Back To Us

by Rachel Hanna

  Behind the solid door is a full glass one, and through its clear pane I see her for the first time. She’s the spitting image of my brother - tall for her age, lanky, angry face that I wasn’t expecting. She doesn’t want to be here, that much is evident. I imagine that she’ll never be a great poker player with a face like that.

  She has fire engine red hair and freckles across her nose, two things that my brother definitely didn’t have. I wonder what her mother looked like.

  “Hello,” I say, which seems highly inadequate for the situation. “Please come in.” Why do I sound like I’m welcoming guests at Buckingham Palace instead of into my small brick ranch in Peach Valley?

  Ethan gives me a forced smile with a hint of a warning in it. I cock my head as he pushes Harper into the house past me, and I notice that her arm is hanging limp beside her as she drags her pink suitcase. She looks like someone is marching her to the death chamber.

  We go to the living room and sit down. I bought the house furnished since I didn’t have time to go furniture shopping, but I’ve already grown to loathe the sleek, modern furniture that currently inhabits the living room. The sofa is white and looks like something out the Jetson’s cartoon from my childhood, and the matching tables are glass and chrome. I feel like I’m in the waiting room of a hospital.

  “Nice couch,” Harper says under her breath, sarcasm seeping from every word. She drops her suitcase in the middle of the floor and then stands at the back door, staring out into the yard.

  “Thanks. I hate it too,” I say back. I see her slightly turn her head, cutting her eyes in my direction, but so far she hasn’t made eye contact with me. I look at Ethan and he shrugs his shoulders. “Can I speak with you for a moment? In private?” I say to him. He nods.

  “Harper, we’re going to step out onto the front porch for a minute. Why don’t you take some time to look around?” he says.

  “Have fun talking about me,” she mutters as we walk through the foyer and out the front door.

  Closing the wood door behind me in the hopes of privacy, I cross my arms and glare at Ethan. “You said she was a good kid.”

  “She is a good kid, Indy. I’ve never seen her act this way.”

  “Great. Lucky me.” It feels like someone is drilling a hole in the top of my head.

  “Come on now. She just lost her father, and she’s been bounced around for weeks now. Give the kid a break.”

  “What have I done?” I say to myself, tilting my head back against the brick and sighing. “I had a great life in Charleston.”

  Ethan puts his hands on my shoulders. “Indy, she needs you. You’re a therapist. You’re her aunt. And now you’re her mother. Don’t give up before you even get started.”

  I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this. I guess I thought she’d be thankful to see me, her long lost aunt, and maybe she’d run into my waiting arms and smile. Right now, I feel like frisking her for weapons and sleeping with one eye open.

  “I’m going to hit the road. I’ve got a real estate closing this afternoon…” he says, looking at the time on his phone.

  “What? You’re leaving? Just like that?”

  Ethan chuckles. “What do you want me to do, Indy? She’s your child now. You kind of have to figure this out on your own, like the rest of us. Kids don’t come with manuals, unfortunately.” He squeezes the top of my arm before walking down the three front steps. “You’ve got this, Indy Stone… superhero.”

  “Sanders.”

  “Sure. Whatever you say…” he sings back to me as he walks to his car and drives away, leaving me with the angriest ten-year old in Peach Valley.

  I take another moment to gather myself before walking back into the house. Harper is still standing at the back door, arms crossed. Maybe she gets that stance from me.

  Even though I’ve counseled many children, and their parents, I realize that this is a completely different situation. There are feelings involved that can’t be swept under the rug. Objectivity is not a part of this at all.

  “I’m so glad you’re here Harper. I know losing your father has been difficult…”

  “How would you know anything about my father?” she says through gritted teeth. I can see her fists balled up by her sides.

  “He was my brother,” I say, reminding her as if she doesn’t know.

  “My father didn’t have anyone but me,” she says softly. “Everyone else abandoned him.”

  And now I see it. She’s been fed a lot of misinformation in her short life, seeing things from only my brother’s distorted mind. Her anger is righteous, but misdirected.

  “Sweetie,” I say, but immediately want to retract my words when I see her tiny jaw tighten, “I loved my brother. But sometimes there is history there that prevents us from allowing people to be in our lives…”

  She’s ten. I’m talking over her head.

  She slowly turns and finally looks at me, the first time we’ve made eye contact. “When you really love someone, you don’t leave them. No matter what.” Without another word, she picks up her suitcase and walks down the hall, going instinctively into the room I picked for her and shutting the door.

  “Ethan, I want to see my brother’s will,” I say, storming straight into his office past his well-meaning, but woefully inadequate, secretary.

  Ethan covers the mouthpiece of his landline phone - a relic from times gone by - and shushes me. “Tim, I’m going to have to call you back. Right. Okay. Talk soon.” He places the phone back on the receiver and stands up. “Indy, this is a place of business.”

