What Makes a Family

by Colleen Faulkner

  “Okay . . .” My heart rate, for the first time in half an hour, is starting to slow down. “So where do you think she might have gone? You’re absolutely positive she didn’t leave a note?”

  “No note. And I don’t know where she’d go.” He sounds frustrated now. “She doesn’t go anywhere but the market, church, and the hairdresser. And around to visit the sick.”

  “Start making phone calls, Daddy. Someone had to have seen her today. Nothing happens on Brodie that someone doesn’t see. And stay at the house until Joseph gets there. We’ll find her.”

  * * *

  But we don’t find her. I think we call every single person on the island. Joseph and I drive all over, looking for the car. Looking in all the places we hid as teenagers when we wanted to make out, drink beer, or just escape from our parents. We checked parking lots and dirt roads and every property we own.

  But the white Caddy is gone. It’s just gone. And so is Birdie. I call Celeste several times, leaving messages, and I text her. I tell her Birdie is missing. No response.

  I suggest to Daddy around one in the morning that we call the police chief and have him call the state police. What if Birdie decided to drive to Salisbury and got into an accident, and for some reason we couldn’t be contacted. Maybe she’s unconscious or . . . I don’t know. I’m so tired I can’t think anymore.

  Daddy refuses to let me call the police. By then, he’s not just tired; he’s angry that Birdie would put us through this. He insists she’s fine and she’ll call. I’m not sure he’s right, but I agree not to call the police until we talk again in the morning. We decide to get some sleep, and it’s not until I’m in my bed in the same boxers and T-shirt I slept in the night before that I realize Celeste still never called me back. Or even texted me.

  Now I’m worried about her. It’s true she comes and goes as she pleases without any regard to us, but I called her like six times. My texts have to be blowing up her phone. She’s not a monster. She would call if she knew our mother was missing. Unless something has happened to her, too. Did they go off together? I wonder.

  But that’s even less likely than Birdie’s not making Daddy his supper.

  The last time I saw Celeste, it was after the funeral. She was wearing those sparkly heels of hers and the green and yellow scarf and a short skirt. I assumed she was going to The Gull because it’s what she does every night she’s here.

  I get out of bed and go down the hall to Celeste’s room. I turn on the light. Her stuff is all still here. The organza dress she wore to the funeral is hanging on a hanger on the closet door, and her wig is on the dresser. Her gigantic bag of makeup is on the floor near the dresser. She didn’t go back to New York. She wouldn’t leave without her makeup. The only thing odd is that she’s left a pretty pair of red panties and matching bra on the bed. Like she intended to wear them and didn’t.

  I flip out the light, wondering if that means she went out of the house last night with no underwear. Which would be odd, even for her.

  Back in my room, I collapse. I’m sure I won’t be able to sleep, but I drift off.

  41

  Abby

  When my phone rings, it startles me. I was sound asleep. Eyes half-open, I feel for my cell, plugged in on the nightstand. It’s barely dawn; a thin, pale light comes through the openings in the drapes. I don’t know the number, but it has a Maryland area code. Which really scares me. I know I’m Celeste’s emergency contact.

  “Hello?”

  The line is open, but no one speaks on the other end. “Hello?” I say again.

  I’m half expecting a deep male voice to identify himself as a state trooper. Ask if he’s reached Abigail MacLean. “Hello,” I say again, panic rising in my voice.

  “Abby.”

  It’s my mother. I sit straight up in bed. “Where are you? Are you all right?” My hair falls over my eyes; it’s a tangled mess. I push it away impatiently. “Mom, you scared us to death,” I murmur.

  “Just wanted to tell you I’m okay,” she says.

  She sounds hesitant. It’s her, but it doesn’t sound like her. Her voice is almost robotic. The kidnapping scenario goes through my mind again. My parents are rich, though to look at them, you’d never know it. But what if someone does know they’re rich? What if she’s been kidnapped for ransom?

  “Mom, where are you? Are you alone? Are you sure you’re okay? You don’t sound okay.”

  “I’m fine. Better than I’ve ever been,” she says calmly. Now she sounds more like herself.

