I could tell, from the silence on the other end of the line, that Mama must have been thinking about the same thing I was.
“Did we say the right things to you, Dellie?” she asked now, her voice hushed. “Did you feel like we were there for you, like you could come to us for anything?”
“You did, Mama,” I said, hoping she knew how much I meant those words. “And I knew. I knew then, and I know now,” I added. “I love you so much. I know it’s only been a couple of days since I saw you last, but I miss you.”
“I miss you, too, my baby. You’ll never stop being my baby, you know that?”
I smiled, feeling my insides warming. “And you’ll always be my mama,” I said back.
“You going to be okay?” It was a simple question, but a loaded one, nonetheless.
It wasn’t just about now, tonight. It was about the future, too.
It was the question of a loving mother to a daughter who had been through hell and back. The question of a loving mother who knew all too well that having unstable ground under your feet could steal life from you. The question of a loving mother whose daughter had been letting life be stolen from her—bit by bit, for years that had begun long before a bad marriage had added further complications. The question of a loving mother who was afraid that her daughter’s life would never fully be restored.
I blinked again, trying to clear my vision.
“I’ll be okay,” I said, gritting my teeth. “I’ll be more than okay.”
“I’ll be okay,” I repeated the words under my breath as I stared into the mirror the next morning. They were like a mantra now, after so many months of saying them to myself, both mentally and out loud. Sometimes they were easier to believe than others—times when I felt confident enough to remember that I’d made it through a year of life on my own after my very doomed, very strange marriage had imploded. Times when my own sheer survival felt like an act of revenge and rebellion against the man who had deceived me and my family from the very first second until the very last.
Not many people outside of my family knew. It wasn’t a story I liked to share, and it was one that not many people could relate to. So I didn’t tell them at all. Usually, if I told them anything, it was simply that I had once been married. I left the rest to them and their own imaginings, not that I expected them to give my marital status much time on their radar. People had more important things to do than that. To them, I was probably just some other random thirty-something divorcee like the rest of them, so it allowed me to blend into the background just a little more.
“I’ll be okay,” I said more forcefully this time. I blinked at my reflection.
Annabelle was right. If the look I was going for was crap-tastic, I had certainly succeeded. Pretty sure I could get awards with that one, actually.
“I’ll be okay,” I insisted, hoping that the words would sink in and be true the more I said them. I closed my eyes, trying to picture myself looking different. Looking the way I had before I had let too many things steal parts of me. Once upon a time, I had taken more care with my clothes, dressing with pride and personality. I had a great eye for style, yet to look at me now, no one would ever guess that I was a fashionista at heart. I had been letting too much of me slip through my fingers; and this late in the game, I had no one to blame but myself.
Get a Makeover. I felt a deeper, more focused determination to cross that one off the bucket list than I had before I’d come to Virginia, inspired in part by Annabelle’s honest assessment of me—but mostly because I’d finally admitted to myself that the way I dressed really was an effort to hide, and I didn’t want to have to hide anymore.
When I opened my eyes to peer again at my reflection, I couldn’t help but wonder if my grandmother had done the same thing, spoken the same words to herself, so many years ago when she had been abandoned by the man who had offered her promises of forever. The thought brought with it another one, a new understanding of why I was, only now, learning of that abandonment.
She had been ashamed, worried that her own children and—by extension—her grandchildren would consider it her fault, the result of some flaw that none of us saw, but she obviously felt. That we would all echo the words her father had spoken. That none of us would understand, not having experienced it for ourselves; and that we would somehow hold it as a strike against her.
It was a fresh realization that my grandmother had never fully felt confident in herself, never felt sure enough of her own worth. And now it was too late to tell her, to offer her any reassurance that we all loved her. That we would have still loved her—and that no one ever, ever could take her place.
I pulled the back door shut behind me, locking it with the key Grandpa had given me, one of many keys that dangled from the ring Grammie had carried with her for years. It was an odd sensation, sliding that key into that lock, closing the house inside to the world outside, leaving it empty and silent and dark.
Just as he had yesterday, Grandpa had already gone to work, having offered to take the day off—no doubt to keep me out of any trouble my curiosity might get me into. I’d refused the offer, knowing that it would be best for both of us if he attended to business as usual, kept his momentum going, and just allowed me to be. That was, after all, why I was there. Not to be entertained by my grandfather and interrupt his life, but to take some time to find a new way to live a life of my own. A real one.
The creaky screen door slammed behind me, further sealing off the house; and I walked the old boards of the deck that had hosted so many parties and cookouts, where so many feet had worn a path. How many rains had soaked these beams? How many snowfalls had frozen them solid, only to be thawed again under the warmth of the sun? Too many to count, I knew. Blood and sweat and tears were layered into the wood, becoming silent and faded testimonies of lives that had been lived here. Food and drink fed its planks and kept it alive.
Perhaps it was an odd string of thoughts, strangely metaphorical in many ways. But in the relative quiet of the morning, my mind was wandering like a poet on a bad acid trip. Good thing I didn’t have plans of being home alone in the empty house, where my overactive brain could conjure up far too many things that would prove counterproductive to the emotional progress I was trying to make.
