A Little Ray Of Sunshine

by Lani Diane Rich

  “Way to think on your feet, angel.” Digs shut the door, and then walked around to my side. I kept my hands firmly gripped on the steering wheel, and as the door opened, I asked the question on my mind. “Who’s here?”

  He gave one gentle shake of his head: Luke’s not here. “I’m helping Dad fix some planks out on the back deck, and Lilly’s in the kitchen, making lunch.”

  I glanced up. “What? You’re letting her cook? Are you insane?”

  Digs chuckled. “She cooks now. And knits.”

  I gave him a hard look. “Okay, now I know you’re full of shit.”

  Digs kept a straight face. So straight, I thought he might not be kidding. “Things are different now, EJ. I could have warned you if you’da called first.”

  I shrugged and stepped out of the truck. “I wasn’t sure I’d make it all the way here. I’m still thisclose to turning around and going back.”

  “Ah, just as well,” he said, “because this is gonna be fun to watch.”

  I had just shut the door when I heard the deep, rumbly, genuinely joyous laugh that could only come from one source: Danny Greene. I tucked my hands in my pockets and watched as Danny walked toward us. His thick hair had thinned a bit at the temples, and gone from his old salt and pepper to mostly salt, but his grinning, ruddy face was exactly the same as it had always been.

  “EJ,” he said softly. His face didn’t hold even the slightest note of reproach or anger, despite the fact that I’d screwed up so bad. He simply smiled and reached for my hands, holding them out from me as he surveyed me from head to toe. “Just as beautiful as ever.”

  My eyes filled as he pulled me into a hug, but I bit the inside of my cheek and blinked the tears away. If I started crying now, I’d still be weeping on the wedding day. Danny released me and put both hands on my cheeks.

  “How have you been, sweetheart?” he asked.

  “Good,” I said, choking on the word and blinking harder. “I’m sorry, I would have called but—”

  “Oh, you know better than that. You never need to call first. I’m just glad you’re here.” He lowered his hands and reached one out to Jess. “Hi. I’m Danny Greene.”

  Jess giggled and stepped forward. “I’m Jess Szyzynski, a friend of EJ’s. Its’ so nice to meet you. EJ’s told me so much I feel like I already know you.”

  I cleared my throat. “We were just going to get set up at the Grande, but I thought we should let you know we were here—”

  “You’re not going to any hotel,” Danny said, then turned to Digs. “Get their bags, David. I’ll show these lovely ladies inside.”

  “Danny, really, we can—,” I began, but he grabbed my hand, tucking it into his elbow.

  “There’s plenty of room, and you know the rule: No arguing allowed on my property.” He held one elbow out to Jess. “Humor an old man. It might be my last chance to escort two gorgeous young women into the house. I’m getting married, you know.”

  Jess grinned and took his arm while Digs grumbled behind us as he tried to dislodge Jess’s duffle bag from the narrow space behind the cab seats.

  I heard her before I saw her, that familiar, shrill voice calling out, “Danny, who’s here?” and my stomach tightened with tension as I awaited the oncoming assault. Then a moment later, as she appeared on the porch, I was too stunned to feel much of anything.

  She was wearing jeans. Jeans. And a green cotton turtleneck. And an apron - check, a dirty apron - on which she was wiping her hands. Her hair was pulled back in a demure, white-blonde ponytail that gave her a fun, youthful appearance. Her bright blue eyes stared out from under lashes clear of mascara and lids sans eyeshadow. Her cheeks held only a natural blush, and her pale pink lips sported only the lightest touch of clear lip gloss. There was not a diamond nor a pearl in sight.

  She froze as she came around the porch. I let go of Danny’s arm and stopped where I was, staring at this creature as though she’d just been beamed down from a passing spaceship. In my peripheral vision, I could see Danny step aside and whisper something to Jess, who nodded, but I couldn’t hear anything. My blood was roaring in my ears and I felt like I was about to fall over.

  This woman who looked vaguely like my mother put her hand to her mouth and I think she said something, but I couldn’t hear it. Then she opened her arms and ran to me, throwing them around my neck and hugging me with a warmth I had never experienced in the twenty-four years we’d been speaking to each other.

