The Tea Chest

by Heidi Chiavaroli

  It was Ethan’s turn to sport the crinkled brow.

  “No,” I mumbled, avoiding both of their gazes.

  “I did my own quick search into your surname, and it is indeed one of the least common names. I’d say your chances of being related—however distantly—to Michael Ashworth are decent, especially with you being from the Medford area. Do you have a grandfather who could shed some light on his grandparents, their history? That’s a great place to start. I’d be happy to help how I can after that. And who knows? Maybe we’ll discover we’re actually related, eh?”

  That would be . . . weird. But cool. I’d never thought of my family consisting of more than Lena and Uncle Joe. That I could be distant kin to Melissa and Wyatt, to Noah and Emma Winslow, it all stirred up a foreign hope within me.

  Jed gathered his things and shook our hands, wished us luck with our continued search, and urged us to let him know how we made out. Then he stepped out, leaving us alone with the tea chest.

  Ethan held up his hands. “So what did I miss? What’s this about you and him being related?”

  “I’m sure it’s just me being ridiculous. I don’t see a resemblance at all.” I forced a laugh.

  “He thought it was probable.”

  “Remember Michael Ashworth, the Civil War veteran we read about in the genealogy?”

  Ethan’s eyes lit up. “Right.” He whistled low, swiped a hand above his head. “Didn’t connect the last names.”

  “I figured the name was common, but I googled it, and turns out it’s pretty rare. Got me thinking . . . that’s what made me e-mail Jed in the first place.”

  “We can’t go to the historical society until Sunday, so you want to switch gears and look into it?”

  I cleared my throat. “I don’t expect you to jump on board with this.” We had effectively ignored how we’d left things at my apartment the other day, but now the tension suddenly returned. A teenage boy with earbuds walked by the room we were in. The bass of his music reached us where we sat in silence.

  “Do you not want me to? I took the week off from work. I’d hate to waste Ida’s time.”

  A prickle of guilt over our squandered day yesterday—mainly due to my pride—nipped my conscience. I tried not to dwell on it.

  “I’m waiting for my uncle Joe to call me back.” I shrugged. “I don’t know any further back than Lena’s dad—and he was no picnic. Makes me wonder if I really want to find out more about my family.”

  “You could be waiting weeks to hear from Joe.”

  I remembered then how Ethan had actually met Joe once, the summer after graduation. I’d been nervous to introduce Ethan to my uncle, the closest thing I had to a father. I shouldn’t have been. The two hit it off. I remembered Uncle Joe saying good-bye to me once again, putting a hand on my shoulder, squeezing slightly with those strong fingers. “He’s a keeper, Miss Hayley. Good kid.”

  I’d smiled. “I like him.”

  He’d stared at me, his tanned features firm. I couldn’t hold his gaze, studied his tattooed arm below his T-shirt, the dark-blue ink depicting an eagle, anchor, and pistol. The SEAL Trident. “You like him, but . . .”

  Had I placed an unspoken but at the end of my short sentence? I inhaled a deep breath, said the words I knew my uncle Joe expected, said the words I expected of myself. “But I like the idea of enlisting a lot more.”

  I remember Uncle Joe’s small smile of acceptance and something else . . . pride, maybe? “Well, try not to break the poor kid’s heart, then. He’s head over heels for you, case you’re blind.”

  I’d laughed, felt uncomfortable with the thought of anyone being in love with me, never mind the boy who occupied so much of my time and thoughts. I hadn’t meant to get attached. I would need to ease out of the relationship soon, before he got hurt. Before I got hurt. Before I believed that such a thing as real love existed.

  That’d been easier said than done, though. Every time I told Ethan I couldn’t hang out, he’d find me—either at Lena’s or my lifeguard job or on the beach—and give me that irresistible smile that wheedled its way inside my heart . . . so naive of the fact that I was trying to ditch him, so positively endearing, that my heart would trip over itself and I would doubt my plans to join the Navy.

