The Last Embrace. Pam Jenoff
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Charlie had never even contemplated forgoing college for a job at the factory as his father had, or even applying to a lesser school. He had always known he was meant for something great. “I’ve gotta go.” He disappeared upstairs.
A minute later Jack walked in with Robbie in tow. “Dad’s still at church finishing up,” he told his mother. “Hi, Ad.”
I followed them to the kitchen. “Addie, the boys had sandwiches at church. Have you eaten?” I nodded, thinking of the leftover gefilte fish and reheated soup from Shabbes that was a Sunday staple at my aunt and uncle’s. She pulled a carton from the icebox. “Chocolate or vanilla?”
“Both!” Robbie interjected.
“Not too much. I’m putting in the roast and dinner is at four.” Mrs. Connally handed me a bowl.
“Thank you.” I broke off a bit with my spoon. Ice cream here was harder than Nonna’s creamy gelato. It almost needed to be cut.
“I spilled!” Robbie wailed as his ice-cream bowl tipped, sending a creamy pool onto the linoleum.
Jack quickly set the bowl straight and scooped some of his own into it, evening things out as he so often did. “Want some help with the science homework after this?” he asked me.
“Sure,” I said, grateful for the excuse for having come over later.
“Can I help, too?” Robbie asked eagerly.
Jack knelt by his brother. “How ’bout you give us a little while, and then maybe we can all play dominoes?”
“Marbles,” Robbie sniffed.
“All right, but no cheating,” Jack teased.
But Robbie’s face was serious. “I’m going to beat you, fair and square.”
“Why don’t you let the dog out first?” Mrs. Connally suggested to Robbie.
He leapt up, whistling for Beau. “Come on, boy.”
When he was out of earshot, Mrs. Connally turned to Jack. “Have you seen your brother?”
“Which one?”
“Haha, wise guy. Where’s Liam?”
Jack shrugged. “I’m not his babysitter.” But worry creased his face. Though Liam hadn’t been in any more trouble since the fight in school nearly two months earlier, he was more withdrawn and absent than ever.
“Jackie,” his mother pressed. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know. He was hanging out with some of the fellas.” He did not sound as though he was talking about the kids from church.
Mrs. Connally cringed. “I told him to come home right after you were finished.”
“I know. I reminded him. He told me to mind my own business.” I followed Jack up the stairs. Through an open door, I could see where Robbie had constructed a giant city out of his blocks, using cardboard boxes when he ran out. He loved to build and Jack loved to read, and Charlie loved football—but what did Liam love? Perhaps it was the lack of a passion that stirred him to trouble.
“I’m worried about Liam,” Jack confided when we reached the room he and his twin shared.
“You should be. He’s gone from school more often than he’s there and those kids he hangs out with are awful. We have to do something.”
“Like what?”
I searched for an answer. Liam wouldn’t listen to us. Telling the Connallys and getting him in further trouble would only make things worse. “I’ll be right back.”
I raced downstairs and outside after Charlie, who had changed into his practice jersey and was climbing on his bike, shoulder pads slung over the handlebars. He turned and my breath caught, as it always did when he was near. “What is it, Ad?” he asked. “I’ve got to practice.” But his eyes were soft, his voice warm. What would he do if I kissed him right now?
“I’m worried about Liam.” He cocked his head, not following. How could he not have noticed? “He’s missing school a lot.”
“He’s always been a wild kid, Addie. He just loves to give Mom and Dad the business.”
“But it’s different now. He could be drinking.” Though I had not seen Liam with beer or liquor, I knew from conversations I’d overheard at school that some of the wilder kids drank. “Or worse.”
“It’s a phase. He’ll get over it.”
“What if he doesn’t?” I pressed.
Charlie’s brow wrinkled fleetingly. “I’ll talk to him, I promise. But right now I’ve got to get to practice.” He rose up on the pedals and started forward. “Don’t worry,” he called over his shoulder as he pedaled away, his voice fading in the wind. Longing tugged at my stomach. If only he would see what was going on with Liam. If only he would see me.
I started back through the living room toward the stairs. “Addie,” Robbie called in a stage whisper, though no one else was around to see or hear. His head stuck out from a doorway beneath the stairs. He’d first shown me his secret hiding place in early fall, waving me in from the dining room during one of my visits while the others were busy debating the Lend-Lease Act to a small door that I had always assumed was a broom closet. I lowered my head and peered inside. “Come in,” he’d urged. The tiny space with its low ceiling was barely big enough for the two of us, but he had decorated it with photos and pictures he had done at school and put two pillows on the floor. I’d squeezed onto one of them. “My hideaway.” I understood. The house was so overrun, two boys to a bedroom, noise in every corner. This was the one place he could call his own. “No one else knows,” he’d whispered. Though quite sure his mother did, I nodded solemnly, flattered that I was the one with whom he had shared his secret.
I hesitated as he waved me in now; Jack was waiting for me upstairs to finish homework. But I slid into the closet and Robbie curled up under the crook of my arm in a way he surely would not do for much longer.
“Look,” he said, pointing to the sloped ceiling of the closet. He’d stretched black paper across it and in white he’d sketched the stars, trying to replicate the constellations. “I don’t have them quite right,” he fretted. I imagined how he’d worked on the design, biting his lip with grim concentration as he tried to get the positioning of the stars just right.
“You should ask Liam.” Last summer at the beach, Liam was forever pointing out the different patterns of stars visible in the night sky. His eyes would light up as he explained a particular constellation; it was the closest I’d seen him to taking an interest in something.
“He’s never around anymore.” Robbie’s words were a refrain of my earlier conversations with Jack and Charlie. Even at eleven, Robbie could see the change in his brother. My anger toward Liam rose: couldn’t he see that Robbie looked up to him, and needed him in the same way that he needed Charlie? “Charlie’s always practicing, and you and Jack are busy with homework.” Robbie’s voice was dangerously close to a whine now. “I’m bored.”
“Wait here.” I walked to the living room and picked up the chess set that the Connallys had given me. I’d left it here for the occasional game with Jack, since neither my aunt nor uncle played.
Robbie’s eyes widened as I lowered the chess set into his hideaway. “Dad says I’m too young.”
“Not at all. I started playing when I was seven.” I held up the first piece. “This is the pawn and it moves a single space straight ahead, but diagonally...”
From outside the closet there came a clattering. At first, I thought it was Jack, coming to see where I had gone. But Mr. Connally’s voice, low and urgent, rose from the entranceway. “What on earth?” I unfolded myself from the closet, meeting Jack as he came down the stairs. We found Mr. Connally in the kitchen with his wife. His usually jovial