The Shortest Distance Between Two Women

by Kris Radish

  Emma tries to speak, but Marty raises her hand, and asks her to stay quiet until she finishes.

  Marty’s father quickly fell apart and, especially after the death, was never the same. He died a broken man not long after his fiftieth birthday. But before that Marty was the nurse, the cook, the one who moved into bed beside her mother and held her as she rocked herself through the pain. It was Marty who watched as her mother’s body literally disappeared and the circles under her eyes swallowed her entire face. It was Marty who came running when her mother’s screams of pain rocketed through the house. It was Marty who was there the day her mother died and who walked into town to get her father and Marty who dressed her mother in the funeral clothes. It was Marty who stayed in the house as long as she could before she knew that if she did not leave, her father’s grief and the memory of her mother would swallow her whole.

  When Marty turns to Emma and puts her hands on both sides of her face and feels her tears, she tells Emma that the day she finally left was the day she promised herself that she would get her family back by creating her own family.

  “I had essentially lost everything and everyone,” Marty admits, “and to me—family—that was everything, it always was everything and always will be everything. When I met your father it was the start of my family again, after so much loss, and that is why I have always hung on so tightly, perhaps too tightly.”

  Marty stops to take a breath, to say what must come next, what she really came to say.

  I wanted you and your sisters to have what I had and then lost.

  I wanted you to always feel safe and to know that you were always loved.

  I wanted you to understand the importance of roots and bonding and being able to have an entire conversation with a sibling without actually speaking.

  I wanted family to be a gift and never a burden.

  I wanted, even after your father became ill, for none of you to lose sight of the fact that we were, and always will be, a family.

  I wanted you to be your own person and at the same time to be able to look around the table and see how connected we are.

  And you, Emma, Marty confesses, you were such a special gift and constant surprise for me. The moment I felt you move inside of my womb, when I thought there would be no more babies, it was as if we were connected in a way that was unlike anything I had ever experienced. You, my lovely, were so my heart and so the one who always seemed to understand me. And so the one who, not just because you are the youngest, have always been the one I have counted on the most.

  But.

  But, Emma, you have grown tired and unhappy. And your impatience with the world, with me, with everyone, needs to be addressed. You’re not living, you’re just existing. And that’s a sin, my darling daughter.

  Emma stops her mother. She feels a mixture of sweet anger and sadness mingle within her chest.

  “These stories, Mom … they’re stories I would like to have known so much sooner,” she admits. “It makes me feel as if there has always been a huge hole between us and I never knew it. I am so confused right now …”

  “There are many other things I could tell you, many things that perhaps I should have told you, but until this moment I never felt the need to reveal those things,” Marty answers quietly. “But remember I never knew about Samuel. We are all entitled to keep what we need to keep and then give it away when it is time.”

  “This hole I feel between us, Mother, maybe it’s because our lives seem so different suddenly. Maybe it’s because of Robert, or my growing unhappiness at work, or the way my sisters and I have been fighting …”

  This is not the stuff they write about in books about mothers and daughters, Marty knows with all certainty. It is not the stuff you worry about when your babies are born or when you have the sex talk and then ask if there are enough tampons in the bathroom. This is, however, the stuff that can either make the distance longer or shorten it up in such a way that there will never ever be a gap again.

  “I know you see me as strong, and now maybe even a bit wild, but the truth, Emma, is that all of these years with you alone and even years before that, when your father was alive, I was terrified that I might be letting you down in some way. I have the advantage in seeing how alike we are because I knew what I was like at your age, and all the years before that, and you do not have that knowledge.”

  Marty, afraid? Marty, hesitant?

  “Oh, Mom, no,” Emma cries.

  “The most important thing in the world is to be happy. That is why we are here and that is all that matters. There has to be a moment when you choose happiness, when you stand up, raise your face towards the sun, and just grab joy and put it in a place where no one can ever take it away from you. Emma, you so need to do that. You so need to know also that I am here for you, as I have always been here for you, and that not one thing I have ever done in my life was done to hurt you.”

  And Marty adds softly, Emma, you need to stop blaming others. You need to see that everyone, even your sisters, wants what is best for you.

  Choose, Emma.

  Emma slides just an inch closer to her mother then and falls into her arms and Marty catches her because she knows that is exactly what Emma will do.

  And what Emma at first thought of as an insurmountable distance between a mother and a daughter begins to disintegrate as Marty rocks her grown daughter like a baby and Emma tangles her hand in the sweet lips of a smooth sumac that feels as if it is kissing her fingers and she feels the hard edges of her heart begin to open like a summer flower.

  But is it enough? Emma asks herself.

  Is it enough?

  21

  THE TWENTY-FIRST QUESTION:

  So, Emma, can you choose?

  THE GARDEN IS A COCOON OF SAFENESS, early morning light, and an exotic mixture of scents that are beyond an intoxicating wake-up call when Emma crawls from her bed, coffeeless, still wearing her old Snoopy boxer shorts and a sleeveless black T-shirt that Stephie left during her last sleepover. She lies down on the grass and she hears herself say, “So, Emma—can you choose?”

