Love Anthony Part 18

The ceremony took place on the Blue Oyster's modest, man-made beach overlooking the harbor, and the reception is now in full swing on the hotel's terrace. It's evening now, and the sky is lit with a bright moon and twinkling stars. A blazing fire in the stone fire pit and outdoor heaters positioned like lampposts among the tables keep the nippy night air from penetrating the edges of the elaborate white tent. Olivia shoots the moon over the harbor, the tea lights and gla.s.s bowls filled with cranberries on the white linen tablecloths, the bride's white-rose bouquet next to a gla.s.s of champagne.

The action is now taking place on the dance floor, but Olivia's attention is drawn to a boy sitting alone at his table for six. He looks to be seven or eight, he has long, surfer-s.h.a.ggy, blond hair, and he's dressed in a white s.h.i.+rt, khakis, and boat shoes. He's adorable. His index fingers are plugged into his ears, his elbows jut out sideways, and he's rocking back and forth in his seat. Click, click, click. Olivia looks at the LCD display of her camera. His gaze is far-off, unfocused.

The band finishes playing "Love Shack," and the boy's mother returns to his table to check on him. She kisses the top of his head. Click. Click. Click. She returns to the dance floor. He continues rocking with his fingers in his ears.

The band is loud. People have to yell to talk. The singer's voice amplified over the microphone, the thumping ba.s.s, a hundred people yelling to be heard, the dancing, the lights, the smell of the fire-it's all too much. This little boy is fighting against an onslaught of stimuli, doing his best to block it all out, rocking to create his own stimulus to zone in on, a soothing back-and-forth rhythm, a cradle.

The father comes to the table and sits down next to his boy. Click. Click. Click. The father finishes his drink and stays for another song. The mother returns to the table, sweaty and happy. She says something to her boy. He rocks and doesn't look at her. She pulls the father by his hand. He smiles. Click. Click. They return to the dance floor.

Olivia feels her stomach tighten and realizes that she's been holding her breath. She exhales. She's been here. She's lived this. That sweet little boy is only going to be able to cope for so long. What is celebration to everyone else is misery to him. None of this is fun for him, and Olivia wishes that his parents had left him home with a babysitter or that they'd call it a night and leave early. But she also understands their desire to include him, to dress him up like any other boy invited to the wedding and bring him along, to risk one more song, to enjoy themselves, to be a whole family here together.

She and David eventually stopped going to weddings and birthdays and holiday parties with Anthony because it was easier and safer to leave him home than to risk what might happen in public. Autism and noisy parties do not mix well, and if this boy's parents stay too long, it's not going to end well. At some point, rocking in his seat with his fingers in his ears won't be enough, and his nervous system is going to freak out, unable to tolerate one more second of this madness. He'll either melt down or bolt. Fight or flight.

Olivia a.s.sumes his parents well know the dice they're rolling, and while she's holding her breath again, worried about their boy, she's also rooting for them, hoping they manage to get through at least one more dance as husband and wife before the fuse on this invisible time bomb detonates, before their entire world transforms from a lovely evening at a wedding reception to a harrowing escape mission. But for now, they dance, seemingly oblivious to the hissing fuse. Olivia checks her watch, knowing it's getting late.

The band changes the mood with a slow song. The boy's father gathers his wife into him, and she snuggles her head into the nook of his neck. The two sway back and forth, pivoting in a small circle, and although they're surrounded by a crowded dance floor, they appear totally focused on each other, on the singular rhythm they've created together, as if no one else exists but them. Click. Click. Click.

Olivia lowers her camera and observes the couple without the mask of her lens between them. A wave of emotion swells in her throat, and she swallows several times to push it back down.

David.

Why couldn't they do that? Why couldn't they hold on to each other and block out the world? Why couldn't they surrender to what they couldn't control? Why weren't they brave enough to celebrate a life that included autism? She wanted to, and she thinks she eventually got there, but it took her too long. Just as she was ready to dance, the music stopped playing.

