He’d gone straight to see Mr. Sills, whose apartment had grown, if anything, even more crammed with the collages of pictures and paintings now covering the walls entirely. After Athens, Andy had offered to buy him a house, a condo, something in Center City, so he could walk to the museums and the restaurants, but Mr. Sills had shaken his head and told him, “I lived here with Mrs. Sills. This is home.”
“Son,” Mr. Sills had said, struggling to his feet. The man who’d once seemed like a giant to Andy was smaller all over; shorter and thinner, with a clear tube running across his cheek and up into his nose. Beside the corduroy-covered armchair that Andy remembered sat an oxygen tank, like a small, faithful dog.
It made him think of Rachel, and all the mistakes he’d made, all the bad choices, and he wanted to bang his head against a wall until the shame subsided. Instead, he made himself hold still as Mr. Sills said, “It’s good to see you,” and gave him a hug. In that instant, he hated himself more than he ever had; hated himself for all the people he’d disappointed, all the ones he’d hurt or left behind.
I’m sorry, he thought. He knew that if he tried to talk he wouldn’t be able to get the words out . . . but it seemed, somehow, that Mr. Sills had heard them anyhow. “There, there,” he said, patting Andy’s back, the way a mother might have soothed a crying baby. “There, there.”
They’d visited all afternoon. Mr. Sills showed Andy his latest treasures—an oil painting of a parrot (“It really brightens up the place,” he’d said), a Spode tea service, and a real silver tray. “A genuine antique!” he’d pronounced, and told Andy how many times he’d had to go over all the vines and curlicues to clear away the tarnish. He asked after Maisie, and Andy told him briefly that Maisie was gone. As the day wound down and the sky began to darken, Mr. Sills asked, “Did you ever think to look up your daddy?”
Andy shook his head. Mr. Sills smiled.
“Talkative as ever. You suppose that’s something you might want to undertake?”
Andy shrugged. “Maybe someday.”
“Maybe someday,” Mr. Sills repeated. He settled into his chair, glanced at the tank beside him, and said, “I know that you are hurting. Only thing I’d say is, don’t wait too long.” He’d smiled, crinkling his cheeks, making his glasses rise. “None of us live forever.”
He’d given Mr. Sills a long hug goodbye. Then he had gone home to his mother.
“You can stay as long as you want to,” Lori told him, leading him up the stairs to where the guest room sat in readiness for a visit that, so far, had never come. The queen-size bed had a blue-and-red bedspread; the dresser displayed a dozen photographs of Andy through the years. Fresh towels sat at the foot of the bed, and there was a new toothbrush in the bathroom. That was Lori. She’d hardly hug, she’d never kiss, she’d rarely say I love you, but when you showed up at her door unannounced, the bed was made, the freezer was full of Stouffer’s French bread pizzas, and there was a fresh tube of the kind of Crest he’d used when he was a boy.
Andy walked into the room and set his bag on the dresser. Lori stood in the doorway, playing with her hair.
“Andy.”
He looked at her.
“When you told me you were sorry—you should know that I am, too. If I ever made you feel like you weren’t good enough . . .” She paused, then gave a rueful, shamed laugh. “If I always made you feel like you weren’t good enough . . .”
“Mom,” he said, but Lori kept talking, her face pale, and her hands gripping each other. “That’s why you did it, right? That’s why you wanted to keep running. You had a gold medal—you beat the whole world—and you still couldn’t let yourself stop. And it’s my fault,” she said. “I should have made you feel like I loved you, like I loved you no matter what, and I didn’t do it.”
“Mom,” he said again, or tried to say, because he could hardly talk and she was crying.
“All I thought of was myself, and just getting through the day, and how lonely I felt, and I put too much on you, and I didn’t give you enough, and I’m sorry, Andy. I can’t tell you how sorry . . .” Andy crossed the room to take her hands and she grabbed his and squeezed them hard.
“I was never ashamed of you. I was never anything but proud. You’re my boy,” she said, still crying. “And I’m proud to be your mom.”
Rachel
2014
Rachel?” There was a hand on my shoulder, and a sweet, well-meaning voice in my ear. I groaned. “Tired,” I said.