The Grown Ups Read online

  Every evening after skating Sam made drinks: herbal tea for his mother and coffee for him. His mother looked through seed catalogs and made notes on a yellow legal pad for a future garden. Sam listlessly flipped through a stack of magazines that bore Tom’s name on the labels: Poets & Writers, Farmer’s Almanac, The Atlantic, Bon Appétit. Their feet, clad in heavy socks, shared an old footstool covered in woven strips of fabric, and the only sound came from the radio tuned to NPR. At first, Sam slipped into his mother’s life, hoping she wouldn’t notice he was an interloper. Yet he could tell from the way he caught Tom staring at him at breakfast sometimes that he had plenty of questions for Sam, but out of respect for Elizabeth, he didn’t ask.

  After two weeks where the sameness of his days and nights had begun to wear, Sam was restless. He couldn’t continue to hide there. But he didn’t know what to do. Frankly, he was surprised by his mother’s lack of prying into his future. “Mom?”

  “Hmmm?” She didn’t even glance up from the catalog in her lap.

  “Don’t you want to know? Aren’t you even curious?”

  She stopped writing, her pencil poised above the pad. “About?”

  Sam exhaled in a fit of frustration. Vermont was too quiet. His mother’s world was too quiet. He hated the way people enunciated on NPR. He could not take another night like the previous six. “Can we stop this?” He gestured around the room, claustrophobic from her full new life.

  “What, Sam? You came here. I opened my home. I figured you would tell me if you wanted.” She shrugged, seemingly perfectly willing to allow him his secrets.

  Sam stood up and paced the small room. “I should have known.”

  “What should you have known?”

  “Uh, okay. You left, remember?”

  “Of course, I remember. I’m not following you, Sam. If you want me to understand something, you need to tell me.” She put down the pencil and the catalog. “It’s about school?”

  “Well, Christ. You already know?” If she knew what he was running away from, why hadn’t she said anything? Why was she refusing to be his parent?

  She shook her head. “I know you’re supposed to be in school and obviously you aren’t.”

  Sam nodded. “I’m not going back.” He looked over at her to gauge a reaction.

  His mother didn’t so much as blink. “It sounds like you’ve already made a decision. Why are you so angry?”

  “You really did give up everything, didn’t you? You walked out the door and you just gave up mothering? Is that really all you have to say to me? That I made the decision?” Sam was pacing the room now, his voice rising. It was hot, way too hot. The woodstove was stifling.

  “You are twenty-one years old. If you don’t want to finish school, you don’t want to finish school. What am I supposed to do?”

  “BE MY MOTHER!” Sam’s voice bounced off the walls, so he lowered it to add, “Fuck.”

  “Hey—everything okay?” Tom leaned against the doorframe. He had a bulging canvas bag full of papers and books slung over his shoulder. He was still wearing his coat and boots and he was frowning, his brow creased. He must have heard Sam from outside. “Lizzie?”

  “We’re fine,” Sam’s mother said.

  Tom looked at Sam for confirmation and he nodded back, offering a weak “Sorry.”

  Tom gave Sam another, longer look but then turned and left the room. Sam could hear him climb the stairs and walk around the bedroom up above them. The toilet flushed and the springs of the bed creaked.

  “I should go,” Sam said. “I wasn’t thinking when I came here.”

  “Sit down, please. Can we start again?” his mother asked gently.

  “I don’t know what more there is to say,” Sam said, but he did as she asked. He looked over at his mother. She was resting her head against the high back of her chair. Her lids were heavy. She was up at four every morning and she had to have been tired, sitting here at night keeping him company. Her hair, in a thick braid, was flipped over one shoulder. Sam blinked, trying to remember what she looked like years ago. But he couldn’t find the image in his memory bank.

  “You were always the easier baby, the easier kid. Michael felt everything so deeply. Even as an infant. You were a relief and a joy.” She hesitated, so Sam waited to see where this was going. He certainly had nothing to add. “So maybe I took advantage of your easiness. In you, I saw your father. In Michael, me. I thought you would be okay. That Hunt would be better for you anyway. Michael was done. He was gone. He knew what he wanted.”

