Coming Back to Me

by Caroline Leavitt

  Molly didn’t mean to lie, and sometimes she worried, because what if someone knew Ivan or a friend of Ivan’s, what if it got back to Suzanne? But it felt so good to have people wanting to talk to her, and after a while, she got so good at telling stories, it began to feel real to her.

  Molly began to look at the locket as hers. She wore it every day, taking it off blocks before she got home, stuffing it deep in her purse. She created a whole life for herself and she now had plenty of time to do it because Suzanne wasn’t coming home until two or three in the morning, and Angela sometimes wasn’t coming home at all, and when she did, she had a new faraway look on her face Molly didn’t recognize.

  “How’s Lars?” Molly said, to be polite.

  Angela smiled. “He made me pancakes this morning. All I did was mention I liked pancakes two weeks ago, and I woke up to them today. Fresh blueberry pancakes. He wouldn’t even let me carry the dishes to the sink, let alone do them.” She shook her head. “They were the worst pancakes I have ever tasted, but they were also the most delicious. Do you understand what I mean?”

  “Maybe I would have liked some pancakes,” Molly said, but Angela was yawning, heading for the shower.

  Well, so what. Molly told herself she had Ivan. Ivan didn’t care that Molly was younger, he thought she was mature for her age. Ivan took her dancing. He wrote her love letters and bought her gifts. Molly talked so much about how Ivan loved her, that after a while she was in love with him herself. Anything could happen, she told herself. Suzanne was fickle and in great demand. She could change her mind and be in love with someone else already. Ivan could come to the house pining for her. He could look up at her window and see Molly and be suddenly struck. My own true love, he might think.

  But Suzanne kept her same dreamy look, and no one ever came to the window except an occasional squirrel. And then one night, Molly was woken up at five in the morning to hear Suzanne and Angela arguing on the front lawn. Molly looked outside. Angela was shaking her head in disgust, screaming at Suzanne. “Don’t you ever make me call the police again! Don’t you ever make me worry like that!” Angela grabbed Suzanne’s shoulders and shook her, but Suzanne was looking beyond Angela, and Molly followed her gaze. She tugged back the curtain so she could see better, and there, like a shock, was Ivan, jumping into a green car and driving away.

  There were days of terrible fights. Angela had to leave work four different times to go see Suzanne’s principal because Suzanne had skipped so many days of school, she was in danger of not graduating. Angela had had to talk to the manager of Woolworth’s because Suzanne had been so lost in reverie about Ivan that she had walked out with a scarf in her pocket and they had nabbed her for shoplifting. Angela and Suzanne shouted and screamed at each other, while Molly sat in her room with her hands clapped over her ears. “To think I had to talk to your principal! I had to talk to Woolworth’s Security!” Angela shouted. “The way they looked at me! The way they talked!”

  “What’s the matter, it eat into your busy schedule?” Suzanne shouted back. “It stop you from trying to bag your precious Lars? You want to ground me, then you’ll have to stay here, too, and you can’t stand it either.”

  Angela kept shouting, but Suzanne slammed into the bedroom, ignoring Molly, pulling on her Walkman and the headphones, turning it up so loud Molly could hear the bass, and then Suzanne would squinch her eyes shut and dance, wildly waving her arms, stomping her feet, her face so set and angry, it worried Molly to see it.

  One night, Suzanne didn’t get home until four in the morning. Angela was beside herself. “Where could she be?” she cried. She called the police, Molly sitting beside her on the kitchen stool. “They said they can’t do anything for fourteen hours!” Angela said. She went to the front window and peered out and then she came back to the kitchen and called the local hospitals. “Suzanne Goldman?” she asked. Nobody knew anything. Angela was so terrified she couldn’t sit still. “You can’t imagine what can happen,” she told Molly. “She should be home, the way she belongs. If she would just listen to me …” her voice trailed off. She threw open the front door and stood out on the dewy grass in her bare feet and robe, straining at the road. “I’m calling Lars. He’ll know what to do—” she started to say, and then, there in the distance, swinging her pocketbook, taking her own sweet time, was Suzanne.

