Page 28 of One Last Smile

She stands abruptly. “Maybe you’ll take my advice. Don’t get close to us. Don’t get involved in our lives. We’re very badly broken, all of us. Even Lucas, poor boy. Just teach him his maths and his reading and his science, and at the end of the year, collect your paycheck. Be polite if you must. Join us for dinner, and at the end, embrace us all tearfully and promise to write and visit.”

She meets my eyes. “But don’t. Don’t write, don’t visit. Escape and leave us to our own warped devices. If Minnie had done that, she might still be alive.”

She leaves the room without waiting for a response. I remain, wondering if what I’ve just heard is an emotional warning or a direct threat. What it is, unquestionably, is good advice.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been good at following advice for nearly thirty years.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“Do you ever think of leaving?”

My brow furrows. “Leaving? Annie, what on Earth are you talking about?”

She shrugs. “You know. Leaving.”

I stare at her for a moment. In the twenty-one years I’ve known her, I’ve never gotten used to these off-the-wall questions. “Leaving what? Our parents? I’m pleased to say that we’ve already left them. Well, Father left us, but we both left Mother.”

“I know, but we’re still here.”

“What do you mean? We don’t live in Boston anymore.”

She laughs. “It’s what, a two-hour drive back home? That’s not what I’m asking anyway. I mean…” She gestures around. “This. All of this.”

A spark of concern goes off in my mind. In school, I learned that suicidal people will often leave hints of their ideation to loved ones. “Annie? Are you feeling all right? If there’s something you want to talk about, you can tell me.”

She laughs, a full-throated, mirthful sound that both frightens and irritates me. I choose to voice the former emotion. “Annie, you’re scaring me.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, getting her laughter under control. “I mean it, I am. I’m not asking if you ever think about taking a long leap off of a short bridge. I mean… don’t you ever wish there was more to life?”

“That’s a very different question than asking me if I ever think of leaving.”

“Not really. We grew up with well-to-do parents, a quality education, and a life in a large American city. Now, we’re both enjoying a quality education in a large American city. Afterward, you plan to continue your education in a large American city until you can open a practice in a large American city. You’ll take the subway to and from work instead of to and from school. You’ll go to the theater Saturday night and the park Sunday afternoon. You’ll meet a polite, sensible boy with a polite, sensible career with whom you’ll have polite, sensible sex—”

“Annie!” I exclaim with a blush.

“It’s true, though. That’s your future. Don’t you ever wish it wasn’t so… planned?”

“It could be far worse,” I say.

“It could be far better,” she counters.

“How?”

“I don’t know.” Her smile fades. “I really don’t know. I think that’s the problem.” She looks over my shoulder and says, “Look who’s here.”

I turn and see Alistair approaching. I frown. “What are you doing here? I don’t meet you for twenty-eight years.”

Wait, how do I know that? What is this? Why…?

“Relax, Mary,” Alistair says breezily. “You’re just having a nightmare is all.”

“A what? Annie…”

I turn to the left, but Annie’s gone, and so is the bar where we were enjoying a drink after our school day (a polite, sensible beer).

It’s daytime now rather than night. Yet somehow, the forest of elm and poplar I find myself in seems to close around me, as though swallowing the light from its edges and reflecting it back to me.

There’s a girl ahead of me. She’s standing alone, looking into the trees. It’s Annie, but it’s not Annie. She’s too short, and her shoulders aren’t quite broad enough.

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