by Lisa Samson
He sits on the edge of the bed and holds out two fingers. “Pass it over.”
“Really?”
“High school.” He takes a drag, then exhales a stream of smoke worthy of a laundry vent.
“Whoa. That was a serious puff of smoke there.”
He shrugs. Hands me back the cigarette, then pulls a small packet of baby wipes and a tin of Altoids from his jacket pocket. He places them on the bed. “You know that tool box I keep behind the driver’s seat of my truck?”
I nod.
“Yeah.”
I giggle. “You still smoke?”
“Yeah. Confession time. It’s why I always drive with the window down.”
Speaking of confessions. “When I was three, I killed my brother by accident.”
The words hit him visibly. “Oh, Sara.”
I nod again. “Can we talk about it?”
“Of course. Wow. Wow. Yeah. You want to do it here?”
“No. Let’s take a walk.”
Forty minutes later we sit atop Federal Hill, looking over the harbor. And I can tell we’ve found our new sweet spot. Right here. I sit between his stretched-out legs, lean back against him, and tell him everything I know.
We arrive home at six, both Finn and I carrying a sack from the Broadway Market. I’m going to tell Aunt Bel tonight that I know the truth. I know she’ll want to run when she hears the news, but I don’t want her to run away for good. Never again.
And here in the unfinished work-in-progress we call home, we’re all going to figure it out together. I’m just not going to have it any other way.
My bag holds a Pinot Noir, three small beef filets, and a packet of fiddlehead ferns. Finn’s bag is filled with a container of the biggest scallops I’ve ever seen, some fingerling potatoes, and—because Aunt Bel is my mother’s sister—three pieces of tiramisu, homemade chocolate fudge, two cannoli, and a dozen chocolate chip cookies.
He can tend to go a little crazy at a bakery stand.
As soon as we unpack our bags in the kitchen, I open the bottle of wine to breathe, cross my fingers, and head up the steps to find Aunt Bel, thankfully, in her bedroom.
“You were smoking,” she says with genuine disapproval from where she sits in a chair by the window. A chair I don’t recognize.
“Where did you get that chair?”
“Somebody pitched it to the sidewalk.”
“And you carried it all the way here?”
“It was terrible.” The disapproving look fades. “Carrying it all the way from next door was one of the most grueling things I’ve ever done.”
I laugh, leaning my shoulder against the doorjamb and crossing my arms. “I won’t keep smoking. I had my reasons for trying one after all these years.”
“Okay.”
Just like that.
“I like it. The chair. Actually, it’s ugly. But you’re making the room your own, and that is definitely beautiful.”
“You can say it. It’s not exactly in ‘good taste.’ ”
“I don’t care about that.”
She runs a hand over the upholstered, threadbare arm. “I don’t either.”
“I know. We’re having a nice dinner tonight. Finn’s getting started down in the kitchen.”
“To celebrate that you made it through whatever happened in the bedroom today.”
“That. And more.” I push off the door frame. “You’re in, right?”
“Yes.” She looks out of the window, then back at me. “I’m in.”
I turn to go.
“You know what, Sara?” she says, still looking out the window. “Finn really knows how to make things taste good, doesn’t he?”
“Yes. He does. Maybe he’s always known the words good taste are better when switched around.”
In the kitchen, Finn has just put the scallops into a marinade of orange zest, soy sauce, and garlic.
“Let’s do these on the grill,” he says, leaning down into a lower cabinet to pull out the pans he’ll need. Finn is a very methodical cook, the opposite to his contracting. He gathers all his supplies and ingredients in advance, every step prepared for in his mind.
“You should have been a chef.” I sit at the kitchen table and reach for the jar of peanuts someone must have placed there earlier.
“I am a chef,” he says. “I cook good food that everybody loves to eat.”
I can’t argue there. Some chefs are born, not made. Honestly, I can picture Finn taking a bath as a little boy and making crab soup out of a Sebastian tub toy.
