Lost and Wanted(101)

“She did,” Addie said. “She does, although she doesn’t get to use it as much now that they’re at your house.”

“That’s part of what I wanted to talk—” I began, but Addie held up one hand, ringed and manicured, and shook her head.

“We couldn’t be happier about them renting from you. It was never going to work with Terrence living here. Just Simmi, yes—but not the two of them. Frankly I was surprised it lasted as long as it did.”

“But things are better between you and Terrence, now that—” I stopped, because I didn’t know for sure what Terrence had found on Charlie’s phone, nor what he’d shared with Addie.

“Now that we have the letter,” Addie finished.

I nodded. I couldn’t ask about the contents of the letter. If she wanted to tell me, she would. Addie paused and touched the woven gold choker resting against her clavicle.

“It’s a difficult letter to read,” she said. “To write, too—she didn’t finish it.”

“I’m sorry.”

Addie took a breath and steadied herself on her stool, but she maintained her composure. “What Carl says—it shows that she wanted to explain, and that she loved us. He thinks that’s all that’s important.”

I was going to agree with that, but I could see that Charlie’s intentions weren’t enough for Addie. She wanted information, an explanation. She wanted to know how a catastrophe like this could have happened at all.

    “Terrence said she left other unfinished communication in her drafts. Part of that was her illness, of course,” Addie continued. “She had trouble focusing, and her mind wandered. The letter’s evidence of that.”

The letter I had been imagining was an excruciating goodbye. Or maybe it was a set of instructions—but it wasn’t any further mystery. If Charlie’s mind had wandered during her last weeks on Earth, where had it gone?

Addie passed a plate across the island. “Have one.”

She seemed to be trying to shift the conversation to safer territory, but I couldn’t make myself eat, even to be polite. The cookies sat untouched on the plate between us.

“Carl and I are so glad you’ve become friends with Terrence. We would never want to put you in an awkward position, or jeopardize an arrangement that has clearly been beneficial for Simmi.”

“It’s been beneficial for Jack and me, too. I’ve explained to him that it isn’t permanent—but I think he’ll be devastated when they eventually go back to L.A.”

“You never know,” Addie said.

I was surprised by how hopeful it made me to hear her say it.

“For now we want to make Simmi’s life here as stable as possible,” she continued. “That’s why Carl and I are sending her to school. And her cousins from New York—William’s family—may come up here for the summer. We thought they could all go to camp together.”

I thought about the L.A. I’d seen in pictures, Terrence’s surfing and his family there. “Do you think he might really want to stay in Boston?”

“I don’t think he knows what shape his life is going to take—he’s still quite young. You are all still quite young.”

“I don’t feel it.”

“But you are. So much happens.” Addie tilted her head slightly to one side. “I don’t doubt that he loved our daughter. I think he was destroyed by this. You can’t understand the power of people’s emotional needs. At my age I’ve seen it again and again: divorce, illness. A person loses a partner—this is especially true of men who lose their wives—and they become like ducklings, imprinting on the first person who is kind to them. I want to be prepared for whatever happens—though of course it could be someone wonderful.”

    Did I imagine the way she looked at me? But I thought even Addie knew she couldn’t go so far as to make her son-in-law fall in love with someone she chose.

“But if it was someone we thought was inappropriate in any way—” Her voice descended suddenly in pitch: “we’d fight with everything we have.”

This burst of passion was followed by an uncomfortable silence, in which I examined the blue flecks in the Boyces’ granite countertop. What I’d come to do was even more delicate than I’d expected.

“I think Simmi’s been—reaching out a little.” The canned phrase sounded absurd, even to me. “I’ve been getting some messages.”

Addie’s whole demeanor changed suddenly. She was completely attentive. “What kind of messages?”

“Texts.”

Addie put both hands on the countertop, as if to steady herself. “From?” she said.

“From Simmi, I think. I think she’s been using Charlie’s phone.”

“Simmi!”

It was the only time I’d ever seen Addie struggle to keep up. Ordinarily she seemed to be several steps ahead of everyone else.

“It shocked me,” I said. “Terrence told me the phone was lost. I thought what kind of crazy person would—”

Addie was nodding slowly. “That’s exactly what Carl said! What kind of crazy person…”

“You’ve been getting them, too?” I tried not to sound as if I’d suspected it.