  “... can’t believe you’re here, sweetheart,” I heard her weepy voice saying when my hearing returned. “Oh, Emmy, darling, I’ve just missed you so much.” She stepped back and put her hands on my face. They were still cold and bony, the only thing about this woman that was even remotely familiar. Her eyes glistened as she smiled at me, a full smile that allowed for crinkling at the edges of her eyes, something I’d never seen her do before. “You look wonderful. A little on the thin side, but I’m making paninis. We’ll get you fed.”

  I opened my mouth but was too stricken to talk. Digs came up behind me and put his hand on my back as if he were concerned I might fall over. I turned and looked at him, and he watched me with a mixed expression of amusement and guilt.

  “Okay,” he said. “Maybe I should have told you.”

  My original shock started to transition into annoyance somewhere around the time paninis were served on the back deck. I was unable to figure out which emotions were which, and what I was and was not entitled to feel considering that I wasn’t within a country mile of blameless here, so I kept my smile on and engaged in polite chit-chat while we all angled to see each other around the 500-pound gorilla sitting on the center of the circular deck table, feeding off our unasked questions. For instance, I did not ask who this nice woman was and what she had done with my mother. My mother, for her part, did not ask if Jess was just a friend or my lesbian lover, although that was obviously the question rattling around in her head. Danny, smiling despite the fact that he had every right to be seriously pissed off at me, did not ask where the hell I’d been all these years and why I’d forgotten how to use the phone or write a letter. The only people who seemed to be completely comfortable with each other and themselves were Digs and Jess.

  “So,” I said, poking at the panini with a fork, “You really cooked this? All by yourself?”

  The stranger pretending to be my mother smiled. “Yes. I’ve learned to cook. Can you believe it? I never had the patience before, but now I’ve figured out a thing or two in the kitchen and I really enjoy it.”

  “A thing or two?” Danny leaned forward and put his hand on hers, giving her a smile. “She can make a gourmet meal out of a can of kidney beans and a bag of pasta.”

  “Wow.” I had an odd urge to throw the panini at her head, but reminded myself that such an action would probably be frowned upon. “The place looks great, Danny. The same, actually. Mom, you are living here, right?”

  She nodded and smiled girlishly at Danny. “Going on five years.”

  Five years? Five years and no hideous abstract murals on the walls painted by some crap but popular artist whose name looked better than the art? Five years, and she hadn’t disrupted the lake view with a hot tub and sauna and a circus tent? Five years and—

  “Blink,” Digs whispered, giving me a gentle poke on the leg under the table.

  “So, Jess,” Danny said, turning his warm smile on her, “how long have you known our girl?”

  She looked at me, seemed to do the math in her head, and then smiled at Danny. “I guess about eight days.”

  My mother reached for her wineglass and took a generous sip. I put my hand on Jess’s shoulder.

  “Yeah, we just hit if off from the start,” I said, sadistically enjoying the sight of the woman I barely recognized as my mother rending at the napkin in her lap, obviously tortured at the thought that her only daughter had turned gay, thus seriously complicating her shot at grandchildren.

  Serves you right, you big faker.

  “Je
ss was there when I went out to visit EJ,” Digs said. “She didn’t get a chance to warn Jess against me, so I was able to sucker her into being my date for the wedding.”

  Mom released a breath in a manner she probably thought was subtle, then grinned at Jess. “Oh, how wonderful! You two will make such a handsome couple.”

  “Yes, they will.” I sat back and shot Digs a look.

  “Well, don’t be shy,” Danny said, motioning toward the plates. “Eat up. It’s good stuff. Our Lilly is a master at paninis.”

  I watched as everyone else took bites - except my mother, of course. Interesting. I waited for the chokes and gasps, but each of them just smiled and made yum noises as though it was possible those sandwiches weren’t the most deadly things ever created at the hands of a mortal. I knew better, though. I’d been there for the Great Pot Roast Disaster of ‘86. Jess took a healthy bite, touched her napkin to her lips daintily and grinned at my mother.

