by Sarah Dessen
Ryan shrugged, then took another sip. I looked at my own glass, then across the room at my dad, who was now leading Tracy back to their table. He looked flushed and happy, and watching him, I felt a rush of affection. He’d been through so much, with my mom and then the divorce, raising me basically as a single parent even before he really was one, all the while working nonstop. I was really happy for him, and excited. But the time that he’d be in Greece would be the longest we’d been apart in my memory, and I already knew I would miss him so much. Parents are always precious. But when you only have one, they become crucial.
I reached down, moving my dessert fork and coffee spoon a bit to the right. When Ryan looked over at me, I expected to be called out again, but instead, this time, she just gave me a smile. Then she turned her head away so I could arrange the vase, candy jar, and candle as well.
Two
I’d heard a lot of words used to describe my mom both before and since her death five years ago. “Beautiful” was a big one, followed closely by “wild” or its kinder twin, “spirited.” There were a few mentions each of “tragic,” “sweet,” and “full of life.” But these were just words. My mom was bigger than any combination of letters.
She died in 2013, on the Monday of the first week after Thanksgiving. We’d actually spent it together: me, my mom, and my dad, even though they’d been split up at that point for almost five years. First love against the backdrop of a summer lake resort makes for a great movie plot or romance novel. As a working model for a relationship and parenthood, though, it left a bit to be desired. At least in their case.
I was so little when they split that I didn’t remember the fighting, or how my dad was never around as he finished dental school, leaving my mom to take care of me alone. Also lost to my memory was an increase in my mom’s drinking, which then blossomed into a painkiller addiction after she had wrist surgery and discovered Percocet. By the time my consciousness caught up with everything, my parents weren’t together anymore and she’d already been to rehab once. The world, as I remembered it, was my post-divorce life, which was my dad and me living with Nana Payne in her apartment building in downtown Lakeview and my mom, well, anywhere and everywhere else.
Like the studio apartment in the basement of a suburban house, so small that when you fully opened the front door, it hit the bed. Or the ranch home she shared with three other women in various stages of recovery, where the sofa stank of cigarettes despite a NO SMOKING sign above it. And then there was the residential motel on the outskirts of town she landed in after her final stay at rehab, where the rooms were gross but the pool was clean. We’d race underwater across its length again and again that last summer, her beating me every time. I didn’t know it was her final summer, of course. I thought we’d just go on like this forever.
That Thanksgiving, we ate around Nana’s big table with the good china and the crystal goblets. My dad carved the turkey (sides were brought in from the country club), and my mother arrived with Pop Soda, her nonalcoholic drink of choice, and two plastic-wrapped pecan pies from the grocery store. Later, I’d comb over that afternoon again and again. How she had that healthy, post-treatment look, her skin clear, nails polished, not bitten to the quick. She’d been wearing jeans and a white button-down shirt with a lace collar, new white Keds on her feet, which were as small as a child’s. And there was the way she kept touching me—smoothing my hair, kissing my temple, pulling me into her lap as I passed by—as if making up for the weeks we’d lost while she was away.
Finally, there was crackling chemistry between my parents, obvious even to a child. My dad, usually a measured, practical person, became lighter around my mother. That Thanksgiving, she’d teased him about his second and then third slice of pie, to which he’d responded by opening his full mouth and sticking out his tongue at her. It was stupid and silly and I loved it. She made him laugh in a way no one else could, bringing out a side of him that I coveted.
It was getting dark when I went down with her in the elevator to meet her ride. It bothered me for a long time that I never remembered this person’s name, who picked her up in a nondescript American compact, gray in color. Outside the lobby door, my mom turned to face me, putting her hands on my shoulders. Then she squatted down, her signature black liner and mascara perfectly in place, as always, as she gazed into my eyes, blue like hers. People always said we looked alike.
“Saylor girl,” she said, because she always called me Saylor, not Emma. “You know I love you, right?”
