(looks back up, talks to the screen)
I remember now.
GREEN-DRESS GIRL
(stands up next to her, takes her hand)
I’m so sorry, Blissy.
(she turns into a peacock and flies away)
BLISS
Wait! Where are you going?
(whispers)
You’re going home, aren’t you, Janelle?
BLISS’s life continues to play out for the auditorium, her world, to see. BLISS watches herself squint at the bright headlights of MITCH’S red Ford truck as it barrels down the road. When the truck gets a few yards from BLISS, MITCH slows and keeps his distance. But not for long. MITCH angrily gestures for her to get in the truck, getting angrier when she doesn’t, and suddenly loses control. The truck veers first to the left and then to the right, hitting BLISS.
The audience lets out a collective shriek as BLISS’s body hurls through the starry Iowa night in slow motion, like an astronaut hurtling through space.
BLISS leaves her seat, walks down the aisle, up the steps to the stage, past AUDREY HEPBURN, who looks at her with a sorry sadness. BLISS touches the giant screen, the image of her body lying lifeless in the ditch. She places her hand on her now-throbbing head.
BLISS
(looks up, past the ceiling)
I don’t want to go back.
WOMAN (O.S.)
No, Bliss! You need to wake up! It’s time to go home.
BLISS
(sleepy)
I’m so tired. I just want to sleep. And go with you.
(barely audible)
There’s nothing to go back for.
WOMAN (O.S.)
Bliss!
BLISS
(hears something)
Do you hear that?
OTHER-PLACE NOISE (O.S.)
Statistically speaking…
BLISS
(tired, confused)
Who is that? Who’s saying that?
(shielding her eyes)
Where is that light coming from?
OTHER-PLACE NOISE (O.S.)
My baby girl is gone!
BLISS
(drifting in and out of sleep)
Dad?
WOMAN (O.S.)
(distant)
I have to go now. I’m so sorry, Bliss. Don’t fall asleep, Bliss.
(crying)
Go home to Dad.
Suddenly, all of the hollyhocks retreat, growing backward, up the auditorium walls, up and out, bursting through the ceiling. It breaks apart, exposing what’s above, a heavenly sky. Hundreds of monarch butterflies, in mass exodus, fly away together toward the celestial clouds.
BLISS
(eyelids heavy)
Bye, Mommy.
WOMAN (O.S.)
(a distant whisper)
I love you, Bliss. You’re everything I ever wanted.
BLISS crumples into a heap on the stage, her dress enveloping her in a blanket of yellow chiffon as she collapses and, finally, shuts her eyes.
AUDREY HEPBURN
Ladies and gentlemen, Bliss Anderson.
The audience claps as closing credits of BLISS’s life—parents, friends, teachers—scroll in perfect cadence down the screen.
AUDREY HEPBURN sings “Moon River” into the podium microphone, reminding us just how far away it is.
An orchestra erupts, swells with the emotion of a whole auditorium.
The audience mouths what they already know. So much life to be lived.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Rob Anderson sits next to Bliss’s hospital bed, clinging to dwindling hope and some sort of box.
“Hey.” I walk to him, to them. I want to feel better that I didn’t put her in this hospital bed, but I don’t. I want her to wake up more than ever. When I get her to wake up, I will find out who did this.
He doesn’t look up, yet I somehow know he’s comforted by my being here. I wonder how I’ll convince Rob that Bliss isn’t finished here yet, that she has so much more living to do, and she deserves our believing in her. I am startled by my own thoughts. How I imagine us together, him asking me questions about my LA life, me bringing him lunch at the station, but this daydream of a fantasy doesn’t work without Bliss, without our Bliss to watch grow and live.
He reaches into the box sitting on his lap and pulls out a fist-sized rock with the word Daddy written on it in purple marker. “She made this for me on Father’s Day when she was seven,” he says, taking turns staring at it, then at Bliss, looking more still than ever. “I was her rock,” he says, choking on the words. “That’s what she used to say.”
I watch Rob Anderson, Bliss’s rock, shatter into a million pieces. He lets out a gasp, an audible giving up, and places the box of keepsakes on the tiled floor.
I touch his shoulder, a reminder that I feel his pain, but I cannot comfort him more than that. Not now. Not when so much work needs to be done. I walk to her, whisper to her. “Where are you, Bliss?” I say. “It’s time to come back.”
She is so still that I have to watch her chest to see if she’s breathing.
“Time is running out, Bliss.” When I say this, Rob shakes his head at my naive use of the present tense. “We’re running out of time, Bliss,” I say again, louder.
“Stop, Kate.” Rob doesn’t sound angry anymore, just defeated, and the kind of broken that sucks the air out of a room. “The doctor came in twenty minutes ago. Wants to know what I want to do.”
When I hear this, something in me breaks. Layer upon layer of defensive protection, eighteen years in the making, is stripped away in this place, in this moment, and I am raw with vulnerability and desperation. Right here, right now, I officially want to trade my life for hers. Make her wake up. Take whatever you want. My career. My last chance at happiness. My life.
“Did you hear me, Kate? The doctor wants…” His voice trails away, and I push it toward the darkness in the room where I can’t reach it.
