by Karen White
Mabry smiled, and I had the horrible thought that she was remembering the talent show, too. “I’ve been hoping you’d one day finish the book about the couple who meet at a funeral and fall in love, and it turns out that the guy was the person who killed the guy being buried, and the woman is a hit person assigned to take him out. I’m dying to find out what happens.”
“Seriously? Isn’t that the book where I actually used the term ‘purple-headed love dart’ to describe a part of the male anatomy?”
Mabry barked out a laugh that startled Ellis, who started sucking his thumb harder.
“I was fourteen. What did I know?”
She sobered. “Yeah, well, you’re a good writer—and I’m sure age has refined your vocabulary. I hope you haven’t given it up entirely.”
“I write ad copy now, so that’s sort of the same.”
“Not really.” She jerked her head toward the house. “Would you like to come in and have some sweet tea? I just made a new batch last night, and it’s chilling in my fridge, waiting for someone to drink it. And Ellis can show you his Matchbox car collection.” Mabry ruffled the little boy’s hair as a wide grin sprouted around his thumb. “I like cars,” he said, his voice muffled.
I glanced around as if looking for an escape, and tried to think of an excuse not to go inside.
“I promise not to talk about anything you don’t want to talk about. Like Jackson Porter.”
I snapped my head to look at her and frowned. “Thanks, but I’ve got to go back to the hospital . . .”
“I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t have said that, but it’s like the elephant in the room, you know? And he called up Bennett yesterday, trying to get a group of us out on his boat for the weekend. Said you’d already agreed to it. I have to say that surprised me.”
I found I couldn’t meet her eyes. “I didn’t say yes. I told him that things were up in the air with my mother being in the hospital and I’d let him know.”
“So technically, you didn’t say no, which to someone like Jackson means yes.”
Her direct gaze unnerved me, so I looked down at Ellis so I wouldn’t have to meet her eyes. Mabry indicated the house again. “Come on inside. Just for a few minutes. Long enough to have a glass of sweet tea and tell me what this dream I’ve been having means. You’re still doing that, right? Analyzing dreams, I mean.”
I hesitated a moment too long and found myself being led into the house. Mabry had always been a bit on the bossy side, which was probably why we’d been friends. It was nice not having to make all the decisions. I immediately regretted it. It smelled like her mother’s house, like a home is supposed to. There was a healthy clutter of primary-colored toys strewn over the small front room, where a television set was on and playing the British animated series Peppa Pig. I knew what it was only because a coworker of mine with a three-year-old was obsessed with the porcine cartoon figure, and she had shown me countless photos of her little girl with various Peppa Pig accessories. I tried to think of the child’s name, but couldn’t, leaving me to wonder if I’d never asked.
“I can’t really stay . . .”
“Sure you can,” Mabry said, leading us both into the kitchen at the back of the house and settling Ellis in a booster seat at the table. She set three Matchbox cars on the yellow Minions place mat in front of him.
“Snack, please,” he said, opening and closing his small hands, each like a baby bird’s mouth waiting for a worm.
She gave him a kiss on the cheek and a snack bag full of Cheerios before pulling out a chair at the end for me. It looked just like her mother’s kitchen, painted a soft cream with bright yellow accents, including a large clock over the sink in the shape of a daisy and a sunshine-colored blender on the counter. A pretty hand-painted border of daisies surrounded the large picture window and back doorway.
“Your mother painted those,” Mabry said, indicating the borders. “You can pretty much see her work all over town. Refuses to take payment, but that’s not why she’s in high demand. She’s really good. She always hides pictures inside her murals, and sometimes you can live with one for years before seeing it.”
She pointed at a section of the daisy border to the right of the door frame. “She’s painted a tiny ladybug family on most of the leaves: a grandma ladybug with white curly hair and a cane, a teacher ladybug holding a spelling book and wearing glasses and—my favorite—a little-girl ladybug wearing tap shoes. It always makes me think of you. Remember that talent show . . . ?”
I held up my hand. “Please. Don’t go there. I’ll have nightmares for months.” I walked over to the border and peered closely at the leaves, seeing the anthropomorphic insects in various human occupations. They were beautiful, and clever, and painted by my own mother. “I had no idea . . .” I stopped, not wanting to be reminded again of how absent I’d made myself not only from my old life, but from my family that had continued on without me. It was the ultimate conceit, to believe that everything would stand still in my absence.
I returned to my seat at the table, where Mabry had set a glass of tea with a quarter of a lemon floating on top. She glanced up at the clock, and turned back to me as she sat down. “I have to leave for my shift in an hour, so that gives us a little time to catch up.”
I looked at Ellis, who was happily shoveling Cheerios into his mouth with the flat of one hand while pushing a car back and forth on the table with the other, and then glanced around again at the cheery kitchen that reminded me of her mother, and I found myself nodding. “I don’t think I can stay a whole hour, but long enough to catch up.”
“Of course, that’s assuming Jonathan gets home in time to watch Ellis so that I won’t be late again. It’s his day off, so he’s playing golf with some of his friends from work. He’s a bit addicted.”
