by Dan Kolbet
"Why did you not like this place?" I ask with a hint of sarcasm. It doesn't look like a very nice place to live. Very isolated—not that I have much room to talk about isolation, given my cabin experience, but at least I had a view of the outside world.
"When Mom met Frank she spent all of her time with him," she said. "I never saw her. They were always out doing something at the bar or she would go with him on the road for weeks at a time. Or even when she'd go into one of her fits, she'd be out of it. I was just baggage."
"I'm sorry," I say.
"It's nothing," she claims. "It's what I'm used to."
"That doesn't mean it's right," I say, stating the obvious. "What sort of fits did she have?"
"She'd stay in her room for a couple days," she says. "Or leave without saying where she was going and be gone for the whole day. Stuff like that. We'd try to talk to her and she'd just ignore us. It drove Frank nuts. But every time she'd just come out of it and we'd pretend it didn't happen. Did she do that before with you?"
I hesitate before I answer, knowing how consumed I was with work or writing, often locking myself away for days or weeks at a time in the attic of our house. Did she have "fits" then? It's entirely possible and I was just an idiot not to notice.
"Maybe a little, but not to the extreme you described," I say. "I never put much thought into it, really. She just needed her space sometimes, like everyone else I guess. We got together when we were both very young. When you don't know anything different, it just becomes your reality. Maybe I just don't have anything to compare it to."
"I think you'd remember this. It was pretty hard to miss."
"You're probably right," I say, then add, "You're not baggage. You know that, right? You should never feel that way. I promise I will never allow that to happen again. Not if I can help it."
She smiles at me as I park the truck. She wants to trust me, but there's a distance there. She's fighting off accepting me into her life. I know exactly where she's coming from too, because just a few months back I was in the same place trying to form a relationship with Gracie and Kendall. And I'm still trying. The feelings of guilt wash over me again for being away from them—even though it's only been a few days. Leaving them with Mom was my only choice and I'm not certain any of them would choose it if given an alternative.
I'm ready to go home too. I realize for the first time that I think of the Cedar House as home. For so long home was the solitary cabin in White Fish, Montana. So much has changed.
"Frank's gone," Libby says, as we walk around the side of the house and past an old hot tub with a hole in the side. "His truck's not here, but I know where he hides the key to the barn where Mom's stuff is."
She unlatches the padlock that holds the two large barn doors shut. There's no electricity inside the barn, so we have to prop the doors open wide to see inside. The barn is filled with all kinds of rusted relics. Old gas station pumps and Coke signs are strewn about the place. Antique bicycles and farming implements poke out from piles of old cans and trash. A dumpster-diver's paradise if there ever was one.
Only one corner of the barn managed to avoid the jumbled mess. Behind an old orange Texaco sign is a small patch of open space. Sitting atop several planks of wood, likely meant to keep the above contents dry, were a half-dozen cardboard boxes neatly labeled "Lisa."
"Will these fit in the truck?" she asks.
"What's in them?"
"Just her stuff from the house, I guess. Frank boxed it all up and told me that I could take it whenever I found time. He didn't need it or want it anymore."
She wiggles her finger under the packing tape of the top box and peals back the tape. A large dust plume sprays in my face and I sneeze.
"Sorry about that," she says.
She reaches in to the box and pulls out a shoe box and a stack of New York Times newspapers from well over a decade ago.
"I wonder what these are for?" she asks.
I examine the headlines thinking that maybe the papers were saved from some significant event in history, but nothing jumps out at me after scanning the stories. A Congressman was embroiled in a scandal. The stock market hit a record high. A new Batman movie was opening up. I can't imagine why she kept these newspapers.
Libby opens up the lid of the shoebox. Inside are several Canadian coins, an old leather shaving kit and a gold watch with an elastic band. I recognize the watch instantly and how could I not? It's my watch.
"Does the inscription say, 'For My Lobster'?" I ask.
She turns the watch over and holds it up to the light.
"How did you know that?"
"Because she gave me that watch as a wedding gift a very long time ago," I say.
She hands me the watch. The glass has yellowed and the hands aren't ticking away the time any longer.
"I thought I lost it," I say. "I kept it in my nightstand drawer in a shaving kit box that used to be my grandfather's. I noticed it was gone one day, but didn't know when or why until now. I could never wear it. We found out on our honeymoon that I'm allergic to yellow gold. My ring finger and wrist swelled up so much that I couldn't bend them for days. We had to replace my ring. Luckily the jeweler exchanged it for us because we were flat broke back then."
"So you're a lobster?" She asks.
I laugh.
"It's a silly reference to an old TV show—Friends. It has to do with lobsters mating for life. Two of the main characters were meant to be together, they said, so they are like lobsters."
"Never heard of it," she says.
"It was a bit before your time. You haven't seen the re-runs?"
"Is it on Netflix? Because if not, I probably didn't see it."
"You're missing out," I say.
"On more marine life jokes?"
"Something like that."
"So that's really your watch?" she asks.
I nod in reply.
"Why would she keep that?"
"I have no idea."
