Darkness My Old Friend

and smelled of Johnson’s Baby Shampoo.

Cole remembered how he’d lied to Willow about his mother being in Iraq. He didn’t even know why he’d done that; it was such a stupid lie. He’d have to keep it up if he went to her house. She’d ask about it, and he’d have to keep lying. And he’d have to pretend that everything was okay, that he was cool and in control. He couldn’t tell her that he was nearly sick from wondering where his mother had gone. And now Paula, Cameron, and Claire had gone as well. Something wasn’t right. Lots of things weren’t right. But he had no idea what he was supposed to do about any of it. He hadn’t realized how exhausting it was to be sad all the time. He was thinking that as he fell asleep.

He didn’t come. Not at four. Not at five. At five fifteen Willow moved away from the window and threw herself in front of the television. Her mother was making dinner in the kitchen.

In a way Willow wasn’t even surprised. She started to wonder if she’d imagined the whole thing-him appearing at her locker, the excited and surprised lift in her heart. She wasn’t the girl that boys liked; she was the weird one with the orange hair and the poky elbows. She wasn’t the pretty one with long-lashed eyes and big boobs. She was just Willow. He was probably only making fun of her. He went back to Jolie, and they had a good laugh.

“Where’s your friend?” her mom asked. She stood in the doorway wearing an apron dusted with flour. She held a dishcloth in her hand. Willow’s mother was beautiful; everyone said so. Willow knew that she herself looked like her father, who, honestly, was not her mother’s equal in the looks department. In the pictures they had, he looked skinny and goofy. She wondered what Bethany had ever seen in him. He was a wonderful man. He wasn’t like any of the other men I’ve known. So he was a freak. Maybe that’s why Willow was such a misfit; it was hereditary.

She thought about lying-telling her that Cole had called and said he had too much homework, or that he got called into work, something responsible that didn’t make him a screwup who broke his promises like Richard. But she didn’t.

“I don’t know,” she said. She stared at the screen, some stupid cartoon. She didn’t even know what she was watching. “He stood me up, I guess.”

She tried not to cry, but a big tear escaped from her eye. She batted it away.

“Oh, Willow,” said her mom. Bethany sat next to her, and Willow fitted herself into her mother’s arms. “I’m sure he had an important reason.”

“He could have called,” said Willow.

“Maybe his car broke down or something like that. Just give him the benefit of the doubt until you know better.”

“I guess,” she said. But already she was feeling that dark place growing, that angry, disappointed hole in her middle.

“I know how hard it is to be your age, Willow. I remember.”

“When does it get easier?”

Her mother issued a little laugh. “It gets different. Let’s put it that way.”

“Great.”

Her mother switched off the television with the remote. And they sat like that, listening to the rain hit the windows. Her mother rubbed her back, and Willow closed her eyes. The room was warm, and the couch was soft.

She must have dozed off, because when she woke up, she was alone on the couch and she could hear her mother on the phone. Her voice had a funny tone, soft and sweet.

“No, I don’t think it’s inappropriate,” she said. “I think it’s fine.”

Bethany laughed then, and she sounded so light and happy that it made Willow angry in a weird way. How can she be happy when I’m so miserable?

“That sounds nice,” Bethany said. “Okay.”

When Willow walked into the kitchen, the table was set for three. Bethany had made pizza from scratch. As her mother hung up the phone, Willow cleared the third place. She didn’t need to eat dinner reminded that she’d been stood up.

“Who was that?” she asked when her mother hung up the phone.

Her mother was using the pizza cutter to make slices in the pie. The kitchen was a disaster-sauce and flour everywhere. Bethany was not a tidy cook.

“I thought you were sleeping,” said Bethany, not looking at Willow. But she had this big smile on her face.

“Who was it?” asked Willow. “Not Richard? He’s not still coming this weekend, is he?”

“No, it wasn’t Richard,” said Bethany. “And I don’t know if Richard is still planning on coming this weekend. Do you want him to? You guys haven’t talked in months.”

“I really couldn’t care less,” said Willow. She brought the salad to the table and flopped down in her seat.

“Well, I told him he could come if he wanted to,” she said. “Either way, we’ll do something fun. We should check out that old cider mill. It’s supposed to be really cool.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Willow. “It sounds like a blast.”

They spent the rest of the meal talking about school-her classes, Mr. Vance, how maybe she should try out for drama next year. Then, after dinner, Bethany helped Willow answer her essay question about A Separate Peace: “Did Gene purposely knock Fin from the branch? Why or why not? If he did, what does it say about Gene and the friendship he shared with Fin?” Mom thought that was such a great question. But Willow just thought it was a cheat, since they’d been discussing it all week in class. Plus, she’d already read the book in seventh grade. But Mr. Vance said he liked to teach it again because the themes were so “complicated.”

It wasn’t until hours later, when Willow was lying in bed thinking about Cole and trying to go to sleep, that she realized her mother had never answered the question about who was on the phone.

That night she dreamed that Cole called her and told her how sorry he was for letting her down, for not being there when he said he would. He told her he loved her and that he couldn’t wait to see her again. But then she woke up and realized that she’d only been dreaming, and the crushing disappointment she felt was almost too much to bear.

chapter twenty-eight

“I have to be honest. After our last session, I didn’t think you’d be coming back.”

Dr. Dahl was well pressed as always, looking particularly dewy and flushed, as though he’d just come from his daily workout. An open bottle of water, half empty, sat on the table beside his chair.

Jones shifted in his seat. “Well, to be honest, I wasn’t sure I would.”

The doctor looked at him with an open, expectant gaze. He seemed hopeful. Maybe even a little smug? No, not that. But there was something about his expression that annoyed Jones.

“So what are we doing here?” Dr. Dahl said.

Jones started to say how it was about Maggie, how he was afraid of what might happen to their marriage if he didn’t keep coming to therapy. And even though this was part of the reason, it wasn’t the whole reason.

“I realized that you were right,” he said, even though it practically killed him. He cleared his throat. “That I’ve been holding back, afraid to move forward into the next phase of my life.”

The doctor gave him an approving nod, which made Jones want to get up and leave again.

“What have you been afraid of, do you think?”

You had to love the guy. He went right into it. No foreplay at all. The headache was already starting.

“Well, I guess I’ve been afraid that there is no next phase,” said Jones. “That there would just be this puttering around for the next however-many years, taking pointless classes and mowing lawns. We’d take a few trips, go on some cruises. You know, I’ve been afraid that this was it. The only thing left was a kind of slow, inevitable trek toward the end. I mean, I don’t even play golf.”

“But you’re a young man. Plenty of law-enforcement folks retire young, take their pensions, and find other work.”