Skylight Confessions (19 page)

"Sam is Sam," Meredith told Blanca. "He'll do what he does and we'll love him anyway. The way we always have."

Blanca nodded in agreement. Her shoulders were still shaking.

She wiped her eyes with the hem of her skirt. She hated her dress.

She'd been thinking of cutting her hair or changing her name. She was sick of being so good all the time. She was sick of being twelve.

"I'm taking this." Blanca grabbed the old sneaker box crisscrossed with tape and stuffed it into the duffel bag. "He told me he had all his treasures in it."

At the last minute Meredith took Sam's pillow and blanket.

Maybe he was cold.

"Good thinking," Blanca said. They looked at the collection of antique knives.

"Let's skip those," Meredith said. They actually laughed then.

When they went downstairs, Diana was waiting with a picnic basket. "Tell him I love him," she said. She had fixed two peanut-butter sandwiches, Sam's favorite when he was a little boy.

There was also a box of chocolate-chip cookies, some cans of beans and soup, a bag of rolls, and a large wheel of cheese appropriated from the caterer.

Blanca helped Daniel pack up the car. Meredith happened to spy John Moody out past the swimming pool. "I'll be right back."

Meredith walked past the tents. A dance floor had been laid out over the grass. John was wearing a good gray suit. Meredith had lived with them for almost two years and John Moody was a complete stranger to her. She felt she knew Arlyn better, though Arlyn had been gone for twelve years.

"I'm going to bring Sam some of his belongings. He needs time.

I think you should help him out financially," Meredith told John Moody. "If he's desperate for money it will make matters worse."

"Of course."

"I don't think he meant to push Cynthia. Sam isn't like that."

"Should I go with you?"

"Given your fight, I think it's better if I go."

John accepted this. He really didn't know what to feel. He had never hit anyone before, and he'd hit Sam hard. He hadn't known what to feel when Arlie was dying, either. He had come out to the lawn to this exact spot and he'd cried, even though George Snow was sitting at his wife's bedside. Now he stood here again, still lost.

"I don't know what to do," he admitted.

"It's a difficult situation." Meredith looked out past the trees.

There was the shape of a woman.

"You see her, don't you?" John Moody said.

"I think I see her because you do. If that makes sense. I see how you miss her."

"I didn't know that would happen. I wanted out of the marriage from the start."

"Do you think it's a time or a place or a person that keeps her here?"

"You're asking the wrong man. I have no idea. To be honest, I've tried everything I could to get rid of her, but she won't go. That's all I know. I know Sam wouldn't have turned out this way if she were still here. If you find him, can you tell him I didn't mean to hit him?"

Meredith went back across the lawn. When she reached the car, she saw that Blanca was in the backseat reading
Magic or Not?
The parrot was in a cage beside her, squawking.

"You are not going," Meredith told her.

Blanca noticed the diamond. "Wow."

"It's not what you think," Meredith said. "We're not engaged. It's a friendship ring. And please put a scarf over Connie's cage so he's not freaking out. Then you need to go back to the house. You're going to ruin that dress."

"I have to make sure that Sam is all right." Blanca took one of Sam's shirts and threw it over the cage and Connie quieted down.

Meredith turned to Daniel. "How could you let her get in the car?"

"I didn't let her. She sneaked."

"I'm going," Blanca insisted. "Our mother would have wanted me to."

"Good try," Meredith said. "You're still not going."

"But she would have. Any mother would." "She's got you there,"

Daniel said.

Meredith got into the passenger seat. "I give up. But if the place looks too shady, you're staying in the car."

They drove to New York in silence, listening to the radio.

Luckily, there wasn't much traffic. On Twenty-third Street they didn't have a single red light; Daniel drove so fast that Meredith couldn't make out whether or not the tearoom where she'd first seen John Moody was still there. The street where Sam was staying was nice, although his particular building looked run-down.

"It's not shady," Blanca said.

"Maybe I should go in first, make sure it's okay," Daniel said after they'd parked.

"It'll be fine," Meredith said. "Either way, we're going in."

