The Stone Necklace

by Carla Damron

  Dr. Owens gave her a knowing nod. “It’s very hard to be your age.”

  “It’s hard to have friends who have perfect bodies and all the boys like them but they say crappy things about everybody behind their backs.”

  Kayla might tell everyone. Becca would become Crazy Becca like Amber was Psycho Amber after she took an overdose. The thought of this secret taking flight made panic flutter in Becca’s chest.

  “It’s important that you have support for your recovery somewhere other than at home,” Dr. Owens said.

  Becca looked at the bronze clock perched on the edge of Dr. Owens’s desk, its long slim arms gesturing that she still had twenty minutes to go. Time moved a lot slower in Dr. Owens’s office.

  “Mom says we’ve got bad money problems. She may not be able to afford for me to keep seeing you,” Becca said, changing strategy.

  “You have good insurance. If she can’t manage the co-pay, we’ll set up a monthly plan.” Dr. Owens crossed her legs. “Are you worried about the financial situation?”

  “Dad had to spend a lot of money when she was sick, then things tanked with his business.” Sims had used the word “tanked.” She liked it.

  “It’s been a tough time for lots of people.”

  “What if there’s no money for me to go to college?” She shot forward, out of the safe folds of the couch. College had been how Sims and Elliott escaped. What if she didn’t get her chance?

  “That’s something you plan on, then. Going to college.” Dr. Owens wrote something on her pad.

  “Uhmmmm, Yes.” Becca said it slowly, because she was thinking maybe Dr. Owens wasn’t very bright. Wasn’t it obvious that she planned to go to school? But what if she couldn’t? What if she was stuck living at home, working in the McDonald’s drive-thru to help pay the bills?

  “I like it that you have a plan. That you have a future you want to get to,” Dr. Owens said.

  “Doesn’t everybody?” It seemed like they’d be on one track then Dr. Owens would veer off somewhere else.

  “No. Some girls with eating disorders don’t allow themselves to see a future.” Dr. Owens paused, then added, “Some even plan to die.”

  Die. She hated hearing that word. Die had fresh, gritty meaning for Becca now that Dad was dead. “Not me,” she said.

  “But you understand that if we don’t get a handle on your disease, it could happen?”

  Becca clutched the pillow and considered throwing it at Dr. Owens. Did everyone have to beat that drum to death? “I get it. I got it at the hospital from Dr. Burnside. At home from Elliott. Mom. Aunt Abby. I’m pretty sure the Fed Ex guy wants to discuss it, too.”

  Dr. Owens grinned. “I love your sense of humor. So back to going to college. How are your grades?”

  “I do okay in school.”

  “I’ll bet you do better than okay. What did you get on your last report card?”

  “A b-minus in algebra.” It still pissed her off. She’d studied her ass off for that exam and screwed up a stupid multiplication.

  “And As in all your other subjects, right?”

  “Mom told you?”

  “Nope. She didn’t have to. I have a sneaking suspicion that you’re a bit of a perfectionist. So As would be the way you’d go.”

  “It’s kind of mandatory in our family.”

  “It’s what your Mom expects?”

  “We’re ‘special.’ At least, that’s what Mom used to tell us. ‘We expect more from you.’ ‘You’re brighter than most kids.’ I thought I was the one that felt bad about it, but Elliott and Sims said it was hard on them, too. Only maybe not as hard as I get.”

  “Why?”

  “Sims is really, really smart. He always got straight A’s, which was often pointed out to me. Elliott is a gifted musician. He never froze on stage during a stupid recital or anything. They both gave my parents what they expected.”

  “You’re often compared to your brothers?” Dr. Owens liked to ask questions. At the end of the day, if you tallied all the sentences she’d spoken, probably seventy-five percent ended with a question mark.

  “Well, yes. That’s not unusual. Most families do that.” Becca twisted pillow fringe around her finger.

  “Your brothers grew up in a different home than you. So comparisons might not be fair.”

  “No they didn’t. We’ve always lived in that house.”

