by Mary Campisi
“You should see what Aunt Eleanor bought me.” She was chattering away, coming closer with each word. Ruby Red rounded the corner first. “It’s this big stuffed raccoon—”
She spotted Jenny and her words fell away, like a handful of pebbles scattering off a cliff. Going, going, gone. Jenny and Sydney stared at each other, both locked in position, waiting. How could an eight-year-old make Jenny’s palms sweat and her breath jam in her throat?
Jenny didn’t need to think about it for longer than a half-second before the answer stretched between them, an elastic rubber band of will and tenacity, pulling woman and child apart and thrusting them together with equal force. The answer under layer after layer of supposition was simple and had little to do with the fact that Sydney was Elliot’s daughter. It wasn’t about him at all. It was about Sydney. She reminded Jenny of herself when she was that age: unaccepted, rebellious, different…determined not to let anyone get close enough to hurt her. Not like her mother had.
Yes, Sydney was just like she had been.
“Hello, Sydney,” Jenny said, keeping her voice casual.
Sydney said nothing, only stared back at Jenny out of wide brown eyes.
At least she hasn’t started screaming or tried to boot me out yet. “I like your stuffed animal,” Jenny said, nodding to the masked bandit in Sydney’s arms.
Silence.
“What’s his name?”
Nothing.
She’d prepared herself for this, but the rejection still hurt. Jenny turned to Elliot and forced a smile. “I think I’d better go.”
“You cut your hair.” Sydney’s words rode on a sucked in gasp of air, one big whoosh and then she was finished.
Jenny met her gaze, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, just short of gaping. “Yeah, well,” she said, running a hand through her short pile of curls. “It’s much easier to wash this way.”
Sydney hugged her spot, fingers clutching the raccoon. “Your hair,” she murmured.
Jenny shrugged, faked a smile. “Pretty short, huh?” She didn’t think it looked that bad. It was short, not hideous, but Sydney was looking at her as though she was Medusa’s twin.
“It was beautiful.” A flat, empty statement, rolling off Sydney’s lips. Her hands dropped to her sides, the raccoon dangling from her right hand, his bushy tail sweeping the floor. Ruby Red sniffed its tail, trotted back to Jenny’s side, sniffed her hand, and plopped down at her feet.
Sydney didn’t seem to notice. She hadn’t taken her eyes off Jenny’s hair. “You cut it because…” she faltered, started again, “because…” She couldn’t get past the “because” part. Her voice grew higher, wobbled, cracked. “You cut it because of me.” The tears came then, spilling down her pale cheeks.
Jenny rushed to her, forgetting that Sydney had kicked her out of the garden, uttered cruel, hurtful things, and warned her away from her father. Jenny pulled the child into her arms, resting her chin on Sydney’s silky head. “It’s not your fault, Sydney. It’s okay.”
She sobbed into Jenny’s shirt, great tears of loneliness and misery. “I’m…sorry. I’m…sorry.”
“I know,” Jenny murmured over and over, a soft lullaby of forgiveness and hope floating around them.
Sydney’s arms snaked around Jenny’s waist and she hugged her. “Ruby Red really, really missed you, Jenny.”
“I missed her too, Sydney. Very, very much.”
* * *
Jenny and Sydney were in the garden, cutting lavender.
“Just rub a tiny bit of the purple between your fingers,” Jenny instructed her, “and sniff.”
“It smells good.”
“Take a deep breath.” She inhaled, held it. “Then let it out. See, doesn’t that make you feel all relaxed.”
Sydney made a face. “It tickles my nose.”
Jenny swatted a piece of lavender at Sydney’s chin, laughed. “It’s supposed to make you relax. You should see how much stuff I have that’s made with lavender—candles, body lotions, body sprays, linen fresheners, soap, potpourri.” She inhaled again. “But nothing’s better than the plant itself. This is the best.”
“Jenny?”
“Huh?”
“You can take as much as you want, any time, even if I’m not here.”
Jenny looked at the child, saw the earnestness in her eyes. “Thank you, Sydney. Thank you very much.”
