Trying to keep my eyes on the road after I arrived in California last week, I groped in my handbag for my cell phone. With a thumb, I scrolled to the entry for Matt. A lot of people in Pleasant Valley go to sleep at ten or earlier, and I prayed as I listened to one, then two, then three rings, that Matt and his wife weren’t among them.
“Hello?” It was a woman’s voice.
But I did not call Charlie that night. I still feel such rage toward him, I don’t think I could articulate an intelligible word if we got on the phone. Instead I called my father.
“Matt Wrightson!” Dad was speechless for a full five seconds. “Where…?”
Whenever I’m with my father or his wife, we pretend that Laura and her family never existed, that there never was a group marriage. Read more »
I offered to take Matt and Penny out for dinner the night after I arrived here, but the two of them adhere to the Dean Ornish diet; they had almost given up on restaurants because they usually just end up ordering salad anyway. Factoring in the kids’ predilections made it impossible. Instead, Penny made an inedible quinoa casserole. When I wasn’t picking up quinoa grains from the carpet, or restraining Dante from making a mast and sail with a broom and afghan, I watched my hosts with fascination. Read more »
When I met Ivor in Califano Park, I didn’t know how to begin a conversation with him.
“Matt’s changed,” was what I finally came up with.
“How?”
“Well, he’s married. For most people that would be ordinary. But there was a time he couldn’t connect with anyone. Now he doesn’t seem so… eccentric.”
“He doesn’t think he ever was.”
“Do you?” Read more »