  Molly had never seen her mother so furious. Angela strode to Suzanne and grabbed her by the shoulders. Suzanne’s head snapped back and forth. Her hair flew into her face like an angry black cloud. “Are you trying to kill me?” Angela shouted. “Are you trying to drive me insane?”

  Suzanne wrenched free. A light flickered on in a house across the street. “What do you care?” Suzanne cried. “What business is it of yours what I do?”

  Neither one of them saw Molly running out, trying to get in the middle of them. “Will you two please stop?” Molly screamed.

  Angela blinked at her as if she had just noticed her there. “Get in the house,” Angela said.

  “Mind your own damned business. It has nothing to do with you—” Suzanne said. She whipped back around to Angela. “I hate you—” she started to say and then Angela struck her, and Suzanne’s hands flew to her face. She bolted back, shocked.

  “Don’t—” shouted Molly.

  Angela struck at Suzanne again, striking her on the shoulder, her back, not caring when Suzanne tried to shield herself with her hands. Angela kept hitting Suzanne, again and again, her words emphasizing every blow. “I’m sick of this! When you’re eighteen, you can do what you want. But as long as you live in my house, you play by my rules!”

  Suzanne was so silent, it terrified Molly. Suzanne straightened up, letting her hands fall back down to her sides, staring at Angela, who was panting, who had finally stopped hitting her. Suzanne turned and walked out into the night, turning a corner, not once looking back.

  Molly couldn’t move.

  Angela violently started back to the house. “I thought I told you to get inside,” she ordered Molly. She yanked open the door. She violently turned the lock, and then she whipped around to Molly. “You go to bed,” she said.

  Suzanne didn’t come home. The next morning Angela went to the cops with Lars, but once they found out that Suzanne was seventeen, they stopped being so interested. “She’ll come back,” they said. “They always do.”

  But Angela didn’t listen. She kept trying to find her. Molly heard her mother calling Suzanne’s friends and teachers, her voice cracking with strain. She heard Angela calling Lars. “Help me think what to do,” Angela pleaded.

  Lars was there when Angela called Ivan’s parents and the whole time she was on the phone, Molly was gripping the necklace. “I see,” Angela said. “Well, that’s fine and good, but I don’t appreciate your tone.”

  “What? What?” said Molly.

  Lars lifted a finger, shushing Molly. “Let your mother handle it,” he said.

  Angela frowned. “Nevertheless, I’d appreciate it if you’d call me if you get any word.”

  She hung up the phone and sat in the chair opposite Molly and Lars. She looked suddenly old to Molly, and it frightened her. “She left with Ivan,” Angela said. “His parents have washed their hands of him.”

  She swiped her hands wearily across her eyes. “This is just what I didn’t want for her! She’ll get trapped young, the way I was.” She rubbed her eyes again, smudging rings of mascara on her face. She shook her head.

  “Angela,” Lars said. She stopped. He reached for Angela and made her look at him.

  Angela leaned her head against Lars’s shoulder, shutting her eyes. “I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have you.”

  Molly left the kitchen. She went outside the front door and sat on the porch. Angela had Lars. Suzanne had Ivan. And Molly had no one.

  Molly took off the locket and buried it deep in her drawer. She’d never wear it again. She’d never think of it if she could, but the next day at school, Mara Tushin, who won Pretti
est Girl three semesters in a row, stopped her. “Hey, wait a minute. No locket today?”

  Molly shrugged. Mara put one hand on her hip. “So how are things with you and Ivan? What are you two lovebirds up to these days?”

  “We broke up,” Molly blurted.

  “No way! But that’s awful!” Mara shook her head. “He do it or you?”

  “I did it,” Molly said. “And I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Mara looked at her with great understanding. “I was exactly the same way when I broke it off with Wayne. And I agree totally. It’s enough you hurt them. You don’t need to spread salt in their wounds by jawing off about it. It’s so much classier to just be quiet.”

  By sixth period, the news of Molly’s breakup was all over school. The girls were solicitous. They didn’t press her to talk. They looked at her with a new respect.