  “Lilly,” she said, swallowing. “These are wonderful! What’s in them?”

  “Oh, nothing really, you wouldn’t believe how simple. A little sliced turkey, caramelized onions, and some fontina, and then you just layer it all between thin slices of sourdough, and - you won’t believe this - actually wrap a brick in tin foil—”

  “Caramelized onions,” I snorted. I didn’t realize I’d verbalized the thought until I looked up to see four pairs of unamused eyes watching me. “I mean... you can’t...” I blinked at the blank faces, then looked to Jess and spoke under my breath. “Can you caramelize onions?”

  Jess gave me a stern look, then dropped her eyes to my sandwich, and raised them back to me, arching one eyebrow to tell me I’d better take a bite of that sandwich or lose a hand. I sighed, leaned forward, and took the smallest bite I could, my free hand reaching for my glass of ice water to help me choke it down...

  ... except it was good. Really good. I put it down, said, “Mmmmm,” and smiled. My mother glanced happily at Danny, as if she had ever in her life given the slightest crap about my approval. What the hell kind of Twilight Zone reunion was this? Where was the contempt, disdain and recrimination? Who was this woman?

  “So, Jess, where are you from?” Danny asked, his head politely angled toward our poor, poor guest.

  “Oh. Um, I’ve kind of lived all around, actually,” she said, then turned her grin on my mother. “Lilly, I can’t tell you how exciting it is to meet you. I have been a fan of Baby of the Family since I was a little girl, and to get to meet you in person is such a thrill!”

  Oh, God. Here we go. Despite the fact that any normal human being would be sick to death of talking for nearly a half century about what they did between the ages of six and ten, Lilly Lorraine thrived on it. I zoned out for a bit, staring at my sandwich while trying to work up the strength to listen, once again, to the story about the time she accidentally fed chocolate to Rex, the dog that played Skipper, thus making him puke up Rocky Road all over the second assistant director.

  “... don’t you think, Emmy?”

  I raised my head. “What? Huh?”

  My mother smiled amiably. “I was just telling Jess how lovely the path around the lake was at dusk, and how it makes such a nice after-dinner walk. Don’t you think so?”

  I blinked. No Rex story? How was this possible? I sat up straighter. “Yes. It’s really...” I met my mother’s eyes. “... lovely.”

  The thing about being annoyed with someone is that, if you add guilt at your own horrible behavior to the annoyance, it blazes straight into anger. White-hot anger, as a matter of fact. Just a hair shy of rage. As I watched everyone at that table accept my mother’s pretense of being a decent human being, I began to fume. Then the guilt piled on as I grudgingly noted she’d been nothing but nice. And the paninis were really good. By the time the discussion had turned to the unusually sunny weather they’d been having, there was only one way for me to vent the steam building in my gut without exploding all over the table.

  I started humming “Johnny Angel.”

  Digs was the first to notice. He shot me a look, but that didn’t stop me. I just hummed louder.

  “Is that...?” Jess said, but she stopped and her eyes got wide, and she mumbled, “Oh, no.”

  Still, I continued humming, turning my focus on my mother, whose face was starting to show some real color now. Her eyes glinted with anger, and she curled her napkin up in her fist. Finally, there she was, the Lilly Lorraine I recognized.

  “Emmy,” she said quietly. “I think you’ve made your point.”

  “It’s EJ,” I said, “and I haven’t even begun to make my point.”

  “EJ.” Danny’s voice was sharp and serious. “That’s enough.”

  “It’s okay, Danny,” Mom said, putting her hand on his. “She has every right.” She turned to Jess and gave her a sad smile. “I’m so sorry, Jess. There’s a very complicated history here.”

  I shook my head and sputtered, “Complicated history? Is that how you’d describe it? Who are you?”

  “Sweetheart, you have every right to be upset. I sometimes forget how much I’ve changed, and I understand this might come as something of a surprise—”

  “A surprise? No. A surprise is coming home and finding your bedroom has been converted into a home gym. A surprise is not coming home to discover that your mother has become sweet and nice and polite and not self-centered at all and has learned to cook. I mean, how am I supposed to deal with that?”