I don’t look at him. Instead, I focus on her. “Bliss, I have a story for you. There once was a happy, precocious, full-of-life girl who—”
“Stop, Kate.”
“—grew up in a beautiful land surrounded by majestic walls of corn and the brightest stars in all the world. She loved her mother and father so much that it hurt to even think of it. When she was little, she never imagined leaving, but when she got older—”
“Kate.” He says my name not as a question this time, but as an answer, like he’s figured out I’m not talking about Bliss anymore.
“—she made new, pretend dreams, because her old dreams, the broken ones that had to be buried deep in the black Iowa soil, were too painful to think about, and then eventually, after she’d already lost a lifetime more than she could imagine, she lost everything.”
I wipe my wet face with my sleeve.
“Kate?” Rob looks at me. “You okay?” he says, seeing a glimpse of Janie Willow.
“And then she met someone she didn’t even know she needed. Someone young and hopeful, who deserves to be happy. And if you wake up”—I try to see through my blurry vision—“then maybe she can forgive herself for…”
“Kate?”
“Wake up!” I cry at the still-sleeping Bliss.
“Kate! That’s enough.”
The stillness in the room highlights the horrible truth: she is not going to wake up.
My chest tightens with the love I want to give, with the very idea of her smiling, laughing, running toward her future. My legs weaken, and my whole body turns numb as I slump onto the bed with her.
She is not going to wake up. I have lost both of them. In one lifetime.
She is not going to wake up.
I force myself to tell the truth. “I thought I could do it, Rob” comes out as a whisper, and
I turn my face so he won’t see me. “I thought I could save her. I’m so sorry.”
He walks over to the bed, puts his arm around me, and for a long time, we are silent, just breathing with her, in and out.
In and out.
In and out.
All we can do is wait.
We look at her left big toe painted with bright-purple polish, now starting to grow out, peeking out from underneath the end of the blanket.
“Right before the accident, she asked me how tall she would get, when she was fully grown.” He smiles. “Because taller actresses get more parts than shorter ones.”
I sniff away sadness for Rob’s sake and smile. “How tall was…her mom?”
“Not very,” he says, “but that’s irrelevant.”
My eyes ask the obvious question.
“Molly couldn’t carry a child… She’d always known it, but all she ever wanted was to be a mother, so when Bliss came along, even though we were so young…”
“Came along?”
“Yeah. We adopted her when she was just eleven months old. Right after we were married.”
A soft lump forms in my throat.
“I don’t really believe in fate, but Molly did… She knew Bliss was supposed to be ours.”
“How?” I manage. “How did you get her?”
“Regular adoption takes months, years sometimes, so when a friend of my mother’s told us there was an unwanted baby here in town—we were living in Davenport at the time—we hired a lawyer, who worked it out with the people at the state office and then went to meet her. Frank and Rita Stephens had been taking care of her temporarily.” His face lights up when he says, “It was love at first sight,” but then he sobers. “Bliss asked if she could meet her biological mother for her eighteenth birthday…one more thing she’ll miss.”
He is talking, but I am underwater, drowning, and his words are simply muffled utterings. I hear the words corn and maze and found in a canvas bag as I flounder and the room begins to spin. I come up for air and hear him clearer.
“This is all she had when they found her.” Rob reaches into the box on the floor, pulls out my blanket of stars.
I walk over to him, take the blanket, breathe it in. The yesteryear scents swirling in it send me sinking, farther and farther, as I free-fall backward into a sea of memories. I float down slowly, and I see her up above me, all alone.
Leave the darkness behind. Move toward the light.
Go get her.
This time, go get her.
I push against the weight of the water and swim through it, going up, up, up until I break through the surface, and suddenly I am in the corn maze and she is there and I take her home.
“Kate! Can you hear me?” Rob says, his arms around me, holding me up. “You fainted. I caught you on the way down.”
“Rob.” I lift my head and take his face in my hands. Without thinking, I kiss him like he needs reviving, but maybe it’s me who needs it. “It’s going to be okay.” I take off my wig, let my long, blond hair fall to my shoulders. I dare to smile even though he looks paralyzed with shock. “Just trust me, Rob.”
I take his hand, and we go to her. “Bliss, listen to me. I lost you once, but I’m not losing you again.” Breathe. Breathe. “Eighteen years ago…” Breathe. Breathe. “I loved you so much…but I couldn’t…” Breathe. Breathe.
“Oh my God.” Rob turns to me. “Who—”
“Bliss, listen to me,” I say, touching her face. “I need you to wake up.”
“Who are you?” Rob stammers. “How did you…?”
I study her eyelids, frozen and still, and know it is time to say the words that I never thought I’d get to say, the words that are all we have left.
“Bliss, I’m…” Breathe. Breathe. “Eighteen years ago, I gave birth to you, and I’ve loved you ever since.” My tears fall to her face, and I gently wipe them with the palm of my hand. “That is to say, I’m your mother.”
“Wait,” Rob says, looking at the wig on the floor. “Who… What’s…”
She makes no sign of movement, so I take her hand in mine and lean into her silence.
