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“Well, that’s something more than we had, isn’t it?” B’Lynn said, latching on to hope once again.
That cycle had to be exhausting. Soul draining.
“Is this the house Robbie grew up in?” Annie asked.
“Yes. It’s been in my family forever. I inherited it from my grandmother on my mother’s side. We moved in here when Robbie was three.”
Annie envied her that family history, and the traditions and memories that came with it. She had no idea who her mother’s mother was, much less where she had grown up or how. Marie Broussard hadn’t handed down any family heirlooms or traditions.
“Does Robbie normally spend much time here?”
“Sunday dinner every week.”
“Your deal.”
“We have a lot of unpleasant memories in this house,” B’Lynn said. “But there are a lot of good ones, too. I want to keep building on the good with him. So, Sunday dinner. Sometimes Lisette joins us. Sometimes my mother and stepfather join us. More often than not, it’s just Robbie and me. We cook together. We have a nice meal. We play Scrabble and talk about everything except our problems. We pretend to be normal in the hopes that one day it might stick.”
“How does Robbie feel about that?” Annie asked. “Does he like it? Does he resent it? Does he participate or just go through the motions?”
“He tries,” B’Lynn said. “It’s a journey, and we’ve been over some rough roads, but we’re both trying. That’s what makes this so hard, him missing now. I really thought we were making some progress.”
“You said he thought he might have a line on a job,” Annie said. “You don’t have any idea what that was?”
“He didn’t say, but I believe he was looking. He doesn’t like having time on his hands, and he wants to pay his own way. He doesn’t like being financially dependent on me. He feels like he’s been a burden long enough.”
“Does he still have a bedroom here?”
“Yes. He calls it the Time Capsule because I haven’t changed anything about it in a decade.”
“Can I see it?” Annie asked.
“Of course.”
B’Lynn led the way up the oak staircase, the handrail worn as smooth as glass by a hundred-plus years of hands passing up and down. The old heart pine floors creaked and moaned as they made their way down the hall past a wall of ancestral portraits and photographs.
“Is there something specific you’re looking for?” B’Lynn asked. “He doesn’t spend much time up here except for the occasional Sunday-afternoon nap.”
“I just want to be in his space,” Annie said. “That house he’s living in doesn’t say much about him. Maybe I’ll get a sense of something here.”
“I’ve been doing the same thing,” B’Lynn confessed, leading the way into her son’s bedroom. “I find myself sleeping in here most nights since he’s been gone. It makes me feel closer to him.”
The room overlooked the front yard. The wall behind the queen-size bed was painted purple and stamped with gold fleur-de-lis. Sacred Heart high school colors. The rest of the walls were a rich cream. A thick purple rug covered much of the floor. It was a beautiful room fitted with everything a teenage boy could want—a good-size TV with a gaming console, a cushy recliner, a desk with a nice computer on it. The oak bookcases were loaded with books and keepsakes—a baseball glove, a collection of game balls from his football days, bobblehead dolls of his favorite players from various sports.
Annie picked a yearbook off a shelf and paged through it, finding a photo of Robbie Fontenot at sixteen or seventeen. Quite the teen heartthrob with his big dark eyes and shy smile. Young and bright and full of potential.
“What a cutie-pie,” Annie said. “He must have had girls swarming around him like bees to honey.”
“All he thought about then was sports,” B’Lynn said, sitting on the edge of the bed to rest her sore ankle. “Girls were a baffling mystery he mostly shied away from. He dated a little bit, but no one serious. Much to the dismay of the young ladies.”
“They didn’t come calling when he was laid up after his accident? Girls that age usually love the idea of a wounded hero.”
“Oh, they tried, but he didn’t want anyone around, didn’t want anyone seeing him that vulnerable. They gave up pretty quick and went on with their lives at school.”
“That must have been a pretty lonely time for him.”
“He pushed his friends away, then felt hurt when they didn’t come back,” B’Lynn said, picking at a loose thread on the purple comforter—a distraction from the pain of the memory. “He kept setting himself up for failure, then pointing to the failure as proof of why he shouldn’t keep trying to succeed.”
A self-feeding cycle of despair.
