I recall the words of Paula’s favorite philosopher, Mary Engelbreit. These words have been emblazoned on a sign in Paula’s kitchen for I don’t know how long: Snap out of it!
I get out of my chair and head into the house. I’ll try, Mary, I’ll try.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Maisey
Jackie, Sarah, and I drive up just behind my grandparents. The girls insist on previewing my dress now that it’s safe in my closet. We run in to see it while Mom and Dad sit in the kitchen, chatting with Grandpa and Grandma. I unzip the bag, lift the dress out carefully, and lay it across my bed so they can get the full effect. It’s even more beautiful than I remembered.
“Put it on,” Jackie says, and though we hardly have time, I can’t resist.
“Oh!” Jackie says after she gets me zipped and buttoned. For Jackie, such exclamation is the highest praise.
“Let’s go down and show everyone,” she says.
“We can’t. We’re going to be late,” I say.
Jackie looks at her watch. “Come on. You have time.”
And I do, if I hurry.
Jackie runs downstairs and gathers the parents and grandparents in the living room for a private showing of the dress. I suddenly find myself apprehensive about walking down the stairs, but the expectation is there, so I can hardly change my mind. I relax a little when I come out of my room at the top of the stairs and hear Jackie telling everyone she’d play the “Wedding March” if she hadn’t left her triangle at home.
As I come down the stairs, everyone is smiling, even Mother. “It’s beautiful,” they all say at once, but it is Mother’s voice I hear most clearly, it is her eyes I see brimming with tears, her hand covering her mouth, and I can hardly catch my breath.
“I should have bought it here,” I whisper when I reach the bottom of the stairs. “I should have, and I’m sorry.”
Everyone else is focusing on the dress, but Mother has heard what I said.
“Don’t be,” she says, circling me, looking at the dress from every angle. “It couldn’t be more beautiful. It’s perfect.”
“It is perfect,” Dad says, “but you’d better change. We have to go.”
I turn and steal a look at Mother. She’s still looking at me and the dress. She seems enthralled.
“Go!” Dad says, pointing to the stairs.
Fifteen minutes later car doors are slamming, and the seven of us—Mom and Dad in their car, Grandma and Grandpa in theirs, and Sarah and Jackie in mine—take off for the church.
The rehearsal goes off without a hitch. I have handed out all sorts of warnings and assignments. I told Marcus he’d better not faint when I walk down the aisle. That’s one of the disasters I’ve read about. And I asked Max, Marcus’s brother and best man, to help take care of their five-year-old nephew, who is all about being “ring boy.” It will be up to Jackie to watch out for the flower girl, the ring bearer’s four-year-old sister. Even with their parents nearby, I don’t trust ring bearers and flower girls, and I would drop these two from the program in a minute if they hadn’t been on board and focused during the rehearsal. I don’t trust candle lighters either, which is why the candles will be lit before the service begins.
If I can keep my veil from catching on fire—I’ve heard of that too—the wedding will be wonderful. I realize, of course, that any number of things can go wrong, even for the totally prepared, and believe me, I fit into that category. I overheard Jackie’s aunt, the unofficial wedding coordinator, telling Mother that I’ve made her job quite easy.
In slightly over an hour, we have gone through everything twice, every question anyone could think of has been answered, and the crowd moves from the church to the inn. Ring Boy and Flower Girl beg to ride with Marcus and me, and the consensus on the church steps and in the parking lot is that Marcus and I will make great parents. Marcus lifts the ring bearer onto his shoulders. “Someday,” he says, galloping with a shrieking little boy all the way to the car.
Dottie has gone to so much trouble preparing for the rehearsal dinner that I worry the event might be a bit uptight. But apparently the Blairs don’t do uptight, and I don’t know how a rehearsal dinner could be nicer. I’m glad I didn’t bother to worry about the parents getting along, because they seem to be enjoying each other no end. I heard Mother saying something to Dottie about Pete wanting to stay in the guesthouse for the summer, and whatever Dottie said in reply made them laugh.
