“What’s the use? We’ll know when she’s back, and if not, we can always come up in a little bit and check if the door is unstuck.” Melanie walked to the hallway, not bothering to look back over her shoulder. “But feel free to stay up here and keep watch if you’d like.”
In the twilit backyard, their dad was pulling the tarp off their firewood rack. Kelsey, age eleven, judging by her braces, coltish limbs, and orange ruffled two-piece she had practically lived in that summer, was standing by him eagerly, ready to help. Melanie was artfully arranging lawn chairs around the campfire and giving everyone a wood-handled skewer. Her hazelnut hair was practically down to her butt, and she was wearing a chunky cable-knit sweater despite the heat. She looked like a wannabe cast member of Dawson’s Creek, Kelsey thought.
“Why isn’t Mom roasting s’mores with us?” eleven-year-old Kelsey asked her dad.
“Oh no!” he said as he revealed that the woodpile had been severely depleted. Only a few sticks of wood were left. “Because your dad is an idiot, and she’s ticked off at me for neglecting to do things like chop more firewood and take care of that wasp’s nest like she asked.”
“Really?” Kelsey asked. “I thought it was because Melanie was being such a jerk to her. All because Mom wouldn’t take her to the Arbor Creek mall.”
“Don’t be a tattletale, Kelsey Ann, and don’t be a jerk to your mother, either, Melanie Jane. We’re here to relax and enjoy the scenery, not to shop.”
Behind his back, Melanie pretended to threaten to stab her sister with the roasting skewer.
“Now who wants to go next door and ask Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher if we can borrow a few logs for our bonfire? You can tell them we’ll repay them tomorrow once I’ve chopped some wood.”
All of a sudden, Kelsey realized what evening they had stumbled upon, and her stomach lurched. She had been the one to volunteer to go next door, and the encounter with Mr. Fletcher had been such a surreal one that it had seared itself onto her childish brain, then she’d promptly buried it under the dust of all her other memories.
At first, she’d almost given up knocking because the house was dark and she couldn’t hear any movement inside. But then Mr. Fletcher had flung the door open. Of the two Fletcher adults, Mr. Fletcher was definitely her favorite. He was much more even-keeled than Mrs. Fletcher and unfailingly kind to all of the kids—furnishing them with an endless supply of water balloons and ice cream sandwiches. He talked like a TV weatherman—cheerful with lots of arm movements. But that night had been a different story.
“What do you want?” he’d barked at Kelsey as if she were a strange salesperson. He looked sweaty and jaundiced, unsteady on his feet. Probably totally blitzed, she realized as an adult.
“Just... uh...” Kelsey was so intimidated by his demeanor, she could hardly form her request. “My dad sent me over here to ask—”
“Oh yeah? What else can I get for your dad?” Mr. Fletcher spat. “Haven’t I already shared enough with him?” He gripped the doorframe as if he might topple over.
Kelsey took several steps backward. “Okay. Um... sorry to bother you.” She scurried down the porch stairs, and Mr. Fletcher had slammed the door without another word. Standing empty-handed in the gathering darkness, she didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t return to her dad without the firewood. Then she’d have to explain what had happened with Mr. Fletcher and what he’d said. She was worried her dad would get upset and storm over to confront their neighbor. It hadn’t occurred to her then just to lie and say no one had been home. So she simply stepped around the side of the house, where she knew the Fletchers kept their firewood in an unlocked shed, and grabbed as much as her thin arms could carry. Guilt and fear consumed her as she darted back across the lawn, hoping Mr. Fletcher wouldn’t see her out the window.
She related her memory to Melanie as they stood around the fire pit, watching their dad aimlessly try to start a fire with his limited supply of wood and teenage Melanie unwrap a Hershey’s bar. They waited for young Kelsey to return.
“That’s really creepy,” Melanie said. “Why did you never tell me that?”
“I don’t know,” Kelsey said, claiming one of the empty lawn chairs. “Probably because you were too busy listening to the Spice Girls on your Discman. I tried to tell Stephen about it once, and he acted really huffy. Said I had probably woken his dad up and that he’s always in a bad mood when his sleep is interrupted.”
