“Don’t you dare speak to me like that,” she says, startling me with her firmness.
I stare out the window when I tell her, “You haven’t been my mama in a long time.”
She unbuckles the seat belt and says, “That’s not fair, Juliana.”
I turn to face her. “It’s not fair that we’ve cleaned up your messes and now you’re all whole and healthy, and we’re supposed to forget years of living with crazy.”
She rests her hands on the steering wheel and seems to be counting to ten. When she’s done, she says very softly, “I’m going to make it up to you.”
“Whatever,” I say, slamming the car door, and walking away.
The wait for the bus is endless. When I finally see it round the corner, I have forgotten how rotten I was to my mom. She is hovering nearby, not talking to anyone, and I feel sorry for her in her aloneness.
The boys file out and I see Daddy. He’s got a towel thrown over his head from when they gave him a Gatorade shower. Daddy doesn’t notice the snow or the cold, he’s so happy.
His eyes are searching for someone, and she emerges from the crowd and stands in front of him. Her face is partially covered by the hooded fur of her parka. Her hands are tucked in her pockets, though he pulls her close. She leans in to him and kisses his cheek. It’s not an illusion; my parents look like two normal people, except I can’t help thinking their movements are tense and clumsy. Daddy puts his arm out for me to join them, but I spot E.J. stepping off the bus. I stay where I am and wait to see what he will do.
E.J.’s teammates are surrounding him. They are all commotion and chaos, as though they have had too much beer. Once he would have found me no matter where I was standing. He would have walked over to me, and I’d sink into him, not even minding the sweat and the smell. I allow this memory to cushion me. The earlier rains turn into a gentle snow. Flakes drizzle down my face and force my eyes closed. I swear I can taste the salt of his lips.
I feel him before I see him. His fingertips brush the crystals from my lashes. My eyes open, and I don’t turn away from his stare. His are bluer, his hands softer. The longing that had filled my heart disperses around us, caught in the flurries.
“I knew you’d come.”
“Yeah,” he laughs, “how’d you know that?”
“Stalker habit.”
I smile and congratulate him on the win. He’s holding his helmet in his hand, and the game ball is tucked inside.
“The win felt good,” he says. “You being here . . . even better.”
“I would’ve waited a long time.”
“Don’t go saying stuff you can’t make good on.”
“I’m not the one who left.”
His lips come down on mine with an urgency I’ve been waiting for. The helmet crashes to the floor, and he scoops me up into his arms. E.J. doesn’t like gratuitous displays of affection, but I kiss him back. Long and hard, as though this will seal us for life.
The team is surrounding us with cheers and jeers. The hoots and howls pull his lips away, but we stay close. They are calling his name. He doesn’t seem to notice when he bends down to whisper in my ear. Despite the noise coming off the crowd, I can hear his every word. Like the air around us, I breathe them in one at a time.
“You get inside my head, Jules. You get in so deep I can’t think. I had to protect you.”
“Ellis is dead, E.J. I don’t need saving.”
“I was scared, baby. And stupid. If I let you go, then I’d never have to know what good-bye feels like.”
He kisses the top of my head, and I’m smiling inside when he whispers one more thing: “Next time, I’m not gonna be saying no to you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
ABBY
I waded through the months waiting for a relapse. As the earth transformed from the numbing freeze of winter to the lively birth of spring, I expected my calm to thaw within me. Flowers bloomed from seedlings, and I, too, sprouted tiny vessels of life. At first my steps were awkward and shaky. Then with the cushion of the fresh grass beneath my feet, I stepped on land with secure footing.
You’ll experience the anxious feelings again, I reminded myself regularly. I didn’t want to manage them better than before. I wanted them gone forever. That’s wishing yourself away. Don’t wish yourself away, I’d tell myself. I was encouraged by Jeannie to continue talk therapy. It’s more important than the meds, I’d think. And soon Babs was out of retirement, and I was back on her couch.
