by Amanda Foote
I pulled my journal out from the top drawer of my desk, where it had begun to gather dust as I’d neglected it over the busy last few weeks. I flipped to the page where I had started my list.
My mother.
It occurred to me that I would never be able to complete it. I would never be able to cross my parents’ deaths off the list.
I took the painting of Cadence and I hung it above my bed, and pinned some of the photographs of my parents I’d saved around it. With Marlene’s help, I packed the donation boxes into Cadence’s little sedan (now mine) and drove them to Habitat For Humanity, who thanked me for my generous donation. I was just glad they didn’t ask where it all came from.
✽✽✽
The first month of school went by with a lot of hiccups. I spent one class crying because I hadn’t seen Bliss in three days. I held her so tight that night she started coughing and I had to let go. “This is harder than I thought it would be,” I had said to Marlene.
“I know, my dear,” she replied.
I didn’t realize how hard college was going to be. I got little to no sleep, and I yearned for fall break to finally come around.
When it did, I spent the entire week at Marlene’s. About halfway through the break, Fernie knocked on the door. I answered it this time, but I didn’t let him in.
“I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want to see you,” I told him. He stood at the door in a black button up shirt and khaki pants, holding a small bouquet of flowers that he definitely bought from a grocery store.
“I know,” he said. “But I need to explain.”
I shrugged. “It’s your funeral,” I replied, instantly regretting my words. “I- I didn’t mean it like-”
He smiled sadly, stepping inside. “I know, Heaven. You have your grandfather’s ability to say the worst thing you can think of when you’re not thinking.” He patted my shoulder as he passed, and we both recoiled when a hardback book came flying through the foyer and out the open door.
“You deserting bastard!” Marlene screamed. Her face was red, her glasses were askew, and her hair was half falling out of its bun.
Bliss started crying from the living room, where she and Bobby and Melonie were watching TV, where I had just left them. Just then they stood up and came to the door. “Hey, uh,” Bobby stammered, “we thought we might take Bliss to the park for a minute.” I nodded. He squeezed my hand and they hurried out the door behind me.
I’d never seen Marlene so angry. The night she was drunk, she was more like devastated. But now, she was furious. She was practically glowing red.
“How dare you show your coward face in my house again. How dare you show up here and taunt me like this. You are filthy. I cannot believe you,” she fumed.
“Please,” Fernie begged. “Let me explain.”
Her eyes went wide. “Explain?! Explain what? How you ignored your only remaining daughter’s letters? How you show up out of the blue thinking everything will be okay? And then leaving again after everything that’s happened?! I needed you! My sister DIED.”
I felt my heart ripping in half inside my body. This was worse than drunk Marlene. This is the first I'd truly seen how broken she was over my mom’s death. I didn’t know what to do but stand there and watch in dumbfounded silence.
“Please,” Fernie repeated. He was crying. “I sold my house.”
He reached out to Marlene and brushed the hair out of her face. “Mija,” he pleaded. “I had to say goodbye. But I’m here to stay now.”
He stayed there, reaching out to her, waiting for her to reciprocate. She paused, unsure of whether to trust him again, but then she folded herself in his arms and hugged him as hard as he was hugging her. I knew it was time for me to leave, so I gently shut the door behind me and went to find my child at the park.
✽✽✽
The cold air bit at my fingertips beneath my long sleeve sweater. The leaves had already changed and fall had come and gone. There was a chance of snow next week. Winter was my favorite season and it wasn’t quite like this in L.A. But Oklahoma was my home now and I looked forward to many more chilling winters here.
After a few months of growing accustomed to school, I was able to find a way to budget my time to allow for Bliss, school, my job at the library, and time for a social life. I don’t know how I did it, but it involved a lot less sleep than I was used to, and I had to sacrifice some things, like personal reading time, but it was worth it. I went on a few dates but they were all duds.
