CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Madeline
A fog has set in. It won’t be long now; I can only faintly make out the scenes unfolding below. I keep expecting a glimpse of my final destination but the openness above appears infinite.
I take note of the oak tree we planted out front when Eve was in kindergarten. It was Earth Day and every child came home with a sapling. I had no hope—I couldn’t conceive how such a puny, flimsy thing could defend itself from New England’s nor’easters—but I let Eve take care in picking a spot. It needs sunlight, she said, and lots of space. I assumed Eve’s interest would wane when she woke up the next morning and there wasn’t yet a branch to swing from, but I was mistaken. She watered that thing every day. When she noticed a deer sniffing nearby, she chased it away. We have to protect it, she begged. It’s our tree. I googled “protecting oak saplings” and—of course—there was a wiki page and YouTube video that made it look easy enough. Twelve years later, and it’s the size of Eve. The memory supports many truths: plant yourself in a place that gives you room to grow; let the light in; everyone needs help to survive; have patience.
The philosophical thought turns dark; the damn tree outlived me. I should be there ten years from now, when Eve is full-grown and her tree towers over us all as a reminder of the impact we can have. I wasn’t patient that night. I didn’t give myself enough space. When a decision had to be made, I thought of my mother. My mother, of all people! If I’d thought of Eve and Brady, everything would be different now, but I thought of my mother and how I hadn’t done enough. I’d failed her, and she took her life, and this was the universe giving me a chance to make it right. I was so certain.
I spend what I assume to be my last moments telling Eve I love her. I repeat it over and over like waves lapping the shore. I remember thinking I’d found true love with Brady, but when Eve arrived I discovered love has tiers and motherhood is the pinnacle. I wasn’t much of a scorekeeper, but parenting was the only relationship where the idea of keeping score was preposterous. Eve and I were on the same team, united. When she won, I won, and when she lost—even when the lesson learned was valuable—I ached for her. Unlike with Brady, it was a simple love. I wanted nothing in return.
Well, that’s not true. I wanted time. I wanted so much more time.
My musings continue as I watch Kara pull down our driveway. Even so far removed, the Andersons’ neon-yellow Jag stands out. An obnoxious car for obnoxious people. I don’t process what it means until I sense Kara’s panic and shame.
“Stay away,” she warned that night, her eyes frantic. But my mother’s face flashed before me and I knew I couldn’t turn my back on someone so desperate. Not again. Not a child. I replayed Brady’s lectures on having boundaries and saying no even as I nuzzled my way so far into the Andersons’ problem that it became my problem instead. I liked my life, loved it even, and Kara must be here to tell my family that. Thank you, I say now. Thank you. How brave of her to come forward. I honestly never thought she would. Of all the girls, Kara’s was a callousness I assumed incurable. I wonder what broke her down?
I linger briefly on the idea that I spared Christie the unnatural grief of burying her own. The thought warms me with pleasure and my spirit climbs higher still. I can’t make out Eve’s expression as she answers the door, but I’m no longer afraid. I have finally pieced together the corollary: they will find their way without me. My presence might expedite fate, but in loitering I give up whatever’s next for me. I’m inflated with the understanding that I wasn’t sentenced to this purgatory; I opted in, unready to leave my family. With the appreciation that their lives aren’t waiting on me I’m free to move on, but first, I pass one final message to Eve. Forgive her, I beg. Practice love, compassion and forgiveness. Anger is nothing but an anchor that keeps you from moving forward.
The peace surrounding me intensifies, and the vibration returns, creating a soft hum. I’m transforming. The light I craved as I fell finds me now, welcoming me toward it. It’s easy to identify the energy seeping in: it is love. I’m ready to be loved again. I have no duty to serve my past life, except every once in a while to offer a warm shiver of praise to my daughter or the sound of my laughter joining Brady’s for an inside joke.
Eve
I’m unloading groceries when the doorbell chimes. It’s Kara, only without her usual makeup and smug look on her face. She’s in a hoodie and reeks of rum. We stare at each other for a second.
“What happened to you?” I ask, but even as I say it I suspect it’s really me something happened to.