She glances back over at the boy's table. He's gone. Panic floods her every cell, paralyzing her for a second, but then a powerful and well-trained instinct kicks in.

Where are the exits? She eyes the door to the hotel that leads to the parking lot. He wants to go home, and the car is how to get there. The car is familiar and safe. Or maybe they're staying at the hotel. Either way, he'd have to worm through the crowds of people going in and out to use the restrooms, milling around in the loud lobby, by the concierge and the front desk.

She looks the other way, away from the people and the tent and all the noise, down the lawn, to the windy path that leads to stairs, to the beach, to the harbor. To the water. If Anthony were here and bolted, that's where he'd go.

Olivia forgets everything and runs. Her heels sink and stick with each step into the soft earth beneath the Blue Oyster lawn, slowing her down. She kicks them off and races barefoot down the cold stone stairs, praying to G.o.d that he'll be there when she rounds the corner and sees the beach.

CHAPTER 26.

Beth is peeking out the kitchen window, watching Jimmy and the girls drive away, feeling left behind. It's late Sat.u.r.day afternoon, and Jimmy popped by about an hour ago, said he had the night off, and offered to take the girls for a hike at Bartlett's Farm and then dinner. She hesitated to allow it at first, not because she had other burning plans for her and the girls, but because she wasn't included.

When in past months an unannounced Jimmy visit would've unnerved or angered her, today she quite enjoyed his company. He wiped his feet on the doormat before coming in the house, he changed the burned-out bulb in the overhead living-room light, he told her he'd line up the chimney sweep, and he asked the girls all kinds of questions about school. And he asked Beth lots of questions about autism and the book she's writing. He was considerate, useful, and sincerely engaged in conversation.

Before they left, he made a proud point of telling Beth that he'd finished Dr. Campbell's homework and looked more than a little crushed when she admitted she hadn't started hers yet. She needs to do the a.s.signment. She knows she's been avoiding it. She's also been avoiding asking herself why she's avoiding it.

She finds a sheet of printer paper and sits down at the kitchen table. She draws a cross, dividing the paper into four squares, and writes one word at the top of each quadrant: Wanted. Happy. Safe. Loved. Her eyes go unfocused as she stares at the page. She taps her teeth with her pen and daydreams for several minutes. She snaps out of it and returns to the task. Wanted. Happy. Safe. Loved. Blank. Blank. Blank. Blank.

She sighs, folds the paper, and stuffs it into her pocket. She'll do it some other time. Later.

She's grateful this kind of writer's block is limited to her personal life and not to her novel, still unt.i.tled. She still goes to the library almost every day, excited every morning to be there. The story has been coming easily, and she's proud of what she's written so far, fully believing when she rereads her chapters that she's somehow able to capture the voice of this fictional boy with autism.

A pen still in her hand and scenes from her novel now running through her mind trigger an almost compulsive urge to write. She checks her watch. She looks out the kitchen window at the spot in the driveway where Jimmy's truck was parked a few minutes ago. With a sudden burst of intention, she gets up, grabs her keys and her bag, and leaves the house. Instead of doing her marriage-counseling homework or cleaning the bedrooms or cras.h.i.+ng on the couch in front of HGTV for the rest of the evening while she waits for the girls to return, she's going to the library to write.

She bounds up the steps to the second floor, but then her heart sinks. Four people are sitting at her typically empty table. Eddy Antico from the Chamber of Commerce is sitting in her seat, and Pamela Vincent is reading aloud at the podium on the stage. Beth steps over to Mary Crawford at the reference desk.

"What's going on?" Beth whispers.

"It's the twenty-five-hour reading of Moby-d.i.c.k."

"Really? What hour are they on?"

Mary looks up at the clock and counts to herself. "Six hours, forty minutes. You want to read? We can fit you in pretty much anytime between four and six a.m."

