She Gets That from Me

by Robin Wells

  “That’s it, exactly,” Caroline says.

  I only wish my reactions were as simple. I’m exhausted and overwhelmed by everything I’m thinking and feeling. How can so many emotions—sadness about Margaret’s health, joy about my baby, grief about Brooke, delight to have custody of Lily, and terror about Zack’s sudden presence in my life—coexist in one person at the same time?

  * * *

  —

  THIRTY MINUTES LATER, I’ve tucked Lily into bed in my guest bedroom and fallen into a restless doze in my own. I don’t think I fully sleep; my dreams are a weird mishmash of memories that slide back and forth in time and keep me tossing and turning. I dream of Brooke. I dream of my brother, who is ten years older than me and as distant as a total stranger. I dream of my father’s second wife and my mother’s third husband. I dream of my childhood home in the Lakeside area of New Orleans.

  I dream of my eighth birthday—or do I just remember it? It’s as if the years roll back and I’m living it again.

  I’m waiting in the front yard early on a Saturday afternoon, because Daddy said we’d go to the zoo when he gets home. There’s a chocolate cake in the kitchen from Schwegmann’s grocery for later. Mommy didn’t bake it; she says baking’s a waste of time and that store-bought birthday cakes are better, anyway. I wanted to have a party, but Mommy says a roomful of children would work on her nerves and make a big mess, and wouldn’t it be better to spend the afternoon at the zoo with her and Daddy?

  I’m really excited. I can’t remember the last time we all went someplace together, and I love the zoo. I wait and I wait, and the sun sinks lower in the sky. I go inside and ask Mommy why Daddy’s taking so long. Mommy’s opened a bottle of wine, and she’s drinking it from a big plastic cup as she talks on the phone. I can tell she’s talking to her friend Michelle because she’s using her loud laugh and bad language. She puts her hand over the receiver and arches an annoyed eyebrow at me. She says Daddy probably went to the racetrack to spend all our money and get drunk. I hear the faint braying of Michelle’s laugh through the receiver.

  It doesn’t sound to me like Mommy’s joking, but Michelle’s laughter makes me hope she is. I go back outside and wait some more. It’s starting to get dark and cold, and Daddy still hasn’t come. My chest feels all hollow. I go back inside the house.

  Mommy’s still on the phone. She says Daddy’s not going to show up and that I’m creating a spectacle for the neighbors, mooning around on the porch all woebegone. She says Daddy’s unreliable and that I should know better than to count on him. She says I should put a frozen dinner in the microwave if I’m hungry.

  I don’t have any appetite. When Mommy gets off the phone, she goes in her bathroom and puts on lots of makeup, like she does when she’s getting ready to go out to clubs with her lady friends. She sometimes goes out and doesn’t come home until really late. The next morning she reeks of wine and cigarette smoke, and her eyes are all rimmed with mascara because she didn’t wash it off before she went to bed.

  Mommy comes out of her bedroom smelling of perfume and wearing a dress that Daddy said is too low-cut. She looks really pretty, but I beg her not to go out tonight, because it’s my birthday.

  “Oh, that’s right!” she says. She opens drawers, looking for candles, and only finds two. “These are special candles,” she says, holding them up. They look like the same candles she used on my cake last year. “They’re each worth four years. Since you’re eight, we only need two.” She sticks them in the cake, lights them, and sings me the birthday song.

  I make a wish—I wish that Daddy and Mommy won’t fight and that we’ll go to the zoo tomorrow—and I blow out the candles. She cuts me a piece of cake, then gives me three gift-wrapped boxes. I open the pink one first and find new pajamas, almost exactly like the ones I already have. The yellow box holds underwear and socks. I smile, because I can tell Mommy wants me to be pleased, but pajamas, underwear, and socks are not what my eight-year-old heart desires. I want a Polly Pocket Cozy Cottage play set. I don’t need a dozen sets like most of my friends have, but I only have the Pony Stable play set, and I want my doll to have a home.