I put the watch in my pocket. Libby moves on to opening another box. Inside are bundles of pencils.
"Ever hear of "Edge Water Dentistry?" she asks.
"That's where your mom used to work," I say.
"What did she do there?"
I'm slightly caught off guard by the question, remembering the person I knew was not the same person she knew. Libby knows nothing about the Jane from before, only a story about some woman named Lisa who had fits and made her feel like baggage. I'm also reminded of the pencils my father had in his room at the GreyHawk retirement home—the ones he argued with me about last summer. The same pencils that my father was so sure were delivered to him by my wife and daughter. I wonder now if there was more to that story, but he's gone and I'll never know.
"She was a dental hygienist," I say.
"Wait, you mean to tell me she worked terrible hours at a bar in this podunk town, getting leered at by creeps, when she could have been working in a dental office?"
"She got a degree in it. She even contemplated becoming a dentist herself, but then you came along and she decided going back to school would be too much with a baby in tow."
"Unbelievable," she says.
"After what we've seen this past week, you should have no trouble believing this."
"No," she says with a chuckle. "You're a lobster and she's a dental hygienist. My parents are so weird."
My parents. I cherish those words in my head as we load the boxes into the tightly packed bed of the pickup.
As I walk back to lock the barn door I accidently slide my hand over a rough edge of the wood. A splinter jabs my palm and draws blood. I pull out the splinter no problem, but when I look up I notice something on the barn door that I had previously missed. There, carved into the backside of the barn door are two unmistakable letters and a plus sign. L + F.
Lisa plus Frank. Talk about unbelievable. Was this her way of leaving her mark, by repeating what she and I used to do? I know of course that we're not the first ones to carve our initials in
some piece of wood. The Carving Shelter is an example of that, but it hurts just the same. It hurts that she can replace me in that equation, like an interchangeable part. Like I don't matter. Like I'm baggage. Lost baggage.
I think of the words scribbled over our initials at the Carving Shelter. "I'm sorry - EMM," it read. I made an excuse before, assuming that it had to have been done as a joke or by some vandal. But was it possible that she did it? But when? And why? And what does EMM mean?
I shut the barn door and lock the padlock, sealing up that painful image of her and Frank's pronouncement of love.
Chapter 38
Spokane
"This is nonsense," Mom says.
We're at the Cedar House and she's standing behind the sofa, bracing herself with both hands on the back of it; her mouth agape at me and Libby. After the five-hour drive from Port Orchard, Libby and I came directly to the house in Spokane to see Mom, but this isn't how I wanted things to go. We haven't even entered the living room yet. We're standing just inside the front door.
"Why would you say such things?" she continues. "Nonsense. Where did you find this poor girl?"
"Mom," I say. "This is real. This is Aspen. I know it's a lot to handle, but this is your granddaughter, I thought you'd be thrilled."
Libby ever so subtly slides in behind me, putting distance between her and her grandmother. She's terrified and embarrassed. Mom's reaction is baffling to me. Can't she see the resemblance? Doesn't she recognize her granddaughter?
"Thrilled? Who could believe such malarkey?" She says, then turns to Libby, "I'm sorry dear, but this is some sort of mistake you've been mixed up in."
She grips her way around to the front of the sofa and sits stiffly on the edge, holding her hand to her chest like she's trying to catch her breath. I have to fight the feeling that it's all a show. Does Mom so desperately need attention that she's orchestrating this over-the-top response?
Libby walks by me and examines the photographs on the wall—one of which, includes her as a child.
I start to explain again to Mom how I discovered that Libby is my daughter, but she cuts me off.
"I can't take this sort of excitement," she says, her hand still over her heart. "You shouldn't do this to me, William."
"Maybe I should just leave," Libby offers.
"No, we're staying," I say. "This wasn't supposed to go like this. She's being—well—herself."
"But she doesn't want me here and I'm don't want to be here either if—"
Libby stops as we hear the door to the garage open down the hall. In walk Kendall and Gracie. I look at the time— 3:30 p.m. The girls are just returning home from school. I totally forgot they would be coming home at this time. I shouldn't have brought Libby in this way. I should have sat down with Mom alone before introducing her to Libby. This is a disaster.
"Hello," Kendall says to Libby.
Gracie chimes in with a sing-song, "Hi!"
Kendall seems to be eyeing Libby. They were playmates as very young children and it's entirely possible they would remember each other—if either of them knew who the other was.
They look to me to explain. I freeze, not knowing if I should introduce Libby as my daughter. This makes my stomach churn. Why did Mom have to react this way? Why couldn't she just be happy for me or for her granddaughter for finding her father?
Libby takes the action out of my hands by introducing herself.
"Hi, I'm Libby," she says to her cousins. "Are you guys just home from school?"
"Yeah, I cleaned the class aquarium today!" Gracie says.
"Very cool. Do you like fish?" Libby asks in a sweet voice.
She's obviously been around children before. Yet another thing I don't know about her.
"No, but I got to skip P.E. and we were doing laps on the track and I hate doing laps on the track, so it was good that I cleaned the aquarium instead," Gracie sets her backpack on the floor. "I'm going to go watch TV. Bye, Liberty!"
