So Near

by Liza Gyllenhaal

  “Here’s our little Betsy bee!” I heard Tessa say as she came through the kitchen. Tessa and I don’t knock or ring bells in each other’s homes. We were friends before we became sisters-in-law. We were pregnant together. Our babies were born just more than three months apart. We’re family; there’s nothing to hide. But there’s also no escape. That thought would never have occurred to me a couple of months ago. I hardly like to admit it even to myself, and maybe it’s just my moodiness, but recently our closeness, the assumed access Tessa has to every part of my life, has begun to chafe a little.

  “My Yay Yay!” Betsy cried, climbing the steps. I followed behind her, ready to help, if need be. She’s so independent these days. So determined to do everything on her own. At the same time, she’s still not all that steady on her feet. She’s got a rolling gait and often gets going so fast she can’t help but stumble over herself and fall.

  “I figured you’d be out here,” Tessa said as she pushed open the French door with her hip. She was carrying Jamie in a BabyBjörn that he was rapidly outgrowing; his legs dangled down almost to her knees. “I tried calling you a couple of times before I came down.”

  “Look at this one,” I said, laughing in spite of myself. Betsy had scrambled to her feet at the top of the steps, had grabbed hold of Jamie’s right sneaker, and was kissing it. She worships her slightly younger cousin with an uninhibited intensity that’s both touching and funny. She calls him “my Jay Jay” as though she owns him, or as though her love is so deep and pure that it feels like he’s actually a part of her. Jamie, typical guy that he is, doesn’t seem to mind—or even pay much attention to my doting daughter.

  “What a day, huh?” I added, grabbing Betsy by the waist and swinging her back onto the grass where she had been playing. Tessa came down the steps, unbuckled Jamie, and set him down next to Betsy. My daughter gravely handed her cousin her plastic trowel, her most prized possession of the moment, and watched adoringly as he put it immediately into his mouth.

  “Oh no, Jamie!” I said, bending over to take the toy tool away from him. “That’s for digging, not eating, okay? It’s dirty.”

  “We’ve had a lot worse than that in there lately,” Tessa said. “I found him gnawing away on one of Petie’s dog chews the other morning. I’m thinking that at least he’s got to be immune to most germs and stuff by now, don’t you think?”

  “I guess,” I said. Despite the hell Tessa went through to have Jamie—two early miscarriages that she told me about and I think a couple more she decided to keep to herself—she’s a remarkably relaxed, easygoing mother. Unlike Betsy, whom I have on a strict regimen of meal- and bedtimes, Jamie’s allowed to follow Tessa’s and Kurt’s adult schedule, which means he sometimes doesn’t get put into his crib until after midnight. I’ve had to learn almost everything I know about child rearing from the likes of Spock, Leach, and Brazelton, whereas Tessa picked it up naturally as the middle child of five with two fully functional parents.

  A part of me longs to emulate Tessa’s more freestyle approach to motherhood. But like so many things that look easy at first glance, I believe it takes a lot more experience and inner confidence to pull off than I possess. I know I overthink and worry too much about every little thing when it comes to Betsy. Am I good mother? I keep asking myself. Am I at least good enough? The trouble is, I have no established points of reference, no inner barometer, so how can I really judge?

  “It seems our husbands have reverted to their boyhoods,” Tessa said, looking out over the meadows, the fallow farmland, and the gray-blue line of rolling hills that make up our view. A lone wood duck honked overhead. Our neighbors the Grubers still keep half a dozen Holsteins, and their little herd dots the field beyond ours. I never tire of looking at this scene, though I suspect that Tessa doesn’t really register it. She tends to prefer the indoors and air-conditioning. I doubt she even noticed the crazy quilt of daffodils and hyacinths I planted last November that now blanket the old haying field to the north of our house.

  “Kurt’s down with Cal and the other guys playing baseball ,” she added, shaking her head. Though I know how much she loves Kurt, Tessa often talks about her husband as though he were one of her more difficult students.

