worry, he’s not leaving you, OK? No matter what we do, he’s still your father.’
It was so quiet that he could hear the ice cracking on the Thames.
Lucy tried, ‘You don’t seem very upset.’
Like he would feel bad that this abusive, sanctimonious jarhead bastard was being kicked out of their lives. He and Burt hated each other, even though they weren’t allowed to admit it.
‘Danny?’ Even in the dark, Lucy could see he was glad. ‘Dan?’
‘OK.’
The hand she put on his arm was shaking. ‘I’m telling you first, so you won’t feel hurt. We both still love you.’
He must have been one cold little bastard, standing there with his eyebrows clenched and his jaw carved in stone, nothing, not even an eyelid, twitching. Looking back, he feels bad about it. At the time he said, ‘It’s no big deal.’
‘We’ve been a family for so long. I just.’ She didn’t finish. After a while she said, ‘It’s over and I’m sorry, OK?’
It was quiet for way too long. Oh God she was waiting for him to say something, what . . . appropriate.
All these years later he’s sorry he couldn’t have been nicer with her. Softer. He should have hugged her and said he loved her and let her sob into the front of his fleece. He did what he could: he shrugged, signaling no problem, but she was too upset to read signals. ‘Dan?’
Finally he said, ‘OK.’
‘I just don’t want you to be upset.’
Oh Mom, don’t cry. ‘Why would I?’
A light went on in the kitchen. Burt, looking for his dinner. For his wife, the assigned provider. ‘Lucy!’ He yelled loud enough for them to hear through sealed storm windows, ‘Where is everybody? What’s going on? Luce?’
While Danny and his mother stood out there on the back porch with icicles dropping and everything in flux.
She said, ‘We’ve been with him since before you were born, Danny. He’s just like your . . . well, he’s nothing like him, but . . .’
‘What?’
She covered her mouth. ‘Oh honey, please don’t be upset.’
He isn’t? He isn’t! Danny’s heart did a joyful flip. Oh God, I was right. ‘Why, Mom?’
‘You mean why am I telling you or why do I think you’re upset?’
Her face went to pieces. Danny’s face stayed where it was.
‘He tried so hard, and I know he loves me.’ She was desperate to make him like the man she’d picked out to take care of them, she hoped for it even there, at the end of the arrangement. ‘I just don’t want you to miss him too much. Burt, I mean. When he goes.’
‘Like I would give a . . .’
‘Don’t, Danny. Don’t say flying fuck. Listen. I know you feel bad . . .’
‘I feel fine!’
‘But this might make you feel better. It. Uh. Oh Danny, I . . .’
‘Dan.’
‘Dan. Dan, it.’
It was cold. Spit was freezing on his teeth but they had to stay out here on the rickety back porch until she finished. ‘It’s OK, Mom. You don’t have to tell me . . .’
‘Please, I’m trying to tell you something important.’
He finished, ‘You just did.’
But she didn’t hear. ‘I should have told you before.’
She was a mess. God he hated Burt. ‘He’s going. We’re cool.’
‘That isn’t all.’
‘Mom?’ That little gulp of hesitation scared him. There was always the possibility that she was getting married again.
Inside, pots crashed: Burt fending for himself. Never mind what had just passed between them, or that he understood long before she tried to tell him. Lucy needed to spell it out. She took the requisite deep breath: well. ‘About Burt.’ Sigh. ‘I didn’t want you to go on thinking he was your father.’
An icicle dropped off the porch roof and knifed into the melting snow.
‘He was just a nice guy who came along at the right time.’
Oh, is that all. Danny made her wait so she would understand what he was about to tell her. He dropped spaces between the words like bricks, to make sure she would remember. ‘Like you think I didn’t know?’
‘How?’
Oh, Mom. Don’t look so betrayed. ‘How could I not?’ He made a smile for her, but it was too late, or too fake. ‘Mom, what’s the matter?’
Water sheeted her eyes and hung, not spilling. It was a miracle of surface tension. Lucy was beaming, like, Thank God that’s over. This is how she surprised him: ‘I’m just so glad!’
‘Mom!’
She rushed on. ‘I’m taking my name back. It’s Carteret.’