The First Day of the Rest of My Life

by Cathy Lamb

  “And what happened to the possum?” I asked.

  “She was gone. Gone.” She twisted her brown tail-braid. “I wonder if she was kidnapped or abducted.”

  Or eaten, I thought, but did not say it aloud. Amelia Lyn would not like the image of her eaten possum.

  “I’m her mother so I’m worried,” Amelia Lyn said worriedly.

  “You don’t look like a possum’s mother,” Annie drawled.

  Amelia laughed. “She’s the possum’s mother, as I am the mother, along with Amelia Lyn, of our five llamas.”

  “Got it,” Annie and I said together.

  We were here on their farm so Annie could vaccinate the llamas and do a general check, but we got caught up in the drama of a lost, possibly kidnapped or abducted possum.

  “I put a picture of Beth on the LOST poster and wrote, ‘Lost: Pet Possum. Her Name Is Beth.’ ”

  “And no one has found her?” How surprising!

  “Not yet,” Amelia Lyn said, “but on the poster I also wrote, ‘Don’t try to pick her up. She might bite.’ Beth only lets me or Mom hold her. She’s particular like that. She’s particular about a lot of things. She likes to be held like this”—she crossed her arms—“her food has to be cut up, her pink pillow in the left-hand corner, and she sulks, too. Gets in her cage, won’t come out if she thinks I haven’t been paying enough attention to her. She’ll sometimes nip at me, too, you know, but when she’s in a better mood, she’ll sit on my shoulder. She’s afraid of strangers and might bite if someone tries to pick her up.”

  “That would be very bad. Do you think there’s a lot of people out there who would pick up a possum?” Annie said, in all seriousness.

  Amelia Lyn pondered that one. “Not a lot. Some. But not a lot.”

  “If someone saw the poster of Beth and later saw a possum, how would they know it was Beth?” I asked. “They could be chasing down a native possum who was in a bad mood, vicious, defensive, hormonal, etcetera.”

  “If people look at the picture, Madeline,” Amelia Lyn said, only smothering her teenage disgust a bit, “then they would know which possum was Beth and which one wasn’t, you know? I mean, come on. Beth has a distinctive look. Her nose is more pointy, she has longer whiskers, her paws are a light gray. She’s not like other possums. And, too, if you call her name, she always puts her head up and that’s how people would know. I wrote that on the poster, too. ‘Call her name, Beth, and if she puts her head up, that’s her.’ ”

  I nodded and tried to be sage. “Do you want people to call you, then, if they spot her?”

  “Yep. Call me and I’ll come and get her. I have her pink pillow in her cage, her favorite foods are flowers, bread and honey, grapes, and a plum. I’ll put her toys in, too. She’ll crawl right in the cage when she sees it.”

  Annie and I nodded.

  “Do you think I’ll find Beth?” Amelia Lyn asked, hands on hips.

  “I don’t know,” Annie said, ever the realist. “She could have met a gang of other possums and decided to hang with them.”

  “Have you tried whistling to her? Calling her name? Singing her favorite song?” I said. Annie rolled her eyes at me. The Amelias didn’t see it.

  Amelia Lyn looked like she was about to cry.

  “We’ll help you look for her,” I said.

  “You will?” She brightened.

  “Sure,” Annie said. “Let me take care of the llamas first.”

  The Amelias nodded and we went to work. One llama was half brown and white, one white, one spotted, and two others were black. They were all named after rock stars: Elton John. Jon Bon Jovi. Cyndi Lauper. Sting. Pat Benatar. Annie weighed the llamas, one spit at her, and checked their bodies for growths or tumors or bumps. She gave them a dewormer mixed with applesauce using a syringe and took a peek at their teeth and jaws.

  Llamas are adorable, I will admit this. They look like a cross between a camel without a hump, sheep, minigiraffes because of the neck, sheepdogs, and people. It’s in their eyes, the people part, and in their personalities. They are curious, smart, social, and don’t spit as much as one would think. Amelia and Amelia Lyn use them for 4–H. They are pampered and spoiled on this farm.

  “I think the gang is looking good,” Annie said to Amelia when we were done. The gang wandered over to say hi.

