“Holy crap,” he says. “How do you answer a statement like that?”
“I know, right?”
Now, I had a lot of anger toward my mom. I won’t lie about that. She was not a good mother, and in most other moments of my life I would have agreed with her. Just straight out. But I think a parent needs something different on her deathbed. In the absence of actual abuse, I think in that final moment if you can’t see it’s not about you, then you’re just not living the right kind of life. I could get into therapy and tell my counselor how unhelpful she was for the rest of my days, but this was my last chance ever to say something to my mom.
I tell Roy, “I fell back on something Zoe Dinsmore said to me, and in defense of you, by the way. I quoted it word for word, as best my memory allowed. Except I only repeated the first half of the thing. ‘We’re all just doing our best.’ I left out the second part. ‘Even if it doesn’t look so good from the outside.’ Because why plant the negative part of the thought in her head at a time like that?”
“You think she heard you?”
“I have no idea if she heard it. I have no idea if she took any of it in. But I know they were the right words at the right time. And besides, I heard it.”
“Remember that thing with Zoe at your track meet?” he asks me.
The fire is beginning to die down, but we’re making no move toward leaving.
“Which one? She was at practically every meet.”
So was Roy, but I don’t say that out loud, because he was there, so he knows.
“The one where that kid’s father said something . . . unpleasant to me?”
Roy didn’t get to keep his war hero status. Word got around. But it was okay, he told me years later. Much the same as jail and that dressing-down from Dad was okay for me. It’s the price we paid. It’s the price we chose.
“Remember what Zoe did?” he asks when I don’t answer.
“I was out on the track, but I remember hearing about it. But I don’t remember what she was supposed to have said.”
“She didn’t say anything. That was the beauty of the whole deal. She got between him and me and just stood there facing him with her arms crossed over her chest. And she never said a word. And he said every word under the sun. He tried reasoning with her. Then he made fun of her. Then he tried getting mad, or at least pretending he was mad. Then he started telling her she was crazy, because she never said a word. She barely even blinked. Then finally he got freaked out by the whole thing and just . . . you know . . . retreated. It was amazing.”
“She was a scary woman,” I say.
And it’s funny the way I say it, because it’s in this wistful voice, like I miss her and that was the best compliment I’ve got in the box. Well, I do miss her. Every day. But I’m sure I could think of better ways to express it than that.
“Boy, you can say that twice,” Roy says. “That lady was a force of nature. Why do you think I stayed clean all those years? I would’ve been too scared to go and tell her I messed up.”
“But she’s been gone fifteen years, and you’re still clean.”
“Knowing Zoe, she’d haunt me.”
“I get it,” I say. Then I add something that’s sort of tickling at the edges of my thoughts. “If she was so terrifying, which she totally was, and we were such cowards, which we totally were, how did we manage to love her so much?”
“Oh, that’s easy. She was on our side.” While I’m pondering the truth of that, he says, “You won’t have a best friend anymore.”
I notice that the last of the embers are winking out. It’s dark in here now. My flashlight is turned off. And I’m not answering.
“You’ve had a best friend since you were three,” he adds. “Now what?”
“I have the dogs,” I say. “And you.”
“I’m not sure if I’m best friend material.”
“You’ll do,” I say, a little sarcastically.
Then I bump his knee in a signal that it’s probably time to get up and go home.
He puts his right shoe back on and struggles to his feet. I reach out a hand to help him, but he doesn’t seem to notice it in the dark. Just as well. He doesn’t need it. He’s been getting to his feet on his own since before I was born. I’m not sure what I thought I was doing with that.
He says, “Ask around town, and most people’ll tell you I’m not best friend material.”
“Yeah, but some of them told me the same thing about Connor.”
“Oh,” he says. And in that moment he pauses in his movement toward the door. “That’s right, isn’t it? And they sure were wrong about him.”
“It’s really important,” I say, “when you’re thinking bad thoughts about yourself, to remember that they might turn out to be wrong.”
We’re standing outside, taking one last look. The stars are just wild. There are millions of them, really sharp and clear between the trees. I’ve never stood beside the cabin at night before. Not once in all these years.
I think, No wonder she loved it out here so much.
And then after the fact, I realize I said it out loud.
“Yeah,” he says. He’s looking up, too. “People think she did it to punish herself, but I know she really loved it out here. It may have started as penance, but this became her place. You were right when you said you feel like you’ll bump into her when you turn around. It feels almost like she’s still
