The Story of Us

by Deb Caletti

  “She probably just went to get coffee,” Ben said.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said.

  “Dan was just wondering if I’d seen her. He isn’t even concerned. We don’t need to get crazy. We don’t need another Baby Boo search party.”

  “I’ll be right back,” I said again. And then I did something I hardly ever do. I stood on my toes and kissed his cheek, and he crooked one arm around my neck and gave me a hug.

  “There’s nothing you can do,” he said. “She has her own reasons.”

  “Maybe I just want to see her off,” I said.

  The house was quiet; only Dan was awake, drinking a cup of coffee and reading the newspaper, innocent about the changes barreling his way. I felt bad for him. Mom’s first good guy, and he was about to get his heart broken. I snuck out without going in to see him. I didn’t like the feeling of knowing his future when he didn’t. I was the doctor with the cancer diagnosis before the patient knows anything is wrong.

  Outside, the air felt different. Calm, as if the hard wind had blown something bad away. The fog was jogging past, revealing spots of blue in the sky that meant a sunny day was on its way. The waves twinkled with merry mischief. The storm had brought in all kinds of shit at the part of the beach where wet met dry. I saw a rubber boot and a Coke bottle, the lid of a cooler. It’s like the sea had spit out all the garbage and was now feeling better.

  I waited for Jupiter to sniff for the right pee spot and squat for what seemed a very long time. Her legs were shaky again. Her little white spot on her back, which always looked so proud, seemed small and unsure. I’d have to tell Mom about her legs. Her old age was catching up, I guessed. It was hard to watch.

  I looked over at Randy-the-Ex-Marine’s house. I tried to see if the helicopter was still in its place, but the slope of the cliff made it impossible. Ben was right, though—you couldn’t have missed the noise of it taking off. Still, I headed toward that house. I could picture the scene—my mother there with her bag and her purse slung over her shoulder. Her wallet would be in her hand, and she’d be taking out the bills to pay for the ride out.

  I didn’t even know what had happened the night before. I’d forgotten to even ask Ben. Amy and Hailey might be gone already, sleeping soundly in one of Bishop Rock’s B and B’s with their mother watching over them, preparing to head back to Vancouver.

  I walked in the sand, concentrating on our path—I didn’t want to lead Jupiter over broken shells or driftwood logs. I was so focused that I didn’t even see the figure a short distance away. The figure heading back toward Bluff House.

  “Cricket?”

  The voice startled me. I was so sure about what was going to happen. But I looked up, and there she was, our mother, bundled up in Dan’s sweatshirt, her cheeks rosy from the morning walk.

  “Where you headed?” she called.

  It was as good a question as any. The best question.

  I looked down at her hands. I didn’t understand. They were empty except for a whole sand dollar that she must have found on her walk.

  Jupiter was pulling at the leash, and I let it go so that she could run to my mother, who scooped her up. It struck me how the ocean had spit out all that junk, but, too, a whole sand dollar. Other treasures, likely, as well. After all this mess, there were no bags in my mother’s hands. How do I explain this feeling? It’s like my heart opened up and out, and everything I’d been holding released. Relief, sorrow, but joy, too. I had to sit down right there on a big flat sandy rock.

  “Ah,” I said. It wasn’t too different than the cry I heard Ted make in the bathroom. “You’re getting married today. Still.”

  Her face turned concerned. “Cricket, yes. What did you think?”

  I put my head down, looked at my sandy shoes. I had gotten this so wrong. It’s hard to see clearly when your eyes are squinched tight out of fear.

  “What did you think?” she said again, and then she understood. “Oh.” She sounded hurt. She set Jupiter down and sat beside me. I scooted over on my rock to make room. Jupiter sniffed happily at a clump of seaweed.

  “Cricket, there were reasons before. Really good reasons.”

  “There are reasons now,” I said.

  “There’s a problem now, one that Dan and I can handle. And there are a million more reasons why this is the best decision I’ve ever made.”

  “So you’re not going to take off to Tahiti by yourself?”

  She narrowed her eyes at me like I’d gone mad and she was trying to figure out exactly when that had happened. “Tahiti? Why would I go to Tahiti by myself?”