  “They weren’t living there when your mom left. They weren’t there when she came back and had breast cancer. The home where you live is very different from the one they grew up in.”

  Becca wrapped a tassel around her knuckle and pulled it taut. Dr. Owens was right. Things altered when Elliott went to college. She remembered watching him pack up his room. How he rolled up the Beck poster and placed it in a big box. How he scratched his head at the schoolbus-yellow sheets Mom had bought for his dorm room bed, but didn’t say anything because he didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “When Elliott moved into the dorm. It got weird then.” She had gone to his room the next day and found a note on his bed: “Squirt, You can make this your room if you want, but it doesn’t smell as good as yours.” She didn’t move in, because things could change, he could decide to move back, except he didn’t. Like Sims, he never looked back.

  “Weird how?”

  “Everything changed after he left.” Even before Royce and the cancer, things had shifted in their home. Mom stopped pretending she was always happy. Dad worried more and more about his health: the reflux, then the ulcer, then his headaches. Mom acting annoyed at his complaints. She would say the right things, “Why don’t you lie down, hon?” while her eyes said something entirely different.

  “Your mom told me about the separation from your dad. You were twelve?”

  She nodded.

  “Did you know there were problems between your parents?”

  She nodded again, gathering the pillow to her chest, which felt hollow like a cave.

  “Did they fight?” Dr. Owens asked.

  “No. They didn’t talk much to each other. Dinner time got weird.” They always ate in the dining room, with Mom at one end of the table and Dad at the other, Becca the bridge between them. Dad would ask about school. She didn’t have much to say. Mom would ask Dad about his day. He wouldn’t have much to say.

  “Things were especially tense then?”

  “Yes.” After a while, Dad would pour bourbon in a squat glass. The ice would clink.

  “Did it affect your eating?”

  She pulled the pillow away to look down at herself. The question was strange, and her answer even stranger, but so very true. “It made me hungry.”

  “HOW DID YOUR SESSION with Dr. Owens go?” Lena turned on the windshield wipers. A sputtering rain had started, enough to make the wipers smear damp grit across the glass.

  “Fine.” Becca buttoned her jacket. Lena turned the heat on.

  “Can I get a little more than ‘fine?’” She glanced over at her daughter, expecting a petulant shrug.

  Becca dropped her leg and turned to the window. The rain had picked up speed, angled fat drops splattering the windshield, thunder cracking in the gray clouds above. Lena turned up the wipers.

  “Fine. What I say in there is supposed to be confidential.”

  “Of course. I just wanted to know if she thought it was helping.”

  Becca shrugged. If Lena had a dime for every time her child did that, they’d have no financial problems.

  “She said I was doing good. The nutritionist said I was on track with gaining weight.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  Becca frowned.

  “What? You’re not glad?”

  Becca cut her eyes at Lena. “I suppose.”

  “That was convincing.” Lena gripped the wheel. “Please don’t tell me what I want to hear. Tell me the truth.”

  Becca inserted her finger in her mouth to chew on the cuticle. It would be bleed
ing soon, and she’d hide it by cramming her hand in her pocket. Lena would have to clean the blood from the pocket lining.

  She pulled out of traffic into a parking lot. She wasn’t sure what the business was—a dry cleaner or tax place, the storm obscured the sign.

  “Why are we stopping?”

  “So you can answer my question.” She switched off the ignition. The rain sounded like pebbles against the roof of the car. Was it too much to want a future for her daughter? To watch her grow up, go to college—she’d find some way to afford it—maybe get married? For Lena, there were promised moments for her to witness: Becca becoming a mother herself, nursing a baby, changing diapers, walking a little one down the sidewalk. Becca attending piano recitals, only she would do it right, she wouldn’t care if her child froze on stage. Sure, Becca would make her own mistakes, but she wasn’t destined to repeat Lena’s, and there was comfort in that.

  “You have so much of your dad in you,” Lena said. “I see it all the time. His intelligence. His way of finding humor in the world.” Or at least, Becca used to. There wasn’t much humor in her now.

  Becca moved on to a different cuticle.