  “When . . . when are you coming home? I’m at the house with Daddy and Joseph. We’ve been worried sick. We thought you’d been hurt or—”

  “I just wanted you to know I was safe,” she interrupts. “I have to go. Plane to catch.”

  “Plane? Plane to where?” My mother’s never been on an airplane in her life. I can’t imagine her being able to buy a ticket and navigate an airport.

  “Tell your father the car is at BWI. Economy Lot A. It’s near the M1 sign. Near the fence. He’ll see it well enough.”

  “But . . . where are you going?” My eyes fill with tears. This can’t be my mother. My mother would never do something like this. “I don’t understand.”

  “Have to go. There’s a line to get on the plane.”

  “Wait, wait,” I say desperately. “Is there some way for me to call you?”

  “Nope. This a pay phone. Nice one, near the ladies’ room. I’ll call you in a few days.” She hesitates. “Don’t worry about me. I’m good.”

  “Don’t worry about you? Mom—”

  She hangs up.

  My mother hangs up on me.

  I sit there on the edge of the bed staring at the cell phone in my hand. My mother is in an airport, flying somewhere. She’s lost her mind. What other explanation can there be? That, or the world has tilted on its axis. Which is definitely true. My world.

  * * *

  I offer to take Daddy to the airport to get the Cadillac, but he insists Joseph can do it. And Joseph goes along with the plan, saying privately to me that he’d feel better following Daddy home. My father doesn’t say much about Birdie’s having flown the coop. He pretty much refuses to talk about it. All he says is that she’ll come home when she’s ready. And he tells me to go home to Drum.

  So home I go, feeling more lost in my life than I think I’ve ever felt. Mom Brodie is gone. My mother might as well be gone, because I don’t know this woman who would take my grandmother’s car, drive to the airport, and fly somewhere. Without telling us where she was going.

  And I still haven’t heard from Celeste. So all day Monday, I split up my time equally, worrying about my mother and my sister.

  I get another call from an unknown number early two mornings later. This time, I bolt upright in my bed and rip my cell from the cord. It’s got to be my mother. I already have in my head what I’m going to say to her. I’m going to insist she tell me where she is and that I’m flying there, wherever she is. I’m going to get to the bottom of this.

  “Abby?”

  I’m so surprised it’s not my mother that it takes me a moment to switch gears mentally. “Celeste,” I heave. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “Sorry,” she says cheerfully. “My phone won’t make calls to the US.”

  “What?” I get out of bed and begin to pace in the semidarkness. It’s almost dawn. Drum sleeps on. “Where are you?” I repeat each word sharply.

  “Paris! Oh, God, Abs, it’s beautiful here. I’m thinking about taking French lessons. You know, so I can speak it.”

  “So you didn’t get any of my messages?”

  “Just the one about the money. How am I getting money? Mom Brodie cut me out of the will,” she says cheerfully.

  “You know about that?”

  “Read the letter she left me. Nobody noticed it was gone?”

  We’ve been a little busy. I think it, but I don’t say it. I exhale, my anger with her sandwiching my relief that she’s okay. “It’s g
oing to be complicated, but you’re getting money. How the hell did you get to Paris?” I ask, pretty certain I’m going to wake up any minute and still be at home in Brodie, sleeping in my bed, maybe with Mom Brodie asleep in her room down the hall. Because this is just too wild to be real.

  “Bartholomew.” She giggles. “He asked me to marry him. But I told him not yet.” Another giggle.

  “So you didn’t get any of my messages about Birdie?”

  I hear her talking, but clearly not to me. The sounds are muffled. “No, no, I didn’t get any messages after we took off. Hey, listen, I have to run—”

  “No, wait! Celeste, Mom’s gone. She left. She called to say she’s okay, but we don’t know where she is. She flew somewhere.”

  “Well, that’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard. Look, I really have to run. We have a lunch reservation at a restaurant in the Eiffel Tower! Bartholomew says we can just straighten out my money business when we get back. If you need me, you can call me at this number. It’s Bartholomew’s. We might fly to Greece next week; we’re not sure. But I should be back in a month. Talk to you then.” She makes a kissing sound into the phone.

