Mr. Drummond brushed a hand slowly between them. He had long fingers that trailed behind his palm. “We can discuss him another day.”
Claire stilled. “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
They sat in silence for a long time listening to the waves. Claire didn’t need to speak anymore. She was unsure what she could or would say if pressed, and Mr. Drummond didn’t demand it. He simply listened with her. Eventually Claire felt the tension within her dissipate, and she found it. Perspective.
She stood, which prompted him to stand too. The chair scraped the porch floor as he pushed against it for support.
Claire reached for his hand. It was cool, too cool. “I kept you out here too long, but you helped me. More than you can know. Thank you.”
“I am glad I was here. You ladies let me come talk. It was nice to return the favor, and you got me through the darkest part of the night. I may sleep now after all.”
Claire nodded. “Me too.”
As she stepped down the stairs, he called after her. “You and I haven’t visited in the shop often, but you should call me David.”
“I’d like that, David, and I’m Claire.” She waved from the sidewalk. “Thank you again.”
Claire turned, and with each step the sound of the waves retreated and her conviction grew. Another line from one of Maddie’s books came to her—from the only book she’d read before Maddie’s list suggested it. Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov.
Love in action is a hard and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.
The line had not struck her before. But it did now, as clearly as if the printed page sat before her. David was right—the darkest part was over.
It was time to wake up.
Chapter 19
Janet
I love hugging Chris. He probably lets me because I don’t get to hug my own kids. I’m grateful for that.
“I’m sorry I’m late.”
I sit back down and he slides into the booth across from me. We’ve been doing this every Wednesday for the past five weeks, every Wednesday since Valentine’s Day, getting together for a burger. I suspect he feels the need to check up on me—or maybe Luke told him to do it. Luke is a wonderful man, but a typical older brother. And Chris is a typical younger brother; he can’t say yes to Luke fast enough.
“I thought you were coming by the shop today.” I slide a book across the table.
“Church of Spies: The Pope’s Secret War Against Hitler. Luke will be so jealous.” He turns it over in his hands.
“You finished all the Silvas. I think you’ll love this one. I’ve been listening to the audiobook while I paint. But you didn’t answer my question.”
“You didn’t ask one.”
Chris stares at me. No blinking. He knows what I’m after. He’s messing with me.
“Fine. Why didn’t you come to the shop? You rarely come in anymore.”
“It’s spring. We’re starting prep work for spring plantings, and besides, pressure cooking isn’t my thing.”
“That’s not the point. It was a lot of fun and there were a number of young women there, single young women.” He gives me no reaction so I continue. “At the very least you could’ve walked away with some of the food. Madeline, Claire, and I all brought in pressure cookers, but Claire called and said she wasn’t coming in for the demonstration so we got her share too. And the author was great. She chopped like lightning, drew in the audience, everyone bought her book, and Madeline and I left with tons of food. Two single women can’t freeze that much, much less eat it all. And a baby. She brought her baby.”
“Who brought a baby?”
“The author. Her babysitter canceled so she had to bring this gorgeous little baby in and we got to hold her. You should’ve seen Madeline; she was so stiff I wondered if she’d ever held a baby, but she got the hang of it and by the end she didn’t want to give her back. Wouldn’t you have wanted to see that?”
“Madeline stealing a baby? No.”
I stop. He’s not giving me anything to work with. But he glows. And that tells me all I need to know.
For two weeks after he and Sonia split he was dour and grumpy and dull. For all her prickly parts, I was sorry they broke up. Sure, Sonia was a little squeamish around Maddie and death, but who wouldn’t be? And I couldn’t blame her for reacting poorly when everything she’d expected or dreamed about her life with Chris veered off course. No one should be judged by her first reactions, and she would have come around. After all, she loved Chris, at least the man she knew from his letters.
But maybe that’s what went wrong. Maybe Chris was right when he told me they hadn’t had enough “time served” before their engagement, that they hardly understood each other. Maybe you can’t simply trust that marriage will sort all that out. Yet if it was right to call it off, it shouldn’t have made the man so grumpy.
Then last week, this happens . . . I have no idea what it is, but he twinkles. It’s a distinctly unmanly word, but it fits. It’s in his eyes, his cheeks; even his hair seems to stand on end like it’s electrified. He won’t say who or what is responsible. He won’t say anything—and he’s not coming by the shop, so my opportunities to snoop are limited. But I have my suspicions.
“Come by my house at least. My freezer is packed and the food smelled amazing at the shop. Or drop by Madeline’s. I gave her more than I took, since I can cook. That woman . . . You should have heard the questions she asked the author. You’d think she doesn’t know a carrot from a cucumber.”
“I doubt she’s done much cooking. Her apartment is down near Sonia’s, and I gather her hours used to be as crazy. You can’t blame her.”
“Then you haven’t heard.”
“Heard what?”
“Well, if you came by the shop like you used to, then you’d know that Madeline doesn’t live downtown anymore. She put her condo on the market. Maddie’s house is still on too, but she’s living in it now.”
“Since when?” He looks stunned.
Bingo.