  “That sounds like a bullshit excuse that made it easier for you to leave.”

  “Maybe, but it wasn’t.” She hesitated and licked her lips. “Are you trying to say that you can’t finish college because I left? Or that I somehow made college difficult?”

  Sam shook his head, a little ashamed that he’d tried to blame her. “No.”

  “Okay, then,” she said quietly. “Okay.”

  Sam shrugged. “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “You get to start over here? You get to make a new life with someone closer to your sons’ ages than your own? Are you going to have babies again? What is this all about?”

  Sam’s mother leaned forward and gripped the arms of the chair, a small smile on her lips. “I am very protective of this life,” she said. “But there is no such thing as starting over. Everything that makes me who I am, who you are, began at birth. You cannot lose that, and you cannot escape that. You take it with you.” She paused and pointed a finger at Sam. “Our problems aren’t the same, Sam. Why does it bother you how old Tom is? We are committed. Age doesn’t mean so much now.”

  Sam felt heat rise to his cheeks and the prick of tears in the corners of his eyes.

  “It might matter to him one day,” he said huffily, regretting the words when he saw her flinch.

  “Perhaps,” she said with enough weight behind the word that he knew she thought about that.

  “I don’t care. I don’t care about any of this.” Sam stood up, his fists clenched. He bit the inside of his mouth hard to stop the tears. “Sleep with whoever you want. That’s what happened with Mr. Epstein, right?”

  His mother slumped back against the chair. “I may have done some stupid things. Questionable things. But I didn’t sleep with him.” She paused. “He wasn’t the reason why I left. But he helped it along. I hadn’t been happy.”

  Sam put his hand up. “Don’t tell me: Dad was ruining your life.”

  “Sam, no. Not at all. I was ruining his.” She paused. “But then I suppose I didn’t lead you to believe anything different. It was easier to make you think Hunt was the bad guy without saying anything at all.”

  “I never believed it was Dad’s fault.”

  His mother looked a little surprised by Sam’s confession, which just confused him even more. So she wanted them to think it was Hunt’s fault but then when he said he never did, she was hurt? Sam couldn’t stand to hear another moment of this. “I’m going to bed.” He turned and headed out of the room. The hallway was freezing and he stopped and leaned against the cool plaster walls. He heard his mother come up behind him. “I just wanted my mother, that’s all,” Sam mumbled against the wall. “I just wanted to see you.”

  “Sammy—”

  Sam pushed himself away from the wall and pulled himself up the stairs by the banister. “It’s all good. Seriously. ’Night, Mom.” He took the stairs two at a time and slipped inside the unwelcoming, narrow guest room and fell onto the bed. He waited until he heard his mother’s footsteps on the stairs, the clank of the water pipes, the flush of the toilet, and then he waited some more. When he opened the door he could hear Tom’s low voice, a sigh, and then later the soft snort of his mother, a heavier rattle from Tom. Quickly, he grabbed his backpack up off the floor and then yanked open the one dresser drawer that held a few of his possessions, cramming them all into the bag before pulling hard on the drawstring.

  He was briefly paralyzed o
n the top step, his backpack straps tightened across his shoulders. He listened for the rhythm of Tom’s snores and ran down the steps so that the creak of the wood was hidden in the sounds. He was too far down the road toward the center of town before he remembered to take one last look back, and by then it was too late.

  In his wallet Sam had an emergency credit card from his father and thirty-seven dollars in cash. The bus ticket to Boston ate up thirty-six dollars, and the coffee he’d had with his mother kept him awake. The bus was full, an odd mix of travelers, and most of them slept save for an older man across from Sam who rattled a sandwich bag on his lap, folding and unfolding the waxy creases, occasionally taking from the bag a saltine cracker that he ate thoughtfully, slowly, as if he was savoring each bite.

