It was easier to figure out the details of adulthood: where to own a house, what to wear. How joy should feel was a complete mystery to me. All I ever felt, to be honest, was scared.
By the time Charlie was old enough to ask, I told him his father had died of a heart attack while skiing, a complete fabrication. I even saw the event in my imagination: Patrick, in Vuarnet sunglasses and some fancy ski outfit, falling into fresh snow at a luxury Colorado resort.
I’d never been skiing.
Whitney had kept my secrets.
* * *
—
“YOU’RE FINE, LIZEY,” REPEATED Whitney. She tended to repeat herself when she was tipsy.
“I know,” I said. Whitney leaned over to hug me, and it felt so wonderful, I almost cried. I had stopped dating years ago. It was too confusing, a distraction. There might be time for my heart later, when Charlie was in college. A deep part of me hoped so.
Annette, oblivious, refilled her glass. She didn’t know the real story of Charlie’s father, because by the time I met her in prenatal yoga, I’d stopped telling it. She knew me as a quirky single mom, a stylish artist in cat-eye glasses: Whitney had gifted me the expensive frames on my thirty-first birthday and got me a new pair every year from Optique.
* * *
—
I CHECKED MY WATCH again—11:05. I stood, and went out front to have a Marlboro Light. （My smoking was another secret I kept from my son—I’d been addicted since childhood. I placed the blame squarely on my mom, a pack-a-day smoker herself, who taught me how to buy her cigarettes from the Falmouth gas mart when I was a kid, gave me a cig in payment starting when I was twelve.）
As I pushed open the screen door, the heat hit me like a hair dryer aimed at my face. It had been over 90 degrees for a week, and even at night, the temperatures hovered in the eighties. I had just lit my forbidden cigarette when the boys showed up, wheeling into Whitney’s driveway and throwing their bikes to the ground. “Mom,” said Charlie. He dropped an armful of his protective gear as he moved toward me.
“Charlie, you need to wear the pads, not carry them,” I admonished, dropping my cigarette into Whitney’s terra-cotta planter before he could see it.
Charlie looked frightened in the dim light of the Brownsons’ front porch. His best friends flanked him, boys I’d known since they were toddlers. We’d called them “the Three Musketeers,” as we sipped wine or margaritas （which we called “mom margs”） on the deck and watched them run around my scrappy yard brandishing wooden swords: red-haired Charlie, blond Xavier, Bobcat with his jet-black hair （so unlike his mother’s platinum tresses）。
All three boys breathed heavily, their skin flushed from biking in the heat. “Mom,” said my son. When I replay this moment later, I can see his eyes searching for mine, seeking a connection. If I could go back in time and change anything, it would be this: I wish I had seen that Charlie was drowning, that he needed me to ask him for the truth. But no—I was buzzed from wine and distracted. I could have said, “You can tell me anything.” I could have said, “I’m here.”
Instead, worried about Whitney’s new carpeting, I said, “Take off your shoes before you come inside. They’re covered with mud.”
Whitney’s son, Xavier, had his hands on his knees. He lifted his head and said, “The greenbelt.”
In my boozy haze, I associated the words with weekend afternoons, sunlight through leaves, my son ahead of me on a muddy trail. Magnolia trees and bug spray and take-out sandwiches from ThunderCloud Subs.
“Mom,” said Charlie. “There’s someone on the greenbelt.”
“Someone on the greenbelt?” I repeated. For a moment, I didn’t understand—it seemed impossible to darken my leafy visions with violence and danger.
“We didn’t do it,” said Annette’s son, Bobcat. I could still remember Bobcat as a three-year-old in diapers clinging to my leg when it was my turn to pick up the kids at Hola, Amigos Daycare. He’d asked Santa for a bobcat when he was little, and the name had stuck.
“We need to call 911,” said Xavier. He pushed his too-long hair off his face. Although he was no longer a child, his blond curls were the same ones he’d had at age five, before Whitney finally, belatedly, got him a haircut. Even now, she let him go to Bird’s Barbershop only once a year, a bit too attached to his curls if you asked me. （No one asked me.） His twin sister, Roma, wore her straight hair long and swingy.
“Should we call 911, Mom?” said Charlie.
“It’s OK,” I said, struggling to catch up. “It’s all going to be OK.”
“Liza,” said Xavier, “we need to call 911. Like, now.”
“We just found her,” said Bobcat insistently. “We didn’t do anything,” he said.
“OK, honey,” I said, opening my arms. And Bobcat collapsed against me.
“We just found her,” he said, his voice cracking.
I felt strong for a moment, giant Bobcat clutching me like a little kid again. I knew it was pathetic, but I loved being needed. Xavier began to cry.
We tumbled into Whitney’s glass-and-steel house, perfectly chilled air rushing over us in waves. “It’s the boys!” cried Annette, rising from what I was pretty sure was a real Eames chair. （But I’d never ask…asking, I’d learned from watching Whitney, was gauche. My family had spoken freely about money: who had it, who didn’t, who’d bought a new TV. Being around Whitney and her wealthy clients had shown me another way. Money was conveyed via signifiers: the Eames chair, Rag & Bone sandals, a tattered ski pass from Telluride you “forgot” to remove from your rumpled Patagonia jacket.）
“The boys!” said Whitney, unfurling her yoga-toned body, clad in a silky jumpsuit.
Annette was animated from the wine, pink cheeked. Her blond hair was natural—she had Northern European relatives—but she highlighted her hair to make it even more fabulous. She saw Bobcat’s expression and said, “Robert?”
“I didn’t do anything!” said Bobcat. Of all the boys, he seemed the most worked up. I knew his father had threatened to send him to live with his grandparents in Midland, Texas, after he’d refused to go on a “father-son hunting weekend” because he wanted to wait in line at Best Buy to score a computer chip that was in short supply. “I just want him to grow up like I did—outdoors!” Louis had said.
I did sympathize with Louis, who was utterly perplexed by his son. He wanted Bobcat to be a person he could understand and help succeed. I had to remind myself to be thankful that Charlie and I connected easily, honestly. It wasn’t like that for everyone.
“What’s going on?” said Whitney.
“Something happened on the greenbelt,” I said.
“We found…someone,” said Xavier.
“What does that mean?” said Whitney, splaying out her hands as if she were pushing something down. “Who is he? Where is he? I don’t understand.”
“It’s a woman,” said Charlie.
“She might be dead,” said Xavier, his gaze jumping between his mother and his friends.
“Oh my God!” said Annette. She picked up her phone. “Who do I call? Oh my God!”