  The question startles not just Emma but also the black-eyed Susans, which appear to be blinking as if they have something caught in their lovely brown centers. Emma has decided to lie on her stomach in front of the Susans because she loves them in a way she does not love any of her other flowers.

  She loves how they are simple and how many people think of them as commonplace because they adore spreading themselves like rippling ribbons of yellow along roadsides, across pastures, fields, meadows and just about everywhere there is soil. Susans are also individuals. Some of them shed their leaves before others. Some are short. Some are leggy and tall. A couple of years ago six breeders jumped three rows over, in what Emma came to believe was some kind of squabble that set in when she bumped the whole mess of them with the side of her red wheelbarrow. The daisy-like Susans are also hearty suckers who seem to grow stronger every time there is a harsh winter, a late spring, or some runaway dog gets into the yard and goes digging around before Emma can save her lovely ladies.

  This fine Saturday morning even the unflappable Susans appear startled by the prone appearance of Emma so early in the day. A day this time of the year is usually filled with shopping for plastic serving trays, extra reunion auction gifts, thousands of napkins and hundreds of other items on a very, very long “must get before the family reunion” list that is always Emma’s responsibility.

  Emma reaches a few inches in front of her and runs her hands along the legs of all the flowers as far as she can see. When she is finished she opens up all of the fingers on each hand, slides them into the very tops of the roots of the closest flowers and turns her head so that she is lying on her left cheek. Then she asks herself if she can indeed choose.

  There is no wind to push for an answer, no ancient horticultural message hoisting itself up past the layers of sand, rocks, dirt, no drifting leaves or petals to land in the perfect configuration so Emma can i
nterpret their meaning.

  Even on a day when there is little or no wind, the flowers and bushes and plants will occasionally move. A bird will fly past and the thumping of wings, the turn of a feathered head, the flick of a tail, will turn a stem. Sometimes the magic of this plant world will create its own tornado and for seemingly no reason at all there will be wild swaying, pieces of reds, yellows, blues and oranges flying as if they have been chopped with one of those horrible weed whackers that should be sent to a dump and then run over by a million tanks. Now and then an old or sick flower will simply fall over and cause a wave of grief that ripples through the garden like a row of dominos that are looped in a circle and can only stop when the grieving for the lost flower ends. This morning, however, as the question of choosing hangs in the air, it is as if the entire garden has lost its sheet music and is on pause.

  It is as if someone has slipped into Emma’s garden just moments before the pause and alerted them to the sad and sorry emotional state of their mistress.

  It is as if they know that this is a question that only Emma Gilford can answer.

  Emma’s last three days have been a charade of comings and goings, of avoiding Erika who has returned from her visits, of a reunion meeting that she attended where she could not look one sister in the eye, and of thanking her mother for being so honest—when the real truth is that she feels as if she has been scooped out until she is hollow by one of those melon utensils that women who have absolutely nothing else to do use to fix fruit bowls.

  Emma has a stomachache, her period has come five days early, which is a miracle of sorts, and she’s been unable to eat, drink or be merry except during those few moments when she has had to fake happiness and act as if she knows what in the hell she is doing.

  It is not a midlife crisis, Emma has decided, but as Stephie would say, it’s a wild hot ball of family shit and bullshit and revealed secrets and the absolutely stunning and unbelievable news about every Gilford she knows, including herself.

  And the very real idea that so much of her life has been on pause while she hides behind the skirts, dresses, and pant legs of her sisters and mother.

  And of course, that already mentioned glorious planning meeting yesterday, where the four sisters gathered with Marty around the antique dining room table and argued for three hours, did not help much. Emma felt as if she was having a total out-of body experience as she listened to Joy, Debra and the usually cooperative Erika squabble about things like paper plates, ring toss games and monitoring the beer keg.

  “Well, hire a cop or something, Debra, if you think the teenagers are going to sneak beer, but I think there are better ways to spend our money,” Joy had snapped.

  “And I suppose you’d rather buy vodka for the punch,” Debra had fired back.

  “Come on already,” Erika threw in. “How many Gilford teenagers have had their first beer at the family reunion? It’s a rite of passage. Don’t we have better things to worry about?”

  That’s when a discussion about purchasing paper products turned into an environmental crusade that had them saving an entire rain forest by using plastic and washing it all the following day.

  “I’m not washing any damn plates!” Joy shouted.

  “So you’re too good to wash plates?” Debra sniped.

  Emma longed to run outside, away from this chaos, temperament, and insanity. Instead, she stayed and listened and was allowed to say something every few minutes but chose not to, avoiding eye contact with Erika, until another brassy sister or her mother started all over again. The Gilford reunion, Emma realized as if she had finally fallen on her head, was the tipping point in her life—it was the one thing that could make her run screaming and possibly naked down the main street of Higgins.

  Emma, have you ever really chosen?

