A Long Time Gone

by Karen White

  “Do you have plans to fight it?”

  I blinked at him, his words surprising me. “How could I? What do I have to offer her? I own a house, sure, but I don’t have a job, or career, and all I have to show for twenty-seven years is a road full of mistakes. Besides, I have no legal claims to her. I was only married to her father for seven years. I could never win.”

  “But what if you took it out of a court of law and just appealed to him as a father who wants the best for his daughter?”

  “I don’t think he cares. All he cared about was punishing me, regardless of what it did to Chloe. It’s not even worth trying.”

  He rocked in silence, that space between words something I’d grown used to but now hated with a certain dread.

  “What?” I demanded.

  He kept rocking. “I didn’t say anything.”

  “I know. That’s why I want you to stop.” I shook my head, realizing how stupid I sounded.

  “We all make mistakes, Vivi.”

  “Oh, please, Mr. Perfect. Your life is exactly as you wanted it to be. You haven’t taken a wrong turn since you learned how to crawl.”

  “That’s not true.”

  I waited during the long silence, expecting a hammer to fall.

  “I let you go.”

  He’d said the words softly, but they felt like a slap to my chest.

  He didn’t wait for me to figure out a response. “You never quit, Vivi. All those years I knew you while we were growing up, you never quit. Whether it was for some cause, or making a team, or becoming editor of the school paper, you’d always keep trying a thousand times, even when you heard ‘no’ nine hundred and ninety-nine times.”

  I stared down at the open book in my lap, at all the names of the people who’d brought me here, and who must be so disappointed. “Yeah, well, as I told you before, that Vivi is gone.”

  He kept rocking, not saying anything, and I cursed myself for giving him the opportunity.

  “She is,” I said again, trying to fill that silence.

  After a long moment where I forced myself to remain quiet, Tripp said, “Since we were little kids and all the way through high school, you would always cry whenever we sang ‘Silent Night’ during the nativity play at Christmas. I think that says a lot about a person. And that doesn’t change.”

  A shriek from Chloe made us look out toward the side of the house, where a drenched Chloe was being chased by an equally wet dog who looked about twenty pounds smaller with his fur stuck against his body.

  Tripp stood, and I could see that he was trying not to laugh. “Stop running and he’ll stop chasing you.”

  Chloe ran in a large circle, glancing at Tripp to make sure she was hearing him right. When he nodded, she stopped abruptly, so that the dog ran into her and knocked her over. Too stunned to move, she lay where she’d fallen while the dog proceeded to shake the water off of his fur, spraying it all over Chloe, and then licked her face in apology.

  The book slid to the floor as I stood in alarm, and I was halfway off the porch when Tripp grabbed my arm. It was then that I realized that the high-pitched sounds coming from Chloe were simply squeals of delight. I stopped to watch, knowing with all certainty that my stepdaughter had never made that sound before. Or had never had reason to.

  When she finally managed to sit up she looked at us with a wide grin, completely unaware that her hair was sticking up in a wild tangle, with grass and soapsuds clinging to the wet strands.

  Tripp leaned against the porch railing. “You might could go around to the kitchen door and ask Mrs. Smith for some more towels—for both of you. And remember to walk—don’t run.”

  She stood slowly, then began to walk with exaggerated slowness toward the side of the house. Stopping suddenly, she backed up a few steps. “Yes. Sir.”

  We returned to our rocking chairs, and Tripp resumed rocking in silence.

  “Don’t say anything,” I said, his lack of words unnerving me.

  “I didn’t.”

  “I know!” I leaned down and picked up Mrs. Shipley’s book, frowning at a crease in one of the pages from its tumble to the floor. I found the right page again, then smoothed the book open on my lap.

  Without looking up at him, I said, “Mark has requested that you stop putting personal notes on my lab reports. He finds them unprofessional and annoying.”

  “He really said that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” He kept rocking.

