Fools Rush in(6)

I opened the door and shouted hello. With pounding feet, my nephew came bounding down the stairs like an excited Irish setter. I felt a rush of love and gratitude that even at the advanced and cynical age of seventeen, Danny was still so happy to see me. My nephew seemed, to me and just about everyone else, the culmination of what you’d hope your child would be. Funny, generous, extremely smart, tall and a bit gangly, he also excelled at baseball, truly the all-American boy.

“Hey, Auntie,” he said, bending down to smooch my cheek. He’d become taller than I was about five years ago.

“Hello, youngster,” I said. “What are you doing?”

“Calculus homework. Want something to eat? I’m starving,” he said as we went into the kitchen. Stainless-steel appliances, granite countertops, stark white walls and an unforgiving black tile floor gave the room an imposing military feel. Clambering onto a stool at the counter, I watched Danny galumph around, slamming, rattling, sloshing. I refused his kind offer of sustenance, though my stomach growled, triggered by the smell of a toasting bagel and the sight of my nephew downing a glass of creamy whole milk in four swallows. Thousands of calories.

“Is your dad at work?” I asked.

“Nope. He took the day off,” Danny said, peeling a banana and stuffing half of it into his mouth while he waited for the bagel to toast. “The divorce is final today, you know.”

“Yes, I heard. How are you doing with all that?”

“Well, okay, I guess.” He paused for a moment, looking out the window toward the bay. “I mean, Mom’s been gone for a while now, so I’m pretty used to that. But Dad’s taking it kind of hard.”

“Did you talk to your mom today?”

“Yup. She’s okay.”

I waited, fascinated by the amount of food my nephew could force into his mouth at once. A third of a bagel. My, my.

“She said she’s glad to be on to a new chapter of her life, a door closes, a window opens, that sort of thing. I think she’s doing all right.”

“Wonderful,” I murmured, trying to be neutral.

“Oh, come on, Aunt Mil. You can’t blame her too much.” Danny continued with a shrug, swallowing like a python polishing off a goat. “She deserves to be happy. Just because my parents screwed up when they were kids doesn’t mean Mom shouldn’t be able to move on. I mean, yeah, the whole cheating thing really sucked. But I don’t think she meant to hurt anybody.”

Such generosity! How could this child be the product of my sister’s loins? “You’re the best boy in all the world,” I said. “And they didn’t screw up, having you. You’re the best thing that ever happened to either one of them. Or to me, for that matter. Come here so I can pinch your cheek.”

“You’re not that old yet, Aunt Mil,” Danny said. “Hey, remember my friend Connor? He said you were cute. He wants to play doctor when you open the clinic.”

“That’s terrifying,” I laughed. “So, where is your dad, anyway?”

“He’s walking on the beach.” Danny turned somber. “He’s wicked sad, Aunt Mil. Wicked.”

Poor Sam, walking picturesquely on the beach on the day of his divorce. My heart tugged. I chatted with Danny a little more, asked him about his grades to remind him that I was the adult, and then left the house to find wicked sad Sam.

How Trish had landed Sam Nickerson—well, getting pregnant with Danny had worked its magic. But she’d never deserved him, that was for sure. Sam was the nicest guy around and always had been, and he’d always been especially good to me.

When I was eleven or twelve and Trish and Sam were hormonal teenagers, my parents had gone out, leaving my sister in charge. Katie was sleeping over, and Trish stuck her head into my room to inform us that she and Sam were going to a party. She warned us not to tell Mom and Dad or she would kill us, a threat we’d taken with the gravity it deserved.

At this moment, Sam came in and said hello to us, commented favorably on my Barbie and her Dream Van, chatted us up for a minute or two. When he realized that Trish was supposed to be babysitting, he told her that they couldn’t just leave us alone. They ended up taking us to the movies to see some preteen-appropriate flick. Sam even bought us popcorn and soda and hadn’t seemed to mind that Trish was fuming. Tragically, that night still held the title of Best Date of My Life.

That was Sam for you. Or that was Sam before seventeen years of marriage wore him into a “yes, dear” kind of husband, slightly defeated and always a little confused when it came to Trish. But once, at least, he had genuinely loved her, and when I caught sight of him, looking out over the ocean, shoulders hunched against heartbreak, he did indeed look wicked sad.

“Hi, zipperhead,” I called merrily over the wind, my shoes crunching on the crisp, cold sand as I walked over to him. He turned slightly, wearily.

“Hey, kiddo,” he responded listlessly.

“That’s Dr. Kiddo to you,” I said. My eyes felt wet; not from the wind, alas, but from seeing Sam so obviously miserable. I linked my arm through his. “How’s it going?”

“Okay.” He gave a halfhearted grin and returned his tragic gaze to the ocean. Sympathy and irritation bickered in my head. Sam was better off without Trish, though I knew better than to say this.

“Guess what?” I offered, determined to be upbeat.