  Now in her garden, Emma tries with her eyes closed to make one of her plants move. And nothing happens. It is the calm before the storm. The Bermuda Triangle. The years some women spend waiting for the right man. The seven-day wait in the hospital room. The long echo of a train that never quite seems to get where it is going. The longer wail of sorrow that seeps from the lungs of wild birds who have lost their mates.

  She does not know how to dig back thirty years to uncover memories of her parents that may reveal something else she should, but does not, know.

  She does not know if she has really ever stopped long enough to choose.

  She does not know at this moment what she would choose.

  She does not know if she is tired of being a Gilford.

  She does not know what she will do when she sees brother-in-law Rick for the first time since he ran away with his redhead.

  She does not know how she feels about Erika and her family moving back to Higgins.

  She does not know how she will live through next week’s family reunion.

  She does not know what to do about the fact that it seems as if getting out of the car to walk into her stress-filled office has probably caused her period to come five days early and is also making her think about drinking wine for lunch, dinner and sometimes breakfast.

  She does not know what in the hell she is going to do when Stephie comes over to talk about the Miss Higgins pageant and ask her about eye shadow and saving the whales and whatever else she has up her lovely hooded sweatshirt sleeves.

  She sure as hell does not know what to do with Samuel’s unanswered phone messages.

  And her sisters. What to do about their secret rescue, Erika’s confession, the admittance without her final approval of Susie Dell into the sister circle?

  Emma wonders what she has chosen, if she has chosen, and whether or not she will ever choose again, and then beyond that, if you can choose. Can you choose who you are, what family you claim, if you even want to claim a family? Can you choose the direction of your heart?

  The Susans dip just a fraction of an inch during the last question, mind readers that they are, and Emma cannot tell if it is a yes or a no dip. She raises her head when she feels the tiny breeze from their heads and she wishes she could be angry at them for being so silent, for making certain that she answers her own question, for listening like they have never listened before.

  What she thinks of as her mother’s secrets have wounded her in a way that has given her an ache that runs from the center of her throat, right down the middle of her body, and out through her big toe. Emma has been struggling to stop imagining what it must have been like for her mother, not much older than Stephie is now when her own mother died, to carry the load that she carried.

  Be honest, Emma.

  In this quiet moment the truth rises softly and hovers just above Emma’s face. She can see it.

  The truth is that there were many times when Emma may have made a different decision if her father had not died, her mother had not been alone, if her sisters had not already had their chances to choose. There were also times when Emma would not have exchanged her life and world for anything. She would not have traded it with all the girls whose parents divorced, the ones whose parents did not divorce and sometimes lived in misery, the ones who had no sisters, the ones who ran away, and those who never felt as if they were loved.

  The truth that Emma can see as clearly as if she was watching a movie being played just above her face is that she did choose to believe everything that she was told, everything she saw, everything that she wanted to see.

  But.

  Emma turns on her side and what she sees is her gardening shed. A lovely three-sided shed that Joy, of all people, helped her build one Saturday just after she had moved into her house. Before the shower stall and the floor that needed to be fixed and the light in the basement and the plumbing in the kitchen—it was the shed so that she could start her gardens. And Joy worked like a dog to help her.

  Behind the shed is the small garage where she parks her car. The car that Debra helped her buy when she was scared to go to the car dealer alone. Debra had been like a pit bull. She’d actually made the car
salesman weep as she talked about warranties, and single women, and their dead father. Emma remembers thinking that in another twenty minutes the poor guy would have given her the car for free.

  And the house itself that Erika co-signed for when Emma found it, absolutely had to have it, barely had the minimum down payment and Marty could not co-sign because of Social Security and the fact that she didn’t have much beyond that anyway.

  But.

  “What didn’t I choose?” Emma whispers as she moves her gaze around her yard, past the shed, and down the sidewalk that surrounds her beloved home. “Why all these years have I not so much floated as drifted?”

  The Susans shift towards Emma when a very slight morning breeze rounds the corner of her gardens and knows exactly where to ride through her yard. One very brave Susan takes a chance and leans over so far it is amazing its stem does not break.

  Emma feels the flower brush against her arm and it is all she can do to not break it off and press it to her lips and then carry it into the house so that she can look at it all of the time. But there are no cut flowers in Emma’s kitchen. She can never bear to cut them, to take them away from their friends, to not watch them grow as tall as they might and then wave to her from the other side of the windows.

  Instead she quickly brushes her fingers across its golden petals and gently pushes the flower back in place.

  And then she covers her face with her arm and she thinks that if her flowers or anyone could see her just now that they would know that she has been a coward and judgmental and unforgiving and unforgivably afraid.

  So damn afraid.

  Afraid to choose.

  Emma rises up then as if someone has just thrown a gallon of organic fertilizer on top of her. She suddenly sees this lovely space of green on the left side of the porch that is crying for something remarkable. It is the largest unplanted section of grass in her entire yard. And suddenly Emma can see exactly what it is, how it will fit against the nest of passion flowers that have popped up uninvited against the barnwood fence her neighbor uses to separate their properties, and what might happen there as soon as she can make it all happen.