by Nancy Star
But that would not happen. What would happen was that Richard would call Anne-Marie and Anne-Marie would call Julia and Julia would know her grandmother died. That was it. That would have to be enough.
Of course Mimi would find this impossible to understand. She hadn’t been there when Julia left, so she never heard the steel in Julia’s voice when she gave her ultimatum.
“Trying to get Estie Popkin to back down is never easy,” Mimi was saying. “But I don’t care. Waiting is the right thing to do.” Because life had been kinder to Mimi, she still had the luxury of believing there was a right thing to do.
“Julia’s not going to come for a funeral. We talked about it before she left.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. That was theoretical. Julia will change her mind the minute she hears the news. They were close, Julia and Glory. Don’t you think she’ll change her mind?”
Of course that was exactly what Ginger was hoping would happen. But feeding that hope would not make it true. “She’s not coming,” she repeated, and then a beep—call waiting—interrupted. “It’s Richard. I’ll call you back.”
Before Ginger filled Richard in on the details of Glory’s demise, she wanted to know if he’d reached Nick’s mom. He had. “Anne-Marie said she can get the message to them tonight.”
“Good.”
“And . . .” He paused a moment and then went on. “I asked Anne-Marie to make sure to tell Julia we’re not expecting her to come home. We just wanted to be sure she knew what happened with Grandma Glory. And that we both love her. No matter what.”
Ginger nodded. “Okay.” Her eyes were stinging. She wiped them with her sleeve. “Do you think Anne-Marie will say exactly that? Will she get it right?”
“She wrote it down,” Richard told her. “She read it back. She got it right.”
When Ginger called Mimi back and told her she and Richard both agreed it made no sense to postpone the burial, her sister didn’t argue. They divided up the remaining tasks. Mimi would find a funeral home. Ginger would go to the Meadows to gather Glory’s things.
“Keep your eyes out for an address book,” Mimi told her. “I’ll swing by the house after I’m done to check if there’s one there. Case there’s anyone else to call.”
Ginger got off the phone fast, before Mimi could tell her which anyone that might be.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The night of Charlie’s accident, Ginger was struck by how part of what she remembered was hyperclear, as if everything had occurred a fraction more slowly than normal. The sky was crayon blue and the voices were sharp and people lurched around in jolts and starts. Other parts, though, were a blur, as if she was experiencing and forgetting in the same moment.
By the end of the day, this is what she could reconstruct: A man, long ponytail coming undone, ran from the far end with a metal spade. A woman, tie-dyed skirt, bandanna around her hair, loped behind him shouting to the crowd that there were more, plenty more shovels and buckets by the clambake pit. An older man, no shirt, deep tan, scar down the middle of his chest, called for volunteers to help get the gear, and then Mr. Diggans, face going from chalk white to beet red, yelling over all of them, his voice piercing through the chatter, Stop. Stop. Right. Now. His tone turned threatening. Hands only. She could picture the exact moment he said that, how everyone froze, confused, until he said the next thing, Hands only until we know where the body is, at which point several people began to weep.
Glory stood next to Ginger, leaning, listing, bare arm pressing into bare arm, and when Mr. Diggans said the word, body, her mother wobbled and then grabbed Ginger’s hand, holding on tight, as if otherwise she might collapse.
Behind them, Ginger could hear the thrum of people talking and when she turned, she saw them, a ragtag crowd who’d run over from the far end with whatever clothes they could grab—some with nothing more than blankets loosely wrapped around their bodies—all of them watching her mother.
Glory started shaking, tiny shivers which seemed to pass right into Ginger’s skin so that within moments both of them were standing and trembling together.
Ginger struggled and then finally got the words out. “I’m sorry.” Though she still wasn’t sure what had happened, she was sure it was all her fault.
Glory’s reply was so quiet, Ginger had to ask, “What? What did you say?”
Mimi, standing on her mother’s other side, translated. “Someone needs to find Callie.”
It was Thomas, standing next to Mimi, who volunteered to get her. “Where is she?”
“At the far end,” Ginger told him. “She went to get clayed. By herself.”
As soon as Thomas sprinted toward the cliffs, Glory’s trembling stopped and her hand loosened its grip and fell, useless, to her side. From where they stood, Ginger could hear fragments, words lashing over her, voices rising and falling with the wind. Can’t tell yet. Too risky. Careful now. A lifeguard had arrived, but he was just a boy who stuttered as he radioed in the nightmare news, sand-hole collapse, to the person on the other end of his walkie-talkie. “Hurry,” the boy said, and then, “please.”
Ginger saw his eyes fill and imagined her mother chiding him to save his crying for when he was alone in his room with the door closed and the shades drawn.
Her attention snapped back to the crowd, now arguing about where it would be best to dig and where exactly the hole had been. Again, Mimi spoke up. “It was next to my tower.” She pointed. “Where that rock is over there.”