“Sleeping? It’s probably only seven or eight at night!” Melanie said. “More like drinking.” She leaned on the back of her younger self’s chair. “I wonder if he thought Dad and Lavinia were having an affair. I mean, ‘What else can I get your dad? Haven’t I shared enough with him?’”
“Boy, was he barking up the wrong tree,” Kelsey said then regretted it. Poor Mr. Fletcher. Maybe he’d suspected the wrong Kingstad, but clearly, he’d known something was wrong with his marriage. Drinking alone in the dark—he was just as much a victim of Mom and Vinnie’s lingering relationship as Dad was, perhaps more so, since Dad had never seemed to suspect it. She thought of both couples and how precariously entwined their lives had once been and how disconnected and adrift they all became. Lance and Lavinia were probably divorced and in different, happier relationships. Her dad had remarried and was living in the sunny southwest. But only her mom was truly separate and permanently alone, her ashes buried in a cemetery plot in Elm Grove, where no one even lived anymore. It was so devastatingly unfair.
“Melanie,” she started. “I’m worried this might be our last chance to get a note to Mom. It’s coming up on our last summer here, and we have no idea what’s going to happen to her memories inside the portal once we reach that. If there’s anything we want to tell her for sure, we should probably do that before we go.”
Melanie paced slowly around the circle of chairs. “You mean like the blood clot in Mom’s lung that killed her?”
Kelsey inhaled sharply, astounded by Melanie’s bluntness. “Yes!” she agreed. She had thought she was going to have to ease into the subject cautiously, tiptoeing around her intentions.
They were quiet for a little while as young Kelsey, pink-faced and hefting a bundle of firewood, returned to their yard.
“I’ve done some research online, Kels,” Melanie said, astonishing Kelsey even further, “and I don’t know what we could even say to help Mom prevent it. Even if we told her to go see her primary care doctor a week before the date of her death, it still might not be enough. We could advise her to tell them she’s having leg pain and swelling, and they’ll probably do an ultrasound to look for a deep vein thrombosis, but if there isn’t one there, they’ll probably just send her home and have her check back in a week, which would obviously be too late. And if we just instruct her to ask to be put on anticoagulants, for no other reason than time travelers from the future told her to, they’re not going to take her seriously. They’ll probably do a psych workup instead.”
“But what if they do find a DVT?” Kelsey asked, practically breathless at the possibility. “Oh, Melanie, at least it’s something. How can we have this opportunity to prevent a horrible, tragic fate for Mom and do absolutely nothing?” Her heart was pounding at the prospect of rewriting the worst day of her entire life, her single biggest regret—the day she had let her mom die all alone with no hope of any medical interventions or even a kind face and a gentle touch to let her know she was loved in her last minutes on earth.
Melanie stared out at the lake. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “But this is major ripping-holes-in-the-fabric-of-time stuff, and I don’t think it should be taken lightly. Just think about the extent of the impact this would have on all of our lives.”
“Yes, but think of the impact it would have on Mom’s life! She would get to have one!” Kelsey cried, standing up from her lawn chair. If they’d been back in their own time, it would’ve toppled backward from the force. “I don’t understand why you’re so hell-bent on not disrupting the present. What’s so freaking g
reat about the present? Our mom is dead, our dad is remarried and off living his own life, and you and Ben just lost your...” She drifted off. “I just mean that things could only get better, right? Just think how much better our lives would be with Mom still alive.”
She imagined family dinners and board game nights at her parents’ house in Elm Grove. She imagined getting her mom’s blessing to open the Montclare Inn and the pride her mom would have that Kelsey had finally found her ambition and a calling; taking Sprocket for long walks with her mom and introducing her to Josh; no more Christmases in Arizona; no more Laila, Ezra, and Joni, period; and maybe even going shopping with her mom one day to pick out a wedding dress.
