Spoiler Alert (Spoiler Alert #1)(32)
It was beautiful, in its own fashion.
As usual, Marcus had leaned against the cabinets closest to the door, safely out of their way, and watched, arms tight across his chest or against his sides.
If he took up more space, he’d become an intrusion. Unlike most of his lessons, that one hadn’t taken long to sink in.
Marcus’s mother rested her fork and knife neatly on her now-empty plate. “Will you be joining us for dinner too? We planned to go shopping this afternoon, then make grilled cioppino tonight. Your father intends to char some flatbreads while I mind the seafood skewers.”
On their tiny deck, the two of them would crowd around the old charcoal grill, arguing amiably as they worked within arm’s reach of one another. Another version of their dance. A tango, fiery and smoky, rather than the pristine waltz of the morning.
His parents did everything together. Always had, from as far back as Marcus could remember.
They cooked together. Wore blue button-down shirts and endless khaki slacks together. Washed and dried dishes together. Went on rambling after-dinner walks together. Read academic journal articles together. Translated ancient texts together. Bickered about the clear superiority of either Greek—in her case—or Latin—in his—together. Taught until retirement at the same prestigious private prep school together, in the same foreign languages department, once Debra no longer needed to homeschool Marcus.
Long ago, they’d also conducted late-night, not-quiet-enough conversations about their son together, in mutual accord about their growing concern and frustration and determination to help him succeed. To push him harder. To make him understand the importance of education, of books over looks, serious thought over frivolity.
From their cowritten opinion pieces about the Gods of the Gates books and series, he imagined that aspect of their partnership had never entirely disappeared, even after almost forty years. Much to the glee of various tabloid reporters.
So, yes, he was going to lie to them.
He directed a casual, gleaming smile to the table at large, focused on no one and nothing in particular. “I appreciate the invitation, but I have a dinner engagement tonight. In fact, I’ll need to leave in an hour so I have enough time to get ready.” Tousling his hair just so with a practiced, easy gesture, he winked at his mother. “This kind of beauty takes effort, you know. And with the ubiquity of smartphones, cameras are everywhere these days.”
Her lips compressed, and her gaze sought her husband’s.
Marcus pushed his plate an inch or two farther away, leaving a knob of chicken uneaten amid the sauce. There was never enough heat or acid in their green goddess dressing. Yet another truth that had survived decades.
His father had insisted Marcus’s unsophisticated palate would appreciate subtlety if they only exposed him to it often enough. But insistence alone couldn’t transform reality.
That was a lesson they should have learned more easily.
“We’d hoped to show you the new neighborhood park after dinner tonight.” Lawrence finally looked away from his wife, his familiar blue-gray eyes solemn and magnified by the glasses he wore. “We could walk together. You always liked the outdoors.”
As a child—hell, even as a sulky, bratty teenager—Marcus would have leaped at the offer. Outside their home, his body in motion worked exactly as it should, and the benches by the sidewalk reliably stayed in one place, facing one direction, unlike letters on the page. His parents might finally notice the one arena where he did excel. Might appreciate the talents he did have.
He could dance at their sides, at least for the space of a single night.
Instead, he’d been tasked with finishing the day’s schoolwork as his parents walked every evening. He’d been wasting everyone’s time and not working up to his potential, they’d said. Translating that passage should have taken him half an hour at most, they’d said. He needed to learn, they’d said.
Despite his native intelligence, he was lazy and recalcitrant and required routine and fair, predictable consequences for his behavior, they’d said.
“I’m sorry,” he’d told them so many times, head bowed, until he’d finally realized there was no point. There was never any fucking point. Not to his apologies, which they didn’t believe. Not to his efforts, which never bore enough fruit. Not to his shame, which curdled in his stomach and left him unable to eat dinner some evenings. Not to his occasional childish tears, after they left him in the darkening house night after night and walked away hand in hand.
“I’m sorry,” he told them now, and part of him was. The part that still ached watching their graceful, two-person waltz from a safe, inalterable distance.
They cared about him. In their own way, they were trying.
But he’d also cared and tried. Too hard, too long, only to receive baffled disapproval in response.
He was done now. He’d been done since the age of fifteen. Or maybe nineteen, when he’d dropped out of college after only one year.
“If you have a dinner engagement, does that mean you’re dating someone in the area?” His mother’s lips tipped upward in a hopeful smile.
He was bursting to talk about April, about all his excitement and longing and regret, but not with his mom. The less his parents knew about him, the less they had to criticize.
“Nope.” He set his napkin beside his plate. “Sorry.”