“Find out,” said his sister with her voice cracking. “I just can’t stand thinking about you and Connor, being there, in that house, without Julie.”
Sam promised that he’d consider it, but, in the end, it was Saul Barringer who decided for him, summoning him to the living room in his familiar obnoxious bellow early the next morning.
“What’s the plan, son?” Saul demanded, when Sam was standing in front of his hospital bed.
“For Julie?” Sam swallowed. “Her body is still at the morgue. They have to do an autopsy because…” He gulped again. “Because of how she died. Once they release the body, I thought we’d bury her—”
Saul interrupted. “Her mom’s at Hillside Memorial. So is her sister. She should go there.”
“That’s fine,” Sam said. “I’ll make the arrangements.”
“Good. Now.” He craned his neck up, baring his teeth. “I’ll give you two weeks to pack up and clear out.”
“I—” Sam stared at his stepfather. “Excuse me. What?”
“You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here,” the old man said. His lips curled back, revealing his dentures.
Sam stared at him. “Excuse me?”
“It’s my house. I want you out. You and the kid.”
Sam’s hands were forming fists of their own accord. “Julie was your daughter. That kid is your grandson.”
“Is your name on the deed of this domicile?” The old man paused, head cannily tilted. “No? Didn’t think so. I’ll evict you if I have to, but it doesn’t have to get ugly. Just pack your things and go.”
“You’d do that,” Sam said. His voice was faint with disbelief. He felt like he’d been hit over the head, hard. He wanted to hit Saul someplace, even harder. “You’d put your own grandson out on the street?”
Saul waved one large, spotted hand dismissively. “He’ll have plenty of money once I’m gone. But hopefully that won’t be for a while.” The old man drew himself up straight. “I want the place to myself.”
This cannot be happening, Sam thought. This can’t be real. He made his way out of the living room, through the foyer, out the front door, where he stood, breathing the cool desert air. Then he thought, Why should we stay? True, this house had been Connor’s home for years. But just because it was familiar didn’t mean it wasn’t toxic, full of dread and bad smells and the echoes of Saul’s querulous shouts. Sam had enough money to provide one little boy with a stable existence outside of these walls. He can stay with me and I can take care of him, Sam had thought. Maybe we can actually go home. And, six weeks later, when the school year ended, that’s what he and Connor had done.
“Tell Connor hi from me,” said Ruby, as she said goodbye to her uncle, after giving him the date and time for the ceremony. “Tell him we’re so excited to see him.” Sam promised that he would, and congratulated her again. Then he’d hung up the phone, pleased and unsettled, a fizzing sensation in his bloodstream. I’ll have to tell Sarah, he thought, of this thing that he’d only just figured out about himself. I’ll have to tell Mom. But he wouldn’t need to tell them immediately.
After the wedding, Sam thought. He’d leave Connor with his mom and his sister for a few nights, and finally get some answers.
Sarah
He’s… having… an… affair,” Sarah said, gasping the words between breaths as she and her best friend speed-walked through Prospect Park. It was just after seven o’clock on a cool late-March morning, and the park bustled with walkers, joggers, cyclists in Lycra leaning hard into the turns.
“Oh, he is not,” said Marni Silver, who’d gotten divorced, after her own affair, when her third daughter was just nine months old （“and lived to tell the tale,” as she liked to say）。 Marni and Sarah were both dressed in leggings with sheer cutouts and sneakers with excellent arch support. Marni had on a light jacket with stripes of silvery reflective tape; Sarah wore a long-sleeved magenta T-shirt made of some magical sweat-wicking fabric. Both women pumped their arms as they walked and dreamed （or at least Sarah did） of the days when they’d been runners, before hip pain or back problems had slowed them down.
“None of us left our houses for most of last year,” Marni said to Sarah as they rounded the curve by the pond. “When would he have met someone? When would he have seen her?”