“I’m not criticizing. I’m just—”
“Stating the facts of the case.”
“Exactly.”
Kathleen kneaded and pressed and shaped the pastries with nearly automatic precision. Wylie had always been impressed that her hands could do one thing while her mind did something else. “Really, one of the hardest things has been what to tell you and what not to. And how to give you the truth in the right amounts. When you were eleven, and we took that walk, and I told you that William was made up and that your father was Richard — I saw I’d hurt you. Your face changed in that moment, and I swear there’s a part of that expression I still see sometimes. It about killed me when you ran. It wasn’t right, what I told you then. I thought I’d ruined you.”
“I made it to twenty-six, Mom.”
She looked at him across the flour-dusted stainless table, her hands working away as if without the rest of her. “Tell me what you want to know.”
“Did you have sex before him?”
She reddened again and shook her head.
“Then Richard Carson was your first?”
“Yes.”
“Was it really at a party?”
“Yes. Such a perfect storm that night. Everything hit me right at once, Wylie. All my admiration for him and my commitment to what he was great at. All my tingling attraction and desire for an almost but never before... thing. All my youth and reckless courage. The damned alcohol and Richard’s total attention. That basement room was so welcoming and private. Another world. I knew he would never be mine. Never leave his wife or children. That made him more perfect. I knew he’d had other girls. I didn’t care. To me, at that moment in that place, he was what I wanted. He was there and I took him. I knew it was wrong. That didn’t matter.”
Wylie understood what she was saying, but he found the visuals troubling. “Did... when Cynthia... were you and Richard still in the bed when she...”
“No. Richard was playing Ping-Pong in the game room and I was out on a deck, looking at the stars and wondering what I’d just done. I was crying because I was afraid, then crying because I was sad. Utter confusion. Total regret. I heard the shots. Not loud. Five. I wasn’t sure at first what they were. Then the screams. Looking through a sliding glass door I saw her marching across the room, people flying from her path every which way. Pregnant and showing. She looked very purposeful and focused. Not in a hurry, but not taking her time, either. I could hear the door slam when she went out. And somehow I knew what had happened and that she’d seen Richard and me, or been told. I made my way to the game room and through the crowd and finally saw. It was so terrible, son. He was so beautiful and peaceful and all those holes. Torn up so badly. I still see him like that. I’ll never get it out of my head.”
“Wow.”
“Is right.”
“Jeez.”
“That, too. Cynthia got prison and I got you.”
Wylie worked a long while in silence, his croissant dough suddenly fascinating. He finished it and began another. The secret was the force: too much and the pastry would toughen when baked. “Why not adoption or abortion?”
“I thought about them, but not for very long. When I knew you were in there, everything changed. The world had flipped and then it flipped again.”
“You gave up skiing? Dreams. All of that?”
“Racing, not skiing.”
“But you gave it all up?”
“I changed. This will sound... well, I’m not sure how it will sound — but what I did with Richard was the most destructive and most wonderful thing I’ll ever do. I ruined lives. And gave you yours.”
Wylie felt a shudder pass through him. Like a seismic tremor, he thought, or a swell or a wave of sound. I am a simple moment in the rush of time, he thought. So much does not depend on me. So much is given and nonshedable, no matter the wars you fight or the miles you trudge or how fast you go down a mountain. I showed up. I am innocent. And I am connected, separate but part of. “Was I worth it, Mom?”
“You will never know...” Wylie watched the tears well in her eyes and an impossible-seeming smile come to her face. Still, her hands continued forming the thing to which they were devoted. “...how much I love you.”
Then he was tearing up because she was, and they met at the halfway point of the table and embraced. Laughter followed, soft and complicit within the smells of flour and coffee, steamed milk and tears.
Chapter Thirty-Two
After his mother had gone home and Beatrice and Belle had come in for the afternoon, Wylie traded his street clothes for sweats and running shoes. The weather had cleared and warmed slightly and there was still daylight enough for the long run down Highway 203 and back.
He jogged out and across the parking lot, to find Claude Favier standing on his tiptoes by the MPP, looking through one of the portholes. Since putting it on eBay, just seeing the MPP sank Wylie’s heart. It was as if there was a bright red FOR SALE sign on it, even though there was no such sign. Pride kept him from parading his need around town like that.
“Is he in there, Claude?”
Claude turned quickly. “Ah, Wylie! You have escaped. It looks very small inside.”
“Table for two,” he said, immediately regretting the pleasantry. He caught the knowing sparkle in Claude’s eyes.
“Why do you pull this vehicle around the town with you?” asked Claude.
“Because I like it.” The MPP had but thirty-four hours left on the eBay auction block. Midnight tomorrow. The best offer was $4,800, which was still $2,200 short of the six grand that he would end up paying for it. Sometimes the big offers come in fast at the end, he thought. Right? His secret hope of getting half enough for the new roof seemed frankly ridiculous now. He wiped a smudge off the door with the cuff of his sweatshirt. He wondered again how he could have been so loose with his money. He could have bought a used minitrailer for a few hundred dollars and called it a day. Jesse had told him as much.
Claude gave him a puzzled expression but kept his Gallic nose in the air, as if he might soon understand.
“What’s up, Claude?”
“I have brought something for you.”
Wylie looked to the posh silver Mercedes SUV parked beside his trailer. Claude smiled and raised his hands for Wylie to wait, then went to the SUV and touched the liftgate handle and up the liftgate rose, motor humming softly. “I have been thinking about the Mammoth Cup,” he called. “The Gargantua Mammoth Cup, I should say. And because of this, I went back through my many computer files to five years ago because I wanted to know precisely what Chamonix products were helping you to victory.”
“They were the CR Saber Threes, one eighties with the seventy-eight waist.”
“Yes! And what are you skiing now?”
“The same pair.”
“No! The Chamonix Saber racers have evolved since then, Wylie. Edges are slightly harder for the carve but not too hard for our Mammoth snow. So, for the arc to be proper, these skis require high skill. And body weight is factored, too, which you have. I truly believe the new Saber Five is the ski that you will prefer. Please, look at them.”
Claude stepped back from the SUV, drawing out the new Chamonix racers. They really do look like black sabers, thought Wylie — slender and elegant and purposeful. The Sabers were part of the Chamonix racing line, made for groomed but slightly softer western snow. Chamonix’s traditional red race trim was now splattered bloodlike across the lacquered black, reinforcing the saber idea. Pure aggression. Claude stood the skis beside him, one in each hand, then leaned one out. Wylie took it, registered the slightly greater heft of the racer compared to his earlier model, shook it sharply to gauge the flex.