“I could work the register,” Haley tells me. “I know how to do that. But I’d like to make sandwiches, too. Maybe come up with some new things on the menu. Seasonal stuff.”
“Like what?” I ask.
She actually sounds enthusiastic as she talks. It’s been too long since I’ve heard that in her voice. Usually she sounds so . . . flat.
“Like . . . in the fall we could do a turkey wrap with fresh cranberry sauce and walnuts. Maybe make a salad with apples and pears in it. At Christmas we could do peppermint hot chocolate with fresh whole milk from the dairy and . . . and something crazy like a sandwich with goose or duck and call it the Christmas Carol special.”
I smile at the idea, impressed with her off-the-cuff creativity. “But you’d have to finish high school. And some sort of culinary classes at a local college would be smart.”
She shrugs. “Maybe a business class or two? We’d have to do some research into what kind of organic food is easy to get around here. We’d be smart to start with a small menu and work our way up to a bigger one. If we wanted. Or maybe we’d offer half a dozen sandwiches and burgers, a couple of salads and just make them amazing, so amazing that people can’t wait to come back and try something else.”
“It would be a lot of work.” I turn up the speed of the windshield wipers because it’s really raining hard now. “Long days, at least to start out. And there would be no way we could open the doors before we had every step of the plan laid out.”
She turns to look at me. “How much do you think it would cost? How would we pay for it?”
“Well,” I say. “I’ve been thinking about that. We could use that money I inherited from my mother as the start-up money. Of course we’d also have to be sure we had enough money to live on until the place started becoming profitable. Something like this isn’t easy to do.”
“You have that much money?”
The girls know I inherited money, but I’ve never discussed how much there is. The amount would sound astronomical to them, but of course that’s because they’ve never made a mortgage payment or paid an electric bill in their lives; they have no idea what things cost. “I think I’d have enough to get us started.”
“Wow,” Haley breathes. “It would be so cool to take an empty store like that and make it a place people lined up to get into.”
I see her rest her hand on her forearm.
“How’s your arm?” I ask casually, keeping an eye out for our turn.
She hesitates, then pushes up her sleeve. “I took off all the bandages. It hurt,” she says, “but I just ripped them off.” She touches several bumpy scabs. “I think it’s looking better since I left it open to the air.”
I think about our emotional wounds and the parallel. We’ve sort of ripped the bandages off. It hurt, but now that they’re in the open air . . .
“Have you felt like you wanted to do it again?” I ask, taking care not to allow any judgment to resound in my voice.
It’s raining cats and dogs now. Traffic is getting heavier. Everyone seems like they’re in a rush this afternoon, except for us. I’m not in a hurry to get to the airport. I’m not in a hurry to have the discussions Ben and I need to have.
“I’ve thought about it, but not enough to do it.” She looks at me as she pushes down her sleeve. “I don’t know how to explain it, but I never wanted to do it, Mom. It just . . . I just . . . did it.”
I look at her and smile. I can’t tell her I understand completely because I don’t, but I want her to know that I empathize with her. I exit the road, following the signs to Interstate 95/Maine Turnpike South. We’ll be at the airport in fifteen minutes.
I glance over my shoulder as we get to the bottom of the ramp and I start to merge. I’m just turning my head to say something to Haley when I hear someone lay on the horn behind me and brakes squeal. I jerk the wheel and a big white utility truck goes flying past me, still laying on the horn.
“Oh my God,” I murmur. My heart is pounding as I ease back onto the interstate.
I look at Haley. She’s pale, paler even than usual. “Are you okay?” My heart is pounding in my ears. “Haley?”
She looks at me. “That truck almost hit us.” Her voice is shaky.
“I’m sorry.” I feel shaky. That was way too close a call. “I didn’t see the truck. I don’t know where he came from.”
Haley turns her head slowly to look out into the driving rain and I see her reflection in the window. She hasn’t asked to drive since the accident. I wonder if my near-miss brought back all the memories. “Are you all right?” I ask. “Do you need me to get off the interstate and pull over?”