  That’s why I’d had to leave like I did. Because I wouldn’t be able to hold up against a proper good-bye.

  “Hay?”

  I blinked, brought my attention to Ethan’s smile—a bit more worn around the edges than it had been six years earlier but still doing the same amazing things to my heart.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled. “What did you say?”

  “Are you going to just wait around on the chance Joe will call you?”

  I breathed deep through my nose, gave Ethan credit for not mentioning my only other viable option.

  Lena.

  I was a warrior. It was time to go through with my vow to camp out on Lena’s porch until she either came home or opened the door.

  It was time to put on my armor and fight, face the past, face the possibility—rather, likelihood—of being hurt.

  I thought of Reverend Osgood’s words.

  “I pray the Lord works out good in the midst of darkness.”

  I thought of first glimpsing the tea chest in Ethan’s shop. Of how it had dropped off my counter. Our visit to Melissa in my hometown. The genealogy book.

  Was Someone bigger than me working something out for good in my own life? And why, though I dared hope it, was it so hard to believe?

  I would face my past. I would enter this old battleground, a place where nothing of promise ever grew, where only ashes and blackness remained.

  Yet one question persisted: When I had completed this mission, this revisiting my past, would it bring any type of closure or healing to my battered soul? Would it help me move on, prepare me in every way to be among America’s most elite warriors?

  Or would I find myself more bruised and scarred than I was to begin with?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Hayley

  THE RIPPED SCREEN of Lena’s storm door stood before me again, representing the torn and broken pieces of my past. All waiting for me behind that door.

  But it would not break me. No matter what this visit brought, I vowed I was stronger. I would conquer.

  I will not fail.

  I knocked again, loud and firm. No answer.

  I dragged in a breath, huffed it out, then sat down on the top steps of the front porch. I’d vowed to wait, and wait I would.

  Behind me, a door squeaked open. I turned, saw a shadow beyond the screen, squinted to make it out.

  “Hayley?”

  I stood, saw my mother in jeans and a T-shirt, more weight on her bones than I remembered.

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  Lena opened the screen, her hands shaking. My first thought was withdrawal, but she seemed too aware of my presence, too undistracted. If she needed a fix, she’d never be able to keep a focused gaze.

  “Hayley.” She almost fell through the door, pawed her way around the screen. I tried not to pull away from her tight embrace but instead closed my eyes, inhaled the familiar scent of cigarettes and Suave coconut shampoo even as I longed to pull away.

  When she finally released me, she held me at arm’s length. “Look at you! You’re all grown up, Hayley girl. I’m so glad you’re here. Come on inside.”

  I looked at the still-open door behind Lena, a neatly painted wooden bench in the small entryway, two pairs of shoes beneath. One a man’s. I glanced at Lena’s left ring finger, saw a glittering diamond upon it.

  For the hundredth time, I wondered if this was a new one. Or was it a man I knew, one who’d slipped into my room at night, who slid his hands beneath my sheets, searching, groping, pressing the comforter to my mouth when I whimpered too loudly?

  I looked toward the two pairs of shoes again, a tight lump forming in my throat. I would not fail. “Um . . . okay, I guess.”

  She practically leaped ove
r the threshold. The way she acted, the way she looked—it was so far from what I expected. It made me feel uncomfortable, out of place. If she had answered the door with a half-drugged stare or in obvious withdrawal, I could have walked in with confidence, heaped condemnation upon her. I’d even practiced the words in my head.

  “Wow, Lena, looks like not too much around here has changed . . . same old story, huh?”

  She would be nice because she’d be glad I was back, but she would also be ashamed. Ashamed I’d caught her exactly how I’d left her.

  I walked into the house, still clinging to the line I’d prepared. Lena could put on a good show for a short amount of time, but her true colors would show through soon enough. Then I’d finally get the satisfaction of delivering it.