I'm sure you can!

Mary shows Beth the roster. Rose Driscoll, head of the garden club and at least seventy years old, is scheduled to read at 3:00 a.m. Mary Crawford is signed up at six.

"No, no thanks," Beth says, trying not to laugh, unable to imagine why any sane person would actually plan to be at the library to read or listen to Moby-d.i.c.k at four in the morning, or at any time for that matter. Excitement on Nantucket during the off-season is a highly subjective experience.

Beth looks around the room, searching in resigned vain for a way to stay and write, wis.h.i.+ng she didn't have to leave. She could try writing downstairs or at The Bean, or she could write at the kitchen table in her quiet house, but she's become more superst.i.tious than a baseball player on a hitting streak about where she writes. She has to be in the library, sitting at the long table in the seat closest to the stage, facing the window. She knows her complete faith in this set of rigid conditions borders on diagnosable, and it can't really be true, but she believes in it. It is true. This is where she feels the inspiration. This is where Anthony's story comes to her. This is where the magic happens.

Reluctantly, she walks outside and zips her coat. She hesitates at her car door. She came all the way downtown and doesn't want to turn around and go home without accomplis.h.i.+ng anything. What else could she do here? Maybe Georgia is at the Blue Oyster. Maybe she'd be up for a break and a drink at the hotel bar. A perfect plan.

She makes a brisk walk out of the four quick blocks, excited about seeing Georgia and a deep martini, but as she arrives at the edge of the Blue Oyster property, she spots a wedding ceremony in progress down on their fake little beach, and she stops walking, deflated. A wedding means Georgia is busy and won't be free for a drink. Now what? She's come all the way downtown and walked all the way over to the Blue Oyster.

She sees Georgia standing well behind the two neat rows of white folding chairs and decides to sneak over to her and at least say a discreet h.e.l.lo.

"Hey," whispers Beth, now standing next to her friend.

"Hey!" whispers Georgia.

Georgia's face is flush with admiration and weepy joy. She dabs her eyes with a tissue. "They wrote their own vows. I love it when they do that."

Beth looks over at the bride and groom and strains to hear them. She can hear the groom's voice, but because he's facing the other way, she can't make out what he's saying. The bride's face is young and glowing. Beth wonders if her own face looked anything like that when she married Jimmy. She believes it did. She glowed on her wedding day. But sometime down the married road, she can't pinpoint exactly when, the glow disappeared. Jimmy's right. She hasn't been happy to see him in a long time. In bed, on the couch, at the kitchen table, walking through the front door-no glow. Can she get it back or is her Jimmy glow gone for good? Did she feel a little of that glow rekindled today?

She looks over at Georgia, who can't possibly decipher what the groom is saying, and she looks like she's glowing with his every word. But it doesn't take much for Georgia. She glows over Cotton commercials.

"I should go," says Beth.

"Why? Stay. I'll be done soon, and then we can go get a drink."

"Okay." Beth smiles, pleased that her friend has read her mind.

The bride and groom kiss, and everyone claps.

"Come with me. I have to herd them over to the terrace."

Georgia ushers the guests over to the tented terrace, where they are met with pa.s.sed hors d'oeuvres, champagne, and live music. The bride and groom are still at the beach, posing for the photographer. Beth and Georgia stand at the back of the terrace, behind the dance floor and the tables, near the door to the hotel.

"We just need to wait for the bride and groom. Make sure they get settled over here before I can leave."

"Okay."

"Such a lovely ceremony, wasn't it?"

"Yeah. Seems like a million years ago that that was me and Jimmy." A million years and yesterday.

"What's going on with you guys?"

"I don't know. We're seeing Dr. Campbell. I don't know though. What do you think I should do?" asks Beth, already sure of Georgia's answer.

"If you can forgive him, I'd take him back."

"What? You've never taken any of them back!"