“Are you gonna leave?”
“What?”
“You know.” She picked off a lavender bud, rubbed it between her small fingers. “Leave. Go back to California.”
“Well…eventually.”
“Can’t you stay here?”
“I…I have a job back there.”
“Can’t you get a job here?”
“Well…” Joe had been pleased with her D.C. piece, had told her there’d be more East Coast work if she were interested. Why had he offered that? Had he sensed something she hadn’t, that maybe she didn’t want to leave, that maybe she wanted to stay in Ohio?
“So?”
This was crazy. “So, I have a home, a condo.”
“You could get a home here in Ohio…maybe even with Daddy and me.”
Jenny coughed, half-choked. A home…with Sydney…and Elliot…She brushed the thought away; now she knew she was losing her mind. “And I have friends, lots of them, who would really miss me if I weren’t there.” Okay, so Stefan and Gerald were her only real friends, but they would miss her.
“I’m your friend,” Sydney said in a small voice. “And if you weren’t here, I’d really miss you.”
“I’d miss you, too, Sydney.”
“Just say maybe, can you just say maybe?”
Jenny opened her mouth to say no, she was sorry but she couldn’t even consider it, the whole idea was ridiculous, she belonged in L.A. with a job that jetted her all over the world, but the words wouldn’t come; they lodged in her throat and wouldn’t budge. When she did finally speak, what fell out surprised her. “I don’t know, Sydney. I just don’t know.”
Sydney smiled.
“Why are you smiling?”
“Because tomorrow you’ll say yes.” Her smile got wider, showed off her dimples.
“Why do you think that?” Why would she think that when Jenny was more confused than any of them and she was the one making the decision?
“Because when Daddy says ‘I don’t know,’ I just wait and ask him the next day.” She nodded her head, gave Jenny a knowing look. “And then he says yes.”
Jenny shook her head, wondering who the real psychologist in the family was, Sydney or her father.
“Look,” Sydney whispered, pointing to a clump of lavender. A butterfly rested where Jenny had been taking cuttings. It was a monarch, its yellow wings fluttering amidst the purple. “Let’s catch it.” Sydney swooped out her hands, trying to cup the butterfly between them, but he was too quick and flew out of reach before she could grab him. “I almost got him,” she said, her gaze following the butterfly in the air. “Come back here,” she called. “Come back here, butterfly.”
“Do you know if you catch him, he’ll die?”
“I don’t want him to die; I just want to keep him.”
Jenny shook her head. “You can’t. Where would you keep him? In your house?”
“I’d want to train him, keep him outside in the garden,” she said, her eyes following the butterfly as he landed on a lilac bush.
“And even if he would stay in the garden, even if you could put him in a fenced-in garden, do you know what could happen when you tried to catch him?”
Sydney shook her head.
“If you tried to catch him, some of the color could rub off his wings, that’s what helps him fly. And then do you know what happens?” Jenny knew because she’d done it herself once, caught a monarch, touched his wing, got yellow powder on her fingers…and watched him die.
“No, what?”
“When his color rubs off, he can’t fly anymore, and then he dies.”
�
��and then he dies.
Maybe Jenny and Grace weren’t so different from the butterfly…maybe they both needed to simply be who they were, stop trying to wish themselves into something else, someone else…or their color would get rubbed off…by unmet expectations, friends, family…even themselves. Maybe it was time to learn to accept who they were…time to learn to protect their color.
22
Jenny put the last fork away and closed the dishwasher. She had just picked up the latest copy of People and was headed for the backyard when she heard the car doors slam.
They were back.
Grace had gone to the cemetery after all. She hadn’t had the strength or the guts to stand up to her mother and say, You can pay your respects to the bastard. You don’t know what I know. You go. If I do, I’ll spit on his grave.
How could Grace play the game and play it so well when she hated him so much? Was pretending she’d had a loving, faithful husband and a wonderful marriage more important than being real? And at what point did fact and fiction blur into a zillion indistinguishable particles of a fragmented self? At what point was there no “self” left?