“Last week. She said it was an Ides of March thing, a settling of accounts or something about trust and letting go. I’m not sure exactly. She talks really fast when she’s excited. Anyway, she was downtown having dinner, decided it on a walk, and moved that night, like at midnight. She left her key with the doorman and called the Realtor the next morning. Something’s up with her. She’s like a whirling dervish around the shop, a perpetual caffeine high.”
“What does Drew say about it?”
“I doubt he cares.”
He picks up his menu, despite the fact that he orders the same Swiss olive cheeseburger every Wednesday.
“When are you going to tell her?”
“Tell who what?” He feigns nonchalance—poorly—and keeps his eyes fixed on the menu.
“Tell Madeline you’re interested in her.”
He shakes his head but doesn’t raise his eyes. It must be a fascinating menu.
“You’re not going to?”
“Sonia and I just called things off. There has to be time here. Not everything is some great rush.”
“Yes, it is. And you don’t need any time. You and Sonia knew it was over the moment you hit US soil. I commend you for trying, her too, don’t get me wrong, but even Maddie knew.”
This gets his eyes up and the menu down. “She never told me that.”
“She trusted your judgment.”
He sits back and watches me. “You talked about this? About me? What else did you discuss?”
“We were a couple women together for hours on end and she was dying. Of course we talked about you. We discussed everything. Mostly she talked and I listened, then at the end I did the talking and she smiled or tried to frown depending on whether I got stuff right or not . . . You can hardly blame us. She always had your best interests at heart, we both did, and she loved you like a son.”
With that, his face lights again as only Maddie could light up a soul. His eyes soften with the
memory of her. “I know.”
“But back to you and Madeline.”
“There is no me and Madeline.”
“She broke up with Drew that night too, or they didn’t break up because they never were. That was a little confusing too. But either way, there is no Drew.”
Chris actually blushes. I’ve never seen it before and probably won’t again, but when a military man blushes it’s adorable. It started in his cheeks and spread to the tips of his ears. He looks slightly sunburned.
“When? Before or after the key with the doorman and moving north?”
“You were paying attention,” I tease. “And before. At dinner. Before the doorman, the key, and the drive north. Why?”
He doesn’t answer. He sits back as if remembering something, something long and enjoyable like a movie or a book. I watch his expressions change with what I assume are the scenes in his head. They are very good scenes.
“What? You have to tell me.” I rap the table to cut short his stroll down Memory Lane.
“I didn’t know any of this.” A slow grin grows all the way to his eyes and crinkles the little wrinkles in their corners. He still sports faint tan lines from his time overseas and only in crinkle and release can I see them.
“But you’re happy about it?”
“I’m not unhappy about it.”
I swat his hand as the waiter arrives for our orders. “But you’ll come by the shop?”
“I’ll be there tomorrow.”
* * *
CLaire
“How can you still be pushing this? You can’t take our daughter to the police. She’s about to hear from colleges. What if it’s a felony? . . . We can punish her here, ground her, institute consequences, make her pay the store back, but we are not doing this. It’ll ruin her.”
“I don’t want to do this without you, but I will. I am doing this.”
Brian sits on the edge of the bed. In four days, he has aged. We have both aged.
And we argued all night. The first night he got home, we fell into bed together and I sobbed into his chest. The second night we whispered in hushed voices about what had happened to our daughter and wondered how we got to where we are now. The third night I told him my plan. He didn’t believe me. The fourth night I made it clear, and we never slept.
Brian circled back again and again to what could be done at home. He fixes problems for a living, and with companies he is formidable. With our daughter, he was inexhaustible. He approached the situation, and me, from every angle. At some points I felt so boxed in I almost caved. But one deep breath at a time bolstered the conviction that I was present, and my dogged refusal not to step away again, from my daughter or from my life, got me there. If ever I thought Janet might be right, that I did live in some strange third-person unaccountability—no more. That is not going to be my story, nor the one I pass on to my kids.
“We don’t need to go today,” he offers.
I sink to the foot of the bed. “We do. Canvassing it again will not change the outcome. I won’t dwell in the past, and I refuse to be scared of the future. We need to move forward, and that is Brittany’s next step. She’ll carry it for the rest of her life if we cover this up.”
He stands, arms crossed, legs wide, in front of me. “She’ll pay for it for the rest of her life. Everything she’s worked for will be over. She’ll be through.”
“That’s not true. She pays now, yes, and then it’s over. She’ll have the rest of her life ahead of her and this can be a memory, not a cancer.”
“You’re naive.” Brian spits the words.
I have never heard such derision, or such pain, from him before. He is a calm man, slow to anger, quick to forgive—under normal circumstances.
I stand and face him. “You’re the one acting naive.”
Rather than circle each other again and come to no better conclusion, I leave the room. In my periphery I see him drop onto the bed, his head in his hands. I can’t blame him for his point of view. He wants to protect our daughter. I want the same—which is why I fought him. He didn’t come to my crossroads. He hasn’t read a list of books full of people experiencing far worse and yet understanding that there is more that matters in a life than what happens in a moment, or on this earth; that it often isn’t the events that haunt us, though those hold power and can harm us, it is the choices we make within those events we carry all our days.
