“Yes, now.” Patience, on the other hand, was not. “I’ve been assured it won’t be terrible.”
“By Madeline?”
“Yes, by Madeline.”
“She’s lying, isn’t she?”
“Yes, almost certainly. But I think it’s probably for the best.”
Yes, he thought, it probably was.
“Okay, I’m on my way.”
“I’ll make it worth it, I promise.”
She always did. “You always do.”
“See you in five?”
“See you in five.”
He put the joint in his pocket with his cell phone, looked out over the blossoming greenery of the park, and held his breath, fleetingly prolonging the length of a second.
Then he picked up his helmet and headed home, fulfilling the promises he’d made.
* * *
LAST WEEK, Madeline Regan had called not her sister Charlotte, but Aldo.
“Sorry,” she said, “but I’m going to have to ask you to do something extremely unpleasant.”
“Yes?”
“I need you to convince my sister to come home for our dad’s birthday party. You won’t have to stay the whole weekend,” Madeline added quickly, before he could reply, “but at least come for the night, okay? He’s turning seventy. It’s a big one.”
“How’d you get my number?”
“Charlotte gave it to me for emergencies.”
“She did?”
“Yes.”
“And this is an emergency?”
“Yes. As in, I very emergently do not want to explain to my mother why my sister won’t come.”
“Did you try asking her?”
“Aldo,” Madeline said with a scoff, “are we talking about the same Charlotte Regan?”
To his surprise, though, Regan had been quick to agree. She’d seemed almost eager, in fact, as if this visit could somehow salvage the last one. She had picked out a tie for Aldo; had bought herself a new dress. She spoke of it as a normal event—“My dad’s birthday party is next week, don’t forget”—and did not seem to imbue it with any prophetic discomfort. Despite acknowledging that this event （“like every event my parents host”） would likely be disastrous, she dismissed it with a flippant, “You’ll be there.”
As in, “Everything will be fine, you’ll be there.”
Or, “I’m not worried, you’ll be there.”
She’d chosen a dress that was a yellow so pale it almost looked white, and she’d left her hair down, wearing it in waves that brushed romantically over her shoulders. It was an unusual choice in that it was soft, and Regan was not typically given to softness. She had costumed herself as Charlotte and had done so with apparent ease. She smiled at Aldo as she drove through metropolitan Chicago traffic, chattering to him the way she always did.
“I think it’s my opportunity to mend things,” she was saying, either trying to convince him, herself, or both of them, “and besides, they should meet you again.”
He was less certain. “Do they know about me? Us, I mean.”
“I assume Madeline told them,” she said, shrugging. “They do know you’re coming.”
（Masso had been largely unhelpful: Of course they like you, Rinaldo, what’s not to like? Dad, I really don’t think so, Oh well all the poorer for them, never mind but I still say you’re wrong. Dad, I think you overestimate how much people like me, my students hate me and most of my colleagues do too. Well what do they know, only what you teach them, hm? Just show them something else, he’d said, as if that were so easily done, and it probably was. For Masso.） Aldo was mostly silent while Regan drove, thinking about other things. About how, possibly, probably, her parents both hated him and also did not hate him, and how he could easily believe both were true until he arrived and opened the box. She reached over mindlessly, with the surety of frequent rehearsal, and laced her fingers with his. He brushed his lips across her knuckles, squeezed them once. He looked for omens and didn’t find any, aside from the usual.
“Why did you bring me last time?” he asked.
“Instead of Marc, you mean?” she said offhandedly, and then, “Because I wanted you there instead.”
He shook his head. She was misremembering. “It was because they didn’t like Marc,” he reminded her, meaning and now they don’t like me.
A cycle. A pattern. （You should know what comes next, said his troublesome brain.） She glanced briefly at him.