She shakes her head. I can’t read her face. “Let’s just get Dad and go home.”
Chapter 40
Izzy
“I don’t think it’s going good,” I tell Haley.
“Well, it’s not going well,” she corrects me.
I stick my tongue out at her.
We’re supposed to be doing the dishes, but I keep coming up with excuses to go into Aunt Laney’s dining room. If I stand on the far side of the table, I can hear Mom and Dad talking out on the front porch.
Mom and Dad were supposed to go out to dinner tonight. Like on a date. Aunt Laney and the boys were going to stay here and have spaghetti dinner with Haley and me. But Dad didn’t want to go out, so Laney and the boys took some spaghetti and went to stay at the lake cottage for a couple of days. To give us some space, while Dad’s here.
“Quit being nosy,” Haley tells me, coming into the dining room to get the water glasses off the table. “Get in there and load the dishwasher.”
I glance at the window. I can hear Dad talking, but I can’t really hear what he’s saying. His tone isn’t good, though. He’s talking quietly. He sounds really serious . . . and sad.
I walk back into the kitchen. Haley’s rinsing dishes in the sink. “Help me load,” she tells me.
I stand there chewing on my lower lip. “You don’t think Dad’s going to make me go back to Vegas with him, do you? Because I don’t want to go back. I want to stay here with you and Mom.”
She glances at me and then goes back to loading dirty dishes. “Four days ago, you didn’t want to speak to me ever again,” she says, putting a glass in the top rack of the dishwasher. “Now you want to stay here with me?”
“You want me to stop talking to you?” I ask. I don’t really want to stop talking to her. I didn’t like how I felt when I was doing it. It made me feel alone. It’s bad enough having to live without Caitlin. I don’t want to live without Haley, too.
Haley turns to face me, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. Tonight she’s wearing a pair of Liam’s gray sweatpants, Aunt Laney’s green fleece, and green sock/slipper things someone made Liam, but he doesn’t like them. It’s the first time I’ve seen my sister not wearing black in I don’t know how long. She took her black fingernail polish off too.
“No, I don’t want you to stop talking to me,” Haley tells me. “I don’t want you to ever do that again. Okay? I don’t care if you’re mad at me. Because we’re still sisters. Okay?”
When I don’t answer right away, she says, “Okay?”
“Okay,” I tell her, loud.
“Good, now come load the silverware.” She points to the sink.
I slowly make my way over. I finally got my SpongeBob sleep pants back from Mom and I’m wearing them. I like them so much that I might wear them again tomorrow. “When do you think we’ll have to go back?”
“I don’t know. If Mom can convince Dad to move here, maybe we don’t have to go back at all. You could just enroll in school here. You could go to Garret’s school. Megan goes there.”
I think about that as I turn on the faucet and watch water run down the drain. Aunt Laney has a cool big white kitchen sink like you see on TV in old farmhouses. “Do you want to stay here?” I ask her.
She nods.
“Why? You’ve lived in Las Vegas for almost eighteen years. That’s wh
ere your friends are. That’s where our home is.”
“My friends aren’t really my friends anymore. And it’s where our house is,” she says. “But it doesn’t feel like it’s home anymore. You know?”
I like the way she’s talking to me, like I’m older than ten.
“Mom thinks . . . I think,” Haley says, “that maybe here would be better for us because Caitlin never lived here.”
“But she came on vacation here,” I remind her. I’m not trying to argue with her. I’m just saying.
Haley looks down at me with her sad brown eyes. “It’s not the same thing, though. I don’t feel like it’s the same. Do you?”
I rinse off a fork and drop it in the silverware basket. I have to reach around Haley and I bump into her, but I don’t mind. I don’t feel like she’s an infectious disease anymore. I don’t know if I’ve completely forgiven her for what happened, but I’m glad we’re talking again because now I don’t feel so lonely. “I guess not,” I say. I think for a second and then I look at her. “If I tell you a secret, will you swear you won’t laugh? And you can’t tell Mom.”
