The Goodbye Summer

by Patricia Gaffney

  Sometimes she’d go in her mother’s room just to remind herself, convince herself she had a mother. And she must be coming back, because so many of her things were still there, clothes in the bureau drawers and the closet, ceramic horses, stuffed animals, her record albums, books and notebooks, even her high school yearbooks. And sometimes she did come back, but only to visit, and never for long.

  Caddy learned the signs early, always knew when her mother was about to go away again. First she and Nana would stop speaking. Then Nana would start talking in a strange, tight voice, high and mean but also full of tears. After that Mommy would cry, and there would be yelling and slamming doors. It would be just a matter of hours then, or at most one more night, before her mother would pull her into a hard hug and tell her to be good and do everything Nana said. Then she would drive away in her little gray Volkswagen.

  Caddie sighed, already tired. “Well,” she said—she talked to herself constantly these days—“here goes nothing.”

  She started with the closet, which was stuffed not only with her mother’s old clothes but also cardboard boxes of Nana’s with labels on them: “Electric,” “Fur,” “Ideas.” But when she looked inside, the labels didn’t match the contents: “Fur” contained stuffed toys, “Ideas” was a collection of plastic eggs, and the only thing electrical in “Electric” was an extension cord.

  The closet was a bust, so she cleared a path to the desk, moving boxes and photographic equipment and cast-off furniture. She paused at the sight of a rolled-up rug. Boy, did that bring back memories. And there were the floor ashtray and matching lamp that went with Woman as Man, a “living tableau” for which Nana had sat in an easy chair with her feet up, sipping a beer and reading Sports Illustrated while she blew smoke rings from a smelly cigar. The only problem was, she’d built it in the basement, so nobody saw it except a few friends and Caddie. Art wasn’t art without an audience, Nana said. Not long after that, she got the idea for her outdoor sculptures.

  The desktop was a hopeless clutter of hardened paintbrushes and used sketchbooks, stamps and inkpads, calligraphy tools, printmaking stuff. “Acid dyes, acid dyes,” Caddie repeated, to keep herself on track. Drawers first. She found a shoebox in the first one and said “Aha!” to Finney, who was chewing on a stuffed teddy bear he’d rooted out of somewhere. “No, can’t be, that was too easy.” She took off the lid, and there was Chelsea. Her doll.

  She sat down on the floor. Finney darted over and tried to take it from her hand, but she shooed him away. She hadn’t forgotten her Chelsea doll, but she hadn’t thought about it in a long time, and it had been years since she’d seen it. She fingered the miniature fringe on the rust-colored suede jacket Nana had made for it; particles, like a sprinkle of paprika, came away in her fingers. The curly yellow hair was still greasy from the time Caddie had put on Vaseline to try to straighten it. So it would look more like Mommy’s hair.

  Her mother had sent the doll to her when Caddie was about five, and immediately it had displaced all her other toys. She’d named it Chelsea because that was Mommy’s stage name. She’d taken it to bed every night, cradling it, whispering to it, pretending she was its daughter, or sometimes its mother. She’d imagined every kind of expression on its bland face, had a thousand conversations with it. Her favorite game was talking on the phone with Chelsea, who would be calling her from some exotic place like Virginia Beach or Wheeling. “You should come and stay with me,” the doll would say. “I really miss you. Tell Nana to pack a suitcase and put you on the train right away.” Caddie would hold her hand to her cheek, pretending it was the phone, and say, “Yes, I can come. I’ll come right now. Can I still visit Nana sometimes?” and the doll would say, “Oh, yes, you can see her anytime you like. You’ll live with me instead of her, is all, and we’ll all have a wonderful time.”

  Then she’d imagine it, helping Nana pack a little bag with just her favorite things, kissing her goodbye in the doorway of a steaming train, and riding away in a window seat, waving and blowing kisses. And then the best part, hardly imagined at all because there weren’t many details to focus on: being with Mommy. She had the haziest notion of what a hotel room was, and that’s where she put the two of them, lying beside each other. On a bed with high posts and a white spread. Taking a nap together in the afternoon. It was a time-out, a break between two exciting events, shows or something where people clapped and clapped because Mommy was wonderful. But in between the exciting events, they went in the vague hotel room and lay together on the bed, rested together quietly, their skin brushing lightly when they turned.

