The Neighbor Favor(61)
“Thanks for saying that,” she said. “I don’t blame my mom for wanting better for me. She wants me to have a secure life. She hates that I’m living on Violet’s couch. Don’t get me wrong, I love my sister and I’m grateful I have a place to crash but I do want a legitimate space of my own. In a few months I’ll have enough saved.” She shot him a rueful smile. “That means I won’t be your neighbor anymore.”
Nick felt a pang at her words. No longer living in the same building as Lily was what he should want. It would make their situation much less complicated. But he’d miss her.
“You and your family remind me of another family I met a while ago,” he said, thinking of the Davidses in Amsterdam. “I could tell that they genuinely loved each other. It was really wholesome.”
“You should hear Iris and Violet when they argue. They’re definitely the opposite of wholesome then.” She paused. “Do you and your family get together often?”
He shook his head. “I haven’t seen my parents in almost five years.”
Lily blinked. “Really?”
“I moved around a lot with the journalism gig right after college and hardly went home. A few years into the job, my mom called me from the hospital because she’d slipped at the nursing home where she worked and fractured her shoulder. She only needed money for the hospital bill, but I flew home to see her anyway. My dad was nowhere to be found and when he finally showed up, we got into an argument about him not being there for my mom when she needed him, and the fight upset her. That was the last thing I wanted, you know? She was already in a shitty situation and she really just wanted my dad. So I gave her what I could for the bill and left. My mom and I talk on the phone briefly every now and then, but her phone’s been disconnected for the past few months, so . . .” He trailed off and glanced away. “My family isn’t like yours.”
“Not wholesome, you mean?”
“Not good,” he said. “With the exception of my mom sometimes.”
She tilted her head, waiting for him to elaborate.
“I . . .” He leaned back against the wall, aware that she was watching him alertly. He didn’t want to tell her the horrible truths about his family. But he’d already started to, and as always whenever he talked to Lily, he felt things pouring out of him that he didn’t mean to say.
“Nobody knows where my grandfather—my biological grandfather, I mean—Maynard really came from,” he said. “He was a drifter who got drafted to the Vietnam War, and while he was there, he met a man named Cassius, and they became friends. Cassius told Maynard all about his life growing up in a small town in North Carolina called Warren, and Cassius showed Maynard pictures of his fiancée, Earnestine. He told Maynard about his life working at the steel mill and how he’d been planning to save up enough to buy himself and Earnestine a house before he’d been drafted. As soon as he left Vietnam, he and Earnestine were going to be married. Maynard didn’t have many stories of his own. As a kid, he’d moved around from relative to relative. He wasn’t stable in the way that Cassius was. But despite their differences, they became good friends and learned to depend on each other. Or at least that’s what people say.”
He paused and glanced over at Lily. She was staring, listening in rapt attention.
“Cassius was a decent soldier, but Maynard wasn’t,” Nick continued. “I’m sure being in the Vietnam War was fucking terrifying, so I don’t blame him for wanting to escape. But he shot himself in the foot and was sent home. He had nowhere to go and nowhere to be, so he went to Warren, North Carolina, the same town Cassius had told him about. And when Maynard arrived, he found Earnestine.” Nick took a deep breath, then sighed. “The story goes, Maynard wormed his way into Earnestine’s life, seduced her and got her pregnant. Then he left, and no one ever saw him again.”
“Oh my God,” Lily said quietly.
“Cassius came home from the war to a fiancée who was pregnant by someone he’d come to think of as a best friend. Warren is a small town, smaller than small. Everybody knows everybody’s business. So the whole town knew about what happened. Cassius still married Earnestine because he was noble, at least he was back then. But when the baby—my dad—was born, Cassius ignored him and if he wasn’t ignoring him, he was berating him for one thing or another. Cassius worked at the steel mill until he died from a stroke when my dad was a freshman in high school. As far as I know, my grandmother, Earnestine, was a cold person. She never really got over the shame of what happened to her, especially in a small town like that, and I guess my dad reminded her of that shame. She died a couple years before I was born. I feel bad that she never really had a chance to live a happy life.”
Lily was still quiet, completely focused on Nick. He slumped down, his legs stretching across the edge of her bed.
“Anyway, my dad hated Warren. He hated that everyone knew the story about his parents. He spent his whole life wanting to get away, and he almost did leave on a basketball scholarship. But then he got hurt and ended up working at the same steel mill as his stepdad. He kept trying to find ways to get money and escape. That’s when he started gambling, which led to the drinking, and it just got worse over time, I guess. My mom didn’t really have family of her own, so when she met my dad in high school, she clung to him. They have a kind of connection that I could never really understand. He lies to her. He steals from her. He’s stolen from me. But she stays.”