  Sam refused to use the credit card, so he trudged through the slushy streets until he found Michael’s apartment in the attic of a crumbling brownstone. Lucky for him, he’d happened across his brother’s address scrawled on an envelope on his mother’s desk. The neighborhood had narrow streets, parking laws that only a veteran cop could figure out, and a variety of ethnic restaurants that papered the nearby buildings with menus. Years before, Sam and his father had helped Michael move in, driving a U-Haul full of cast-off furniture from home. On a steamy August weekend they had set up his couch, his bed, a table and chairs, and a desk. They had gone to the grocery store and filled the refrigerator and at the end of the day they had sat on his small fire escape and grilled hamburgers as if Boston had transformed the three of them into an all-American family unit.

  The double doors of the building were wedged open with a brick. Sam climbed the stairs to the top, the heat hitting him in layers. By the time he had arrived at Michael’s door he had removed his coat, hat, and gloves.

  He had barely knocked when the front door swung open. Suzie Epstein stood in front of him in an oversized cardigan sweater, a Harvard T-shirt, and skinny black pants. “My God, Sam! Everyone has been crazy worried about you!” She threw her arms around his shoulders. Sam had his coat clutched against his chest, so he leaned forward from the waist, finding his face in her hair, nearly nuzzling her neck.

  Suzie let go of him as fast as she had attached herself to him and pulled him inside the apartment. Sam took a quick look around. Books and papers fanned over the couch and onto the coffee table. A mug of unidentifiable liquid and a plate of comma-shaped crusts were also on the coffee table, next to a stack of Post-it notes. The television was on, but muted.

  Suzie followed his glance. “I’m a mess when I study. I like to spread out.” She shrugged almost sheepishly. “Michael isn’t here. He’s at the hospital.” She chewed her bottom lip. “He’ll want to know right away that you’re here, though. Maybe I should leave a message.”

  Sam shook his head. “No, forget about it. I’m not going anywhere.” He could see down the short hall to the bedroom. There was a large pile of clothes on the floor and the bed was a twisted pile of sheets and blankets. Suzie was watching him when he turned back to her and asked, “Can I use the bathroom?”

  She nodded and pointed down the hall. Sam closed the door and sat down on the edge of the tub to think. The bathroom didn’t have a window and the air was moist. A rubber duck sat on the ledge next to a bottle of bubble bath.

  Sam turned on the bathtub faucet and splashed water on his face. The back of his skull was beginning to tighten and hum from lack of sleep. He closed his eyes, just for a moment.

  When Suzie knocked at the door Sam jerked awake. “Sam? You okay?”

  Sam looked down. The tub was clogged, so the water wasn’t draining. He twisted off the water, then slipped the duck off his perch and watched him bob around.

  “Sam?” This time Suzie tried the knob. Sam hadn’t locked it and she came right in. “Sam?” she said again. She didn’t seem surprised to see him on the edge of the tub.

  “Hey,” he said weakly. “I’m pretty tired.” Suzie’s face looked fuller, and her hair was way past her shoulders. Sam slipped his hands beneath his thighs.

  “Of course. You can crash in the bedroom. I have class in twenty minutes, so I’m leaving. It will be quiet.”

  “Do you live here?” Sam asked.

  Suzie took a step back. “No.”

  “You stay here?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “You just didn’t happen to run into Michael a few weeks ago, did you?”

  She gave him a little half smile. “Well, we did run into each other that way. But it wasn’t a few weeks ago.”

  “How long ago was it?”

  She bit her lip. “Eight months ago.”

  “Wow. So you guys just clicked, huh?” Sam attempted indifference even though he was burning with curiosity.

  Suzie’s cheeks flushed. “Sam, we should have talked about this. Or I should have told you I was coming home with Michael. I know it’s a little weird. But, Sam—we were babies.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What you and I did when we were fifteen has nothing to do with my relationship with Michael.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I mean . . .” Suzie swallowed hard. “I had feelings for you, sure. I hated to leave you.”

  “But you gave me a hell of a going-away gift. One that my brother seems to know nothing about.”

  “What does it matter now?” Suzie whispered.

  She took a step closer.

  Sam grabbed her hand. She didn’t pull back. “Does Michael know what we did in your basement?”