  “Yeah, I don’t care right now. I need to see my brother’s will.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I need answers. Why would he want me to raise his daughter? I don’t understand. She’s angry at me, and he’s obviously told her some very distorted ‘facts’ over the years.”

  “His will doesn’t explain, Indy. There’s no mention of a reason. I promise.”

  I fall down into a chair and swing my head down between my knees, hanging there like a limp puppet. Realizing that I’m not acting like the professional woman I am, I pop back up, almost giving myself enough of a head rush to pass out.

  “This just makes no sense to me, Ethan.”

  He walks around and sits on the edge of his desk in front of me. “Look, I know you and Danny had a very complicated past, but maybe he just knew you’d be good for Harper. He kept up with you, Indy.”

  “Kept up with me? What does that mean?”

  “The few times we spoke, he told me you lived in Charleston and that you were a therapist.”

  “He did? That’s weird. How would he know that?”

  “Social media?”

  “I’m not on social media.”

  He looks at me as if I have two heads. “You’re not on any social media?”

  “No. I prefer to socialize with actual human beings.” I realize I’m being a huge pain in the butt right now, but I want to stand up and stomp my feet and maybe throw myself on the floor to have a full-on adult temper tantrum. Or maybe I can just drink some wine when I get home.

  Home. The place where the angry redhead shall ignore me completely.

  “She hates me, Ethan. I mean really hates me.”

  “Indy, it’s going to be okay. You know kids go through phases like this, and she’s grieving. Give her time. Give yourself time.”

  I take a deep breath and nod. “Thanks for listening to me rant. Again.” I stand up and swing my purse over my shoulder.

  “Can I give you one piece of advice?” he asks before I leave his office.

  “I will take all the advice you have.”

  “What Harper needs to know is that you honor the part of her father that is inside of her. She needs to know that he was loved, at least by someone other than her. She needs to know that it’s acceptable to talk about him, and to have loved him with all of her heart. If you can give her pieces of him that she never had, I think she’ll come around.”

&n
bsp; I smile. “Maybe you should be the therapist.”

  As I sit on the front steps waiting for Harper to get home from school, I close my eyes and hear the leaves of the fig tree rustling on front of me. The tree is bigger than ever now, and I don’t know how anyone would safely get the figs from the top of it.

  Still, it brings back memories that I can’t shake.

  August 1987

  “I’ll be back soon,” my mother says as I stand on the front walkway. She’s been acting awfully mysterious lately with “meetings”, which makes no sense because she’s a stay at home mother and not some kind of business executive. When I ask where she’s going, she mumbles and leaves as soon as possible. The whole thing is making me uneasy.

  When she pulls away, I’m left home alone because my sister is already at a friend’s house and my brother… well, who knows where he is? He has been gone more than he’s been home all summer, but no one is saying where he is exactly.

  I sit down on the bottom step and look toward Dawson’s house. It’s been days since the fire truck incident, and I won’t talk to him. I keep my blinds closed in my room, and I shoved my strobe light to the back of my closet. It just doesn’t have the same appeal as it once did. One day he came to my house, but I made my Mom tell him I was taking a bath.

  I don’t know why I’m so upset with him. I guess because he lied to me, and we’ve always told each other the truth. I mean, we’ve only known each other a few weeks, but I thought he was my friend. I never thought he’d look me in the face and lie. It made my heart hurt.

  I close my eyes and start to sing my favorite Madonna song. She’s a little crazy and wild, but I like her. I wish I could just be myself without worrying what everyone thought. Mom says she looks like a prostitute, but I have no idea what one looks like. I just think she looks cool.

  “You have a good voice, Indy,” I hear someone say. Startled, I jump up and start looking around. “Over here.”

  I notice the leaves rustling in our large fig tree, and then I realize that I know the voice. Dawson. I can just see his eyes barely poking out when he waves a hand for me to join him in the tree. I cross my arms and shake my head.

  “No,” I say and turn to go up the stairs.

  “Please, Indy. I can’t come out or my mother might see me. I’m supposed to be in my room, but I climbed out my window.”

  “Why are you so focused on getting in trouble?” I genuinely want to know what makes him take these risks.

  “Please come here.”

  The sound of his voice makes me turn back and walk toward the fig tree. I shoot a glance toward his house to make sure his mother isn’t outside and then I slide into the tree too. Thank goodness the huge family of bees seems to be gone now that the weather is cooling off.

  He’s sitting on one of the bigger branches and reaches a hand down to pull me up. I put my sneaker on one of the lower branches and take his hand as he hoists me upward. He’s stronger than he looks. Still, I don’t make eye contact. I’m determined to stay mad at him.

