Free The Year That Follows by Scott Lasser Page A

well want to know something of her beginning. Sam and Ann had always had an understanding they would tell her whenshe was old enough; then she was old enough, and yet they didn’t tell her. Silence was easy. Then Ann died, and Kyle, and suddenly Cat doesn’t have a blood relation left on the planet, except for her little boy.
    “Maybe it doesn’t matter,” says Sam.
    “Only a man could say something like that.”
    “We move on,” he says.
    “In denial,” Phyllis adds.
    “Look, I’m going to tell her.” He feels something in his chest. It could be anything.
    “Maybe you should wait.”
    “You’re not serious.”
    “No,” she says. “I’m not.”
    F or years Sam studied his children for the differences of biology. With Cat it was always easy to see the influence of another man, physically taller, darker, though perhaps equally somber and quiet. Both of Sam’s children kept their own counsel and thus seemed mature beyond their years. Their size was the biggest difference. Once, when Cat was about fourteen, she and Kyle were in the kitchen. Sam walked in, and on a lark picked up Kyle, grabbing him by his bony ribs and hoisting him, a move that took some effort. Cat, quite unexpectedly, did the same thing to Sam. Now there was an experience, to be suddenly lifted off the ground by your fourteen-year-old daughter who weighed only twenty pounds less than you and was just as tall. Two things occurred to Sam. First, hewas reminded that another man was involved; Sam could feel him reaching out, grabbing, reminding him of the secret history. Second, floating there above the tile floor of the kitchen, Sam realized that there had been some change in his authority, in his very essence as a father. Fathers are supposed to pick up their girls, not the other way around. It seemed a long time that he was up in the air. Ann happened by and said, in her sharp voice, “Catherine, put your father down.” And it was done.
    Sam came to admire Cat’s size, her height and presence. Kyle, on the other hand, was built like a greyhound. The last year all three were together, Sam took Kyle to Saks to buy a suit for the fall sports banquet. Kyle had outgrown what he’d had; Sam remembered that old suit, a constricting garment Kyle wore to Ann’s funeral, the pants at his ankles, the short sport jacket sleeves, the exposed wrists. Sam thought, He’s really not a boy, anymore. Just as he thought, Cat’s a woman, almost. At Saks Sam discovered that Kyle wore a forty long. This was a size a man wore. There was a moment when Kyle and Cat stood together in front of the three-sided mirror, the reflections of them bouncing endlessly back into the glass. Sam told himself not to forget it, this still shot of his children together, young and strong. Anything could happen, and he had high hopes for them. They were his, equally, and soon they would be gone.
    •    •    •
    P hyllis believes in walking, and so after a couple of cups of coffee Sam is out in the Santa Barbara hills. He prefers strolling on the beach for its flatness and salty air, for the sky and the light reflected off the water. Phyllis is more concerned with her personal expenditure of energy. Here, on this dusty trail, Sam sweats. She wanted him to stay home, used his heart as the reason, and so he insisted on coming to prove to her he is fit, and to test the gods. She keeps stopping to wait for him, sometimes even retracing her steps, which is yet another special indignity. I fought a war, he thinks. I once stayed awake for two and a half days, and now I can’t keep up with some old lady.
    “You need to go back,” she tells him. “So help me God, if you die out here …”
    He’s resting by leaning against a tree, a hand on the textured bark. He’s too winded to speak.
    “We’re going back,” she says.
    He doesn’t protest. The way back is downhill, and surprisingly easy. He follows her, noting the herringbone pattern her small shoes leave in the dust.