Little fingers reaching out and touching her hand.
“Mommy?”
“It’s time to sleep, Melody.”
“Okay. But, I wanted to tell you one thing.”
“Yes, sweetheart.”
“I love you, Mommy.”
“I love you too, dear.”
Chapter 27
SHE WAS LYING FLAT ON THE FLOOR when she woke.
The bedroom window was blue, the long night giving way to dawn. She got up and stretched, then looked down at the deflated air mattress and nudged it with her toe.
“So much for taking you with me.”
She went to the kitchen and drank a glass of water, wishing that she hadn’t sold her coffee maker yesterday. She found a granola bar in the pantry and ate it. Then she brushed her teeth and took a shower. She laughed when she realized she’d given away all her bath towels yesterday. Fortunately, she’d kept her blow dryer. When she had dried herself off and readied herself in the mirror to face the day, she packed up the last of her things and loaded them into her car.
Returning to the house for one last look, she stepped outside into the backyard. She could still make out the beauty of Caleb’s hard work, even beneath the tall grass and morning shadows. The creek ran softly by. A songbird called from a tree. She noticed her mother’s rosebush standing alone, amidst the returning weeds, its branches thick with pink blooms. Melody’s favorite color. At least her mother had gotten that right.
She went around to her neighbor’s door and knocked. She stood there waiting for a long time and had almost turned to leave when the door finally opened.
“Hi, Mrs. Parker.”
Mrs. Parker eyed her suspiciously.
“It’s early,” she said.
“I know. I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m moving—”
“I saw the yard sale and figured as much.”
“Well, I came by to see if I could borrow a shovel.”
“If you’re burying something that you shouldn’t be, I don’t want any part of it.”
Jane laughed.
“No. Nothing like that. I’ve got a rosebush that I need to take with me.”
“It’s awfully late in the season to be transplanting a rose.”
“I don’t have much choice.”
She looked past Jane toward her house and her packed car waiting in the driveway. Her expression had a touch of regret.
“I meant to come by and deliver my condolences about your daughter.”
“Thanks,” Jane said. “That means a lot. She loved your willow tree.”
“I know. I used to see her hanging in it all the time.”
Jane looked away; she didn’t want to cry today.
“The shed’s beside the house there, and it isn’t locked. Use anything you need. Just put it back when you’re finished. And prune it good and take off all the leaves first.”
“Take off the rose leaves?”
“Yes. Take off the flowers too. You need it to go dormant. Might give it a chance.”
Jane thanked her and said goodbye. Then she went around to the shed and retrieved a shovel and pair of shears.
The slice of the shears cut the quiet morning, and the roses fell to the ground one by one with soft thuds. She trimmed the braches back and plucked off the leaves. When she finished the rosebush was half its former size, and it stood barren and naked, looking much like it had the first day she planted it. She buried the shovel in the soil and dug around the root ball for several minutes, until the rosebush was free and leaning sideways in its pit. Then she went inside and got two trash bags from beneath the kitchen sink. She doubled them up and lifted the rosebush into the bags. She turned on the hose and moistened the roots, cinched the bag closed, and carried the rosebush to her car.
It was messy work, physically and emotionally.
She returned the shovel and the shears and washed up as best she could. Then she stepped out her front door one last time, locked it, and hid the key beneath a flowerbed rock where Esmeralda expected to find it. She paused at her car door and glanced back at the house. She felt nostalgia for it already, but she knew that it was time to leave. She got in and started her car and backed from the drive. As she pulled away, she honked twice, as if to say goodbye. But she wasn’t sure to whom, or even why. The house shrunk in her rearview mirror, and the sun rose over the trees and shined on the road ahead.
She just made the 8:45 ferry.
It was Sunday, and the car deck wasn’t even half full.
She left her car there and went up to the onboard café and bought herself a cup of coffee—two Splenda and one cream. Thank God for small miracles. She took her coffee outside to drink it on the deck, and she stood at the back of the ferry and watched the island recede into the blue sky, falling below the distant snowcapped Olympic Mountains. It finally became just a tiny tree-covered hump, rising from the water like a toy island in a miniature snow globe world. It had been her home for twenty years, but somehow it no longer seemed real.
SHE EXITED I-5 IN OLYMPIA and drove through vaguely familiar streets lined with gas stations and car dealerships, until she turned up the hill and dropped down into the cul-de-sac where she’d grown up. The trees looked taller, and the houses seemed smaller, but otherwise little had changed. Jane guessed that maybe nothing ever would. It had been nearly ten years since she’d been back, and the feeling of angst in her gut as she pulled into her mother’s driveway reminded her why.
She hauled the rosebush from the backseat and carried it to the front door and rang the bell. When nobody answered she knocked. She knew there was a key hidden in the porcelain frog beneath her mother’s silver-beauty box-hedge, but the time when she might have felt comfortable using it had long since passed. At last she was a stranger here.
She was walking back to her car when a Cadillac pulled up to the curb, and her mother got out, wearing her big church hat. The Cadillac pulled away, and her mother walked up the drive toward her.
“Hello, Mother.”
“Hi, Jane. What a surprise.”
