Susan Meissner - Why the Sky Is Blue

by Unknown

  “I am sure we can find that out,” Mom said, trying to sound nonchalant.

  When we arrived back at Cleo’s, Lara was in the garage trying to untangle an extension cord from the top rung of a six-foot stepladder. She stopped when she saw us step out of the car and walked out into the sunshine.

  I couldn’t help but glance at my dad. He looked kind of sad.

  Mom didn’t seem to notice.

  “Lara, this is Dan,” she said brightly, motioning toward my father.

  Lara waited a moment and then held out her hand. My dad took it. It seemed like an awkward moment for all of us. No one said anything as they shook hands.

  “It’s wonderful to meet you,” she said.

  “We’ve met before,” Dad said softly, almost like he was only reminding himself of it.

  “I’m sorry I can’t remember it,” Lara said with a smile and I could tell she really meant it.

  “Can I give you a hand with that ladder?” Dad said after a moment’s pause.

  “That would be great,” Lara answered. “There’s a light bulb out in the basement. It’s kind of high.”

  “You just lead the way,” Dad said, pulling the tangled cord free and hoisting the ladder in his grip. “I’ll change it for you.”

  Mom was completely pleased.

  We walked through the garage and into the kitchen. Cleo was standing there, hands on her hips.

  “Who are you?” she said to my dad.

  Mom and I exchanged glances. We had told him about Cleo’s house, but we hadn’t told him about Cleo.

  “I’m Dan Holland,” Dad said, eyes a little wide.

  “I’m Cleo,” she said. “What are you doing with my ladder?”

  “Dan’s helping me change that bulb in the family room, Cleo,” Lara said.

  “All right,” she said, as if we were all standing there awaiting her permission to proceed.

  “It’s this way,” Lara said, and Dad followed her through the kitchen and into the hallway where the basement stairs were.

  “While you’re down there, you may as well right the washer,” she called after them. “It bounced a corner off its pallet this morning. Someone filled it too full,” she added, looking at me.

  “How’s Rosemary doing?” Mom asked.

  “The hospice nurse just left. That woman woke her from a much-needed nap, but at least she upped her pain medication,” Cleo said, opening the oven door and checking the meatloaf she was making.

  She then mumbled a thank-you to my mother for the groceries we delivered earlier and asked if she could pay us for them. Mom said she would rather Cleo didn’t, that it had been our pleasure to get them. Cleo just nodded.

  “You can stay for supper,” she said. It wasn’t quite an invitation, more like a summons, but Mom didn’t seem to notice.

  “Thank you, Cleo,” she said. “We’d love to.”

  Mom and I started to walk out of the kitchen as Cleo suddenly said, “Nice flowers.”

  She was looking at the bouquet in the mayonnaise jar. I caught the trace of a smile on her face. Lara told me later that it had been years since anyone had given Cleo flowers.

  I hadn’t planned on going in to see Rosemary that afternoon, but she insisted I come, and she asked Lara to come too.

  Rosemary looked very pale and weak. I couldn’t believe the difference one day had made. I wondered if she was starting to let go because she now knew Lara was going to be all right.

  “Come in,” she said. Her face broke into a smile when she saw my dad. “Dan...”

  Dad leaned over and kissed Rosemary on the forehead. She tried to raise an arm to hug him but the pain medication had made her too weak. He held the hand she had tried to raise and squeezed it.

  “I almost didn’t recognize you without your long braid,” Dad said with a smile, but his voice sounded funny.

  Rosemary smiled and closed her eyes.

  “I see you don’t have as much hair as before, either,” she said.

  Everyone smiled at that, and some of the tension left the room.

  “I wanted all of you here because I don’t want to miss the opportunity to tell you all how much you mean to me,” Rosemary said softly. “Sometimes when I close my eyes, I imagine I will open them in heaven.”

  Lara drew in a breath next to me but said nothing.

  “I want you all to always remember how precious you are to me. Don’t forget.”

  Lara reached for Rosemary’s other hand.

