A Friend at Midnight Read online

  But that was fine. Somehow, by only an hour or two, Reb had missed the nightmare of Michael’s return.

  Denrose.

  It sounded like a street in a new subdivision, where the builder used his children’s names, so you had to live on Linda Lane or Kevin Court.

  That night Lily sat up late, not doing homework. How could she pay off the credit card bill? She didn’t have a checking account. Banks would know how, but Lily hated asking anybody anywhere how to do anything. She liked knowing already.

  It was past eleven o’clock. Michael and Nathaniel had been asleep for ages.

  The house was very quiet.

  Lily heard Mom turn off the news downstairs. She heard Kells say, “Wait a minute, Judith. I wanted to see—”

  “I have to talk to you about something,” said Mom, and gently and completely she shut the TV room door.

  It had to be about Michael. It was about time Mom started worrying about Michael. Feather light, Lily zipped down the carpeted stairs to listen in.

  “He e-mailed me at school,” said her mother.

  There could be only one “he.” Denrose. Lily had never thought of denrose reaching Mom at school. Dad could reach Mom, and Lily would never know.

  “Dennis is not going to pay any more child support. He says the children don’t love him and he’s out of the equation.”

  Lily stared into the wallpaper. A picture had once hung there. She could see its little nail hole, hidden in a flower. Other people repainted and redecorated. But Mom did not see things. She only heard them. Her world was full of notes and chords and melodies.

  Dad’s abandoning me, too? thought Lily. He’s driving away from me, too? Michael and I are out of his equation.

  She had yelled—You’re not my father!

  Now he was yelling back—And you’re not my daughter! So there!

  Lily heard the distinct thud of the recliner.

  Kells’s favorite possession was the dusty blue corduroy recliner on which he lay to watch TV. It had a long stick handle. He’d come home from work, throw the stick and sigh with relief when he was lying there all pillowy on his back. Then he’d get a good grip on the remote and investigate every channel.

  “Oh,” said Kells, presumably from his recliner.

  “We have to get a lawyer,” said Mom. “We have to fight.”

  Lily had a vision of Michael, small and thin at the edge of a courtroom; of Dennis Rosetti telling a judge, He’s not worth anything to me.

  It wouldn’t be a fight, thought Lily. It would be an execution. It would kill Michael.

  “It’s just money, Judith,” said Kells. “Why don’t we forget about it? You and I earn enough. Why even let the children know what Dennis said? Michael’s back because he loves you and that’s all the support you need.”

  But this was untrue.

  Michael was not back because he loved Mom. He was back because Dad did not love him.

  Mom was a whirlwind occupying some narrow music-filled space. A few minutes each day, the tornado that was Mom came to a stop. She flung herself around her children and fixed dinner and began spinning again, and you could not put your hand in her life any more than you could put your hand into the blades of a fan.

  What if Mom understood that Michael had been forced to come home? Would her whirlwind stop? Would she be a fan whose motor had burned out?

  “Next Saturday,” said Kells, “I thought I’d take Michael to a ball game.”

  I’m paying airfare, thought Lily. Kells is paying time. And Dad—he’s paying nothing whatsoever.

  She was having a nightmare every few nights.

  The dreams were full of wounded phones and angry people in uniform and passengers flinging luggage who would scream, Michael’s dead, he’s gone, you lost him, it’s your fault.

  It was never Dad’s fault.

  If anything happened to Michael, it was always Lily’s fault.

  Tonight, the police in the nightmare took Michael away for stealing the teddy bear, while Lily ran screaming alongside the police car, dragging Nathaniel by his pitching arm, bumping him against cement lane dividers until eventually he fell apart and she had only his arm.

  It was a more vivid dream than usual.

  When she woke up, it was sticking to her, like the phone, crawling on her skin.

  Lily got up, stumbling blindly to the bathroom. She filled an old-fashioned red rubber hot-water bottle and took it back to bed with her.

  What kind of nightmares did Michael have?