A dozen people spread out around the one remaining rock of Mimi’s toppled tower to the moon. They dropped to their knees, digging like dogs, some of them sobbing.
In the distance Ginger made out two figures running toward them, Thomas and beside him a young girl. Ginger called to her mother. “Thomas has her.” But her voice was drowned out by people shouting, Stand back. Over here. Something moved. “Thomas has Callie,” Ginger called louder and she watched, stunned, as tears of relief streamed down her mother’s face.
And then a hand grabbed hers. “Come with me.” Ginger turned and saw Minty. Her other hand was wrapped tight around Mimi’s wrist.
Ginger pulled her hand out of Minty’s grasp. “I want to stay.” She watched as her mother pushed her way into the crowd.
“Your mother wants you to come with me now.”
“I want to wait for Callie.” Ginger didn’t mean to be yelling but she couldn’t seem to get her voice to be normal. “Thomas is bringing her. I want to wait.” Her words were carried by the wind.
Her mother heard and called back, “Go with Minty. Callie will stay with me.”
“Why can’t we stay with you?” Mimi asked and then everyone, diggers and watchers, went silent.
“Minty, take them,” Glory yelled, and Minty let out a soft cry and yanked them hard toward the path through bushes.
This time when Ginger wriggled free of Minty’s grip, she got as far as the edge of the crowd. She struggled to see through the scrum. There was a smattering of applause, and the crowd shifted just enough so she could make out a glimpse, disjointed images of Mr. Diggans’ back and his arms. He was holding Charlie, crumpled and limp and impossibly small. “Move,” she told the people blocking her, and someone did, and then she saw it, her brother waved.
“We have to go now,” Minty said, and Ginger let herself be led away.
“It’s going to be fine,” Minty told them as they walked through the tunnel of bushes. “It’s going to be fine,” she repeated as they got into her car.
In the back of Minty’s beat-up station wagon, Ginger and Mimi let themselves be lulled into a daze by the rhythm of the promise. It’s going to be fine. They gazed out opposite windows. It’s going to be fine. Their fingertips reached across the seat and touched. It’s going to be fine. And Ginger repeated the words in her head, hoping that would help make them come true.
Up in their room, Mimi asked Ginger if she thought Charlie was okay and Ginger said yes. “Are you positive,” Mimi pressed her, “or
are you just saying that?”
“Positive,” Ginger said, though she suspected Mimi could tell it was a lie.
They tried to think of ways to make time go faster so that Charlie would be home soon. That he might not come home at all had not occurred to either of them. It was after dark when they heard the front door open and voices whispering and the door clacking closed. Mr. Diggans, his voice friendlier than normal, told someone, “That’s not the sun. That’s the moon,” and the person laughed. Callie.
Ginger and Mimi raced down, and Mr. Diggans rose to his feet. “Whoa. Ho. Hey. Sounds like the running of the bulls here. Why aren’t you two asleep?”
“What happened?” Ginger asked, and Callie shrugged her shoulders. She didn’t know.
“Upstairs,” Mr. Diggans said. “It’s way past bedtime.”
“How come she gets to stay down?” Mimi wanted to know.
“Callie’s going to sleep here.” He tapped the couch. “She’s frightened.”
“Of what?” Mimi could not imagine.
Ginger felt herself shivering even though it wasn’t cold. “Where’s Mom? Where’s Charlie?”
“Did Charlie break his other arm?” Mimi wanted to know. “Did he break his leg? That’s good, right, to break a leg?”
“This is nonsense,” Mr. Diggans barked, and Callie copied him, mimicking his gruff tone, “Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense.”
“Back upstairs,” Mr. Diggans shooed them. “Back to bed right now.”
Mimi didn’t want to sleep alone, so Ginger turned on her side and let her sister scoot into her bed. When Mimi started shooting questions, Ginger felt them like little darts on her back. “Do you think Charlie was scared when the hole caved in? Do you think his hair fell out? Do you think it went all white, like Cropsy?”
“Cropsy’s not real.”
“Mom says he is. Mom says Cropsy has white hair and chops up children who are bad. Is Cropsy real?” Mimi called to Mr. Diggans, who yelled back, “Be quiet.”
Ginger thought it made no sense for someone to yell, Be quiet, but she got quiet anyway, so she wouldn’t have to answer any more of Mimi’s questions.
Soon the sweet scent of cherry tobacco drifted into the room, Mr. Diggans puff-puff-puffing on his pipe. Ginger turned to Mimi and saw the whites of her eyes wink on and off like lightning bugs. A tear leaked out, and then another, until there was a line of tears traveling like a tiny river along her sister’s neat hairline.
“Why are you crying?” Ginger asked.
Mimi admitted, “I don’t know. But I’m allowed to cry here.” And they both turned as one to see if their window had shades.
