“Thanks, O’Neill,” Clay said. “You can always get a job as a maid if you flunk out of high school.”
Alec was staring at the laundry basket. There on top, neatly folded, was Annie’s old green sweatshirt. He picked it up, the folds coming undone, the worn fabric falling over his arm.
“You washed this?” He asked the obvious.
Lacey nodded. “It was on your bed.”
Alec lifted the sweatshirt to his nose and breathed in the scent of detergent. Lacey and Clay looked at one another, and he lowered the shirt to his side.
“Your mother wore this a lot, you know?” he explained. “So when I threw her things out, I kept it as a remembrance. It still smelled like her, like that stuff she used on her hair. I should have set it aside so you didn’t get it mixed up with the dirty clothes.” He tried to laugh. “I guess I can finally get rid of it.” He looked over at the trash can in the corner of the kitchen, but slipped the sweatshirt under his arm instead.
“It was right there with your dirty sheets,” Lacey said, her voice high. Scared and defensive. “How was I supposed to know it wasn’t laundry?”
“It’s all right, Annie,” he said, “it’s…”
Lacey stamped her foot, her face crimson. “I am not Annie!”
Alec quickly played his words back to himself. Yes, he’d just called her Annie. He reached for her shoulder.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
Lacey dodged his hand. “Next time you can do your own fucking laundry!”
Alec watched as she ran out of the room, and in a moment they heard her light, quick steps on the stairs, followed by the slamming of her bedroom door.
“You’ve done that a lot, you know,” Clay said quietly.
Alec looked at his son. “Done what? Called her Annie?” He frowned, trying to think. “No, I haven’t.”
“Ask her.” Clay nodded in the direction of the stairs. “I bet she could tell you how many times you’ve done it.”
Alec struggled out of his suit jacket and pressed his back against the car seat. He felt perspiration on his neck, across his chest. He tried to slow down his breathing. Keep it even. Stop gulping air.
He’d parked a little bit away from the rest of the cars in Cafferty High’s parking lot. He needed a few minutes to pull himself together before he could face people. Parents of Clay’s friends, he hadn’t seen in months. His teachers. Everyone who was going to want to talk to him and say wonderful things about his son. If he could just keep a smile on his face, say the appropriate thing at the appropriate moment. God, he was never going to make it through the next couple of hours. Damn it, Annie.
She used to talk about seeing her kids graduate. As much as she tried to pretend that Lacey’s and Clay’s accomplishments were immaterial, she took pride in everything they did. She would have thrown a huge celebration for Clay’s graduation. She would have hooted and hollered her way through the ceremony to make sure Clay knew she was there. Annie is one intense mother, Tom Nestor had said to him once, and he was right. Annie always tried to give her children the things she had never received from her own parents.
Her parents did not go to her graduation from the exclusive high school she’d attended in Boston. “We would have been proud to come if you’d kept your grades up,” her father had told her. “But losing your membership in the National Honor Society during your last semester of school is inexcusable.”
Her parents had been very wealthy. They’d groomed Annie to fit into their social circle, to date the sons of their well-connected friends and acquaintances. When she failed to meet their expectations, which she did often, either by accident or design, they punished her by withholding their love. When Alec pictured her childhood, he saw a little girl with unruly red hair sitting alone in the corner of her room, teary-eyed, hugging a teddy bear. Annie had never described that scene to him, yet it had been vivid in his mind from the night he first met her and learned how desperately she needed to be loved.
Annie’s response to her upbringing was to criticize nothing in her children, to love them unequivocally. “I wouldn’t care if they were so ugly people couldn’t look at them without getting sick, or so dumb they could never learn to count to ten,” she’d said. “They’d still be my precious babies.”
Alec could see her making that little speech as she kneaded bread dough in the kitchen, and in his memory she was wearing the green sweatshirt, sleeves pushed up high on her arms, the fabric over her left breast smudged with flour.
The sweatshirt. Why had that hit him so hard? It was only his imagination that it still smelled like her, but when he saw it lying on the pile of laundry he’d felt as if he’d lost her all over again.
“Grow up.” He said the words out loud to himself as he picked up his camera and stepped from the car. The air was sticky hot, with a breeze that ballooned the sleeves of his shirt. He would think about the lighthouse. Or windsurfing. He had to get through this for Clay’s sake.
“Alec?”
He turned to see Lee and Peter Hazleton walking toward him. The parents of Clay’s girlfriend, Terri. He hadn’t seen them since the memorial service for Annie.
“Hi!” He manufactured what he hoped was a great smile.
Peter slapped his back. “Big day, huh? My camera’s out of commission. Take a few of Terri for us, okay?”
“Clay would never forgive me if I didn’t.” He spotted Lacey on the lawn with a group of girls. “I’m going to get my daughter and find a seat,” he said, pleased for the escape.
It shocked him every time he saw Lacey these days. He wished he could see Annie again to compare their faces and mark the differences. Maybe it would put an end to this jolt he felt every time he saw his daughter. She looked more like Annie than Annie had. He felt awkward with her. He could no longer look at her for more than a few seconds without feeling an overwhelming sadness.
He called to her and she walked over to him, looking alternately at the ground or the sky, steadfastly avoiding his eyes. He hadn’t seen her since the explosion in the kitchen that afternoon. “Let’s find our seats,” he said to her now, and she followed him without speaking.
Clay had reserved two seats for them in the front row. Alec sat between Lacey and a heavyset woman who was perspiring profusely and who squeezed his thigh with her own. He shifted a little closer to Lacey and could smell smoke in her long hair. She was only thirteen. Damn.
He pulled his camera out of the case and started to change the lens. Lacey stared straight ahead at the empty wooden platform, and Alec knew it was up to him to break the silence.
“I’m sorry I called you Annie, Lace,” he said.
She shrugged, her response to the world. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Well, yeah, it does. Clay says that’s not the first time I’ve done it.”
She shrugged again, her gaze dropping to the dry patch of lawn in front of their chairs.
“I overreacted about the sweatshirt.”
She turned her head away from him. She was rocking slightly, as though she heard a beat he couldn’t hear.
“When does summer school start?” he asked, struggling to engage her, but just then Clay appeared in front of them. He was already in his blue cap and gown, and a film of perspiration lined his forehead. “Aren’t these great seats?” He held out his hand and Alec shook it, the gesture making him feel old. Clay reached inside his gown and took the battered notecards from his pants pocket. He handed them to Alec. “Hold these for me. I don’t want to rely on them.” He tugged a long strand of his sister’s hair. “How’re ya doin’, O’Neill?”
Lacey shrugged. “’Kay.”
Clay glanced behind him. “Better get to work,” he said, and he turned and walked back toward the stage.