And with that, she bounces out of the room, leaving the rest of us in silence for several moments.
"What's going on?" Kendall asks, obviously sensing tension in the room. She continues to look Libby over, searching for something.
"Your uncle has lost his mind, that's what," Mom says.
"Great, thanks for that Mom," I say.
"I don't understand. Who are you?" Kendall asks of Libby.
Libby holds up a finger, signaling to give her a moment. She strides across the room and I think she's going for the sliding glass door to the back deck. Maybe she's going to make a run for it and leave this crazy house. Maybe I'll go with her; it might be easier. But instead she picks up a picture frame off a shelf built into the living room wall. It's a picture of me, Jane and Aspen.
I know the picture well because it's the last one that I remember that includes all of us. We were here at this house on an Easter Sunday. Aspen is holding a blue and pink basket filled with little plastic eggs that I remember very clearly helping her find throughout the back yard.
Libby hands the picture to Kendall and points at Jane.
"That's my mom," she says.
"Aunt Jane?"
"Yes, but I knew her as Lisa, or Mom I guess."
"But how—"
"I know, it's weird and all new to me too," she says, pointing to the picture again. "That's my dad too. He's your Uncle Billy, but you know that."
"I don't understand, so who are you?" Kendall asks.
"Well, in that picture I was Aspen. Today I'm Libby or Liberty if you ask your sister."
"So you're my cousin Aspen? But you're—"
"Not dead. Never was," Libby says.
Kendall wraps her arms around Libby's neck and pulls her in for a hug. Tears in her eyes. It's a wonderful thing to witness, and definitely not what I expected. After all the fighting with Kendall, to see her embrace Libby is nothing short of amazing.
"I thought you died," she says, still holding her close.
"I've heard that a few times over the past few days," she says. "I'm still getting used to being brought back to life."
* * *
Libby follows Kendall into her bedroom where I can only assume she's going to explain the entire story in the absence of their grandmother who continues to stew, red-faced on the sofa.
"You're not making this easy, Mom," I say.
"Me? You barge in here after abandoning us for days and days. You bring some girl in here—"
"Your granddaughter," I correct.
"Says you."
"Because she is."
"Please, William, let me finish. She's under the impression that she's Aspen. Why? What sort of witchcraft would lead her to this insane conclusion?"
"Let's start with the fact she looks identical to Jane—"
"Her again? Come on now."
"What the hell does that mean?" I ask. "I don't know what's happened to you over the last few days, but you're acting like a crazy person. Shouldn't you be happy for me? I've got my daughter back. You of all people should be over the moon about this."
"I've lived too long to think that people just pop up out of nowhere," she says. "It's not natural. Is your dead wife waiting in the car or something? Is she going to burst out of a cake and sing for us after dinner? You can't be serious about this. I raised you better. This is my fault, I must have done something to deserve this."
The anger boils inside me. I take in a deep breath and prepare myself to lose it. I hear the shouts in my head and play the argument out to its end. I want to scream at this act of unrepentant narcissism. But I wait. I hold my tongue, knowing that this is a defining moment, one that I expected to be a beautiful, memorable one for all the right reasons. Not like this.
I take another deep breath and try to control my voice.
"This isn't about you. And I shouldn't have to convince you of anything. Libby is your granddaughter. My daughter. She's been lied to and neglected for years and I won't let that sort of negativity continue toward her or anyone in this
family. My family. You're not being yourself."
"You have no right to speak to me that way," she says, her jaw clenched in a way I've never seen before. There's a bitter fire burning somewhere behind that expression. "I've always done what's best for you kids."
"What in the world are you talking about?" I ask, exasperated.
"A mother's duty is never done; that's what."
"OK, I've had enough," I say, standing up. "You aren't making any sense. You need to accept this. Period. This conversation is over."
Chapter 39
Well, another red-letter day in the Redmond family saga for sure. I sit on the bed in my room wondering how this went so wrong. Why would Mom say the things she said? Maybe she's still adjusting to being alone since Dad passed or just bitter about life in general. She's lived her whole adult life with him and now everything is different. She's alone with no one to take care of. And then it hits me—I left her. She said abandoned for days or something like that. Could she possibly be upset about that? My being away couldn't possibly have caused this reaction.
I decide that I've got bigger concerns than trying to figure out why my nutty mom is acting even nuttier than usual. I look at my phone and see that I have a missed call from Michelle. I need to fill her in on everything that's happened—including this fiasco with Mom, but I need a few minutes to process first. I lie back on the bed, my feet still touching the ground, and instantly fall asleep.
Jane comes to me in my sleep. I see her sitting with me at a long table. Dozens of empty chairs surround the table and Jane is at the far end. As far away as she could possibly be. Why is she sitting there? Why isn't she next to me? Then the table is filled with people talking. It's loud. The voices blend into one until all the people at the table turn to me. It's Jane now sitting in every seat.
"Where have you been, Bill?" they say in harmony. "We've been waiting so long for you to find us."