  “Lara, would you give me a moment with Dan and Claire and Kate?” Rosemary said next. “I promise it won’t be long.”

  Lara nodded, wiped her eyes and left.

  “Dan...” Rosemary said softly.

  “Right here,” my dad said, his voice hoarse.

  “I would not have asked such a tremendously big favor of you if I did not believe God wanted me to,” she said. “You and your family have such a capacity to love. It was love that motivated you to do what you had to back when Lara was born. Love for your wife and your children and even love for Lara.

  “Claire,” she said turning to my mother, “I know how hard it was for you to give Lara to me. I know it was your love for her that enabled you to do it. And Katie, I know it hurt you terribly when Ed and I took Lara away. It hurt because you loved her so much.”

  Rosemary closed her eyes and took a deep breath. I thought for a moment she had dropped off to sleep. My parents and I looked at each other. We all had tears in our eyes.

  “Don’t you see?” Rosemary said, slowly opening her eyes. “Everything you have ever done for my daughter, my Lara, you have done out of love.”

  Those few moments I spent with Rosemary that sunny Saturday afternoon were the last. I left the next day in my mother’s car to go home to Michael and my children. My parents stayed. Six days later Rosemary died in her sleep.

  I don’t know what Lara would have done if my parents hadn’t been there for her. Rosemary’s estate, although there wasn’t much to it, was left in a trust for Lara with Rosemary’s brother in Florida as the executor. He came to the funeral but left as soon as he politely could. Rosemary’s lawyer, a friend of the family, helped take care of the last loose ends regarding my parents becoming Lara’s legal guardians, and he also took care of filing for Lara’s Social Security benefits. Technically, Lara was an orphan.

  The funeral was attended by only a handful of people. Lara and Rosemary had been attending a small church in the country, one that Ed’s mother had belonged to when Rosemary and Ed and Lara moved back to Minnesota after Ed’s first heart attack. When Ed’s mother died, they kept attending there. The congregation numbered less than twenty families. A few church friends came to Rosemary’s service, but including my family and Spencer and Natalie, there were less than thirty in attendance. Rosemary deserved a motorcade and a national day of mourning.

  Lara sat with her uncle in the front row of the little church, and my parents and I and my family sat right behind them.

  Rosemary was buried alongside Ed in a shady spot in the church cemetery. After the interment, we went back inside the church for a light meal in the basement. Lara seemed to be holding up well. My little Olivia never left her side, and I didn’t know if that annoyed her or comforted her. My dad and the uncle spent considerable time in a corner going over legal matters. It was so obvious Rosemary’s brother was in a hurry to get back to Florida and his own life. I shot him several reproving looks, but I don’t think he ever caught on that I thought him to be one of the more callous people I ever had the misfortune of meeting.

  Mom offered to stay with Lara and Cleo the night of the funeral, but Lara seemed to want some time to herself. We agreed to come back for her the next morning. I had not forgotten my promise to Rosemary to drive her down to Blue Prairie.

  We stayed that night in the same hotel by the lake, and the next morning, Michael, Bennett, Wes, and Nicole left ahead of the rest of us. I tried to convince Olivia to go with them, but she wouldn’t do it. She was utterly
taken with Lara and wanted to ride with her.

  All of Lara’s boxes fit in the back of Dad’s truck, as did her bicycle and darkroom equipment. We filled the back of my mom’s car with Lara’s clothes and photographs.

  Finally, in Lara’s little blue Taurus, we placed Olivia, Lara’s cat, Silhouette, and a few miscellaneous items.

  Then it was time to go.

  “Are there any friends you need to say goodbye to?” Mom asked Lara as she closed the trunk to her car.

  “I did that on Sunday,” Lara said softly, as if it was slightly painful to say.

  Mom turned to Cleo who was standing in the driveway. Hands on her hips, of course.

  “Cleo, is there anything Dan and I can do for you before we head out?”

  “I’ve gotten along fine for sixty-six years and I don’t need any help now,” Cleo replied, chin high.

  Lara turned to her and threw her arms around her.

