“No walk,” she said. “Later.”
The dogs-all rescue dogs adopted before his death by her husband, a softhearted veterinarian-continued to wag, even though she knew they just might understand the reason for the delay. Dogs are like that, she thought. They know when you’re happy. They know when you’re sad.
It had been some time since anyone would have used the word happy to describe the house.
“Andrea,” Andy Candy’s mother said out loud, in a tired tone that reflected nothing but futility. “I’m coming.” She said this, but she didn’t budge from the piano bench.
The phone rang.
She thought she should not answer it, although why she could not have said. Instead, she reached out for the receiver and at the same moment looked over at the three dogs and pointed down the hallway to where she knew her daughter was suffering. “Andy Candy’s room. Right now. Try to cheer her up.”
The three dogs, displaying an obedience that spoke to her late husband’s ability to train animals, jumped from the couch and scrambled down the hallway enthusiastically. She knew if the door was shut, they’d bark and the pug-poodle hybrid would get up on his hind legs and start to paw frantically in Let me in insistence. If it was ajar, the mutt, the biggest of the three, would shoulder the door aside and they would all make a beeline for her bed. Good idea, she thought. Maybe they can make her feel better.
Andy Candy’s mother spoke into the phone. “Hello?”
“Mrs. Martine?”
“Yes. Speaking.”
The voice on the other end seemed strangely familiar, although a little uncertain and perhaps shaky.
“This is Timothy Warner…”
A surge of memory and a little pleasure. “Moth! Why, Moth, what a surprise…”
A hesitation. “I’m, umm, trying to reach Andrea, and I wondered if you could give me her number at school.”
A brief silence filled the air when Andy Candy’s mother didn’t instantly reply. She made a mental note that Moth, who wore his own nickname proudly, had often used her daughter’s actual name in past years. Not always, but frequently he had employed the formal Andrea, which had elevated his status in the eyes of Andy Candy’s mother.
“I heard about Doctor Martine,” he added cautiously. “I sent a card. I should have called, but…”
She knew he wanted to say something about colon cancer death, but there was nothing really to say. “Yes. We got it. It was very thoughtful of you. He always liked you, Moth. Thank you. But why are you calling now? Moth, we haven’t heard from you in years!”
“Yes. Four, I think. Maybe a little less.”
Four of course went back to shortly before the day her husband died. “But why now?” she repeated. She wasn’t sure whether she needed to be protective of her daughter. Andy Candy was twenty-two years old, and most people would have considered her a grown-up. But the young woman sobbing away in the back room seemed significantly closer to a baby this day. The Moth she had known a few years back wasn’t much of a threat, but four years is a long time, and she didn’t know what he had become. People change, she thought, and she’d been surprised by the out-of-the-blue voice on the other end of the line. Would a call from her daughter’s first real boyfriend help her or hurt her right about now?
“I just wanted…” He stopped. He sighed, resigned. “If you don’t want to give me her number, that’s okay…”
“She’s home.”
A second brief silence.
“I thought she’d be finishing up the semester. Doesn’t she graduate in June?”
“She’s had a setback or two.” Andy Candy’s mother thought this was a neutral enough description to describe a sudden, unplanned pregnancy.
“So have I,” Moth said. “That’s sort of why I wanted to speak with her.”
Andy Candy’s mother paused. She was listening to an equation in her head. More than something mathematical, it was a musical score to accompany runaway emotions. Moth had once played major chords in her daughter’s life, and she wasn’t at all sure that this was the right time to replay them. On the other hand, Andy Candy might be legitimately furious when she discovered that her once-upon-a-time boyfriend had called and her mother had blocked the conversation out of some misguided sense of protection. She did not know exactly how to respond and so she came up with a mother-safe compromise. “Tell you what, Moth. I’ll go ask her if she will speak with you. If the answer is no, well…”
“I’d understand. It wasn’t like we split on the best of terms anyway, all those years ago. But thank you. I appreciate it.”
“Okay. Hold on.”
If I promise to never ever ever kill anything or anyone again, will you leave me alone? Please.
Don’t make a promise you can’t keep, killer.
The dogs were suddenly crowding Andy Candy just as they had been ordered. They tried to get to her face under the covers, nosing aside pillows and blankets, eager to lick away her tears, irrepressible in their dog-enthusiasm. The Inquisitor within her seemed to lurk back into some inner shadow as she was besieged by snuffling, odorous, pawing demands for attention. She cracked a small smile and stifled a final sob; it was hard to be miserable with affectionate dogs nudging against her, but at the same time it was hard not to be miserable.
She didn’t hear her mother at the door until she spoke. “Andy?”
Instant, automatic reply: “Leave me alone.”
“There’s a phone call for you.”
Bitter, expected answer: “I don’t want to talk to anyone.”
“I know,” her mother replied gently. Hesitation. Then: “It’s Moth. Of all people to call now…”
Andy Candy inhaled sharply. In milliseconds she was flooded with memories, good, happy ones vying against sad, tortured ones.
“He’s on the phone, waiting,” her mother repeated unnecessarily.
“Does he know…” she started, but she stopped because she knew the answer to her question: Of course not.
This was one of those moments, Andy Candy instantly understood, where if she said No or Get his number, I’ll call him back or Tell him to call me sometime later, whatever reason he had that made him call her right then would evaporate and be lost forever. She was uncertain what to do. The rush of her past captured her like a strong current pulling her away from the safety of the beach. She remembered laughter, love, excitement, adventure, some pain and some pleasure, then anger and a different kind of heartsick depression when they’d split up. My first high school love, she thought. My only real love. It leaves a deep mark.
A large part of her said: Tell her to tell him, “Thanks but no thanks. I have more than enough pain in my life right now, if you please.” Tell her to say I just want to be left alone. No other explanation is necessary. Then just hang up. But she did not say this, or any of the thoughts that reverberated around within her.
“I’ll take it,” she said, surprising herself, pushing herself up, scattering dogs to the floor, and reaching for the phone.
She lifted the receiver to her ear, then stopped and stared fiercely at her mother, who immediately retreated back down the hallway and out of earshot. Andy Candy took a deep breath, wondered for an instant whether she could speak without letting her voice crack, and finally whispered softly, “Moth?”
“Hi, Andy,” he said.
Two words, spoken as if from miles and years away, but both distance and time collapsing in an instant, racing together explosively, almost as if he were suddenly standing in the room beside her, stroking her cheek. She raised her free hand reflexively, as if she could actually feel his against her flesh.