  “I was just getting a jump on spring myself,” I said, turning back to the corner of the garden where I’d been working, my gaze resting on the thickly braided clumps of bearded irises. “I’m planning on redoing this whole section. I don’t think any of these plants have been divided in at least a generation.”

  “So they can wait one more day, then, right?” Tessa said. “I told the boys we’d put together a cookout after the game.” I know she believes she’s liberating me for the afternoon. Giving me permission to have fun. I know she thinks my gardening is a way of making up for the fact that I’m a stay-at-home mom now. She imagines that I’m trying to put my five years of work experience at Pellani’s Garden Center to some practical use in my own backyard. In fact, I inherited these overgrown gardens from Cal’s family, and they’ve become as precious to me as heirloom silver or a leather-bound library might be to someone else. I’d rather be here, fingernails grimed with dirt, than anywhere else on earth. But it’s hard to explain to someone who thinks that what I’m doing is just another chore. Besides, I can sense how much Tessa herself wants to take off, to do something spur-of-the-moment and carefree.

  “Jude’s coming back,” I told Tessa after we settled down on the bottom bench of the old bleachers. It was the first time I’d said those words out loud, though I’d been turning them over in my mind ever since my younger sister called me two days ago. I know I’ll have to break the news to Cal pretty soon; telling Tessa first, I realize, is my way of practicing. We’d spread a picnic blanket out in front of us for Betsy and Jamie, and they were playing side by side with a bucket of beach toys Tessa carries in the back of her car.

  “To stay?” Tessa asked, turning toward me. I nodded, keeping my gaze on the playing field beyond the backstop. Cal’s waved to us a few times since we got here, but I can tell he’s wrapped up in the action. He’s a natural athlete and a born competitor. Sometimes I worry a little how much winning means to him, how much he’d sacrifice to come out ahead.

  “Yeah, she’s going to move in with my dad. Which could be a good thing, you know? I think he could use the company at this point. And, God knows, she could use a little structure.” My father, the Reverend Karl Honegger, still lives in the gingerbread colonial parish house next door to the Lutheran church in the center of town where Jude and I were raised. For the last thirty-plus years, he’s been presiding over a congregation that has now dwindled to just a few dozen souls. Neither of his daughters among them.

  “I know you told me, but I forget,” Tessa said. “Where’s she been most recently?”

  “With Jude, the more important question is ‘who’s she been with?’” I replied. “Though I actually had some hopes for this one. He was a part-time teacher at a high school outside of Boston. They were together almost two years.”

  “What happened?”

  “Turns out he was also a part-time drug dealer. Jude claims she had no idea. But the guy was selling to eighth graders, for heaven’s sakes! He won’t be around for a while. Jude had moved in with him, wasn’t really working, and was depending on him for room and board. So it’s either here or out on the street at this point.”

  “And how are you feeling about all this?” Tessa asked. “I mean, have you two ever really talked through, well . . . you know?”

  Tessa, who didn’t grow up in Covington, never really got to know my sister all that well. Or she wouldn’t have had to ask if we’d talked about the fact that I’d caught Jude trying to seduce Cal five years ago last Christmas. The year we got engaged. Jude claimed she’d had too much to drink, that she was feeling jealous and threatened by our upcoming marriage. Up until then, I’d been her protector, her champion, and her best friend. It was Jude’s final, flagrant act of rebellion and bad behavior before l
eaving Covington. But, yes, in her own way, she’s never stopped “talking through” what happened. Chapter and verse, ad infinitum. Though I haven’t seen her since, she calls me a lot, and we rarely have a phone conversation when she doesn’t try to bring up “that insanity with Cal” and want to analyze and parse it yet again.

  “Sure, we’ve talked,” I told Tessa. “But it’s really not the kind of thing you can ‘talk through,’ you know? I don’t think it’s ever going to go away. But honestly? I have missed her. It’s been way too long. She’s a real character. Wild and crazy. I see her in Betsy sometimes. All that passion for life! I can’t wait for the two of them to meet.”