  I smiled to myself, picturing Mark’s face when he got the next report. “Are you staying for supper?”

  “Are you asking?”

  I let out a heavy sigh. Conversations with Tripp were never easy. “Sure. Since you’re already here and all. And I need a sounding board to figure out a few things.”

  “About Adelaide?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Sheriff Adams said that with the DNA evidence, the newspaper articles, and the ring, he’s confident that the remains are hers—although we’re still waiting for the rest of the lab results, including a probable cause of death. I just don’t want to bury her until we know what happened. And who’s responsible.”

  “It was over eighty years ago, Vivi. That might not be possible.”

  “I know,” I said, recalling what he’d said about how I’d never been able to take no for an answer. At least in the years before I’d discovered that the pills had taken away my desire to care if I won or not.

  I studied the family tree on the pages in my lap. “I remember Bootsie talking to me about my ancestors, but I never paid attention. I think I always thought that I’d have time later to write things down so I could remember for later. When you’re young, you never think that you’re going to run out of time.”

  My finger moved down the lines on the page, past Adelaide’s name, to Bootsie’s and Carol Lynne’s, and then to mine and Tommy’s, where the family tree abruptly ended. “I’ve even found myself wishing that I’d bothered at some point to hear Carol Lynne’s story. There’s so much I wish I understood, and it’s too late now.”

  “Hindsight . . .”

  “I know,” I said. “It’s always twenty-twenty.”

  “Of course, I’m a firm believer that it’s never too late,” he said.

  “Where my mother’s concerned, it definitely is. She still calls Chloe JoEllen, her best friend’s name from high school. And she thinks I’m sixteen.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  He fell silent and I fought an internal battle between asking him what he meant and self-preservation. Not able to take it anymore, I asked, “What do you mean?”

  “That it might be too late to hear your mother’s story. But I’m also a firm believer that nobody’s past is written in stone.”

  I turned to face him, feeling more than a little irritated. “Of course it is. You can’t change things that have already happened.”

  I focused again on the book on my lap, hoping he’d see my body language as an indication that that part of the conversation was over. He remained silent, of course.

  I cleared my throat. “Looking at my family tree, I find it kind of remarkable that we didn’t die out several generations ago. Lots of mothers dying young and lots of only children, too. Tommy’s a real peculiarity, being not only a boy but also being the first of two children.”

  “I’m sure you can’t wait to tell him that.”

  “You bet. And I’ll be sure to remind him each time he calls me Booger.”

  I tapped on a name near the top of the tree. “This is Rosemary, my great-great-grandmother and Adelaide’s mother. She died when Adelaide was ten. I remembered Bootsie saying it was a sad story, but it wasn’t until I read Mrs. Shipley’s history that I understood why. Apparently Rosemary killed herself because she couldn’t get over her husband’s death in World War One. Bootsie always said she beli
eved her mother had left her because of what Adelaide’s own mother had done. Like it was in the blood. And it’s not like my own mother was one to break the mold.”

  Tripp didn’t say anything, and I hadn’t expected that he would. My finger traced small circles on my own name, on the empty space beneath it, and I thought of Chloe and how I’d left her behind in the divorce. “I’ve always believed Bootsie was right, you know. About it being in the blood. And I pretty much proved it.”

  His answer was the slow creaking of his rocker against the old floorboards of the porch. I’m also a firm believer that nobody’s past is written in stone. I ran my fingers over names I didn’t recall hearing before, but who were on my family tree as proof that they’d existed. John. William. Joseph. Louise. They all had a connection to me, and I’d never bothered to pay attention. And until I’d read the news account of Adelaide’s disappearance, I hadn’t even realized that Bootsie’s real name was Elizabeth.

  My gaze fell on the watch that I hadn’t wanted to remove, even though the time was frozen at two fifty. “Here’s a clue,” I said, holding up my wrist for Tripp to see. “Adelaide’s husband said she always wore it, that if her body was found this is how she could be identified. There’s an inscription inside that reads, ‘I love you forever.’”

