Ben and I stand there facing each other and I think about all we’ve been through over the years, the good and the bad, and a sense of nostalgia passes over me. When we get past this, when I feel like Haley is stable, I wonder if maybe Ben and I should look into marriage counseling. Maybe we just need a little help finding our way back to each other. I know I love him. I think he loves me. But I feel as if we’re so far apart right now, even standing so close.
“And you’re going to just leave Izzy?” he asks.
“You say that like I’m moving to Australia. I’m not leaving Izzy.” I throw up both my hands. “Haley and I are going to Maine. We’ll be back.”
“You tell Izz?”
I lower my hands to my bony hips. “She’s not too happy with me. She wants to go.”
“That’s a bad idea.” He walks over to his dresser where I’ve stacked a pile of his boxer briefs and socks. I actually washed some clothes today for the sake of washing, not because the cat puked on stuff.
“I explained to Izzy that Haley needed to get away from here for a few days and that she was staying here with you. I hung your polos in your closet.”
“Thanks.” He doesn’t smile when he says it.
I stand in the middle of the room, wondering what I should have packed that I’ve forgotten. It feels strange to just have a small bag, but this isn’t a vacation. I don’t need bathing suits or ski pants. I just need clothes to cover my body. I think I have what I need. My toiletry bag is on the bathroom sink; I’ll throw it in my bag in the morning. I guess anything I’ve forgotten, I can buy. I’ve got a credit card.
“You wanted to talk to me about something,” I remind him.
His back is to me. He’s putting away his clothes. “I wanted to discuss alternatives to driving to Maine, but I guess you’ve made up your mind.”
“I guess I have.” I run my hand through my hair, realizing how tired I am. I walk over to my bed and pick up my pillow.
“Where you going with that?” he asks.
I hug the pillow to me. “I’m sleeping with Haley. I don’t want her sneaking out in the middle of the night.” I drift toward the door, thinking there must be something else we should be saying to each other. After all, I’m not just leaving Izzy behind, I’m leaving him, too.
He throws socks into a drawer. “I’m surprised she didn’t climb out the window already.”
“Couldn’t. I nailed it shut from the outside.”
“You did what?”
In the doorway, I turn to him, hugging my pillow to my chest. He’s got that look on his face again. Like I’m crazy. It didn’t seem like a crazy idea when I did it. It seemed logical. Listening to Haley’s muffled protests from the other side of the window was almost funny.
“I got two big nails out of the shed and drove them into the windowsills on the outside so her windows won’t open.”
“And now you’re sleeping with her.” He looks over his shoulder at me.
I think about it, considering for a split second that maybe it was overkill. It’s not. Haley’s angry. She’s also scared. Not just to be in a car alone with me, but with herself. I think being scared is what will make her run if she gets the opportunity. “Yes.”
He turns away from me, shaking his head.
I go in to walk down the hallway, feeling a little bit like a mother lion protecting her cub. Right now, protecting Haley from the outside world seems fairly simple. I wonder, though, how a mother lion protects her cub from herself.
51 days
Morning comes quicker than I expect.
I slept in Haley’s double bed with her, ignoring her protests and the pillow she wedged between us for fear I might bump into her while she slept. I even escorted her to the bathroom in the middle of the night and this morning, when she insisted she needed a shower, stalling I’m sure; I went in with her. I looked for sharp objects she might be able to use to cut herself and confiscated cuticle scissors and two pairs of tweezers. I told her to leave the door unlocked. When she made a smart-ass comment about needing privacy to shower, I showed her the little key over the doorjamb. She slammed the bathroom door in my face, but I had gotten the upper hand and we both knew it.
With Haley in the shower, I knock on Izzy’s door. “You up?” I call.
“I’m up!” she hollers. I can hear her jump out of bed. “Getting dressed.”
I rest my hand on her door, considering going in and trying to talk to her again. Trying to explain why I have to do this.