“Can I come in?” She looks behind her shoulder like she might’ve been followed.
“Are you drunk?”
“Does it matter?”
Given her paranoia she’s probably drunk and stoned. This should be a fun chat. I open the door. Kara stays standing, her eyes darting around the room as if she’s looking for something. “I was there,” she whispers. “Your mom didn’t jump.”
I’m still registering her words when I realize that she plans to bail, as if the movie is over, as if the movie has even started. I pull her down to the couch by the elbow, my nails digging into her skin. She waits for me to say something, which is crazy because I can’t even breathe. If Mom didn’t jump then how? Why? What could Kara possibly know about it? I stare at her, searching for my voice, until she gets that I can’t speak and starts talking. “So I used my dad’s laptop to get directions and his email was up. He was having an affair wi—”
“There’s no way in hell my mom—”
“Shut up and listen,” Kara snaps. “It was some slutty professor—Courtney Lawrence, Courtney Lawrence, Courtney Lawrence—there must’ve been forty emails all right there. I was so pissed off and I saw she had a Wellesley College email so I looked her up. A professor of psychology. Her bio said she enjoys mountain climbing with her gay-looking husband so I was, like, perfect, and after practice the next day I drank a three-hundred-dollar bottle of pinot noir my gigolo of a father had been saving for the perfect fucking occasion, and went to Wellesley to put the bitch in her place.”
For months I’ve practiced drowning Kara out; she’s such a fast talker it was easy to do. Now I’m desperate to catch every word. I read her lips to follow along. “Her office was in the library so I busted in and was all, ‘You better back off my dad or I’ll tell your husband what’s going on,’ and the trampy bitch looked at me like I was a little pathetic kid she felt sorry for and said, ‘I don’t think you understand the situation.’” Kara pulls a flask out of her hoodie, takes a sip, then grunts. “So I was like, ‘Pretty sure I got it—you’re a skank and you’re sleeping with my father and if you don’t stop I’m going to ruin your life.’ And she just looked at me with this shit-eating grin. I was totally confused. Then she goes, ‘You should talk to your parents.’ Talk to my parents? So I go, ‘WHAT THE FUCK?’”
I jump in my seat. Kara laughs, mumbles something more about Courtney Lawrence, and takes another swig.
My thoughts are frozen. I can’t see how this story and my mom collide, but they must. She didn’t jump. That’s what she said. And if she didn’t jump, then she didn’t want to leave me, and if she didn’t want to leave me, then I shouldn’t be alone. I grab the flask from Kara’s hand. She raises her eyebrows, daring me to hear more, like there’s anything she could say that’d be worse than what she hasn’t said all these months. “You’re cut off,” I say. “Keep talking.”
She rolls her eyes. “I stared at the ho. When she saw I wasn’t leaving I guess she figured what the hell and goes, ‘Do you know what an open marriage is?’ And I didn’t, not really, but as soon as she said it I did. And I said no, no way, and that skinny bitch just smiled and said yep. YEP. An open marriage meant it went both ways. It was such a mind fuck.
“I ran from her office, I needed to get the hell away, but then I didn’t know where the fuck to go. And then it was like, duh, oh my fucking god, all these things clicked. Like Coach Wilkins picking my mom up one
night and the weird dinner we had with my old babysitter and her boyfriend from college and the time I called my parents’ hotel on vacation and the receptionist asked which of their rooms I wanted. It was this cracked-out list that kept growing and growing. I felt wicked sick. I ran to the bathroom to puke and as I was heaving I thought—it could be worse—at least no one else knows.”
She grabs the flask from my hand and tips it back, laughing when some of it misses her mouth. “It’s as close as I’ve ever been to a real live retard. EVERYONE KNEW. I mean, you knew, right?”
She’s so totally out of it. I’m afraid I’ll lose her if I give the wrong answer. “I just want to know what happened to my mom,” I whisper.
“You knew. I can tell you knew. Everyone fucking knew.” She looks at me, disgusted. “Right there on the bathroom floor I saw it so clearly—Mike’s jabs after I slept with Doug when I was dating Noel; the football guys laughing their asses off when I got on the swing after homecoming; making varsity this year even though I totally suck. I’m the only loser who didn’t fucking see it.”