  I rocked back and forth a few times, thinking. “But Chloe found it in the spare-parts hatbox that Emmett used to keep and that Tommy inherited.”

  “When was Emmett born?”

  I looked at the family tree. “Nineteen twenty-seven. He was a year younger than Bootsie. They were first cousins once removed—I only know that because I called Carol Shipley and asked. Emmett’s father, William, was Adelaide’s first cousin.”

  “So Emmett wouldn’t have known Adelaide, or have had any reason to have her watch. So who put it in there?” Tripp asked.

  “Exactly. I’m beginning to think that Sheriff Adams was right and that we’ll never find out, because it happened so long ago.”

  Tripp stared at me with raised eyebrows.

  “I know,” I said. “I’ve never been known as somebody who takes no for an answer.”

  “I’m just sayin’.”

  “Actually, I said it, and I’m not necessarily agreeing. It seems that there are more questions we could be asking, and just one answer might open the doors to a lot more of them. For instance—where is Bootsie’s half of the baby ring? Chloe and I went through the hatbox twice and it’s definitely not in there. I went through all the drawers in the house, and nothing.”

  “Did you check the attic?”

  “Not yet. It’s on my list. I’ve been kind of waiting, seeing as how I’m petrified of spiders, and I remember once when I went up with Bootsie to put away some Christmas decorations that there were some pretty impressive webs in the corners and in the rafters. And Tommy screams like a little girl whenever he sees one, so he’s no help.”

  “I’m not afraid of spiders.” Tripp grinned.

  “Are you offering to help?”

  “Are you asking?”

  I tried to sigh, but it came out as a laugh. “Sure. Would you help me go through the attic, please? I need you to do some heavy lifting and to scare the spiders away.”

  “I’d be more than happy to. I suggest we wait until it’s brighter out so we can see better. I believe there’s a fan window up there.”

  “Thank you. And I need to go see Mathilda. I think I’ll just go into her room and wait until she awakens or stops feeling so poorly. I’ve tried to see her about four times since I’ve been back and I keep getting sent away.”

  “Or you could invite her for supper. I’ve never known that woman to turn down a meal. She’s as skinny as a zipper but eats like a horse.”

  “She’s allowed? I mean, it’s okay for her to leave the nursing home?”

  “Sure. Cora brings her to church and then Sunday dinner just about every week. If you like, I’ll invite her and even drive her. Which means I’d have to stay, too.”

  “By all means,” I said. “How about Wednesday? That will give me time to go through the newspapers, too, which might give me a few more questions to ask. She’s been around for one hundred and four years. She knew Adelaide. Maybe she’ll know who might have wanted to harm her.”

  A beep sounded and Tripp pulled a phone from his pocket and looked at the screen. “Duty calls. Light plane crash near the regional airport.” He stood.

  “Does every call you get mean somebody’s already dead?”

  “Or close to it. And it’s something you never get used to.”

  I remembered what I’d asked him when I’d first come back, about why he’d decided not to be a cardiologist like he’d always planned. I wanted to do something that had no memories of you attached to it. Working with dead people sort of fit the bill. I looked away, confused at the waves of emotion that shimmied through my veins: shame, embarrassment, and an indescribable sense of loss.

  He shoved his hands into the pockets of his khakis. “So you, me, Chloe. Tomorrow morning at nine o’clock sharp. I’ll pick you up. My deputy coroner will be on duty, so it’s time to teach that city girl how we fish down here.”

  I groaned. “Can you be here three hours early to start coaxing her out of bed?”

  He raised a suggestive eyebrow. “Is that an invitation, Miss Vivien?”

  I felt my face turning all shades of red. “Good-bye, Tripp. I’ll give your regrets to Cora but tell her that you’ll be back on Wednesday with her mother. And I’ll see you tomorrow at nine. Hopefully with a fully functioning Chloe, or you’ll have to toss her over your shoulder and carry her.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, tipping an imaginary hat and walking away with that saunter he’d been walking with since third grade. It did something to a girl. Made her have all sorts of crazy thoughts.