I unscrew the lid. “Let me ask you a question. You and Aunt Bel. I knew there was something between you two that bonded you together. Smoker’s bond, right?”
“Yep.”
I laugh. “Isn’t it amazing how most things are rarely what they seem?”
“Yes. And usually in a good way. I mean, you’re almost always pleasantly surprised that what you were thinking was far worse than what it actually turned out to be.”
“Usually.”
I think of my baby brother. He doesn’t fit into the pleasantly surprised realm. Not at all.
But he fits.
He is the missing, final piece of the puzzle. And now he’s been placed where he should be. At least in my mind.
I tip the jar and shake some peanuts into my palm.
“Sara? I was thinking.” Finn sets a sauté pan on a cold burner, then slides a cutting board down from atop the refrigerator.
“Uh-oh. Always dangerous. Does that mean we’re going to start another church?”
“Uh … no. Your thoughts about having a baby.”
Crap.
“Do you think your fears are coming from what happened with Jason? Like, you just don’t trust yourself with a child?”
“I haven’t thought much about it yet.” And I still don’t really want to. “But I will think about that.”
“Really?” I hear an edge of hope to his tone.
“I’ll think about your theory. Not anything further. Finn … I just can’t. Not yet.”
“I get it, hon. It’s okay.” It’s a start, I can practically hear him thinking.
Aunt Bel enters the kitchen with a camera I’ve never seen. “I’ve decided something,” she says, sitting down opposite me and setting the camera between us. Whatever brand it is, it isn’t written in English. “I’m not a painter.”
Finn starts to argue.
“No, Finn. I needed to do a painting. But I’m not a painter.”
“I get what you mean, Aunt Bel,” I say.
“And I know I’m not a photographer in the usual sense. But what I’m reasonably sure of, is that I can take pretty pictures.”
Finn raises the wooden spoon he just plucked out of the drawer. “Hear, hear.”
“How long until dinner?” she asks.
“An hour. So a little after seven.”
“I’ll be back.”
She pats the pocket on her skirt, making sure her cigarettes are there, then heads out the front door.
I tell Finn about the chair.
“It’s like her soul knows and she can come home now.”
The new chair should make me feel a little better about the upcoming conversation, but there could be a host of other reasons my aunt chose to bring it up to her room. She won’t run. No, she won’t. Why would she?
Finn acts like our carefully constructed plan from this afternoon just hit him out of the blue. “Look, you two ladies. Get out of my kitchen and leave me to clean up in peace and quiet. I’ve got a podcast I want to listen to.” He’s cute when he’s pretending to be a curmudgeon. “Why don’t you two walk down to the harbor and take a paddleboat ride?”
Aunt Bel looks at me, completely fooled, if I have to guess. “That sounds really nice.”
“I think so too.” I stand up and kiss Finn on the cheek. “Shall we?”
So now we paddle in silence to the middle of the harbor. “There’s something so chummy about paddleboats, isn’t there?” I ask. “Watching
both sets of knees rise and fall together.”
“Yes, I suppose that’s true.”
“Let’s stop here, Aunt Bel.”
The two pavilions of the Inner Harbor, now that the dusk has settled in, are lit from inside, their glass walls glowing and casting their reflection on the water. Four places for the price of two.
“So what is it you have to say to me, Sara?”
“I should have known you weren’t fooled.”
She doesn’t say anything.
I don’t either. What if she’s become so used to this role she’s played for all these years that telling her removes a part of her she’s become so accustomed to that she won’t know how to exist without it?
“You’re ready for me to move on, is that it?” she asks. “Because, I mean, I understand if I’ve overstayed my welcome.”
“No!”
“Because, I swear, Sara. I’m going to get a job or find a way to bring in money to help. I’m not thinking I can stay here forever without sharing the load.”
“That’s not it either.”
It seems without a moment’s notice, the sky has blazed to life and surrounded us in the little place that has always been just me and Aunt Bel. All of the sadness with which she gazed at the picture of her son, all of the anger and fear she felt toward God, all of the squashed hope, the lack of love and security, bounces out from her heart, up against the sky, and into my own. In some ways, in her carrying the load of my action, she became me. She became me for me.
She took my place.
And I feel it.
Oh, Aunt Bel.
“I know it was me who killed Jason.”
The yellow of the sky begins to deepen to orange. The red to plum. Cerulean descends into indigo.
She takes my hand, saying nothing. And there’s nothing left for me to say, other than, “Thank you.”
The whispered words cause her to squeeze my hand.
The minutes slip by.
Finally, she begins to paddle toward the dock, so I paddle alongside her. Looking forward she says, “There were times in Kazakhstan I wondered if all that had happened had been worth it.”
“Is that why you came back?”
“Not just that. I just knew I needed to. It felt like a calling in some ways.”
“Did you know it had something to do with me?”
“If I hadn’t, I would never have come back, Sara.” She lays a hand on my arm. “Sara. Promise me you won’t tell your mother. Please. The reasons I did what I did still stand.”
“I can’t promise that, Aunt Bel. But I will say I won’t make any extra effort to tell Mom. I’ll play that by ear.”
She steps forward. “That’s all I should have asked of you in the first place.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do. What we’ll always do.”
“But any of the other secrets … ,” she begins, and I think of her first husband, Alan, Mr. Novikov, her escape from Kazakhstan, and most likely more revelations that will follow.
“Will stay just that.”
“I think it will do me good to trust in you, Sara.”
Aunt Bel’s profile is cast into silhouette by the golden beam of our house light. When the front door opens, her features are illuminated to their fullness. And she is beautiful.
Odd, yes.
But all the more beautiful for it.
The next morning, all three of us with a food hangover, we practically stumble into Grove Street. Madge takes one look at us. “Just coffee?”
“I couldn’t eat another bite,” Aunt Bel says, laying my old lavender backpack, now holding my digital camera and lenses, a healthy snack, sunglasses, and an aluminum water bottle clipped to a hook on its side, on an empty chair.
“Same for me,” I say. “Just the coffee.”
“You.” She points to Finn. “Don’t disappoint me now, boy.”
Finn caves. “A toasted bagel? Plain?”
“Ah, now that is what I want to be hearing.” She turns from the counter to assemble the order.
We sit and stare at each other for another ten minutes, sipping our drinks until Finn’s bagel arrives. Then we sit and stare at each other some more, Finn chewing the bagel he doesn’t want.
Aunt Bel gets up, grabs a paper napkin, and holds out her hand. Finn hands her the rest of the bagel and she wraps it up. “See? Lunch. Thank you very much, Finn Drexel, for buying a girl lunch.” She stuffs it into the front pocket of the backpack.
I see the missionary in her now. In fact, she’s been everywhere since our conversation.
It was almost as if Aunt Bel was afraid to act like she loved me as much as she did in an effort not to give anything away.
Just as we’re ready to head to the Firehouse, Holly Ringwald pulls up to the curb in her convertible. All of our jaws drop a little as she gets out of the car in jeans, a pair of sneakers, and an old hoodie. Her hair, a regular old medium brown, sprouts in a short ponytail from the nape of her neck. She unlocks the trunk and pulls out a leather suitcase, tanned a golden brown, with a pink bow attached to the handle.
“Hi, guys!” she cries, coming through the door. “I was hoping I wouldn’t miss you. Huey said you would probably be here.” She holds up the suitcase. “Look! For your trip, Sara. As a thank-you for all the hard work you did. The fund-raiser was the most successful one yet!”
“This is beautiful.” I stand up and hug her. “Thank you! You know—”
“—I didn’t have to do it. Yes. But … well …” She scoots out the fourth chair and sits down. “I’m really somewhat jealous and I was thinking if I couldn’t come along, I’d get you a suitcase that could.”
“So there’s no hidden camera in that thing, then?” Finn raises an eyebrow.
She laughs.
I tell her how happy I am that her husband’s event was a success.
She nods. “Yes. I was so pleased!”
Was Eric? Maybe not so much. But maybe that doesn’t matter.
Holly turns to Aunt Bel. “So. Have you made up your mind about accompanying Sara on what could be the most amazing adventure of your life?” She holds a hand up to her mouth and stifles a laugh. “Wait a second! Who am I talking to? A lady that’s lived in Uzbek—”
“Kazakhstan,” I supply.
Aunt Bel shakes her head. “And no, I haven’t. I’ve been looking for a sign. Now that my life has slowed down so much, I have to be a little more careful about my decisions. Back in Kazakhstan, I usually went from one thing to another, but everything always a reaction.”
“This is much nicer,” I say.
“Well, I’ve got just the sign for you.” Holly jumps to her feet, hurries back to the car, and pulls another suitcase out of her trunk. Same pink bow, but made out of dark, walnut brown leather. She runs in and places it next to Aunt Bel’s chair. “Done.”
Aunt Bel, for the first time since she’s come home, looks truly astounded. “Well, no kidding? Huh!”
But she isn’t talking to me, Finn, or even Holly, for that matter.
“Well, okay!” she says. Then looks at me. “Okay. I’ll go. But there’s something I want to do. It’s going to be a big surprise.”
And why not? It’s Aunt Bel. Whatever she wants to do should be fine with me.
22.
Communication Breakdowns Aren’t Always the Same
The next Saturday, standing in front of a long line of shoes at a discount shoe warehouse out in Hunt Valley, Aunt Bel picks up a sandal that should be labeled a contraption, not footwear. “I know these are supposed to be good for your feet, Sara, but I just don’t want to wear something that looks like this.”
“Me either.” I pick up a pair of Keds, little navy blue slip-ons. “How about the old tried and true?”
We’re assembling a small traveling wardrobe for Aunt Bel. Two pairs of shoes, three dresses, and a sweater does not a wardrobe make, and this trip is a good excuse for her to purchase what she needs.
“How about in white?” she asks.
>
“You’re the natural fashion maven, not me, Aunt Bel.”
“White it is.” She tucks the box under her arm and we head toward the checkout counter. “Your mom always wore white Keds when she was young, Sara.”
“What was she like back then?” I stop in front of the sock rack.
“Not the hippie-type person she’s become, but she was more of a free spirit than the world gave her credit for being. She and your dad were such a cute couple. One of those little couples.”
“I guess all they went through made them seem bigger.”
“I can see that.” She reaches out and slides a package of footie socks off the hook.
“I still haven’t heard from her,” I say. “I’m starting to get a little worried. Daddy hasn’t heard from her either.”
“Well, you’ve probably rightly assumed I haven’t.”
“Yes.”
I think back, realizing it’s been a couple of weeks. “What do you say we drive over to the farm, just to make sure everything’s okay? It’s not that far from here.”
Aunt Bel hasn’t seen her sister since my mom dropped her off to stay at our house. “I think that’s exactly what we should do.”
As I pilot the car farther north into Baltimore County onto Falls Road, I try to make myself feel better. “I mean, if something bad happened, surely J. D. would have called. No news is good news and all that, right?”
“That’s usually the case.”
“Are you nervous about seeing her again?” Now that I know the dynamics of my family, I have no trouble seeing why she should feel that way.
“A touch. But I’ve lived with this for so long, Sara.”
“Wouldn’t it be nice to have your sister back? Were you all ever close?”
“She is almost seven years older than me. But yes, we had a strong sisterly bond that I assume would have grown into friendship had I not felt the need to leave.”
When I pull onto the farm, I drive straight to the little bridge. Mom’s bike is tied to the railing, which seems like a good sign. We park the car and as we emerge Aunt Bel says, “So it’s true. She really does live in a tent.”
“Yep.”
She takes in the flower pots and chairs and spinning sculptures. “This is nice!”
“What?” I whip my head around to look at her to see if she’s kidding. She’s not.