They grabbed bits and pieces of Sam's belongings and trooped over to the dilapidated brownstone. The front door was unlocked; they took the stairs up to 4C and rang the bell several times. A young woman about Sam's age opened the door. She was wearing jeans and a sweater and had short, choppy black hair. She let them in without asking who they were or what they were doing; maybe it was so obvious the girl didn't have to bother. The family bearing belongings. They had the parrot with them, after all, which was muttering under cover of Sam's shirt,
You. You. You.

The apartment wasn't kept up — there were plates of food around and cups used as ashtrays and clothes and newspapers strewn about — but the space itself wasn't bad. There were two people asleep in the living room, rolled up in blankets. It was impossible to tell their age or sex or even if they were alive. The smell of smoke and sweat lingered.

"How do you afford the rent?" Daniel asked. It was a far better apartment than his place in New Haven.

"It was my grandmother's apartment," the girl who had opened the door said. "Rent-controlled. I lived with her and took care of her. When she died it became mine."

Sam was in the bedroom watching television. He was sitting on the bed, his back against the wall; he seemed nervous and jumpy even before they descended upon him.

"You brought her to this hellhole?" he said to Meredith when he saw Blanca. "Are you nuts?"

"How about a thank-you for dragging all your stuff here?"

Meredith said.

Blanca put an armful of Sam's neatly laundered clothes down and scrambled to sit beside him. Sam was pawing through his belongings. "My electric toothbrush," he said cheerfully.

"Is she your girlfriend?" Blanca wanted to know of the girl with the dark hair.

"Her name is Amy," Sam said.

Amy came to stand in the doorway. "I'm rescuing him."

Meredith turned and looked Amy over more carefully. She was slight and wore heavy black boots; her sweater had holes in the sleeves. Her face seemed lopsided. She was a serious person. Not pretty, exactly, but inspiring confidence.

"She thinks she can change me," Sam said, amused. "She doesn't understand that I'm doomed."

"Meredith's getting married," Blanca said. "Look at her ring."

"It's a friendship ring," Meredith told Sam.

All the same, Sam took her hand and studied the ring. "Kind of small," he said.

Meredith noticed the bruise on his face. His father at his wits'

end. The pushing match that was bound to come to something, but unfortunately it had come to this.

"I wish you were still at home," Blanca said to her brother.

"You'll have a new sib soon. Maybe it'll be a brother. I can easily be replaced."

"I'll hate it whatever it is," Blanca said glumly. "Brother or sister."

"You sound like me. Stop it. Aha!" Sam had taken the old shoebox Blanca had brought him out of the duffel bag. He set it on his lap. "Good you brought this. Now I can give you something that's meant for you. I was supposed to give it to you when you were grown up, but you're grown up enough."

Blanca sat shoulder to shoulder with her brother as he opened the treasure box. She'd always wanted to look inside. It was a jumble of odd things, letters and photos and little bones.

"My squirrel," Sam said. "William." "Yuck," Blanca said.

There was a photograph of their mother. Blanca held it up to the light. There were no photos around their house. It wasn't that sort of home. "Look at all her freckles."

"Seventy-four on her face," Sam said. "She told me. She'd counted them." He took out something wrapped in tissue and handed it to Blanca.

"Is this more squirrel bones?"

"Dragon bones. I kil ed him one night on top of the roof and his bones were made out of stars." "Very funny," Blanca said. "Really."

Meredith had taken the opportunity to check out the room.

There was a pipe and some marijuana on the bureau and several empty whiskey bottles. She opened a drawer. Underwear. Needles.

She wished this girl Amy more luck than they'd had in rescuing Sam.

"Stop doing that," Sam said when he noticed her snooping.

"You're not in charge of anything here, Merrie."

Blanca unwrapped the folded tissue Sam had handed over. Inside there was a strand of what appeared to be black marbles. She lifted them and found they were surprisingly warm to the touch.

"Mom's pearls," Sam said. "They got dusty."

Blanca held them up and blew on them. The black coating chipped away and flew off like ashes.

"They're so beautiful," Meredith said. "Look at the difference!"

They were cream colored, cloud colored, snow colored. "Don't cry," Sam warned his sister.

"I wasn't about to." Blanca made a face and stuck out her tongue.

But she did cry when it came time to leave. Daniel slipped Sam a hundred bucks when no one could see. "Not for drugs. For food."

