and tell me some other time, or never. And I know that the reason you did it, or the reason you told yourselves, was a thing I said in my own kitchen twenty-two years ago. I know Coralie told your father that I'd said it was all right. And I know that I never said that, because nobody ever asked me."
The porch was very quiet. Out on the sound, a pelican folded itself up in the air and dropped into the water like a dropped umbrella.
"What I don't know," said Gussie, "is why nobody asked me."
Ramsay rubbed his face with both hands. "Mom," he said. "Dad called me in February. After Zinnia's birthday. He told me about the kidneys. He'd told Coralie the week before. And he said he wanted to see us. Not a big thing. Just see us. And then two weeks later you call me so excited, you've found this house, it's four hours from Asheville, you've booked it, the whole family, all of us. And I thought..." He stopped. "I thought, this is the only time. This is going to be the only time it ever works out like this. We'll all be four hours from him and he's got a year, maybe. And I knew if I asked you, you'd say no. You'd have to. You said you'd never..."
"I know what I said."
"And then you'd be hurt that I asked," Ramsay said. "And you'd be hurt if I went without you. And you'd be hurt if I didn't go and he died and I never saw him. Every road I looked at, you got hurt. Every single road. So I thought, if we just split the week. If you never had to be in the same place. If it just happened without anybody having to say anything." He laughed, a terrible laugh. "I'm an operations manager, Mom. I schedule trucks. I thought I could schedule this."
"It was my idea," said Coralie, from the floor.
Everyone looked at her.
"The Wednesday thing. The splitting. Ramsay wanted to tell you. He wanted to tell you in April. I talked him out of it." Coralie was looking at her own bare feet. "And then Lysander, he said he wouldn't come unless you were okay with it. He kept saying it. He said it on the phone like six times. So I said I'd call you. And I did call you. In May. Do you remember? I called on a Sunday and we talked about Fitzgerald's thyroid for half an hour."
"I remember," said Gussie, slowly. "You sounded like you were going to say something and then you didn't."
"I didn't," Coralie agreed. "I couldn't. You were talking about the house, how there was a crow's nest, how you were going to go up there the first night and look at both waters at once. You were so happy. I'd never heard you that happy. And I just. I couldn't. So I hung up and I called him and I told him you said fine. As long as you didn't have to see him." Her voice cracked down the middle. "Which is what you would have said. Isn't it? That's what you've been saying my whole life. I didn't make it up. I just said it for you, so you didn't have to."