Life Without You

by Liesel Schmidt

  “Oh, I’m glad! And you can help me shop, when you come home. I can’t wait until you get here—I’ve missed you, you know that?”

  I smiled. “I’ve missed you, too. And I’ll be glad to be home again. This trip has been good for me, made me think about a lot. And there are still a few things that I feel like I need to take care of before I leave, but I’ve really missed all of you.”

  “But me, most of all, of course.”

  “Oh, no question, Bette. No question.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Grandpa, do you still have those coloring books and crayons that Grammie always kept to use for ideas when she was decorating cakes?” I asked later that evening, after we’d cleared the remnants of our dinner and wandered into the den to see what might be of interest on TV. It was a routine that had become comforting, in a way. One that seemed to soothe both of us, one that seemed to allow us to form a deeper connection than we’d had before, even though we weren’t saying much to one another. We were satisfied with just being together, commenting on things that caught our attention as they floated past on the screen or having short discussions on things that might have been happening in our day. Grandpa still hadn’t apologized for the way he’d reacted the other night when I’d brought up Annabelle and the cake server; but he hadn’t raised the subject again, and he wasn’t showing any signs of still carrying around any sort of anger with me. In fact, it was as if the whole discussion had never even happened.

  Much as I would have liked some resolution, I knew I was likely going to have to make my own peace with the fact that he and Annabelle would never really call a truce. That was just the way things were. He didn’t see what I did, and I was ill-prepared to be the one who suddenly opened his eyes to it. All I could do was hope that we would be able to enjoy this last week together without having any more confrontations; and that maybe, just maybe, something I had said would work on him—his head and his heart—over time, and that it would allow him to soften toward the woman he seemed to hold in such contempt.

  “I think they’re in the one of the drawers in the china cabinet. Why?” he asked, not looking away from the screen as he flipped through the channels.

  I shrugged, hoping he wouldn’t think I was silly when I said what I was going to say next. “I don’t know. Just feel like coloring.”

  He nodded. “Check the china cabinet,” he repeated.

  I uncurled myself from the recliner and padded my way down the hall, into the dining room that was never, ever used for anything but a pass-through, a catch-all space for china cabinets and a dining table that had always been like the holding station for Grammie’s cakes in different stages of their preparation—some having only recently been removed from the oven and tipped out onto their cooling rack; some in the midst of their various stages of frosting; some fully completed and awaiting their final destination.

  This was not the heart of the home. Instead, its dual chambers were the small kitchen with its worn linoleum floor and round wooden table that had seen so many meals and seemed, like magic, to always be able to hold the people gathered around it, whether they numbered two or ten; and the den, where the remains of the day were passed and where, every weekday afternoon without fail, Grammie would watch with rapt attention as the people in her “stories” would live their dramatic and unbelievable lives and grow old along with those who watched them during their years on camera.

  I pulled out the top drawer on the china cabinet to my left, hoping it wouldn’t take me long to locate what I was looking for, wondering if I would find anything interesting along the way. Part of me wanted to do a little nosing around, rifling through these long-neglected spaces to see what treasures I might unexpectedly unearth, while the other part of me felt as though poking around more than necessary was wrong.

  I decided to take the high road and look only until I found what I had come for: the coloring books and crayons that Grammie had always kept on hand to use when she was making a birthday cake. She’d never gotten into the use of computers, always relying instead on pictures from coloring books when she needed to execute a character cake, first drawing the image on rice paper before applying it to an unadorned layer of crumb frosting. She’d used that as a guide as she painstakingly filled in with colored buttercream, bringing the picture to life with every squeeze of her pastry bag. The benefit of her process for her grandchildren, at least, was the fact that we could pretty much count on the fact that there would be something of interest to color, whether it was Barbies or race cars, so even rainy days spent inside were never boring.

  The drawer had taken a fair amount of tugging, so long had it been since it had last been opened, and it was extremely packed. I shoved and lifted various bits and baubles and random junk until I could see that nothing there would be of help, moving down to the next drawer and then the next. In the bottom drawer, I hit pay dirt, happy to see, at last, a stack of coloring books that had obviously seen better days and a box of crayons to match. I flipped through the top few to see if any of the pages were still uncolored—I was well aware that I was hardly the first to be coloring in these books over the years that they had been in this house—and saw that there were, in fact, quite a few colorless pages that needed to be tended to. Still, these particular books weren’t exactly thrilling to me, so I dove in a little deeper to see what else I might find. The very bottom book called out to me like a beacon, full of cheerful little princesses and woodland characters with fat cheeks and furry bodies that begged to be brought to life.

  I was just about to replace the stack of coloring books when something stuck to the bottom drawer liner caught my eye, something that, by the looks of it, had been left there and long forgotten.

  It was a cream colored, letter-sized envelope that was yellowed with age, the name Meredith written out in elegant script across its front.

  I carefully separated the envelope from the drawer’s liner and studied it for a moment, wondering who it might be from and who had written whatever was inside.

