Page 26 of What He Doesn't Know
“You didn’t.”
“I did,” she argued. “But, it’s not just tonight. It’s not just work.”
I swallowed, feeling like my next words needed to be the right ones. “What is it?”
Charlie looked a little like the young girl who used to read books on my porch in that moment, her eyes a little softer, skin a little younger. The way her hair surrounded her face like a halo took at least five years off her appearance.
She closed her eyes tight, shaking her head before she opened them again and found mine. “Can we go somewhere?”
“Where?”
“Anywhere. I just… I don’t want to go home yet.”
I understood what she didn’t even have to say. I knew all too well what she was feeling — that terrible, sickening realization that home wasn’t really home anymore. That what once made it home was now missing. My family had always been home to me, not the place where we lived.
Now that they were gone, I was convinced home was a thing of the past, something I’d marvel at in the museum of my memories and wish I could relive.
I didn’t know why Charlie felt the way she did that night, or what was now missing inherhome that had been there at some point before I’d moved back to Mount Lebanon. I didn’t know exactly what to say to make her feel better, or if there evenwasanything I could say that would comfort her. I didn’t know who she was five years ago, or even fivemonthsago — didn’t know what had changed her since the last time we’d stood together in the garage of my old house.
But I did know exactly where to take her to clear her head.
Reese
The Duquesne Incline was a historic staple in Pittsburgh.
When we were younger, our parents used to bring all of us kids out to ride the old rickety cable car up Mt. Washington to the historic outlook over the city. It had been so magical as a kid, all of our faces pressed against the glass as we rode up, the pizza we’d stuff our faces with once we got to the top. But tonight, as Charlie and I rode the eleven o’clock cable car up to the top, it was beyond magical.
It was surreal.
I watched her profile as her eyes skated the lights in the distance, the car creaking and groaning as it pushed us up the incline, and she was no longer the little girl I’d known. Her long, dark hair was still down, curtained around her small, pale face. Her eyes were heavy and tired, from the alcohol and from something else I wished I could reach inside her and pull out to inspect, to fix.
The guilt I’d once felt for looking at her that way because she was too young had faded, but it was replaced by the fact that she was a married woman. I had to keep repeating it to myself, had to have those thoughts on replay so I wouldn’t forget. Because looking at her this way, in this light, in the cold — it was easy to forget.
“I haven’t done this in years,” Charlie confessed when we reached the top of the incline. We climbed out of the car, skipping the little museum at the top and opting for the scenic overlook that was just outside the old building, instead. She slid her arms over the railing, her dainty wrists hanging over the edge as her eyes swept the view. “In a decade, actually. Gosh, I feel old saying that.”
I chuckled, twisting the top off the hot spiced cider I’d whipped up at my place while Charlie waited in the car. “You’re not old,” I said.
“I feel like it sometimes.” Her voice was soft, almost like the song of a bird. “I feel tired.”
“I think we all do.”
I passed her the lid of the Thermos, filled with cider, and took my own sip straight from the bottle. It was hard to take my eyes off her in that moment, to not stare at the flush of her cheeks, at her dark eyes, wider and brighter now that we were looking out over the city. Those eyes stayed on mine for a moment before she turned back to watch the spot where the two rivers met at The Point.
A shiver wracked through her, and I shrugged off my coat, draping it over her shoulders.
“Are you nuts?” she scolded, but she pulled the coat around her tighter. “You’ll freeze.”
“I’ll live.”
She smiled, a lazy, drunken smile that curled softly on her lips like the tips of a warm flame. “Thank you,” she said, nudging her shoulder into my rib. “Always such a gentleman, even when you were a rule-breaking piano prodigy.”
I always waved her off when she referred to me that way, but inside, I beamed. There weren’t many people in my life I’d ever really wanted to impress, but Charlie was one of them, along with my father. I still remembered the first time he heard my audition for Juilliard, and he told me that even though I was a little shit, he was proud of me. Those were his exact words.
I missed him.
For a long while, Charlie and I just stood there, both of us leaning over the railing and pointing out different things here and there as we drank the cider. We found the stadium where the Steelers played, and the field belonging to the Pirates — those were both easy staples to spot. We joked about our parents and their long nights at the country club we spotted off in the distance, or how we used to play in the water down at The Point. We told ghost stories about the old historic buildings downtown, and even tried to point out our old houses, which was mostly from memory of our parents pointing them out as kids. We couldn’t actually see them, but we could imagine them, the two yards touching, two families sewn together by proximity and later by love.
Every now and then, a sadness would sweep over every inch of her, from her tired eyes to her small hands cupped around the mug of cider. And though I knew Cameron was the one responsible for that sadness, I couldn’t deny that I was happy he’d been too busy for their date.