Free Did You Ever Have A Family by Bill Clegg Page B

apple orchards and the fields that led to the Unification Church property. It was surrounded by old pine and locust trees, and in the winter it looked like a Christmas card. She’d overheard people she worked for, people who knew June Reid from the city, mention how she’d taken up with a local guy, much younger. And then Bess Tuck, one of her employers who lived in the city during the week, asked her point-blank whether Lydia knew whom her son was dating. When Lydia answered that she did not, Bess told her the woman was someone who’d had dinner in this very house , she emphasized, as if it were the most spectacular and impossible coincidence.
    Lydia knew about June Reid but had never seen her. And here she was. As much as she’d wondered how Luke was and what he was doing and whom with, she knew right away she couldn’t bear this woman telling her about her son. It was as if she had taken her place or succeeded where she had failed. But even if the kind of love they had was a totally different kind of love than a mother and son’s, she didn’t want it rubbed in her face by someone whose motives for being with a man so young could not be good. Leave, she said to her as she struggled to unlock the door to her apartment. I don’t know who you are and I don’t want to. Go away .
    June came back a few weeks later and again Lydia rushed inside. But the next time she came, Lydia didn’t duck into her apartment or tell her to go. She stood on the porch and let her speak. It embarrasses her to remember, but she was flattered this elegant woman was so determined to spend time with her. After a little while, she asked her in. She stayed and she talked, and she came again, and after that again. Eventually, Luke came with her. The first few times he barely spoke, and Lydia, terrified she’d say the wrong thing and cause him to storm out, kept quiet. Lydia remembers June teasing Luke about the kids he hired— Perverts, pickpockets, and potheads, she’d chant—and each time would get a reaction. He’d try to get mad, but when he did, she would poke him in the stomach or under his arms and he would, against his will, melt. During those first few sessions, June’s light joking was the only sound to break the silence, and as difficult as it was to see Luke so at ease with a woman her own age, she was grateful. Slowly, after a few visits, he began to talk about work, even ask Lydia questions about the people she cleaned for. And then one morning, before Lydia left for the day, he showed up alone. They sat on the bottom step of her porch, mostly in silence, and watched two teenage boys scrape paint from the fence of a house on Lower Main Street. EventuallyLydia turned toward Luke and cautiously placed her hand on his shoulder. She began to speak, Luke, I . . . but he interrupted her, rushing his words, which sounded as if he’d rehearsed them. We’ll be okay. . . . I don’t ever want to talk about it because there’s nothing you can say to change what happened. And I don’t want you to try. I’ll never understand. I don’t want to. But we’ll be okay . Before she could respond, he hugged her—quickly, the first time in years, his neck against her face, his smell, his skin, all of a sudden so close. He stood, and as he turned toward his truck to leave, he stumbled awkwardly and nearly fell. I have to, he started to say, righting himself, then pausing a beat, stop drinking in the morning, a smile flaring, his eyes bright. This was less than one year before he died. Nothing, and then so much, then nothing.
    After those first few weeks following the accident, Lydia stopped picking up the phone. Sometimes she’d leave the apartment, walk down to the town green and back to avoid it. Other times she’d just let it ring and ring. She’d turn the volume up on the television to drown the sound out, or if someone kept calling, she’d get in the shower and turn on the radio that hung from the showerhead. Eventually, the