Susan Meissner - Why the Sky Is Blue

by Unknown

  Being unfamiliar with Karin and Kent’s church, I got lost looking for the kitchen. But I did come across Lara and Olivia sitting in a little alcove. Olivia was in Lara’s lap, with her blonde curls nestled against the cornflower blue of Lara’s dress. Olivia’s white tulle skirt was spread across Lara’s knees, and she was clicking her shiny white heels together. Neither one saw me approach.

  “Do you like my dress?” she was saying to Lara.

  “It’s a very beautiful dress,” Lara answered.

  “I have a crown, too,” Olivia said, pointing to the tiny tiara poking through the ringlets on the top of her head.

  “Yes, you do,” Lara said. “You look just like a princess.”

  “I might be too scared to throw the petals,” Olivia said after a pause.

  Lara looked out the window for a moment.

  “Sometimes being in a big place where there’s lots of people watching can seem a little scary,” Lara said. “But just remember whose big place this is, Olivia. This is like God’s house, so you can feel safe here. And you can just look at your mommy and daddy as you’re walking. Don’t look at anyone else if you think it might be too scary. Your mommy and daddy will be right up front by the tall flowers. They will be looking at you walking toward them and thinking how beautiful and grown-up you look.”

  “What if I forget to throw the petals?” Olivia said.

  “It will be okay if you don’t throw them, sweetie. Nobody will mind.”

  I loved seeing Olivia becoming so relaxed, but I wished I was the one setting her at ease.

  “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” Olivia asked Lara, and I felt myself lean forward to hear her answer. I wondered what Lara would say. It amazed me how much I wanted to know what she thought of Spencer and me. But what could Lara possibly say to Olivia? I couldn’t picture Lara lying, but to Olivia, Lara was just a friend of the family. What was she going to tell her?

  “Well, when I was growing up, it was just me and my mom and my dad,” Lara said. “But where we lived in Ecuador, there were lots of other children, so I felt like I had many brothers and sisters.”

  “Did you ever wish you had a real sister?” Olivia said, clicking her heels.

  I felt my breath catch in my throat.

  “Yes, I did,” Lara said softly, looking out the window. “Many times.”

  “Me, too,” Olivia chimed in, not giving me a moment to absorb what I was hearing.

  “How about if you be my sister?” Olivia said, looking up at Lara and smiling widely.

  Lara smiled down at her.

  “We sort of already are,” Lara said. “We both love Jesus, and we are both in God’s family—that makes us sisters in Jesus. Pretty cool, huh?”

  Olivia looked back down at her shoes, smiling.

  I decided it was time to emerge from the shadows.

  “Can I use your camera a moment, Lara?” I said, motioning to the Canon sitting next to her.

  “Sure,” Lara answered, a bit surprised to see me.

  I took the camera and stepped back from them, angling the camera so it picked up the sunlight through the window, which splashed their beautiful faces with natural light.

  “Say cheese,” I said and pressed the shutter button.

  Jennifer’s wedding was beautiful, and my kids did everything they were supposed to do. Olivia walked down the aisle with Bennett at her side, stopping every other step to throw a tiny handful of petals. It seemed to take a long time for the kids to reach the bridal party at the front of the church. Every time Olivia stopped, Bennett stopped. And if a petal landed off the white satin runner, Olivia bent down, picked it up, and placed it where it belonged. She watched over Bennett like a mother hen, making sure the rings he carried in between the pages of an open Bible didn’t fall off.

  As soon as they made it to the front of the church, Olivia and Bennett came and sat down by Michael and me. Mission accomplished.

  The rest of the day was pleasant enough. My kids found other kids to pal around with at the reception, which was held in the fellowship hall of the church. Lara stayed at our table for the most part, as did my parents. At one point I heard Mom introduce Lara to a wedding guest.

  “This is Lara Prentiss,” she said to the woman. “Lara’s mother just recently passed away. She was a very dear friend. Lara is spending her senior year in high school with Dan and me.”

  The woman said something like, “Oh, I am so sorry,” to Lara but I didn’t hear the rest. Bennett was suddenly at my side, doing what I call the potty dance.

  I took him to the toilet, but my mind was elsewhere. I knew Lara wouldn’t just be “spending her senior year of high school” with us like my mother told that woman. It wasn’t going to be just nine months of having her and then letting her go. That’s what happened the last time. But I knew it wouldn’t be that way this time. I knew that Mom would never let her go again.

  I brought Bennett back out, and he scampered away to rejoin his new friends. I walked toward my parents’ table and saw that Mom and Lara had left it, leaving Spencer sitting alone. Natalie must have found a quiet place to nurse Noah. I couldn’t immediately see where Mom and Lara were, but I decided I would take advantage of even a few minutes alone with Spencer.

  “Having a good time?” I asked him as I reached the table and took the chair I had sat in earlier.

  “Yeah, it was a nice wedding,” he said.

  “Yes, it was,” I replied.

  “Olivia and Bennett were as cute as can be,” he said. “They nearly stole the show.”

  “I guess I worried for nothing,” I said. “I was so afraid it would end up a disaster.”