  Though, in truth, my feelings are a lot more conflicted than that. Confused and confusing, like just about everything having to do with my family and upbringing. I wasn’t lying: I have been missing Jude, especially since Betsy was born. But I haven’t missed the worry and the constant emotional roller coaster of having my younger sister in my life. Without her around, I haven’t felt quite the same need to be on guard—for her and myself. I haven’t constantly had to remind myself to stick to the straight and narrow. To never put a foot wrong, because once you begin to stray—well, my childhood was an object lesson in what happens then. And though it was Jude who was born with Mom’s wild streak, I’ve always been afraid that some of that craziness is buried within me, too, like a faulty strand of DNA, just waiting to break loose and spiral out of control.

  It started to cool off. Betsy hit Jamie with the bucket by mistake and they both began to cry. Tessa and I picked them up and bounce-walked them over to the picnic area to start setting up for dinner. But all four grills were a mess—coated with grime, the fireboxes caked with ash and debris. I saw Cal behind the backstop and walked over to him with Betsy and suggested that we have everyone back to our place instead. We both really enjoy throwing open the house to friends and family. Though I’d have to do some shopping first, I told him.

  “Okay, but wait until the game’s over,” he said. He was sweaty and grinning. I haven’t seen him this relaxed since before his dad’s operation. Whatever prompted him to quit work early now seemed like a good idea. “I’d hate for you to miss seeing me hit this home run.”

  When he did hit one, we all cheered. But by then Betsy was starting to whine. She felt hot. I kissed her forehead and had Tessa do the same. She told me not to worry, that it was probably nothing. But then Betsy fell asleep in my arms, which she would normally never do with so much going on around her. She loves being in the middle of the action.

  “Let Cal take her home after the game and put her to bed,” Tessa suggested. “I’ll help you shop. We can get it done twice as fast working together.”

  Despite his homer, Cal’s side lost, though nobody seemed to mind very much. The sun was just beginning to set as we made our way across the field and up to the parking lot. Edmund was there, talking to Kurt, and Kristin and the twins were in their car, windows up. Cal groused about how we’d have to invite them back to the house now, too. I tried to be upbeat about it, but I wasn’t thrilled by the idea either. Edmund and Cal are like oil and water. And Kristin’s such a cold fish.

  “So, what are you thinking? Just burgers for everyone?” Tessa asked, coming up to me as I waited next to the Jeep with Betsy. She was carrying Jamie, who was teething on one of the straps on his BabyBjörn. Cal had gone over to the Subaru with Kurt to get Betsy’s safety seat. Edmund had followed them, gesturing and talking with some animation. It seemed odd to me that Edmund had come to the game at all; I wondered what was up.

  “Let’s get some sausages, too,” I said, turning back to Tessa. “And maybe some peppers and—” Out of the corner of my eye I saw Cal stumble out of the Subaru with the car seat. Edmund said something, and then Cal turned toward him. No, it was more like Cal turned on him. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I could tell it wasn’t good. Nothing’s been quite right between Cal and Edmund since Cal started the business, though I think it actually goes back much further and deeper than that. Cal’s dad claims he doesn’t play favorites. But you’d have to be blind not to see how he dotes on his youngest son.

  Betsy woke up and started crying. Cal came back with the seat. He didn’t meet my eye when he took Betsy from me, but I could almost feel the anger radiating off of him. Tessa was right there, so we didn’t say anything; I knew we’d hash it out later on. Cal waited while I dug around for the belt to hook into the back of the safety seat. When I had the thing locked in, I took Betsy back from him. Cal wandered off by himself across the parking lot. I could tell he was still fuming about whatever had happened between him and Edmund. I started to strap Betsy in, but then something occurred to me. I stood back up. Tessa was resting against the Jeep’s hood, waiting for me, her arms forming a sling under Jamie for support. She was bouncing him gently, trying to get him to stop fussing.