  “Thank you, Cleo, for everything you have done,” she said. “I will never forget how you cared for us.”

  Cleo, who had not shed a tear up to that point—at least not that I had seen—began to cry.

  “You come back and visit me anytime,” Cleo finally managed to say.

  Lara kissed her cheek and stepped away, getting into the passenger side of her own car. Cleo dried her eyes and turned away for a moment to blow her nose into a handkerchief. Then she turned back toward the three vehicles and placed her hands squarely on her hips. We waved goodbye, and she nodded her head once in response.

  The five-hour drive home was long but uneventful. Olivia fell asleep after the first hour, and Lara followed suit after the second. We stopped in Apple Valley at Spencer and Natalie’s to stretch our legs before tackling the last hundred miles and so Lara could see Noah.

  Spencer and I hadn’t had a moment alone since I told him over the phone that Mom and Dad were taking in the daughter they had given up for adoption when he was seven. He barely remembered that time in our lives. He never missed Lara like I did. He always thought our move to Blue Prairie was the most ingenious thing Dad had ever came up with, like it was all done so Spencer could get a big dog and a three-wheeler. Even as an adult, I don’t think he sensed the complexity of Lara re-entering our lives. To him, this was all new. There was no history to be reckoned with.

  Noah, ever a happy baby, cooed and giggled on Lara’s lap, giving her plenty of reasons to smile back. It was nice to see her smile again. Lara said something about wanting to take Noah’s picture sometime. Natalie promised to bring him down someday soon.

  We finally got home about six thirty. Michael had come over to my parents’ house and had steaks on the grill ready for us, and Bennett was scooting around on his toy tractor when we drove up. Wes, Nicole, and Seth were there too. We sat outside on my parents’ deck and ate supper, enjoying the summer night and the breeze that blew our napkins out of our laps but kept the mosquitoes from landing and biting.

  We brought in Lara’s boxes and set them in the dining room until they could be sorted and unpacked. Then my mom and I carried in her clothes and took them up to my old room, which I had made ready the week between my first trip to Two Harbors and my second.

  Lara came up a few minutes later with two photographs in her hand. One was the portrait of Ed on Galapagos; the other was of Rosemary with her long braid, holding a little Ecuadorian baby in her arms. She set them on my old dresser.

  “This was your old room?” she said.

  “Yes, it was,” I said.

  She turned and smiled at me.

  “I’m glad,” she said, and then she headed back downstairs.

  25

  For the first few days after we arrived home from Two Harbors, I tried to keep what I thought was a respectable distance from my parents and Lara. I went to the Table the day after we got home, not expecting to see Mom or Lara at all.

  They came after lunch and stayed the whole afternoon. One of Nicole’s kitchen helpers was home sick, so Lara offered to help out. I guess I should have guessed Nicole would eventually offer Lara a job since we all worked at the Table. But it startled me anyway that it happened that very day. One moment Lara was sipping a white chocolate mochaccino, the next she was making one.

  She was introduced to everyone she met as a friend of the family whose parents had both passed away and who would be living with my parents for the next school year.

  The shop was busy that afternoon. Mom had been away for more than a week, so she had a lot of catching up to do. And since I had to cover for her while she was gone, I was behind on two paintings I was matting for a customer who had bought two watercolors from me on eBay. I also had a beginner’s sketching class that afternoon that I had done nothing to prepare for.

  In the middle of trying to sort through all this, Seth arrived. He had just gotten off the phone with his social worker. He had been caught drinking two nights before, and his social worker was threatening to place him in a group home if he didn’t shape up. Nicole was pretty much at the end of her rope, I think. As she cleaned the glass-fronted bakery case, Seth told her he wanted a new social worker, that the one he had was a “total loser.” She told him he had better do whatever the social worker told him, because the group home idea was starting to look pretty good. I knew that would make him angry. And it did. He followed me into the back of my studio and told me Nicole never tried to see his side of things. I asked him if he ever tried to see hers. He shrugged.

  I was working on a frame when suddenly he had the urge to help me.

