanks for the link to your website, Caroline had written:

  Your designs are beautiful, and I admire the way you talk about them with such drive. I wouldn’t want to blur a line, but if you’re looking for assignments, maybe I could use you sometime. With the events I direct, sometimes we want more than our in-house creative team can provide. My budget doesn’t stretch as often as I’d like, but I bet you could create some concepts that would wow my clients. And I’d feel good knowing I was helping you.

  Sela had tried to respond to that bit last night, but she’d gotten hung up on Caroline’s phrasing. Wouldn’t want to blur a line. Given that Sela was biding her time until she annihilated any perceived boundary between them, this seemed foreboding. But then came that closer: I’d feel good knowing I was helping you.

  Would she? So much dread and hope tangled up in an innocent, oblivious paragraph.

  She repositioned the tablet alongside the soft hair of Brody’s head and tried again.

  Thanks for your kind words about my work. I keep a pretty full client load, but you can always try me if you think I’m a fit. I’m flattered you’d consider it, but won’t hold you to it.

  Noncommittal, but open. Or did it come across like one of those form rejections she used to collect cold-calling with her portfolio? She typed a smiley emoticon, then deleted it, then typed it again.

  “You have one job,” she whispered to herself through gritted teeth. To find a sliver of an opening in Caroline’s heart to climb through. Much as she’d been trying to play it cool—to not gather all her shiny, hopeful eggs in the long-lost sister basket—she was terrified of blowing it.

  Brody lifted his head and smiled sleepily. She laid the tablet aside and pulled him into a good-morning hug. “What job?” he asked, looking almost comically up to the challenge.

  “Professional pancake tester.” She’d always wanted to be the kind of mom who was famous for her pancakes. A typical Saturday morning in her own childhood involved waking to find Ecca already in the studio and resigning herself to unheated toaster pastries straight from the wrapper. But in college, she loved having Leigh share the breakfast table and took to experimenting with batter. Leigh favored buttermilk; Sela preferred banana walnut.

  “Mini?” he asked.

  She touched her forehead to his and smiled. Silver dollar pancakes had been Ecca’s go-to on the rare occasions that she used the griddle. She arranged them in designs on Sela’s plate—smileys on sick days, snowmen when ice closed the schools. Now that Sela had been reduced to a low-sodium recipe that not even the best home chef could brag about, making them small and artful was the best she could do. A miniature picture of what she’d thought motherhood would be, for a miniature version of the boy Brody would grow into.

  “You got it,” she told him. What would she do without Brody? He was her world, even if it sounded too over-the-top to say it. The whole vast, miniature thing.

  11

  Caroline

  Caroline and Walt prided themselves on playing by different rules than other married couples did. There was no keeping score, not even for so-called brownie points. No bitching about each other to their friends. No hinting around things they could and should come out and say.

  But that didn’t mean they were lax about the rules they did have. Honesty was a big one—even when it came to protecting each other’s feelings. I’d rather hear just about anything from you than from someone else, Walt had said once. Besides, I’m tough. I can take it.

  She found herself repeating this silently now. He’s tough. He can take it.

  No: We’re tough. We can take it.

  Mo was right: Messaging Keaton was easy, once Caroline took a few days to settle on a safeguard. She’d mention the kids in passing, disclosing the likelihood of a husband, a tethered life. She hoped this would both ease her conscience and increase her odds of a favorable reply: no fishy motives beyond catching up.

  Hey, stranger. Heard through the grapevine you’re back. My kids keep my schedule full, but … Would it be weird to meet for a cup of coffee? My workday breaks are flexible.

  Hey yourself! Never weird to meet an old friend. How’s your Tuesday? I’ll be driving around interviewing PTs. Can work my appointments around a coffee hour.

  Just like that, she was “an old friend.” Too easy, really, minus the twisting of her gut.

  Saying his name aloud to Walt for the first time in more than ten years was harder.

  She waited until they were on the deck, watching the sun dip behind the tree line, a ring of citronella around them to ward off unwanted intruders. You could get eaten alive out here if you didn’t take precautions.

  “Guess who’s back in Cincinnati?”

  No matter what mental gymnastics she did, she couldn’t bend around the need to tell him. If their marital code wasn’t reason enough, there was the glaring contrast of her parents to consider. She knew Dad was back home now—had been for nearly a week—and as far as Mom was concerned, that was the only detail worth knowing. Evidently they were all supposed to fall into step now, as if nothing had happened. Caroline was “giving them space” to navigate this period, and they were taking it, for now. But how long could the pretense last? She wasn’t ready to face them yet. Her best hope was that talking to Keaton could get her there.