After dessert everyone gets up and mingles, talking to people who haven’t been at their table. That’s when I see Jackie taking Mother aside. I’m pretty sure why. And I’m right. I might look like I’m listening to Marcus’s grandmother, but I hear Jackie telling Mother that she and Sarah are going to spend the night at the house now that Marcus is finally out of her room.
“Aren’t you happy?” Jackie asks. I turn in time to see Mother smile at Jackie and give her a hug, which Jackie, no doubt, will take for “I’m thrilled!” But when I make the mistake of looking into Mother’s eyes, it is sadness I see there, not happiness.
And I feel guilty.
I don’t know why. I didn’t ask Jackie to come.
That’s pretty much what I tell Marcus as we sit on the couch in his room. We have the luxury of these few minutes together because the parents and the attendants are downstairs removing the decorations and collecting centerpieces, and Dot-tie insisted that Marcus and I have a little time to ourselves.
He is massaging my back as we talk.
“Why do you feel guilty?” he asks.
“I don’t know.”
“I’m sure you do.”
That kind of remark would have infuriated me yesterday, but tonight I turn around and look at him, my spirit hushed or maybe defeated—I can’t say which.
“I guess I do,” I say.
“So what are you going to do about it?”
I do the only thing I can.
I go downstairs and break the news to Jackie that I really think I shouldn’t have company on this particular night.
“You’re kidding!” she says. I’m sure in her mind the party has just begun.
“Jackie! Think about it. Will I be fresh as a daisy tomorrow if you and Sarah spend the night?”
“We’ll get you to bed at a decent hour. We’re not talking an all-nighter here.”
She isn’t buying my objection, so I am forced to take a more honest approach. “I’ve been thinking I should spend this last night with just my parents.”
“Why?”
Good grief.
“Actually,” I say, “you gave me the idea.”
“Bull.”
“Watch your mouth. Besides, you did.”
I feel like the Spirit has come to my rescue. If anything would help right now, reminding Jackie of her grand gesture this morning would.
“I shared the morning with you. And that was so nice. It made me think I should share this last night with them, just the three of us.”
“Oh, okay,” she says. “Fine.”
“Fine,” I say, hugging her.
Then I hug Sarah, who doesn’t care where she spends the night. She has been planning to stay with Jackie all along, until Jackie takes her to the airport on Sunday. “No problem,” she says.
When I take them home, they insist I come in “for a few minutes.” But a few minutes turns out to be more than an hour, and it is late by the time I get away from the apartment. There isn’t a light on in the house, which is a relief, but when I creep inside and start up the stairs, I somehow detect Mother sitting in the living room, alone in the dark.
“Mother!” I say. “You scared me.”
She reaches over and turns on the lamp by her chair. Marcus would have said she looks beautiful in the soft light.
“I thought the girls were coming home with you,” she says.
“They changed their minds.”
“That surprises me.”
“It wasn’t their idea, actually. I told them I should be alone with my paren
ts the night before my wedding.”
“That was thoughtful of you.”
“Well, I knew you were disappointed when Jackie said she and Sarah were staying here. I knew it when I saw your face at the dinner. For that matter, I knew you would be when I told Jackie they could stay.”
“Because we need to talk.”
Which is worse? Guilt or fear? I really cannot bear to talk.
“I don’t want to talk, Mother. Can’t it be enough that I came home by myself? Isn’t it nice that you’ve seen my dress? And Dad has talked to me already. I’m fine. Really.”
“I need to tell you some things, Maisey.”
“Please, let’s just go to bed. We need a good night’s sleep.”
I turn and run up the steps, and at the top of the landing I don’t stop and look back. Chances are too good that she will be standing there, watching me go.
I’ve been lying here an hour now, and I doubt I’ll get a good night’s sleep. Which is upsetting—I want to be rested, refreshed, relaxed for tomorrow.