  Michael was astonished when Kells told him about the baseball plan. His stepfather loved sports, but only watching them on TV while lying in his recliner. Real-life sports were way out past Kells’s energy level.

  But as family trips went, this was a big improvement over the usual September stuff. Mom liked to drive north on the Taconic Parkway and Look at Leaves. Her other September trip was: Winter Coats—Do They Fit? Or: Mittens—Do We Need More?

  Since Michael had never pulled an actual mitten over his actual fingers, but zipped them up for the winter in a jacket pocket, the Mitten trip was lost on him.

  And here was Kells, offering minor-league baseball.

  Michael would certainly rather have gone to see the Yankees. But baseball was baseball.

  Nobody else went. Not Mom, not Lily, not even Nathaniel. Michael worried for a few miles of the drive that Kells wanted to talk. But he didn’t.

  They sat six rows above the visiting team’s dugout. Michael had not known there would be a sing-along, with the words on a huge digital board at the back of the field. He had not dreamed that the entire crowd would sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

  I’m at the ball game with the wrong father, thought Michael.

  Lily spent Saturday at Amanda’s. Amanda was an only child who led a leisurely life. She was always stretched out on something: a chaise by the pool, a sofa by the fire, a couch by the TV. And she did this in cleanliness and neatness, because a housekeeper did every chore that got skipped at Lily’s house.

  Lily told Amanda about the late-night conversation.

  “When’s the court date?” asked Amanda.

  “There isn’t one. Kells says he can take care of us and why should Mom get all worked up and lose sleep and hire lawyers when all it is, is money.”

  “Kells isn’t so bad,” said Amanda, referring to hundreds of conversations in which Lily and Reb and Michael had wanted Kells to dry up and blow away. “But you’ve got to tell Kells and your mother what happened and they’ve got to go after the money. Your father has to pay. Denrose gets to abandon Michael, terrify Michael, humiliate and crush Michael—and then get off free?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “I wonder how he’ll spend all that nice money he’s saving by not paying child support.”

  Lily knew instantly that denrose was buying a car. Something fabulous and expensive and beyond his means. But not beyond his means now.

  She saw him tenderly parking his new car crosswise at the far end of parking lots, so it wouldn’t get dinged. Because the finish on your car matters more than the heart of your son.

  They were at the bottom of the third.

  “Kells?” asked Michael.

  “Yup.”

  “May I have a snack?”

  “Sure.” Kells handed him a ten-dollar bill.

  Michael waited to hear the rules—it has to be nutritious; it can’t be fried; be back in exactly five minutes—but Kells said nothing.

  “You want something too?” asked Michael.

  “Not yet.”

  “I can go by myself?”

  “Sure.”

  Mom would never have allowed it. But the stadium was small and fully enclosed and packed with parents and officials. They both knew he was fine. Michael climbed the steps toward the shaded upper tier of the stadium, where the concessions were. He surveyed each concession to decide exactly what he wanted. He passed ice cream and considered popcorn. He was approaching pretzels and tacos when he saw
his father—his father!—lifting a gray cardboard tray of soft drinks from a counter.

  Michael sprinted down the polished cement. There were as many obstacles in his path as there had been at the airport. Kids and parents and strollers and trash cans and vendors of autographed programs. He weaved desperately among them.

  Dad balanced the tray of soft drinks with one hand and dropped change in his pocket with the other, and then he moved through an ice cream line and out of sight.

  Red T-shirt, Michael told himself. Jeans. No socks. Just like always.

  He flung himself through the ice cream line. Fifty feet ahead of him, the red T-shirt and jeans were ambling along and Michael tore after him. “Dad!” he shouted.

  His father did not turn.

  “Dad!” He caught up before he expected to, and they collided. The tray of sodas crashed to the ground and the plastic lids snapped off and soda spilled everywhere.

  The man was a complete stranger.

  “I’m sorry,” Michael whispered. “I thought you were—umm—my dad.” He was afraid of crying. He had promised himself he would never cry again. Not in this life. Not for anything. “Here’s—umm—my snack money. Because I—umm—wrecked your sodas.”