  “Don’t say that so loud,” Amelia said. “They’ll become arrogant. Snotty.”

  I laughed.

  Amelia seemed baffled by my laughter. Baffled!

  “I won’t say it again,” Annie said. “But they are looking good.”

  “Shhh,” Amelia whispered.

  “Will you help me find Beth now?” Amelia Lyn asked, running to us. She’d been checking for Beth out in the field behind their barn. No luck. Maybe she should put up a LOST possum poster in the field and one of the deer would tell her where Beth was hiding out for a few days, or a coyote would admit to eating her.

  “We’ll give it a shot,” I said, and winked at Annie. She knew what I meant. If a possum got too close to me, especially if it made hissing sounds, I’d shoot it.

  Together we hunted around the sheds and the barn, under the decks, in the shrubbery, behind the tall pine trees, in an abandoned car, etc., etc. At one point, I kicked a bunch of wood crates stacked high in an outbuilding.

  I am not kidding, a possum ran out. Annie and I didn’t move.

  “Beth!” Amelia Lyn called. “Beth!”

  That creature, no kidding, stopped and put her head up. Amelia Lyn ran to her tearfully, picked her up, and, I am also not kidding, kissed Beth on the mouth.

  Sheesh.

  Possum lovers. You never know what they’ll do next.

  “I’ll be going to Fiji again soon,” Annie told me on the drive to The Lavender Farm that afternoon. We had stopped off to check on a sheep named Parrot and a dog named Captain Cook, which was owned by a man who made his living as a pirate. “Argh!” he had shouted at us, brandishing a knife, his patch in place, a red and white striped shirt stretched across his gut.

  Quick as a wink Annie had him up against a wall, elbow in his throat, the knife in her hand and pointed toward him. “Tony, don’t you ever wag a knife in my face again, you got that?”

  He was hurtin’ so he groaned out a yes. We left with Tony’s pumpkin cake, which was delicious. It was in the shape of a pirate’s head.

  “Off to Fiji?” I said, watching the farmland, the fields, and the orchards roll by. “Need a break? A tan?”

  “Yes, I need a break, so to speak.”

  “I worry about you when you’re in Fiji.”

  “I worry about what happens to four-legged animals if I don’t go to Fiji.”

  “You need to be careful.”

  “I’m always careful.”

  “Will you be retiring from your trips to Fiji anytime soon?”

  “Doubt it.”

  “Perhaps you could try another country?”

  “No.”

  “Aren’t you worried that someone with handcuffs will someday catch you on your trips to Fiji?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “I can’t concern myself with that. I need to do what’s right for Fiji.”

  “Got it.”

  We rode in silence, then Annie asked, “How are you doing?”

  “I’m okay.”

  I knew what we were talking about. Granddad’s revelations. That article. What happened to us. I still saw no reason to tell her about the blackmail. We’re so close and yet this horrible, tragic, sick thing is hanging between us. I love Annie with all my heart, and she loves me. In many ways, I will never be closer to her than I am to anyone else. On the other hand, we saw each other in these twisted positions, being hurt and humiliated, and we’ve hardly talked about it, ever. What was there to say? Gee whiz. That was a bad spot, wasn’t it? Cup of tea?

  “I’m fine,” I said again, as if to reassure myself.

  We rode in silence.

  “You’re not fine.”
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  “Neither are you, Annie.”

  We rode farther, in silence.

  “You’re right. I’m not fine, Madeline.”

  She pulled into our driveway, lined with the pink tulip trees that Granddad had planted for Grandma. We drove past the house, past the rows of lavender, the barn, the apple orchards, the place where the summer vegetable garden would be, and up through the forest to the highest point of our property. We both got out of the truck and went to sit on a wrought iron bench we’d brought up years ago. We sat side by side, our straight hair mingling in the breeze, our shoulders pressed together.

  Ahead of us, the whole valley spread out, the topography fascinating. In some places it was raining, in others, sunshine laced through the clouds. If only I could sew the picture of that valley into a quilt and somehow stitch in all the emotions of weather. . . .

  “Everything’s coming down pretty quick here,” she said.

  “Yep.” It was an understatement. We liked understatements. It kept a menacing world at bay.