I actually got up a few minutes ago, tiptoed down the stairs, and tapped lightly on Mom and Dad’s door. I thought if I could just say one thing, I might be able to sleep. But when I turned the handle without a sound and peeked in, the terror I had subdued enough to get that far charged again, and I couldn’t go any farther. Instead I shut the door as quietly as I had opened it and rushed back to my room.
Two or three times I’ve had the experience of hearing a song in my head nonstop, all its nuances as clear as if I were listening to it with my iPod set on Repeat. Something like that happened as I hurried up the stairs. What I had wanted to say when I opened Mother’s door played in my mind again and again.
I hear it still.
I stare out my window at the night sky and say it aloud so at least the bedbugs and the daisies and the moonlight can hear it.
“I don’t hate you.”
Kendy
Poor Maisey.
That’s what my heart keeps repeating.
And I don’t know if I’m thinking of the twenty-two-year-old Maisey who is about to be married or the thirteen-year-old Maisey who stood in a kitchen doorway and learned the meaning of disillusionment. How terrible to disappoint one’s child so completely. How terrible to be the source of her pain.
I hear something. I sit up, listening more intently.
“Did you hear that, Luke?” I whisper.
“What?”
He is all but asleep. Sleep is his gift. “Nothing,” I say. Why should both of us be awake?
I was probably hearing things. Maybe Maisey’s right. Luke has talked to her. And her anger has subsided. Maybe we should just go on from here. Maybe, but I don’t think so.
I get up and splash water on my face, trying to clear my head. I don’t think I was hearing things. That was Maisey at the door; I’m sure of it. And even if it wasn’t, I’m not going to sleep tonight until this is done.
I make my way out of the bedroom, into the living room, and look up the staircase to the room where my daughter could be sleeping right now. But I doubt it.
I ascend the stairs slowly, wondering what I will say. I have no script, just some general things I want her to know. But, dear God, what does she need to hear? Please help me say what she needs to hear.
I stand before her door as I believe she stood before mine a few minutes ago, but I will not turn back.
I knock.
“Maisey,” I whisper.
Nothing.
I open the door, and because she has not shut her blinds, the moonlight is illuminating her room. I can make out Maisey in the shadows; she is facing her window, curled up in the fetal position. I call her name again.
Nothing.
She is asleep. No—she is pretending to be asleep.
I walk over to her bed, pull back the covers, and slip in beside her. I curl up behind her and dare to put my arm over her, dare to pull her to me.
“Did you come to our room a while ago?” I ask.
She is silent, but I can feel she is awake. I wait. I can wait; just having her in my arms begins to fill a place that has been empty and aching for so long.
She says something.
“What, honey? I didn’t hear you.”
“I said—I don’t hate you.”
I wonder if she can feel my heart pounding. I find her hand and cover it with mine.
“I didn’t think you did, Maisey. But I understand why you said it.”
I think of sitting up, of turning on the light, but I’m not inclined to move.
“I know you’ve talked to your dad, but I have to tell you myself how sorry I am, Maisey. Sorry about so many things.”
I take a deep breath. She seems to be listening, and I will take this chance to tell her what I’ve been wanting to say since Wednesday night.
“I’m sorry that I crossed the line with Clay—if you’ll allow me to say it that way.”
She says nothing, but she pulls her hand from mine and sits up on the edge of her bed, staring into the night sky, her back to me.
I sit up too, determined to get this said. “I’m sorry about Clay for a lot of reasons. You loved him, and you loved Rebecca, and your relationship with them virtually ended when you came into the kitchen that day and saw us like that.”
She shakes her head back and forth, as though she’s trying to fend off something terrible. But I have more to say.
“I’m sorry that what Clay and I shared, what we stole, hurt your father. It was disloyal, and it diminished your father and me during that time. And I’m sorry for how unkind all of it was to Rebecca, even if she didn’t know the extent of our involvement.”