Babs—the woman meant more to me than I would ever admit. It’s why it was so easy to walk out of her office and, years later, walk back in. I flourished beneath her tough-love tutelage. She was someone I could trust. We went over ways that I could make myself feel better, plans that would ensure my stabilization. Without the constant state of anxiety and the fear of scary thoughts, I was getting to know myself, possibly for the first time ever.
Part of the recovery was healing relationships in my first family. My mother was genuinely surprised and happy to hear my voice. It wasn’t an obligatory birthday call or anniversary wish. It would take time to rebuild these relationships, but without them, parts of me would be incomplete, and other parts wouldn’t work at all.
Juliana and I dueled most of the time. She wasn’t accustomed to my return, physically or mentally, and coupled with teenage melodrama, we faced some obvious challenges. Babs told me her daughter was born with PMS, and this gave me a good laugh.
Ryan was slowly coming back to me. There were moments we’d be enjoying each other’s company, laughing about something, when I’d notice him get quiet. I could tell his eyes and his mind were drifting somewhere else. I had learned to accept this about him. It’s not impossible to love in different forms and lifetimes. What matters is the love we share today. It’s an effort within each of us, and we are striving toward a deeper understanding.
One area we were working on intensively was our roles in the marriage. We had survived for years with the stigma of my illness as our center. All of our actions and reactions danced around my moods and needs. Finding our new roles became a balancing act.
Plans for the summer were underway. Ryan was offered a post at a youth football training camp at Appalachian State University. One of the coaches had a home on Beech, and when a family emergency took him to Virginia, he was willing to give us the house for the summer. There was meaning in it for all of us.
Juliana didn’t want to leave E.J. Alabama was waiting for him, though. Their good-bye was inevitable. She insisted she needed more time and begged and pleaded for it.
“He’ll come with me and work in the program at ASU,” Ryan says to me. “Jules can get a job there. At least this way, we can watch over them.” His little girl was not so little anymore. Much of it had to do with her turning seventeen, though I knew his worry had more to do with E.J.
“You forget what you were like when you were her age.”
He doesn’t agree with me or disagree. Instead, his eyes cloud up with something thick and misty, and he rests his chin in his hand.
We’re sitting on the porch, enjoying the mild temperatures of a late spring. The grass is freshly cut, and the afternoon temperature is a balmy seventy-six. The trees shade the area, and we sip iced tea like a couple. I hold on to this notion when the leaves on the trees hiss in the wind.
I fiddle with the string on my left wrist. I have never liked wearing bracelets of any kind. My wrists are thick, and most jewelry looks bulky and out of place on my arms. This is a string I wear to remind myself of how far I have come. It is red, and Rose told me it wards off evil. When I start to feel unsure, I tug on it. It grounds me and brings me back to my center.
Ryan rises from the rattan chair and comes up behind me, placing two hands on my tense shoulders. “It’ll be good for us to get away. You can read all those books you have piled up next to the bed. I can run interference with our horny teenage daughter.”
I have no reason not to believe him, so we close our house in Char
lotte and set off for the mountains.
Ryan’s truck is packed with our things, and Devon finagles his way aboard. He has proven himself during the playoffs and state championships, and E.J. worries it’s too soon to leave him unsupervised. Devon is eager to please and willing to work hard. Ryan feels a personal stake in his turnaround, so Devon, when pressed, agrees to the plan.
Once out of the city, the drive up 321 always bored me. Now I’m in the backseat, behind Ryan, where I always sit. Cold Creek had cured a lot, but I am working on this lingering fear. The lengthy highway stretches ahead of us for miles, surrounded by dry, barren fields and a smidgen of cows.
Further along, the roads begin to narrow as we start into the mountains. The first sign of nearing the Blue Ridge is the change in temperature. My forehead against the window tells me when we’ve reached a higher elevation, and the signal brings the windows down, and with it, a curl of clean, cooler air. Blowing Rock comes into view, and the asphalt twists with views from every angle. By the time we pass Canyons Restaurant and its unobstructed views of the Blue Ridge and Grandfather, I’m remembering Lauren and Ryan, and it leaves me to wonder whether we’ve made a mistake. That’s the problem for me with long car trips: I can think and ponder too much.