She turns to me. “I won’t laugh. But is it dangerous?”
I shake my head.
“Then I won’t tell Mom.”
I look down at the running water. It still feels weird to be talking to her after not talking to her for months. I mean she’s still Haley, but she seems different, too. Everything seems different now. “When we were home,” I say softly, “I talked to her sometimes.”
Haley reaches out and smoothes my hair and looks at me the way Mom does sometimes. “Me too.”
“You did?” I look up at her. “Did she talk back to you?”
She shakes her head no. “She talk to you?”
I very slowly nod my head yes.
She grins. “Lucky dog.”
Chapter 41
Julia
I was so full of hope when I drove to the airport this afternoon. Granted, I was apprehensive, but I was still clinging to the idea that Ben would do anything for us. If push came to shove.
It’s coming to pushing and shoving, now.
We’re lying in Laney’s bed, me in a cute nightie I borrowed from her, him in his boxers. The girls have gone to bed. Laney and her boys are staying at the lake cottage to give us some privacy. We had a nice family dinner, spaghetti and meatballs, even wine. Then Ben and I went out on the porch to talk. That’s when the family reunion started to go downhill. We picked up the conversation again, after we all turned in for the night.
I’m devastated.
My conversations with Ben this evening have gone nothing like I imagined they would go, even worst-case scenario. I actually thought we might have sex tonight. I shaved my legs.
I don’t think there’s going to be any sex tonight.
Not only has Ben made it clear he’s not willing to move to Maine with us, but now he’s telling me he’s brought me information about boarding school for Izzy. He wants to send her to St. Andrews in Northern California where he and his brothers went. Now. As in next week. He wants her to fly back with him so he can get her settled and Haley and I can just wander back cross-country when we’re ready. Apparently he and Linda cooked up this idea. With Haley turning eighteen in a couple of weeks, he realized (or she realized and told him) he couldn’t force her to do anything, but I guess their idea is that he can still control Izzy. Still save her. From me.
I stare up at the ceiling of Laney’s bedroom, trying to follow where he’s going with this. We’re lying side by side, but I feel as far from him as I’ve ever felt in our married life. “But Izzy hasn’t even been a problem. Why would you think we should send her away?”
I’ll give him credit, at least he’ll look me the eye. He turns his head. “Jules, let’s face it. You haven’t been yourself since the accident.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I stare at him. “My child died.”
“And so did mine. But it’s not normal, to lie in bed for two months and then . . . this.”
“This?”
“Driving here. Now saying we should all move to Maine and open a restaurant.”
“A café,” I correct.
“If Izzy went away to school, it would give you some time to get yourself together.”
“Get myself together?” I repeat testily. “And what about Haley?”
“What about her? We’ll get her counseling, like we talked about, but honestly, as I said—” He exhales. “I don’t know why we have to keep rehashing stuff.” He stops and starts again. “Once she turns eighteen, I don’t know what we can do with her. Legally, she can leave our house. She can go live on Crack Street if she wants and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
I roll onto my side so I’m facing him and I draw up my knees, wanting to curl into a fetal positing. I’m so profoundly sad and angry and . . . sad. “You won’t even consider moving here?” I look up into his beautiful brown eyes that I’ve loved for so many years. “Come on, Ben. Forget about what Linda’s saying. Think for yourself. My idea for the café is a good one, and you know it. Totally feasible. I told you, the rent is dirt cheap and Laney knows someone who might be interested in being some sort of silent partner so I might be able to get some financial backing. I even talked to a couple of the restaurant owners and managers in town. There’s definitely a place for the kind of café I’m talking about. Organic is big in the area and getting bigger.” I reach out and lay my hand on his broad shoulder. “This was our dream, Ben. Remember?”