She is crying now, blotting her tears with the edge of her sheet. Tears stream down my face too. I hate that Maisey has reaped what I have sown.
“I’m sorry about Clay because it was wrong, and I knew it.”
She throws herself back on the bed, burying her face in her pillow.
I wish I were through tormenting her with my regrets, but I’m not.
“I’m also sorry I shut down when we lost the baby. I didn’t mean to, Maisey, but though I was only as far as my room, I might as well have moved to another universe. I’m sure you felt like I had abandoned you.”
“I missed you,” she whispers. “Even when I was so mad, I missed you so much.”
I touch her hair, and I am shocked at how violently she pulls away.
“Don’t!” She has spit the word at me. She jerks herself up, holding her pillow as a barrier between us, and she glares at me through her tears. “You left me! How could you leave me? How could you do that?”
I’m horrified that this is how she has interpreted my months of depression. But she has, and I have to understand that. I have to accept it.
My answer is unsatisfactory, but the only answer I have.
“I didn’t think I was leaving you, honey,” I say, looking past her, past the windows and the daisies that surround them, into the darkness beyond. “As far as how I could do any of the things I did, I can’t say with any certainty. But whatever the reason, it wasn’t good enough.”
“No, it wasn’t! You did leave me, Mother. You left me for Clay, and then you left me for the baby. And I couldn’t do anything about it.”
“Then, Maisey,” I say, looking at her again and lifting the pillow from her lap and setting it beside us, “of all the things I’m sorry for, I’m most sorry for that.”
I put my hand on her warm, wet cheek and look into her eyes, eyes I have loved since she blinked them open for the first time and looked up at me, pleased, or so it seemed, to be wrapped snuggly in a soft blanket and held in the arms of a woman who so obviously adored her.
And now, another miracle, Maisey allows my hand to remain on her face, and she does not turn away.
But she is tired. She is nine years tired.
She gets up and goes into her bathroom. I lie here while she washes her face and blows her nose. I wonder if she’ll choose to s
tay in the bathroom, but the door is opening and she comes back to the bed. I sit up now and put a pillow against the headboard. I put her pillow against the headboard too, taking a chance that she’ll sit with me. I’m so happy that she chooses to plop down, her shoulder brushing against mine.
“I would have asked for your forgiveness long before now, Maisey, if I’d only known what you saw.”
She turns and looks out her window. This is what we are choosing when we cannot look at each other.
“I couldn’t tell you,” she says.
“I’m sure you couldn’t.”
“I couldn’t tell anyone.”
Now I am silent, unsure of what to say.
“Oh, I wanted to sometimes,” she says. “There really were times I wanted to tell Jackie and the others. But I couldn’t.”
She turns and looks at me in the dark. “Why do you think I couldn’t?”
The question is not a riddle or a challenge. Her face indicates she is genuinely puzzled. I brush away a piece of hair that has fallen into her eyes. Without mulling it over at all, I think I have the answer for her question.
“Because you love me.”
“Yes,” she says, wonder in her voice. “I guess that’s it.” She sounds as though she has stumbled on a remarkable truth.
I take her hand. “I need you to know something, Maisey, because after tonight, I hope we won’t ever have to speak of this again.”
“Okay,” she says.
“The baby we lost was your dad’s. Anything else was impossible. Do you understand?”
“I embellished?”
“Well, that’s easy to do.”
Tears slip down her face again. She wipes them away with the back of her hands. I get up and retrieve a box of Kleenex from the bathroom.
“I’m not through with my litany of regrets yet,” I say, holding up the box. I sit down on her bed again, Maisey on my left, the Kleenex box on my right.
“I’m sorry for what we’ve missed the last nine years.”
“Well, I have to share the blame for that, don’t I?”
She starts to cry again.
I pull out Kleenexes and hand some to her.
Things Worth Remembering Page 22