  “I bet I could do that,” he said.

  “Maybe I’ll show you sometime,” I said.

  “It doesn’t look that hard,” he said as I beveled the mat. “Let me try.”

  “Another time, okay, Seth?” I just didn’t have time for him that day.

  He turned and left. I felt bad for him, but he really wasn’t my responsibility. By closing time, my mom, Nicole, and I were worn out. As we readied the shop for the end of the day, my mom asked where Lara was. I hadn’t seen her, and Nicole didn’t know. We looked upstairs in the meeting rooms and in the bathroom, and just about the time Mom started to worry, I spotted Lara and Seth sitting at one of the sidewalk tables out front. Seth was talking a mile a minute, and Lara was sitting there listening to his every word.

  Mom and Nicole both froze. On their faces were twin, worried-mother looks.

  “Good grief,” Nicole said. “Something else to worry about.”

  “No kidding,” Mom said and headed for the front door.

  She stepped outside and said as cheerfully as she could, “Hey, Seth. How’s it going?”

  He had barely said, “It’s cool,” when Mom asked Lara if she was ready to head home.

  I watched Lara rise from the little table and push the chair in. “Bye, Seth,” she said.

  “See you ‘round,” he replied, and there was no mistaking the trepidation on my mother’s face as she heard those words.

  Mom and Lara drove away, and I headed back into the studio to turn the lights off. As I was leaving, Nicole handed Seth a bag of trash to take out, and I heard her tell him to “leave that young girl alone.”

  “Why?” he asked, obviously challenging her.

  “Because, Seth,” she answered. “She’s just lost her mother. She doesn’t need to hear about your problems or catch your problems.”

  I hadn’t been home more than fifteen minutes when Mom called me and invited us over for spaghetti.

  “I thought you might want some time alone with Lara,” I said.

  “There will be plenty of other evenings alone with her,” Mom said in reply. “I was hoping you could...talk to her about Seth.”

  I was slightly perturbed at realizing the invitation had strings attached. I toyed with saying something like, “Tell her yourself,” but the truth was, I was worried about Lara getting mixed up with Seth. He was trouble with a capital T.

  I told her we would come.

  Olivia and Bennett monopolized every m
oment with Lara after we arrived. I wouldn’t have gotten a word in at all if my mother hadn’t distracted them after supper with news that there were new kittens in the barn. While she showed them the kittens, I volunteered Lara and myself to do the dishes. Dad and Michael went outside to tinker with my dad’s ailing riding mower.

  The table was half-cleared when I finally summoned the courage to advise Lara to be careful developing a friendship with Seth.

  “Lara, I think I should tell you that Seth has some pretty significant problems,” I said, “and that being his friend can be very ... complicated.”

  “I don’t think I understand,” Lara said.

  “He’s had a tough time lately with choices. Maybe he shared some of his frustrations today?”

  Lara looked utterly confused.

  “He didn’t tell you he had a fight with his social worker today or an argument with Nicole?” I asked.

  She just shook her head.

  “Can I ask what he was talking about when you were sitting out in front of the shop?”

  “He was telling me his dreams,” Lara said. “He was telling me what he wanted to do with his life.”

  I was speechless for a second.

  “He was?”

  “Well, yes. He wants to design and build houses.”

  I couldn’t believe Seth had never shared this with Michael or me before, but I tried to shake it off. She still needed to know Seth was dangerous.

  “Look, Lara. Seth has a problem with alcohol and a problem with authority,” I said. “He has some pretty tough friends who tend to bring him down. That’s why a friendship with him can be complicated. I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”

  Lara smiled at me. “Thanks, Kate. I promise I will be careful.”

  And I knew at that moment that Lara had no intention of avoiding a friendship with Seth, like my mother was hoping for, and was instead intending to cautiously yet conscientiously rescue Seth from self-destruction.

  The phone rang then, and I answered it. It was my grandmother in Ann Arbor.

  “Is she there?” Grandma asked me.

  I looked over at Lara as she wiped down the place mats. “Yes, she’s here.”