"I am not a drug addict," Sam said. "I'm a recreational user."

Meredith was making up the bed with Sam's pillow and quilt.

The girl, Amy, was watching.

"He told me his mother was dead," Amy said. "Me? I'm not his mother. His mother died a long time ago. I'm nothing to him."

"You're something," Amy said. "A well-wisher."

The apartment was dark, shades drawn, but there was enough light coming in to allow them to see one another. "Me too," Amy said.

It was time for Meredith to leave. She hadn't rescued him, but she'd done all she could. She would just have to live with that.

Daniel was in the car waiting. Sam was on the sidewalk in his bare feet, his hair sticking up, cold in just a T-shirt and jeans. Blanca was beside him, her arms looped around him.

"We've got to go," Meredith told Blanca.

"Maybe I won't."

"Yeah, well, you have to," Sam said to his sister. "There are monsters on this street at night."

"Very funny." But Blanca looked around, nervous. "They eat little girls." "That isn't funny, Sam!"

Sam hugged Blanca, and watched her get into the car.

"Your father didn't mean to hit you," Meredith told him.

"I know that. He probably never meant anything. It was all unintentional, right?"

Meredith took out the cash John Moody had sent to his son. "He asked me to give you this."

"I don't think so, Merrie. Daniel lent me some money. My father doesn't owe me anything and I don't owe him. That's just the way it is. Give it back to him."

For the first time Sam sounded like a grown-up.

"So you're staying here?" Meredith asked. "You're sure?"

Sam nodded. Once he made up his mind about something, he wasn't easily moved. He'd been that way ever since he'd been a child.

"Then I'll have to accept your decision." Meredith would have done anything to save him. "Whether or not I like it."

"What are the odds I'll survive?" he said.

Meredith knew Sam didn't like to be touched, but she hugged him anyway. He was so thin she didn't expect him to be muscular, but maybe he was stronger than she'd thought. He didn't hug her back but he didn't pull away, either. "I'll miss you," Meredith said.

Sam laughed. "That wasn't the question. I mean it. What's your honest assessment?"

So she gave him the best odds she could. "Fifty-fifty. That's probably true for us all."

Sam nodded, pleased. "I'll take that. That's fine with me."

They didn't go directly home. Meredith made up her mind while they were driving through the Bronx. They went as far as Greenwich, then took the first exit they came to. Blanca was sleeping in the backseat, so exhausted she didn't budge until Meredith shook her shoulder.

"Bee, I want you to be my witness."

Blanca rubbed her eyes. The pearls were warm around her throat. They flushed a faint coral. "Okay. What's a witness?"

"When we get married we need one special person there with us."

"That's me," Blanca said.

They pounded on the door of the town notary, who was also the justice of the peace. He came down thinking someone had died.

His wife had already begun to collect his black suit from the closet.

"I'm sorry for your loss," the justice said.

"Oh, no." Daniel was apologetic. "It's a wedding we want."

They looked rumpled and somewhat desperate, so the justice of the peace agreed. His name was Tom Smith and he had performed so many marriages he could recite the service in his sleep.

Sometimes he did and his wife would lie in bed and listen to him, the whole service through, comforted that someone could know the words of love by heart.

After the ceremony the three went to celebrate at a diner that served breakfast twenty-four hours a day. Blanca phoned home to let her father and Cynthia know she was sorry to be so late but she was on her way.

"The party's still going on." Blanca was nearly falling asleep, exhausted from the day, but thrilled to have been a witness. "Do I have special responsibilities and duties now?" she asked Meredith when Daniel went to pay the bill.

"Nope. All a witness has to do is be there and remember."

"Fine," Blanca said. "I will."

They went out into the darkening air. It would rain later; they could feel it. Already there were beads of moisture on the leaves and the asphalt. But that was later; right now the sky was clear and endless. Even though she was overexcited, and had vowed to herself that she would stay up all night, Blanca fell asleep the minute they were back on the road. She dreamed of oysters and of pearls. She dreamed of men who could fly. She dreamed she was walking down a lane with a woman she didn't know who had something important to tell her but didn't speak the same language. By the time they got back to the house, the anniversary party was winding down. It was late. There were a few guests who had decided to jump into the pool, tipsy and fully clothed.