The Grown Ups Read online

  When they got to the open trunk Sam saw why Mindy looked upset. The cake was an enormous rectangle, larger than a carry-on suitcase, with a portrait of Suzie and Leo in fluorescent shades of frosting. Suzie’s hair was the color of a bad clown wig and the frosting had been whipped and tufted so that it looked as if she had been caught in a windstorm. The top of Leo’s head bore a line of frosting buttons in cobalt that gave the appearance of cornrows. The colors reminded Sam of the cake for Suzie’s fifteenth birthday, the chunks that had ended up floating in her pool after the food fight that they had missed.

  “Holy shit,” Peter said. “What the hell is that?”

  Mindy looked as if she was about to cry. “I gave them a picture. I said colorful. They said they knew exactly what I wanted. When we went to pick it up . . .” Her bottom lip trembled.

  Peter pressed a hand against her lower back and rubbed. “Aw, come on, Mindy. Leo is too little to remember, and Suzie will laugh.”

  “But I didn’t want a funny cake,” Mindy wailed as Ruthie got out of the car and slammed the door.

  “Okay, the best they will do is offer us some plain ten-inch rounds in exchange. But they want this cake returned.” She looked down at the cake and winced as if she were seeing it for the first time. “For fuck’s sake, was this done by a blind person?”

  Mindy stifled a sob.

  Sam said, “Come on, let’s lift this out of the car and carry it into the house. It’s too hot outside, the frosting will melt.”

  “That would only help,” Peter said under his breath as they bent beneath the hatchback and slid the cake out. It was heavy, like raw cake batter and ten pounds of frosting heavy. They walked haltingly into the garage and through the side door into the kitchen.

  Marguerite was standing by the sink when they came in. Her face barely registered a thing as they set the cake down on the table, and she walked over for a look. She had a fantastic poker face.

  A quick look outside confirmed that Sam’s parents were still on the bench, just as Bella came into the kitchen trailed by Tom. The girls hugged and went over to examine the cake with Bella. Whatever she said had them laughing. Tom leaned against the counter with his arms crossed, and Marguerite sighed. Sam opened the refrigerator and slid out the platters of meat to bring them to room temperature.

  “Hey—beer’s here,” Peter said as he moved toward the glass doors. Sam looked up. Frankie had three cases of beer balanced against his chest. Peter went out and took the top case out of his arms and began breaking it apart and loading the beer into the cooler.

  Sam decided to start the grill. Out back, Frankie handed him a beer, and Sam gestured inside. “Give one to Tom.”

  Marguerite poked her head out the door into the backyard. “Suzie called, said they’d be here in half an hour.”

  Sam looked over his shoulder at her and smiled. He wished she would come outside, but he knew she didn’t want to interrupt his mother and Hunt. Sam had no idea if his father was even able to carry on a conversation. This morning he had decided again that Sam was Michael, even after Sam went upstairs to his room and retrieved the graduation photos off his dresser. Hunt had looked at Sam’s photo as if he had never seen him before in his life.

  Tom hovered behind Marguerite until Bella, Mindy, and Ruthie pushed past him into the backyard, forcing him to step onto the patio or be run over. From over the top of the opened grill Sam saw his mother raise her hand and gesture for Tom to come join them. When Tom reached them he extended his hand to Sam’s father, who pumped it hard, smiling as if he were running for mayor.

  “Here, do you need these?” Sam turned around. Marguerite was holding a pair of tongs and a long fork. She was whispering, as if afraid to be caught in her own backyard.

  Sam took them and placed them on the table. “You okay?”

  She nodded in response but her attention was obviously divided. “The other day I couldn’t find him. For over an hour. I drove around the neighborhood and finally went into town. He’s never done that before, just walked out of the house.”

  “Why didn’t you call me?” Sam imagined looking out from the restaurant and seeing his father strolling by. He wondered if his father would recognize him then.

  Marguerite picked up the tongs and held them up to the light before she set them down. “He was sitting at the bus stop bench on Main Street. He was wearing his slippers and the newspaper was tucked under his arm. When I pulled up he smiled at me and got into the car like he had been waiting for me all that time.” She chewed at her lip. “I was so mad and relieved I was crying. I try not to do that in front of him, you know? And he didn’t even notice. He told me it was hot and asked if we could stop and pick up some ice cream on the way home.”

