Is anyone ever so lucky? she wondered.
Thom, mindful of the significance of his sister’s loss, had flown back for her friend’s memorial. He’d brought Anya and Lukas with him, as it fell on one of his weekends with the kids. He had a final police interview the next week as well, and Thom and the kids were, at Aubrey’s suggestion, staying with her while in town. When she asked about his legal situation, he’d say it was intense but not serious. The cops were inquisitive and persistent, but they had four months of mayhem to sort out, and the file on a clear case of home invasion would eventually be closed. Aubrey was grateful he’d kept Scott out of it.
After Norman’s service, they sat on the front steps of her house and watched the neighborhood as it prepared for the coming winter. Enthusiasm for the community garden had remained high, even after the food chain was restored. Phil was hard at work, as November was a busy time in the vegetable patches. Scott and Celeste were with him, lifting parsnips, which were at their sweetest after the early frosts, and seeding the perennial bed with rhubarb and asparagus crowns. They’d missed the window for autumn garlic, a mistake all of Cayuga Lane had vowed not to repeat next year.
Lukas and Anya had been recruited to help in the fields as well, but they were still in their funeral clothes and seemed more interested in pelting each other with manure from the waiting pile. Aubrey watched them, smiling, and wondered how it was that the sight of her niece and nephew throwing shit at each other made her feel so oddly at peace. Then again, she was by now used to that sort of feeling showing up unannounced. Happiness came when it came.
Thom nodded toward Scott and Celeste, who were goofing around while they worked, grabbing each other, laughing.
“They still say they’re gonna get married?”
“Yep.”
“How’s that going to work?” he asked.
“Well, emancipation turned out to be too much paperwork,” Aubrey said, “but Celeste is sixteen, so she only needs her mom’s permission, which she already got. And when Scott has his birthday next month, I’ll help him track down his mother and try to get her to say yes too. She can’t really object. She hasn’t seen him in years.”
“You’re going to let them get married?”
“What possible difference could it make, after everything they’ve been through?”
“I guess.”
“It’s not the sort of mistake that’ll cripple them forever. They start talking about having a kid, that I’ll stop.”
Thom nodded. “How’s he doing with—you know, the rest?”
“OK, I guess. Pretty quiet.”
“Therapy?”
“Doesn’t want to go. I haven’t pushed it yet.”
Thom looked out at the street again. Lukas and Anya were still tormenting each other, moving on from dirt clods to pushing and shoving, and their voices had gone up in pitch, the early, rising tones of an argument. Thom tensed, watching them, but when Anya fell, as she invariably did—she was the clumsiest kid he’d ever seen—Lukas’s tone shifted from hectoring to gentle, and he reached out to help his sister to her feet. To Thom’s surprise, the volatile little girl accepted it.
Thom turned back to Aubrey. Her cheeks were pink in the chill autumn air. He thought she looked twenty years younger. He stared. She noticed. She put a hand on his back and felt his shoulders twitch as he began to cry. She put an arm around him and pulled him close.
He spoke, his voice weaker than she’d ever heard it. “I never should have let you do it.”
“I like my life, Thom. It didn’t ruin me.”
“No. But I think it ruined me.”
He put his head on her shoulder, and they watched the children play in the fading light.
“We’re OK, Tommy. We’re OK now.”
Later, when Scott came back into the house, he found a two-foot cardboard box sitting on the dining room table. He let out a little gasp of surprise, seeing his name written in handwriting he’d never expected to see again.
He picked up the box—much heavier than it looked—took it to his bedroom, and unwrapped its elaborate packaging. Packing peanuts, bubble wrap, and wadded-up year-old newspaper had done their job for the past several months. Inside was cradled Norman’s beautiful, meticulously preserved 1957 Zenith Trans-Oceanic shortwave radio, complete with a pristine copy of its original owner’s manual. THE ROYALTY OF RADIOS, its cover boasted.
There was a note clipped to the manual, typewritten on an index card: