by R. K. Ryals
Standing, I closed the distance between us, squared my shoulders, and offered him my hand.
Ignoring my palm, he drew me into a hug.
No words. We’d said enough of those.
FORTY-FIVE
Tansy
The sun glared into the van, striking the windows before shattering over pavement and trees, burning a path to Atlanta.
The air conditioner was set on high, releasing a roar of air, filling the interior with something other than silence.
Hetty’s hands gripped the steering wheel, her face stoic, and her eyes on the road. In the backseat, Deena sat slumped against the seat, her gaze traveling back and forth between us, her anger subdued for once.
Halfway to the city, my sister broke. “Is anyone going to say anything?”
I glanced at Hetty.
“Why are we doing this?” Deena continued. “Is it because Tansy fucked Eli?’
Hetty’s gaze shot to the rearview mirror.
Deena frowned. “It’s not like I didn’t overhear you going all cavewoman on her last night. What’s the big deal? Jet totally holds the award for most screws out of the two of them, and I’m pretty sure he lost his virginity way before Tansy.”
“I see you,” Hetty said suddenly, glancing at Deena and then at me, startling us. “Don’t think I don’t see you both. The anger, the fears, and the things you need that you don’t think you do.”
“What—” Deena began.
“Your hearts are burning, and you’re both working so hard to hide it that you’ve forgotten how to look at yourselves.” She glanced up at Deena again. “You really think I’m doing this to Tansy because I’m angry? Because I can’t handle it?” She winced. “I’ve made myself a stranger to you. I admit that. I walked away to grieve, to lick my wounds, and forgot about what I needed to do for my daughter. For my grandchildren. I’m the worst kind of saint. The kind that wants to make a difference but fucked it up first.”
“Nana!” I breathed.
She glanced at me. “I’m doing this because you need it, Tansy. Because you’ve had too many strings in your life. Too many things you’ve had to take care of. All of the pain you’ve caused yourself …” Her gaze dropped to my legs before returning back to the road. “You’re screaming, and I’m listening. You hear me? I’m listening.”
The van sped up, Hetty’s fingers tightening on the steering wheel. Inhaling, she forced herself to slow down. “Those strings that have been attached to you … you’re not required to carry that weight. You shouldn’t look at love and expect it to hurt. Love doesn’t always hurt. What I’m doing is cutting those strings. I don’t want you to stay with Deena. I need to do that, and she,” her gaze found my sister, “can do this. She can! She can make it without you or Jet.”
Deena slouched in her seat, her expression a mix of anger and confusion.
“I’m letting you go, Tansy. Not because I’m angry, but because you need to know what you’re capable of. You need to take care of yourself instead of everyone else. With your dad gone, and me here, you finally have the chance to do that. I’m sorry. I’m sorry because when I came to the hospital when they called me, I still saw children. I didn’t see what death had stolen from you.”
“So this isn’t because she slept with Eli?” Deena asked snidely.
I stared at the passing road, at the houses and lawns which blurred past. So many lives out there in the world, so many things that could go wrong or right in them. So many people. So many voices, smiles, and tears.
“I’m going to say something, and you can take it or leave it. I deserve that,” Nana said, and I knew without looking that she was speaking to me. “Love is a terrifying thing, but it doesn’t have to be everything. You’ve got to love yourself first. Real love is when someone makes you look at yourself, see what you could be, but then steps back so you can be that. You and Eli came into this summer with explosive emotions. Two matches, that when rubbed together, flared bright. That’s not a bad thing. Matches can light the way in the darkness.”
My gaze shifted to her profile. “So I need him?”
“Hell, no,” she rushed to say. “You need yourself. Being in love should be a bonus, not a goal.” She glanced at me, caught my expression, and sighed. “I know you don’t want to hear what I’ve got to say. I was wrong. I made a mistake.”
It was hard to hear her give me advice, but I admired her for trying to be something more than what she’d been in the past. By doing that, she was proving she wasn’t like my father. She’d moved past death. He never did.
“You’re right,” I said, finally. “I really want to take care of myself. I want to see what I’m capable of.”
“Tansy!” Deena exclaimed, leaning forward.
Hetty smiled. “And if you fail the first few times, that’s okay. My door will be open, and my table will be waiting with a cup of tea and a box of Kleenex. But …”
“You’ve got to try to fail,” I said, finishing her thoughts.
The city rose up in front of us, loud and shiny. Like a picture in a pop-up book.
“Deena, you see that?” I asked.
“What? Buildings?”
“No. Opportunity.”
I’d done a science project once, one of many, on turtles. They fascinated me. Their shells the most. Because they didn’t just exist, they carried their home on their shoulders, their safety net, and their place to hide when danger came lurking.
Turtles were slow creatures. Tons of jokes have been made about their speed, expressions created from it.
I didn’t see the joke.
Slow wasn’t bad. Being like a turtle meant taking life one minute at a time and knowing when it was okay to just stop, duck into the shell, and stay.
After all, I’d read the children’s book, the one where the turtle beat the hare in the race. Being fast didn’t always mean winning.
I’d been in my shell for too long, and I had a long, slow road ahead of me.
Slow didn’t bother me. I’d seen the worst thing death could turn people into. I was ready to see what life and living did.
“Maybe we could take our time today,” I said. “Get Dad’s car, go out to eat, and window shop. Maybe even go to the zoo.”
“We’re not kids, Tansy,” Deena groused.
“Yeah, we are. You, especially. I don’t know, I think part of us will always be kids. If there isn’t a kid inside of us, then there’s no room to grow, no lessons to teach it.”
Hetty snorted. “I’ve got a lot of kids inside this old frame. Every year, they learn something new.”
Deena groaned. “I hate this right now, you know that, right?”
I glanced in the backseat, caught the smile ghosting on her lips, and faced the street again. “Yeah, I hate it, too,” I said lightly.
“Can’t stand it,” Hetty agreed.
I had to bite down on my bottom lip to keep from laughing. Hetty didn’t feel like a grandmother to me. Maybe she would in time, but for now, she was family. She was cutting me loose, and I wanted that. It was like jumping, flying through space, wondering where I’d fall.
I’m not going to lie. I felt kind of hollow inside, even with everything. With the new people in my life. Eli. They were beginning to fill a lot of space inside of me, but there was one place no one could fill. No one but me and time. Lots and lots of time.
FORTY-SIX
Eli
I found my mother in her room sitting in front of her vanity. Her hair was loose, flowing in soft curls around her shoulders. Black tights stopped at her calf muscles, a bright green tunic top resting above her knees. A black belt around her waist cinched the fabric and showed off her figure. Black strappy sandals covered her feet.
Leaning forward, she applied a thick coat of mascara on her lashes, and I knew without looking it wasn’t waterproof.
“You must have big plans today,” I said.
Startled, she jumped, dropping the mascara wand. It rolled, drawing a black streak across the white
wood. Sunlight slanted into the room from half-open blinds, the glow catching on light beige carpet and a floral bedroom suit. It reminded me of Tansy. Modern was more my mother’s style.
Ivy clutched her chest. “You frightened me, Eli.”
“Not my intention. Sorry.”
She studied me, her brows furrowing, before she picked the mascara wand up and leaned forward again. “I may run into town,” she told me.
I watched her do her makeup. There was something about the way she wiped at the lines to even them out, the way she rummaged through brushes, and smoothed on colors like her face was a canvas. It was comfortable watching her. It made me a boy again—young and hopeful. It wasn’t my mom that scared me. It was what she was capable of that had made me more fearful the older I became.
“I think we need to talk,” I said finally.
Mom paused. “Eli, I don’t think now—”
“Why did you do it?” I asked. “Why did you drug me? And Jonathan and Heather?”
Pops was right. I was beginning to let stuff go, and this was my biggest hurdle. This rocky relationship I had with Mom. Being with Tansy, considering a future relationship with her, meant facing things that could hold me back. People talk, but they don’t always say what they want to say. They act out instead, using emotion to hide what they really feel. I’d become so embroiled in the horror of what my mother did, I hadn’t been able to look past that world, past that experience to see the bigger world beyond it.
Until the orchard. Until Tansy. Until now.
My mother stiffened, her manicured hands coming to rest on the vanity’s surface. The skin there wasn’t as tight as it used to be no matter how much lotion and anti-aging products she rubbed into her flesh.
“Don’t tell me the stuff I’ve heard before,” I added. “The whole I did it for you crap. Just tell me why you did it. Tell me what was going through your head when you did it.”
She looked at me, chin up. “I can’t answer that question.”
Anger, cold and cruel, unfurled inside of me. “Why?”
Her lips quivered. “Because I don’t know why. I just did it.”
“There had to be a reason,” I insisted. “You don’t just drug your kids and not know why, Mom.”
“Ivy,” she corrected, her gaze going to her reflection.
I stared at her, my heart pounding. “Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom … what do you hate about that word so much? Why do you have such a problem with us calling you that? It’s what you are. It’s what you fucking are.”
Mom’s fingers started to tap the table, her jaw tensing.
“What’s the purpose of Ivy?” I asked. “Mom, Mom, Mom—”
“Stop!” she shouted. “Just stop! I did it because I didn’t want to be a mother!”
Her words were knives, and my heart was the bull’s eye.
“What?” I whispered.
Her chest heaved, her nails digging into the vanity. “You … I don’t know. I was in love with your fathers. I thought keeping them interested meant having something that kept us connected. But then the relationships got so suffocating, and I didn’t feel the same.”
We were gifts she’d had to give to the men in her life, but then couldn’t return when they weren’t what she expected.
“You never loved them,” I bit out.
“Is that what you want to hear?” she asked. “No, I didn’t really love them. I felt like I did. You, Heather, and Jonathan were chains, holding me down.”
“So you wanted to kill us?”
She panicked, her eyes widening. Shooting to her feet, she knocked over the chair she’d been sitting on. “No!”
“That’s what it sounds like, Ivy.”
“N-no,” she stuttered, “I loved you. All of you. I just wasn’t ready … I didn’t want to hurt you.” Confusion swept over her face. “I don’t know why I did it. I don’t—”
“You could have just sent us away,” Jonathan’s voice said from the hallway.
I turned, finding my brother standing behind me. He wasn’t angry like me—that wasn’t Jonathan’s emotion. Hurt and pain filled his eyes, reason keeping him grounded. Like he knew she would never give us an answer that mattered, and he was okay with that. It was enough she knew how we felt. I needed to take lessons from my brother.
Footsteps thudded on the stairs, and our grandfather materialized at the end of the hall. He froze, staring at us, horror on his face.
A whimper escaped our mother. “Jon?” She reached for him, but he didn’t approach her.
“What’s better, Ivy?” he asked. “Being surrounded by family or strangers.”
“Boys,” Pops began. He paused when we threw him identical quelling looks, his shoulders slumping. “Okay,” he said. “Get it out.”
A sob escaped our mother. “You told him!” she accused me.
I didn’t say anything because I had.
A mascara-tinged tear slid down her cheek, ruining her makeup. “Jonathan, please don’t hate me,” she begged.
He stepped toward her. “I don’t hate you. I love you. You’re my mother, no matter what you want us to call you.’
“But you’re not looking at me the same,” she pointed out.
“You mean, I don’t see you as a victim anymore?” he asked, shrugging. “No, I don’t. We were the victims, Ivy. Heather and Eli, especially. At least my dad cared, you know? I had that much. They had Pops, but they couldn’t escape you. They couldn’t leave every time you got frustrated. They had to brace themselves for your tears and deal with it. I hate to say it, but by staying, they showed you more love than you deserved at the time.”
My lips parted, the old need to defend Mom startling me. She didn’t need defending. My mouth snapped shut.
Mom fell to her knees, her fingers digging into the carpet. “You hate me,” she wailed.
“No, I don’t,” Jonathan repeated. “I’ll always love you. I may not agree with you, but I love you.”
She looked up at me, her eyes lit with anger. “You told him! I hate you, Eli! I hate you for that!”
The part of my heart that had tried with my mom, the part that could have forgiven her, was pulverized. Her words were the push I needed. I didn’t need to forgive her to move forward. I just needed to hear her say the words.
“Ivy!” my grandfather cried.
I held my hand up. “No.” I laughed, my eyes on my mother. “Which one of us is on our knees, Ivy? It isn’t me. This world isn’t pretty, you know? No matter how beautiful you are, how much makeup you apply, or how classy you look, you shit and piss the same way the rest of us do. We didn’t give up on you. We didn’t even ask to be here, but we’ve always picked you up. I don’t hate you. Even if you hate me. Funny, how I can’t find enough anger in me to hate.”
I backed into the hallway.
“Jonathan,” she screeched, “stay with me!”
My brother didn’t stay.
“It’s not you she hates, Eli,” my grandfather told me when we passed.
I froze. “I know.” Placing my hand on his shoulder, I squeezed. “It’s the part of me that reminds me of her that she hates.”
Pops blinked, his eyes bright. “You see that now?”
“Yeah, I do.”
Mom wailed behind us. Pops remained. We didn’t.
Jonathan’s feet thudded behind mine on the stairs. “Hey, Eli,” he said when we reached the bottom.
I faced him.
“I love you, brother,” he told me.
I smiled. “I love you, too, Jon.”
The words came easier than I thought they would, which made me wonder what it would be like to say them to someone else. It made me wonder how much of the feeling, not just the words, I was capable of.
I was not my mother.
FORTY-SEVEN
Tansy
Atlanta turned into a fun day with Deena and Nana, our problems brushed aside. Not forgotten, but no longer so large, so all-consuming.
Lots of laughter followed us.
It was a hot day running into shops to escape the heat, going into businesses I needed to go into, and then ending with the zoo, me following Nana’s van in Dad’s Buick.
We walked the zoo for hours, teasing each other and eating cotton candy like we didn’t have this whole other life to return to. Like Nana wasn’t taking a day off of work, like Deena wasn’t afraid of the future, and like I didn’t have a job and a place to live to look for.
When we left, I climbed into the Buick and followed Nana out of Atlanta, the setting sun throwing shadows and patches of pink into a golden sky.
Buildings and traffic waved good-bye in the rearview mirror, and I saw myself in the chaos. It’s crazy how much of me I’d lost in the three years after Mom’s death. Everything I’d ever wanted stopped being aspirations I looked forward to and became enemies, dreams that strangled me, the future hating me because I’d let go of it.
It was easy to let go of things. It was harder fighting to get them back.
The rearview mirror was a pair of binoculars staring into a part of me I was leaving behind.
A ghost sat in the passenger seat, my father’s scent lingering in the fabric.
“I don’t know what you were thinking,” I told Dad’s spirit. “I don’t guess I understand what it was about Mom that made the rest of us less. Is it wrong that your love for her made me start to hate her?” I glanced at the empty passenger seat. “When she died, I missed her a lot. Even dead, she clung to us. She was in the leftover food she left in the fridge the night before the accident, she was in the grocery list she left out on the counter, in the missed call she made to your phone before she left for work, and in the open tube of toothpaste she left out on the bathroom counter.”
I winced. “At first, I kind of loved that she was everywhere. Until you ruined it. You let her memory become a demon that possessed you rather than the angel we all needed her to be to move forward.”
Reaching out, I touched the empty passenger seat. “Demons eat your soul, Dad. They change you and everyone around you. They changed us, and now … we need to exorcise those demons. It’s time to say good-bye to them.”
