Page 108 of We All Live Here
Jensen appears asshe is clearing up. Supper had been subdued: the girls are clearly affected by the shift in atmosphere that comes with the knowledge that it is now just the three of them again. They had stopped asking about Gene some time ago. Lila wonders if they had absorbed, as she has, the notion that Gene is someone who is only ever likely to be seen in fleeting visions, a grandparent who is as unlikely to stick around as Bill has been steadfast. They had picked at their spaghetti, and in truth she had little appetite either, and had let them go as soon as they asked. Violet had retreated into the living room with Truant, and Celie had disappeared upstairs.
Lila has just loaded the plates into the dishwasher when she jumps atthe sound of knocking. Jensen’s face appears at the French windows, his ears tinged with red in the cold.
“I’ve come for Bill’s bench.”
She puts down the plates, her heart thumping, and goes to let him in. He steps over the threshold, bringing with him a bracing gust of cold air.
“Oh. Of course. I—I didn’t realize it was going to be you.” She is discombobulated by Jensen’s sudden appearance in her kitchen, aware that she is not wearing makeup, that she is in the jeans with the mud spatters on them.
“They’re still moving stuff around over there. I said it would be easiest for me to just put it in the pickup.”
Lila peels off her rubber gloves, trying not to look at him. “I’ll give you a hand,” she says.
The bench, it turns out, weighs a lot less than she had thought. It takes a matter of minutes for the two of them to lift it into the back of the pickup truck. He closes the back and the sound is horribly final. Lila folds her arms across her chest as he secures it with webbing straps. They stand for a moment on the street, not looking at each other. This might be the last time she sees him, she thinks, now that Bill has gone. And something in her cannot bear the thought that she will never be able to explain herself properly.
“I don’t suppose you’d like a cup of tea?” she blurts out. “I—I was just about to put the kettle on.”
He looks off to the left, his hands thrust deep in his pockets. And then his shoulders lower a fraction. “Sure,” he says. “Why not?”
They walk into the house through the back, and Lila is confronted for the first time by the sight of the memorial garden without the bench in it. Somehow more seems to have disappeared from it than just a bench. It looks now like a hollow corner, an empty space, no longer the focal point of anything.
“I think I should probably get another bench,” she says, her voice a little shaky.
“Yeah,” says Jensen, pausing to study the space. “It definitely needs something.”
She makes the tea in silence and they sit down at the kitchen table. Lila positions herself with her back to the garden, wanting suddenly not to look at any of it, as if the missing garden furniture now somehow symbolizes something so much greater. Jensen keeps his jacket on, as if he is primed to leave as quickly as possible. Perhaps he is just being polite by agreeing to the tea. She feels self-conscious now in his presence. She tries to work out how to open the conversation, but finds that she is already anticipating his every response, and it keeps stopping the words as they form in her mouth.
He asks a few questions about Bill, which eases things. She tells him the story of what had happened, of Penelope, and the girls, and her mixed feelings at him moving out. He tells her he’ll be popping into the bungalow every day. That he often did even before the heart attack so Bill will see nothing unusual in it, and she is grateful for his diplomacy.
“So where’s Gene?”
“Gone.” She explains briefly about the letter in the attic. She wants to say more, about how she feels like she’s lost her mother along with her father, how angry she feels with both of them, but it sounds stupid and childish and she, of all people, has probably forfeited the right to talk about how she feels in front of Jensen.
The tea is drained from their mugs. They sit in silence, watching Truant pace backward and forward. He does not like change either.
“I got your letter,” he says.
She waits for a moment before she says: “It’s all canceled. All of it. I’m not writing a book any more.”
He gazes at his empty mug.
“It was a stupid idea. I’ve actually wanted to tell you that, and to sayI’m sorry in person too. So many times. I would have called…but after your girlfriend—”
He looks up sharply.
“I mean, she was right, obviously. I’m not trying to defend myself. But it was clear what she thought—the conversations you must have had about it…I guess. I didn’t want to do or say anything that might cause you further…” Her words keep congealing in her mouth.
“What girlfriend?”
Lila blinks. “The one in the supermarket?” When he still looks blank she says, “Red hair?”
He pulls a face. “You mean my sister.”
Lila stares at him.
“My sister. Nathalie. I told you about her. She—I was a bit knocked sideways by what happened. And she just, well, hung out with me for a couple of days. Just to make sure I was okay. I think they get worried after…you know…”
Lila wants to apologize again, to acknowledge her part in his hurt, but all she can think isThat’s not your girlfriend.“Oh,” she says, and then, “Oh.”
