Before and Ever Since (9781101612286)

by Lovelace, Sharla

  So when I found myself rounding the corner of my mother’s block at ten thirty in the morning and there was no old truck parked out front, I was a little peeved. And then annoyed with myself for being such a tool.

  I had rescheduled showings till the afternoon. Postponed a walk-through till the next day. Completely not me. All so I could do what? Strut through my mother’s house? Find out what he’d been doing for twenty years? Show him what he could have had?

  “Jesus, I’m pathetic,” I muttered, parking and nearly stomping to the door.

  Mom was nowhere to be seen, but the back door was open so I headed out through the attached garage and laundry room, to the backyard. It dawned on me for probably the first time ever that the laundry room wasn’t in the house. I’d never looked at it from a Realtor’s point of view before, it just always was what it was. My house.

  “Mom?” I called out when I didn’t see her.

  “Over here,” her voice called from around a verbena bush.

  I pulled off a stray group of leaves from the nearest bush, and tossed it aside. I hated verbenas. Out of control, grew like freaking weeds, and all those dumb little red berries that the birds would eat and poop out on your car. Okay, maybe I had a tad bit of an attitude.

  “What are you doing?” I asked as I found her on her hands and knees digging in the dirt. “Oh. Looking for it again?”

  “Yeah, yeah, y’all laugh, but I know your father. He said he put money away, so then he put money away.” She continued hacking at the clay-packed soil with a garden trowel.

  “In the flower bed?” I asked, standing over her in my good suede boots, not about to get in that dirt unless the money started crawling out on its own.

  “You never know,” she said. “And this area is the next on my list.”

  “And after you sell, Mom? What are you gonna do, keep coming over and digging up the new owner’s yard?”

  She waved me off. “What are you doing over here this morning?”

  I put my hands on my hips. “Didn’t you ask me to come start cleaning my things out?”

  She stopped and rocked back on her heels, moving gray blonde hair out of her face with the back of a gloved hand so she could peer up at me. And down. And up again.

  “Like that?”

  I looked down at my black jeans, snug white long-sleeved sweater, and the aforementioned boots. Okay, maybe I missed the mark on the boxing-up-crap outfit.

  “I—have an appointment later,” I kind of lied. I did have an appointment later, just six hours later. “Thought I’d come get some things done first.”

  “Shouldn’t have worn white,” she said, going back to her hacking. “Lot of dust in those closets up there.”

  “Great,” I said on a sigh.

  “Why didn’t you bring Cassidy? You could have gone down memory lane with her.”

  Oh, there were some lanes Cass never needed to travel, I thought.

  “She’s working a double shift at Dock Hollidays today,” I said, which was miraculously not a lie. “Did she tell you she got waitress of the month?”

  “No,” Mom said, her voice clipped with the exertion of digging. “You dragged her out of here yesterday before she could even finish her tea.”

  “Oh,” I mumbled. “Yeah. Sorry. Well, I’m gonna go—see what’s up there,” I said, pointing, although she wasn’t looking at me to see it.

  “Just stay out of Mr. Landry’s way,” she called back, stopping me in my boots. “He’s coming to start working on the windows around noon.”

  I nodded, mentally thanking her for not making me ask. Tandy met me at the back door, sniffing like I was an imposter, clearly miffed that she’d missed my entrance the first time. I stepped around her and reached for the bag of treats that always resided on top of the fridge.

  I wasn’t above bribing.

  “Here, psycho,” I cooed as she simultaneously growled and took the bacon treat under a chair to devour it.