  At the bottom of the shoebox was a packet of papers bound by a dry rubber band that snapped as soon as Caddie touched it. Inside were news clippings, ads, and flyers announcing appearances of Red Sky in bars and clubs in distant cities, and later a band called Lightning Twice. Her mother must have sent them to Nana; they weren’t from the local papers. And postcards to Nana, sparse messages in her mother’s handwriting: “En route to Cincinnati—Eddie says better pay. Hug my girl. J.” A handmade birthday card, red construction paper and a glued-on doily: “To Mommie From Caddie I Love you.”

  Letters to her mother from Nana. They were mostly about Caddie, how she was liking kindergarten, how her permanent teeth were coming in, a first-grade report card. (“Catherine’s shyness inhibits socialization, but she is a sweet, tractable child. Needs to build inner confidence.”)

  An envelope addressed to her mother with an Eastern Shore return address, someplace in Delaware called Clover. An eight-cent stamp. The letter inside, scrawled on a sheet of lined notebook paper, was dated 3-16-72.

  Dear Jane, Writings not my strong suite, that’s why I never wrote you before. Guess I was hoping I’d never have to. Wanted to try again to say what didn’t come out right last time. That I’m OK and you don’t have to worry about me. It hurts but I’m the one who wrote about changes so I get it. Don’t feel bad, anyway I got that covered for us both. I miss the guys, and you know I miss you, but its easier this way. You were right, a clean break. Well that’s it. Take care of yourself. Get famous & dedicate a song to me. I’ll know because I’ll always be listening. Love, Bobby.

  March 16, 1972.

  Caddie’s mother would’ve been about two months pregnant.

  She drove to Wake House that afternoon, in the hour-and-a-half interval she had between piano lessons. She found Nana slumped in her wheelchair, staring out the window with a slack, lifeless expression. She didn’t hear Caddie until she shut the door—then her long, pale face lit up, all the features lifting. Caddie felt her own spirits rise, and the hug they gave each other lasted longer than usual.

  “Finally,” Nana said, with a laugh to lighten the fervor. “Feels like an age since I saw you.”

  “Sorry, I know, yesterday was just—” She made a face and a flapping motion with her hand. “But here I am, and I brought your dyes. They were in the basement, I’d like you to know.”

  “My what?”

  “Your acid dyes. For your project. Don’t you remember?”

  “Course I remember.” She pushed her lips out and blew a puff of air. “Hey, want to go downstairs? It’s Charlie Lorton’s hundred and twenty-fifth birthday, we can get some cake.”

  “Ninety-eighth. Sure, but wait, I wanted to ask you—I found something this morning, a letter in Mommy’s old desk.” She pulled the desk chair out and set it across from her grandmother’s wheelchair so that they could be eye to eye. “It’s to her from somebody named Bobby. Do you know who it is?”

  “Bobby?” Nana squinted her eyes and wrinkled her nose. “There was a Bobby, but I can’t just call to mind…”

  “I was thinking he must be the boy who played in their old band, Red Sky.”

  “Red Sky.”

  “You said you went one time to hear them, remember?”

  “I did?”

  Caddie lifted her shoulders and let them fall. “It was a letter about breaking up. She’d broken up with him, and he was sad, and�
�Nana, according to the date, she’d’ve been pregnant with me. Do you remember him at all? There was a Bobby Haywood in the band, I saw his name with the others on a flyer, one of their ads.” Nana kept shaking her head. “Bobby Haywood. Are you sure? Because I was thinking.” She leaned forward and whispered it. “He could be my father. Did you ever ask my mother—anything?”

  “Nope. No, I didn’t.” Nana reared back, arranging the folds of her skirt over her knees just so.

  “Why not? Nothing? Why not, Nana?”

  “Because. Wouldn’t have done any good. I’m the last person she’d have told that kind of thing to.”

  Caddie’s hopes for some startling revelation collapsed, but she told herself she was no worse off than before. “I know you and Mommy used to fight a lot,” she said.