  Molly waited. Every time the mail flopped in the slot, she ran to get it, sure there would be at least a postcard from her sister. Every time the phone rang, she jumped, her voice bright with expectation. She couldn’t believe Suzanne wouldn’t at least call her to let her know she was okay. “What if something happened to her?” Angela worried, but Molly just shook her head. She knew her sister. Knew nothing bad could ever happen to Suzanne.

  And then, one night, when Molly and Angela were eating dinner, the phone rang. “It’s probably Lars,” Angela said, grabbing for the phone, and as soon as she spoke, her face changed.

  “I should have guessed. California, the promised land,” Angela said wearily. “Two wet-behind-the-ears kids. What are you living on, love?”

  “Is that Suzanne? Let me talk to her!” Molly tried to grab the receiver, but Angela held it away. “What’s she saying?”

  “All right,” Angela said. Her voice was calm. Steely. “I’ll tell you what. If you can show me you know how to behave, you can come home. We can start from scratch.” There was silence and then Angela quietly hung up the phone.

  “Wait! I wanted to talk to her!” Molly cried, grabbing the receiver, but the line was gone, the wires hummed. “What did she say?”

  “She hasn’t learned. That’s what she said,” Angela said, leaving the room.

  Molly grabbed the phone. She dialed the number Angela had scribbled on a pad by the phone, but she didn’t get Suzanne. Instead, she got the machine, Suzanne’s voice raspy from cigarettes saying that she and Ivan were out.

  Molly kept trying to make contact. She wrote letters to Suzanne that Suzanne never answered. I am sleeping with a boy, Molly wrote, thinking that might get a response. I think I may be pregnant. It surprised her how much she missed her sister, how you could miss and yearn after a person who had stopped being around. Some nights, Molly lulled herself to sleep, she felt less alone by imagining that Suzanne was just outside the window, coming home from another adventure.

  Finally, one day, Molly got Suzanne on the phone. “I want to come visit,” Molly said and Suzanne laughed. “Visit where? We live in one room.”

  “Then come home.”

  Suzanne was silent for a moment. “I am home,” Suzanne said quietly.

  Molly had just gotten into college when Angela married Lars in front of a justice of the peace and right up until the last minute, everyone expected Suzanne to show up. Molly was in a new white dress, her hair held back with one of Angela’s rhinestone clips. Molly couldn’t get over how her mother looked. Like a young girl. As if she were dipped in powdered sugar.

  Angela was fine until right before the ceremony. And then she suddenly excused herself. Molly could see her on the phone, shaping the air with her hands, talking, and then hanging up. Angela looked at Lars, and then shrugged. “Never mind,” Lars said, taking Angela’s hand. “I don’t even want to know the excuse.” He took Molly out to dinner with them to Chinoise, which was supposed to be the best Chinese restaurant in town, but Molly had no appetite. She fiddled with her chopsticks. She rearranged her sweet-and-sour prawns on the plate, her gluey brown noodles, and she kept thinking about Suzanne.

  Angela and Lars were going to move to Florida, where Lars was going to go in with his brother on a gift shop. Angela gave her the house, putting it into Molly’s name so “you’ll always have something.” Molly had never seen Angela more happy. She seemed to dance instead of walk. Her voice lilted. Glints of light sparked off her hair. She looked like the girl in the Miss California Beach photo. “From now on, all I’m going to work on is my tan,” Angela announced.

  Lars, polite and distant to Molly, petted her awkwardly on the shoulder. “We’ll have an extra room for you. Anytime you want to come and visit.”

  “You’ll come this winter,” Angela said, “or the spring.” She looped her arm around Lars, tugging him close to her. Visit, Molly thought. Maybe this winter. She nodded brightly. She acted like that was the best idea she had ever heard of.