  “How come?” he said, smiling.

  “Wait until Noah is older,” I said. “Then you’ll know how unpredictable kids can be.”

  “You’re doing a great job with your kids, Kate,” he said. “I’m sure they don’t surprise you with disasters too often.”

  “No, but when it happens, run for cover,” I said half-grinning and ignoring that we weren’t talking about what I wanted to talk about at all. “Olivia has a temper you wouldn’t believe. Sometimes it amazes me how quickly she can get angry. Bennett is following right along in her footsteps. And then of course when they get angry, I get angry, and I usually say and do things I regret.”

  “It happens to all parents,” Spencer said. “None of us is perfect.”

  “Being a parent sure brings out the worst in us sometimes,” I replied.

  “And sometimes the best,” Spencer said, looking me straight in the eye.

  I think he knew then why I had come back to the empty table to talk with him. Even though the conversation seemed to be about my kids and my being a mother, I could sense in that moment that Spencer was really talking about Lara and our own mother. I felt like he was telling me with his eyes that there was no cause for regrets when it came to Lara, that terrible circumstances had nevertheless brought out the best in our mother. And perhaps even in our father.

  And if I let it, it could bring out the best in me.

  We stayed another night in Red Wing and then drove home on Sunday. On Monday, Michael and Mom registered Lara for classes at the same high school where Michael teaches. I think Mom was hoping that Lara wouldn’t really be academically ready for her senior year. But there was no getting past the fact that her school records showed she was way ahead of most sixteen-year-olds.

  Just before school started, Michael, the kids, and I prepared for our family vacation—a week in northern Minnesota at a lakeside resort. Olivia begged us to bring Lara along. I almost wished she hadn’t, because for some reason I wanted it to be my idea that she come with us. I was starting to become aware of new feelings for Lara that made me feel good inside, not anxious. I wanted them to grow.

  The week at the lake was very relaxing in many ways. We didn’t have a schedule from day to day; we just woke up every morning and said to one another, “What do you want to do today?” We would decide, and then we would do it.


  One morning late in the week, Michael took Bennett and Olivia out in a canoe. Lara and I sat on the dock with our bare feet hanging over the side. I was finally starting to feel comfortable around her—not completely at ease, but certainly less apprehensive.

  We chatted about trivial things: the weather, food, and traveling. Somehow Rosemary’s name came up.

  “Do you miss her?” I asked, realizing that, of course, any child misses a parent who has just died.

  Lara looked out over the water and said nothing for the first few seconds.

  “I miss her more than I thought I would,” she finally said. “I was so ready for her to be free of pain that in the end I wanted her to go home. I guess I thought I wouldn’t miss her as much because she would be in heaven and would never know pain again. But I do miss her.”

  “Rosemary was an amazing person,” I said, looking out over the water as well.

  “Yes, she was,” Lara said.

  “You’re a lot like her, Lara,” I said, looking at her.

  She looked up at me and smiled.

  “I think that’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me,” she said.

  We were quiet for a moment, each of us kind of lost in our own thoughts.

  I didn’t know what Lara was thinking, but I was wondering what it would be like to be compared to someone as matchless as Rosemary. I couldn’t imagine it ever happening to me. I was nothing like Rosemary, nothing like Lara.

  “Did you ever get into trouble when you were little?” I suddenly asked.

  Lara looked over at me and smiled. “Didn’t you?” she said.

  “Of course,” I replied, like it was a silly question for her to ask. It occurred to me she must have thought the same thing or she wouldn’t have turned the question on me.

  “I have a hard time picturing you being defiant,” I said honestly.

  Lara’s smile didn’t fade. She kicked at the water that covered her feet.

  “I spent my share of time in the corner,” she said, laughing a little.

  “Well, you seem to have now mastered the knack of always doing the right thing at the right time,” I said. “You haven’t been in the corner in a long, long time, I’m sure.”

  It sounded like an indictment. I hadn’t meant for it to sound that way, but it did.

  Lara looked thoughtful for a moment.

  “I think we all struggle with trying to always do the right thing at the right time,” Lara said. “I know I struggle sometimes with even wanting to do the right thing.”

  “But you always seem to win that struggle,” I said.

  Lara looked surprised. Worried.

  “Well, I don’t,” she said.

  “Lara, you are annoyingly perfect!” I said, turning my face to her. “I’ve watched you. I have seen how you respond to people.”

  I immediately wished I hadn’t said “annoyingly.”

  But Lara just looked out over the water.

  “My dad told me once that people usually see what they want to see,” she said, and then she cocked her head and looked back at me.

  I wanted to believe I had no idea what she was talking about, but the funny thing was, I did. Somehow she knew I had only seen the part of her I wanted to see—the lovely, perfect, tender part—because it proved to God and to everyone else that I had been right all along about Lara. She wasn’t haunting evidence of the existence of evil in the world, though I was only just beginning to realize no one had ever really thought that about her. To me, Lara was simply a beautiful girl whose life began the way all human life begins—in the mind of God. This was the reason I had so desperately wanted my parents to keep her. I had not really understood the horribleness of the offense that had been committed against my parents. I had only understood my own twelve-year-old wonder of finally having a sister. And the frustration of having her for only one May morning.