My newly borrowed bike was now in Grandpa’s garage, so I clomped my way down the wooden deck steps to the sidewalk that curved up to the driveway, stuck my key in the lock that activated the motorized door, and listened to the click and squeak and whir of chains and gears as the door lifted, exposing the cavernous expanse of the aged garage. I rolled the bike out onto the driveway, then watched as the door took its noisy track down again before swinging my leg over the seat to take my place atop the generous cushion, once again trying to recall the last time I’d actually ridden a bike anywhere. Aside from the one at the gym that essentially rode nowhere, it had been ages. Hopefully I wouldn’t face plant on my maiden voyage, but that had yet to be seen.
My laptop was safely nestled in the backpack strapped to my back, along with various and sundry other items I knew I would need for my day out. I had big plans of riding down to the Barnes and Noble and setting up camp, my email inbox having seemed to explode with a new batch of assignments that needed my immediate attention, lest the whole editorial calendar be thrown off-kilter by my being five minutes late. Funny how editors could hold off on contacting you for an assignment until the very last moment, then act as though you were the one holding them up on a magazine that was going to press in mere days.
Oh, well. I had known full well when I’d boarded the plane that I was bringing work with me, so I had expected nothing less, actually. This was just par for the course, something that wouldn’t change whether I was back home in Pensacola or off exploring in Paris. Now there was a spot I would love to write from, I thought wistfully as I moved tentatively down the driveway toward the sidewalk that ran parallel to the road.
Progress was a bit slow and wobbly, my nerves all a-jangle as I p
edaled down the sidewalk, out onto one street and then another, gaining momentum and confidence as I rode on past my uncle’s house. The day was sunny and bright, much to my relief, but I was hardly able to enjoy the scenery as I rode down the road, turning when it finally met the first big intersection, out on the open road. I glanced quickly at the map I’d downloaded on my phone, then pushed on, hoping with each car that whizzed by me that I would not become a road pancake before I made it to my destination.
True, it had taken a bit longer than the time estimated by Google maps, but I was here in one piece. I may have been slightly shaken by all of the whooshing traffic; but this was my first venture out, so I had to give myself some credit for not having fallen apart or letting myself turn back when I’d felt like retreating to the safety of the house, where, I was pretty sure, chances were low that I would be flattened by the wheels of a car. Things like that weren’t known to happen on a regular basis.
“How’s that for backbone?” I muttered under my breath, teeth gritted in an odd mix of determination, anger, and triumph as the oft-repeated words of my husband tumbled through my head, suggesting I needed to grow a backbone.
I rode around until I found the main entrance to Barnes and Noble, then found a place to secure the bike with the bike lock I’d gotten last night. Once Grandpa had come home from work, I’d managed to talk him into a quick run up to the nearest Walmart with me so that I could pick out a proper lock for the bike that would, in all likelihood, become my main mode of transport while I was here. I was trying to avoid the thought of renting a car as long as possible, and I was crossing my fingers that it might end up being a non-issue if I put it off long enough.
The great and mighty mecca of books welcomed me to its endless rainbow of neatly shelved spines, but I managed to fight the urge to browse and drool, winding my way through people and table displays until I reached the cafe area, my eyes trained straight ahead. I had no idea what to expect on a weekday morning, as far as available table space in the cafe, so I was deeply relieved to see that I had my pick of spots where I would spend the next hours of my day…not to mention most of the hours of my month-long stay here, unless I found a better place from which to set up base operations for my work. Grandpa may have embraced the idea of a space-age truck and the regular use of a cell phone, but he had yet to allow the Internet to have access to his home.
I pounced on a table and slid the backpack from my shoulders, relieved at finally being able to shed its weight. I have horrible posture on a good day—and that was without the heaviness of what seemed to be the equivalent of a small child strapped to my back—so I was pretty sure that my slumpage was far from attractive by this point. I did high shoulder raises and tried to un-kink the kink in my back, but it didn’t seem all that effective.
What I wouldn’t give for a massage, I thought, rubbing my fingertips into my left shoulder. Or a new body. That would work, too. Maybe one with better boobs and longer legs and none of the battle scars that this one held.
The table I had claimed was small, but it was perfectly serviceable in its role as my office space, so I swept a few crumbs from its surface, unzipped my pink backpack, and pulled out my laptop. Once I was all set up, plugged in, and logged on, I shuffled up to the cafe counter to pay my proper dues for the air-time and chair time I planned on spending here.
“What would you like today, ma’am?” The barista behind the counter looked suspiciously young to not have his butt sitting behind a school desk at this time of the morning; but since I wasn’t the best when it came to guessing ages, I tried my best not to speculate too much. Still, he wasn’t really winning any points with the ma’am thing, since it always made me feel like the speaker was assuming I was older than I was. Seeing as how we were in the South, though, it could have merely been a cultural nicety or even simply the fact that he was raised that way or that his managers insisted he address customers with the respectful term. But it still made me feel less than confident in my appearance. Especially in light of the fact that Annabelle had so swiftly and helpfully pointed out my decided lack of any kind of style, aside from, “needing help.”