  “Keaton,” Walt repeated slowly. “As in the heartbreaking cycling coach?” Walt’s expression did not read jealous husband, but rather more like Mo’s in the beer garden.

  “As in the heartbreaking cycling coach turned assistant athletic director at NKU.”

  “Wow. You had a good run—eleven, twelve years with no sign of each other?”

  “All good things must end.” She tried to sound droll, but he looked at her strangely.

  “This is an awful lot of Brevard coming up in Cincinnati all of a sudden.”

  She let the silence coalesce long enough to form edges.

  “Oh.” He understood then. Enough, anyway. They’d puzzled over the coincidence together from the start. And she hadn’t held back relaying all Dad had told her—including Mom’s possible suspicions all along. “So you want to make sure there’s not more to the story?”

  She tried to imagine how she’d feel in his shoes, but it was too big a reach. His family hadn’t been hiding anything like this—not just a secret but a person. And his ex-girlfriends were a blur, a parade. Not one of them had a name that would still hold meaning for her or, she honestly believed, for him.

  She nodded. “What would you think about me meeting him for a cup of coffee?”

  “I’d think … that could be interesting.”

  I couldn’t help but notice how uninterested you are in dating, Walt had said on the first night they’d really talked. For years they’d traveled in overlapping circles, but he’d never said more than a few words to her until they wound up the only two singles at that party.

  I’ve sworn off love, she’d told him. Keaton had been gone nearly a year at that point. Not seeing Walt, or anyone, as a prospective anything—because she meant it—she’d given him an earful. The topic of Keaton had never been taboo. Hell, Walt was probably as curious to learn what had really happened as she was.

  “I love you for being cool about this.”

  Their I love yous always had a purpose. I love you for finding this hidden gem hotel. I love you for putting that brat next door in his place. Sometimes Walt would even sing it: Have I told you lately that I love you for talking me into this smoker? Have I told you there’s no food else above these fall-apart tender ribs from this smoker?

  “Same,” he said now, simply.

  She let it rest, at the polar opposite of cool, undoing all her so-called honesty in one innocuous word.

  * * *

  “Caroline?”

  She knew the voice before she turned her eyes to the figure standing in the doorway. She’d spent years repl
aying the last words it said to her.

  Take care.

  Their eyes met across the coffee shop, empty at this mid-afternoon hour save for a few loners hunched over laptops, ears cloaked by headphones. Caroline stood alone at the register, where the barista had ducked into the back after she declined to order right away. They had an audience of no one, but she’d never felt so painfully exposed.

  Not for the past decade, anyway.

  “Keaton.”

  He stopped to take her in, hands in his pockets, looking fit in his polo shirt in the maddening way of a man whose physique actually thinned when not in top form. His face retained its summertime tan, splashes of gray the only change in his wavy brunette mop. Her hand went to her own hair, blown out with the maximum care that could pass as normal. She’d settled, with an equally shameful pang, on her third-favorite wrap dress. Walt would notice if she tried too hard.

  Keaton didn’t have to try. Not then, not now. He just looked so damn good.

  “Gosh. It’s been a minute, huh?” He approached, arm out for one of those tentative half hugs. She patted his shoulder, trying not to breathe him in.

  But not even the espresso-laden air could block the olfactory wave of memory. After he’d left, she’d spent weeks trying to duplicate his fresh-from-the-shower smell on her pillow, with an embarrassing combination of left-behind toiletries and one unwashed T-shirt. It didn’t work, of course. There was no substitute for the real thing.

  The kitchen door clattered behind them, and Caroline jump-stepped back. The barista smiled expectantly.

  “Cappuccinos?” Keaton suggested. Their old late-night studying ritual. Perk’s, the corner coffee shop at the main intersection on campus, had been so much less pretentious than this hub of gleaming hardwood and stainless steel. She’d gone back one Homecoming Weekend, longing for its cozy mishmash of armchairs, only to find the space occupied by a franchise custard shop. “My treat.”

  She nodded numbly, waited while he fumbled for his wallet. Her phone buzzed, and she pulled it from her purse to see Mom’s picture flashing on the screen. What, did the woman have some kind of echolocation system for Keaton, even now? Caroline switched the phone to silent and followed him to a two-top in a back corner, away from the windows.