Instead, I go down the hallway to Caitlin’s room, hesitate, then open the door. But I don’t go in. I just stand there on the threshold, like my husband, not fully committed. I want to go in, but I’m not sure I should. I’m afraid if I do, the pain that’s overwhelmed me for the last fifty-one days will swallow me up. And I can’t let that happen. I can’t for the sake of my other teen daughter who needs me. I can’t for the sake of my family.
Caitlin’s room looks as it did the day she died, minus the dirty clothes on the floor that I know Ben picked up. Her bed is still unmade. There’s an open calculus book on her desk and her school backpack hangs over a chair. There’s even a water glass still sitting on her nightstand. It’s empty. I stare at it thinking that if I bring it to my lips, I might touch where her lips had been.
I close my eyes for a second and grip the doorjamb. I need to clean out her room. It’s time. It’s not healthy to let her room sit like this, like she’s coming back, because she’s not. Haley and Izzy need to take what they want of hers and I need to pack up her things and donate them.
But not today. When we come back, I’ll do it.
I back up to go, afraid that if I stand here too long, I’ll climb into her bed, where the sheets still smell faintly of her, and I won’t be able to climb out. As I pull the door shut, I catch a glimpse of bright pink. Caitlin’s running shoes. On impulse, I grab them. I have no idea why. She and I wear . . . wore the same size. Holding her sneaks with two fingers, I close the door. I stuff the running shoes in my bag on the bed. I’m already dressed. I grab my phone and slip it into my jeans pocket, pick up the bag with my purse in it, and head for the kitchen.
Ben’s leaning on the counter reading the newspaper. Like it’s any other day. “Coffee’s made,” he says without looking up.
“Thanks.” I drop my bag on the floor and retrieve a mug from the cabinet. I keep stealing glances his way. I feel like I should say something. Like we should say something to each other. I watch him. Head down, eyes on the paper, he picks up his mug, brings it to his mouth, and takes a sip, slurping a little. He’s always had good table manners, good manners in general, but the slurp irritates me. Always has.
He swallows and puts the mug down again. I can’t remember the last time he pressed his mouth to mine. Just before Christmas, maybe? We both got a little drunk at a neighbor’s party. We had sex when we got back here. Not great sex, but when is drunk sex ever great after you get out of your teens? It was the last time we touched intimately. And that makes me sad. We had such a good sex life for so many years. I miss it.
I walk over to lay my hand on his on the counter. It takes him a second to look up. “Two weeks,” I say quietly. “That’s all we’ll be gone. Just two weeks.”
He doesn’t take my hand in his or make any attempt to touch me. He just keeps his hand there on the counter. “You think you can fix her in two weeks?”
I shake my head. “No. Of course not, but . . .” I pull my hand away, feeling silly. Clearly he’s angry with me. He doesn’t want to touch me. He doesn’t want to be touched. “But maybe if I can get her to talk—” I stop and start again. “If I can get her away from here, away from all the things that remind her of Caitlin every minute she’s awake, maybe we can work through some of her feelings. Maybe . . .” The truth is that I don’t know exactly what I think I’m going to accomplish. I just know I have to do this.
Ben goes back to reading his paper and for a second I’m so angry that I want to rip the paper away from
him and scream at him that it’s time for him to damned well wake up and pay some attention to me, to our daughters who are still living, and to our family.
Instead, I walk away, grab my mug, and fill it with coffee.
Izzy comes into the kitchen dressed in her school uniform that couldn’t have gotten that wrinkled if she’d balled it up and slept on it. I consider suggesting she throw her skirt and top in the dryer and set it on dewrinkle, but I bite my tongue. I don’t want our parting words to be of criticism.
“Hey, Dad,” she says.
“Hey, Izz.” He doesn’t look up.
She meets my gaze, but she doesn’t say good morning.
“I’m sorry,” I say softly, going to her. I wrap my arm around her in sort of a side hug. Tears burn the backs of my eyelids, but I don’t let myself cry.