  “Marguerite—”

  “Ice cream?” Marguerite paused. “At breakfast he had been so, so clear. He talked about Paradox and going fishing. He wanted you boys to come, and Leo. He wanted to show Leo. A part of him must know, right? That he won’t be here, mentally, anyway. But that morning, he was with me completely. I hate it. I hate it so much. I wish he would just lose his mind altogether and be done with it.” Her hand flew to her mouth and covered it, as if she could take back what she’d said. “My God, what is wrong with me?”

  Sam moved closer to her in an effort to shield her from everyone else. “Marguerite, let’s go inside.”

  “I don’t want to go inside, Sam.” He backed off; she looked over his shoulder at his father and mother. “What do you think they are talking about?”

  “It looks like my mother is doing most of the talking.”

  She shook her head; her face was red and her eyes watery. “I’m jealous. My God, I’m jealous.”

  “He loves you, Marguerite. He loves you more than—”

  She held her hand up and shook her head. “Don’t say that, Sam. Please, don’t. He doesn’t even know me anymore.”

  “Yes, he does,” Sam said. “He does.”

  Her chin trembled. It didn’t matter what Sam said to her and they both knew it.

  “I don’t know if we are going to be able to stay here much longer, Sam. I can’t watch him all the time. The house suddenly feels so big.” She took a deep breath, pressed her fingertips beneath her eyes, and backed away. “Oh my God, I need to get it together. Michael and Suzie are going to be here soon and I can’t be like this.”

  “Go.” Sam closed the lid of the grill. He glanced over at his friends lounging at the table by the pool. All around them were the balloons that Peter had tied to the chairs. They shimmered in the heat and floated above their heads.

  Celia walked past Sam with her guitar slung across her back. In her arms was a tiny peach-colored kitten. Behind her, Johnny Ross carried an animal carrier and Sam thought he glimpsed the pale pink ears of a rabbit. These must be the extra guests Sam wouldn’t have to feed.

  Sam went over and stood behind Bella, massaging her shoulders. “You hungry?”

  She leaned back in her chair and looked up at him. “Starved. You need help?”

  Sam shook his head. The truth was that he just wanted to touch her, to feel her beneath his hands, to know she was there. That was all. That was everything.

  Later that afternoon they sang “Happy Birthday” to Leo and Suzie, standing around the cake. Leo, from his perch on Suzie’s hip, had already reached down and grabbed two handfuls of Suzie’s frosting hair. He had smeared it across his cheeks in an attempt to get his fist into his mouth. Clumps had attached themselves to the tips of Suzie’s curls and on each of Michael’s shoulders like epaulets.

  A watery line of DayGlo orange spittle fell from Leo’s chin onto his bib as he squealed in chorus with their voices. Sam’s mother stood to his right, clutching Tom’s hand and singing loudly. Sarah Epstein stood beside Marguerite, who held the video camera with a shaky hand. Mr. Epstein, a surprise late arrival, stood by the hedges next to the back gate, unwilling to come any closer. There was a red tricycle at his feet with a blue bow attached to the handlebars. E
veryone seemed to be aware that he was there, but only Sarah Epstein had raised a hand in greeting.

  Frankie, Peter, and Mindy linked arms and kicked a chorus line, while Bella ended up singing their song when Celia forgot the words, and Johnny had to return the animals to their carriers because the cat and the rabbit had an uneasy relationship. Hunt clapped his hands out of time to their singing. He wiggled his fingers at Leo as if they had only just met.

  Sam shared a look with Suzie that went on a moment longer than it should have. Sam was thinking about Leo, and maybe Suzie had been too. That if they had not been together on that day she never would have made it to the hospital. Or maybe she had been thinking about that other birthday of hers they had shared, the box of photos and a bed in her basement so many years ago. Would they ever have gotten here without being there first? Sam was doubtful.

