Look Closely by Laura Caldwell Page B

but I could tel it was a man, someone a little tal er than her, and for a second, I saw the man reach out and put a hand on my mom’s shoulder.
    “Let’s go.” My dad pul ed my hand so hard I almost cried out. He marched me back the way we came, pul ing me down the beach. In my other hand, I gripped tight to the beach glass, trying not to drop it. When I looked up, my father’s jaw was hard, his eyes narrow. A few times, I almost stumbled as he propel ed us over the sand.
    When we reached the wood walk that would take us back to the street, he slowed so we could sit and pul on our shoes.
    “Did I do something wrong?” I asked.
    He looked at me as if I’d said a terrible thing, then he pul ed me to him, hugging me so close it was difficult to breathe.
    “Everything’s al right.” He released me, but I thought for a moment he might cry because of the way his eyes were pul ed down, the way his mouth seemed ready to tremble. “Let’s go home.”
    We walked back quickly, not strol ing as we had on the way to the beach. When we reached the house, he said he loved me very much but he’d forgotten something at the office. He needed to go back that night.
    I sat on the window bench in my room, watching him pul out of the driveway. The bench reminded me of the larger one in my parents’ room where my mother often rested and wrote in her journals. Usual y, when I sat on my own bench, it made me feel a little like my mom, and that made me happy. That night, though, staring out at the now dark lawn, I didn’t want to be my mother. She’d made my dad leave, and I only wanted him to come back.
    When my mother came in the room, I was stil there. “You made him go away,” I said.
    “What?” My mother raised a hand and smoothed the pink cotton front of her T-shirt.
    “Dad was here. We saw you on the beach, and he left.”
    My forehead was touching the glass of the French doors. Stil , I peered at the beach, thinking over this new memory the way I studied a witness’s testimony after a deposition.
    I’d always assumed my parents were happy together, from the devastation my father experienced after she passed away. But was my mother involved with someone else? I knew my father had been upset with her that day, but I’d been too young to draw any conclusions. Now it seemed possible my mother was having an affair.
    I opened the French doors and went onto the balcony. The spring air was balmy and light. I leaned on the painted white railing and gazed at the beach, trying to bring back more of the memory, the parts that had happened before and later, but nothing else came.
    Just a few blocks to my left was where my father and I had taken our walk, where my mother had stood with the man. Just because he was a man, though, didn’t mean my mother was involved with him. Why was I so quick to jump to the conclusion that my mother had been unfaithful? The hand on my mother’s shoulder, the way she’d smoothed down her pink shirt when she’d come to my room, that was why.
    I sank down on the Adirondack chair, painted white to match the railing. The hand had reminded me of the vision I’d had on the stairs today, of the hand that I had seen steady my mother at the door. The lawyer in me confronted myself. How can you assume it was the same person? And even if it were true, who was he? Did it matter? He might not have anything to do with her death.
    I ran a hand through my hair. I was going in circles. This happened to me sometimes during a big case. My mind wound around too many details, unable to see the important things.
    I threw on a pair of khaki shorts, a long-sleeved shirt and sandals. Once down on the beach, I walked to the left, the way my mother had headed that day, the way I’d fol owed with my father. A soft breeze blew, playing with my hair, pushing it in my eyes. There were only a few people on the beach—a jogger and an older couple who were camped out with chairs and a cooler. The couple gave me a happy