"I know, but I wish I did. I wish I knew how to love through all the messy stuff. I've never had that love-conquers-all kind of love. Wish I did, but I don't think it's in me. I can't love someone no matter what."

Georgia has always wanted the fairy tale, the happily ever after. But so far, her princes haven't possessed the kind of character and stamina it takes to reach a proper storybook ending. Prince Charming doesn't go and sleep with the village tramp, he doesn't make a habit out of drinking twelve beers before noon, and he doesn't stop doting on his beloved. But even after four failed princes, Georgia still deep down believes marriage can be a Disney movie. If only she could find the right prince.

What does Beth believe in? Does she believe in Jimmy, that he'll never cheat on her again? Does she believe that she'll get her own happily-ever-after ending? Will Jimmy be there with her? Does she believe in love?

"I don't know if I can either."

"But I never had any kids to consider, so it was easier for me to end things and not look back."

"I can't stay with him just for the girls, right?"

"No, you shouldn't. But I think it would make me hang around longer to work on things."

"So you'd take Jimmy back?" questions Beth, not believing this for one second.

Georgia tilts her head as if she were giving this real consideration but quickly gives up the charade and laughs at herself. "No, I couldn't do it. I'd be done. But I'm not saying I'm right."

Beth could argue that restoring her marriage is the right thing to do. Forgive Jimmy, take him back, and everything can go back to normal. Forgiveness is good. Normal would be bliss. The girls would get their father back. They deserve to live with their father. It feels like the kind of selfless decision a good mother would make for her children. It would be big of her.

For the sake of the children, take him back!

But the argument against taking him back is ranting with just as much volume and confidence, heated words scratching against some thin inner membrane of her wounded heart, barely containing her spite and self-loathing.

Are you kidding me? If you don't divorce his a.s.s, you're a pathetic, spineless martyr with no self-esteem!

She imagines Pamela Vincent whispering to Debbie McMahon in the Atheneum while Eddy Antico reads the seventh hour of Moby-d.i.c.k. Did you hear Beth and Jimmy Ellis got back together after he cheated on her for a year? What a fool!

She imagines Jill and Courtney gossiping over goblets of iced chardonnay. Those poor girls, to have to grow up without their father. Beth didn't even give him a chance. We're all human. We all make mistakes.

She worries that everyone she knows will judge her either way. She shakes her head and closes her eyes, trying to ignore all arguments about what she should do, what everyone else thinks, even her kids, to clear it all away and focus inward, to discover what is real and true for her in her own once-glowing heart. It's a simple question really.

Does she love Jimmy enough to take him back?

She opens her eyes. The bride and groom have made their grand entrance at the reception and are now dancing their first dance as husband and wife. The groom's face is tight and concentrated, and their movement together across the floor is hardly fluid, the obvious product of not quite enough dance lessons, but the effort, despite its being awkward, is sweet. Beth and Jimmy didn't even try to learn actual steps for their wedding. They just sort of waddled back and forth like teenagers at a school dance.

The bride is relaxed and beaming. Her clumsy groom probably took dance lessons with her, probably one night a week, and he probably loathed every second of it, but he did it. He did it because he loves her. He's willing to dance like a fool in front of a hundred people for his darling's happiness. Fast-forward ten years, and she'll be lucky if he's willing to replace the toilet paper or use a plate.

"I love a man who can dance," says Georgia.

"He's not exactly Gene Kelly."

"He's trying. I love it."

The first dance is then followed by the other traditional dances-the bride with her father (he can't dance either), the groom with his mother, and then the groom with his grandmother, which generates even more adoration from Georgia. If he hadn't just got hitched, she'd be all over him. The dance floor is now open to everyone. The five-piece bra.s.s band is festive and loud. Unable to hear each other without yelling, Beth and Georgia have stopped chatting. Georgia checks her watch. She s.n.a.t.c.hes a gla.s.s from a tray of champagne flutes.