  I looked around the kitchen that had never changed in all my memories of it. The same ceramic plaques adorned the wall over the pantry—the ones we made in vacation Bible school of strawberries and praying hands. The same flowerpots sat on the ledge over the sink holding notes and forgotten jewelry instead of flowers. Handmade pot holders hung in the same place they’d hung for four decades. I could close my eyes and tell anyone who asked exactly where the large square CorningWare dish was kept—in the cabinet under the bar, on the far left, behind the glass lids. The silverware drawer above it was immaculate, but the drawer across from it held everything from playing cards to batteries to old cigarette trading stamps that had expired thirty years earlier but my mom wouldn’t throw out because they reminded her of when she quit smoking. The electric stove with the drip marks down the front of the door from when Mom’s vegetable soup boiled over and we never could get it all out of the tiny stainless-steel grooves. The perpetual dish towels that always draped from its handle. All of those things made it my mother’s kitchen. I couldn’t imagine them being gone, packed up in a storage building somewhere.

  “Ugh,” I said as I shook off a body shiver.

  I thought of what I’d seen the day before in my weird little delirium. My parents, young and eager, coming into this empty house with its bare walls and no cabinets or towels or even the stove, for that matter. How they had seen it, so different from how it currently looked. And how the previous owners must have felt, taking their items out of it. All the things that made it home to them.

  I trailed a finger along the bar as I headed to the stairway, glancing underneath at all the crap she had stored in those lower shelves, when the dizziness hit me. I stopped and gripped the bar, hearing the blood rush in my ears, and the timing couldn’t have been worse. I heard the back door open, and as I struggled to suck in air I saw Ben walk in wearing old jeans and an open flannel shirt over a T-shirt, looking more like the version I remembered. The most random question rolled across my brain asking why he’d just walk in without knocking, and then the blackness came. I was aware of groping around in the air with my left hand, but I couldn’t see it. And my breath felt caught in my chest. The spinning sensation as I blinked free a different scene made my stomach tighten up.

  “Oh my God, it’s doing it ag—”

  • • •

  I was holding my breath, and I slowly released it, shaking my head to clear it. I was holding on to a wooden table instead of the bar, which wasn’t there. Neither was Ben. I whirled in a circle, searching for where he went, and then realized I was back there again. In the house, but not in the way I knew it. I looked around and saw that it wasn’t completely bare like last time, however. There were new cabinets, freshly hung and lighter in color than what I was familiar with.

  “Oh, shit,” I muttered under my breath. “Shit, shit.” I took a deep breath and let it go, still gripping the table. It seemed like I needed to touch something tangible, even if that thing kept changing.

  The stove was there, and I had the oddest longing to go see the front. To go see if the soup stain was there. I tested movement with my foot, but it just confirmed what I seemed to already know. I was confined to my little circle.

  A little girl with red hair toddled past me, barely staying on her feet as she scooted along, nearly touching me. She held a bottle of juice tight in her grip and wore an outfit decorated in watermelons. I stared at her, kneeling to her level to see her face.

  “Holly?” I whispered. I felt the goose bumps on my back, so I knew I was really feeling it.

  She moved along, headed to the living room where toys littered the floor and random furniture filled the spaces this time. The corner table was there, adorned with only the red glass bull and matador, pushed back out of the baby’s reach. I had to laugh to myself, knowing that those two pieces they picked up on their honeymoon would still be in that spot forty y
ears later, only surrounded by pictures.

  “Holly bug,” called a voice I recognized as my mother’s, only lighter, less gritty.

  I turned to see a very pregnant version of the girl in my last dream—vision—whatever it was. She walked slowly out from the hallway in a large smock and pedal pushers, one hand on her belly.

  “Holly bug,” she repeated, and then laughed as the baby ran faster, like it was a game.

  “Holy crap, that’s me,” I said, staring at her huge stomach. I’d always heard I was a big baby, and that she’d felt like she was carrying an elephant when she was pregnant with me, but I’d always thought it was a joke. Looking at her there, about to topple over with a strong breeze, I’d say most definitely not.

  “Hang on there, speedy,” she said, pushing locks of strawberry blonde hair behind her ears. “Mommy’s a little slow on the take these days.” She scooped Holly up in her arms with a laugh, making her giggle in that way that only babies can, when you want to make them do it again and again just to hear it.