She eyed the boxes in Jane’s car, clearly trying to guess the meaning of her daughter’s unannounced visit.
“Is everything all right?”
Jane nodded.
“I’m leaving, Mother.”
“Really. I just got home from church. Can’t you come in for coffee?”
“I mean I’m leaving town.”
“You are?”
“Yes. I sold my house. I sold everything.”
“What about your job, Jane?”
“I quit. I hadn’t been working much anyway.”
“And where are you going?”
“Texas.”
“You’re chasing that boy, aren’t you?”
“I didn’t come by to argue, Mother. I came by to drop off your rosebush. It’s on the steps there.”
Her mother looked past her to the rosebush at the door.
“Looks like a garbage bag full of sticks.”
“Well, I pruned it back to give it a chance.”
Jane reached to open her car door, but her mother laid her hand on top of hers.
“Why don’t you come in for coffee?”
“I should get going.”
“Just one cup.”
Jane took a deep breath and let it out.
“Okay. But only one cup.”
As her mother fished her keys from her purse, Jane picked up the rosebush.
“I guess I could plant the rose for you, too, if you’ve got a shovel and some place you’d like it to go.”
“It was nice of you to bring it,” her mother said.
“It just didn’t seem right to leave it behind. They plan to tear the place down and build new.”
“Well, I have a perfect spot for it.”
While the coffee brewed they carried the rosebush into the backyard and picked out a spot near the house, where there was plenty of morning sun. Her mother brought out a shovel from the garage, and Jane started digging. She
had been working for several minutes when her mother reappeared, dragging a sack of mulch, having changed out of her church clothes. Together they lifted the rosebush from its bag and set it in the hole. Then her mother held it steady while Jane repacked the soil around it with the shovel. Her mother opened the sack of mulch, and they took turns reaching in and tossing handfuls onto the ground around the rosebush—a mother and daughter working in the earth, just as they once had been, so long ago. Jane could almost feel Melody watching them, plying them with questions about flowers and dirt.
When they had finished and thoroughly soaked the soil, they rinsed off their hands with the hose, and her mother went inside to fetch them coffee. They sat at the glass table on the patio, drank from their mugs, and admired their work.
“Think it’ll make it?” Jane asked.
“Hard to say,” her mother answered. “But roses are hearty plants. Probably have to wait for spring to find out. You know, I’m glad Marta insisted on the early service today. We usually go to the eleven, and I would have missed you.”
“I’m glad too,” Jane said.
And she meant it.
“Did you get the flowers I sent?” her mother asked.
“Yes, I did. Thank you.”
“I was sorry when I read your email. I wanted to respond, but you know I’m no good with that silly computer. I know she was a great friend to you.”
Jane just sipped her coffee and nodded. Grace had been a better friend than words could ever tell. She tilted her head back and looked up. There were high clouds obscuring the sun, but the light that filtered through felt good on her face.
“What’s going on with Jonathan?” she asked.
Her mother sighed.
“I still can’t get used to him wanting to be called that. It was always Jon, or Johnny. Only your father liked Jonathan.”
“Well, that’s reason enough not to like it,” Jane said.
“He said you went to see him.”
“I did. Is he still in there?”
Her mother nodded.
“He’s agreed to a deal. One day shy of a full year. Keeps him out of the big prison, I guess. But it means he’ll serve every day of it. He says he plans on getting sober this time. We’ll see if it sticks. Should I tell him you were here?”
“Sure,” Jane said. “And tell him I’d love to hear from him if he gets a year clean. I can’t be around him otherwise, though. I’ve had too much heartbreak to be around active alcoholics.”
They sat for a while without talking.
Jane watched a big red-breasted robin land in the yard and peck at the grass, hopping over to inspect the rosebush, as if it were surprised to find it there.
Eventually her mother reached out and took her hand.
“Jane, I made a lot of mistakes. And I know it’s too late to change them. I know that. I do. And I know we never really got along. I’m not sure why. I guess the truth is I never understood you. But I never had to worry about you either. Not like Jon. And I just want you to know that of all the things I did wrong, of all the mistakes, the one thing I know I got right, the one thing I’ve always been proud of, is you.”
Tears welled in the corners of Jane’s eyes, and her throat ached. She was afraid she might cry for real if she spoke, so she simply squeezed her mother’s hand and smiled. In that moment Jane realized that she and her mother had never hugged. Not as adults anyway. She briefly wondered what it might feel like, but her mother released her hand and picked up her coffee mug.
They both knew it was time for her to go.
“I should hit the road,” Jane said.
Her mother nodded and rose from the table.
She followed Jane to the door, and they stood together for an uncomfortable moment, neither knowing what to say.
“Will you promise me you’ll stay in touch?” her mother asked. “At least occasionally?”
It occurred to Jane that her mother hadn’t asked where in Texas she was going or even how long she planned to stay.
“Sure,” Jane said. “And I’ll have the same cell number if you want to call me. At least for a while.”
Her mother nodded but said nothing more.
The screen door banged shut behind her, and Jane climbed into her car, started it, backed from the drive, and pulled away. She could see her mother’s shadow just on the other side of the screen, watching her leave.
Neither of them waved.