“Please don’t get too far ahead of yourself,” Melanie begged. “It probably won’t even work. Mom might be too stubborn to listen to us, or her death might be somehow destined regardless of what we do. Or we could resurrect her, and it could all go very differently from how we want it to.”
“What do you mean by that?” Kelsey asked warily.
But Melanie only shook her head. She looked drawn and washed-out, like the insubstantial ghosts they were in that place. Something caught her attention behind Kelsey’s head, and when Kelsey turned to follow her gaze, she saw that their mom had appeared on the wraparound porch.
“Did you guys save me any marshmallows?” she called down to them. With her brown curls tied back in a ribbon, she looked pretty, and her smile was wide and relaxed looking—authentic. Where did she just go inside the time portal? Obviously she had seen something that had rejuvenated her—a romantic moment with Vinnie, like Melanie suspected, or maybe something happy from her childhood.
“We haven’t even started toasting them!” teenage Melanie called back, waving a skewer. Apparently her mom’s heinous crime of not taking her to the mall was forgiven.
“We should go,” Kelsey said, eager, for the first time perhaps, to head back to the closet. “Check and see if the door will open for us now. Write Mom that note.” She wondered how much time had passed in their reality and what Josh would think if they had gone missing for hours. Would he be worried about me or just irked that I invited him over for dinner just to get into a fight with my sister then disappear on him?
“Sure,” Melanie said, but she continued watching their mom and didn’t make any motions to leave.
Their mom gave their dad a small peck on the cheek then settled into a chair, pulling leggy Kelsey onto her lap. She tugged a lightweight sweatshirt over the girl’s head then whispered something into her ear, and young Kelsey laughed, and suddenly adult Kelsey understood why she had forgotten all about Mr. Fletcher’s unusual behavior. Her mom’s lavish display of affection had nearly erased it.
Kelsey and Melanie watched as their mom reached across the short distance to where Melanie was sitting and stroked her long, straight hair. They watched as their dad got a roaring fire going and passed out marshmallows. They watched as Melanie toasted hers a golden brown and Kelsey thrust hers too close to the flame and promptly lit it on fire.
“I’m going back upstairs,” Kelsey said, but what she was thinking was: this is my sign. Her family huddled around a bonfire, toasting marshmallows, her mom’s arms tight around her, the lake a glassy backdrop—she was meant to do everything in her power to reunite them, to bring their mom back, mysterious forces of destiny and the butterfly effect be damned. She was meant to hold onto that place, where they had been so happy together once upon a time and where maybe even one day not too far in the future they could be happy together again.
“All right,” Melanie agreed.
With her sister behind her as they climbed the stairs, Kelsey asked, “What do you think of the name the Montclare Inn?”
“It’s nice,” Melanie said noncommittally.
When her fingers touched the latch and it turned easily, Kelsey let out a deep sigh of relief. “Thank goodness,” she said. “It must be working again.” They ducked under the tapestry together and closed the door. The rattling energy was gone, and its absence made the closet feel eerily still. “Holy moly! Is that what I think it is?” She bent down to pick up a toothbrush from the bench.
“One and the same,” Melanie said. “Orange with splayed bristles. So now we know where Mom just went. She must have picked it up and brought it here from the night of the party we saw.”
Kelsey studied the toothbrush as if it could reveal all the answers she was looking for. “But why would the time portal want her to go and relive the night of that awful party? That’s so random.” She tried not to evoke the image of her mom smoking behind the boathouse and staring down at her shoes, a stranger in her own life.
“I don’t know,” Melanie said. “Maybe Mom guided herself there. Maybe she wished she had done things differently.”
“You think Mom can control where she goes and what she sees?”
“Who knows? They are her memories, after all. We’ve certainly considered much crazier ideas in the past twenty-four hours.”
That still didn’t explain why their mom had looked so happy and relaxed when she had rejoined them in the backyard. What about that depressing party in the late eighties managed to boost her spirits? Kelsey would have to meditate more on that later. Their most pressing order of business was the letter. She handed Melanie a sheet of paper and a pen that she’d had tucked in her back pocket.
“Can you write this one? I’ll help.”