  The turquoise package holds a Polly Pocket play set, all right—but it’s the Shetland Pony Stables, exactly the same as the one I already have.

  “Do you like your toy?” Mom’s mouth stretches over her big teeth into the smile she gets when she’s pleased with herself. “It’s really cute, isn’t it?”

  I try really hard not to cry.

  Mother’s forehead gets that ugly frown that makes my stomach feel like someone’s pulling a belt too tight around my insides. “What’s the matter?” she demands.

  I don’t dare tell her. She’ll call me an ingrate and get mad like she did at Christmas. I’m not crying because I didn’t get the right Polly Pocket; I’m crying because my mommy doesn’t know which one I already have, even though I play with it all the time. There must be something with wrong with me, because my mother doesn’t pay attention to me the way my friends’ mothers do. She’s always telling me I’m a big bother.

  But I can’t tell her that’s the reason I’m fighting back tears. “I don’t want you to go out and leave me by myself,” I say.

  “You won’t be,” she says. “Jade’s coming over to babysit you.”

  I don’t like Jade. She’s the thirteen-year-old daughter of Mom’s friend and she never wants to play. She just watches grown-up TV shows and talks on the phone, and if I say something to her, she tells me to shut up and leave her alone.

  “Don’t leave me on my birthday,” I beg Mommy.

  She takes a big slurp of wine. She tells me I’m selfish and childish, and I have no idea what she’s going through. She’s the one who gave birth to me, so she should be the one to get presents on my birthday, anyway. I should feel bad for being such an ungrateful daughter.

  And I do. I feel so, so bad that I cry. She gets even madder at me for crying, so I go back outside and wait for Daddy. He doesn’t come. Instead, Michelle drives up, drops off Jade, and . . .

  “Auntie Quinn?”

  I open my eyes. Lily is standing by my bed, sobbing. Her thumb is in her mouth, and Sugar Bear is clasped in her other hand.

  I abruptly sit up. “What’s the matter, sweetheart?”

  “I had a bad dream.”

  It seems to be a night for those. But I wasn’t really dreaming, was I? It doesn’t count as a dream if it really happened.

  “I’m so sorry, honey.” I swing my feet to the floor and hold out my arms, and Lily climbs into my lap, dragging Sugar Bear with her. I feel her tears on my shoulder as she snuggles her head there. I pat her back, between her slight shoulder blades. “It’s okay. Dreams aren’t real.”

  “It felt real.”

  “Sometimes they do.” My fingers sift through her hair. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  She nods. “I was lost-ed in a big crowd of peoples. I kept lookin’ an’ lookin’ for Mommy, but I couldn’ find her. An’ then I looked for Grams or you or someone I knew, but no one had the right face.” She wraps her arms around my neck.

  I put my chin on top of her hair and pull her close. “Oh, sweetie—that was a bad dream, for sure. But it wasn’t real.”

  “But what if it ’comes real? What if everyone I love dies an’ goes ’way?”

  “That won’t happen, Lily.”

  “But Mommy died, an’ Grams is in the hospital.”

  “I know, sweetie, but I’m taking care of you. I love you and I’ll always be here for you.”

  “But what if you die? If Mommy could die, you could, too.”

  Poor honey. And oh, dear God—I can’t deny that she has a point. “That’s very, very unlikely to happen. And anyway, you have other people who will always love and take care of you. There’s Alicia’s mother, and Miss Terri, and Miss Sarah, and Miss Annie, and . . .” I run out of name
s. In truth, I’m naming people who might babysit, not people who are lined up to actually take her if I can’t. I need to figure that out—both for Lily and for the baby I’m carrying. I push the troubling thought aside to deal with later. “You’ll never be alone, sweetheart. I promise. You just had a really bad dream.”

  “It made me feel ’fraid and terr’ble.”

  “Bad dreams can make us feel that way.”

  “But this feeling is the ’wake kind, too.”

  Inadequacy rolls over me like a street paver. I pray for the right thing to say, then pull out a Sarah-esque question. “What are you thinking about now?”

  Her voice is small and muffled against my neck. “I’m afraid I made Grams sick.”

