After we eat, and once Bess and Penny have excused themselves to watch TV in the den, Pfeff’s mother takes a photo album from her bag. It is large and covered in a faded fabric printed with storks, like she got it at her baby shower.
I stand to leave the room. I don’t want to be near the Pfeffermans any longer than I have to, or see pictures of the little boy who grew up to think a girl’s body belonged to him just because he said please. But as Mr. Pfefferman goes out on the porch to smoke, Tipper grabs my father’s hand. “Harris, stay and see the pictures. They lost their boy.” She turns to Mrs. Pfefferman. “We lost our little girl, too,” she says. “Last year. We lost our Rosemary in the same ocean.”
I cannot move.
We lost our little girl. Not since the funeral has anyone said that. Not since the funeral has my mother shown me that she feels the loss. Even when I brought it up, she only said Rosemary’s not here. We all wish she were. Then she went on to talk about not dwelling on hard things and living a joyful life.
But here she is, bringing up the subject.
“Did you?” says Mrs. Pfefferman, her hand on her throat. “Oh, Tipper. I am so sorry.”
“No, no. It was a long time ago. Pfeff—I mean, Lor—he was just here. You’ve had a terrible shock. I don’t mean to talk about myself.”
My father puts his hand on Tipper’s shoulder. I’m not sure if he means to console or quiet her.
“It is the worst thing in the world to lose a child,” says Mrs. Pfefferman. “They are meant to outlive us.”
“She was so little,” says my mother, choked. “She loved to swim. We let her swim and no one was watching her. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself.”
“We miss her every day,” says Harris. “That never goes away.”
“You miss her?” I blurt.
“I do.”
I stare at his face, as familiar and weathered as always, but now etched with grief he almost never shows.
“I can’t believe Lor is gone,” says Mrs. Pfefferman, a tear sliding down her cheek. “I keep expecting him to walk in the door. Look, he was the fattest baby who ever lived.”
I know I should leave, but the emotion in the room pulls me in like a whirlpool. I stand behind my mother and watch as Mrs. Pfefferman turns through the pages of her album—pictures of baby Lor, becoming kid Lor, then becoming Pfeff, the boy I knew. Drinking milk from a bottle. Hugging a stuffed animal. Sitting proudly on a tricycle. Reading a book of fairy tales. Eating a doughnut.
My mother cries, low-key and continuously, while she bends over Mrs. Pfefferman’s book and makes thoughtful remarks. “Oh, he looks so happy.” “I can see how much he loved you.” “My goodness, he was handsome.” “He got so tall!” “He had a good sense of humor, didn’t he?” She asks questions. “Where were you all in this one?” “This must be seventh or eighth grade, am I right?”
Mrs. Pfefferman cries less but seems hungry for every photograph to be witnessed and appreciated. “You’re very kind,” she says to my mother.
My father sits next to us with his face in his hands. Mr. Pfefferman remains on the porch.
The last picture is Pfeff grinning in his high school graduation gown, laughing at a party with one arm around George’s neck. “He had run away,” Mrs. Pfefferman says softly.
“Pardon?” asks Tipper.
“He left home and didn’t tell us where he went,” Mrs. Pfefferman explains. “We— My husband and I are divorcing.”
“Oh. I didn’t know.”
“How could you? But it has been a hard year. At home. And Lor was—well, a boy gets angry when his world shatters, you see. My husband, he wouldn’t let me have the house. And I refused to move out.” She twists the napkin in her lap, still speaking low. “Lor didn’t want to spend the summer at home, with us in so much conflict, but his father got him a job in the law office. Very official, answering phones and the like while different secretaries took their vacations. We felt it would be good for him to learn some responsibility before college. And then one night, we had—I shouldn’t tell you this, but we had a big argument, my husband and I. And the next morning, Lor was gone. He didn’t even leave a note.”
“Oh no.”
“He didn’t call me for a whole week, and when he did, he said he was at George’s girlfriend’s summer house. And he wasn’t coming home. He said he was staying forever and didn’t give a phone number or anything. He was so unhappy with us, he just—he ran away,” she says. “We hadn’t heard from him since that one call.”