“Come on, tell me,” Alison urged. “What happened?”
Lacy grimaced. “You know, I thought I was done with it— the Lauren and Trip thing. But the minute I set foot in that house, it all came back. Mom had photographs of my nephew all over the house. There was one of Lauren and the baby—you know, the typical Madonna and child thing, with this ethereal light around the edges. I looked at it and thought—” She lifted her shoulders. “Well, I don’t know what I thought.”
“You thought it ought to be you,” Alison said.
“Yeah, I guess I did.” Lacy tried in vain to eat a bite of her sandwich, just to postpone this discussion.
Alison waved a french fry in Lacy s direction. “Jealous?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” Lacy shrugged. “Alison, what the hell is wrong with me? I have a good life, don’t I? I’ve got friends, I’ve got a great job. I thought I was over this.”
“Of course you’re not over it,” Alison said. “How could you be over it when you’ve never dealt with it?”
Lacy felt her stomach lurch. “What do you mean, I’ve never dealt with it? I’ve spent the past thirteen years—”
“You haven’t been dealing with it,” Alison corrected. “You’ve been suppressing it. You were running away when we met, and you’re still running.” She leaned forward. “Lace, I’m your best friend. We tell each other the truth. Why did you say no when Hank asked you to marry him?”
“Well,” Lacy hedged, “it just didn’t feel right.”
“And Rob?”
“He wasn’t the one.”
“He wasn’t Trip Jenkins, you mean.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to. You’ve lived here for years, Lacy. How many of your friends even know you have a twin sister, much less how she betrayed you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I do. None of them—except for me, and fortunately for you I know how to keep my mouth shut.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is that you haven’t dealt with your pain and anger over Trip and Lauren. You’ve just shoved it under the surface. And you can’t risk letting anyone too close because they might find out what’s down there.”
The arrow found its mark, and Lacy winced. “When we met on that bus you were so tender and compassionate. What happened to that woman? How did you become so damned direct?”
“I became friends with you,” Alison retorted with a grin. “And I got a lot of counseling. It’s called tough love, Lace. Get used to it.”
“So what do you suggest I do?” Lacy asked reluctantly.
Alison took a pen from her purse and wrote a telephone number on a paper napkin. “Call this number. It’s my grief counselor. She can help.”
“I don’t need a grief counselor,” Lacy protested. “Nobody’s died.”
Alison raised an eyebrow. “Just call her, will you?”
DR. MAMIE WITHERSPOON, a squat, maternal woman in her late fifties, looked more like someone’s grandma than a therapist. But Lacy soon discovered how utterly deceiving looks could be.
Mamie took no bull from anyone, and she could spot a lie— or even a slanted half-truth—quicker than a robin could snap up a fat earthworm. She had a birdlike way of jerking her head and fixing Lacy with those bright, beady eyes.
“Thirteen years,” she said when Lacy had finished the short version of her story. “And in all that time, you’ve never had contact with your sister or her husband or your nephew.”
“No,” Lacy mumbled. “Like I said, I’ve put all that behind me.”
“Have you now?”
“Yes. I’ve made a new life for myself. I’ve become a self-actualized individual.”
Mamie adjusted her wire-rimmed glasses and smiled. “Self-actualized?”
Lacy nodded. “When I was in undergraduate psych years ago, we studied Maslow’s hierarchy. I remember it very clearly, because as a twin, I had never felt a sense of individuality. I wanted to discover myself, to be fully self-actualized, differentiated.”
“And so you cut yourself off.”
Lacy frowned at the counselor. “Haven’t you been listening? I didn’t cut myself off. I was the injured party here.”
“The victim.”
“Well, yes, if you put it that way. But I haven’t let it control my life. I’ve moved on.”
The bright bird-eyes fixed on her as if she were a particularly juicy worm. “It’s hard to move on when you’re dragging your baggage behind you.”
Lacy tried to dismiss the image, but she felt the truth of it nevertheless—the weight of the past, holding her back, hindering each stumbling step toward the future.