  “Oh, Lord. We were like two cats in a bag. Your mother had no use for me whatsoever in those years.”

  But she gave me to you, Caddie thought. Her oldest wound. And it was odd that she’d lived in a state of half-mourning for her mother most of her life, but she’d always taken fatherlessness for granted.

  “Course, back then it seemed like the whole world was turning inside out. What year was it? This letter? Nineteen…”

  “Seventy-two.”

  “But me, I was still back in the fifties, still being Mrs. Buchanan.” She shut her eyes. “God oughta try harder to save us from the good deeds we do for each other.”

  “You’d tell me if you knew, wouldn’t you?”

  “Knew what?”

  “Who my father was.”

  She opened her eyes. “Oh, honey. That was a door your mama just never was going to open for me. Plus I don’t even know if she knew. That sounds bad, and she wasn’t, she just…what was that band that had the girl who turned around in circles? She wore those filmy clothes, and they named it after the one who played the drums. You know that band.”

  “No.”

  “Yes, you do. She married one of them and the other girl married the other one.”

  “Fleetwood Mac.”

  “Fleetwood Mac. Well, that’s how it was with Jane and all her bands. They weren’t bad, they just didn’t know how to behave. It was the sexual revelation, free love, all that. Which I was against. Then.”

  “Revolution.” Caddie had to smile. “But now you’re for it?”

  “Oh, I just wish I had the time back. I wouldn’t fuss and carry on, I wouldn’t be so mean.”

  “You weren’t mean.”

  She didn’t hear. “I went around scared all the time, that was my trouble. Scared of getting found out, and now it all seems so ridiculous. What a waste of time. You know what I hate? People who say they have no regrets.”

  They watched the windows of the building across the street turn blinding-gold in the late afternoon sun, while Caddie thought, I go around scared all the time, too. She didn’t have her grandmother’s excuse, though; she wasn’t trying to protect a reputation or a child. At least Nana had finally gotten free. Boy, had she gotten free.

  Which reminded Caddie of the other thing she’d come to tell her.

  “Nan?”

  “Hmm.”

  “I’ve done something wrong. I don’t even know why I did it. Exactly.”

  “What did you do?” She was smiling, ready to brush it away.

  “I took down the sculptures in the yard.”

  The smile faded.

  “I’m so sorry. I apologize to you. Are you upset?”

  “My sculptures?”

  She nodded.

  Nana’s face drained white. “What do you mean, ‘took them down’?”

  “I don’t know, they…it…I just…I wanted to see how the yard would look without them. They’ve been there so long, and you haven’t made any new ones in quite a while, over a year except for the cowboy boots, and the neighbors—I didn’t do it because of the neighbors,” she raised her voice to say over Nana’s outraged snort. “I just…I thought…when you come home you can start all over, a clean slate, a—clear field. All new.”

  Nana’s hands gripped and released the sides of her chair. “When did you do this?”

  “Saturday.”

  “Saturday. Before your friends came over. Because you didn’t want them to see.”

  “No.”

  “Because you were ashamed!”

  “No, I did it after. Saturday night, late. I wasn’t ashamed.”

  “Then why’d you do it? Were you drunk? How could you, Caddie? That was my work, you had no right!”

  They both started to cry.

  “I’m so sorry, you’re right, I had no right. I shouldn’t have done it.”

  “Go away, I don’t want to see you right now.” She jerked the wheel of her chair, trying to turn it toward the window.

  “I wish I could undo it. Please don’t be mad.”

  “I am mad! You can’t fix anything, so leave me alone. I mean it, go away, I don’t want to talk to you anymore. I’m grieving.”

  “Nan—”

  “What I should do is sue you. Maybe I will, too. Out of my sight while I think about it. Out!”

  Caddie slunk out.

  Next, she had a fight with Angie.

  “God, why don’t you get an air-conditioner in here? It’s the middle of July, for cripe’s sake.” Angie set her violin case on the piano bench with so much force, the instrument vibrated inside it.

  “Good afternoon to you, too,” Caddie said.