  But as I walked into my childhood home, I couldn’t deny that things had changed. The house was the same, and yet it was completely different. Fresh paint, new windows and curtains. Brighter. More airy. A sofa rejuvenated by a well-fitting slipcover. Furniture that looked familiar . . . yet seemed to be refinished in a way that reminded me of the furniture at Ethan’s shop.

  I choked on the words I’d been clutching tightly, almost ashamed that something akin to disappointment stirred in my chest over my inability to say them.

  I was a horrible person. I’d rather see my mother fail, I’d rather put my pride on a pedestal, than sacrifice it and be happy for these small changes in Lena. Ugh.

  I looked at my mother in her short-sleeved shirt with clean, bare arms. She looked back at me and gave me a clear smile.

  No, it couldn’t be. Had Lena . . . changed?

  But she’d been in jail just a couple years ago—Uncle Joe had told me. He’d never spoken of her getting clean. Then again, whenever Joe tried to bring up Lena, I’d either ignored him or told him I didn’t want to hear about her.

  Lena pulled out a chair for me. I sat in it, my knees wobbly. “Want some coffee?”

  Coffee.

  I shook my head.

  “You look good, baby. Navy treating you well?”

  I nodded, slow, forcing myself to open up against the invisible vise threatening to clamp my lips shut.

  “Did you reenlist? Or are you home for good?”

  I found my voice. “I have another year and a half before I reenlist. I’m about to head out to California. To train as a SEAL.”

  “A SEAL? Like Joe?”

  “Yes,” I whispered. This was what I’d come to do. Tell Lena my plans, get the satisfaction of telling her I’d turned out okay, despite her nonexistent efforts. But here, now, waiting for the satisfaction . . . it didn’t come.

  “That is mighty impressive, baby. Imagine, my daughter . . .”

  “Don’t,” I ground out.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Pretend like you can take credit for anything good I’ve done with my life.”

  “I—I wasn’t . . . I didn’t mean—”

  I swiped a hand through the air, exasperated with both her and myself.

  Reconciliation. Yeah, right.

  “Forget it,” I said. “It doesn’t matter.” I rubbed my eyes. “How are you?”

  A small smile forced its way to the corners of her mouth. She looked . . . worn, but good. Not at all like she’d been using recently. “I’m . . . good. I’m glad you came, Hayley.”

  “I—I actually had a question.”

  She twisted her hands together, seemed to wring them out upon the tabletop. “Okay.”

  “I was wondering if you could tell me about Grandpa, if he ever spoke of his parents or grandparents.”

  She stared at me, blinked. I guess I could have started with some small talk first, could have broken the ice a bit better. You know, “Lena, the place looks nice. You seem like you have your act together a little. Do you really, or did I just catch you on a good day?”

  Yeah, small talk.

  She looked nervous at my inquiry, and that’s when I noticed it. Her hands started shaking. Slightly, almost imperceptibly, but so, so familiar.

  I closed my eyes, didn’t realize that as soon as I’d admitted to myself that Lena had improved, I’d started hoping. Hoping for what, I wasn’t certain. Maybe a normal relationship with my mother? Some sort of connection? A bond I could depend on?

  But as I stared at her quivering hands, it seemed the evidence shouted up at me.

  Nothing had changed. I needed to get what I’d come here for and leave, forget things such as hope and all that.

  “I’m doing some research into our family tree, and I thought the best place to start was here, with what you already knew.”

  She seemed to notice her shaking hands and stuffed them beneath the table, leaned forward, pressed her upper arms into the edge of the table a little too hard. “Your grandfather mentioned his father—Bradford—often. He did speak of his own grandparents, too . . . I can’t remember their names right now, but if you give me some time to dig around, I’m sure it’ll come up.”

  The promise to dig around didn’t seem that promising, but I nodded anyway, couldn’t stop myself from wondering how the drugs she’d used for so many years clouded her brain.

  I stood. “Thanks, Lena. If you find anything else out about your great-grandparents, will you let me know?”

  She stood, a panicked look in her eyes. “I’ll call you, okay, baby? Can I call you?”