BEFORE SHE HIT THE FREEWAY, Jane pulled over at a Shell station and filled her tank with gas. She went inside and bought water and snacks for the road and paid for a carwash.
As the mechanical brushes wiped away the months’ worth of grime, Jane sat in her soap-covered car and thought about all she had been through since leaving home so many years ago. The excitement of moving north to Seattle, and then eventually being accepted into the university. Getting pregnant, moving to Bainbridge Island, having Melody. There were some really great years that followed, years that she would always treasure. But then the long nightmare had begun when Melody discovered booze and drugs. Sitting there now Jane felt as though she were starting over again—leaving home once more at forty, but this time heading south instead of north. And this time she had a plan. This time she knew what she wanted. She laughed at herself to think it had taken her so many years to figure it out.
The overhead dryers whirred to life, the car jerked forward on the tracks, and the carwash spit Jane out into the light. She swept the last of the rinse water away with a pass of her wipers, pulled out, and merged onto the freeway.
The Sunday afternoon traffic was light, and she got in the fast lane and rolled down her window, letting the wind tease her hair. She turned on the car radio—“Alive and Kicking” by Simple Minds was playing. She couldn’t imagine a better song to start her journey. Except maybe one sung by Caleb.
She smiled at the road ahead and wondered how long it would be until she picked up the first Texas radio station.
Chapter 28
WHEN SHE HIT PORTLAND she turned east onto Interstate 84 and crossed the Blue Mountains, driving past scenic vistas of evergreen trees and distant valleys filled with wildflowers. She drove for nine hours, pulling over at rest stops to stretch her legs and freshen up, until she reached Boise, Idaho, where she rented a room at a Best Western and fell fast asleep.
She was on the road again before dawn. She drove through a dark thunderstorm that was clinging to the tops of mountains she crossed, turning on her headlights and leaning forward to see through the windshield even with her wipers on high. She made it to Salt Lake City by lunch, and she ate alone in a café. Then she filled up with gas, loaded up with bottles of water, and got back on the road, determined to make Albuquerque by nightfall. The scenery was stark and mostly boring, and she drove for long stretches without even seeing another car with only the radio to keep her company. Reception was spotty, although she was always able to find at least one gospel and one Latino station—she preferred the soothing sound of Spanish.
Nightfall caught her crossing the southernmost corner of Colorado on the 491, and she drove on into the darkness—black as nowhere, the world shrunken to just the reach of her headlights, beyond the windshield a black canvas painted with stars. She was startled by a deer that leapt in front of her car, its eyes flashing red in the wash of her headlights before it shot off into the night, just as she shot through where it had stood. She had been certain she was going to hit it, and she pulled over to steady her nerves and consult her map.
She drove on, but she was tired. She traveled south on 550, looking for any place safe to pull over again and rest her eyes. By and by Albuquerque appeared out of the night, spreading across the dark and deserted plains like a sprawling oasis of light. She stopped at the first hotel she came to and rented a room. She flopped on the bed and fell asleep in her clothes.
She crossed into Texas by eleven the next morning, pulling over in a south plains town called Littlefield. She ordered lunch at a diner filled with Waylon J
ennings memorabilia and workers on break from a local denim factory. She topped off her tank and hit the road again. It was dry, dusty, and dull. She ran her AC on high with the vent pointed at her face just to keep her tired eyes open. The closer she got to Austin, the more tired she got, and the more doubt began to creep into her mind. What if he didn’t want to see her? What if he was dating someone else already? Where would she go? What would she do? She blinked the thoughts away and focused on the road.
As twilight approached she passed a drive-in movie theatre running an old black and white on its enormous and dilapidated screen, a throwback to a bygone era. She thought she recognized the film, but it passed too fast for her to be sure. Several hours later she arrived in Austin.
She had priced downtown hotels before she left, and she followed her printed directions to the Hampton Inn where she rented their cheapest available room.
She dreamt that night that Caleb was in her bed—a dream so real that she half woke with his taste on her lips and called his name out in the dark. He had whispered something to her in that dream that she meant to always remember, but it slipped away as soon as she rose the next morning.
She opened the curtains and looked out on a sunny Texas day. She went down to her car and retrieved her bags. She’d been too weary to carry them in the night before. She was relieved to have nowhere to drive today. She took a shower and blew her hair dry and did her makeup in the mirror. Then she slipped on a sundress and went out on foot with just her purse.
She walked to old town and stopped at the famous Driskill Hotel and spoiled herself with lunch on the covered patio. The weather was warm, the people friendly, and she was beginning to think that she might just like Texas.
When her server came to refill her iced tea, she asked him where she could find live music in town.
“Where can’t you find live music is an easier question to answer,” he said. “What kind of music are you looking for?”
“Have you heard of a band called Broken Coyotes?”
He shook his head.
“You might try 6th Street, though.”
She paid her bill and walked down 6th Street, reading the posters in the club windows. She saw nothing advertising Broken Coyotes. It was still too early for live music, so she walked up the hill to the State Capitol building, took her shoes off, and walked on the soft grass with her bare feet, admiring the bronzed heroes of the Alamo and the architecture of the stone dome.
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