  “I haven’t gotten a chance to tell Cal yet,” I told her. “About Jude coming back.”

  “Enough said,” she replied.

  I was really dreading talking to Cal about my sister. She’s a subject we usually do our best to avoid. She’d been our first big argument, our only really, really bad one. I’d blamed him initially because I just couldn’t believe I had to blame her. I’d raised her, after all, shared that whole first part of my life with her. The same painful memories bound us together, closer than blood. How could she have betrayed me like that? I still don’t understand it. Cal came back. I leaned over and kissed Betsy’s forehead again.

  “She seems a lot better,” I told Cal as he climbed into the driver’s seat. “Maybe it was just the heat after all.” I felt a sudden urge to reach over and kiss him, too. But we’re never particularly demonstrative in public, and he’d probably wonder what was up. It’s so hard to find the right moment to say the big, important things. And so often it seems that the timing is more critical than what’s actually said. I wanted to tell Cal right then how much I loved him, how I could never really doubt him. But I also had to tell him about Jude coming back—and I had to do it soon—and that would only undercut whatever loving things I might have said. No, I realized, it was already too late for that. I gave Betsy one last look, and she smiled drowsily up at me.

  “See you later, little gator,” I said, leaning over and waving as Cal pulled out of the parking lot.

  3

  Cal

  The Jeep rolled over. We landed upside down in a ditch.

  It took me a few moments to make sense of what had happened, but I decided I was okay. Nothing broken. I couldn’t turn around, but the rearview mirror allowed me to see partially into the backseat. Enough to realize that Betsy wasn’t where I thought she ought to be. I couldn’t get my bearings. The steering wheel and gearbox had crumpled around me, and I was pinned inside the car.

  “Betsy?” I cried. “Betsy? Don’t worry, it’s going to be okay.”

  I go over it again and again. That first half hour or so, when I believed I was talking to my daughter. That she could hear my voice. It’s the only period of time after the accident that I can think about for very long. Everything seemed dreamlike. The world had been upended and set atilt. The rolling fields rose above us like storm clouds and were lit up by a fire-tinged horizon. I watched the first stars of evening blink on like distant house lights. I felt that Betsy and I were suspended between worlds. Slipping back and forth between waking and sleep. Drifting over a looking-glass surface where everything seemed a little off-kilter—and anything was possible. I thought, if I could just push through the floor of the car, I could grab my daughter’s hand and we would be able to float free, like balloons climbing into a magical twilit land.

  The guy who stopped and called 911 drove on to try to get immediate help from one of the nearby houses, but the police were there in ten minutes anyway. Chief Tyler and Denny Lockhardt, who had been a grade below me in high school. He’d been at the baseball game, too, until he had to leave for his shift. They knew before I did. Kurt and Mack Carlso
n, another guy on our crew, are volunteer firemen and EMTs. So they knew before I did, too. I don’t know why that hurts so much. I kept asking about Betsy: had they gotten her out okay? How was she doing? I heard more sirens. I remember all the lights circling.

  Kurt was right there when they pulled me out of the car. He put his arm around me. He tried to say something, but then he just shook his head. He walked me into the woods, where some paramedics I didn’t recognize were crouched around something wrapped in a white blanket. It was Betsy. The earth stopped moving. I staggered a couple of feet into the underbrush and got violently sick.

  “Take it easy,” Kurt was telling me when there was nothing left to throw up. “Just take it easy.” He grabbed hold of my elbow as he said to someone behind me, “Keep him walking. Keep him upright and moving. I’ll be right back.”

  “Where’s Kurt going?” I asked as Mack Carlson took my arm and started to guide me back toward the roadway. “I want Kurt.” I remember when I was seven or so, falling off the parallel bars behind the elementary school and hitting my head on somebody’s skateboard. I was sick and distraught that time, too; crying, not for my parents, but for Kurt, whom I trusted more than anybody else to know instinctively the right thing to do when things go wrong.