Liberty Bell did her best to teach me how to cook. The basics, but enough to feed my child. We stressed our way through finals, but mostly aced all of them. And at the end of the semester, I moved out of the dorm and back into Marlene’s.
“Dorm life just isn’t for me,” I told Liberty Bell. “I need to be near Bliss as much as possible.”
She nodded. “Cool. Why don't we get an apartment together?”
I gaped at her. “Really? You sure you still want to live with me?”
She looked at me skeptically. “Of course. You’re my best friend. Aside from my brother, of course. It just makes sense. Split the rent. While we’re still young, ya know.” She laughed.
I smiled at her, surprised. “You’d have to live with Bliss. And what happens if we get boyfriends? Well, significant others.” I nudged her gently with my elbow.
She grinned sheepishly. “We’ll make it work. We’ll get a three bedroom. With our student loans, financial aid, and both our jobs, we should be able to afford it. We’ll eat Ramen for dinner every night. So what’s new?” She laughed again. Liberty Bell had snagged herself an editing gig at a big time photography studio in the city. They were really great about working around her school schedule, because they saw her potential, just like I did.
“Well, cool. I can move into Marlene’s until we find a place. Will you go back to your parents’ place?”
She shrugged. “Meh. I don’t know. We’ll see where I land.”
It was my turn to laugh. “Well Fernie is cooking enchiladas at Marlene’s tonight if you’d like to join.”
“Sounds delicious. Count me in.”
Fernie had moved into Cadence’s old room. I wasn’t really sure how I felt about it but I wasn’t sure where else he was supposed to go. He could have taken my room but Marlene was saving it for me and Bliss while I was in school, for when I came home. Maybe if LB and I got an apartment, she’d let him have it.
After dinner, he retreated to his room with one of Marlene’s books, her first one, the one Cadence and I had discussed only days before her death. “My favorite one,” he mentioned before he left the room. Same as me.
Liberty Bell and I were making plans for Bliss’ first birthday the following week, as Marlene cleared up the dishes. Bliss was still wide awake in my lap, chili sauce decorating her cheeks like war paint. She played with my iPhone on the table, pushing buttons until she had locked me out of it. It wasn’t the first time.
We were looking through the prints that LB had taken of all of us that summer, trying to find the best one to blow up and put on a chair at the party. Bliss would likely not remember the gesture once she was older, but it felt important to me. Liberty Bell shuffled through the pictures, handing me one half-hazardously from the stack. It was the one of me and Dillard. He stood behind me, arms around my waist, looking down at him. I was looking up at him. I was surprised at genuinely happy I looked.
“Why’d you hand me this one?” I asked her.
She shrugged. “No reason. Just a good one.”
“Cadence isn’t even in this one.”
She grinned. “I didn’t say she was.”
Liberty Bell excused herself after we finalized some of the birthday plans, and gave Marlene and I both hugs before she left. “Let’s talk about the apartment idea some more tomorrow,” she said, and I agreed.
Marlene, having finished the dishes, poured herself a glass of red wine. She’d had water with dinner. She had stayed pretty true to her earlier statement of
cutting back, so far. I was pretty proud of her for keeping her demons in check. We all have them, some are just harder to ignore.
I thought about Marlene’s first book and what Cadence had told me. Somehow Cadence and Marlene had this relationship that Marlene and I had yet to cultivate, maybe because Cadence was older and more experienced, knew more of the world than I did. Perhaps Marlene connected with her better on that level. But I wanted that too. With Cadence gone, I knew now that I needed all the closeness I could get from family.
“Will you tell me about your fiancé?” I asked her suddenly.
She looked up, surprise on her face. At first she looked hurt, angry. Then she looked sad. And finally, she smiled.
“Of course,” she sighed. “His name was Stephen. He was perfect. But mostly because he wasn’t perfect. He was completely klutzy and always said the wrong thing, and, well I was madly, madly in love with him.” She dipped her finger in the wine and ran it along the edge of the round glass, a tiny whistle emerging as she took in a deep breath. “He was mugged and shot in the back alley of a Subway.” She coughed a little, choking on her sadness, and her eyes watered. ‘They never even found him until the morning. I spent the whole night wondering if he’d left me, because we’d had a huge fight that morning.”