  I noticed the hardwood floors still uncovered by carpet, the carved scratch still there from the last time. The paneling on the walls, darkening the room, and the vinyl couch that I found myself vaguely remembering from my childhood. The chairs were different as well, just plain chairs instead of the recliners that would replace them later. On the chairs were stacks of Avon books and small sampler bags.

  “Oh, lord, this was the beginning of it,” I said, chuckling, and then slapping a hand to my forehead as I looked around. The beginning of what? This time wasn’t as fun as the last one, since then I’d thought I was dying and thus made sense. This time was just downright freaking creepy. Especially how I kept thinking I was really looking at the past. There was no way. That crap was for science fiction movies and bad dreams. And I already knew it wasn’t that, either.

  Mom held Holly facing forward, and they went to look out the back window while she sang to her, rocking from foot to foot. I wanted to go sit on the floor by them and just watch. I wanted it so badly I almost couldn’t stand it.

  The back door opened, catching my eye, and in he walked. My dad, young and smiling for his girls, in blue jeans and a button-down shirt that had come untucked on one side. He held an arm out to wrap them up. Holly giggled as he nibbled her neck, but I noticed his eyes were tired as he hugged them both.

  “Hey, little bit,” he said, kneeling to kiss my mom’s belly.

  My breath caught in my chest at the words he’d called me ever since I could remember.

  “How’d you do today?” my mom asked, while he got back to his feet.

  Dad rubbed his face and raked fingers through his dark hair before taking Holly from Mom’s arms. “Slow,” he said. “I think I sold a handsaw and some sandpaper.”

  I figured the timing in my head around Holly’s age and grudgingly accepted that in this movie I kept falling into, he must have just opened the hardware store with Uncle Tommy. He looked beat, but yet had that spark in his eyes that he would get when he believed in something and was excited. Kind of made me proud and sad at the same time, to know how he started it from nothing and would end up losing it two decades later to his brother’s gambling debts.

  He hung Holly upside down to make her giggle, and Mom righted her back up. Dad went to sit in one of the chairs but stopped when he saw the stacks of catalogs.

  “What’s this?”

  “Avon,” Mom said. “It’s sales. Makeup and perfume and stuff. I just have to pass out some catalogs to the other ladies in the neighborhood, and—”

  “Frannie, I told you I would take care of the family,” Dad interrupted, and the look on his face said it wasn’t a new conversation. He sank onto the couch with Holly on his knee.

  “Baby, it doesn’t hurt anything for me to make some money. It’s groceries. It’s toys. Every little bit helps—and it’s something to do.” She gestured toward the drooling, pink-cheeked little girl bouncing on his knee. “I put her in the stroller and we go talk to people.”

  His expression was stern, but she didn’t falter, and I had to smile. She was tough like that even then. They looked at each other over Holly’s bouncing head until he sighed and shook his head.

  “I don’t like it,” he said. “Makes me look like I can’t take care of my family.”

  Mom knelt in front of him awkwardly, holding on to his knees. Holly leaned forward and wrapped her little arms around her neck.

  “It doesn’t mean that at all, Charles,” she said, stroking his kneecaps with her thumbs. “The hardware store will take off, but it’s going to take a while.”

  He nodded. “I know.”

  “And you have to be there to make that happen, so I want to do what I can.” She tilted her head. “And you know I’m not one to sit around and knit.”

  He broke into a reluctant smile and chuckled silently, running a long lock of her hair through his fingers. “Baby, I promise you, it won’t always be like this.”

  “I know,” she whispered, leaning into his hand and smiling.

  “I mean it; it won’t always be this hard. We’ll get where it’s comfortable and then we’ll go on vacations with the kids. Take them all the places we’ve talked about.”

  Mom laughed. “I saw that you marked up that map my dad gave you.”

  “Yep,” he said, tickling Holly so that she wiggled and squealed. “Bought a box of thumbtacks, too. For when we actually go there.”

