As Far As Far Enough

by Claire Rooney

  “What can I do for you, Auntie?” I asked, unwrapping Dasher and Comet from their tissue paper. I didn’t recognize them. The saddle blankets had their names sewn on them.

  “Oh, I just came over to ask if you knew that your mother was missing.”

  My hands fumbled and I dropped Comet onto the floor.

  “I’ll guess that means no,” Auntie said with pursed lips and a slight shake of her blue head. “I declare, you girls really should read a newspaper now and again.”

  “What do mean by ‘missing’?” I asked her.

  “Missing, my dear, as in gone, disappeared, unable to be located, vanished, gone astray, misplaced, et cetera.” Auntie was very good at crossword puzzles.

  “For how long?” I asked. Meri and I hadn’t picked up a paper in over three weeks. There hadn’t been any more news about their divorce, so we assumed it hadn’t been true.

  Auntie rolled her eyes and bobbed her head like she was counting the days. “About two weeks now, I’d say.”

  “Oh my god,” I said hugging Dasher to my chest. I had a sudden and clear vision of my father finally snapping and doing something truly unthinkable.

  The thought scared me until shame and guilt flooded through me in much larger proportions. I hardly ever thought about my mother, anymore. I couldn’t even remember what she looked liked. Dark hair and pale skin, like me, though my skin wasn’t very pale anymore, but I couldn’t picture her face. I couldn’t remember the color of her eyes or the shape of her nose. Meri reached over the boxes and touched my arm.

  I stood. “Meri, I’ve got to go. He’ll talk to me. He’ll tell me what he’s done and where she is now.”

  “Who’ll talk to you? Where do you have to go?” Meri asked, standing up with me.

  “I have to go to California to talk to my father. He’s done something bad,” I said, clutching at her shoulder. “I just know it.”

  Meri stepped around the boxes and held on to my arms. “Bea, calm down. You’re jumping at shadows.”

  “No, Meri, I’m not. You don’t understand. My mother’s not a strong person. She’s just a little mouse. If she’s missing then my father will be the one who’s misplaced her.” She would be resting in a place that was neither quiet nor restful. I clutched at Meri’s arms. “Don’t you see? He’ll be the only one who’ll know where she is.”

  “I know where she is,” Aunt Beatrice said, sitting straighter in the chair, looking terribly smug. “And I wouldn’t be so quick to judge her strength, if I were you, Collier. It takes all kinds to run this world, and sometimes there’s more courage to be found in the heart of a mouse than there is in the paws of a lion.” She patted at her hair and smiled. “I think I read that in a book somewhere.”

  Meri and I both turned to look at her.

  “Are you saying that everyone else in the world thinks Bea’s mother is missing, but you know where she is?” Meri asked incredulously.

  Auntie Beatrice nodded with a prim little smile.

  “Where is she?” I asked.

  “She’s sitting outside in the car.”

  “What?” I sat down again, abruptly. “Out where? In what car?”

  “She’s outside in your driveway,” Auntie answered, “sitting in my car.” She smiled softly. “Your mother wasn’t sure you’d want to see her, so I told her I’d come in first to test the waters.”

  “Not want to see her? Why would she think that? Why wouldn’t I want to see her?”

  “Why would you want to?” Aunt Beatrice asked with a sharp look in her eye that reminded me very much of Meri when she was in a mood.

  “Oh,” I said, understanding.

  “What’s she doing out in your car?” Meri asked.

  “That, dear heart, is a very long story.” Aunt Beatrice stood. “It’s one I think she should tell you herself. Do you want to hear it? I can just go fetch her.”

  Meri looked over at me, but I didn’t answer. I got up, shoved Dasher into Meri’s hands and went into the kitchen. From out the window, I could see Auntie’s old tan Buick parked in the drive. There was someone sitting in the passenger seat. A woman. Her head was turned. She was watching the cousins who had lit a small bonfire of charcoaled planks and were roasting hot dogs and sausages on long sticks over the flames. The woman had a round chin and a small upturned nose. Yes, I remembered that now. I opened the kitchen door, and the chill December breeze blew through my sweatshirt. Goose bumps popped up all over, but I’m not so sure it was from the cold. I stepped off the porch and walked over to the car.