  The man who wasn’t his father squatted down, bouncing a little on his heels, so now he was beneath Michael instead of above him. “Where is your dad?” said the man gently.

  “Washington,” whispered Michael.

  And the stranger nodded, as if he knew a thing or two about fathers who were in Washington. “It’s okay,” he said to Michael. “It was an accident.”

  Michael managed to back away and find the right set of stairs and get down them without falling. He slid over people’s knees and collapsed into his seat. He knew the man was watching. He knew he should glance back and wave or something.

  He sat as small and motionless as he could.

  He could not quite see the game or hear the announcer.

  After a long time, Michael put the ten-dollar bill back in Kells’s hand.

  chapter

  8

  Every seven days, Lily was forced to sit in church and consider the role of God. God, however, took just as much interest in her and in Michael as their real father did: zero.

  God understood what was going on just as much as their mother did: zero.

  Zero plus zero equals zero.

  Nice equation, God, Lily told Him.

  Dr. Bordon read the morning’s scripture. Matthew 18:21.

  It was about Peter. Lily was drawn to Peter, a follower of Jesus who was often puzzled. This time Peter wanted to know how often he had to forgive somebody who had sinned against him. Seven times? Peter asked hopefully.

  Lily too kept count. She imagined this brawny fisherman with his big strong fingers spread out, ticking off previous forgivenesses, because surely the other guy’s forgiveness allotment was used up. The guy was out there hoping for Forgiveness Number Eight—and there wasn’t one! This afternoon, Peter could smash him in the face.

  And Jesus—annoying as always—answered, You have to forgive seventy times seven.

  Lily took the little pew pencil—for filling out a card if you wanted a visit from the minister, which numbered down there with the last thing on earth Lily would ever want—and wrote out the arithmetic. Seventy times seven equaled four hundred ninety.

  What kind of answer is that? Peter probably muttered.

  It always surprised Lily that none of the disciples ever said, I’m out of here. I liked being a fisherman better.

  Lily was fond of word problems, the kind that began, “If Madison drives twenty-six miles at sixty-five miles an hour, while Emmett…” Now she made up her own forgiveness arithmetic word problem. If Dad had Michael for eighteen days, and Dad was mean and rotten twenty times each of those days…No good. That was only three hundred sixty. Three hundred sixty from four hundred ninety meant Dad could get a hundred thirty more forgivenesses.

  Okay, fine. If Dad had been rotten to Michael thirty times a day, which was perfectly possible, then he was over his quota. Lily didn’t have to waste time forgiving denrose anything.

  A hand slid over her shoulder and plucked the pew paper from her grip. For a fraction of a second, Lily thought it was Jesus, truly provoked. She whipped around.

  The hand belonged to Trey Mahanna, older brother of Jamie.

  Jamie’s family really was perfect. The dad was perfect, and so was the mom. The four grandparents, all of whom Lily knew, were perfect. The older sisters, prettily named Ashley and April, were perfect. The Mahanna house was perfect, and probably their vacations. Their laundry did not lie in overflowing baskets at the bottom of the stairs, and if it did, the children didn’t vault over it and continue with their lives; Trey and Ashley and April probably sorted it neatly and did Jamie’s for him while they were at it.

  Last year, Trey had been at a low point in life, having gotten braces, pimples, glasses and a concave chest all at once.

  This year, however, Trey’s complexion was under control, he had contacts and he’d grown some crucial inches. Weight lifting was beginning to have a noticeable effect. He’d have the braces for a while yet, but at least he hadn’t succumbed to temptation and gone with blue or orange bands. “Who?” whispered Trey, tapping her shoulder with her own stolen pew card.

  Pew conversations were difficult to conduct over the shoulder, especially with everybody else silently listening to Dr. Bordon. “Who what?” murmured Lily, trying not to move her lips.

  “Who has to be forgiven twenty or else thirty times eighteen?”