  “To enjoy the blessed isolation.”

  “Cricket, you lost me,” she said. She dug her feet in the sand, buried her toes.

  “That pamphlet in your purse.”

  “What were you doing in my purse?”

  “Aspirin.”

  “I don’t know of any pamphlet. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Wait. Tahiti? Did it have gum stuck in it?”

  Oh no. Oh, how we could get things wrong.

  “Dan and I went to this travel agent to see if we could even afford to take a trip. I was sick of my gum by the time we got out of there. Jesus, Cricket.”

  I was silent.

  “Okay, I know what you thought. I’m sorry you thought that. But, Cricket, I love Dan. I’m committed to Dan. Dan and I are right together.”

  Wait—last night. “What about Amy? What about the helicopter?”

  “Dan told Gayle she needed to leave. Amy decided to go with her mother.”

  “No.” I groaned.

  “Cricket, it’s okay. It’s too bad, but okay. Dan is fine. He’s hurt, but he can handle it. Amy will do what she’ll do right now, but Dan won’t let it get in the way of our life together. He’s taking care of it. That’s all I can ask for.”

  “I think it’s bratty. And selfish. Yeah, be pissed because your father is actually happy. I can see if you were planning to send them away to boarding school, like in the freaking Sound of Music—”

  “I love when she makes the dresses out of curtains,” my mother said. I already knew she loved that part. “Crick, yeah, it’s upsetting. But she has some growing up to do.”

  “It’s not like she’s seven. She’s fifteen.”

  “There are so many different fifteens. And eighteens. And forty-twos, for that matter. Mature fifteens and young fifteens and wise fifteens and lost fifteens. And angry fifteens.” She thought awhile. Then she smiled. Chuckled. “You should have seen Dan last night. Damn. Commando warrior.”

  I chuckled too. I would have loved to have seen that.

  I watched a seagull strolling along the shoreline. He looked like he should be whistling something carefree. Jupiter spotted him too, and started to pull, howling. Mom pulled her close. Wrapped her arms around Jupiter’s small black and white chest. “Quit it, monkey,” she said.

  “How can you be sure?” I asked.

  “About Dan?”

  “About forever.”

  Jupiter stopped the howling. Set her front paws up on my mother’s knees. Mom put her nose to Jupiter’s and Eskimo kissed. Jupiter hopped down and sat nicely.

  “Oh, Crick.” She sighed. She took my hand. “Experience, maybe? I’ve had lots of experiences. The bad ones made the good ones pretty clear. I used to think it was so tricky, finding the right person. In some ways it is. But in some ways it’s simple. A good man, who you respect and who respects you … Of course, ‘good’—see, that’s a lot of traits right there, though. A lot of things it’s not.”

  Janssen was good. Really good. That’s where I got confused. What idiot gave up good? “Janssen,” I said.

  “He’s good, all right,” Mom said. “But I guess there’s something else. About being sure. Sure about anything. Right comes with right timing.”

  “Right timing?”

  “A bunch of things it’s not again.”

  I was quiet. Jupiter was digging in the sand with her front paws. She used to d
o this at our old house, her butt sticking up out of the hole when it got real deep. Mom squeezed my hand. “Crick?” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  “I need you to stop worrying. I know I’ve given you reason in the past, and I am so sorry for that. There are so many ways I wish I’d done it different. But I have it handled.”

  My heart clutched. I felt like I could cry.

  “And … I know it’s a complicated thing to ask. I know it is. But can you ever forgive me for all the ways I got things wrong? I got so many things wrong. My bad decisions hurt you and Ben. I am so sorry for that.”

  I turned to her on that rock, and we put our arms around each other. You could wish and wish for the big words, love, hope, forever, the most beautiful words, to be only themselves, uncluttered by the things that can cling to them. But always, always, there will be the cracked windshields and the dark nights on some dock somewhere, the raccoon on a roof, the lost children. Love hung in there, that’s what it did.

  Jupiter popped her head up. She had sand on her nose.

  “Of course I forgive you. Of course I do.”