“It’s not that big a deal,” she muttered.
“On the contrary,” Mamie said. “It’s an enormous deal. Your fiancé was unfaithful to you. Your sister betrayed you. She stole the life you thought you deserved. That’s enough to supply rage and bitterness for a lifetime.”
“I’m not angry,” Lacy protested, but even as she spoke the words, she knew it was a lie.
“Have you ever read Lord of the Rings?” Mamie asked.
The non sequitur jerked Lacy to attention. “A long time ago. But what does that have to do with—?”
“Remember Gollum? He finds the sacred ring and claims it, calling it ‘my precious.’ Even though it is destroying him, he clings to it, will do anything to get it back when it’s taken from him.”
“All right,” Lacy said hesitantly.
Mamie tilted her head. “We all have a ‘precious,’ an obsession that well may destroy us, and yet we cherish it, hold onto it at any cost.”
“And my obsession, my ‘precious,’ is—?”
Mamie glanced at the clock. “Our time is up. Shall we make another appointment for you?”
Lacy stared at her. “You’re just going to leave me like this, without an answer?”
“You have the answer within you,” Mamie said. “You merely have to find it for yourself.”
LACY SPENT EIGHT MONTHS with Mamie Witherspoon, searching for the answers that lay within her own soul. It was hard work, emotionally grueling and mentally exhausting. But gradually she felt the baggage slip away a piece at a time, until there was only one issue left that bogged her down.
Forgiveness.
Mamie raised the subject. Lacy resisted.
Mamie raised the subject again. Lacy balked.
Alison raised the subject. Lacy told her to mind her own damned business.
Alison simply lifted her left eyebrow at Lacy in that annoying, I-know-you-better-than-you-know-yourself look. Lacy tossed her wadded-up napkin across the dinner table and grinned when it hit Alison directly on the forehead.
“Listen,” Lacy said, “I’ve worked hard to face the truth about myself.” She ticked off each item on her fingers. “I’ve dealt with the anger and the jealousy. I no longer feel like a victim. I’ve accepted the fact of Lauren and Trip’s relationship, and I see that it might not have been the best thing in the long run if I had married him instead. I’ve become aware of my tendency to withdraw to avoid getting hurt again, and I’ve started letting people get closer. But forgive Lauren and Trip? Let bygones be bygones? Forget what they’ve done to me? There’s no way.”
Alison cocked her head and looked at Lacy. “Who said anything about bygones? Who said anything about forgetting?”
“Well, that’s what forgiveness means, doesn’t it? Letting stuff go, reconciling relationships, forgetting what someone else has done to you. Having everything go back to the way it used to be. Besides, Lauren and Trip haven’t asked for forgiveness. They haven’t said they were sorry for what they did.”
“And the government hasn’t apologized for causing the death of my husband,” Alison replied softly. “That’s irrelevant.”
Lacy leaned forward in her chair. “Apologies are irrelevant? Taking responsibility is irrelevant?”
“Whether or not someone has apologized is irrelevant
to our need to forgive.” She took a deep breath and a large drink of tea before she continued. “Forgiveness is not absolution, Lacy. Forgiveness is the process of liberating ourselves from the web of pain others have imposed upon us. Forgiveness is about freedom, Lace. Your freedom. You forgive for your own sake, so that you no longer have to be controlled by what that person has done to you. You let it go, abandon any pretense of having power over the situation. You control your own life, because you certainly can’t control anyone else’s.”
“I don’t know how to do that.”
“Ask Mamie” was all Alison would say in reply.
LACY DIDN’T LIKE THE FEELING that her counselor and her best friend were tag-teaming her, but she also knew they were right. She was tired of the anger, the hate. It took her a couple of months, but she finally asked Mamie how she could begin to forgive.