  And then she’s gone.

  I’m standing in my bedroom in nothing but one of Drum’s T-shirts when he rolls over in bed. “That your mom?” he asks, only half-awake.

  “No. My sister.” I slide the phone onto the nightstand and climb into bed. “Go back to sleep. It’s just too crazy.” I raise my hand. “Too crazy for a conversation this early in the morning.”

  42

  Celeste

  “You talk to your sister?” Bartholomew walks past me, planting a kiss on my bare shoulder.

  “Mmmhm.” I smile up at him as he walks by me, tying his ascot. I’m standing in a silk slip over serious French Spanx. On the dressing table (the hotel where we’re staying actually has a dressing table!) is a box with a new pair of Christian Louboutin kitten heels and a box with a new Chanel dress in it. A day dress. There’s another box under it with a slinky black number for tonight. And I’m wearing a divine new wig. We’re going to look into hair transplantation when we get back, but for now, I’m glorying in the feel and look of this beauty that’s prettier than my own hair could ever be. I guess that’s the difference between a mail-order wig and one from a shop on a French street where you have to ring a doorbell to be let in.

  “Everything okay?” he asks.

  “Perfect.” There’s no need to say anything about Birdie missing. I’m sure he doesn’t want to get involved in any Brodie family dramas. I don’t. I flash another smile that’s a combination of one of the many in my arsenal . . . and my own.

  “Car will be here in half an hour,” he warns as he walks out of the boudoir and into the living room. Our suite has a living room!

  “I’ll be ready,” I promise.

  I sit in the cushioned velvet chair in front of the dressing table and pick up my new eyelash curler from the bag of outrageously expensive makeup I bought yesterday on our shopping spree. I’m beginning to realize that Bart’s not rich; he’s filthy rich. And he doesn’t mind spending his money on me.

  I lean closer to the mirror and slip my lashes into the curler and give it a good squeeze.

  I can’t believe I almost jumped off that stupid bridge.

  I curl the eyelashes on my other eye and dig in the bag for the Dior mascara in jet-black.

  I was really going to do it.

  I think I really was going to kill myself. Standing on that bridge rail, I actually got as far as trying to decide if I should hold my breath on the way down.

  Only then a breeze picked up. It seemed to come out of nowhere, and, for a second, I thought I was going to be blown off the rail and into the water. And suddenly I was scared. Scared to death. Which is funny since I was contemplating death.

  That was when I realized I didn’t want to do it.

  What if I didn’t die in the fall? What if it hurt when I hit the water? What if drowning hurt?

  So I climbed down from the rail, and I lit another cigarette, and I walked off that bridge. I walked off that bridge because I realized Mom Brodie was right. She always said I was selfish, and I am. I’m too selfish to kill myself and spare my family from the embarrassment I am. From the pain I know I cause every day.

  So what if Mom Brodie didn’t leave me any money? Screw her.

  That’s what I told myself as I rescued my Jimmy Choos at the foot of the Brodie bridge. So what if the old bitch gypped me out of my inheritance? I don’t need her money. I can get my own. I can make my own. That’s what I told myself. And then I called Bartholomew and asked him to pick me up. I didn’t say a word about where I’d just been or what I’d been contemplating. I told him I’d go to Paris with him, but only if we went today. That’s what I said. And ten minutes later he was there.

  The second coat of mascara applied, I lean back to get a good look at my face. I can’t help but smile. With expensive makeup and the new wig, I look younger than I have in years.

  With Mom Brodie’s money, I guess I don’t need Bartholomew. But I kind of like him. And I sure like Paris, and Chanel dresses and black limos. So maybe I will marry him, just to spite Mom Brodie, because I know what she’d say. She’d call me a gold digger.

  But maybe I won’t marry him. I don’t have to if I have my own money.

  I study my pretty face in the mirror and try not to listen to her faint voice in my ear.

  I taught you right from wrong, girl, Mom Brodie whispers from the grave. If you want the life he can give you, grab it with both hands. But remember, nobody rides the Ferris wheel for free. Be certain you’re willing to pay the price. Marry him, if that’s what you want, but be the wife he deserves.

