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And so tomorrow they'll be leaving for vacation without Gillian. They'll fix a picnic lunch of cream cheese and olive sandwiches, pita pockets stuffed with salad, Thermoses filled with lemonade and iced tea. They'll pack up the car the way they do every August, and get on the highway before seven, to avoid traffic. Only this year Antonia has vowed she will cry all the way to Massachusetts. She's already confided to Kylie that she doesn't know what she'll do when Scott goes back to Cambridge. She'll probably spend most of her time studying, since she needs to get into a school somewhere in the Boston area, Boston College, maybe, or, if she can get her grades up, Brandeis. On the trip to the aunts' she'll insist on stopping at rest areas to buy postcards, and after they've settled into the aunts' house she plans to spend every morning lying on a scratchy wool blanket set out in the garden. She'll rub sunscreen on her shoulders and legs, then she'll get to work, and when Kylie looks over at the message her sister is writing to Scott she'll see I love you scrawled a dozen different times.
This year, Gillian will wave good-bye to them from the front porch, if she isn't already moved in to Ben Frye's house by then. She's been moving in slowly, afraid that Ben will go into shock when he realizes she has a zillion and one bad habits; it won't take long before he notices that she never rinses out her cereal bowls or bothers to make the bed. Sooner or later he'll discover that the ice cream is always disappearing from the freezer because Gillian is feeding it to Buddy as a special treat. He'll see that Gillian's sweaters often are crumpled into balls of wool and chenille on the floor of a closet or under the bed. And if Ben grows disgusted, if he should decide to kick her out, say good-bye, rethink his options, well, then let him. There's no marriage license and no commitment, and Gillian wants to keep it like that. Options, that's what she's always wanted. A way out.
"I want you to understand one thing," she's told Kylie. "You're still my favorite kid. In fact, if I'd had a daughter I would have wanted her to be you."
Kylie was so stricken by love and admiration that she almost felt guilty enough to admit that she'd been the one who'd had all those anchovy pizzas delivered to Ben's house, back when she'd felt so betrayed; she'd been the one who'd put ashes in Gillian's shoes. But some secrets are best kept to oneself, particularly when they cover up a silly act of childish pique. So Kylie said nothing, not even about how much she would miss Gillian. She hugged her aunt and then helped load up another box of clothes to haul over to Ben's place.
"More clothes!" Ben held a hand to his forehead as though his closets couldn't stand any more additions, but Kylie could see how delighted he was. He reached into the box and pulled out some black lace panty hose, and with three quick knots he turned them into a dachshund. Kylie was so surprised that she applauded.
Gillian had arrived with another box—this one filled with shoes—which she balanced on her hip so she could applaud as well. "You see why I fell for him," she whispered to Kylie. "How many men can do that?"
When they leave in the morning, Gillian will wave until they turn the corner, and then, Kylie is sure, she'll drive over to Ben's. By then they'll be headed for Massachusetts; they'll start to sing along with the radio, just as they always do. There's never any question about how they will spend their summer vacation, so why is it that Kylie suddenly has the notion that they may not even carry their suitcases out to the car?
Walking to the field with Gideon on this clear hot day, Kylie tries to imagine leaving for the aunts', and she can't. Usually she can picture every part of vacation, from packing up to watching rainstorms from the safety of the aunts' porch, but today when she tries to envision their week in Massachusetts, it all comes up blank. And then, when Kylie looks back at her house, she has the strangest feeling. The house seems lost to her in some way, as though she were looking at a memory, a place she used to live in and will never forget but one she can't go back to, not anymore.
Kylie stumbles over a crack in the sidewalk, and Gideon automatically reaches out, in case she falls.
"Are you okay?" he asks.
Kylie thinks about her mother, cooking in the kitchen, her black hair tied back, so that no one would ever guess how thick and beautiful it is. She thinks about the nights when she was feverish and her mother sat beside her in the dark, with cool hands and cups of water. She thinks of those times when she locked herself in the bathroom because she was too tall, and her mother calmly spoke to her from the other side of the door without once calling her foolish or silly or vain. Most of all, she remembers that day when Antonia was pushed down in the park and the white swans, spooked by the commotion, spread their wings and flew right toward Kylie. She can remember the look on her mother's face as Sally ran across the grass, waving her arms and shouting so fiercely the swans didn't dare to come closer. Instead, they rose into the air, flying so low to the pond that their wings broke the water into ripples, and they never returned, not ever, not once.
If Kylie continues to walk along this leafy street, things will never be the same. She feels this as deeply as she's ever felt anything. She's stepping over a crack in the concrete into her own future, and there won't be any going back. The sky is cloudless and white with heat. Most people are inside, with fans or air conditioners turned to high. Kylie knows that it's hot in the kitchen where her mother is fixing a special di
"Race you," Kylie says, and she takes off ru
To Kylie these trees are comforting and familiar, but to anyone accustomed to the desert, to a man who's used to seeing for miles, past the saguaro and the purple dusk, these maples can seem like a mirage, rising above the green field from out of the heat waves and the rich, dark soil. Natives say that more lightning occurs in Tucson, Arizona, than anywhere else on earth; if you've grown up close to the desert you can easily chart a storm by the location of the lightning; you know how long you have before you'd better call in your dog, and see to your horse, and get yourself under a safe, grounded roof.
Lightning, like love, is never ruled by logic. Accidents happen, and they always will. Gary Hallet is personally acquainted with two men who've been hit by lightning and have lived to tell the tale, and that's who he's been thinking about as he navigates the Long Island Expressway at rush hour, then tries to find his way through a maze of suburban streets, passing the Y field when he makes a wrong turn off the Turnpike. Gary went to school with one of these survivors, a boy who was only seventeen at the time he was hit, and it messed up his life from that day on. He walked out of his house, and the next thing he knew, he was sprawled out in the driveway, staring up at the indigo sky. The fireball had passed right through him, and his hands were as charred as a grilled steak. He heard a clattering, like keys being jangled or somebody drumming, and it took a while for him to realize that he was shaking so hard the sound he was hearing was being made by his bones as they hit against the asphalt.