I nodded. “I love you too, Mama.”
At this she smiled, pulling her thin jacket a bit more tightly around her. It was always windier by our building, the breeze working its way through the high-rises, racing at you. “Once I get more settled, we’ll do a sleepover, okay? Movies and popcorn, just you and me.”
I nodded again, wishing it was still warm enough to swim. I loved that motel pool.
“Come here,” she said, pulling me into her arms, and I buried my face in her neck, breathing in her smell, body wash and hair spray and cold air, all mixed together. She hugged me back tightly, the way she always did, and I let myself relax into her. When she pulled away, she gave me a wink. My mom was a big winker. To this day, when anyone does it, I think of her. “Now go on, I’ll make sure you get inside safe.”
She stepped back and I took one last look at her, there on the sidewalk in those bright white sneakers. Nana had been in cocktail attire for dinner and insisted my dad wear a tie and me a dress, but my mom always followed her own rules.
“Bye,” I called out as I turned, pulling the heavy glass lobby door open and stepping inside.
“Bye, baby,” she replied. Then she slid her hands in her jacket pockets, taking a step back, and watched me walk to the elevator and hit the button. She was still there when I got in and raised a hand in a final wave just before the doors shut.
Later, I’d try to imagine what happened after that, from her walking to her friend’s car to going back to the motel, where the pool was empty and her little room smelled of meals long ago prepared and eaten by other people. I’d see her on her bed, maybe reading the Big Book that was part of her program, or writing in one of the drugstore spiral notebooks where she was forever scribbling down lists of things to do. Lastly, I’d see her sleeping, curled up under a scratchy blanket as the light outside the door pushed in through the edges of the blinds and trucks roared past on the nearby interstate. I wanted to keep her safe in dreaming, and in my mind, even now, I slip and think of her that way. Like she’s forever stayed there, in that beat between nighttime and morning, when it feels like you only dozed off a minute but it’s really been hours.
What really happened was that a couple of weeks later, as I was thinking of Christmas and presents and Santa, my mom skipped her nightly meeting and went to a bar with some friends. There, she drank a few beers, met a guy, and went back to his house, where they pooled their money to buy some heroin to keep the party going. She’d overdosed twice before, each one resulting in another rehab stint and a clean start. Not this time.
Some nights when I couldn’t sleep, I tried to picture this part of the story, too. I wanted to see her through to the end, especially in those early days, when it didn’t seem real or possible she was gone. But the settings were foreign and details unknown, so no matter how I envisioned those last weeks and hours, it was all imagination and conjecture. The last real thing I had was her standing on the sidewalk as I pushed the elevator button, her hand lifted. Goodbye.
Three
Middle of the night phone calls are never good news. Never.
“Bridget?” I said, sitting up as I put my phone to my ear. “Is everything okay?”
“My grandpa,” she managed to get out, her voice breaking. “He had a stroke.”
“Oh, my God,” I said, reaching to turn on the bedside lamp before remembering that it, like most of my other stuff, had already been packed. It had been a week since the wedding: Nana’s flight was midmorning; my
dad and Tracy were leaving that afternoon. The next day, the movers would come. All that was left was the bed itself, a couple of boxes, and the suitcase I’d packed to bring to Bridget’s the following afternoon. I looked at the clock: it was four a.m. “Is he okay?”
“We don’t know yet,” she said, and now she was crying, the words lost in heavy breaths and tears. “Mom’s taking all of us kids to Ohio to be with him and Grandma. I’m so sorry, Emma.”
“It’s fine,” I said automatically, although now that I was beginning to wake up, I realized this meant I had nowhere to stay once my dad and Tracy left for Greece. “What can we do for you guys?”
She took a shuddering inhale. “Nothing right now, I don’t think. Mom’s just in her total crisis mode, packing suitcases, and Dad’s on hold with the airline trying to find a flight. The boys are still asleep.”