  I shiver and wonder if Mom Brodie will ever really be gone.

  43

  Abby & Birdie

  A week later I’m sitting in my office, staring at my computer screen. I’m having a hard time getting back into the swing of things. Sarah has started the new school year. Drum’s fall semester is under way. Reed’s too. I talk to Daddy every day; he’ll be cutting soy beans soon. He doesn’t want to talk about my mother. He just keeps saying she’ll be back when she’s good and ready. Mostly we talk about Mom Brodie, sharing memories. We laugh. Sometimes there are a few tears. But all in all, my father seems to be adjusting to the new normal for him. I can’t decide if that’s good or bad. He and my mother have been married almost fifty years, and it appears that she’s walked out on him. And he wants to talk about what soy beans are bringing at auction.

  I’m the one who’s not adjusting. I miss Mom Brodie. It isn’t as if I talked to her every day, but I miss knowing she’s there if I need her. Strangely enough, I think I miss my mother more. Which seems irrational because what do I miss? The time we spent together or talking on the phone, I was mostly annoyed with her. She wasn’t my kind of person. But she was . . . is my mother.

  I’m still staring at the first page of the textbook I’m supposed to be editing when my cell rings. It’s not a number in my contacts. I hope beyond hope that it’s Birdie. She said she’d call, but she hasn’t.

  “Hello?”

  “Abby.”

  I smile. “Mom.”

  * * *

  I like the way she says it. Mom. I don’t know why Abby’s decided to call me that now, after all these years. Maybe because she called Mrs. Brodie Mom. And now that Mrs. Brodie’s gone, there’s room for me? Doesn’t much matter why. I like it.

  I take a sip of coffee from a Styrofoam cup and look out the window of my hotel room. The cliffs of Sedona are even prettier than in the photos in my scrapbook that went out with the trash. I could sit here all day and look at those red rock formations. But I’m not going to sit here all day. I’m going for a hike later. A walk, really. With two old ladies I met downstairs at the buffet breakfast. The food’s free with the room and half-decent, though their hot cakes are a bit heavy. I doubt they use buttermilk; buttermilk’s what makes a decent hot cake.


  “I’m glad you called,” Abby says. “I’ve been worried about you.”

  “I told you not to worry. I’m fine.”

  “I can’t stop worrying just because you tell me to.”

  She does sound worried. And a little scared, which makes me feel bad. But not bad enough to regret doing what I’ve done.

  “Where are you?” Abby asks me.

  I’ve been going back and forth as to whether or not to tell her where I’ve gone. I wouldn’t want anyone coming here, making a fuss, trying to get me to come home. Because I’m not going back to Brodie Island. Not ever. I had decided that by the time I drove over the bridge in the Caddy. I don’t know if I ever belonged there, but I know I don’t belong there anymore. Not with Mrs. Brodie gone.

  “Arizona,” I tell her.

  “Arizona?” She says it like I said I was on the moon. But then she gentles her tone. “Mom, what are you doing in Arizona?”

  I slurp my coffee that’s just the right temperature. They’ve got a coffee pot right in the room here. You can make your own, day or night. “Always wanted to see it.”

  “So . . . you decided to take a vacation?”

  “Nope.” I set down the coffee cup, my gaze focused on the red wall of basalt and limestone out my window. “Decided to move here.”

  Abby’s quiet long enough on the other end of the phone that I pull it away from my ear and look at it. I’ve never had a cell phone before. I got one of the fancy Apple ones like my kids have, so I can search things on the Internet on it. Nothing on the screen says she hung up. I put it back to my ear.

  “You’ve left Daddy?” she says finally. Then, “Does he know that?”

  “If he doesn’t, I suppose he’ll figure it out in good time.”

  “Mom—” She stops and starts again. “You can’t just . . . walk away from your life.”

  “Why not?” I reach for the coffee again. I don’t go on because I’m not ready to talk about it. I wouldn’t say I regret marrying Little Joe because I got Abby and Celeste out of that marriage. And Joseph. Who, when push comes to shove, I love as much as I love my girls. Maybe more, in some ways, because even though he didn’t come from my body, I think he understands me better than they do.