  They were here now, all of them. Relationships slightly re-arranged, but still together. That was more than any of them would have ever imagined years before. They had watched their parents stumble and vowed never to do the same, only to fail one another in entirely different ways. They experienced love, but they also caused disappointment and sorrow. They felt fear, and they knew loss. They ran away, only to return.

  The house sold in two weeks and the new owners wanted a fast closing. The wife was pregnant with their first child, and she hoped to be settled before the baby came.

  Marguerite and Sam’s father had moved into the condo before the house went on the market. They had taken with them everything that mattered, forcing Marguerite to choose the items she hoped would jog some part of Hunt’s brain.

  The new place was part of a housing complex where, as Marguerite put it, they let them experience the last stages of life by moving them ahead one room at a time as they ailed, like a macabre board game. Right now, because Marguerite was fully able and living with Sam’s father, they resided in a condo that had emergency call buttons in every room. They had day care for Hunt when Marguerite needed a break from trying to think for both of them. When Hunt became further incapacitated they could move to assisted living, with nursing care and meals included, or move just Hunt into a full-care nursing home, all there on the same grounds. Marguerite seemed too young for any of it, but she said there were a lot of women like her, and just a few men, willing to live out whatever days they had left with an incapacitated spouse.

  Before the move, it had become painfully obvious that the more Hunt realized something was changing, the more agitated he became. There had been days where he accused Marguerite of leaving him, and others when he had unpacked boxes as fast as Marguerite packed them. He didn’t know where he was going, only that he didn’t want to go.

  On one of the last days he was at the house, Sam’s father followed him to the garage. All that morning he had been thumbing through the newspaper, although Michael and the doctors had said Hunt had lost the ability to comprehend written words. Still he sat frowning at the paper, maybe more from memory than anything else.

  So it was a surprise when he followed Sam from the house into the garage. The garage was the last big clean-out before closing, and Sam had planned to do it with Michael later in the day. Hunt hadn’t been a fix-it guy but he had puttered, a stress reliever after a week spent behind a desk. There hadn’t been much from the rest of the house that had any emotional weight—most everything like that had been removed during the renovation—but Sam was somehow sure there were things there, of value to no one but him, that he might want to save.

  Hunt stood in the center of the room, staring at the fishing poles that were lined up against the wall and shuffling his suede moccasins back and forth on the cement floor. Sam had already told Marguerite he was bringing the poles up to Paradox to store them at the camp, but he had not gotten around to taking them down yet. He had intended to do it then, but something in the way his father was looking at the poles stopped him.

  “Do you fish?” Hunt asked Sam.

  “I do. You taught me.”

  “I did?” Hunt looked pleased. “Of course I did.” He put his hands on his hips and leaned over to take a closer look at the poles. “My father taught me.”

  “No, it was your mother.”

  Hunt grinned, exposing a flat expanse of puffy, fleshy gum. Michael had told Sam that with dementia, personal hygiene was one of the first things to go. And often Sam heard Marguerite asking Hunt, as if he were a child, if he needed help shaving or brushing his teeth. Now Hunt’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he laughed. “That was a trick. I tricked you.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes. I told you my father taught me. I guess you know me after all.”

  “I do.”

  “From where did you say?”

  Sam swallowed and cleared his throat. “Here. We know each other from the neighborhood.”

  “I don’t fish much anymore.”

  “I could take you. I know a great place up north.”

  “No, I don’t think so. But you should take the poles. Get some use out of them.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Hunt nodded, distracted, and glanced around the garage as if he was looking for something. “Of course I am.” He walked with purpose toward the tool bench, a mess of junk from old Christmas tree stands to coils of extension cords, mouse traps and rusty saws, a broken birdhouse that Sam had built in Boy Scouts, and boxes and boxes of screws, nails, and assorted paraphernalia.

  Sam watched his father. His clothes were too big; the khaki pants sagged in the ass despite a woven belt that cinched tight at his waist. He picked up random items from the bench and moved them from one place to another. When he was done he shoved his hands in his pockets and frowned down at the mess.

  “Can I help you find something, Dad?”

  Hunt spun around quickly, startled by Sam’s question. “I thought you left.”

  “No, still here. Are you looking for anything in particular?”

