Remarkably Bright Creatures(101)

When something rustles on the front porch, she startles. She sets her coffee cup down.

It can’t be Cat. Barbara sent a photo last night of Cat. He’s doing all right, although at first Barb had tried to keep him exclusively indoors and this agitated him greatly. So he comes and goes as he pleases. Tova still isn’t sure how to respond to photos she receives on her cell phone, but seeing Cat’s whiskered face, his yellow eyes with their hallmark look of mild disdain, had made her smile.

Then the doorbell rings.

When she opens the front door, she can’t believe her eyes.

Cameron’s eyebrows are creased anxiously, like Erik’s when he was nervous about a school exam. For a quick moment, something nostalgic catches in Tova’s throat, thinking of how many times she wished Erik would somehow appear on her doorstep like this. Tears spring to her eyes.

“Hi,” Cameron says, shuffling his feet.

All Tova can manage is “Hello, dear.”

“Um, sorry I was such a jerk the other night. You were right. I shouldn’t have left.” Cameron jams his hands in his pockets. “And sorry to show up here so early. I would have called, but . . . well, bizarre story there.”

“It’s quite all right.” Tova holds the door open with an arm that feels like it belongs to someone else. Like she’s out of her own body.

“I realize you owe me absolutely nothing.” Cameron’s voice is like a live wire. Buzzy. “But can you tell me what time Terry normally gets in? I need to talk to him. In person.”

“Around ten, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Ten. Okay.” Cameron lets out a long breath. “How mad do you think he is at me right now?”

“Not mad at all, I’m quite sure.”

Cameron gives her a confused look.

Tova shuffles across the foyer to where her pocketbook hangs on the otherwise-empty set of pegs by the door and pulls a folded paper from the front pouch. A conspiratorial smile overtakes her face as she hands it to him.

“My note?” His jaw drops. “You took it?”

She inclines her head. “Mind you, I shouldn’t have. But I did.”

“But . . . why?”

“I suppose some part of me didn’t believe you when you insisted you were the type of person who would shirk a job.”

“So then . . . Terry doesn’t know I left?”

“I believe he is none the wiser.”

Cameron’s cheeks flush. “I don’t know how to thank you. And I don’t know why you’d have such faith in me. Not like I’ve earned it.”

There’s something else she must show him, of course. Something far more important. And where have her manners gone? “Please, come all the way in.” She ushers him through the foyer. “And I’d invite you to sit, but . . .” She sweeps an arm around the empty den.

“Wow. This is a nice house.”

Tova smiles. “I’m glad that you think so.” Regret stabs at her. The boy’s great-grandfather built this house, and this is the only time he’ll ever set foot in it. “Wait here a moment. I have another thing to give you,” she continues, before hustling off to the bedroom and her suitcase.

A minute later, she returns. She holds it out to him, then drops it in his upturned palm. He turns it over, and confusion knits his brow. That engraving, the one that flummoxed him. He thought it meant eels, like the sea creature. Why on earth would anyone put that on a class ring? At the thought of this, Tova suppresses a smile. Even the most brilliant minds are mistaken sometimes.

“His full name,” she says, “was Erik Ernest Lindgren Sullivan.”

Cameron’s lips part, soundless. Tova waits. She can almost see the wheels turning in his head. Erik was just like that, how it showed on his face when the gears were grinding in his brain, which they always were. There is so much about Cameron and Erik that is alike, but not everything. Not his eyes. Those must be his mother’s. Daphne’s.

They’re lovely eyes.

Tova has never been much of a hugger, but when Cameron’s face starts to break apart, she finds herself pulled to him like a magnet. His arms wrap around her neck, squeezing her against his chest. For what seems like a very long time, she rests her cheek against his sternum, which is warm. She can’t help but notice that his T-shirt appears to be stained and smells oddly like motor oil. Perhaps that’s intentional? Never again will Tova make assumptions about a T-shirt.

He stands back and says with a dumbfounded grin, “I have a grandmother.”

“Well, how about that?” She laughs, and it’s as if a valve inside her has been released. “I have a grandson.”

“Yup, looks like you do.”

“What happened to California?”

He shrugs. “Changed my mind. You were right about not quitting. I’m better than that.” Surveying the den, he gives an appreciative nod. “This really is a cool house. The architecture . . .”

“Your great-grandfather built it.”

“No shit?” A look of astonishment crosses Cameron’s face. He walks over to the fireplace mantel, the one that once held the row of frames featuring his father, and touches it tenderly, almost hesitantly, the way one might lay a hand on a sleeping animal’s flank.

Tova follows. “I’ve been fortunate to enjoy it for sixty-plus years.” She lifts her wrist, inspecting her watch. “And three and a half more hours.”