  “Did you find any?” Grandpa’s voice floated in from the den, breaking into my thoughts.

  “Yup. Quite a few, actually. Be there in a minute,” I called back, feeling slightly guilty, as though I had been caught doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing. I put the envelope down on the floor next to me and quickly replaced the cast-off stack of coloring books, still trying to decide what to do with the aging piece of correspondence.

  Put it back in the drawer, or take it back to my room for further study?

  Or should I show it to Grandpa first?

  Why did it seem so interesting to me in the first place? I wondered as I picked it up again off the floor, looking at the handwriting that looped over it.

  It seemed almost familiar, but I was having trouble placing it.

  More than likely, Grandpa would just dismiss it as something unimportant after all this time and toss it aside without much thought. After all, it had been lost in the recesses of the drawer for who knew how long. It could hardly make a difference now, right? Grammie was gone, and whoever had given it to her—for whatever reason—had probably forgotten long ago about ever putting pen to paper.

  So really, it wouldn’t matter if I opened it without asking, right?

  “Dellie?”

  Right, I thought, making the decision and shoving it into the coloring book before I scrambled up off the floor. I would look at it later. Right now, it was time to go back to the den and color.

  Dear Meredith,

  I hope that this gift finds you in good health and that it communicates the extent of my gratitude for the beautiful cake you created. Seeing that cake took my breath away, and it could have not been more perfect had it come from one of the finest bakeries in Richmond. You truly are gifted, and I hope that I might be an encouragement to you to embrace that talent, rather than letting it go unused.

  I know that in the past, I have not conducted myself in ways with you that were either respectful of yo
u or befitting a young woman of any class; and for that I can only offer my most sincere apologies. I realize that is far from enough to erase the pain or the damage of the situation, but I hope that you can find it in yourself to forgive me for my part in it. You were hardly deserving of being treated so thoughtlessly, and I will always regret my thoughtlessness.

  You have a bright future, Meredith. I hope you see that, and I hope you take advantage of it. Please accept this cake server as a reminder that yours is a natural gift of rare finding, something to be shared and celebrated. Believe in yourself, and believe that you are a woman to be treasured. Think of that every time you use this server, every time you serve someone with your gift. You are special, Meredith, with a special talent that, like the silver of this server, should be polished and allowed to shine.

  With most sincere thanks,

  Annabelle MacMillan

  “That’s a beautiful letter. I think it explains a lot about why she always said the cake server was so special, too,” Mama said when I finished reading the letter to her that night. I’d smuggled it back to my room after Grandpa and I had decided to turn in and sent Mama a text after I’d read it for myself. She’d responded right away, telling me that she was still up and wanted to know what it said.

  “It does,” I agreed, feeling the length of the day seep into my bones as I snuggled deeper into bed.

  “I think it says a lot about Annabelle, too, don’t you?” Mama asked, her own fatigue apparent in her voice.

  “I do,” I yawned. “You sound tired, Mama. Long day?”

  “It was. Very. I spent the day running around with your sister to find fabric for those projects she’s working on in the kids’ rooms, then started sewing pillows and curtains.”

  “I won’t keep you then. I know you must want to get some sleep,” I said, feeling a little left out of things. Not that it was a new sentiment—it was that whole being-so-close-but-still-so-far-away thing that I often dealt with. The one that made me feel as though things were just out of reach and that I was missing out on so much of my family’s lives.

  “No, honey, I wanted to talk. And this is important,” she replied with a yawn of her own.

  “Do you think I should show it to Grandpa, or just put it back? Do you think it would do anything to make him change his mind about how he feels toward Annabelle?” I asked, knowing she would probably tell me it was pointless.

  “I honestly don’t know, Dellie. I’d love to say that showing him and letting him read it would do something, but I have a feeling it wouldn’t do any good. He made up his mind a long time ago about Annabelle.”

  I frowned and closed my eyes, thinking sleep would come easily tonight. “I know, and it makes me sad. Annabelle doesn’t deserve it.”

  “No, she doesn’t. But I don’t expect things are likely to change.” Mama yawned again.

  “Mama, please go get some sleep; you sound exhausted,” I urged, wishing I could be there to hug her good night.

  I couldn’t help but wonder how many times she herself had felt that way, wishing she could hug her mother good night rather than having the distance of so many states between them. I knew she often felt guilty about it, increasingly so as the years went by and everyone got older; and she worried over the thought that she might have been depriving us of something important by not having grandparents more close by. Really, though, the fault for the distance had been no one’s—as a government contract worker, my father had been at the mercy of wherever the job took him, which meant that the rest of his family followed. We’d lived in Florida for almost my entire life; and when Daddy had finally been able to retire, there wasn’t really much reason to pull up stakes and move. Still, that didn’t mitigate the guilt I knew Mama sometimes felt or the regret she often had over not having more time with her mother. Especially now.

  “I will. You should go to sleep now, too, Dellie. I heard you yawning, so I know you’re tired,” she insisted.