  His father ignored Sam’s question, instead turning his back and opening the many drawers underneath the tool bench. They were old and overstuffed, the runners warped and swollen, and he tried but failed to close a drawer all the way before he moved on to the next. When he was done there he stepped back and scratched the top of his head before he lunged for the step stool folded against the wall. But he couldn’t figure out how the lever worked and he fumbled around in frustration.

  Sam walked over and flipped the lock that held the step stool closed and then set it on level ground. He held on to the handle while his father climbed up the three steps and reached for a box on the shelf above the table. Sam took the box from his father’s hands and cleared a place for it on the table.

  Hunt stepped down and rubbed his hands together before he flipped back the four corners. He lifted out an old tin box decorated with silver bells. Sam recognized it: his mother had once used it for storing cookies. Hunt wrestled with the rusted lid until it popped open with an exhale of air. Sam watched his father as he pawed through the contents and smiled to himself as he picked out a tangle of fishing lures. He held them out to Sam. “You are going to need these if you take the poles.”

  “I can have them?”

  His father nodded vigorously, tufts of hair flapping against his scalp. “Of course. They go with the poles.” He pushed the tin in Sam’s direction.

  Sam held it carefully in his hands and looked inside. Among the clump of lures was a Christmas ornament Sam had made in the shape of a fish. The word DAD had been spelled out on the body with elbow macaroni, but now only one piece of pasta remained, looking as if it was on its way to dust. Underneath the ornament was a smaller frame made out of Popsicle sticks. In the center Sam had glued a picture of him and Michael standing on top of the sledding hill, an old flexible flyer between them. Sam was no more than five and was making a goofy pose, one hand on his hip, the other flashing a peace sign behind Michael’s head. For his part, Michael appeared to be suffering silently, a slight smile on his lips. The photograph had been in col
or, but now had cured to ocher. Sam actually remembered removing it from the avocado-colored refrigerator where his mother had Scotch-taped the photograph to the door. They had been making presents at school and he had dropped and broken the clay handprint that was to be his gift, so the teacher had suggested he bring a picture from home and she would help him make a substitute gift. How had something so minor lodged in the recesses of his brain?

  Sam held the frame out to his father. Hunt took it in his hands, casually running a finger over the photograph. He studied it for a long time before he tried to hand it back to Sam.

  Sam waved him away, but his father kept insisting, and now both of their hands were locked on the fragile frame. “You should keep this. I’ll just take the lures.”

  “No, you.” Sam’s father pushed the frame at him but still didn’t let go.

  Sam pushed back and his father looked him in the eye. It was a searching look, and Sam hoped for a glimmer of recognition. He held his breath, every muscle and fiber wanting that one moment. His father’s mouth was open, his face unshaven. Hair sprouted from his nostrils and ears. “Dad,” Sam said gently, “one of us is going to have to let go.”

  His father tightened his grip on the frame and laughed, as if all along they had only been playing a game. “Dad,” Sam ventured, slowly letting go of the frame. “Dad,” he tried again, a little more forcefully even though Hunt was staring at the picture and not paying any attention to Sam.

  Sam opened his mouth, afraid to let the moment pass without telling his father he loved him, that he wasn’t going anywhere, but Hunt spoke first. “My boys,” he said, gesturing with the frame toward Sam, “my boys.”

  Acknowledgments

  I am forever indebted to Jeanette Perez, who introduced an early draft of this book to Katherine Nintzel at William Morrow. Kate, wise and wonderful editor, asked all the right questions to get that fledgling baby draft to become The Grown Ups. A mention here seems hardly adequate when it comes to my brilliant agent, Carrie Kania. Her unwavering, unquestionable belief in my ability to spin words into stories continues to sustain me. For Greg Olear, exquisite writer and friend, who read the original draft, and then some: I owe you big-time. For the ladies of Beth’s Book Group: your support feels like a superpower. For everyone who so tirelessly promoted my last book: You changed my world. For Mom, Dad, Nick, and Holly, much, much love. Finally, for Hannah and Tessa, who make me want to be a better grown up, and for Frank, who still makes me feel like a kid.