  “I mean, God.” She stripped off her filmy, see-through shirt as if it were a fur coat and put her hands on her hips; she looked beautiful and indignant in her cutoffs and a pink tank top. “Everybody’s got central air, Caddie, and you’ve got a fan.”

  “It’s hot, I know.” She aimed the big square fan on the floor directly at Angie. “But my grandmother hates air-conditioning, so what can I do?” She shrugged, smiled.

  Angie not only didn’t smile back, she rolled her eyes in disgust. It was the first clue Caddie failed to pick up on that she’d come to start a fight.

  “Why don’t you warm up while I go get us some cold drinks?” Caddie retreated to the kitchen.

  Teenagers were great fun to teach, but also unpredictable. Flexibility was the key, because you never knew what mood they were going to show up in. Well, one of the keys; the other was, Don’t take it personally. Caddie reminded herself of that while she poured soda over ice in glasses and brought them back to the living room.

  “You look pretty today.” She set the drinks on coasters on top of the piano. “I like your hair that way.” She could usually jolly Angie out of a bad mood by giving her a compliment. She wasn’t any vainer than a seventeen-year-old girl with shiny brown hair and big dark eyes, perfect roses-and-cream skin, and a great figure ought to be, in Caddie’s opinion. Angie made her wish she’d appreciated her own youth more. Not that she’d ever been that lovely and poised, or ever would be, but she wished she’d relaxed and had a better time. Not been so unhappy with herself.

  “My uncle says I sorta look like Natalie Wood, whoever that is, and I should cut my hair to look more like her. But I like it long.”

  “Oh, me, too.” How Angie was going to wear her hair in the Miss Michaelstown pageant was a topic of endless discussion and indecision in the Noonenberg family.

  “Actually, I was thinking of dying it blonde.”

  “No,” Caddie said, aghast.

  “But then I decided not to. It was Mom’s idea, just for the pageant, but I don’t think so.”

  “Oh. Whew.” She patted her heart in a show of relief.

  Angie stopped doing her scales. “Actually, I don’t even know if I want to be in the stupid pageant.”

  Once that would’ve shocked Caddie—since she’d known her, winning beauty and talent contests had been Angie’s life goal—but lately she’d been saying things like that at almost every lesson, hints of dissatisfaction, veiled threats of quitting. Caddie made a point of underreacting, since Angie’s moods changed on the hour. “Well,” she said
, “why don’t we talk about it after your lesson, so we don’t waste time.”

  Angie scowled.

  “I thought we’d do something different today, anyway,” Caddie improvised. “Instead of playing your piece, I thought we could listen to the recording we made last week and critique it.”

  “We already did that.”

  “We listened, but we didn’t study it, which is why we taped it to begin with. I think it would help to listen carefully and pick out the sections that need more work—”

  “Oh, yay, pick it apart, in other words. That sounds like fun.” She slumped down on the bench, stretched her long, tanned legs out, and stared stonily at her painted toenails.

  Caddie kept quiet and put a tape in the player.

  Angie thought she was sick of “Meditation.” Caddie had to keep reminding herself why it was still a good piece for the pageant. It was familiar, and therefore a crowd-pleaser, and yes, it was corny, but only because of overuse. If you hadn’t heard it a hundred times, it was lovely, genuinely moving.

  They listened to it in silence the first time. It was from an opera about a monk and a prostitute. Lots of angst. “Now, right here,” Caddie said on the second run-through, “right there, hear it? You have to hold that note even longer, because it’s almost like a lullaby, you can’t play it too slowly.”

  “Lullaby for a dead person.”

  “And that measure—do you hear how you’re almost a quarter note ahead of the harp?” Caddie was simulating the simple harp accompaniment on the piano, not just to fill out the music but to help slow Angie down. “Hey, you know what I should do? Record myself, and you could use that to practice with at home. What do you think?”

  “Look, Caddie, I don’t want to do this.”

  “Okay, but it’s either that or the metronome, and you know how much you love that.”

  “No, I mean the whole thing. I don’t want to do it anymore. I didn’t practice all weekend.”

  “Ah.”

  “Oh, I knew you’d look like that!”

  “Like what?”