  “Mitch was always wound tight. Anxious. I think maybe you got that from him, too.” She watched the wipers slapping against the glass. In the distance, lightning zipped across the sky.

  “Are you blaming my problems on Dad?” Becca’s voice held a dark edge.

  “No. I’m not blaming anybody except myself. I know I’ve messed up with you. I was selfish and didn’t see that my actions hurt you. I’m so sorry.” She could feel Becca’s gaze probing her face but she kept her eyes on the rain as it splashed off the hood. “Your father forgave me for leaving him. I didn’t deserve it—you and I both know that. But he did.”

  “You came back because you were sick,” Becca said.

  “I came back because I needed to be home. Mitch was my home. You were my home. But then my sickness filled up the house and once again, I was neglecting you.” There had been signs even then—subtle ones, like the way Becca wore out her running shoes, and her willingness to clean the bathroom—but Lena didn’t have the energy to see them for what they were.

  “What about Royce?”

  The question startled Lena. The name sounded foreign after all they’d been through.

  “What about him?”

  “Do you still—are you going back to him?” Becca sounded seven years old, scared by the weight of the question.

  Lena turned to look at her. “No. Never. Royce is very much behind me. When I left your father—and you—it was because I was very unhappy. I needed to be more than a mother and a wife. I thought I loved Royce, but it wasn’t real love.”

  “It was just sex then?” Becca arched her brows, issuing a dare.

  Lena felt a sudden impulse to slap her. This kid always, always brought out the worst in her. “Why do you make everything so hard?”

  Becca’s head snapped around to face the window. Lena wanted to take the words back as much as she didn’t. The rain was like a faucet now. Mitch would be grateful for it. He’d comment how it would help his garden, how his camellias and pansies thirsted for a good soaking. How a wet autumn nurtured the plants that would bloom in spring. If she could channel Mitch, she might know what to say to their child.

  “Do you remember when your Dad and I went to Edisto Beach?” Lena spoke softer, remembering that delicious time. Mitch, Lena, a blue dome of sky and a stormy gray ocean. “It was that weekend last spring when you stayed with Kayla.”

  The back of Becca’s head nodded.

  “It was my first trip out of town since the chemo.” Mitch had rented a cottage right on the beach. From the porch, they peered over rippling sea grass at the shifting gray and green shades of the ocean.

  “We took slow walks on the beach—slow because I still didn’t have much strength. Mitch collected shells for me and carried them in that green fishing hat he always wore.”

  Becca shifted, her stare now fixed on her cuticle-reddened hands.

  “We were lucky there were so few people. We had the beach to ourselves. Mitch told me he wanted us to renew our vows. He didn’t say what he could have—that we should renew them because I’d broken the old ones. Instead, he wanted to celebrate the rebirth of our marriage. He was right, it had been reborn.” They had stood ankle-deep in the chilly surf, watching two pelicans skim the ocean surface. The breeze blew her scarf from her naked scalp and she didn’t put it back. Mitch kissed her forehead where eyebrows were beginning to return.

  “I told him we didn’t need a ceremony. We could say our vows right there, at Edisto. So that’s what we did. Mitch had his prayer book in the car so the following morning, just as the sun nudged up over the ocean, we vowed to love, honor and cherish each other, ‘Til death do us part’. I hadn’t thought death would come this soon.” Lena felt something spreading in her chest, like wings unfurled. Her eyes filled with tears.

  The sky loomed an ominous gray above them. As Lena wiped her eyes, her daughter scrambled in the glove box for a small packet of tissues and gave her one.

  “Thanks,” Lena said. “What I want you to understand is this: at that time at the beach, we were perfect. We’ve always fit together but this was something more. I don’t know how else to say it. Now your father’s gone, and I can’t imagine anything will be perfect again.”

  “Nothing is perfect,” Becca said.

  Lena looked at her, expecting to see the surly expression again but it wasn’t there. “Nothing stays that way, but sometimes you’re blessed with these moments. We got to perfect, and not many couples can say that.” She knew things with Mitch couldn’t stay that way. Marriage was like a living breathing thing. Sometimes it thrived, sometimes it faltered, but she would have stayed with him forever.