I was quiet, allowing her a moment to grieve. I could tell from her sagging shoulders, from the way she flinched when people touched her, from the way she’d never dated again and from the way her eyes sank as she got trapped inside herself, that she'd never truly gotten over this. Even Bliss had stopped fidgeting and was staring inquisitively at Marlene.
She took a deep, less confident breath. “I loved him very, very much Heaven. My entire life changed when I lost him. You’re young, so you might not know yet. But there is nothing, absolutely nothing, more important than the people you care about and having them in your life.” She laughed gently, but it was heavy with consideration. “Well, maybe you do know.” She looked up at me then, deep brown eyes wet with unshed tears.
It was then that I truly realized what a complete and absolute idiot I had been.
✽✽✽
“We’re coming,” Bobby insisted.
“I mean, it’s a several day drive, with a baby. You really don’t have to,” I replied.
Liberty Bell shook her head. “Nope, you’re not getting out of this one. We are your best friends. You need road trip companions. Plus, I’ve never been to California. School doesn’t start again for another two weeks. We are definitely coming.”
I sighed begrudgingly. “Fine. But I’m doing most of the driving.”
‘Nope,” Bobby said. “You’re not doing that either.”
I sighed, but I was happy. These were my best friends. I wouldn’t rather have anyone else tag along with me on this journey of self-discovery.
We headed out the next morning with a full car, plenty of snacks, and tons of energy. We took Cadence’s car. After all, it had made the whole trip once already. Hopefully it could make it again. After a few hours,, Bliss was already out, Liberty Bell was buried in a book, and Bobby was complaining about needing to pee. We stopped in Sayre, Oklahoma for him to relieve himself then got right back on the road. Bobby had claimed shotgun next to me while I drove the first stint, monopolizing the radio with old country songs from his iPhone. He sang along, too. It would be funny to tease him and say he was off-key, but he was actually very good. I enjoyed listening to his husky voice belt out heartfelt country lyrics. I’d never been much of a country music fan, but they were definitely turning me. Especially the old stuff, George Strait and the like. They were the best.
We stopped for lunch in Amarillo, Texas at a Waffle House, right in the middle of the Texas panhandle. Bliss had thrown up in the car shortly after we stopped for Bobby to pee and we had to stop again to clean her up. Note to self: ice cream and long car rides do not mix well with Bliss. Ha. These are the kinds of things I was looking forward to learning. Well, the puking not so much. But the little things that would someday make Bliss Bliss, those I would cherish discovering.
Bobby had to pee yet again, not five minutes after we left the Waffle House, so we found the nearest Walmart and made sure that everyone was prepared for the next leg of the drive.
A few more hours later we arrived in Albuquerque and found the nicest looking motel we could find and got a room with two beds. Of course, we checked first to make sure it had a pool and wifi. Necessary things. We ate a dinner of scrumptious Taco Bell before we all took a dip in the pool. I took Bliss in with me, naked because we didn’t bring any swimmers for her, and silently prayed that she wouldn’t poop. She had an absolute blast. I had never seen her laugh so hard. When Bobby swam up next to us in the shallow end, she reached out for him and he took her from me, playing with her on the steps in the shallow end while Liberty Bell and I headed off toward the hot tub. I was looking forward to seeing Bobby become a dad. I knew without a doubt that he would be a great one, and I can’t say I wasn’t a little bit excited about Bliss having a friend close to her own age. The thought made me smile.
In the hot tub, Liberty Bell chatted up a very pretty girl about our age. Her name was Lacey and she was making the trip by herself to see her parents in Kansas. She had curly red hair tied up in a knot so it wouldn’t get wet, but the spirally tendrils hanging at the base of her neck were dripping the warm water of the hot tub. She wore big brown glasses that almost hid her striking blue eyes, falling every few minutes to the tip of her thin, mousy nose. She was constantly pushing them up. Liberty Bell was enthralled.