  People started arriving that afternoon. Friends of Mom’s and Dan’s, the girl Ben had been seeing, Taylor. The house filled. Gavin had been put in charge of Cruiser, and he and Hailey were walking him around like he was their love child. Afternoon turned to early evening. The sky had been blue all afternoon, and now there was the sleepy light of a day ending. I got dressed. My blue dress and heels, sparkly earrings. I looked around for Ash but didn’t see him. Aunt Bailey was going crazy with the camera, stopping everyone in their tracks for various group photos. She was bossing everyone into poses. Grandpa and George and Ben. Ben and me. More of Ben and me. Gram and Mrs. Jax. Oscar and Gavin and Hailey. Baby Boo in his little suit, with his favorite Goddie, Jupiter, in her one perfect outfit, good for any occasion, black velvet fur with white spot.

  The cake was unharmed, but Cruiser had somehow gotten to my mother’s shoes. He chewed up one of her white high heels with the seed pearl straps, but that didn’t get in the way of her marrying her right one, Dan Jax. Nothing would. When she came down the stairs in her cream-colored dress and stepped out to the back lawn overlooking the ocean where everyone had packed in, she was barefoot. The dog had wrecked the shoes, but it had turned out to be an act of right timing—Mom had always liked being barefoot best.

  Ted sat on a stool on the grass, next to a woman with dark hair and a big smile. The minister. She held an open book—a book with the most timeless and complicated stories of all. Ted started to play his guitar. He sang, and Ash was right. A beautiful voice, sweet strumming. As it was in the beginning is now and till the end …

  “I love Peter, Paul and Mary,” Gram whispered next to me, but I saw that her eyes were wet.

  We had come so far from the days of baby toys and the Bermuda Honda and the U-Haul and the too-big lawn. We all had, and there was so much hope. There is love, Ted sang. I took Ben’s hand, and he squeezed mine. Gram took my other one, and Aunt Bailey held Gram’s. I saw Ash now, standing off to the side next to Rebecca, grinning at his father proudly. Rebecca watched Ted with a sweet smile, set her arm around Ash’s shoulders. Mrs. Jax fixed the sweater that was falling off of Mr. Jax’s shoulder, and then he put his good arm around her waist. Grandpa blew his nose into a hankie. Hailey stood with her aunt and uncle, holding Baby Boo, who was eating Cheerios out of a Baggie like a little gentleman. The dogs were watching from the living room windows. The sky turned orange off in the distance.

  My mother, in her cream dress, and Dan Jax, in his dark suit, both beaming, made promises to each other. The white rose on Dan’s collar fell off, and he shrugged and everyone laughed.

  He turned and faced us. “All of you … My wife.” His voice cracked. “I am grateful.”

  My mother’s own voice wobbled. She looked at Ben and me. “This … this is how it should look,” she said. She was crying, and so was Dan, and then so was I, and even Ben, and then Dan Jax held my mother around her waist and lifted her high up off the ground, her bare feet in the air. She was grabbing him around the neck and laughing, and I could see that those big words … They might never be perfect, but they could get very, very close.

  The party started back up on the deck. The music came on. We ate great food and we toasted each other and Mom and Dan cut that beautiful cake. And I overheard something that made my heart break. Mr. and Mrs. Jax, standing under one of the hanging lanterns.

  “I guess I’ll have to watch you die,” Mrs. Jax said. “I just didn’t want to do that.”

  He took her bony hand in his. He heard her just fine. “I’m not going anywhere yet,” he said.

  “Thank you, Cricket,” Natalie said. “Thank you for inviting me, and for everything else.”

  “I’m so glad it worked out for you.” I gave her a hug.

  “I didn’t even know I could feel like this,” she said. Her eyes danced. Goofy Oscar was getting her something to drink.

  “I am so happy for you.”

  “Hailey said Gavey’s going to Vancouver with her after this. Gavey? Do you think he’ll lose his job over at Tech Time?”

  I looked over at Gavey and Hailey, feeding each other stuffed mushrooms by the food table. “I don’t think he’ll mind.”

  “Hmm. True love?” Natalie said.

  “Probably not true or love.”

  “They’re having a great time, though.”