  “What do you want, Dawson?” I ask, trying to cross my arms again but too afraid I might fall out of the tree if I do.

  “I’m sorry I lied to you, Indy. I need you to know that I didn’t plan to do that. It’s just…”

  “Just what? What possible reason can you give for lying to me?”

  “I was trying to get her attention,” he says so softly that I barely hear him.

  “What?”

  He shakes a stray chunk of his thick brown hair from his eyes. “I wanted her to pay attention, Indy. I know it sounds crazy, but she ignores me most of the time. When I make big mistakes, at least she notices me. But this time I think I went too far.”

  “Ya think?” I say sarcastically. “That’s twisted, Dawson. Doing bad stuff for attention?”

  “I didn’t know you were coming over. Then I felt like I was screwed. I just couldn’t tell the truth.”

  “You could have. You chose not to.”

  He reaches out and grabs my hand so tightly that it feels like he’s drowning and I’m his life jacket. I look at him, and I feel something. I don’t know what it is, but I feel like a million butterflies are bouncing around every corner of my stomach and my face feels hot. He stares at me, a look of pain in his eyes, and I want to take it away from him. I just don’t know how.

  “I think my mom doesn’t want me around anymore, Indy,” he whispers, as if she’s standing outside of the tree.

  “Dawson, I’m sure that’s not true…”

  “I’m a burden to her. She told me so last night.”

  “She called you a burden?”

  “Well, I heard her tell her friend that on the phone. Look, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I just had to make sure that you knew that I would never hurt you on purpose. You’re my best friend and I… Well, I wouldn’t lie to you on purpose like that.” He’s still gripping my hand firmly, and I’m afraid of the sadness I might feel when he lets it go.

  “You’re my best friend too, Dawson,” I say. Truly, he feels like a level above friend. I don’t know what to call that level. “This will all work out. I promise. Things are going to be okay.” Even as I say it, I know it’s not true. I have no power to change his family problems… or my own. We’ve only talked a little bit about my family, specifically my brother. My mother has warned me against telling people too much because she says that everyone just wants to hear your dirty laundry and then talk bad about you at their dinner table.

  He smiles sadly, and I get this weird feeling that he knows more than he’s saying. I don’t push, because I know what it’s like to need to keep some things secret.

  “Thank you for being there for me, Indy,” he says, and before I know what’s happening, he leans over and kisses me softly on my lips. Time freezes and all I can feel is the softness of his lips against mine. He doesn’t move them like I see in the movies, but just presses them there for a long moment. I decide I never want to leave this tree. I just want to stay here with Dawson’s lips pressed against mine until the day I die.

  But then, before I can open my eyes - which I’ve closed tightly to enjoy the moment - he pulls back and jumps from the tree. By the time I realize what’s happening, I see him running toward his house as the sun sets in the Georgia sky.

  Harper gets off the bus right on time, but she simply walks past me into the house like I’m not sitting there on the porch in front of her. I take in another deep breath of the crisp fall air before I walk into the house.

  Harper is in the kitchen, standing in front of the open refrigerator door. She doesn’t appear to be reaching for anything, just looking.

  “I bought some of those frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches if you’d like to have one. I can thaw one out…”

  “No thanks.”

  I move past her in the long galley kitchen and open the cabinet beside the laundry room door. “I also bought some canned ravioli…”

  “I’ll just eat an apple,” she says, grabbing one from the new fruit bowl I’ve placed on the kitchen table, before walking straight to her room and shutting the door.

  Suddenly, I question myself. Can I really do this? Will this kid ever have a normal conversation with me?

  My life was so simple just a couple of weeks ago. I lived in a nice condo right on the water in Charleston. The biggest decision I had each day was whether I wanted hot tea or a latte at the local coffee shop. I had a full roster of counseling clients who looked to me for life advice and paid me well for dispensing it.

  Now, I’m basically begging a ten-year old kid to eat something and being ignored in my own house. Yep, living the dream.

  I sit down at the kitchen table and look around the room, trying to remember the tacky wallpaper we used to have when I was a kid. It was a mixture of golden yellows and vomit green, yet somehow my mother thought it was a stunning display of interior design. Our floor had been covered in vinyl tiles that were a deep green color. It’s funny how you hate thi
ngs as a child, but find yourself craving the familiarity of them as an adult. I secretly wonder if that old vinyl is under the newer hardwood laminate floors, but decide against ripping them up to find out.

  Even though this isn’t the table I grew up with, I can remember those family dinners we had every Sunday. The times when everything seemed good, and the times when I was well aware that my family unit had irreparably broken down.

  It wasn’t just my brother, although I will always believe he was the catalyst, the unpredictable flame that lit the match. It was as if a variety of events unknown to me converged to form one of the worst days of my life.