  I hold her close and pat her back. “Oh, honey—you didn’t. I promise.”

  “But I wanted to move back here and live with you, and I wished I could. I didn’ mean to wish her sick.”

  “Of course you didn’t, sweetheart.”

  “But what if I did?” She pulls back and looks at me. Fresh tears flow down her face.

  “It doesn’t work like that. You can’t just wish for things and make them happen.”

  “But Mommy said I could do anythin’ I set my mind to.”

  “She didn’t mean just by wishing, honey. People make dreams come true by taking action like going to school and studying and practicing and working really hard. None of us has the power to just wish for something and make it happen.”

  “That’s the way how it worked in Pinocchio.”

  “Sweetheart, you know the difference between pretend and real life, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, Pinocchio is pretend.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Very sure.”

  “But the Pinocchio story is old!”

  “Make-believe stories can be old. Besides, if wishes came true, your mom would still be here, right? Because that’s what you really wish.”

  Her head is warm against my shoulder. “Yeah. I wished an’ wished for that, an’ even used-ed my magic wand over an’ over an’ over. An’ I prayed to God.”

  I stroke her silky hair, lifting a strand and letting it filter through my fingers. My chest aches like a cracked tooth.

  “Why did Mommy have to die?”

  “I don’t know, sweetie.”

  “Does God know?”

  “Yes. He knows everything.” Unlike me. Right now, I feel like I know nothing—least of all how to comfort this grieving child.

  “Can he see Mommy?”

  “Yes, sweetie.”

  “I want to see her, too. I want us to be together.”

  I say a silent prayer and take my best shot. “You’re still together in your heart.” Even to my ears, it sounds like a useless platitude.

  “I don’ jus’ want her in my heart! I want Mommy here, with arms an’ a face an’ a lap!”

  My eyes fill. “I know, sweetie. I know.” I feel entirely inadequate. I don’t know what else to say. I rock her until Ruffles jumps on the bed and uses her paws to try to wedge between us.

  Mercifully, this makes Lily giggle.

  “Ruffles wants a hug, too,” I say. The little dog licks Lily’s cheek.

  Lily smiles and embraces the long-haired moppet. “Can I sleep with you and Ruffles?”

  “Sure,” I say, then remember the potty training slips Miss Margaret mentioned. “But first, I think we should both use the bathroom.”

  “Okay.”

  Afterward, Lily, Sugar Bear, Ruffles, and I pile back into my bed. I read a story about a puppy, a kitten, and a rabbit until Lily falls asleep.

  I turn out the lamp, then snuggle next to her, listening to her soft, rhythmic breathing. The room is dark, and so are my thoughts.

  Another memory floats through my mind. I’d just come into the house from school, and my mother was on the telephone. I heard my name and froze.

  “Quinn was a mistake,” I heard her say. “I never intended to have another baby after Will. I was already four months gone when I found out I was pregnant, so there was nothing to be done but have her. I cried for a full week.”

  I stood there in the hallway, my eleven-year-old body quivering. I was too young to fully understand, but I understood enough: I wasn’t wanted.

  A mistake. What child deserves to be labeled that? I feel a flash of anger now as I think about it. How that word colored me—as if the word mistake had been scribbled on my forehead in permanent marker. How I tried to prove to my mother that I wasn’t.

  But it seemed like Mom never really saw me, never fully acknowledged my existence. I always felt like I was just background noise or a bit player to the center-stage drama of her own life.

  How am I supposed to be a good mom with a mother like that as my example? I’m reading how-to-be-a-parent books and studying one that’s supposed to help me reparent myself, but it seems like putting a thin patch on a bad tire. Why, oh why had Brooke thought I was capable of caring for Lily? What was I thinking, getting pregnant on my own? Why did I ever believe I could raise a baby by myself?

  But then—I never really did, did I? I always thought Brooke would be here. I’d thought she and I would raise our children together. I certainly hadn’t thought I’d be raising Lily and a baby all alone.