  She studied her daughter’s face, the hills of her cheekbones, the chapped, full lips. Lena reached in her pocket and pulled out the stone. She handed it to Becca.

  “You have a rock?”

  “Yep. I’ve carried it since the day of the funeral. I found it in his jacket pocket. I have no idea why it was there. But his was the last hand to touch it. And when I curl my fingers around it, it’s like I’m touching a part of him that’s still here.” She shook her head. “Sounds silly, doesn’t it?”

  “No.” Becca turned the stone over, her fingers brushing the surface. “I’ve been wearing his deodorant. I wanted to smell him a little longer.”

  A profound wave of sadness swept through Lena as she looked at her girl. She’d been through so much. Lena had put her through so much. Yet here she was, holding on, going to therapy. Wearing her father’s deodorant.

  “I want to get better,” Becca said. “But it’s hard to eat, Mom. Especially with you and Elliott and Aunt Abby watching every bite I put in my mouth. My stomach isn’t used to food; it hurts if I eat too much.”

  “We’re being over-cautious because we’re scared for you. But I know you’re trying.” Lena reached a tentative hand to Becca’s shoulder and was grateful that Becca didn’t rebuff her.

  Becca swiped at her eyes. “Dr. Owens says I have to change my thinking. But what if I can’t? What if I’m in therapy for years and still can’t?”

  Lena stroked her daughter’s hair, just like she had the night of the funeral. “You can. You’re smart and you can do it.”

  “It’s not about being smart. It’s about . . . it’s about wanting to be something else. Someone else.”

  Someone who liked herself in the mirror. Someone who knew she was loved every second of every day.

  Someone whose mother didn’t leave.

  Lena’s fingers combed through her hair, grateful her daughter would allow this touch when she didn’t deserve it. “I wouldn’t have you any other way. You are the Becca that Mitch and I created. You have his eyes and his intellect and my . . .” she hesitated, unsure how to finish. What had she given Becca? What had come from her? But then it came to her. “You have my resilience. Exce
pt I think maybe you’re stronger than I am.”

  Becca looked at her, as if searching for some hidden truth. As a girl, Lena would look at her own mother the same way, seeking a sign of resolve or bravery, something that would promise their lives would be different. She never got it. Becca deserved a whole lot more.

  “I’m very proud of you, Becca. Mitch would be—Mitch is, too.”

  The rain slackened, smaller drops misting the windshield. She could see trees beyond the gray building. Tall naked oaks, autumn having taken every leaf.

  Becca handed her the stone. She slid it back in her pocket.

  CHAPTER 22

  Joe Booker felt like an old, old man. His bones creaked like rusty hinges as he walked through the park. Hunger gnawed at him. He hadn’t eaten anything since—since when? A day or so ago. He had those two twenty dollar bills the lady at the hospital gave him, but he wasn’t a man to go into a restaurant and order a sandwich. Too many whispers of judgment.

  He passed the Baptist church, then remembered the Salvation Army served lunch some days and it was three blocks away. As he rounded the corner, he could see the line forming outside the new brick dining room they’d built last year. He limped to the end.

  A young man in jeans and a red sweater carried a clipboard as he counted the people in line. Joe hoped he wasn’t asking for names. Joe didn’t want to be on anybody’s list.

  The young man approached him. “I don’t think I’ve met you here before. My name’s Carl. I’m one of the shelter volunteers,” he said. He couldn’t have been more than twenty years old, smooth-skinned, with eyes that hadn’t seen very much. “What’s your name?”

  “Joe,” he said, hoping that would suffice.

  “Glad to meet you, Joe.” He pulled a pamphlet from the back of his clipboard.

  Joe took a step closer to the kitchen, the line inching along no faster than a caterpillar.

  “Here’s a brochure that has our hours, the rules, et cetera. We have new cots in the shelter, and a local women’s group donated some blankets. So you have a place to stay here, if you want.”