“I can come over,” I offered. “Help get the boys up and ready so you guys can pack.”
“That’s so n-n-ice.” She took a breath. “But I think we’re okay. I just wanted to let you know, so you can make other plans. Again, I’m really sorry we’re bailing on you like this.”
“That’s the last thing you should be worrying about,” I told her. “Just take care of yourself. Okay?”
“Okay.” She took another shaky breath. “Thanks, Emma. Love you.”
“Love you back,” I replied. “Text me an update later?”
“I will.”
We hung up, and I put my phone back on the floor, where it glowed another moment before going black. Outside, the sky was still dark, the only sound the central air whirring, stirring up the curtains at my window. The last thing I wanted to do was go down the hall to my dad’s room, where he and Tracy would still be fast asleep, and throw this wrench into their honeymoon plans. So I didn’t. It could wait until the morning.
“Well,” my dad said, rubbing a hand over his face, “I guess we just reschedule?”
“No,” I said immediately. “That’s crazy. You guys have had this booked for over a year. You’re going.”
“And leaving you to stay here alone?” Tracy asked. “Emma. I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but—”
“You’re seventeen, and this place is about to be full of sawdust and subcontractors,” my dad finished for her. “Not happening.”
Nana, sitting at the table with a cup of tea, had been quiet for much of this debate. But I could tell she was mulling this. “Surely there must be someone we’re not thinking of.”
I sighed—I hated that I was the problem—but not before catching my dad rubbing his eyes again under his glasses. It was his tell of tells, the one way I could always be sure he was nervous or stressed. I said, “She’s right. There has to be—”
“Who?” my dad interrupted me. “Bridget’s leaving, Ryan is at camp, your grandmother is about to be on a cruise ship somewhere—”
“Egypt,” I reminded him.
“Actually, Morocco,” Nana said, sipping her tea. “Egypt is Thursday.”
“Thank you,” he said. He rubbed his face again, then snapped his fingers, pointing at Tracy. “What about your sister?”
She shook her head. “Leaving the day after tomorrow to hike the Appalachian Trail. Remember?”
“Oh, right,” he said, his shoulders sinking. “We only talked about it with her at length three days ago.” As proof, he gestured at the stack of wedding gifts and cards, some opened, some not, that had been piled into some nearby boxes for the movers to take to the new place.
“It was a wedding,” I told him. He looked so down I felt like I had to say something. “You talked to a million people.”
This he waved off as Tracy, seated at the table, watched him, a cup of coffee balanced in her hands. In front of her, right where she’d left them the night before, were their passports, the boarding passes she’d printed out after checking in online to their flights—“just to be on the safe side,” she said—and their itinerary. Doodling at some point since, she’d drawn a row of hearts across the top, right over the word DEPARTURE.
“This is crazy,” I said, looking from it back to my dad. “It’s your honeymoon. I’m not going to be the reason the dream trip gets canceled.”
“No one is blaming you,” he said.
“Certainly not,” Nana seconded. “Things happen.”
“Maybe not now,” I said. “But just think of the long-term resentment. I mean, I have enough baggage, right?”
I thought this was funny, but my dad just shot me a tired look. He took my anxiety personally, as if he’d broken me or something. Which was nuts, because all he’d ever done was hold me together, even and especially when the rest of my world was falling apart.
“We reschedule,” he said firmly. “I’ll call the travel agent right now.”
“What about Mimi Calvander?” Nana suggested.
Silence. Then Tracy said, “Who?”
Behind me, I could hear the clock over the stove, which I always forgot made noise at all except during moments like this, when it was loud enough to feel deafening. “Mimi?” my dad said finally. “Waverly’s mom?”
It was always jarring when my mom’s name came up unexpectedly, even when it wasn’t early in the morning. Like she belonged both everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
Nana looked at my dad. “Well, she is family. North Lake isn’t too far. And Emma’s stayed with her before.”