I’d seen her like this before, of course. I think the appeal of having not admitted it out loud made the thing more exciting for her, more adventurous. Like a secret that she thought she was keeping, but I think at this point, everyone else knew. I wondered if she'd ever contemplated whether or not she should tell me. She never brought girls into the dorm room. Not romantically, anyway. Study dates, sure, but nothing happened. But she’d also never said anything about it to me, so I made it a point to not mention it until she was ready to bring it up herself. All in good time.
Lacey made her departure with the excuse of it getting late, and I swung a mischievous look in LB’s direction. She shrugged, laughing. “What? She was cute!”
I laughed too. I guess now was a good enough time as any. “You’re a single woman, far as I know. Have all the fun you want, Liberty Bell.”
She smirked and splashed me a little with the water, but her face was solemn. “Thanks, Heaven.”
A few minutes later we were all tuckered out (again, Liberty Bell’s phrase, not mine), and Bliss’ eyes were drooping heavily. We headed to the room with heavy, happy hearts and hair full of chlorine water, and I slept better in that motel room than I had slept in months.
By the time we reached Flagstaff the next afternoon, the tire was completely flat. “Crap,” I said, pulling off the highway. We called a tow using Marlene’s AAA service and had it taken to the nearest tire place so they could replace it. A used one was all I could really afford, so it would have to do. The tow truck driver was kind enough to drop us off at a McDonald’s not too far away so that we could have lunch while we waited.
It was as we were leaving the McDonald’s with the intention of exploring a little before the car was ready that I saw the poster for the gallery.
Chapter Eleven.
This is where you meet her. I didn’t tell you her name before, but it’s Lomava. She said at some point that it means “beautiful water” in Hopi. Not a traditional name, she’d said, but her parents were not traditional. But when we met her, she called herself Tuwutsmoki, or storyteller.
She didn’t say much besides telling us her story, but she didn’t need to. Her story said everything.
“Gallery of Hopi Art and Culture, featuring expert Hopi storyteller,” Bobby read off the poster. “That sounds interesting. Anyone else game?”
I shrugged. “Sure, sounds interesting. Who knows how long we’ll have to kill time befor
e they finish the car.”
The gallery was less than a mile down the road so we chose to walk, though Liberty Bell complained the whole way. “My feet hurt. Why do we have to walk? Can’t we call a cab?”
“It’s not like we don’t need the exercise,“ Bobby laughed, patting his (hardly what I’d call “overweight”) tummy.
It was a rather small shop set in a strip mall between a Subway and a laundromat. The wide glass windows and the glass door were painted with a stunning sunset on an Arizona skyline, with unique tribal-looking patterns decorating the clouds and the land.
A bell chimed as we walked inside the warm building. It was generously decorated with authentic-looking paintings and handmade ceramic figurines, gorgeously elaborate dreamcatchers, stunning black and white photography of Hopi children, and even more that we had yet to see. A young teenage girl with dark skin and darker hair sat at a desk near the front, reading a book.
She glanced up through wire rim glasses. “Hi, welcome to the Hopi gallery. We hope you enjoy our exquisite selection of authentic Hopi art and trinkets, please do not touch unless you intend to buy. Let me know if you have any questions.” Her face went back to her book before she’d even finished her last sentence.
The rest of the gallery seemed empty of people. Bliss reached out for a very breakable looking ceramic figurine of an eagle and Bobby quickly pulled her away. “No touch!” He said, grabbing her little hand and tucking it against her side. She pouted.
I laughed at her and tugged her shirt down, it had begun to ride up to her chest.
“You,” we heard a deep, feminine voice call from the back of the store. It came from a small set up of beaded curtains and pillows that rested in the back corner. An old woman with long, fraying black and gray hair and dark eye makeup sat behind a low table, writing something down in a notebook.