Her body starts to teeter. She can’t pass out, not yet, not here. I hold her up. “Tell me about my mom.”
“I laid on the nasty bathroom floor and played this whacked-out game of connect-the-dots. My parents were whores. People must joke about us all the time. They do, don’t they? DON’T THEY?”
The moment doesn’t seem real, but I slow my brain down enough to understand that Kara won’t go on without an answer. “Yeah,” I admit. “People joke.”
Kara lets out a stink-bomb burp. I back away. She cracks up. She’s legit insane. “I’m SCREWED,” she shouts. “Do you get it, Eve? My parents fucked all the people that’d have them in this little piece-of-shit town and now I’m branded for life.”
She starts to cry, but all I hear is what she hasn’t said. I shake my head. “Who cares about your parents’ fucking soap opera? At least you have parents.” Calm and steady is not getting her attention. I nudge her. Hard. “What happened to my mother?”
“Augh. God! You’re like that bitch who follows me fucking everywhere. This wasn’t my fault! I went to leave, but then I saw through a glass wall that the door to the roof was propped open with a vacuum. It was like a sign or something. I couldn’t imagine going home and facing them. Or going back to school. Or living at all with such a fucked-up family. Who marries a girl with swingers for parents? I might as well have a big fucking scar across my face. So I ran up the staircase. She must have seen me—right?—because as soon as I swung my legs over the barrier I heard your mom. I couldn’t believe my bad fucking luck. She was yelling from the other side of the ledge but there was machinery and shit so I couldn’t hear. I needed to jump before she had time to get help. And, fuck me, I don’t know … maybe she knew that was my plan because instead of running downstairs she came right over the barrier and stood next to me.” She stops for a second to stare at me. “Your mom was such a damn do-gooder.”
Tears gush from my eyes fast enough to carry the current right over the hand that grips my neck. My mother wanted to live. Of course she did. How did I ever believe otherwise? I look at Kara, graduating from shock to relief to rage. I’m having a conversation with the person responsible for her death. I want her out of my house, but not as badly as I want every detail. “Tell me what she said,” I yell. “Or did you push her?”
She shakes her head no. “I didn’t. I swear. I liked your prissy mom. I’d rather sixteen years with her than a lifetime with mine.”
I stand, towering over her. “Sixteen years is all I got.” Wasted as she is, Kara looks scared. Good. She tries to get up but I take my hand to her shoulder and force her back down. I’m taller and stronger. “Tell me what she said.” Kara doesn’t deserve to be the only one who knows my mother’s last words.
She blows her nose right into her hoodie. “She said there’s a reason for everything, that the reason no one else could volunteer that afternoon was so she could be there for me. I didn’t say anything but she kept going on about how life is hard but worth it, that we all need to suffer so we can appreciate when things are good, that she’d been feeling sad too earlier this year so she got help and now she’s stronger. I told her about Courtney Lawrence and she said, ‘So what? Who cares? You don’t have to make the same choices your parents make.’”
My tears have stopped. I’ve moved to hatred. Absolute hatred beyond anything I’ve ever felt before. If only Kara had jumped right away. Then the rest of this story wouldn’t matter. I want her dead.
“Then what?” I want every detail. I need to be there with my mom.
“I don’t know, okay? I don’t … she was looking right at me, right in my eyes, and everything went all slo-mo. I went back over the barrier. I took a step toward the door, assuming she’d follow. I guess maybe she started to but slipped. Or something. I didn’t see it. But I heard the scream. Fucking awful.”
I lunge at Kara, shoving her chest against the back of the couch with everything I have. But then I hear my mom. Forgive her. I laugh. I actually laugh. But I hear her again. Forgive her. Practice love, compassion, and forgiveness. That was Mom’s big mantra. She preached that love, compassion, and forgiveness are capacities you have to actively engage because experiences will strip you of them if you aren’t careful.
I feel none of those things, but her words calm me enough to consider what more I need to know from Kara. “Why didn’t you help her?”