  My mother turned her head. Her eyes were gray, like Meri’s were when the lights were dim or when she wore a dark blue shirt. She stared at me as if she wasn’t sure who I was. She looked at my hair, at the scar on my forehead and then her eyes dropped down to my stomach. I ran my hands over the swell of it. Her mouth made a little “o” and her hand pressed against her chest. I leaned forward and opened the car door. She got out slowly. I had forgotten how much taller I was than her. The top of her head only came to about my shoulder. When I was younger, people used to say that we looked alike. I bet we didn’t look anything alike now. Her hair was still long and her skin still pale. She seemed dangerously thin and fragile.

  Her chin tilted up and her eyes flickered over my face. I had changed so much since she saw me last, with my skin suntanned and my body bloated.

  “Collier,” she said. It sounded almost like a question.

  “Mother,” I answered, but mine was really a question too. She seemed to understand what I was asking, and tears welled in her eyes.

  “Not much of one, I guess,” she said, her eyes jumping between the two of mine.

  “No,” I agreed. “Not much of one.”

  “I’m sorry, Collier,” she said, her eyes dropping to my chin.

  I shrugged. “You did the best you could.”

  She nodded but then shook her head. “I didn’t do anything for you.”

  “You didn’t do anything to me, either. Maybe that was the best you could do.”

  “I should have taken you and gone away somewhere.” Her eyes faded out of focus. “I dreamed about it often enough.”

  “Why didn’t you?” It wasn’t an accusation. I was only curious.

  She blinked rapidly. “I didn’t know where to go. Everyplace I knew was worse than the place we were. It never occurred to me to look for a place I didn’t know.”

  “You made it all the way out here.”

  Her eyes sharpened and rose to meet mine. “I followed you.”

  I looked away from her briefly as my heart did a funny skip. “That feels kind of strange.”

  She nodded her head. “A mother should show her daughter the way, not the other way around.”

  “Is that what mothers are supposed to do?” I asked, touching my stomach.

  Her eyes dropped to my hands. “I don’t know.”

  We stood in silence, my mother staring at my hands, then her hands, her shoes, the ground, the sky, at anything but me. She stood with an uncomfortable stiffness, a waiting restlessness.

  “Mother.” She turned her head in my direction. “I don’t fault you for anything. Not anymore.”

  Her eyes closed for a second and she took a deep breath. “You’re more forgiving than I.”

  “Don’t credit me for more than I’m worth,” I said shaking my head. “I’m not being altruistic. It’s just that I understand what it is to be given nothing but bad choices.” I touched her lightly on the arm. “I lived in fear of him, too.”

  She looked up at me then with her eyes squinted. “You’ve grown, Collier.”

  I looked down at myself. “Sideways and out. I look like the broad side of a barn.”

  “You look beautiful to me.”

  She reached out a hand to touch my cheek and I stood very still. I couldn’t recall her ever touching me as a child. I’d always run to the nanny-du-jour for comfort until I learned to stop asking for comfort. Her fingers felt strange on my face. I think my face felt str
ange to her fingers. She drew back her hand and rubbed them together.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, her chin quivering. The weight of my twenty-four years hung off her words, dragging at her voice, filling it with debris, the refuse of our broken family.

  “So am I,” I said, my voice catching. I took a step forward and gently put my arms around her. She stood stiffly and then her whole body seemed to sigh. She leaned her head against my shoulder and slid an arm around my waist. It was an awkward hug at best, with her short stature and my protruding stomach, but it was the first one I could remember. For a first, it was perfect.

  Meri busied herself making tea and a plate of small cucumber sandwiches. When I introduced them, my mother shook her hand warmly and thanked her for being so good to me. Meri blushed scarlet and stammered out some reply. It surprised me, too. Aunt Beatrice sat herself at the kitchen table, her back to the refrigerator, and surveyed the room with a smug, self-satisfied expression.

