Things Remembered

by Georgia Bockoven

  “When you end up with lemons, make lemonade, huh?” Heather said.

  “If you want to look at it that way.”

  “Do me one favor.”

  “What now?”

  “Deduct the cost of the new bed from his final paycheck.” Her eyes sparkled with mischief at the suggestion.

  Karla would have laughed but was afraid if she let one emotion go another would follow. Reason should have dulled the disappointment or at least numbed the pain, but she’d allowed the hope that she and Jim could work things out between them to ride too high too long for it to be brought down so easily. “I think I could manage that. Thanks for the idea.”

  Heather took the salad out of the refrigerator. “I’m sorry, Karla. I know you don’t want to hear any more, but I can’t believe you’re going to let him get away with this without fighting back.”

  “Why should I care who he’s living with? I’m over him. I have been for a long time now.” Finally she sounded convincing, even to herself. Maybe Heather would let it go if she added just a little more. “I admit it would have been nice if he’d been more up-front about the whole thing, but then that’s not Jim’s style. It never has been.”

  They seemed to be the words Heather needed to hear. “You know, Jim doing this could be a blessing in disguise. Maybe all you needed was for him to do one more really shitty thing to prove he was never going to change. Now you can really get on with your life instead of simply going through the motions and telling everyone you are.”

  “Tell you what—I’ll get on with my life if you get on another subject.” Karla took the salad bowl and headed for the dining room.

  “I didn’t say that to hurt your feelings. You know as well as I do—”

  The front door opened. “We’re home,” Bill called out.

  “We got ice cream,” Jamie shouted as he tore through the living room. “And cookies.”

  “I hope you got the salad dressing, too,” Heather said, reaching for the brown bag Jamie held aloft.

  Bill came in with the three-year-old, Jason, tucked under his arm. “It smells great in here.” He gave Heather a quick kiss, smiled at Karla, and lowered Jason to the ground. He instantly attached himself to Heather’s legs. “Daddy let us ride the horsey. Two times. I got to go all by myself because Jamie was being mean.”

  Thankful for the distraction and for having the focus shifted to something other than herself, Karla busied herself filling glasses with water and milk and putting hot pads on the table for the lasagna.

  Chapter

  2

  Dinner was lively and full of childhood chatter as both Jamie and Jason fought for their parents’ and Karla’s attention. When a lull finally appeared, Bill took advantage of it to ask Karla, “How did the car buying go?”

  At the last minute, Karla had made an inconvenient detour to L.A. in response to Grace’s impassioned plea for help. It seemed that it had suddenly become critically necessary for their little sister to have a new car, at least a new used one from Car Max. There was no way she could wait until Karla came home and no way she could ever make the purchase without her oldest sister’s expertise.

  “Fine,” Karla said. She was still feeling put-upon by Grace but past the point of needing to vent.

  Bill grabbed a piece of lasagna noodle as it left Jason’s fork and headed for the floor. He put it on the corner of his plate without missing a beat in the conversation. “What kind did she get?”

  “A BMW.” The sporty one Karla would have liked to have for herself but couldn’t fit into her budget.

  Pausing midbite, Heather said, “Wait a minute. I thought she said she needed you with her to negotiate the deal. Aren’t those the cars they sell at a set price?”

  Karla nodded, knowing what was coming, wishing she could head it off, feeling as foolish as she always did when Grace managed to manipulate her into doing something she knew better than to do.

  “Don’t tell me she talked you into buying it for her.” Anger created twin red circles on Heather’s cheeks like some 1920s makeup artist gone crazy with rouge.

  “There’s no way I would let her do that.”

  “Then what?”

  Reluctantly, Karla admitted, “I cosigned the loan.”

  Bill put his napkin on the table and sat back in his chair but didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to, his actions said enough.

  Heather took a drink of water and sat for several seconds with her jaw clamped tight. It appeared that she, too, was going to let the news go without comment. Then it was as if the frustration had nowhere to go but out. “God damn it, Karla—” She glanced at Bill and then the kids. “I’m sorry,” she said to Jamie, “I shouldn’t say words like that. No one should. Not ever.”

  She wasn’t so distracted by the swearing she didn’t finish. She glared at Karla. “Grace is never going to grow up if you don’t stop dancing to her tune. You either back off and let her learn to depend on herself or she’s going to turn into an emotional cripple.”

  “All I did was cosign. She made her own down payment.” Minus the thousand dollars her trade-in didn’t cover, which Karla had insisted was a loan, not the early Christmas/birthday present Grace had suggested.

  “Which means if she stops making payments you either make them for her or lose your own credit rating,” Heather said.

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “Did she say why she needed a luxury car when all the rest of us get by with practical?”

  Karla knew the answer wouldn’t satisfy Heather, but gave it anyway. “She needed something she could count on to get her to auditions and to make her look successful.”

  “And you bought into that?”

  “Her auditions are all over town. Some days she has half a dozen and might as well not go as be late.”

  “All those auditions and no jobs. Wouldn’t you think she’d at least have had a commercial by now?”

