The Lucky Ones(69)

“We were supposed to stay out all night,” Allison said, noting the time on the clock. Not even nine yet, though it was already dark.

“Dad said he didn’t want to see us until morning,” Roland said. “Didn’t say we had to stay out all night.”

“Good point. We’ll just be very quiet...”

That wouldn’t be a problem for Roland. He’d been quiet at Kathy’s, quiet after, more quiet than he usually was. She wondered if he was mourning Oliver. She wondered if he was praying for him. She wondered if he was angry or scared or both.

“What are you thinking about?” Allison asked, unable to take the silence any longer.

“Ah, it doesn’t matter,” Roland said, looking out the window.

“It matters a lot. It matters to me.”

He put his hand on her thigh again.

“I’m thinking about Dad. How hard it must have been for him to save a kid’s life, and give that kid a home, and then find out that kid threw away that life he worked so hard to save.”

“Do you think it means something that Oliver shot himself in the brain?” Allison asked.

“I think it means he was very depressed,” Roland said. “But maybe he was trying to put a bullet into the thing that was causing him all his pain. I know I should be feeling bad for his mom, and I do, but I keep thinking, Poor Dad. To lose a patient is bad enough but to lose one like that...”

“Dad talked to me about the graveyard,” Allison said.

“The graveyard?”

“He said every surgeon carries a graveyard inside them. And all the patients they’ve lost are buried in it.”

“It’s a lot to carry around with you,” Roland said. “And he lived with us, too. He was Dad’s son for a few months. No wonder he didn’t tell us about Oliver. It probably broke his heart.”

“I’m sure it did,” Allison said. “He always liked things to be nice and happy at the house. He tried, anyway.”

“We all had such shitty childhoods,” Roland said. “He was just trying to make up for that. You were happy with us, right?”

“I was as happy to be with you then as I am now.”

“So...?”

She turned and gave him a quick grin. “Very happy.”

They drove on longer in silence, but the tension had disappeared and now it was a companionable sort of quiet. Roland moved his hand a little higher up her thigh.

“You can ask me what I’m thinking about again,” Roland said.

“I think I can guess.” She patted his hand and playfully took it off her thigh and placed it on his. “Driving here.”

“Sorry.”

“You are not.” She laughed, when suddenly the magnitude of the day hit her like it hadn’t before. Hit her hard. “Oliver shot himself.”

“Yes, and...?”

“He was fine at the house with us.”

“Or he was pretending to be,” Roland said. “Brain surgery can have some odd outcomes. Dad says issues can pop up years after operations. Maybe something like that happened with Oliver.”

“I guess so. But now I want to talk to Kendra and Antonio even more.”

“Kendra and Antonio?” Roland sat up straighter in the seat. “What about them?”

“I asked McQueen to get me their addresses, too.”

Roland shook his head and she didn’t know why.

“What?” she asked.

“I wish you wouldn’t talk to her.”

“Why not? I always liked her. I think she liked me.”

Roland went quiet for a few seconds before answering.

“Remember when I told you that you were my second?” Roland said. “She was my first.”

Allison almost ran off the road.

“Kendra? She was your girlfriend?”

“Yeah. Sort of. I mean, we didn’t really date. You don’t have to date when you’re living in the same house.”

“When did this happen?”

“A few months after you left. I was seventeen. She was fifteen. I’d feel weird about it if you saw her. Kendra probably would, too.”

Allison would, too, but that didn’t matter. The timing, that was what mattered.

“A few months after I left... Any chance she was in love with you while I was there?” Allison asked.

“Allison, Kendra wouldn’t push you down the stairs because of you and me.”

“That’s not an answer to my question.”

Roland said nothing. Then Allison thought of something.

“Did you tell her what happened that day? On the beach?” Allison asked.

Slowly Roland nodded.

“Why did you tell her?”

“I didn’t mean to but she knew something was wrong. She’s very intuitive. She could tell I felt guilty. This was the day after it happened and you were acting so weird and I guess I was acting weird, too. I had to tell someone or I’d go nuts.”

“What did she say about it?” Allison asked.

“It was thirteen years ago,” he said.

“Was she upset?”

“No, not with me.”

“But she was upset with me?” Allison asked. “Angry?”