  Meri brought the tea and sandwiches to the table and we all sat. Aunt Beatrice put a sandwich on her plate, but the rest of us kept our hands in our laps. Meri scooted her chair closer to me and pressed her leg against mine. I reached under the table and put my hand on her knee. Aunt Beatrice sniffed and poured herself a cup of tea. My mother looked at us with a curious expression on her face.

  “You’re happy here, Collier,” she said.

  I glanced at Meri and nodded. “Yes, I am. Things are simpler here. Not easier, just less complicated.”

  Meri coughed into her hand. I shot her a stern look but then shook my head and smiled. She was right, as always. We had made a huge mess out of everything. Things really weren’t that simple anymore.

  “Does my being here complicate things?” my mother asked.

  “I don’t know, yet,” I said. “It depends on what you’ve brought with you.”

  “Nothing, I think. I’ve been staying with Ms. Donovan,” she said with a nod of her head in Aunt Beatrice’s direction. “I’ve been there for a little over a week now, and we’ve not heard a peep out of your father. We know from the papers that he’s filed a missing person’s report, but my disappearance wasn’t nearly as spectacular as yours, and the papers aren’t as interested.”

  “You don’t think he’s out looking for you?” Meri asked her. “Because he’s sure to look here.”

  Fear flashed in her eyes, but, as fast as it came, it was gone again. “I don’t know. He’s changed.” She looked over at Meri and up at her hair.

  “He didn’t seem very changed to me,” I said, remembering him at the hospital.

  “No,” she said, “not at first. He was so very angry when he first came home. He started phoning people, calling in favors, sending Wesley on mysterious errands all around the country. I don’t know what he had planned, but I’m sure it wasn’t nice.”

  Aunt Beatrice tsked and reached for another sandwich. Auntie put one on my mother’s plate as well and poured her a cup of tea.

  “Thank you,” she said to Auntie and smiled wistfully as she looked around the table. “The newspeople started saying such nice things about you, about all of you, and painting him to be quite the ogre. That was what was different. He has lost battles before, but he’s never been the villain. He’s always been able to talk himself into the media’s good graces, but that wasn’t happening this time.” She paused, toying with the sandwich on her plate.

  “Go on, dear,” Aunt Beatrice said, “in for a penny, in for a pound.”

  My mother nodded and swallowed. “His people stopped responding to him. He wasn’t getting what he wanted. Public opinion was backing you, and then when his own party started lining up against him, he went insane.” She shuddered and touched her shoulder like she was remembering a distant pain.

  I felt Meri stiffen next to me, and Aunt Beatrice tsked again. My mother seemed to shrink down in her chair, but then she lifted her chin and sat up straight.

  “All the raging died suddenly,” she said “and he started brooding. He shut himself away in his study and didn’t talk to anybody for days.” She folded her hands and tucked them into her lap. “I wasn’t sure what scared me the most, the wild explosions or the silent scheming. He wasn’t talking to me. But then, he never did. I don’t think he thought I had any opinions.” She blushed. “I’m not sure that I did. I was so used to him telling me what I should think.” She looked at me, her eyes clear and bright. “I read everything the papers said about you, Collier. I started thinking about how brave you were, and I wondered where it came from because your father’s bold, but he’s not at all brave, and I was taught from the cradle to be scared of everything. You were never scared of anything.”

  I shook my head. “I was scared of everything, too. It was just that at some point I got more angry than afraid.”

  Meri reached behind my chair and put her arm around my shoulder. Aunt Beatrice pursed her lips but didn’t say anything.

  My mother reached for her teacup and took a careful sip. “Yes, that was exactly it,” she said. “I read all those things about you and I began to admire you like you were some hero in a book. I wanted to get to know you, and then I realized that I could have. I could have all along, but I never did.” She set the cup down carefully in its saucer. “Your father had such clear plans for you, and I didn’t dare interfere. But I should have, and the more I thought about it, the angrier it made me, at him and at myself.”

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  “I . . . I’m afraid I had been drinking a little. It made me, well, not less afraid, but less mindful of the consequences. I marched into his office and asked him for a divorce. Right in front of Wesley, too.”

  Meri nodded. “That must be where the papers got it from.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him,” I said with a huff. I looked back at my mother. “So, what did he say?”