“You’ve already begun,” Mamie replied with a smile. “Think of a spider’s web. You’re all wrapped up in pain and heartbreak and self-imposed exile. Then you come to and realize you’re caught. You have to do something, and thrashing around only makes the bondage worse. So one thread at a time, you cut yourself free. You face the truth. You give up being a victim. You accept reality. One thread at a time, until you can move and breathe again. The last thread that binds your freedom is unforgiveness. You need to understand that forgiveness is a process and doesn’t always look like what it is.”
Mamie smiled, and her beady eyes almost disappeared. “If I might be permitted a personal anecdote—”
Lacy waved a hand. “By all means.”
“I had a difficult relationship with my mother when I was growing up. She was very domineering and demanding, always had to have things perfect. And I wasn’t perfect. I was plain and fat, and although I overcompensated by being intelligent and creative, that was never enough for her. I always felt put down, demanded. Then one day, pretty much out of the blue, I came to a decision. I was thirty-eight years old, had a Ph.D. and a growing counseling practice, and I still felt like that fat ugly child who couldn’t please her mother. So I said—out loud, to myself, ‘I don’t give a damn what she thinks of me.’ ”
Lacy grinned. “If that’s your example of forgiveness—”
“But it was, don’t you see? I declared my independence from her opinion. And gradually, as that truth took hold in my life, I was able to forgive her, to realize that at her age she wasn’t likely to change. I could either accept her as she was, or I could live under the cloud of her disapproval for the rest of my life. I couldn’t choose my feelings, but I could choose whether or not I let her perceptions control me.”
“And so with my sister—”
Mamie nodded encouragingly. “Go on.”
“I can choose to forgive her not to set her free, but to free myself from the rage and bitterness that have controlled me.”
“And what would that look like in practical terms?”
Lacy bit her lip. “I would be able to face Lauren and Trip and have some kind of relationship with them. I could be an aunt to the nephew I’ve never met. I could go home without feeling tense and self-protective.” She paused. “And what happens then?”
“Then,” Mamie said, “your time with me will come to an end.”
THE END CAME SOONER than Lacy had expected. Just before Thanksgiving break, she received a frantic call from her mother.
Daddy had suffered a stroke. A bad one. Mama needed help and support.
The principal hired a substitute to finish out the semester and administer exams. Reluctantly Lacy tendered a midterm resignation.
It was time to go home.
TWENTY-THREE
FAMILY CHRISTMAS
HILLSBOROUGH, NORTH Carolina
NOVEMBER 1983
When she pulled her fully loaded VW bug up in front of the house two days after Thanksgiving, Trip and Lauren were there to meet her, accompanied by a dark-haired intense young man who turned out to be her nephew.
Lauren stepped forward and gave her an awkward hug. “Welcome home, Lace,” she said with a grave formality. “You, ah, remember Trip. This is our son, Ted. He’s just about to turn fourteen.”
He looked older than the pictures she had seen at her parents’ house, but when he smiled, she could see the little boy in him. He hesitated, then gave her an awkward, one-armed hug. “I’m glad to meet you, Aunt Lacy. Finally.”
Lacy regarded him. There was something unusual about him, something she couldn’t quite articulate. Then it dawned on her.
Both Lauren and Trip were blond and fair. Her nephew had dark curly hair, olive-toned skin. And brown eyes.
This might be Lauren’s son, but he definitely wasn’t Trip’s.
She glanced over at Trip, who was standing apart from them. He said nothing, but Lacy felt his eyes on her, as if he were trying to communicate without words. The awareness of his attention was unsettling.
“I sold everything I couldn’t pack into the car,” she said. “There’s a big trunk in the back seat, a couple of suitcases, and up front there are six boxes of books.” She moved to open the front hood, and her hand brushed Trip’s as he reached out to grab the handle. Lacy pulled back as if she had touched a live wire, and after that she supervised the retrieval of the luggage from a safer distance.
Lauren looked… different. Lacy hadn’t seen her since graduation, and although this woman standing next to her was readily recognizable as a sister, the twinness had succumbed to time in a way Lacy would have thought impossible. It was like gazing into a magic mirror and seeing ten years into the future.