Her lip quivers. She doesn’t hug me back, but she doesn’t pull away, either.
I hear Haley come out of the bathroom. “Leaving in ten minutes,” I shout. I want to get this show on the road. Nothing good can come from lingering. I look down at my youngest. “How about some juice? Waffles? I can pop them in the toaster oven for you.” I think about offering to make her pancakes, but she and Ben need to leave in fifteen minutes or she’ll be late for school.
“Just juice.” Izzy pulls away from me.
I get the OJ while she gets a glass.
I’m sipping my coffee when Haley walks into the kitchen, which totally surprises me because I was afraid I was going to have to physically drag her out of the house and into my car. The look on her face tells me she still doesn’t want to go, but she looks resigned to going. I exhale with relief. “You pack a bag?”
She’s standing near the breakfast table, looking out the window, bouncing that ball that I hate. She’s wearing black jeans, a black long-sleeved T-shirt, and black Converse sneakers. Her backpack is on her back. She doesn’t answer me.
“Haley—”
“I’ve got stuff in here.” She sort of shrugs her shoulder, indicating the bag on her back. She couldn’t possibly have more than a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt, and some panties in there.
I bite my tongue. “We should go,” I say quietly, to no one in particular.
Izzy hasn’t drunk any of her juice. She’s just standing there.
“Walk us out,” I tell Izzy. “Bring my bag?” I point to the green duffel on the floor. I bought it on one of our trips to Maine years ago. It came from the big LL Bean store in Freeport. We bought tents the same day. Ben had this idea we could all go camping. It would become our new family togetherness activity. We went twice. I wonder what happened to the tents. In the attic probably.
Ben is still reading his paper and slurping his coffee. I brush my hand against his arm. “Ben, we’re going.”
He looks up and meets my gaze. I think he’s going to say, I’ll go too. We’ll go together. Instead, he glances in Izzy’s direction. “You ready to go?”
Surprisingly, Haley leads the way, bouncing the ball as she walks. I realize now that she’s wearing wireless headphones. Listening to music on her iPhone. Here, but not engaged. But she’s not fighting me, at least. She must have concluded, at some point in the last twelve hours, that I wasn’t kidding about committing her.
And I don’t think I was.
We all walk out into the bright morning sun. It’s already getting warm out, the way it does in the desert, even this early in the year. Looking out across the bare yards, the yucca and palm trees and how ugly it seems, I wonder why I ever agreed to move here. I wonder how I ended up spending the last twenty years of my life in a place I hate. Suddenly I yearn for the green grasses and sparkling ponds of Maine.
In the driveway, I go to Ben and put out my arms. He hugs me, but it’s awkward. His hands don’t go in the right place and neither do mine. I lift up on my toes to kiss him and he leans down, but he turns his head so my mouth only brushes the corner of his. “We’ll be fine,” I whisper. “Call you tonight.”
He lets me go without reassuring me everything really will be all right, Julia. Haley will be okay. We’ll get through this. Our family will get through it.
Haley makes her way slowly to the car. She doesn’t tell Ben or Izzy good-bye. I have no idea why she’s pissed at Ben. She gets in the backseat, not the front.
I turn to Izzy. She throws herself against me and I hug her tightly. “I won’t be gone long.” I kiss the top of her head. “I’ll be back before you know it.” I kiss her temple, then her head again, breathing in the scent of her. “It’s going to be okay, Izzy. We’re going to be okay.” My last words catch in my throat and my legs feel weak for a moment. So weak that I’m afraid I might drop to my knees taking her with me. Sheer willpower keeps me upright. I have to be strong. I have to do this.
“Please don’t leave me, Mom,” Izzy begs. “Please. Please let me go with you. Please, Mom,” she wails.
“Izz,” Ben says quietly from behind us.
“I’ll call you tonight.” I extricate myself from the tangle of her arms. “Ben.”
He takes her by the arm.
“Mom,” Izzy sobs, and then she turns to her father.
Thank God he puts his arms around her.