  Everyone was dancing now. Gram shimmied with Dan, who’d taken his shoes off to match Mom. Poor Ben—Aunt Bailey grabbed him for a spin. He wore the grim sort of dancing smile that meant he was racking up heaven points. Baby Boo was bending his knees, and his mother twirled him in a circle.

  I felt a hand on my waist, and there was Ash.

  “One dance?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You look beautiful,” he said.

  “You look pretty great yourself.” He did. Dress pants and a button-up shirt, a tie, now loosened.

  He held me close, even though the song was tripping along. “A slow dance?” I asked.

  “Slow is good,” he said.

  We understood each other then. He danced me out of the large group, eased us over to the deck rail looking over the sea. I felt his broad shoulders under my hands. Smelled that great smell of his cologne. We moved against the beat, but slow was good.

  The song ended. He leaned in and kissed my cheek, oh-so-soft. “You get things figured out, and then we’ll dance some more,” he said.

  “All right,” I said.

  “Good-bye for now.”

  “Good-bye for now,” I said.

  I watched his back disappear into the crowd. I felt the weight of loss there in my chest. But I felt rightness, too. One thing was enough to sort out.

  I looked out toward that sea, wondering what it might bring next—Coke bottles or sand dollars. But then there was my brother beside me. “God,” he breathed. “Save me. If Aunt Bailey asks me to dance one more time, I’m out of here.”

  I smiled. I looked over my shoulder and saw Aunt Bailey dancing with George now. Grandpa Shine just bent poor Taylor backward in a dip.

  Now Mom came over, and set an arm around us both.

  “Oh, sweeties,” she said.

  “You’re married,” I said.

  “It’s weird,” she said. “I feel like we’ve been married forever, but it also doesn’t feel real.”

  “I’m really happy for you,” I said. “For all of us.”

  “I’m happy for us too,” Ben said.

  “You babies,” she said. “I’m the luckiest mother that ever lived.”

  “What the hell?” Ben said.

  I thought he was being an idiot and ruining the moment. “What is she doing? Do you guys smell that?”

  “Is that Rebecca?” My mother couldn’t see in the dark to save her life.

  I squinted. I couldn’t see in the dark either, actually.

  “Does she have a bonfire going?”
Mom asked.

  “She’s burning something in that bonfire,” Ben said. “Smell.”

  He’d been pretty wrong before, but I sniffed anyway.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Mom said.

  “She’s getting rid of it,” Ben said. “She’s just tossing it on there!”

  Wow, I smelled it now. “Man. How much of that stuff does she have?”

  “Goddamn,” Ben said. “Enough to get the whole beachfront high.”

  As the bonfire flames rose and lit up the sky, I could see Rebecca clearly. Her skirts swirled, and there was the glint of her shimmering bracelets as she gave herself back to her true love.

  Ted smelled it too. He strode toward that deck rail, furious. But then he understood. He read the smoke signals in the air, or else he saw what we did—Rebecca raising her fingertips to her lips. She lifted her arm high so that Ted could catch her kiss.

  Ted cried out again, that same Ah, a different realization this time. By the end of the night, a group of high school boys would join the circle around that fire, and so, it seemed, would every aging hippie on the island. Even Randy-the-Ex-Marine himself.

  But right then the smoke rose, and the people danced, and we all bore witness to the old story of love, and love’s repairs.

  chapter

  twenty-six

  Janssen—

  1. A dog disappeared from his home and was feared dead, but four months later was found by a family who brought him to a rescue organization. They wanted to check if he had owners who were looking for him. He did—a mother and her son, who thought they’d never see him again. When they were reunited, Frankie the dog howled and howled and howled with joy and recognition. “You didn’t forget,” his owner said.

  2. Bobbie, a collie who became lost while on vacation with his family in Indiana, went on an incredible journey for months, wandering in circles in the harsh winter, before reaching Des Moines, Iowa. From there, instinctively, the Collie headed straight for his home in Oregon. Writer Charles Alexander did some detective work on the dog’s trek and found that he had traveled through Idaho, Wyoming, and Colorado, eventually traveling three thousand miles over six months before coming together with his family again.