I start to replay my most recent conversation with Babs.
“When I was in Cold Creek I had this recurring dream about the three of us on the roof at a frat party. Ryan’s arm was around me, and every time Lauren came near us, he would take it off and drop it around Lauren. In the dream, I’d get so upset. I’d have these scary thoughts about jumping off the roof. And it made sense. For a while. But then the dream changed.”
“How so?” She was wearing a red spandex bandana around her forehead that day, which made it kind of hard for me to share the seriousness of what I was telling her.
“Well, he would let me go and, same thing, wrap his arm around her, and the ledge would beckon me . . . and I’d feel the impulse to jump. But this time there was this something in the sky that made it less scary. The sky was brighter, and birds were flying around . . . I don’t know . . . Forget it . . . This is stupid.”
“Abigail, don’t demean yourself. Our dreams tell us quite a bit about ourselves.”
“This is going to sound weird, but I felt free.”
“Meaning you weren’t scared to jump? It was less of a threat?”
I nodded. And she replied, “What’s stupid about that?”
“I don’t know. It’s been making me uncomfortable. More uncomfortable than the original dream when the ground was in sight. Shouldn’t taking a leap be scary?”
“Not always. Dreams aren’t that forthcoming. They’re complex representations.” She took her headband off and started twirling it around her fingers. “Sounds to me like this new dream is a positive sign.”
“I don’t know. It has to mean something.”
“It’s powerful stuff, Abigail. I understand why it’s making you so uncomfortable.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You will. Keep at it. Clarity comes to us in unusual ways.”
Ryan takes a sharp turn and I am back in his truck. The dream has become my latest obsession, but instead of turning away from it, I explore what it means. I think about Ryan and me. I think about how long I have loved him. And I think about why we are together.
Rarely do we speak on the way up. The scenic vistas strip our mouths of words. And Devon, I don’t think he has ever left Charlotte before. The mountain pulls at him, and he hangs his head out the window across from me, lapping up the view like a puppy. We pass through Boone and make the turn onto 105. I gaze out at the cropping of trees along the mountainside. They are thick and bountiful. If we dig deep through any forest, beneath the treetops, we find weak trunks and bent limbs. What is perceived as magnificent is one twig away from ruin.
Here the climb grows steeper, and we know we are close. Yellow hawkweed lines the sides of the roads, and sugar maples come into view. The color drains from my face when Ryan takes the sharp turns too fast. Carsickness has always been a problem for me on the winding roads. Combined with the altitude, my head is usually in my lap by the time we arrive at the summit of Beech.
Our house is on Shamrock. It is an impressive, modern structure perched on the side of the mountain. The spacious home boasts high beams and floor-to-ceiling windows framing the layered mountaintops of four states. Luxurious finishes blend naturally with rustic furnishings. The high altitude makes it unnecessary for air conditioning, and we fan out on two floors, staking claim to our individual bedrooms and opening up windows. Ryan has strategically placed the boys downstairs, and Juliana is upstairs with us.
She has perfected her eye roll by now.
After a few trips to the car, our bags are dispensed in what will be our rooms for the next six weeks, and Ryan heads into town—town is a stretch—to get some groceries. Fred’s General Store is a stand-alone at the top of the mountain and embodies its motto: “If we don’t have it, you don’t need it.” For all other necessities, you have to trek miles away to the nearest grocery store. I don’t offer to join him. Time has become invaluable to me: time spent with Juliana, time to return to my summer reading. Grabbing the bag of books from the foyer floor, I step out onto the balcony and take a seat in the double rocker.
When I joined a book club in the new year, the ladies assigned me an inaugural read with the date for the next meeting. Reading on demand was a pressure I didn’t need, which is why I had always avoided such clubs. And because of my limitations, I had only read mindless magazines that didn’t require concentration. But with my newly quieted mind, books became a critical source of entertainment. Not only did I keep up with the required monthly reading, I read volumes I had missed while living in a wordless world.