  I watched him until he got in his truck and drove away, remembering what he’d said about how I used to cry at “Silent Night,” too embarrassed to admit to either of us that I still did.

  Chapter 36

  Carol Lynne Walker Moise

  INDIAN MOUND, MISSISSIPPI

  JANUARY 1992

  Dear Diary,

  I’ve been back home now for two months. I thought maybe I would stay here until my baby girl’s sixth birthday, but I see now I was just being foolish. I’ve always had big dreams and big plans, and the belief that I could make them all happen. And you would think that I’d be old enough now to stop. But I kept picturing me in that old yellow house surrounded by my children and I forgot that I wasn’t strong enough, that I’m no good at facing life without the buffer of a pill or another hit. I only wish the universe gave brownie points to those of us who at least try.

  I’ve tried to come back each Christmas since Vivien was born—although I call her Scarlett in my head—and stay until her birthday. I’ve only missed two times, and boy, howdy, did I hear about it from Bootsie. She told me I needed to either come back and stay or go away forever, because this going and coming is giving my children emotional whiplash. She actually said that. She doesn’t understand that each time I return it’s because I think I’m ready to stay for good, that I’m ready to start over and be the good mama they deserve. It’s just that I can’t make the demons in my head understand. And Bootsie doesn’t seem to care. She wants to put me in some program, says she’ll pay for it and keep me there as long as I need to be there. That’s just another prison, but one on the outside. I need to find a way out of the prison in my head, and each time I see my beautiful children, a brick is taken out and I can see a little bit of the light.

  My Vivien calls me Mama and reminds me of the best parts of me when I was a child and saw the world through a child’s eyes. I want her to stay this way forever, and I know she won’t if I take her with me or if I stay here longer than I should.

  But I’ve been a long time gone from this place. I think I st
ayed away for so long this last time because for days after I left, I heard the sound of Vivien’s crying for me to come back. She’s cried for me each time I’ve left, but when I returned again she wasn’t angry or resentful. I wonder how many times more before she’ll stop crying when I leave and instead start crying when I come back.

  Tommy doesn’t cry at all anymore, like he’s accepted things. And I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. He’s the same sweet boy he’s always been, although he’s a senior in high school now. He says he wants to go to State and study agriculture so he can come back and be a better farmer. I know I have Emmett to thank for that. Emmett says that Tommy’s got the touch when it comes to watch repairs, too, and has the patience and understanding it takes. Knowing that Tommy’s doing so well takes the sting out of missing him growing up. Because it means that I’ve done the right thing.

  Tommy’s so tall and handsome, but really shy with the girls. Emmett says it’s because he’s afraid if he gets too attached to a girl, she’ll leave him, since that’s been his experience so far with women. I wanted to point out that he’s always had Bootsie, but I didn’t, because I knew he was right. I asked him why he never married. I’ve always wondered if it was because of being raised by his mama, who Bootsie said was known as a wild flapper who suddenly became a pious, churchgoing woman after her marriage. Something pretty serious must have happened to make her have a come-to-Jesus meeting, and I wondered if maybe she took it out on Emmett.

  He didn’t answer me. Instead he reminded me about the hatbox of spare parts he’s been keeping for years, and told me again that when he died it would go to me, especially now that I have a daughter to give it to. I don’t know why that’s so important to him, but I could tell it was, so I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he might want to make other plans, because I’m already starting to feel the need to leave again.

  Vivien is a plump little girl with bright red hair and splotchy skin. I hope Mathilda’s right and she’ll grow into her looks. But if she doesn’t she’ll be fine. It’s either the red hair or her laugh, but people always seem drawn to her. She’s so smart and funny, and always laughing. Except when I tell her it’s time for me to go.