As much as I tried, I haven’t been able to articulate that. Probably because I don’t have the language yet. Maddie’s books provided a trail, like bread crumbs, leading me to who I want to be or maybe back to who I once set out to be, but they didn’t give me the language with which to share the journey. I have to appropriate the stories, make them my own, find my own voice, and learn—there is so much to learn.
All Brian can see is that his beloved little girl might go to jail, get a “record,” be cut from college, and lose every hope and dream we collectively share for her. And none of those dreams is bad. I still want every good thing for Brittany. I kept saying that over and over last night, but he couldn’t hear me; he wouldn’t believe me. He also can’t accept that none of those dreams can be real, valid, or possible with this standing in her way.
I cross the hall to Brittany’s bedroom. The door is open and music warbles through the door from her bathroom. Coldplay. I haven’t heard Brittany listen to them in months. Maybe since we moved to Winsome. It has all been angrier music, with words I could hear but not understand and with a sensibility that left me cold. She has changed so much in the past year and a half—I realize how desperately I have missed her and how much I have failed her.
I let her slip through my fingers, so afraid to throw up obstacles or roadblocks that I failed to provide a trail to follow. Maddie did more for me with a list of books than I did in countless dinners and loads of laundry for my own daughter.
Speaking of which . . . Laundry is scattered around the room. As I pick up each piece, I remember. I remember when Brittany wore it and how she did her hair that morning. And rather than get angry that it is all on the floor wrinkled, clean mixed with dirty, I find myself smiling at each memory. Brittany’s delight with this new green shirt, how she pulls on these sweatpants the moment she walks in the door each day after school, how she wears this black sweater for luck when she has a super-hard test, how her eyes look almost tawny against this fawn-colored sweater.
I gather each piece and either fold it and lay it on the bed or drop it in the bin. The sweater still carries a hint of her perfume, Clinique’s Happy. Will she ever feel that way again? Will any of us? I hold the sweater tight and waver—until Brittany opens the bathroom door.
“I’m ready.”
She doesn’t say another word as I follow her out of the bedroom and down the hall. Brian catches sight of us as we pass and trails behind.
Brittany leads the way down the stairs and through the kitchen. I called into work, so no one expects me there, and I secured a ride to school for Matt so he is long gone, completely oblivious of what lies ahead for his sister. I found it hard to believe he hadn’t heard Brian and me arguing early into this morning, but his open expression and bright eyes at breakfast confirmed he caught none of it.
“So we’re ready?” Brian crosses in front of us to open the back door. He holds his car keys loosely in his fingers.
“You’re coming with us?” I assumed, since I forced this choice, I would do it alone.
“If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.” He quirks a lopsided smile as he opens the door, then freezes as he absorbs his words. “That’s not right, is it? You should always stop something bad. I mean—”
“It’s okay, Dad. I get it.”
“I’m sorry. I’m nervous.”
“Me too.” Brittany steps into the open doorway, but gets pulled back and swallowed within a hug.
Brian bends into her, whispering in her ear loudly enough to bring tears to my eyes. “I love you. No matter what you did, no matter what happens this m
orning or for every morning of your life after this one, never forget for one moment you’re my daughter and I love you. If I could take this on myself, I would.”
He catches my eye above Brittany’s head, and I understand. We are both powerless to do the one thing we want—absorb the punishment and the pain, the entire cost, so she doesn’t have to.
We drive to the station in silence.
I’ve never been to the Winsome police station before. I’ve never been inside any police station before. It is a brown brick building, nondescript and uninviting. Brittany looks so small and young to me as we enter.
I realize that someday she won’t be able to say to her kids at forty-six what I just thought: I’ve never been to a police station before. Stupid as it is, it almost makes me cry. I press a finger to the corner of each eye and take a deep breath. The air is cold—ideal for clearing the eyes and the heart.
“May I help you?” an officer asks, scanning across mom, child, and dad.
Brittany takes control. “I need to talk to someone about the vandalism at the Printed Letter Bookshop on February 14th.”
“We can’t talk about the specifics of an open investigation.”
Brittany nods. The yellow lighting washes the color from her face and with each head bob I see the small bald spot on top. She twists to look at Brian, then to me. It is Brian who puts a reassuring hand on her shoulder and presses her forward.
“I need to talk to someone because I know who—I did it.”
“Excuse me?” The officer’s gaze bounces between the three of us again.
Brittany doesn’t look right or left this time; she simply offers her statement again. “I vandalized the Printed Letter on February 14th.”
I wonder if she has been awake all night rehearsing that one line.
The officer flicks her hand toward three beige chairs. “Wait over there and I’ll get someone for you.”
Brittany turns and lowers herself into a chair. She doesn’t sink. She sits upright. Alert. Brian and I, again, flank her. I look over her head to Brian and falter because what sounded like the right idea in the safety of our bedroom, what I’d been so sure of when arguing, suddenly feels very real, very scary, and very permanent.
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