  “She doesn’t go out on commercials.”

  “Oh? And why is that? Too good for them?”

  “She’s afraid they’ll typecast her.”

  “What about all the famous people who got their start in commercials?”

  Bill reached over to wipe sauce from Jason’s chin. “I think we’re going to let the two of you work this out by yourselves.” He reached for Jason and said to Jamie, “Come on—let’s see what we can find to watch on television.”

  “I’m sorry, Bill,” Karla said. “You don’t have to go. We’ll behave.”

  “That’s all right. I shouldn’t have brought up the car, but I think the two of you have a few other things that need to be worked out, too.” He smiled, leaned over and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “If you’re still talking to each other when you finish, I’ll take you over to Monterey to check on the sea lions.”

  When he was gone, Karla got up and started clearing the dishes.

  “Leave them,” Heather said. “I’ll get it later.”

  She sat back down, in Bill’s chair this time which was closer to Heather’s. “You know Grace thinks you don’t like her.”

  “She could be right.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  Heather propped her hands over her belly. “What I really don’t like is the person Grace is becoming. She’s turning into a user. And you’re not only facilitating the transformation, Karla, you’re encouraging it. You’ve got to let go. How is Grace ever going to learn that if she falls she can get up under her own power if you’re always waiting around to pick her up? You’re denying her any sense of accomplishment from doing something herself.”

  “Wow, that’s quite a speech. How long have you been working on it?”

  “Don’t you dare use that superior-sounding, condescending voice on me. It’s not a speech, it’s a fact.”

  Karla backed off fighting the need to defend herself. “All right. So what do you think I should have done about the car?” When Heather started to answer, Karla held up her hand to stop her. “Wait a
minute. Before you say anything, you should know Grace checked into having the old one fixed and it was going to cost more than it was worth. Also, if she can’t get to auditions she can’t get a job. Without a job she can’t pay her rent—let alone car payments.”

  “What would you have done if you were faced with the same circumstances?”

  The question took Karla by surprise. “That’s beside the point.”

  “Why?”

  “Grace isn’t me.”

  “And why is that?”

  Karla hated losing ground in any argument, let alone one to Heather. “Do you really want to get into a discussion about birth order?”

  “That’s a cop-out and you know it. Grace being the youngest has nothing to do with this. She can’t take care of herself because you won’t let her.”

  Karla got up again. “I’m sorry I ever told you about the car.”

  “You had to. At least you had to tell us about it or come up with some other reason for cutting short your visit.” Heather stood now, too. “That’s another thing that pisses me off. Grace gets to see you whenever she wants. She snaps her ‘poor little me’ fingers and you’re there before her crocodile tears are dry. I get you once a year, twice if I’m really lucky. It’s been ten months since you were here last and yet she sees nothing wrong in summoning you to L.A. even when she knows it means you have to cut days off your visit with me.”

  This was not the time to point out that the road between their houses ran both ways. “Would it help if I promise to try to make it back for Christmas?” They hadn’t spent a Christmas together in six years.

  “And how are you going to manage that?”

  “I don’t know, I’ll figure something out.” With Halloween and Thanksgiving to get through yet, Christmas seemed a lifetime away.

  “I’d love it. But you know what I’d like even more? If you could be here when the baby’s born.”

  “Me, too, but I don’t think you’d love how long you had to stay in labor for me to get here in time.”

  “You could—” She shook her head. “Never mind. Get through your month with Anna first, and then we’ll talk about it.”

  “Speaking of Anna—I know you have your mind made up about having her come to live with you, but I wish you’d reconsider.” Karla had hoped that by going to Anna’s herself she would take the burden of responsibility off of Heather. But Heather was convinced that in the end Anna’s care should fall to the person who loved her most, and neither Karla nor Grace could lay claim to that position.

  “I know you do, but my mind’s made up. I can’t turn my back on her now. Not after everything she did for us.”

  “You’ll be taking her away from her home. All of her friends are—”

  “I know. But it’s family that matters. You taught me that, Karla.”

  “No fair.”

  Heather laughed. “Come on. I’ve decided you can help me with the dishes after all. Then we’ll let Bill drag us over to see his sea lions and come home and have Jamie’s ice cream and cookies.” She handed Karla a plate. “I’ve got to find a way to get through to Bill that not everyone is as enchanted with sea lions as he is.”

  “Don’t. I love that he wants to share them with me.”

  Heather laughed. “And I love that you make him think he’s doing you a favor.”

  Karla finished stacking the plates and carried them into the kitchen. She thought about being with Heather a lot when they were apart, but it wasn’t until they were together that she realized just how much she missed her sister. More than that, how much she missed being part of a family that did things together. A family that had time for each other. She wanted to go back to the family they had once been, the family of her childhood, the one only she remembered.

  Chapter

  3

  The sun settled behind the gently rolling mountains of the coast range, leaving the western sky in the Sacramento Valley awash in purple and orange and salmon.