  “Who knows what the reporter has, but my guess is that she’s got the whole story.”

  “Nailed down.” I tucked my hair behind my ear as a cool, subdued breeze meandered by.

  “She called me again.”

  “Damn and damn again.” I hated that Marlene had control over my life, that she could wield my past over my head, swing it around, and lob it like a bomb. “She’s a pit bull with a pretty voice.”

  “We will not be able to hide from our past anymore.”

  “We will definitely lose our privacy.”

  “The photographs will probably be sent everywhere. Famous life coach and sister, Ivy League veterinarian . . . nude. In heels. A rope. A sailor hat. A fake snake. A naked man.”

  “Completely likely.” I felt a shiver wrap tight around me.

  “And, you, Madeline, with your career, this is gonna be ugly.”

  “Yep.”

  I thought about that. The conference, the speech, my clients. “We’ll be exposed.”

  “That’s the word for it, exposed.”

  “It’ll feel like we’re naked again.” I could cry. I reached for Annie’s hand. She held it. I knew she felt like crying, but she wouldn’t. Annie never cried. “And what we learned from Granddad, today, that could be in the article, too.”

  “Possibly. She asked me about Holland, as you told me she asked you.”

  “She’s got something. I don’t know what, I don’t get it, but she’s got something.”

  The breeze blew our hair together. It was a pleasant, friendly breeze.

  “Madeline, I’m tired of hiding.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean”—she took a deep breath—“we knew this day was coming.”

  I had known that. “We’ve been dreading it.”

  “Yes, we have. But dreading it kept it a secret, kept it as a hidden shame, when we were not responsible for it, we didn’t ask for it. We were victims of a criminal attack as children. There is no shame for us in that. We’ve been running from it ever since. When we were kids we naturally wanted to protect ourselves. Part of me, even with my cache of explosives, wants to protect the girl I was. The girl who wore tutus and grizzly bear outfits and sequined poodle skirts. But running is not in my nature.” She tucked a strand of hair back. “I’m sick of it.”

  After being in the city, the silence of the country is soft. Your brain can finally de-sizzle, wander around, fly, soar over hills and grassy fields, through cornstalks, around flower beds, over a coyote or a raccoon, and around the moon and back. Nothing gets in the way, so to speak, of thinking, and I was thinking very deeply.

  “I’m exhausted from the run.”

  “Me too, Madeline. I can’t run anymore. I’ve crossed the finish line. I am done.”

  “I’m done, too. I can’t live like this.” My lies, my cover-ups, my fear, it was all strangling me. “I’m with you at the finish line. I won’t run anymore, either.”

  The pleasant, friendly breeze blew our hair together again, our shoulders touching, the weather parading across that quilted landscape.

  “I think I have an idea of how we should handle this magazine article without exploding Marlene’s home,” Annie said.

  Later Annie and I turned on her outdoor lights and I watched her fire up her chain saw and attack a piece of wood. It would morph into a pirate. She is so talented.

  The next morning she left for Fiji. She wasn’t gone long.

  A few days later I read about a house that had caught fire in the middle of the night in California. The owner was not home.

  Firefighters were very disturbed to find an outbuilding filled with roaming, aggressive pit bulls, and other pit bulls in cages. Many of them had festering wounds, missing fur, sawed-down teeth, bite marks. Others were too thin, limping, sick. Dogfighting paraphernalia was also found.

  The home was owned by a man who owned a string of chain stores.

  He was arrested for animal abuse and neglect. It made front page news.

  “We don’t know yet what started the fire,” the fire marshal said. “It appears to be faulty wiring. Although the home is new, so the electrical work should have been up to date. Still, faulty wiring is the likely culprit based on what we found. . . .”

  22

  Prison was not a happy place for Sherwinn, Pauly, and Gavin.

  They were sent to a prison off the Cape, and the other prisoners beat Sherwinn and his co-devils to a pulp the first, second, and third days they were there. My dad had a high school buddy incarcerated because he was convicted of running an organized drug ring, and he used his organizing skills to schedule regular beat-up times for all three of them.

