The Neighbor's Secret(30)

Lena wished she remembered the haircut. She had a different memory of the boy seared into her mind.

“Remember,” Melanie continued, “that Rachel was obsessed with clamming, because of that book you read her every night, you know, Goodnight Sam the Clam or whatever it was called?”

“I remember the book.”

“And she insisted on bringing this little red bucket to the riverbank to fill with clams, which were really rocks. The boy thought she was hilarious. His mom said something like, creativity in motion and then complimented you for nurturing it. It was sweet but a little woo-woo, you know. You and I managed to keep a straight face, but when she left, excuse me, sneezing—”

For a brief and merciful moment, Melanie stopped talking.

“Where do unsneezed sneezes go? Anyway—you told me she was one of those magical supermoms, who sewed her own clothing and baked bread and probably made daisy crowns instead of turning on the TV. Meanwhile, you’d just screamed at Rachel for tracking in mud on the white carpet, and oops, excuse me, sneezing—”

Melanie sneezed, neat and tidy, three times in succession. “Ugh, this cold.”

“Bless you. I told you all that?”

“You tell me everything, sweetie.”

No, I don’t.

Once, Lena had believed Melanie to be the type of friend to accept deep dark secrets without judgment, but back then, Lena’s secrets hadn’t been particularly dark or deep. There had been moments when Lena had felt a pull to come clean to Mel, but it had never been worth the risk of losing her.

“Do you remember it now?” Melanie said. “I hate that feeling, one black hole where there used to be knowledge. It’s irrevocable proof that it’s all downhill from here, baby.”

Lena did remember how, for Fall Fest, she and Rachel would wake up early and get a box of éclairs from the French pastry place on Main Street. They set up chairs and a blanket on the banks of the river, a safe space away from the gazebo because when Rachel was little, crowds made her tense.

And she could never forget the clamming phase.

“Only child,” Lena would explain with a laugh, but Rachel really had been exceptionally creative, before Lena messed with her head—or maybe all parents thought their children were creative.

Probably all children were creative.

Lena certainly remembered Gary Neary’s not-yet-ex-wife and son: how they had the same compact peppiness, the way they always seemed delighted with each other.

She even remembered thinking Gary’s wife gorgeous, not because of her features, which were a little too pointy, but because of her vitality—that outdoorsy glow and sparkling eyes and her obvious unabashed love for her son. Lena had once bought a ridiculous pair of patterned tights after seeing Gary’s ex look adorable in a similar pair. (A look, it turned out, that Lena could not pull off. The tights had worn Lena, not the other way around.)

Lena wanted to ask Melanie if she’d mentioned Gary at that Fall Fest. Back then, she had only been vaguely aware of him as a dry and craggy local dentist. Once, when Dr. Marconis was out on maternity leave, Gary Neary had subbed in, put his gentle gloved hands right in Lena’s mouth. Gary remembered that, too; they laughed about it.

When Lena had taken the time to think about the Nearys’ marriage, she had incorrectly thought that they must complement each other in the way a steady rock would ground a free spirit, that their family dinners were full of song and laughter and that on summer evenings they all went outside to make fairy traps out of dewy spiderwebs, play in the sprinklers, make those daisy-chain crowns.

Nope, Gary said later. The marriage was never horrible, but even the divorce had been more plodding than fiery. When Lena painted the picture of his ex as a free-spirit earth-mother pioneer, Gary had replied that whatever personality Lena had dreamed up, it was nothing like the woman he’d been married to.

Still, there had at one point been love between Gary and his ex. The bonds of family certainly had been stronger than Gary made it sound—Lena had observed that by the way they had leaned against each other at the funeral, bound forever by a joint grief no one else could understand.

“Games are supposed to help with memory loss,” Melanie said. “Crosswords and anagrams. We should start doing them.”

“Maybe.”

“Are you okay, Lena?” Melanie’s voice was tentative. “I was being an idiot, wasn’t I, prattling on about poor little Brian. I should’ve stopped myself.”

Even if she had amnesia, Lena would never forget his name.

“It was Bryce,” she whispered. “Bryce Neary.”



* * *



“Wait,” Jen said. “Abe wants to go to Fall Fest?”

“The whole gang is going,” Colin said. “It’s supposed to be great.”

Gang? There was a gang?

Jen and Abe had been about to start dinner when their doorbell rang.

“That’s probably Colin,” Abe had said.

“The teacher?” Jen said, but Abe was already at the door and indeed, there, under their portico light, stood Colin from the Kingdom School. He held up a giant book about video game programming.

He had, he explained, promised Abe that he’d look for it in the used book shop right by the music store on Main Street and bring it by if he found it.