The Rest of the Story(99)

The switch was so quick this time I almost didn’t notice. I was still waiting for more details about the installment plan. “He’s gone?”

“Went to the bank. Which gives us about ten minutes to talk about things other than shutters.”

So here it was. I’d apologized—or tried to, he certainly hadn’t made it easy, or accepted it—and now we had time, uninterrupted, to get out everything else that had been on my mind. Maybe, if I was really brave, I’d tell him I’d been missing him, and how often I replayed that moment on the night of Club Prom, when we’d almost gone from friends to something more. But when I spoke next, I was surprised to find it wasn’t about any of these things.

“I miss the other side so much; I was only there three weeks,” I said. “I can’t imagine my mom just swearing it all off when her whole life was here. Why didn’t she ever come back, except that once?”

He was quiet for a moment, considering this. Finally he said, “Well, I’ve heard a lot of theories over the years. But I think it had to do with the accident. I mean, would you come back?”

“Probably not,” I said, looking again at the lake, so pretty and blue with the sun glinting off it. But the water had moods and moments, like everything else. I could understand how after something like that happened, you’d never see it the same way again. “I just don’t know what’s worse. Not having any idea of any of these stories or history before last month, or only learning some to have them taken away.”

“The stories haven’t gone anywhere,” he pointed out. “They, like me, remain in convenient central North Lake.”

I smiled. “True. So maybe I should ask you to tell the rest to me.”

“What? Your mom’s history?”

“Yeah.” According to the clock, it was now three thirty: I was going swimming with Tracy at four. “Or at least, some of them. I mean, I have the album you lent me, but—”

“Pictures only tell half,” he finished. “I had my mom to tell me the rest, what was going on in the pictures.”

“Maybe I should talk to your mom.”

“Maybe. Or, you could just talk to me. I mean, I do know that album by heart. At bedtime it was that and Goodnight Moon. Which I can also remember perfectly.”

“Really,” I said, getting up and walking over to my bureau, where I’d left the album in the back of a top drawer. I reached in, pulling it out, then sat down on the carpet. “So what’s the first picture?”

“Shot of my dad as a kid in footie pajamas,” he replied. “They have yellow ducks on them.”

I opened the album to look: he was right. He and his dad had the same face, those blue eyes and white-blond hair. “And the story?”

“My dad was an only child,” he said. “Grandparents had him late in life, after they thought they could never have kids. And he was wild, full of energy, always keeping them running. See that guy in the background, on the plaid sofa?”

I hadn’t before, too focused on the cute baby to notice. Now, I looked, saying, “Yeah.”

“That’s my grandfather. He was about fifty in that picture.”

I studied it again. The man had white hair, his face tired. “Really? He looks much older.”

“Exactly. Takeaway: my dad aged people, he was so exhausting.”

“That’s how the album of stories begins?”

“Yep. I guess it was both history and, for me, a subtle warning.” He laughed. “Now, see, after that there are, I think, a bunch more of my dad as a kid. School pictures, holding up a fish, at Halloween dressed like a Ninja Turtle . . .”

I was following along as he spoke, running a finger over each of these. “Impressive.”

“. . . until finally, on the top of page two,” he said, “we have the arrival of Waverly Calvander. They met at summer day camp at Church of the Lamb, just after kindergarten.”

I turned to that page, finding the picture. Chris and my mom were in the center of a group of about six kids standing on a dock. Everyone was wearing LAMB CAMP T-shirts, and he and a few others were smiling. My mom, however, held her mouth in a thin line, clearly displeased.

“She looks mad,” I observed.

“She hated camp,” he told me. “Too many rules. I don’t think she even lasted the summer.”

I zeroed in more closely, taking in every feature I could. My mom’s bangs, blowing slightly sideways. The rope bracelet around one wrist. How adult she seemed, in comparison with the rest of the kids, like she’d discovered something they wouldn’t for many years. And without Roo’s voice in my ear, that would have been me, as well: I’d have the image, but as he said, that was only half. And I’d had enough of bits and pieces.

“Okay, so below that,” he said now, “like, two or three rows and to the right? That’s them on the Fourth of July with Celeste. It was my dad’s first time over to Mimi’s: she’s the one who took the picture.”

My mom wasn’t smiling in this shot, but she didn’t look openly hostile, either. She had on a jumper and sandals with little block heels, one arm thrown around Celeste, who was looking off to one side, her mouth open as she was saying something. Chris, excited, was holding a lit sparkler out to the camera, sparks falling off it. I recognized that same clump of gardenia bushes behind them.