  She shook her head. Her eyes were huge, liquid. He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it and she did not squirm away. He kissed it again, harder. And then Sam took his tongue and pressed it against her palm. He heard her sharp intake of breath and thought he could probably kiss her mouth, maybe even slip his hand up beneath her Harvard T-shirt to cup her breast.

  But when he looked up at Suzie there were tears streaming down her cheeks. Sam dropped her hand and stood up. Without a word he walked out of the bathroom and across the hall to the bedroom and shut the door in her face.

  Sam woke up in his brother’s bed with the realization that Suzie slept there with Michael. He stretched his arm beneath the pillow and his fingers found an abandoned hair tie. He pulled it out and examined the strands of thick, dark hair before he tossed it onto the floor. He had been an idiot to think Suzie Epstein had been pining away for him because they’d enjoyed some fun times in her basement.

  Sam rolled over and reached for the phone and called his dad. The phone rang and rang. Sam pictured the kitchen, the garbage overflowing with takeout containers, the empty lounge chair in front of the TV where his dad fell asleep most nights still dressed in his work clothes. He let the phone ring until the machine picked up, and then he thought to look at his watch. His father was most likely at work. He dialed the office number and waited for the voice mail. “Dad,” Sam said as his voice echoed into the receiver. “I’m at Michael’s.”

  After he hung up he dialed Bella’s number. She picked up on the second ring.

  Sam dropped the phone when he heard her voice. He fumbled with the receiver and slammed it down before she said anything else.

  In the kitchen Sam found a canister of beans and a grinder, stale Italian bread, and a container of curried chicken that looked too old to reheat. He made coffee using a paper towel for a filter, toasted the bread, and stood over the sink peering out the triangle-shaped window tucked up under an eave. The view was all angles and rooftops. Sam heard the front door open and close, a bag drop, and then the heavy shuffle of someone who was dead tired. He didn’t have to turn around to know it was Michael.

  “Dude,” Michael said slowly, “what the fuck is up?”

  Sam turned around to see him pouring a cup of coffee. Michael raised his mug in greeting and then his face disappeared as he drank.

  “I guess you were right,” Sam said. “I should have just talked to Dad.”

  “Everyone deserves the right to disappear, I guess.” Michael sighed and ran a h
and through his hair, but he looked unconvinced. “At least once.” He leaned back against the counter, crossed his ankles, and looked at Sam. “But you could have called.”

  Sam had not expected this response at all. He’d thought Michael would come in guns blazing, calling Sam a loser. This probably meant that Michael had told their father about Sam flunking out of school. “You told him?”

  “I had to.” Michael shrugged. “I wasn’t going to, but he had no idea where you were or what you were doing.” He paused. “I had to give him a reason. You could have been dead. You could have done something stupid, he didn’t know. I mean, what the fuck, Sam?”

  “Did Mom call?”

  “I called her.”

  “But she didn’t say anything?”

  “No.” Michael shook his head. “She didn’t give you up.”

  Sam shrugged. Apparently Bella had kept that secret as well.

  “I think you may have fucked things up with the father of your girlfriend, though; no one likes to see his daughter upset.” Michael gave Sam a strange look. “Bella said the last thing she knew you were heading to see Dad.”

  “She’s not—” Sam stopped. Why was he denying that he had treated Bella like a girlfriend? What was the point? He had made a mistake thinking Suzie still thought of him. He had treated Bella like she was his second choice, when that wasn’t the case at all. But now he had screwed that up too. “We’re not together.”

  “Not now you’re not.” Michael snorted. He tipped the mug to his face, finished his coffee, and set the mug in the sink. “Should we go get a bite? Come on. I’m starved.” Michael turned and Sam followed him because he seemed to leave no other choice.

  At the diner they were served massive plates of food that both of them barreled through as if it was their first meal in days. When Michael was done, his plate wiped of any edible residue, he pushed it into the center of the table and leaned back against the red Naugahyde booth. “Fuck, medical school is going to kill me.” He shrugged. “Residency is going to be a cakewalk if I survive the next year of med school.