“Ma’am?”
There was that word again.
I blinked, realizing my thoughts had drifted away to somewhere else besides the cafe, where this far-too-perky specimen of undetermined age stood waiting to take the order of an old-beyond-her-thirty-some-odd-years and obviously dotty woman whose wardrobe had her in the running for the now-cancelled show What Not to Wear.
“I’ll just take a venti peppermint tea,” I said, relying on memory rather than actually taking the time to consult the menu board, which would most likely become a time-suck and further confirm me as brainless.
He smiled, murmured the total of my purchase, and had me swipe my card, then shifted his attention to the growing queue of customers behind me. Yup, I’d held up the line. I was that lady.
I ducked my head—great for the already shameful posture, by the way—and went back to my table to wait for my name to be called.
The next half hour went by without incident, and I was starting to get into my groove, having waded through the junk emails in my Inbox and messages to my various editors that would put their minds at ease, knowing that I was, once again, at the helm of my keyboard to write the next piece of hard-hitting editorial content.
A shadow fell across my table, and I spied a pair of feet standing next to me for longer than the momentary I’m only here on my way to the table next to you amount of time, so I looked up to see who might belong to those feet. My eyes traveled from pink Keds to a pair of skinny jeans paired with a floaty top that looked as though it might have been dipped in a watercolor washing of pinks ranging from the palest blush to an almost raspberry hue. Manicured fingertips polished in bubblegum pink gripped a clear plastic cup full of something that looked to be decadent, dangerous, and chocolate, topped off with a high, swirling cloud of whipped cream that nearly obscured the straw.
“Don’t worry, I won’t hold it against you,” Vivi said with a smirk when I finally met her eyes.
I widened my own, darting my glance around guiltily, wondering what infraction she might be referring to.
“Hi?” I said, sounding as though I was asking a question rather than offering a greeting.
“Good morning to you, too. And since you’re new, I’ll forgive you for coming here instead of going to Azalea’s for coffee,” she said, her face unreadable.
Was she serious? After yesterday’s encounter, I had no idea what Vivi might actually be like when she wasn’t in the middle of a verbal skirmish with Annabelle, so I wasn’t sure if this was simply dry humor or an authentic attempt to make me feel bad. Which, if we were being honest, didn’t take much these days.
“Um, I’m having tea?” It was a white flag response—one that I really didn’t owe her, really. Especially in light of the fact that she herself was here, indulging in whatever it was in that cup she was brandishing.
Despite my best efforts, the cup seemed to have a magnetic pull on my eyes; and once they had alighted directly on it, they couldn’t seem to move.
Or blink, for that matter.
“We don’t make these at Azalea’s, so when I need a Willy-Wonka-worthy shot of chocolate, I like to come here,” Vivi said, shaking the cup. “Plus, it’s my day off, and I thought it would be a nice way to start the morning.” Her voice, I noticed, had softened. And she was smiling—somewhat guiltily, if I was reading her expression properly.
I nodded, offering a smile of my own.
“Definitely,” I agreed. “I didn’t really think about Azalea’s as an option, actually—especially since it’s so far away. I’ve only got a bike, not a car,” I admitted. “And I need Wi-Fi. Do you even have Wi-Fi there?” I asked, suddenly feeling a bit more justified.
Vivi shook her head sadly. “That’s one of the first questions people seem to ask these days, isn’t it? As though the world will go to pieces if they go somewhere that doesn’t
have an Internet connection.” She rolled her eyes and took a heavy pull on her deep-frozen-chocolate-whatever. “But yes, we do have Wi-Fi,” she added, having swallowed. “Contrary to appearances at the restaurant, I do try my best to keep us in this century—at least when it comes to technology. I like to keep the charm in the decor, though, you know? Some things just shouldn’t be modernized.”
I nodded enthusiastically, hoping my genuine appreciation for the place might win me back a few points. “I like it in there. It’s cute and cheery; and you keep up the maintenance, so it doesn’t look shabby or old.”
Vivi smiled proudly. “Good. You know, I’ve always loved it there, and I want other people to love it. It’s part of Hampton, and I can’t imagine ever having to change it.”
“I have a feeling that if you did, you’d never hear the end of it!” I laughed, hoping she would take my words the way they were meant.
The laugh she gave in response was reassuring. “You’re right,” she agreed. “Last time I tweaked the menu, I practically had to file a petition at City Hall to get people off my behind about changing it back.” Vivi arched an eyebrow, still smiling. “And that was only for swapping out a few dishes that never really sold well.”
I gave her a What-Can-You-Do? shrug.
“Change can be really hard sometimes, even if it seems like it’s something tiny,” I murmured, no longer thinking about Azalea’s.
“Speaking of change—I know none of this can be easy for you, not having your grandmother anymore,” Vivi said quietly, a look of concern passing over her face. She really was a pretty woman, when she wasn’t trying to be intimidating.
Life Without You Page 11