  I put my hand over my mouth to stifle a sob. Damn it, Brooke! How could you just go off and leave us? How am I supposed to answer all of Lily’s questions? What should I do about Zack? What if Miss Margaret doesn’t get better? What if she does, and wants to take Lily back to Alexandria, where another health crisis could happen at any time?

  I realize it’s not just Brooke I’m angry at. Oh, dear God—I’m angry at you! How could you let this happen? You’re supposed to be good! What the hell am I supposed to do?

  There are no answers—just Lily’s steady breathing in the dark. I close my eyes and inhale the sweet scent of her hair, and eventually match my breathing to hers. And then, in the silence, I hear Brooke’s voice echo through my mind: You can do this.

  How many times did she tell me that over the years? Too many to count. Sometimes she’d say, “Remember our favorite quote?” and one of us would recite Maya Angelou: Do the best you can until you know better. When you know better, do better.

  A surge of my old optimism starts to pulse through me. I know a lot more than my mother knew. I know that children need to feel loved and wanted and secure. I know they need to feel heard and supported and encouraged, that they need to feel cared for and special and cherished.

  I can give Lily everything I needed and didn’t get, everything I’ve gleaned from books and friends and friends’ families and kind teachers. I have a heart full of love to give and a deep desire to give it. “I’ll do my best,” I softly vow into Lily’s hair. “My very, very best.”

  I hope that will be enough. I pray it will be enough.

  As sleep finally starts to claim me, I swear I hear Brooke whisper, You’ve got this.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Zack

  I SPEND THE evening on the internet, searching for information about my daughter’s mother and guardians.

  It’s relatively easy to flesh out Brooke’s professional profile. She spoke at a lot of conferences and was quoted in Logistics Management magazine—apparently she was a well-respected expert. I learn that she left a high-powered executive position that required worldwide travel to move to New Orleans and focus on her family nearly five years ago.

  Finding any more personal information than that is difficult. From an online bio, I learn that she was from Alexandria, graduated magna cum laude from LSU, and held a master’s degree. She was pretty circumspect on personal sites. She had an Instagram account and Facebook page, but both reveal disappointingly little to people she hadn’t befriended. Her obituary mentions that she belonged to a couple of p
rofessional organizations, served on a committee for United Way, volunteered with a few other charities, and was a member of a local church. Her survivors are listed as Lily and Margaret.

  As for Quinn, her Instagram and Facebook pages are also only visible to friends. She has a professional-looking website, though, for her decorating store, Verve!, and her design business. I stop first at the bio page. There’s a photo of Quinn, seated at a glass desk, smiling up at the camera. She’s absolutely stunning. The copy says she’s a New Orleans native, holds a degree in design from LSU, and specializes in eclectic, personalized designs. I learn that she worked at a major design firm in Atlanta before moving back to New Orleans a couple of years ago. A quick check of the Georgia firm reveals that it’s one of the top three design companies in that city.

  Back on Quinn’s website, I browse through a collection of photos showing living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms, bathrooms, and foyers. I don’t know much about design, but these photos look like something from a magazine. It looks like she’s really good at what she does.

  When I search for Margaret Moore on Facebook, I hit the jackpot. Her page is wide open to the public, and there are tons of pictures. Holy profile—Margaret must have uploaded every image that crossed her phone in the last few years.

  “Hot damn,” I mutter as I scroll through about a bazillion photos of Lily. Here she is as a newborn; she’s wrapped like a burrito in a pink blanket, her face puffy, her eyes little slits, and she’s wearing a pink knit hat. It does something spongy to my insides to see Lily as a brand-new earthling. In most of the photos, she’s cradled by Brooke, who’s wearing a jubilant smile of pure delight, her face radiant, her eyes smitten.

  A few photos feature a glowing Margaret holding the newborn, and one picture shows Quinn smiling down at the infant in her arms with rapt tenderness. I stare at this photo for a long time.

  Here’s a picture of all three women and the newborn baby together on a sofa in what looks like Brooke’s living room. Lily is without the cap, and her hair is a little dandelion puff of blond fuzz.