I took a sip of my tea, and studied my friend who, other than wearing her hair a little longer than she had in high school, looked exactly the same. “So, tell me about your dream.”
She took a deep breath and then began strumming her fingers on the table. “Well, I was invited to a pool party by a friend—I couldn’t tell you who since I didn’t recognize her, just that she was a friend. There was a huge crowd, but nobody was in the pool. So, I jumped in and found that it was full of torpedoes, and it was my job to defuse them all so everybody else could swim.”
I thought for a moment. “There’s a lot going on there. I think I might need some time to figure that one out. Can I call you tomorrow?”
She nodded. “Sure. In my bedside table I’ve actually got a whole notebook of dreams I’ve had. I’ll let you take a look.”
“Sure,” I said, although I wasn’t really listening anymore. I was looking at the small part in her hair on the side of her head that shouldn’t have been there.
She saw what I was looking at and turned her head so I could see it full on. “See? It’s hardly noticeable.”
I met her gaze and said the words that had needed to be said for nine long stupid years. “I’m sorry.”
She sat back in her chair, shaking her head. “You saved my life, Larkin. You don’t need to be sorry.”
I rolled my eyes. “You wouldn’t have landed in the water if I hadn’t thrown the cooler at you and knocked you out of the boat.”
Her face went very still. “But when everybody else was still trying to figure out what to do, you jumped in and brought me back to the surface.”
I wanted to stand up and walk out of the kitchen and that house right then. Because this was the whole reason I’d been gone for so long. Why I’d left. And I thought I’d been done with it. But I wasn’t. “Because of me, you had a concussion and spent the night in the hospital, and I was the one who never spoke to you again.”
Her gaze drifted to her son, who was trying to Hoover up his Cheerios on the table without using his hands. “You had good reason to do what you did. I would have done t
he same thing if I’d been in your position.”
My old anger, the self-directed anger that had made me leave when I was eighteen and never look back, poured through me. I pushed back my chair. “No, you wouldn’t have. You wouldn’t have had a reason to be in my position. You knew who you were. I was just the stupid chubby kid who thought I was Miss America, Albert Einstein, Liberace, and Britney Spears all rolled into one. And you and Bennett just went along for the ride, without telling me that I was making a fool of myself. That’s why I’ve been angry with you and Bennett all these years. Because you knew and never told me.”
She waited until I’d raised my eyes and met her gaze before she spoke. “You’re wrong, you know. We never thought you were making a fool of yourself. Your free spirit was one of the reasons why Bennett and I loved you. The way you barged through life without caring what other people thought. It was amazing and heroic. I want Ellis to be like that. To try things whether or not he’s good at them, or has the right talent. Because how do you ever know what your true calling is unless you’ve tried everything out?” She lifted her hands, palms out. “Despite your reasons for leaving, you packed up your stuff and moved by yourself to another state where you didn’t know a soul. That, Larkin, is courageous and brave.”
I snorted. “Acting like a fool is fine when you’re a little kid. Then it just gets sad. Especially when your two best friends know the truth and keep you in the dark. And don’t try to tell me that you didn’t, because I won’t believe you.”
“Fine, don’t. But it’s the truth.” She stood, her eyes studying me. “There was nothing between me and Jackson. You know that, right? Never. I would never have hurt you like that. I’ve always loved you like a sister. And what happened on the boat—I had no idea about any of it. I promise. You never gave me a chance to tell you that, so I’m telling you now. That’s all in the past. You need to stop beating yourself up about it.”
I wanted to tell her that it wasn’t all in the past, that I still lived with it every day of my life. And that there was something she didn’t know, that I couldn’t tell her because it would make me seem even more pathetic than I was. I could never tell her about that part of me that craved attention and admiration that still flourished on the dark side of my heart, scratching to be let out, any more than I could admit that Jackson Porter could still make me forget everything I thought I’d learned.
“I’ve left it all behind me, Mabry. I’ve moved on to a new life. A new life that includes a tiny studio apartment in Brooklyn that I can barely afford, and a daily commute across a river that looks nothing like the Sampit, but it’s mine. I don’t lie to myself anymore. No more pretense that I was destined for greatness. I’m just . . . me.”
I ruffled Ellis’s hair. “Good to meet you,” I said, shaking a grubby hand. Looking at his mother, I said, “Good to see you, Mabry. Maybe I’ll see you again before I leave.”
She lifted Ellis from his booster seat and followed me to the door. “You’d better. You need to tell me about my dream, don’t forget. And you still owe me.”
I stared back at her. “So much for everything being in the past and forgotten.”
“Forgotten isn’t the same as not remembered. I choose not to remember some things. But there are other things I’ll never forget.”
“Like how I almost killed you?”
She shook her head. “I’ll never forget how much a part of my life you will always be.”
My throat stung, and I turned away, heading down the front-porch steps.
She called, “That tap dance is something I’ll never forget, though. Never.”
I faced her, angry and hurt until I recognized her expression. It was the same one she and Bennett had worn the night of the talent show, standing and applauding next to Ceecee. It wasn’t mocking or sarcastic. It seemed more like pride.
