“How did it end?” she said, but before I could even answer, her brow was tightening, her eyes getting nervous. And I could tell she wasn’t wondering about Matt and me anymore, not really. She was wondering how she could avoid it happening to her.
“Do you miss him?” she whispered.
Every day, I wanted to say. “You know, I wouldn’t compare it really, anyway,” I said. “I think it sounds totally different. For starters, I just wanted to keep him happy.”
She licked her lips, forming the beginning of a laugh. “Man. I really walked into that one, didn’t I?” she said.
“Look,” I said. “The truth is that no one can know. That’s what no one wants to tell you. It may work out beautifully between the two of you. You may celebrate your seventieth anniversary, right here, by this lake. Despite whatever you do or you don’t do. It’s happened before,” I said.
“It has,” she said. “It has happened . . . I wish you could meet him. You know what? The shop’s like fifteen minutes from here. We could go stop by. Or I could call him, and he could come by here. I know he’d love to meet you. I know he’d love to meet Josh’s sister . . .”
Josh. Where was he now? How was it that in the midst of all of this, I had managed to forget about him, forget about what was at stake for him, if only for a couple of minutes? Maybe because part of being here let me realize it. How much was at stake, even besides him. I looked down at my watch. Almost two. If we left right now, we would be home with enough time to get ready for tonight. If that was what he wanted. But only if we left right now.
“Oh, sorry. Forget it,” she said. “It’s probably not the best time for introductions.”
“No, I’m sorry. I’d like to meet him. It’s just that I don’t know what Josh is doing.”
“Who does?” she said. Then she shrugged, wiping her wet hands on her jeans. “Besides, what can meeting someone really tell you anyway? What did you tell from meeting my mom? I know you didn’t really get to, but can I tell you something, then, honestly? I mean if I told you Josh and my mom were like that, like that much in love, would it make you want to throw up?” she said. “Would it be so corny that you’d have to puke?”
I smiled. “I’m not going to puke.”
“You sure?”
“Pretty sure.”
“Because they’d always just do this thing, you know, after they thought I was sleeping,” she said. “They’d come down here and dance by the lake. They didn’t even bring music. No CD player, no radio. They’d just dance. And I know everything else. I know he’s had a girlfriend for a long time. I know it’s hard for him to imagine leaving her. I know he wasn’t honest about it with my mom. I get all that. But what about the dancing? Especially because they’d always do it so well together. I mean, really well. Like they were hearing the same song or something.”
I looked out at the lake. The world I knew felt so far away. Everything but this felt far away and imaginary and untrue. And I knew the rest of it would come screaming back soon enough. But for a minute, just one more, I tried to hold it. So I’d remember. So, whatever happened, I wouldn’t decide that this wasn’t true too.
“I just don’t understand how the same thing can be playing in both of their heads like that,” she said. “If it isn’t love between them, how did the same thing get there?”
A few minutes after we made it back to the kitchen, Josh and Elizabeth got back from their walk. Elizabeth came through the door first, Josh right behind her. His shirt was off—the long-sleeved one that had been under the short-sleeved one—now he was just wearing the short-sleeved one. And they weren’t talking to each other. I tried to read the situation, but I wasn’t sure how. It didn’t really seem like a bad kind of not talking. It didn’t seem like they were about to leave each other again.
“Hey, guys,” Josh said, patting my back as he walked past me at the table and over to where Grace was. “How’s your day been going?”
He tried to give me a smile. I tried to give him one back, but I think my attempt was even less successful than his.
“Emmy got attacked by Hannibal,” Grace said, as Josh bent down beneath her chair.
“You all right?” Josh asked, turning tow
ard me, but it was Elizabeth who came over quickly, looking for where.
I put out my wrist to show her. “I’m really fine. There’s barely even a scratch,” I said. Trying to point it out to her, I actually had trouble finding it.
Elizabeth turned toward Grace. “That’s not funny to joke about, Grace,” she said.
Grace gave her mother a look and turned back toward Josh. “It’s a little bit funny,” she said to him. “Don’t you think?”
“Absolutely,” he said.
Then he wrapped his hands around the back of her chair’s legs and moved in closer. At first I thought I was having déjà vu or something—the scene looked so familiar. It took me a second to realize that this was how my dad used to talk to us when he was trying to explain something. Like the time I burned my hand on the grill and didn’t tell him all day because I thought I’d get in trouble for touching the grill when I knew I wasn’t supposed to. It was this way he had of looking right at us from a certain angle so that we knew he still loved us—whatever he was going to say to us next. Josh was talking low, and I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but Grace was nodding her head, softly, in agreement.
And it did something to me—warmed my heart a little. Because I could see it for a second, even if I felt conflicted about admitting it. It wasn’t about which woman Josh ultimately chose—it was about which Josh Josh chose. If it were a version closer to this one, that would make all the difference.
I wasn’t sure what to do now. Elizabeth, who had been watching them also for a minute, had left the room. And, so, I followed her out into the living room, where she was sitting on the couch. I sat down next to her, tentatively at first, right on the couch’s edge. There had been none of the this is Elizabeth, this is Emmy stuff—not really—and now didn’t seem like the time. It didn’t seem like a time to make small talk for that matter either, and I was fairly certain Elizabeth would have been happy to sit there in silence, but I wasn’t evolved enough for that yet.
“So, I think your daughter’s great,” I said. “She’s your daughter. So I’m sure you know that. Well obviously you know she’s your daughter, but you probably also know she’s great . . .”