“You remember when I took the two of you to Storytown?”
Louise is startled.
“You must have been six years old,” he says. “Thereabouts. I picked you and your mother up and we drove down to Lake George together. Your mother was quiet. But you were so happy. You were jumping up and down. Bought you an ice cream and it fell off its cone. Bought you another one straightaway. Couldn’t stand the look on your face.”
Sharp tears come to Louise’s eyes and she wills them to be gone. Why, she wonders, is she crying? And the answer comes to her: it’s the idea that anyone in the world ever took care of her, Louise, rather than the other way around.
She does remember that day, though she didn’t know it was Denny Hayes. In her memory it was just another one of her mother’s boyfriends, someone whose name she avoided using because she didn’t want to mix it up with anyone else’s. Of all the men who ever came around to see her mother, that one was the only one who ever did anything nice for her without demanding a favor in return.
• • •
Out front of her mother’s place, Louise regards the house alongside Denny Hayes. Two of its shutters are missing altogether; another one is hanging at an angle. So much mail has piled up in the mailbox that a stack of waterlogged envelopes now sits on the ground beneath it, the postman having given up.
She’ll have a talk with Jesse about taking responsibility for that. At least he should be bringing in the mail.
“Looks just the same,” says Denny, charitably.
“Thanks for the ride,” Louise says, and gets out of the car. She hopes he’ll leave. But he, too, exits, stands, adjusts his shirt and pants.
• • •
Louise rattles her key loudly in the lock, letting anyone inside know she’s about to enter.
She hopes Jesse isn’t smoking anything upstairs; her first sniff of the kitchen tells her he isn’t.
“Mom?” she calls out. “Mom, I’ve got some company here.”
A pause.
“Who is it?” Her mother’s voice is creaky with disuse.
“Denny Hayes,” calls Louise.
She waits. She can very easily imagine her mother saying—Who? It’s been years, and the years have been hard.
“Just a minute,” her mother calls, instead. And Louise hears her ascending the staircase, slowly.
“Is Jesse home?” Louise calls, but there’s no answer.
• • •
When her mother comes down again, she’s fully dressed. She’s wearing makeup for the first time in years.
Shameless, Louise thinks, but secretly she is reassured to find her mother still capable of making this effort.
Denny’s face changes upon seeing her. Softens. “Well, hi, Carol,” he says to her. “Been a long time, hasn’t it?”
The sound of her mother’s Christian name awakens something hurt inside Louise. She hasn’t heard the word said aloud much in recent years.
Louise’s mother looks back and forth from Louise to Denny.
“You a cop now, Denny?”
“I was a cop back when I knew you,” says Denny. “Don’t you remember? A state trooper.”
She thinks.
“I guess I do remember that.”
“I’m a senior investigator now,” says Denny. “I got promoted, and then promoted again.”
“Well, congratulations,” says Louise’s mother.
Then, realizing something: “What’s my daughter done?”
Louise tenses.
“I thought—” says Louise. But she stops herself. She blinks rapidly, willing unexpected tears back into her skull. After all these years, she thinks; how could she have let herself hope that her mother would come through with bail?
“Denny?” says her mother.
Denny glances at her. “Well,” he says, “I guess I’ll let Louise tell you about that. Being that she’s over eighteen.”
Her mother is still, sharp-eyed. She looks more sober than Louise has seen her lately; whether this is intentional or a coincidence of timing, Louise isn’t certain.
“Carol,” says Denny, “would you mind if I had a few words with Louise? In private?”
“I guess that’d be all right.”
