This Is Where I Leave You

possible to feel affection for water damage, then that’s what I feel for that little brown swirl. 312Jen’s towel has come unraveled in her sleep, and a lone breast peeks out like a sentry, standing guard. I run my finger gently across her collarbone, around her shoulder, and down her arm. The years fall away from her in her sleep, her brow smooth, her mouth slightly open, like a little girl watching a magic trick. I have loved her for so long. Our past trails behind us like a comet’s tail, the future stretched out before us like the universe. Things happen. People get lost and love breaks. I want to forgive her, and I think I can, but it’s not like issuing a certificate. I’ll have to keep forgiving her until it takes, and knowing me and knowing her, that’s not always going to come easy. But at this moment, as she lies beside me, growing our baby girl inside of her, I can forgive her. I lean down to kiss her on the spot where her cheekbone meets her temple and let my lips rest there for a moment, inhaling the clean smell of her scalp. Then I whisper to her, my lips grazing the soft flesh of her earlobe. I hover in the doorway like a ghost, half-lit by the hallway lights, watching her sleep. Then I’m running, down the hall and then the stairs, which creak in all the familiar spots, and out the front door, where the cool evening air fills my nostrils like a drug.

Chapter 47
    6:30 p.m.
    Phillip is up on the roof. Not on the wide area we sometimes sit on, but on the topmost gable above the attic, perched like a gargoyle. There’s a black Town Car parked in the driveway, its trunk open like a gaping mouth. A portly driver in a black suit leans against the car having a smoke. I jump out of my car and join Paul, Alice, Horry, and Wendy at the edge of the lawn. Serena, slung over Wendy’s shoulder, sucks happily on a pacifier. Tracy stands in the middle of the lawn, looking up at Phillip.
    “Please get down!” she calls up to him. “You’ll kill yourself!”
    “That’s the general idea,” Phillip shouts back. He stands up, one foot on either side of the gable, and spreads his arms out for balance. “Send the limo away.”
    “What’s going on?” I say.
    “Phillip proposed to Tracy,” Wendy says. “In front of us all.”
    “And what did Tracy say?”
    Wendy smirks at me. “Where have you been?”
    “I went to see Jen.”
    “Really? How’d that go?”
    I look up at Phillip, trembling on the roof, arms spread like Christ.
    “Everything’s relative, I guess.”
    “He’s taking it like a man,” Paul says.
    “I swear to God, if you get in that car I’ll jump!”
    Tracy turns to us. “You don’t think he’d really jump, do you?”
    Wendy looks up at Phillip and shakes her head. “Only one way to find out, I guess.”
    “I love you!” Phillip shouts.
    “You’re being childish and manipulative!”
    “Whatever works.”
    Mom and Linda come running up from across the street. “What in the world is going on?” Linda says.
    “Tracy’s not going to marry Phillip,” I say.
    “Tracy’s not a fool,” Mom says. She steps out onto the lawn and faces Tracy. “There’s only one way to treat a tantrum and that is to ignore it.”
    “Ignore it?”
    “Yes.”
    “But he’s not a four-year-old.”
    “Honey, we’re all four-year-olds.”
    Tracy appears conflicted. “What if he jumps?”
    “Then I’ll have to rethink my thesis.”
    Tracy looks at Mom for a long moment, her eyes growing wet. “You must think I’m such an idiot.”
    Mom looks at her with great tenderness. “You’re no idiot. You’re not the first woman who wanted to believe in Phillip. But you’re far and away the best one, and I’m very sorry to see you go.” She steps forward and pulls Tracy into a warm hug.
    “What’s going on?” Phillip shouts from above. Tracy looks up to him. “I’m going to leave now.”
    “Please don’t.”
    Tracy turns to us and smiles. “Well, it was very nice to have met you all. I’m very sorry if my being here caused any problems.” She steps over to me and gives me a hug. “Let me know how it all turns out,” she whispers.
    “Don’t go!” Phillip shouts.
    But Tracy goes. She casts a last regretful look back up at Phillip and then climbs gracefully into the car. The driver tosses his cigarette to take her bag and slams the trunk. We watch the car drive slowly down Knob’s End and then turn back to the roof, where Phillip is now sitting dejectedly. “I can’t