  Sherwinn and crew ended up in the jail’s hospital. They had multiple broken bones and lacerations, some of which were made with a knife, others with a brick, and they had testicle problems that were caused by “groin crunchers.” I do not know what a “groin cruncher” weapon looks like. I bet it hurt. Apparently there was also a “titty squisher” weapon used on them and a “concussion inducer.”

  “The warden,” Carman told my momma one afternoon when it poured like the clouds had been saving rain since Noah and his ark sailed off, “is my uncle, honey. He told me that he didn’t give a muskrat’s ass if those freak-asses were taken apart with a crowbar and planted in the back garden of the prison as fertilizer, but he didn’t want it happening on his watch. He’s got six daughters to put through college or marry off and he needs the job. No offense, honey. He told me to tell you that he’s very sorry. Very sorry, and they would have made good fertilizer, his words.”

  She hugged my momma, and when she saw me hiding around the corner in our house by the sea, she hugged me, tighter and warmer the more I shook. “Baby, I pray for you every day. I love you so much, Madeline.” I tried to hug her back, but I was shaking too much. “Madeline, darling, darlin’. Now you stop. You’re making me cry and my mascara is smearing! What the heck—” She burst into tears. “Let me sing you a love song.”

  I feel like I’ve been shaking in one way or another my whole life, but the shaking is mostly contained inside me, locked up with my bad breathing skills. Honestly, since the day that Sherwinn came after Annie and me, I don’t think I’ve stopped shaking.

  News of the photographs of Annie and me swirled around the Cape, and though most people were very kind, and we were deluged with stuffed animals, pretty new clothes, and dinners that would feed us for months, there were a few people who blamed us.

  Yep, they blamed the victims. Blamed the victims, two young girls who enjoyed playing jacks and hopscotch.

  In a few warped minds, in some twisted, sick way, we had “enjoyed the attention,” or “cooperated,” or were, “rebellious, uncontrollable youths . . . always dressed in pink like that!”

  Mrs. Tilda Smith, a customer of Momma’s with a bottom the size of Arkansas, felt we had “asked for it.”

  “Obviously they wanted to be a part of that filth,
or they would have walked right out that door and away from those cameras! Wild girls! Wild! Marie Elise simply isn’t up to raising her children with good morals. Why, what would you expect from a woman like that? Always in heels! Always dressed up in skirts and that eyeliner, so la-di-da French, thinks she’s better than us!”

  Jealousy of one woman over another has caused Herculean damage over the years, hasn’t it? Cavewomen were probably slugging each other over who had the best furs or the most teeth.

  Trudy Jo told me later that Momma heard what Tilda Smith was saying about her daughters.

  “Your momma was so mad, she kept slamming her brushes and combs down, and she scrubbed Angela Peacock’s head so hard when she was washing it, I’m sure Angela thought she was getting a brain massage instead of a Marie Elise’s Magically Excellent Shampoo, Cut, and Blow Dry.”

  Trudy Jo shook her head. “But your momma, me, Carman, and Shell Dee thought up a plan to take revenge. Your momma named it the Revenge and Vengeance Pink and Red Attack. She was so pleasant to Tilda at first. She swiveled the chair around, and Tilda wriggled her cannonball cheeks into the seat. Have you ever noticed her bottom? It’s like a thing unto itself, her pants so tight the dimples show in her cheeks. Anyhow, I heard your momma say hello, and Tilda said, ‘I can’t wait to tell you what Bianca’s up to again. I was up late last night, watching for burglars with my binoculars, and I saw who she had over!’

  “I stood right close to your momma as she mixed up the dye,” Trudy Jo said, “because I wanted to be part of the action, part of your momma’s magic, and hoo-hee. Your momma was so magic that day. She turned Tilda away from the mirror and slopped all that dye on Tilda’s head—it’s shaped like a pyramid, that probably explains her stupidity—and she made sure it was good and in. Then your momma stood in front of her and said, ‘Tilda, I hear from a number of women that you’ve been lying about my girls.’ Now, Tilda, in that chair, she looks like she’s going to choke on her fat chins. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Marie Elsie,’ she squeaks. ‘I think you do,’ your momma says. ‘You’ve been telling people that my daughters wanted to be in those photographs.’