“By the time I looked, it was over. She must have slipped, right? She had on these high-heeled boots and—”
The detail infuriates me. “I know what shoes she was wearing. Don’t talk to me like I don’t know what shoes she wore that goddamn day!” Kara takes the opportunity to move to my right and stand to leave, but she’s staggering enough for me to get ahead before the door and block her exit. “If it was an accident why didn’t you tell someone? Why didn’t you get help?” My eyes beg her to fix it now, to change the ending.
She shrugs. “Your mom was dead. It’s not like it really mattered how she got there.”
I drop to the floor, disgusted, shocked. But I shouldn’t be. Every time Kara did something horrible my mom would ask why I was surprised. Kara has always been in it for Kara. She must’ve warned me a million times.
“Why tell me now?” I call to her back as she walks to the car.
Kara shudders, again looking around like there’s an audience. “Because I’m haunted. I swear it.” She tries to take another swig from her flask but remembers it’s empty and drops it on the driveway instead. “I can’t sleep because the second I do she crawls into my dreams and lets out that scream. And I can’t focus because she talks over whatever else is happening. Tell Evie. Tell Evie. Tell Evie. She’s obsessed. It’s like having a song loop in my fucking brain. I wish I’d just jumped that night. So fuck it. She wins.” Kara twirls around shouting, “Are you happy now? My parents are sex fiends and Mrs. Starling didn’t kill herself. So now can you leave me the fuck alone?”
It’s over. There’s nothing more to say. Kara steps over the flask and gets in her car, mumbling that it’s my turn to ruin her life, and peels out of the driveway.
Kara’s ghost was Gram. It had to be. I only saw her once a year until I was eight and she died, but Gram is the only person who ever called me Evie. It drove my mom crazy—“If I wanted to name you Evie, I would’ve named you Evie,” she always said.
I remain collapsed on the tile, unable to shut the front door. My mom loved me. And we were happy. Her words come back to me again. Practice love, compassion, and forgiveness. Only now, I’m certain the voice is real. It’s Her. If Gram can get in Kara’s head then Mom can get in mine. She wouldn’t have harassed Kara, my mother didn’t have it in her to torture someone like that, but she’d definitely sing me lyrical lessons and pass down wisdom and comfort.
I close my eyes and picture her on that ledge, feeling victorious as Kara moved to safety, her mind already plotting what to do next. The image is so clea
r it’s as if I’m there, as if the memory is now mine. She turns and reaches for the top of the barrier, but misses. She looks at her hand like it failed her. Realizing she’s off balance, then her foot slips. She reaches both arms toward the ledge but gravity has already won.
My breathing slows. She died terrified. She had no time to think of me or Dad or her garden or the book she’d never read the end of. I cry, but this time I cry for her. Not me. Her. For all she lost. Her death was a sacrifice. A sacrifice for Kara.
I lift myself up. Of course she hadn’t left Kara alone that night. My mom wasn’t a shirker. If she was in a position to help, she’d see it as her duty. She’d see it through to the end.
My mom was a hero.
Brady
I’m not even through the door when Eve says it wasn’t suicide. Her face is serene—the contradiction between what was said and her expression baffle me.
“Kara came here.”
“Kara Anderson?”
“Yeah. She’s the one who went out on the ledge. Mom talked her back inside.”
“What?”
“She fell, Dad. It was an accident.”
I slide my back down the wall and onto the floor. It doesn’t make sense. “Why was she there?” I ask. “Why didn’t she say anything?”
Eve shakes her head. “It was messed up. Kara found out her parents are total nymphos and got wasted and just, like, snapped. Mom calmed her down, but then fell.”
I take off my tie. The veins in my forehead drum against my skull. I can see Eve is relieved—at least Maddy’s death doesn’t betray our memory of who she was—and I am too, only relief sits second to my anger. A far second. I get up and grab the portable phone. “I’m calling the police.”
“To say what?”
My voice gets louder as I speak. “To say my wife was a goddamn saint. That she wasn’t depressed. That Kara fucking Anderson decided it was okay to screw with us all. I’m going to demand the state press charges.”
Eve squeezes her eyes shut. “What’s the point, Dad? I get what you’re saying, but we can’t change what happened.”
I Liked My Life Page 26