Part of Jenny wanted to ask all of these questions, wanted to shout them out, demand answers. And yet, another part, softer, more forgiving, did not want to know.
“Tomorrow, we’ll bring him some daisies,” Jenny heard her mother say as they came in through the side door. “I’ll cut a bunch from the Shastas out back.”
Grace said nothing.
“Jenny, there you are. Grace, what time did we leave? Nine o’clock? And you were still sound asleep. We’ve already been to the cemetery, the post office, and the grocery store.”
“Hi, Mom.” Jenny leaned against the kitchen sink, glanced at Grace who was wiping her nose with a tissue.
“I’d like to say living in California did this to you, but you were like this before you ever left.”
Did what to me?
Virginia Romano shook her head and set her tan purse on the kitchen table. “I could never get you to budge in the morning. It was always a hassle. Your father was the only one who could get you moving.”
“I’ve been up since nine-fifteen.”
Her mother’s brow shot up. “Then you should have gotten up a half-hour earlier and gone to the cemetery with us.”
“I told you, Mom, I don’t go in much for cemeteries.”
Her mother let out a disgusted sigh. “It’s not about the cemetery, Jenny. It’s about respect. Simple, honest respect.” She made her way over to the coffee pot and pulled down a mug from the cupboard. It was blue with “We Love Daddy” scrawled in white and spattered with tiny white handprints along the bottom. Figured. “That man deserves it. He cherished your sister.” She poured a drop of cream in the mug and stirred. “You should be so lucky to find a man like that.”
Grace fidgeted with her bandanna, pulled it first to the right, then to the left, and finally back to the right again.
Jenny crossed her arms over her chest, cleared her throat, and said, “Grant was one of a kind.”
“He was a saint,” her mother said, as she eased into a chair. She set her mug on the table and made the sign of the cross. “I’m having a Mass said for him on his birthday.”
“Good.” He’ll need it.
She took a sip of coffee and looked at Grace. “The Shasta daisies will be a nice touch. Light, airy, delicate.” Her black-and-gray head slowly moved up and down. “It’ll be a perfect contrast to the roses we brought today. Don’t you think so, Grace?”
“Yes,” Grace said, mouth barely moving.
“Good. And then there are begonias and pansies.” She tapped an index finger to her chin. “Maybe even petunias.”
She carried on for another full minute, naming flowers and color combinations, oblivious to everything but her own words. There were carnations and mums in just about every shade imaginable, though she thought pale pinks might be best. And a few sprays of lavender tucked in with baby’s breath would complement the purple violas she’d seen at the greenhouse this morning, though they’d most likely wither in this infernal heat. On and on it went.
How could she not notice Grace’s blank stare? Or the faint white line around her lips, drawn tight and unsmiling? And what about the way Grace kept picking and pulling at her clothes with her right index finger and thumb? Didn’t Virginia Romano see that?
Silence swirled around them, a thick, opaque fog, threatening to submerge them in darkness, snuff the life from their bodies, suck their souls dry. Didn’t she feel it?
And what about Grace? Worst of all, what about Grace? She knew. Grace knew. How could she let herself be dragged under, suffocated, plunged into an existence that had no meaning?
How could she betray herself?
* * *
Jenny stuck her trowel deep into the dark soil and scooped out a four-inch pile of dirt. Well, she’d see if Elliot was right about his manure tip, or if it was just a bunch of bullshit. Funny. At least she still had a sense of humor, though she hadn’t used it much in the past two hours, not since she’d interrupted her mother’s litany on flowers for Grant’s gravesite. Jenny had faked a coughing fit, got up, and downed a glass of water. Then she’d nodded that she was okay and beelined out the back door.
Blessed relief, that’s what she’d felt when her foot hit the bottom step and her mother’s voice faded away. Jenny had gone around the side of the house to the garage and pulled out garden gloves, a trowel, a four-pronged digger, and a fifteen-pound bag of manure that she’d bought yesterday. She needed to dig around in the soil, bury her hands in the black earth, even if they were covered in lime-green garden gloves. It didn’t matter what she planted; it could be dandelions or three-inch squares of grass, for all she cared. She just needed to plant.