"Here, stay and have some champagne! I have to take care of one quick thing, and then we can go!"

"Okay!"

Beth leans against the wall, sips her champagne, and people-watches, self-conscious now that she's alone, keenly aware that she's wearing jeans and attending a wedding reception she wasn't invited to. She avoids eye contact with every stranger who walks past her on the way to the restrooms, hoping no one talks to her or asks her how she knows the bride and groom or, G.o.d forbid, asks her to dance.

She becomes interested in watching a young boy sitting alone at one of the front tables. He's blocking his ears and rocking in his seat. Autism. She knows enough about autism now, from both the books she's read and the book she's writing, to recognize it anywhere. And like an obscure vocabulary word she'd never heard of, once learned, she sees it everywhere.

But her writing has done more than simply allow her to recognize it. When she notices a child with autism now, like this cute little boy sitting at the table, she feels a compa.s.sionate connection, a softness in her heart, like they're friends who share an intimate secret. Before she began writing her book, she would've looked at this boy and thought, He seems odd. Something's wrong with that boy. And then she would've intentionally looked away. Now she smiles as she watches him and thinks, I know, it's way too loud in here. I want to get out of here, too.

The boy's parents keep checking on him, but he's not paying them any attention. Good boy. He's smart. If he acknowledges their presence, if he listens to what they're saying, if he cracks open the door to receiving input from outside himself, it might swing wide-open, and then the trumpet and the trombone and the singing and a thousand other aggressive sounds would stampede into him along with the voices of his parents. And that would be disastrous.

He's rocking faster now. His eyes, although still mostly unfocused, have started glancing around. His defense mechanisms aren't doing the job. He's starting to come undone. She can feel it.

Just as she guessed he would, he hops off his chair and bolts. He runs right out from under the tent and onto the lawn, into the night. Beth scans the dance floor and finds his parents in each other's arms, slow-dancing, oblivious.

Without thinking, Beth loses her champagne flute and runs after him. He's fast, scrambling down the stone path, back toward the beach where the wedding ceremony had been. She loses sight of him as she slows down on the stone steps, careful not to fall, but rea.s.sures herself as she keeps going that he'll be at the beach when she gets there and not gone. If he's not on the beach, he could be anywhere.

She reaches the sand, and there he is. He's up to his knees in the water. He dips his hands beneath the surface and then raises them overhead, creating a splash. He smiles and squeals, flapping his wet hands, spraying water from his fingertips. He throws his hands back into the gla.s.sy, calm water, creating an even bigger splash. He squeals and laughs. He repeats the process.

Beth stands with her hands on her hips, catching her breath, relieved the chase is over and the boy is safe, asking herself what the plan is now. She wishes she'd alerted his parents before she took off, but by now they've probably noticed he's missing. She'll simply stay with him until they come.

The boy is walking parallel to the sh.o.r.e and doesn't seem to want to go any farther out, any deeper than his knees. Good. Beth has no desire to plunge into the freezing ocean to save a drowning boy. He's unbothered by Beth, who is now standing quite close to him, still delighting in his splas.h.i.+ng hands, when Beth hears someone coming down the path. She turns around, expecting to see the boy's parents, but instead it's a woman. Beth knows her, but maybe because she was expecting someone else, she can't at first place who it is. Then she notices the serious camera in the woman's hand, and it registers. It's Olivia, her photographer.

Olivia runs straight to the water, her face pale with dread. But the boy is squealing and laughing. He's totally fine. Olivia stops at the water's edge and breathes hard with her hands on her hips, smiling as tears stream down her cheeks.

"Olivia."

Olivia startles, placing her hand on her heart. "My G.o.d, Beth, I didn't see you," she says, wiping her eyes and face. "Do you know his parents?"

"I know who they are, but I don't know them."

"Same. Will you go find them while I wait here with him?" asks Olivia.

Beth agrees, but just as she turns around, his parents appear at the edge of the stone steps.