The Lucky Ones(23)

“He’s been doing it,” Roland said with a touch of awe mingled with annoyance. “Insisting on it. I don’t know how much longer he’ll be able to keep that up. We’ll probably put a bed in the sunroom when he can’t make it to the third floor anymore.”

“It’s been slowly progressing?” she asked when they reached the landing.

“Very slow until recently. Dialysis isn’t working anymore. He’s had too many infections to qualify for a transplant. Last week he threw in the towel. They say kidney failure is one of the most peaceful ways to go. Small blessing. Very small.” He pointed down the hall. “This way.”

The second floor had been the kids’ kingdom during her time here. In her last months here, six kids had divided up four bedrooms and two bathrooms. The girls—Thora, Kendra and Allison—slept on the east side of the house, which Dr. Capello called the sunrise side, and the boys—Roland, Deacon and Oliver—slept on the west side, the sunset side. The boys got the ocean view but the girls got the bigger rooms. A fair trade, Allison remembered thinking.

“Where am I sleeping?” she asked. The second floor looked markedly different than she remembered, which made sense. The kids weren’t kids anymore. No reason for Technicolor paint jobs and skateboards in the hallway, Batman movie posters and swimsuits and towels hanging over the shower rod to dry.

“Over here,” he said, leading her to the corner sunset-side bedroom.

“This is your old room,” she said.

“Yeah, now it’s the guest room.”

“Where do you sleep?” she asked as Roland opened the door and turned on the light.

“For the past couple of weeks, on a chair in Dad’s room.”

Allison walked in and put her bag down on the bed. The room was in a corner of the house with two windows—one facing north to the sparse woods and the other west to the ocean. The ocean-view window was half open to let in the sea breeze, and she was pleased to see a window bench had been added with white cushions and navy blue pillows; a pair of binoculars for bird-watching hung on a hook. She could see herself sitting in that cozy spot and reading all day.

Roland’s old wooden slat bed was gone, replaced with a full-size brass bed with a cream-colored quilt and sea-blue sheets and pillows, a dark blue rug and framed Ansel Adams landscapes on the walls. It was lovely, if a bit generic, like a bed-and-breakfast’s best room.

“Very nice,” she said, hiding her disappointment that so much had changed.

“Thora’s been taking care of the house,” Roland said. “She handled the remodel up here about five years ago. Dents in the walls, scuffs on the floor. There was even barbecue sauce on the ceiling on Deacon’s side of the room.”

“Wait, barbecue sauce?”

“I mean, we hope that’s what it was,” Roland said. “We didn’t ask.”

“I can’t believe this was your room,” she said, sitting on the bed. “It doesn’t smell like feet.”

“That was Deacon’s fault,” Roland said.

“Liar. I remember your running sneakers. Dr. Capello threatened to call in the hazmat team to decontaminate your closet.”

“Dad.”

“What?”

“You keep calling him ‘Dr. Capello.’ He was your dad.”

“He was my dad,” Allison said. “And you were my brother. You still feel like my brother?”

Roland stood in the doorway, not quite out, not quite in. Even as a boy, he’d had a habit of blocking doorways, filling the frames, reaching up and holding on to the top of the molding to stretch his arms and back.

“I don’t know what I feel,” he said.

“He never did officially adopt me like he did with you and Deacon and Thora,” she went on. “I was just a foster kid he took in.”

“You weren’t just anything. He loved you.”

“I know he did. And he was wonderful to me. That’s why I’m here. I owe him at least this much. A lot more probably.”

“He would say you don’t owe him anything.”

“Well, I do. I loved Aunt Frankie, I really did. But she was seventy-five when I moved in. And it was only me and her and her bridge partners on Tuesday and Sunday nights. Then she was gone and that was it for real family. I almost wish I hadn’t been so happy here. Maybe I wouldn’t have missed you all so much.”

Roland had watched her the entire time she’d been speaking. She didn’t look at him, and gazed instead at the moon dancing over the water.

“You aren’t happy, are you?” Roland asked.

“What?”

“Since the second I saw you, I’ve been trying to put my finger on what’s different about you now. I mean, other than you’re older and taller and prettier.”

She let the “prettier” pass without comment.

“And you figured it out?” she asked.

“Think so. You’re sad. You never used to be sad. Even when you first came here, you weren’t sad. Scared, but not sad.”

She walked over to him in the doorway and let him see her face, her dry eyes, the smile she didn’t have to force around him.

“I’m a little sad,” she said. “But don’t worry. Sad’s the weather, not the climate.”