January was Cutting for Stone. February, The Kitchen House. March, Once We Were Brothers. April, The Help. May, Me before You. Book club is on hiatus for the summer, but the ladies provided me with a list of books to read that they had discussed and enjoyed. I’d already delved into Point Blank, followed by Defending Jacob, The Kite Runner, The Other Boleyn Girl, She’s Come Undone (ha!), The Time Traveler’s Wife, and even Fifty Shades of Grey.
So far, I’m engrossed in Point Blank, a beautifully written novel. The ladies say the author has a few other books I might enjoy, and this one is her first and possibly her best. She does a great job of capturing the tenderness of love and loss. I cannot put the book down, and when the kids find me on the balcony, I am crying a well of tears.
“This is what she does now that’s she’s happy,” says my daughter, staring down at me, her hands on her denim shorts.
Devon adds, “Are you okay, Mrs. Holden?” And E.J. runs inside for some tissues.
“If you’d get your head out of your phone and read once in a while, you’d understand,” I say to Juliana.
“Why would I want to cry?”
I tell her that crying is good. It’s like resetting a computer, clearing out the hard drive.
“But I’m not sad.”
Which silences me.
The honking of Ryan’s horn blares through the house, and I instruct the boys to help him with the groceries. I stare too long at Juliana. She really is a remarkable young lady, even if every mother says the same about her child. Like most teenagers, she mistakes my stare to mean something else. “We’re not having sex,” she says.
I know what I want to say, though I am cautious about how I phrase it: “It would be okay if you were. As long as you’re careful.”
This lack of judgment warms her to me and soon she is next to me on the rocker and stretches her long legs across the footrest. Her toes are polished in powder blue.
“You’re not going to lecture me about being responsible and waiting to get married?”
“I’m going to do all those things. For the rest of your life. That’s my job, but I’ve read a lot of really good books about really bad parenting. Every child is different. What’s good for
one family may not be right for ours. You need to know you can always come to me. Judging is useless.”
She moves in closer to me and rests her head on my shoulder. Her limbs melt into mine; they have a long memory. Relief washes over me as I come to understand that she has forgiven me. It is a second chance that not everyone gets. I can finally make up for the years I had failed her.
Ryan pokes out his head and asks if we want to go for a walk before dinner. He eyes us on the chair and smiles. “My girls,” he says.
And Juliana whispers in my ear while the wind rustles the trees around us, “Up to no good.”
Later in the day, Ryan and I explore Shamrock and its intersecting roads. The exercise is just what we need after the two-and-a-half-hour drive. We see a few deer, and Ryan brings along his bear whistle, just in case. There is laughter in our voices and he reaches for my hand and gives it a gentle squeeze.
Returning to the house, I organize our things and find solace in the quiet that envelops the mountain. Ryan grills steaks for dinner, and I help in the kitchen with a salad. For dessert, we hike down the side of the property to the fire pit, and roast marshmallows for s’mores. The kids sing silly songs, and we watch them sway back and forth along the wooden benches.
It all sounds very lovely, Leave It to Beaver–ish, but I am riddled with doubt. When you’ve lived inside your head for as long as I have, you wait for the snakes and spiders to slither into your safe spaces. I’m waiting for the thoughts to return. I’m waiting for the fears. I’m waiting for the enormity of my feelings to turn me inside out. I carry a round, yellow pill with me for extra security: a sub-therapeutic dose of a well-known antianxiety medication—my safety net. Only my safety net isn’t prepared for the new batch of thoughts. They spool around me and crowd my magical thinking. They’re not obsessions, and they’re not guiding me toward compulsions. They are different, rational and calm, a keen awareness that sinks into my skin. An insight like this gets buried under the brain’s internal rubble, or, perhaps, it was born when the bits of me became whole.
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