She seemed tired. Weary. Worn out. She was only thirty-six, but fine crow’s feet already fanned out from the corners of her eyes. She had gained weight, about fifteen or twenty pounds, Lacy gauged. Enough to make her look saggy and bloated. Her hair had been bleached several shades lighter than her natural blonde. Its texture looked coarse and brittle, and the color did not complement her skin tone.
Trip, on the other hand, was every bit as handsome as he had been the day they met. Heavier, certainly, but he carried it well and in the right places. Once he smiled tentatively in her direction, flashing a dimple at the corner of his mouth. She remembered the eyes, lake-blue and liquid. How could she have forgotten the dimple?
“I hope you like the house,” Lauren was saying, pointing to the little brick place sitting back a ways from the street. “It was the best we could find this close to Mom and Dad. We rounded up some furniture for you—just temporarily, of course, until you can get what you want.”
“I’m sure it will be fine,” Lacy muttered absently.
“Dad’s still in the hospital. They say they’re going to release him tomorrow. I told Mother I could manage things, but she insisted on calling you. I guess I should thank you for coming.”
“It’s okay,” Lacy said. “I wanted to come.”
It wasn’t the whole truth, of course. She had returned out of duty, out of family responsibility, when the very last thing she wanted was to be thrust into an uncomfortable truce with Lauren. But it had been her choice. No one had pressured her.
“After we unload, we had planned to go to the hospital and see Dad, and then go to our house and have turkey sandwiches.” She paused. “But we put some Thanksgiving leftovers in your fridge, just in case you were too tired.”
Lacy pounced on this excuse like a terrier on a rat. “It was a very long drive,” she said. “Two days on the road has left me exhausted. I think I’ll unpack and rest up a little, then go to see Dad later this evening.”
Lauren didn’t protest. She, too, seemed relieved. “All right. I’ll tell the folks you’ll come by later.”
And then, with perfunctory hugs all around, they were gone.
IT DIDN’T FEEL LIKE HOME yet, this tiny rental house with its two small bedrooms and a pink tile bath that harked back to the fifties. But it was on a side street within walking distance of the house she had grown up in—close enough to her parents to be helpful and, she hoped, f
ar enough away to maintain a semblance of independence.
Lacy had a little money saved up, enough to make the move and keep her in groceries for a few months. The principal at Hillsborough High, thrilled to be getting such an experienced teacher, had promised her a position come September.
She missed Kansas City. Missed Alison. Missed the snow at Christmas. But coming home had been the right decision. Daddy was making progress, thanks to the exercises and speech therapy. On the days when the physical therapist didn’t come, Lacy went over and made him do the painful stretches.
And she was doing some stretching of her own.
NOVEMBER BURNED ITSELF OUT in a blaze of red and yellow leaves. The air grew cold, and the Carolina sky arched a brilliant blue above. Although still unable to walk on his own, Lacy’s father seemed to be improving, and he insisted on having them all for Christmas.
This was what Lacy had been dreading. For a few weeks she had been able to negotiate a little two-step around Lauren and Trip, avoiding them whenever possible and being formally courteous when circumstances forced her into their presence. But there would be no escaping them at a family Christmas.
She arrived first on Christmas morning, resolutely determined to make the best of it. But the moment she stepped across the threshold, memories assaulted her on a wave of familiar scents. Turkey roasting in the oven, spiced pumpkin, yeast rolls. Her mind lurched and spun out a collage of old home movies with herself and Lauren in the starring roles. The twins in identical green velvet dresses, singing carols at the piano. The twins with their first bicycles. The twins in long white robes and halos, Mama’s little angels.
She dumped the corn and broccoli casserole on the kitchen counter and took her packages to the tree. Arranging them gave her a moment to collect herself, to push back the tears.
She barely had time to paste on a smile, however, when the door opened and Trip came in on a blast of cold air. Lacy rocked back on her heels and looked up at him, pleasantly disheveled, his cheeks flushed pink from the wind.
Delta Belles Page 18