  I thought of the poster upstairs in my dad’s office. The one of the world and all the places he circled in red that they wanted to visit. My mom wouldn’t take it down after he died, insisted that it stay there behind his desk. My heart felt heavy and I wished I could change the fact that there were no thumbtacks in the poster. The only vacations we took were to go camping at the lake two hours from home.

  “It’ll all be okay,” she said. “I have faith in you, baby. You and Tommy will make this a success, I know you will.”

  His eyes lit up. “We will. It’s just the hard part right now. The late hours, the advertising. But that’s okay. Because you know if something’s hard to get—”

  “—Then it’s gonna be the good stuff,” I whispered along with him, having heard that my whole life.

  “You watch, Holly bug,” he said, holding her in his arms. “Daddy’s gonna show you the world.”

  My eyes filled with tears, and I wished more than anything to make this crazy scene be prophetic in some way and give my dad that. To change the outcome.

  But I couldn’t think about that anymore, because the sounds were coming back, rushing past my ears, making everything wobbly. The blackness came, and with it the inability to inhale, and I sucked in as hard as I could, blinking furiously.

  • • •

  I was back. Breathing like I’d run a mile. Still holding on to the bar. And Ben Landry was holding on to me.

  One hand was in my hair and one was on my upper arm, and the expression on his face all up close to mine was panicked. If I wouldn’t have been so unbelievably terrified, it would have been endearing.

  “Emily, look at me,” he was saying, his face very close to mine.

  “I—I am,” I said, clearing my throat of the mud that had landed there. I remembered the last time, and how it appeared that no significant time had passed. “What—um—did I pass out or anything?” I asked. “How long have you been here?”

  His eyebrows raised. “I just walked in the door,” he said, jutting his head behind him. “You saw me.”

  I frowned. “Just now?”

  He paused, looking at me funny. Great. “Yeah. Emily, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I said, pulling free from his hands, realizing even through the craziness that I didn’t want to, and knowing I couldn’t cave to that. I put shaky hands over my face for a minute and took slower breaths, tr
ying to calm my breathing. “I just—”

  I just what? Kept going back in time? I laughed, which probably wasn’t the greatest thing to do, because it only served to make me look more in need of a padded room.

  “How long was I—um—whatever I was?”

  He blinked a couple of times, as if unsure how to answer me. “I don’t really know what you mean. I mean, you just kind of spaced out and looked upset, but it’s like you—I don’t know.” He shook his head and backed up a step.

  “Like I what?”

  “Like you were somewhere else,” he said, making my stomach hurt a little. “I talked to you and it was like you didn’t hear me. Then all of a sudden, you sucked in like you were choking.”

  I licked my lips and pretended to inspect a nearby coaster. “So, how long?”

  He did a tiny face shrug. “Maybe ten—fifteen seconds.”

  “Seconds?” I asked loudly.

  He backed up again. “Yeah. Roughly.”

  I held my hair back and tried to breathe normal, tried to appear normal, tried to look like the together woman I’d dressed myself to be. I had to shake it off. Something weird was happening, but I couldn’t deal with it in front of him. It would have to wait.

  “Okay,” I said, feeling very off balance. “Um—I’m good. What are you working on today?”

  He looked taken aback by my abruptness, and honestly I couldn’t blame him. I’d think I was pretty damn rude if it were me. I’d be pointing out my bitchiness right about then. But he didn’t. He just let his eyes glaze over like I remembered they could do, and he nodded.

  “I’m working on the windows today,” he said, a sharper edge to his voice. “And was thinking about looking under the carpet, see what the wood looks like.”

  I inhaled as slowly as I could, considering my heart was still on a race. “Okay, well, I won’t keep you.” He stared for a couple of beats, and then averted his eyes and gave the slightest shake of his head as he moved around me. “And, um, thank you,” I added, not meeting his eyes.