She decided to separate those damned Shasta daisies that her mother planned to take to the cemetery tomorrow. Why not? She karate chopped the plant into thirds with five solid whacks and then proceeded to dig them up. One clump would look good, five plants down, past a black-eyed Susan and three variegated hostas in the vacated spot of a shriveled-up viola. She plunged the trowel into a fresh section of soil. This shit better work.
“Jenny?”
Grace.
She stiffened, her trowel filled with dirt and a fat, juicy earthworm.
“What?” Jenny stared at the worm, watched him try to burrow back to the safety of the soil. She did not turn around.
“I had to go. You know that, don’t you?”
Jenny lifted her shoulders. Keep your mouth shut, that’s what Elliot had said, but in a much more diplomatic manner.
“You do know that, don’t you?” There was persistence and something else laced in those words. Desperation, maybe?
Her choices have to be her own. “You did what you thought you had to do,” Jenny said.
“Yes. Yes, I did.” She took a few steps to the right so she could see Jenny’s face. “If I don’t go with her to that damned cemetery, she’ll know something’s wrong.” Her right index finger and thumb started picking at her T-shirt. “She’ll start asking me questions, digging around.” The fingers picked faster. She hesitated. “I can’t risk that.”
Jenny dropped the trowel, letting the worm tunnel back home. “What do you want me to say, Grace?” She leaned back on her heels. Don’t say anything. Keep your mouth shut. Keep your mouth shut.
Grace’s voice grew high, almost shrill. “I want you to stop looking at me like you think I betrayed you. Like you think I should have refused to go.”
Jenny glanced toward the house. “Are you ever going to tell her?”
“No!” Grace said in a fervent whisper. “Absolutely not.”
Jenny gnawed on her lower lip. Shut up. Don’t open your big mouth. Don’t. Don’t. “It’s only going to get worse.” The words flew out of nowhere. “Pretty soon you’ll be saying the rosary for him.” The words kept coming. “And wait until she starts having his picture laminated on everything like she did
when Dad died.” She couldn’t stop now. “You won’t be able to go to the bathroom without seeing his face right above the toilet paper holder.”
“I can’t tell her.” Her voice wobbled, cracked. “I can’t.”
To hell with keeping her mouth shut. “Yes, Gracie, you can.” She flung off her glove, reached up and squeezed her sister’s left hand. “You have to.”
Grace stared at Jenny, eyes bright and shining, lower lip trembling. “You don’t understand.” She pulled her hand out of Jenny’s grasp. “You never understood.” She sniffed and took a step backward. “You have no idea what it’s like to have everybody watching you, expecting you to always do the right thing.” She swiped her hands over her eyes. “No mistakes. No room for error. How could you possibly know? You always did whatever you wanted.”
The truth slipped through Jenny’s lips. “I wish someone would have expected something from me.”
“Hah! No, you don’t, believe me.” Grace’s voice dipped, rose, dipped again in a roller-coaster of emotion. “I never did anything without worrying if it was the right thing, the noble thing to do.” She let out a laugh that morphed into a choking gasp. “And where did it get me? I’m visiting a dead, philandering husband’s grave. And bringing him flowers, too.”
Jenny clenched her lower jaw, released it. “So, stop it now. Stop the cycle, before it destroys you and you don’t know who you are.”
Tears rolled down Grace’s cheeks, but she didn’t try to stop them this time. “Who am I, Jenny? Huh? Who am I?” Before Jenny could answer, she dove in. “I’ll tell you who I am. I’m a thirty-six-year-old widow with a shaved head and a bunch of broken dreams who still can’t say no to her mother.” She covered her face with her hands. “Pathetic, isn’t it?”
“Oh, Gracie.” Jenny stood, reached for her. She had to try to stop the pain, absorb some of it into herself—she had to do something.
“No.” Grace lifted her hands and stepped back, just out of Jenny’s reach. “No.”
“Let me help you.” The sting of her own tears spilled out grief and remorse.