  “EJ,” Danny warned, but my mother patted his hand, and he sat back and went silent.

  “This has been out of left field for you, Emmy, I understand, but...” Mom shook her head and sighed. “I’ve changed.”

  “No, shit.”

  Danny shot me a warning glance, and I shrunk back a little.

  My mother, seeming not to notice this exchange, kept talking. “After you left, I went down a very destructive path. Glenn and I got divorced. I started drinking way too much, and there was one night...” She swallowed, and her eyes glistened with tears, and Danny put one arm around her shoulders. She smiled at him, tightened her grip on his hand. “Danny saved my life. He came down to California, sold my house, brought me back here. He took care of me. He got me in touch with an excellent therapist - oh, I would have never survived the past few years if it weren’t for Dr. Travers. It’s been a long road, and it’s required a lot of work, but finally, I feel...” She breathed in deep and dabbed at the corner of one eye with her napkin. “I’m happy. I’m healthy.”

  “You’re healthy?” I tried to give the idea a moment to sink in, but it wouldn’t. “You’re healthy? So, you’re saying that the woman who made me go on a grapefruit diet at the age of seven because I’d crept up to the sixty-fifth weight percentile for my age... you’re telling me that woman is healthy?”

  She sighed. “Emmy, that was a long time—”

  “Not done!” I held up a hand to silence her. “Give me a minute here. So the woman who assigned her driver to take me to the mall on my sixteenth birthday while she ran off to France to marry a man she’d known for three days... this woman is healthy?”

  A deathly silence came over the entire table. Mom raised her eyes to mine and we connected, and I know she knew exactly what I was thinking.

  So the woman who called me the day after my engagement to tell me I’d never make a decent wife, that I’d ruin Luke’s life as well as my own, that Luke deserved better, that I wasn’t cut out for marriage and that the best way I could show Luke I loved him was to drop out of his life that minute and never show my face again... this woman is healthy?

  I shifted my gaze to Danny, focused on him, and how much I loved him and wanted him to be happy, and the rage inside started to calm.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s been a long week for me, and I’m really tired. Does anyone mind if I just go up and take a nap?” I glanced at Jess. “You’ll be okay?”

  She smiled and nodded. I dropped my napkin on my plate and forced myself to meet my mother’s
eyes.

  “Thank you,” I said tightly, with as much sincerity as I could muster. “The panini was very good.”

  Although there were a lot of ugly truths about that last conversation I’d had with my mother six years ago, the ugliest was this: Nothing that resulted from that conversation was her fault. She didn’t put a gun to my head and make me leave Luke’s ring on the nightstand in the middle of the night. I did that all on my own. My mother hadn’t created a situation out of a pure vacuum and injected it into my life; she’d just poked a bear that was already sleeping in my head. When I came to my senses some six months later in a trailer park in Utah and realized I’d made the biggest mistake I would ever have the opportunity to make, I blamed her, of course. And some of that was justified, I guess. But when it comes right down to it, the truth was that I had done it to myself.

  And that infuriated me more than if she had put a gun to my head.

  After finding my way to my old room, I threw myself down on the bottom twin bunk and stared up into the support bars that held up the top bunk, much as I had through so many summers and holidays when my mother couldn’t have been bothered to care for me, and had shipped me up to Oregon to stay with Danny. Many nights were spent staring at those supports, hardening my heart against the things my mother did or didn’t do, what she said or didn’t say, and here I was, at it again.

  Just like old times.

  A knock came at the door and I called out simply, “Come in,” not really caring if it was her or not.

  It wasn’t.

  “Hey.” Jess stepped inside, closed the door behind her and pulled the desk chair over next to my bunk. “How are you doing?”

  “Fine,” I said, still staring up at the supports. “I’d say I’m sorry, but you’re the one who kidnapped me, so you get what you deserve.”

  She laughed lightly. “Is there anything you want to talk about?”

  I shook my head.

  “Okay.”

  We sat in silence for a while. I wondered how long she planned on sitting there, but lacked the energy to ask. Finally, the last of my strength left me, and I started talking.