“I did?” I asked.
“A long time ago,” my dad said. He’d stopped pacing: he was processing this. “When you were four or so. It was during the only trip your mom and I ever took alone. Vegas.”
A beat. The clock was still ticking.
“Second honeymoon,” he added softly. “It was a disaster, of course.”
“Well, it’s just an idea,” Nana said, taking another measured sip.
“You have to go to Greece,” I told my dad. “It’s your honeymoon, for God’s sake.”
“And this is your grandmother,” he replied, “who you haven’t seen in years.”
“I do know her, though,” I said quickly. He looked at me, doubtful. “I mean, not well. But I remember her. Vaguely.”
“Okay, stop,” my dad said. He rubbed his face again. “Everyone stop. Just let me think.”
It was one of those moments when you can just see the future forking, like that road in the yellow wood, right before your eyes. I knew my dad. He’d give up Greece for me. After all he’d already sacrificed, a whole country was nothing at all. Which was why I spoke up, saying, “Mimi, at the lake. With the moss on the trees. There’s porch swings on the dock. And an arcade down the street you can walk to. And the water is cold and clear.”
He looked at me, sighing. “Emma. You were four.”
“Mom talked about it,” I told him. “All the time.”
This, he couldn’t dispute. Every now and then, he got to hear the bedtime stories, too. “You don’t understand,” he said. “Your mother’s family is . . .”
He trailed off, all of us waiting for a word that never came.
“And the high tourist season is just getting started,” he continued. “Which means Mimi is probably too busy to take on anything else.”
“I don’t know about that,” Nana said. “It’s been so long, I bet she’d love to see Emma.”
“Sometime,” my dad said. “Not today, this second.”
“But we don’t know that for sure,” I told him. “If she’s really anything like Mom, she’s not much of a planner.”
He looked at me again. “North Lake, Emma . . . it’s . . . different. They’re different. It’s not like here.”
“I wouldn’t be moving there,” I told him. “It’s three weeks.”
More silence. More ticking. “You really want me to do this?”
What I wanted was for him to go to Greece and sail that boat across the water there, with Tracy beside him. So I knew what to say.
“Yes,” I said as Nana caught my eye. “Call her.”
Al
l my life I’d thought my mom grew up so far away. But after an hour and a half, we were there.
“Anything look familiar?” my dad asked.
“Every single bit!” I said, my voice bright. “Especially this part right here, the exit ramp.”
He shot me a look I knew had to be sharp, not that I could tell from behind his dark sunglasses. “Hey. Don’t be a smartass. I was just asking a question.”
Actually, what he wanted was reassurance that this would not turn out to be the worst idea in the history of ideas. But the truth was that it was all new to me, and I’d always been a bad liar.
“Wait a second,” I said now as we approached a single red light, blinking, and came to a stop. “There are two lakes?”
He peered at the sign across from us, then smiled. “No,” he said. “Only one.”
It didn’t make sense, though. If that was the case, why was there an arrow pointing to the right that said NORTH LAKE (5 MILES) and another to the left indicating the way to LAKE NORTH (8 MILES). “I don’t get it.”
“What we have here, actually,” he replied, “is one of the great idiosyncrasies of this area.”
“Second only to you using the word idiosyncrasies while sitting at an exit ramp?”
He ignored me. “See, when this place was first settled, it was pretty rural. Working-class people both lived here year-round and came to vacation in the summers. But then, in the eighties, a billionaire from New York discovered it. He decided to build an upscale resort and bought up one whole side of the lakefront to do just that.”
We were still sitting there at the light, but no one was behind us or coming from either direction. So he continued.
“They had a big grand opening for the first summer . . . and nobody came. As it turned out, the rich folks didn’t want to spend big money to stay at North Lake, because it was so solidly known as a blue-collar vacation spot.” He put on his blinker. “By the second summer, though, the developer figured this out, and incorporated his area as Lake North.”