  It wasn’t a bad life. Molly went to school, became a grade-school teacher. She had the house. She was happy enough, content, and so busy she didn’t really have time to think about how lonely she was. She spoke to Angela every Sunday on the phone when the rates were cheaper, when Angela might be at home instead of out on the golf course or at the beach or shopping with Lars, and although Angela always seemed happy enough to hear from her, when she mentioned Molly visiting, she was always pushing the date ahead. The next summer. The next fall. Winter, when Molly could really appreciate that wonderful Florida sun.

  Molly called Suzanne, who was friendly and distant and who never once called her. And then, in her first year of teaching third grade, she got a phone call from Lars. “My poor Angela,” he said, weeping, and then he stopped talking. He sobbed. Molly froze.

  Angela had died in a car crash. She wasn’t even going that fast, just from the condo to the supermarket to pick up some suntan lotion when a truck simply plowed into her. She was killed instantly.

  “I’ll get the next flight out. I’ll call Suzanne—”

  “No. I’m not having a service. I’m not burying her. I’m not scattering the ashes.” He snuffled into the phone. “Let them cremate her. I won’t be a part of it.”

  Molly called Suzanne, who cried helplessly.

  “Please, come here. I need to see you,” Molly said. “I can’t get through this by myself.” Suzanne was silent. “Or I’ll come there. I can take some time off school.”

  “No, don’t come here. Look, maybe I’ll come there. I’ll call you.”

  Molly waited. She roamed the house, she wept, but Suzanne never called. And when Molly, desperate, wanting to talk, called her again. Suzanne’s line was disconnected. Molly stared at the phone in disbelief. How could Suzanne do this? How could she be this way? How could she leave Molly so alone with this?

  Molly called Lars a week later. He barely spoke, and finally he said that talking to her was just too hard. “You understand,” he said. “Sometimes it’s better to just forget everything. And everyone.”

  Angela had left a little money. Five thousand Lars had invested for her, half for Molly, half for Suzanne. The house was Molly’s. And if Molly was sometimes lonely, if some nights she grieved for her mother so hard she thought she was going mad, she told herself it wouldn’t always be that way.

  She kept waiting for Suzanne to call her, veering between fury and need. A few times she sent her sister cards to her old address, always with the words “Where are you?” scribbled across them. She was careful to write her return address, and the cards never came back, but she never heard from Suzanne, either. Not until the spring, when Suzanne called her.

  In the background, Molly heard loud music. “Where were you?” Molly said.

  Suzanne gave an odd, dry laugh. “What do you mean, where was I? I’ve been right here.”

  “Your line was disconnected!” Molly accused. “You never answered my cards!”

  Suzanne was silent for a minute. “I was suffering, too,” she said quietly.

  “But you had Ivan. I was all alone here.”

  “I don’t ha
ve Ivan. He left.”

  “Ivan left—?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Suzanne interrupted. She drew in a breath. “Anyway, what’s important is that I’m calling you now, right?”

  “Right.” Molly knew better than to try to push Suzanne. She wrapped the phone cord around her hand. She waited.

  Suzanne hesitated. “Listen, could I borrow some money, do you think?” Her voice rushed on. “It’s not that much. I’m going to Beauty Culture School now and I’m a little short on tuition. Five hundred would do it.”

  “But what about Mom’s money?”

  “That was gone a long time ago.”

  “It’s gone?” Molly said, shocked. “All of it? How could it all be gone?”

  “I have expenses,” Suzanne said stiffly. “It’s very expensive here. I didn’t get a house the way you did. Come on, I can pay you back.”

  Molly mentally added up her expenses for the month. Food. The car. Heat and electricity. She needed a new winter coat desperately.

  “Please. I’m really desperate, Molly.”

  Molly made a final calculation. She could swing it. “I’ll put it in the mail tomorrow.”

  Three weeks later, Molly was writing spelling words on the blackboard, listening to the musical groans of her class when a monitor, a sixth-grade girl in a red dress, came into the room and handed Molly a note. “Personal phone call at the office.” Molly put the chalk down. Her class hushed, watching her with interest. Mrs. Daisy, the principal, hated personal phone calls. “Be right there,” Molly told the monitor, and then went to open the door between her room and the next, to beckon to the teacher to please watch her class.