  There were several long minutes of silence between us. I wondered if Lara was thinking she had said too much.

  I knew Lara couldn’t know what I was thinking at that moment, but she rightly guessed I was again pondering our common past, the little of it that we shared.

  “Kate, I’m sorry so much had to change for you because of me,” she said.

  I honestly didn’t know what to say to her. I hadn’t been aware that part of me held her accountable for the life I was now leading. Certainly it wasn’t her fault; she was an innocent victim. And while on the one hand she was tangible proof of the tragedy that had reshaped our family life, on the other hand if there had been no Lara, we likely never would have moved to Blue Prairie. I wouldn’t have met Michael. I wouldn’t have Olivia and Bennett. And I couldn’t bear to consider that.

  “You have nothing to be sorry for,” I finally said. “You never had a say in any of this, Lara. And I can’t suppose my life would be better had I stayed in Minneapolis. Most of my dreams have come true in Blue Prairie.”

  “Which ones haven’t?” she asked in a voice that sounded a little shaky.

  “Just little ones that don’t really matter, Lara,” I said. “I’d like to see Manhattan sometime. Or San Francisco.”

  “Me, too,” she said. “I have always wanted to take pictures of busy New York City sidewalks.”

  “Maybe someday we’ll have to do that,” I said.

  She smiled at me.

  “Do you have any other dreams waiting to come true?” she asked.

  I had never told anyone—not even Michael—of my unfulfilled desire to paint the sky at night. I guess I didn’t think anyone else would understand. I wasn’t sure if even I understood why that mattered to me. But while sitting on the dock on that hot August afternoon, I told Lara.

  She just nodded her head like she knew exactly what I meant.

  “And I can’t photograph it,” she said. “Not enough light. And it’s so frustrating because the midnight sky is so incredibly beautiful.”

  “Yes, it is,” I said, amazed that we had this in common.

  “But I know one day you will do it,” she said. “It’s too hard to remember the next day what the sky really looked like. You just have to bring your canvas out to where the stars are.”

  At that moment I began to understand something about myself that I am still learning. I’m afraid to bring my canvas out to where the stars are, afraid to paint alone in the dark with no one but God for company. I’m not sure why. But I was beginning to understand that somehow it was tied in with my fear of bringing my love out to where Lara was.

  29

  School started a few days after our return from the lake, and a new routine developed. I would drop the kids off at school and daycare in the morning, and Lara would pick them up in the afternoon. From three to five o’clock, the three of them would do “fun things all the time,” as Olivia liked to say. Sometimes they went swimming at the community pool—Olivia could now dog paddle from one side of the pool to the other. Other times they went to the library or the park.

  Sometimes they had tea and stories with Edith and Elaine, the sisters who owned the side-by-side Victorian bed-and-breakfast inns next to Tennyson’s Table. This was Lara’s idea. She began helping the sisters get their yards ready for the winter and developed a friendship with them. Olivia and Bennett loved going over to the inns with Lara. I could look out a side window of the Table to the porch of the East House and see my kids, each in a lap of one of the sisters, and Lara reading to all of them. Most of the books she borrowed from the Table.

  On Fridays, Lara would bring Bennett and Olivia to the Table just before closing. I would take them home, and Lara would stay and get the place ready for Jazz Night. She also worked Saturdays at the shop and hosted the Tuesday-night book clubs.

  That September was one of the least stressful months I had experienced in who knows how long.

  There was only one day in that month that was not at all “routine.” In fact, it was unlike any day I have ever experienced.

  It was a Monday near the beginning of
the month. I arrived at the shop early to find my mother sitting at the little writing table by the bay window—the writing table that had given the shop its name.

  She had a cup of coffee in her hands and was looking out the window, quite unaware of my presence. I couldn’t remember the last time she had sat at that table. And the look on her face was one I did not recognize. It scared me a little.

  “You know you can only have free coffee at that table if you’re writing,” I said, wanting her to know I was there and, more importantly to me, wanting her to come out from under that spell.

  She jumped a little as a weak smile broke across her face.

  “Is it nine o’clock already?” she asked.

  I came over to her.

  “No, I’m just here a little early,” I said, and then added, “You looked like you were off in another world when I came in. Is everything all right?”

  She looked out the window again and then up at me.

  “Everything is all right,” she said, like she meant every word, but she turned to look out the window again like everything wasn’t.

  “What is it, Mom?” I said, pulling up a chair.

  She sort of smiled and sort of sighed.

  “It’s the ninth of September,” she said.

  It took me a few seconds to understand what she meant. But I finally clued in. It was the anniversary, the seventeenth anniversary in fact, of the attack that had changed everything for us.

  “It’s been a long time since this day has mattered to me,” she continued, almost like she was talking to herself. “When we moved here, I taught myself to forget it was a day that mattered. But it’s different this year.”

  “Because Lara is here with you?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  We were silent for a moment.

  “Do you remember when we were driving up to Two Harbors and you asked me if I knew what had become of Philip Wells?” she asked.