I almost told her then about the dream I’d had for the last two nights. A dream in which I was in Mabry’s childhood bedroom for a sleepover, but when I awoke, I discovered that she had grown up and moved away, and when I looked in the mirror, I was still a little girl. But I didn’t tell her. Instead, I said, “Good-bye, Mabry.”
Ellis raised his fist and waved. “Bye, Larkin.”
I smiled at the sweet face that was so much like Bennett’s. “Good-bye, Ellis.”
“See you soon,” Mabry said, closing the door before I could correct her.
fourteen
Ivy
2010
Larkin has brought me a small stereo of some sort. I’m sure it’s not called a stereo anymore but something more modern and techy, but whatever it is, it’s playing music from when I was younger. Larkin called it my playlist, and I heard her telling the nurses to make sure it was always playing during the day. She said she’d been doing research online and found out that music does wonderful things for people with Alzheimer’s and brain injuries.
There’s lots of Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan and the Beatles, and although I don’t understand the science, I think Larkin’s right. Because all of a sudden, my memories aren’t black-and-white anymore. They’re full, brilliant, rainbow-hued, and everything is real again. I see Ellis as he was at nineteen, and I’m happy because he’s alive once more. I think I must be dreaming, because when he kisses me, the taste of honeyed biscuits lingers on my lips.
Larkin’s heart is so big and beautiful. I wish I could take credit for it, but I can’t. She’s always been her own person, whether or not she sees it that way now. I guess, in a way, I can take credit for that. I spent so much of her childhood telling her to stop following me that she was forced to find her own path. Maybe everything I did wasn’t a huge mistake. Larkin was forced to barrel through life with the single purpose of making herself known, but it was never done with a mean spirit. I think she wore blinders through her growing-up years, to block her from everything except what Ceecee told her was true. It’s a good thing, too, or else she might have heard all the people telling her that she wasn’t good enough to try things. Or maybe she did and just did it anyway. Larkin has always been the most strong-willed person I know. And I say that in a kind way.
My daughter is also brilliant. I need to thank Mack for that. I need to thank him for many things, like loving me even when I am at my most unlovable. We’ve both made mistakes, but never because we didn’t love each other. That’s another thing I’ve learned since lying here and trying to make sense of everything. Love and need are sometimes two completely different things.
I don’t think the music’s going to wake me up. But I don’t feel like I’m headed anywhere else any time soon, either. The bonds that are keeping me here are just as sticky as ever. I think I’m supposed to figure out how to let them go, but I haven’t yet. Even more than I love listening to the stereo, I love that Larkin brought it to me. It makes me think that maybe we’re not so very far apart after all.
Larkin takes my hand and raises it to her face, and I’m surprised to feel a wet tear dropping on my skin. I can see it from where I’m positioned up on the ceiling, but I can feel it. Maybe that means I’m waking up. The thought doesn’t thrill me as much as it should. I’m afraid that if I do, I’ll stop hearing the rumble of Ellis’s car engine, idling as he waits for me at the curb like he used to all those years ago. Because then he’ll be gone all over again. I nearly died from brokenness the first time, and I know I can’t take it again.
“Mama?”
I’m surprised to hear a note of anger in her voice, like I’m about to get a telling-to, and if I could, I’d stand up and clap.
“I hope you can hear me. And I want you to know that I will wait until you wake up so we can finish this conversation. I just want to start now since there’s so much I want to ask you. Yell at you, really. Like why you didn’t want me to work at Gabriel’s. You know how much I wanted to. And I could never understand why he kept saying no. It was you all along, afraid that I couldn’t cont
rol myself.” She places my hand gently on the bed beside me. “You’re no better than Ceecee, trying to micromanage my life. I’d say that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, but then that would mean I’m just like you both. And I’m not. Because I can tell people to their faces what I’m thinking. It didn’t make me a lot of friends, but at least I’m honest. And it makes me good at what I do.”
She frowns, and I want to tell her to stop, that she’ll get wrinkles. But I can’t.
“I really am good at my job, you know. You’ve never asked, so I guess you thought it was just another stupid hobby of mine or something, but I’m one of the best copywriters at Wax and Crandall. It’s not the novel I always thought I’d write, but it’s something I’m proud of.”
Larkin stands to get a better look at me, gazing down at my face as if she imagined my eyes opening or something. They haven’t.
“Advertising is a funny thing. You have to figure out what you don’t want people to know so you can create something they want to hear. Maybe I should thank you and Ceecee for that. I have to have learned it somewhere.”
She sits again and leans forward, her elbows on the edge of the bed and her chin resting on her hands. “I know about the fire at Carrowmore, and how Ceecee saved you. Bitty told me.”
Larkin takes a deep breath. I hear it shudder like a boat’s sails in strong wind, and I know she’s trying to keep from crying. She’s always hated to cry in front of people. I think I’m one of the only people who’ve ever heard her crying so hard, she has to press her face into the pillow so she can think that nobody can hear her. Even Ceecee. But I knew. Despite everything, I’m still her mama.
