Landslide by Susan Conley

Author:Susan Conley [Conley, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2021-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

THE HOSPITAL IS IN a residential part of Halifax where the streets are lined with pine trees and one-story wooden houses from the 1970s. The building itself looks more like a brick retirement home than a hospital. When I park in the lot the boys jump out and run inside.

By the time I get to Kit’s room they’re kneeling by his bed, and he’s touching their hair and faces. I try not to cry. Because there he is.

His hair has gotten longer in the week I’ve been away, and someone should cut it. I will cut it. I should have already done that. The fluorescent lights make his skin look orange.

I’ve decided to forgive him for the woman with the dog. I know nothing about her, and it’s selfish of me to hold on to it.

This is what I think Charlie would say. That I need to get over it and that I should never have left the hospital in the firstplace.

Charlie says I worry too much about Sam and him and that I have to stop and let them grow up.

But when I was up here last week, the boys told me I had to come home, and Sam smoked pot in the McDonald’s parking lot. It’s confusing to me how I’m not meant to worry.

Sam arm-wrestles Kit on the bed and lets him win.

“You’re a tough boy now,” Kit says. “Look who’s beating you, Mr. LeBron James.”

Sam smiles and gives Kit a hug and lets out a little yell, like he’s releasing pent-up emotion.

Kit pushes himself up with his hands and hangs his legs over the side of the bed. He’s allowed to wear his own sweatpants now. The gray ones. And he’s got on the long-sleeved T-shirt with the name of his cousins’ lobster house in Lubec on the front.

He looks older today, with the longer hair. A little out of it, honestly.

“How are you feeling today? I mean really. How?”

“Terrible, Jilly.” He laughs.

Then the boys laugh too.

“Just look at me. I’ve got to get out of this place. You have the keys to the Subaru, don’t you, Charlie?”

Charlie smiles, and Sam says, “That’s why we’re here, Dad. To take you home with us.”

“All right, then.” Kit puts his hand over his heart and taps his chest a few times. “All right.”

Then he asks Sam to bring him the walker over by the door.

Sam lunges for it and carries it over.

Kit stands up from the bed using the walker to balance himself. Then he bends over the walker, like he’s resting, and we can’t really see his face, but I think he’s wincing from the pain.

He starts moving slowly toward the green chair, which has been moved to the window since I left.

He uses the walker to help lower himself down, and winces again. I see it this time. He can’t hide it.

“Are you really supposed to be doing this?”

“It’s better now, Jilly.”

He sighs this big sigh I’ve never heard before, and asks Sam about the basketball team and whether they’ll finally beat Sagmore this year.

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