After several minutes, numerous cross-outs, three new sheets of paper—thank goodness she’d brought extra—and two major disagreements, they came up with:
Dear Mom,
We are both adults now, but Melanie still loves gardening, thanks to you, and Kelsey is still an avid reader—although she doesn’t use a headlamp in bed anymore.
In a few years your time, our family is going to stop coming to the lake house, so sadly, this might be one of the last communications we can send to you through the closet. We have a very important request for you, however, and we’d like you to strongly consider it.
Can you please make an appointment with your doctor for May 1, 2015, regardless of whether you are feeling sick? Tell him or her that you are having leg swelling and pain and request that you be put on a blood thinner like Warfarin. Don’t take no for an answer.
We’re not trying to frighten you or take away your agency, but maybe the future doesn’t always have to be out of our reach.
With love now and forever,
Your daughters
Chapter Twenty-Four
The bedroom was dark and silent when they returned. Melanie rushed to read the time on the nightstand’s alarm clock: 2:47 a.m. “We’ve been gone for over seven hours!” she hissed. “Just how are we going to explain this? Ben is probably sick to death right now, thinking we were kidnapped or maybe even murdered each other.”
Kelsey gently sealed the closet door behind her. “We can say we went to a bar to umm... drink our differences away.”
“Kind of hard to believe when the nearest bar is six miles from here and our cars didn’t move the whole time we were gone. Besides, they would’ve heard us leave and come back, right? Unless we climbed out a window.”
“Sure, we can climb out a window,” Kelsey said gamely. “Stephen and I used to do that for fun. From the turret room, it’s actually not that far of a drop to the porch roof, then you can scale the columns fairly easily. At least I could when I was nine. I might be a little out of practice now, though.”
Melanie shot daggers at her. “I am not scaling a roof out a second-story window. I just don’t know how the heck to explain our prolonged sudden disappearance to my husband!”
“How about the truth?”
“The truth is batshit bonkers!”
“Well, yeah, it is. But it’s still the truth.” She took a step toward Melanie and tripped over her duffel bag, which was lying between them in the darkness.
In an instant, Melanie knew that Ben had heard them. They heard an abrupt scraping noise downstairs then the
sound of feet clambering on the stairs. He was coming up to investigate, and Melanie still didn’t know what to tell him. She didn’t even know what conclusion she and Kelsey had reached about the pending offer on the house.
“Listen,” she whispered hurriedly. “I’m really not sure how this is going to work, but you own fifty percent of the house, and I’m not going to stand in your way if you feel that strongly about turning it into a bed-and-breakfast. But if Charlene decides to take legal action against us for pulling the house off the market and defaulting on our contract, then I’ll just let you handle that, okay?”
“Oh, Melanie,” Kelsey said, gratefully throwing her arms around Melanie’s shoulders. “You don’t think she would actually try to sue us, do you?”
And that was how Ben found them after giving a perfunctory knock on the door before flinging it open—hugging like two desperate and delirious people who’d been shipwrecked on the same island.
“YOU KNOW, THAT’S QUITE the story to swallow,” Ben said, stretching his arms over his head. They were lying on top of the covers of the four-poster bed in the master bedroom. “You probably should have just told me that you two jumped out a second-floor window, walked six miles to a bar to get drunk, walked six miles back, and scaled the side of the house Spiderman-style.” He smiled sleepily, which turned into a yawn. “That would have been less far-fetched.”
“Believe me, I know,” Melanie said. She had just spent the past hour rehashing, in great detail, everything that had happened at the lake house since the moment she had arrived and uncovered the door behind the tapestry. She hadn’t left anything out—the first time she’d seen her mom and grandma in the kitchen, the conversation between two friends about her mom’s hopes and dreams, the drowning at Harris Beach, the forbidden kiss with Vinnie, her pregnant mom, the party, the bonfire, the frequent sparring matches with Kelsey, the stolen cigarettes, the time-traveling toothbrush, the contents of their notes to and from their mom, even including the latest one that might or might not bring their mom back from the dead. Everything.
Versions of Her Page 29