I grab my bag that Izzy has dropped on the cement driveway. I throw it in the backseat beside Haley, who appears to have not witnessed her little sister’s breakdown. I get into the driver side and start the car. Tears are running down my cheeks, but I’m okay. I’m okay.
I back out the drive and pull away without looking at Ben and Izzy. She’ll be okay. Izzy’s upset, but she’ll be okay, I tell myself as I near the end of our street. Two weeks. I’ll be gone two weeks. I’ll be back in no time.
I stop at the stop sign and look into my rearview mirror.
Izzy has let go of her dad and walked to the end of our driveway. She’s just standing there in her wrinkled uniform, her hair a mess, her arms at her sides, her hair bright red in the sunlight. I can tell she’s still crying. Sobbing.
I hesitate and then lift my foot off the brake and hit the gas.
Chapter 20
Haley
50 days, 9 hours
“So, what?” I say, my tone hostile. I pull one earbud out of my ear. “Now we’re not going?”
I stare at Mom as she starts to make a U-turn in the middle of the intersection at the end of our street. Only she does it so fast that I have to grab the back of the front seat to keep from flying around in the back. A bald guy walking his dog turns to look at us. My ball falls out of my hand and rolls under Mom’s seat. I sat behind her on purpose just so I wouldn’t have to look at her. I’m so angry. I can’t believe she’s doing this. I can’t believe she’s making me do it.
But maybe she’s changed her mind. Maybe she finally realized how freakin’ crazy a road trip with her crazy daughter would be.
I lean down to find my ball and she hits the gas, throwing me back in the seat. I try to wedge myself in with one hand while I search for the ball with the other. But it takes a minute for her to make the turn and I’m still getting thrown around. It hadn’t occurred to me I’d need my seat belt before we left the neighborhood. “Mom! What the hell?” I open and close my hand, searching frantically on the floor. I can’t lose the ball. I can’t lose it.
We fly by neighbors’ houses. Mom’s driving over the speed limit, which she never does. I wonder if she’s having a breakdown. A breakdown because Izzy’s having a meltdown. For a minute there I really thought Mom was going to drive to Maine with me in the backseat. I’ll have to remember to thank Izzy for saving my life.
If she ever speaks to me again.
I’m half on the seat, half on the floor, and the other earbud falls out of my ear. I finally feel the little ball under my fingertips. I almost have it when Mom slams on the brakes. My face hits the back of the seat. “Mom!” I holler.
I look around the seat and up to see her glare at me in the rearview mirror. “Stay in the car.”
“What?” I snatch up the ball an
d scramble up onto the seat to see Izzy through the windshield, still standing there in our driveway. “So we’re still going?”
She doesn’t answer me.
Dad is a couple of feet behind Izzy. He says something to Mom, but I don’t catch what it is.
Mom is out of the car, leaning on the open door. “We’re leaving in five minutes, Izzy. Get your stuff.”
Izzy turns and runs faster than I’ve ever seen the little runt run on those chubby legs of hers. What the hell? Now Izzy’s coming, too? That’s even worse than riding three thousand miles with Mom. The way Izzy looks at me, it makes me just want to disappear. Or have never existed at all.
This cannot be happening. Maybe I should have let her commit me to the nut floor.
Dad says something else to Mom and Mom closes the door hard and walks around the front of the car and up the driveway toward him. I slide to the middle of the backseat to watch them. Mom’s back is to me. I can’t read Dad’s lips because Mom’s between him and me now.
I look at the car door, trying to think fast. I’m mad and I’m scared and I’m mad. I can’t ride to Maine in this car with her. I certainly can’t do it with Izzy. The way she looks at me I feel like I should be wearing a scarlet M for Murderer. Caitlin was reading The Scarlet Letter in her Lit class. We were talking about it the morning before she died. We both liked the book even though none of our friends did. Remembering that makes me tear up and now I feel worse. Even more scared.
Julia's Daughters Page 13