  As she traveled I-5 up from Stockton to Sacramento, her appreciation for the display was limited to quick glances out the side window of her car. She’d thought she was leaving Salinas in time to miss the rush hour traffic in Sacramento. Instead she was caught in the middle of it.

  Alone, confined, and without distraction for her thoughts, Karla used the time to search for a way to cope with the crushing disappointment that Jim had found someone else. When she’d shown him around the shop, pointing out the changes she’d made, his excitement at being back was palpable. For the first time he admitted that he’d floundered since leaving, that nothing he had done since came close to the pleasure he’d received from running their business. She’d chosen to believe that she was part of what he’d missed.

  Now, with someone in his life again, she could no longer nurture the fantasy of a reconciliation, letting herself believe his late-night calls and spur-of-the-moment visits were a sign that he couldn’t get her out of his system instead of simply being part of the slow process of breaking a habit.

  Still, there was a part of her that wondered how he would have reacted had he known she was willing to try again. Would it matter if he knew that for over two years she hadn’t dated anyone more than twice, that she’d stopped letting her friends set her up with their friends, that she went to bed every night and got up every morning with the hope that he would finally realize he couldn’t live without her? Would knowing provide the jolt that made him change?

  She’d never find out. It was better that she moved on—as he had. She’d already wasted two and a half years.

  But her heart wasn’t ready. She wasn’t sure it ever would be.

  A sea of red taillights flashed, bringing the traffic to a stop one car at a time. Karla braced the steering wheel with her knee and stretched, rolling her shoulders and moving her head from side to side. There had to be a corner of hell reserved for the people who made sleeper sofas—a corner where they spent eternity going to bed every night on their own product. Next time she stayed at Heather’s, she was going to sleep on the floor no matter how much her sister protested.

  As the cars ahead inched forward, she looked down from her elevated position on the freeway to what had been a bustling railroad yard decades ago. Now it was an environmentally chancy, incredibly valuable piece of downtown real estate waiting to be developed.

  The city had changed dramatically in the six years she’d been away, almost as if there’d been another gold rush, only this time the flush of immigrants had built up instead of spreading out. The new skyline erased the old image of California’s capital as a sleepy, overgrown cow town. While a long way from being mistaken for San Francisco or Los Angeles, Sacramento had definitely and defiantly awakened from its nap.

  Karla wasn’t sure she liked the city’s new look. She did know, however, that she didn’t think much of the traffic the change had brought with it. She didn’t like waiting for anything, but when the payoff was simply getting from one side of the city to the other, it tried her patience.

  Once through the city, it took another half hour to drive the twenty miles to Rocklin. The sky was a star-speckled black when she finally pulled into her grandmother’s driveway.

  A single light burned inside the living room of the Queen Anne-design house. Once a mansion in a town of Finnish immigrant laborers, a hundred years later it was as out of step with the modern world as the woman who lived inside.

  The same lace curtains that had covered the windows nineteen years ago when Karla first came to live with her grandmother still covered them now. Karla looked for signs of movement behind the lace but saw nothing; it was as quiet inside as out.

  Even knowing her grandmother was in the house and likely wondering about the headlights that had flashed across the windows, Karla couldn’t summon the emotional energy she needed to get out of the car. It was as if the past nineteen years had disappeared and she was fourteen again, foisted off on a woman she hardly knew, aware that after two years of being shifted from relative to rela
tive on her father’s side of the family this was the last stop for her and Heather and Grace together. They either made it work here or they would be split up forever, sent to live with aunts and uncles and cousins states apart from each other.

  Her gaze shifted to the second-story corner room with the turret window alcove where she’d studied more than played during the four years she’d been here, determined to make the grades that would get her a scholarship to a school far away from Rocklin and her grandmother and all they represented.

  Finally, reluctantly, she got out of the car. She had almost reached the front door when she saw her grandmother sitting in the straight-backed rocker that was as much a fixture on the porch as the fake ferns in their redwood pots.

  “What are you doing out here in the dark?” The question came out more accusation than query.

  “Waiting for you,” Anna said simply, as if it had been hours instead of years since Karla’s last visit.

  “How did you know I was coming? Did Heather call?” She’d specifically asked her sister not to say anything, deciding it would be easier for her and Anna both if she waited until she was there to explain why she’d come.

  “No . . . Heather didn’t call,” Anna said. “How long are you staying?”

  “A month.” She still didn’t understand what had prompted her to come for an entire month. No matter how complicated Anna’s estate, what they had to do wouldn’t take near that long. “If that’s all right with you, of course.”

  “This is your home, too. I’ve always told you and your sisters that you can come as often as you want and stay as long as you like.”

  Karla crossed her arms, leaned against the post and openly studied her grandmother. She’d thought some of the fire would have left her eyes, dampened by fear of what was ahead. But she should have known death wouldn’t scare Anna the way it did normal people. “When did you stop coloring your hair?”

  Anna brought up her hand to touch the cap of soft white curls that surrounded her face. “A couple of years ago. I was getting so thin on top I figured gray would blend in better with the bald spots.”