  I heard her unspoken request in the question. Will you answer? It found and poked at the tender places of my heart. Wow. I guess against all odds, there was still some part of that left when it came to Lena.

  I nodded. “Yes.” I started for the door.

  “Wait.” Desperation soaked the one word. Made it ooze and drip with vulnerability. Not only were Lena’s hands shaking again, so was her bottom lip. “I ain’t been using, Hayley. I been trying to clean myself up. Lord knows I ain’t been doing perfect, but I been trying.” She turned to the cabinet, to several orange prescription bottles, grasped the closest one, and shook a pill from the near-empty bottle. She downed it with a glass of water. She closed her eyes, inhaled deep.

  The pill seemed to calm her. It didn’t seem possible that something taken orally could work so quickly. I wondered if it were a psychological thing more than a physiological. And how ironic that she would claim to be clean, yet need to dig out a pill just to carry on the rest of our conversation.

  But this was prescription. Not that that mattered—people abused prescription drugs all the time. But I supposed, considering the other option, it was the lesser of two evils.

  “Joe sent me to rehab. Long-term inpatient. After I got out of prison eighteen months ago. Hayley, I don’t know if I’ll ever be free of all this junk, but I am better. Met someone there, too. His name’s Will. We been living together for six months now, helping each other in our weak moments. He has a job parking cars at the children’s hospital. It’s a good job, and he’s done well. Even won us a trip to Barbados on some raffle from his work. We’re getting married—you know, something small—in the fall. I . . . I’d love it if you could come.”

  I tried to take in the information, not to simply write it off as another failed attempt, another excuse. Uncle Joe had paid for Mom’s rehab. She’d found a guy—what a surprise. Another recovering addict. Super. And yet while I couldn’t see how healthy that was, looking around the home, it seemed they truly were trying to make the best of it.

  “I work at Walmart now. In the ladies’ department. I like it, Hayley. Better than cleaning houses.”

  I nodded, unwilling to dash her optimism, unwilling to be the one to pop her balloon with reality.

  And you know, maybe this was it. The one time Lena was going to change and it was going to stick.

  “I’m glad for you, Lena. The house . . . it looks good.”

  It cost me something to say those words. I might be a horrible person for wanting to cling to my self-righteousness, but I felt justified in being angry over all Lena had put me through. I felt it near killed a part of my soul to
push out those words, to not ridicule my mother for her attempts at a better life.

  I needed to get out of here. Now. “Call me, okay? If you find anything?”

  “Maybe we could grab some ice cream sometime? I’d love you to meet Will.”

  I didn’t give a flying flapjack about Will. Her shiny new object she hoped would prove something. He was just another boyfriend to me. A distraction of hers, a crutch. And if he were anything like the others, I most certainly did not want to meet him.

  I hiked in a breath. “I came here to let you know about my training. Just to . . . check in. I’m not sure about ice cream . . . I’m just not sure.”

  It wasn’t much to offer, but it was all I could seem to give in that moment. Had I accomplished what I’d come for? Could I leave for BUD/S and feel like I’d closed this chapter of my life?

  No.

  The answer came swift and sure, and I grasped for words that would turn that mental no into a yes.

  “You’ve done good, Lena. Maybe I’ll visit on my next leave. Maybe I could meet Will then.”

  I felt suddenly claustrophobic, more so than in the cramped corridors of any ship. For a woman who spent so much time below water, I felt as if, in that moment, I must escape from the tight confines of the house I grew up in—from the tight confines of these bright and cheery walls that masked the true colors of my childhood. They stripped me of my confidence, diminished me to the scared little girl I once was, uncertain of my future, uncertain if I would sleep in my bed undisturbed. Part of me wished to pour out my thoughts to Lena, to demand an apology or some kind of remorse, and part of me couldn’t stand the thought of shaking her up so badly that she might turn to something more dangerous than whatever was in those prescription bottles.

  Instead, I turned at the sight of her quiet tears—tears my words had no doubt produced—and then was out the door into the glorious open air.