He shakes his head. “I can’t do it, Jules.”
“Why not?” I fight back tears. I’m not going to cry. I can’t cry. “Why can’t you? We have the money. If you sell your quarter of the business, we could easily live at least two years without having to make a profit, even pouring money into the café.”
“And what if this business fails, Jules?”
His expression is earnest. I think about what Haley said about me expecting more from him than he had to give. Maybe Izzy’s not my only wise daughter.
“What then?” he asks. “After I’ve spent my whole adult life building our lawn business at home, what do we do if this fails?”
“I don’t know. We pick up the pieces and we start again.” I grip his shoulder. “Together, you and I and Haley and Izzy.”
He rolls onto his back and rests his fist on his forehead. He stares up. “My life is in Las Vegas. My life is my business. My family.”
I push up with one hand, leaning over him. “We’re your family.”
His eyes fill with tears. “I can’t do it, Jules.” He slips his arm around me and pulls me down against him. “I just can’t do it.”
I rest my cheek on his bare chest and listen to his heart beating. I smell the scent of his skin that mingles with the scent of the lavender sheets. “So what does that mean?” I whisper.
“Are you set on this? Moving here with the girls?”
My voice catches in my throat. I feel like death has come to us again, only this time, it’s not a child I’m losing. It’s my marriage. It’s twenty years of laughter . . . and tears. And it hurts. When I spoke my vows, promising to be with him until death do us part, I always assumed that meant the death of one of us. It never occurred to me that it might mean the death of a child.
But it’s the right thing to do. I know it.
And I think he does too.
Chapter 42
Haley
61 days . . . or maybe 62
I had a bit of an epiphany last night, and this morning I’m still trying to work through it. I took the pipsqueak to the bakery to get fresh doughnuts to give Mom and Dad a little bit of time alone and now we’re walking back. Dad’s going back to Vegas today.
We’re not.
I haven’t totally worked my way through this whole mess. I can only deal with so many things at once and honestly, my parents’ marriage is more their problem than mine.
I looked up the word epiphany this morning on Caitlin’s i
Pad. I thought I knew what it meant, but I just wanted to check. It can mean the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles, as represented by the Magi. But it can also mean a sudden insight into a reality, initiated by a commonplace occurrence. My epiphany wasn’t exactly sudden . . . but close.
Two days ago, when Mom and I went to the airport to pick up Dad, Mom almost merged us into a four-ton utility truck. If we’d collided, going at that speed, someone could have died, in our car or the other vehicle. It probably would have been one of us, considering the size of Mom’s Toyota versus the size of that truck.
She didn’t mean to do it.
It was raining and visibility wasn’t good and there was a lot of traffic. If she had hit that truck, I wouldn’t have blamed her. Not even if I were dead now, hanging out in my little sister’s bedroom, talking to her in the dark when she’s scared.
If Mom had killed me on that interstate, it would have been an accident.
And that’s all it was at the intersection two months ago.
I didn’t kill Caitlin on purpose. I made a mistake. A horrible, terrible mistake. But just a mistake.
So it’s only logical that I stop holding it against myself. Mom and Dad never blamed me. Izzy doesn’t blame me anymore. I need to let it go. The way I would want Caitlin to let it go if she had been the one driving that night.
I’m feeling a little shaky and I take a deep breath.
The idea of forgiving myself is overwhelming. I mean, I’ve spent the last two months of my life beating myself up twenty-four hours a day. Cutting myself up. I spent my every waking hour being angry at people at school, at Mom, at the whole world, but mostly at myself. But if I stop beating myself up over this, what am I going to do now? The Haley I was before Caitlin died is gone; there’s no doubt about that. Who am I going to be now?
I have a feeling there’s going to be no epiphany with that one.
“So . . . we’re not going back to Las Vegas at all?” Izzy asks me, bringing me back to the sidewalk and the hot coffee I’m carrying for Mom. She doesn’t sound upset.
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