  My mother’s eyes widened a little. “He just stared at me like he didn’t know who I was and never said a word. I got scared all over again. I sat in my rooms waiting for the retribution, but days passed and it never came. I thought about you a lot, and it suddenly occurred to me that it was stupid to sit around waiting for the sword to fall. What I needed to do was to step out from under it. I packed a bag and took a taxi to the train station.” She touched the handle of her teacup. Traced the circle of it with a fingertip. “There wasn’t anywhere else for me to go but here. I wasn’t sure you’d want me around, but . . . I called Ms. Donovan from the station.”

  “She remembered me from my picture in the paper,” Aunt Beatrice said, sipping at her tea with a pleased little slurp. “Remember, Meri, the day I picked you girls up from the hospital?”

  “Yes, Aunt Beatrice, I remember,” Meri said with a smile. Aunt Beatrice had kept a scrapbook of pictures and articles and delighted in reliving her adventure over iced tea and buttermilk biscuits with anyone who would sit still for an hour.

  “And we’ve been having a grand old time ever since. Isn’t that right, Elizabeth?”

  My mother smiled at her, too. It was soft and kind. “Yes, we have. I’m learning a lot of new things about the world.” Her eyes fell. “And some new things about myself, too.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Collier, I know it’s too late for me to try and be a mother to you now, but I would like for us to try and be friends.”

  I looked at my empty plate. I had no idea if such a thing were possible, being friends with your mother. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be friends. Maybe I still wanted a mother or someone who could show me how to be one.

  “Do you need a place to stay, Mrs. Torrington?” Meri asked, her hand squeezing my shoulder. “I mean, I know Auntie’s house is pretty small compared to what you’re use to. We have the whole guest wing that’s empty right now. You’re welcome to it if you’d like.”

  My mother smiled warmly at her but shook her head. “Thank you, but no.” She turned her smile to Aunt Beatrice. “Ms. Donovan has agreed to let me rent her upstairs rooms from her until
I decide where I’d like to settle.”

  “I’m getting too old to tromp up and down all those stairs,” Aunt Beatrice said, nibbling delicately at her second sandwich.

  I pressed my knee tighter against Meri’s. “Mother, forgive me for asking, but do you have enough money?” Surely, my father had cut her off, too, just as soon as she left. I had no idea how good she was at planning ahead, or even if she did.

  “Do you?” she asked with an odd look.

  I felt myself pink a little. I didn’t really, except for the little bit I made working at the garage. All the money I had left had been inside my saddlebags, and now there was nothing left of it but little bundles of ash. Paper burns just as easily as heart pine and hay. “I don’t have much,” I told her, “but Meri’s not been charging me rent or anything.”

  “Bea pulls her own weight around here,” Meri said a little defensively. I pushed at her knee, and she stepped lightly on my foot.

  My mother smiled shyly. “You may have more left than you realize. A good bit of the Torrington money belongs to you. All of the initial capital your father used to invest came from my family. It’s still held in trust.”

  I blinked at her. “But Daddy always said . . .” My voice trailed off as I struggled to recall the words he used. “No, he never actually said that he earned it. He only implied and let me draw my own conclusions.”

  “It’s his greatest gift,” she said softly.

  “And my credit cards,” I asked, “they haven’t been cut off?”

  “They’re paid from the trust. As long as you’re not overextended, they can’t be cut off.”

  “And my allowance?”

  She gave a slight shrug of her shoulders. “It came from the trust. You’re over twenty-one, you know, Collier. It’s not an allowance anymore. It’s a dividend. That trust money belongs to you.”

  I turned to Meri, wide-eyed, thinking of all the scrimping we’d had to do to pay doctor bills and such. Meri’s parents hadn’t left her poor, but babies did tend to put a dent in your savings, especially babies that had been roasted and smoked. Meri was looking down at her lap, and didn’t meet my eyes. I squeezed her knee, but she dropped her arm from my shoulder. She stood abruptly and reached for the teapot. “I’m going to warm this up,” she said and moved away from the table. Her voice was flat and there was a stiff set to her shoulders. I looked a question at her, but she kept her back turned as she fiddled with the stove.