  “I am,” I admitted, feeling my eyes flutter. I really was tired, not that there had been anything particularly tiring about the day. I just was.

  “Sleep, baby,” Mama said. “And have sweet dreams, okay? I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Mama. Sweet dreams.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  What I had in my hands could potentially broker some sort of peace between Grandpa and Annabelle, but the degree of that potential was extremely discouraging. More than likely, it would be dismissed by one or both of them as unimportant after all this time, but part of me was holding on to the slim hope that Grandpa would read it and let it soften his heart.

  And what about Annabelle?

  Would it help her to know just how much the letter had meant to Grammie? Would it reassure that uneasy part of her spirit that still felt so guilty?

  I stared at the envelope and narrowed my eyes at it, trying—somewhat ludicrously—to see some sort of answer there.

  Yeah, that was going to happen.

  I had less than a week left here, mere days. But for what? What did I really expect to happen in that week? That I was going to magically fix whatever needed fixing? I could hardly fix my own life, so what did I think I could do here? When I left, Annabelle, Savannah, and Vivi would all be much the same as when I’d arrived. Each of them was incredibly strong, yes—but they were all still greatly hindered by their own self-doubts and their own fears.

  When I left, Vivi would still feel as though she was barely living up to her mother’s legacy.

  Savannah would still be living her life feeling unfulfilled, dreaming dreams of something she was too afraid to reach out and grab.

  Annabelle would still be her same driven self, paying penance in her way for things that had long ago been forgiven.

  Each of them had taught me so much while I was here and given me so much—honoring me with their friendship and showing me the ways that Grammie had touched their lives. In sharing their memories of her, they were granting me more time with her. In those moments, she was alive again, smiling sweetly and humming off-key. Would they ever be able to understand how much that meant to me? Or realize how deeply I felt their encouragement and support and belief in me?

  So what was I supposed to do with this letter?

  I ran a finger over Grammie’s name. She would tell me to show Annabelle, even if I did nothing else. To set her free and prove to her, beyond doubt, that Grammie stopped blaming her and had lived her life happily.

  I picked up my phone and tapped out a text, hoping that Annabelle would finally understand what had been true all along, hoping that, in this simple act of showing her the letter, I would also be giving her a gift as great as the one she had given me.

  Her reply came back quickly, and so the meeting was set.

  Now all I had left to do was figure out how I could possibly make Vivi and Savannah see what I saw, and I had no idea of where to start.

  Annabelle ran a light finger over the careful script that looped over the front of the envelope, just as I had done only the day before. She held it in her small, wrinkled hands, studying it as though she was trying to recall the words it contained. Judging by the tears that were forming in her eyes, I had little doubt that she knew exactly what it was and what it said…and that some part of her was freshly experiencing the emotions that had compelled her to write the letter.

  “In found it in the china cabinet, under a whole bunch of stuff,” I said, feeling the need to fill the silence. Not that we were exactly in a quiet place, since our little table at Azalea’s was right smack in the middle of the restaurant, right smack in the middle of the lunch rush. “She used to keep the cake server in there, and I think that when she gave it to my cousin Olivia, the letter accidentally got left behind.” I paused, rethinking my supposition at the reasons for the letter having been buried at the bottom of the drawer. Perhaps it hadn’t been forgotten. Perhaps it had been kept as a reminder, an affirmation that someone had always believed in her talent and that she had come a long way
from the young woman who had first read that letter, so very many years ago.

  “It meant a lot to her, Annabelle, knowing that someone like you believed in her talent. She kept that cake server and the letter and treasured them both—not in spite of the fact that they were from you, but because they were from you,” I said, watching Annabelle’s face as I spoke, hoping what I was saying was going to get through to her and make some difference. “She forgave you a long time ago for what happened. I know the two of you never really got to be friends, but I can tell you with absolute certainty that she forgave you.”

  Annabelle sat silently, still staring at the letter.

  “Annabelle,” I said, choosing my next words very carefully. “I know you’ve gotten used to being the one giving advice, but you also need to learn how to take some. Grammie forgave you,” I repeated. “You need to trust that and learn how to forgive yourself. That baby wasn’t punishment.”

  The tears that had been pooling in Annabelle’s eyes suddenly began to trace their way down her face, proving that what I was saying was making its way not only to her ears, but also to her heart. She’d shared things with me that she hadn’t shared with anyone else, and I hoped that she didn’t feel I was attacking her with them.

  “You told me before that you hadn’t told anyone about the baby. Don’t you think it would good for you to talk about it? That’s not something that can be easy to hold inside all the time, I’m sure. People would understand—some of them might even be able to relate.” I stopped, thinking about all the emotions that Bette had gone through while she had been trying so unsuccessfully to get pregnant. Until she and Steve had found out that he was sterile, she’d blamed herself for every month that had gone by with a negative pregnancy test. And she’d felt guilty, as though she was being punished for something. I could only imagine the level of guilt that had rocked Annabelle when she’d miscarried.