Suddenly I am there again—in my bathtub, screaming for her to enter this world—and I don’t have to search hard for the words that make it happen. Three words. Three words prompt her birth.
It’s just us.
Nobody else can fix this.
It’s just us.
Now here we are, needing another birth, another entering into this world, and I hang on these three words like a Corn Queen hangs on the hope of rain.
“It’s just us,” I tell her. We can do this. Again. “I am your mother, and I am telling you we can do this.” Wake up. Nobody else can help us. Wake up, Bliss. I’m home now. I get it. I know why I’m here. I know why I’m home. I’d asked for a sign, and I got it. I got my Bliss. The universe gave me a reason to stay. The world outside now seems like a world I don’t want to be in without you.
I place the blanket on her and tell the truth. “I made this for you because…you are my star.” I cry. “It’s just us.”
BLISS
(groggy)
I fell asleep, but something woke me up. I think I’m supposed to wake up.
AUDREY HEPBURN
I know.
(she smiles)
You’ve won! You’ve won, Bliss!
BLISS
(gets up, stands in middle of stage)
What did I win?
AUDREY HEPBURN
(with the wisdom of a legendary film icon)
A second chance.
BLISS
Chance? At what?
AUDREY HEPBURN
(nods)
At the great Show of Life.
(walks off-stage, waves goodbye)
Enjoy The Show, Bliss.
An endless red carpet unrolls. AUDREY HEPBURN follows it toward the horizon. BLISS starts down the red carpet, follows AUDREY toward a horizon from which she knows she can’t return.
BLISS
(moving toward the horizon, despite AUDREY waving her back)
So…tired.
OTHER-PLACE VOICES (O.S.)
It’s just us.
BLISS
(repeats the words)
It’s just us.
OTHER-PLACE VOICES (O.S.)
I am your mother, and I am telling you we can do this.
BLISS
(confused)
Mom’s gone. Who is this?
OTHER-PLACE VOICES (O.S.)
I made this for you because…you are my star.
BLISS takes a moment, thinks about what the voice has said, thinks about who exactly could say such words. A firestorm of electricity shoots through her brain, then races through her body. This is her death scene and come-back-to-life scene all at once. There’s a lot at stake. She lifts her chin slightly, acknowledges the poor lighting, wonders what music will be added here in post-production, but then she forgets all that. Remembers she has a mother.
She smiles, waves goodbye to AUDREY HEPBURN, and turns toward home.
BLISS
(wakes up)
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“You found me,” I hear a quiet voice say.
My hand instinctively covers my heart, beating hard with purpose. This voice is not Rob’s. This voice is tired and groggy and the sweetest voice I’ve ever heard. I force myself to watch her lips, to see if they move. They do.
“I knew… I knew you’d come back for me someday,” she says, eyes now open to reveal a color blue that looked like home.
Bliss.
My daughter.
“Bliss!” I say, flooding the hospital blanket with tears, taking her hand.
“Baby girl, you’re back!” Rob says, taking the other hand, t
ouching her face.
Bliss smiles. “I’m so sorry, Daddy.” She looks at me. “We have the same hair.”
Rob wipes his eyes and looks at me. “Thank you…whoever you are.”
“Willow,” I say, extending my shaking hand. “Janie Willow.”
• • •
The three of us—Bliss waking up in her bed, Rob on one side, me on the other—form a continuous circle of energy with our linked hands.
That night on the blacktop flashes before me. If I didn’t hit Bliss, then who did?
Rob and I wait and watch. We wait for Bliss to show us she’s ready for the question. Together, after three hours of easing her back into the world she’d abruptly left, Rob asks the question that needs asking.
“What happened, Bliss?” he asks in a soft voice, trying not to upset her.
She exhales in preparation and, after a few seconds, whispers “Mitch” and then again, this time louder. “Mitch.”
The details drop like quiet little bombs.
A dark gravel road. Told him to stop. Started to walk home. Truck roared toward me. Left me by the side of the road.
The truth of it pollutes the room: he was afraid he’d lose his college scholarship.
Upon hearing the news, Rob Anderson, True City’s chief of police and Bliss’s loving father, flies out of the room with arresting speed.
• • •
While Rob apprehends Mitch Blackman, I stare at Bliss’s peaceful countenance and reluctantly decide to let her rest, even though I want to make up for a lifetime of missed memories.
I dial Charlotte’s number, because I need to be the one to tell her. Good news is best delivered by a best friend. So are secrets.
“Char?” I say, trying to steady my voice.
“Janie?” There is a pause, and I consider her possible questions. Where are you? Why were you in Bliss’s hospital room dressed in a disguise? But the loudest question rings out clear in deafening silence. Why did you lie to me?
“Yeah, it’s me…Janie,” I say, letting the name, my name, announce itself as a piece of me returns, and I somehow feel whole after all these years.
Hallowed be thy name. Forgive me my trespasses. Forgive us our trespasses.
“She’s back, Char,” I manage. “Bliss is awake.”
Silence.
She cries into the phone for a few seconds, followed by, “Janelle! Connor! Get down here!”
The Lost Queen of Crocker County: A Novel Page 21