  The pew pencil was very small, like a golf score pencil. As a weapon, it wouldn’t be confiscated at an airport X-ray. But Lily could have stabbed Trey through the eye with it. God didn’t know, Mom didn’t know, Reb didn’t know, denrose didn’t know—and Trey Mahanna knew right away what was gnawing at Lily Rosetti’s heart.

  She hated him. She hated his stupid perfect family.

  Dr. Bordon talked on placidly about forgiveness, as if forgiveness were a sweet simple event—like deciding whether to get soft ice cream or regular. Probably the biggest thing Dr. Bordon ever had to forgive in his family was not flossing.

  Forgiveness rots, Lily said to God. Listen to me. You didn’t totally let me down, because I found Michael in the end, and we did get home. Thank you. But you fell down on the job when you created Dennis Rosetti. I don’t want to forgive him. I want him to pay. Don’t pretend you didn’t try that yourself on the people you hated. Read your own books! You know how this is done.

  Make him suffer.

  After church, the Rosetti/Nickerson family did not go home because it was Fall Picnic.

  The church had lovely grounds, long and green under spreading maples and tulip trees. Here, the entire Sunday school played the kind of games that didn’t exist anywhere except at picnics: three-legged races, rope pulls, egg-on-a-spoon relays and sack races. The food was outstanding and the choices were infinite. Last names A to M brought main dishes, while N to Z were responsible for salad or dessert. Trey’s perfect mother, of course, always brought not one, but two yummy seafood casseroles following her own secret recipes, while Mom raced into a 24/7 grocery on the way to church and picked up a frozen cake.

  It was the role of older kids to assist the little ones. Lily was assigned the egg race. The eggs were not hard-boiled. Some kids—like Nathaniel—loved making a gooey yellow mess, and were happier smashing their eggs than getting to the finish line, while other kids cried with anxiety over the stress, and wanted Lily to take the risk of carrying the egg on its spoon while they trotted along next to her and got the credit.

  Trey, meanwhile, organized the tug-of-war between the six-year-olds and the fives. He staged the war across a huge mud puddle, because getting truly dirty was uncommon for most children; some mothers were genuinely shocked at the sight of filth on their babies. Trey made everybody take off their shoes and socks and then promised that the winning team got to shove the other team in the m
ud.

  “Hey, Amanda!” yelled Trey. “Help me out here. My fives need strength!”

  Amanda did only clean things and therefore was handling Drop the Clothespin into the Large Mason Jar and Get a Prize. Nothing would draw her into a mud situation. “Hey, Lily!” shrieked Amanda. “Trey needs you!”

  Lily was on her last egg lap, so she joined the fives.

  “Lily, on you I will practice my motivational skills,” said Trey. He was laughing. “Think of my team as the guy who has to be forgiven twenty—or else thirty—times eighteen. Pull hard enough on this rope, and you strangle him.”

  With such an incentive, Lily and her fives, although outnumbered and smaller, easily whipped Trey and his sixes. Everybody thrashed joyfully in the mud while Lily and Trey slipped away before the parents figured out who was responsible. They drifted behind a bunch of adults who were pretending to be on Atkins diets or South Beach diets but were actually scarfing up seconds on cake and pie.

  Trey did not want to discuss mud or desserts. “So who is it?” he said. “Your father? Can’t be anyone else. Michael was going to live with his dad forever and he’s back in a minute and a half? Comes over to play with Jamie and he’s practically in a coma instead of being good old Michael? My father says Michael needs counseling. My father says—”

  How dare Trey Mahanna analyze Michael? How dare his family talk about Michael, as if Michael were their business? How dare they notice stuff Mom had failed to notice? “Get away from me, Trey. I hate you and your whole stupid family.”

  At least Lily was enjoying her classes. Biology, French 1, Latin 2, European History and English. The amount of homework was appalling, but Lily loved it. She loved the shape of foreign languages and the frame of history. She loved biology and the surprises of nature. In English, they were doing plays, and she loved when her turn came and she got to read a part out loud. She especially liked being the bad guy and shouting terrible things.