After a few moments, when the scent of cherry tobacco faded—Mr. Diggans’ puffing had stopped—Mimi asked Ginger, “Wouldn’t Callie be less scared if she was sleeping with us?”
Ginger nodded and got out of bed. Together, they crept down the stairs.
They found Mr. Diggans asleep, head tipped back on the chair, pipe resting on a small dish he’d placed atop Glory’s puzzle, making a wreck of the Taj Mahal. Callie lay on the couch, a blanket wrapped around her like a body bag. Ginger kneeled beside her and whispered in her ear. “Callie? Are you up?”
Callie sat up and waved. “Up, up, up.”
Mr. Diggans’ eyes snapped open. “What’s going on here?”
“If she’s scared, she should sleep with us,” Mimi told him. “We’re awake.”
He checked his watch, a large complicated thing with dials and cutouts of the moon, and let out a long sigh. “I suppose that would be all right. I’m leaving early anyway. Meeting the first ferry. But don’t worry. You’ll only be alone for a little while. I’m picking someone up to stay with you.”
“Who?” Mimi asked.
“Poo-hoo,” Callie echoed.
Mr. Diggans winced and rubbed his eyes.
Ginger took Callie’s hand. “We’re going to bed.” And Mr. Diggans didn’t stop them.
It took some time to arrange themselves so that they all fit in one bed, but eventually they found a way that worked, Callie in the middle on her back, Mimi and Ginger facing her like a pair of parentheses.
Callie fell asleep right away, but Mimi remained awake, pelting Ginger with more questions. “Where’s Mom? Where’s Charlie? Who’s coming? Where’s Dad?”
“Dad will be here soon,” Ginger said, which was wishful thinking, and about everything else, “I have no idea,” which was the truth.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Ginger had been driving to the Meadows to visit her mother every day for six months, but somehow this time she got lost, going south on the Parkway when she should have been going north, and after that missing the turn for the jughandle. When she finally arrived, it took three tries before she got her car between the lines of the parking spot, and once inside the building, she waited at the elevator for a full minute before noticing the “Out of Order” sign. She took the stairs two at a time and—how could this be?—got lost again.
It was on her second round circling the floor that she spotted Tracy, and it was only after Tracy stepped aside that she understood the reason she’d walked right past her mother’s room. The nameplate on the door was now covered by a giant magnetic dove, someone’s idea of closure.
Inside the room, erasure had begun. The bed was freshly made with a silk rose placed on Glory’s pillow. Was this still considered Glory’s pillow? Was it okay for her to be in this room? Was it okay that Julia wasn’t coming home? Ginger sat down on the bed. Why hadn’t Richard thought to ask Anne-Marie to tell Julia that it’s good to be with family when someone dies? That mourning can be complicated. That pretending a death didn’t happen can have all kinds of repercussions. Stop, she told herself. Don’t think. Stay busy. This was how she got through her day. This was how she got through her life. She did what was required. What was required here? Stand up. Open the closet. Take out the clothes. Put them in a bag. What did she require? Don’t think. That was key.
In the closet half a dozen velour tracksuits hung off kilter on metal hangers. Zipper jackets and elastic-waist pants in a rainbow of nursing-home colors: coral next to lavender, lime green next to sky blue. Such a soft blue, like a robin’s egg, or the blue eyes of a newborn baby. Don’t think. Take the tracksuits off the hangers. Place them in the bag.
There were clothes in the closet she’d never seen before. A red velour dress, with a dozen looped buttons up the back. A denim jacket with peacocks embroidered on the sleeves. Where would Glory have worn such things? Were these her things, or had the next person already moved in? But no—there was her mother’s red ribbed robe puddled on the floor, as if Glory had melted away beneath it.
Inside one pocket of the robe she found a knot of tortoiseshell bobby pins. In the other, two hardened balls of used tissues. She tossed the remains in the tin wastebasket, where they fell with a thud. She surveyed the room. The drawers were jammed shut. The floor was streaked with water. A breeze from the open window blew a tumbleweed of white hair against her ankle. She hurried to the small bathroom where the air held the sting of ammonia and the toiletries awaited. Grabbing a tissue, she picked up a sliver of soap and a tall, sticky bottle of shampoo. She tossed things one by one—thump, the gnarly tube of toothpaste; whomp, the sticky roll-on deodorant; plunk, the crusty tub of hand cream. From the small glass shelf above the toilet, she scooped up a face puff, lipstick, blush.
Brooke, the activity director, stopped by to offer a carton for personal effects. In went the framed photographs of Mimi’s children, one stacked atop the other.
It was in the final check of the room that she found the black marble composition notebook at the back of a bottom drawer. Written on the cover, in Glory’s shaky hand, it said, “Notes to Self.” Ginger cracked the book open, hoping for blank pages, but instead there was her mother’s careful script. Her aversion to reading her mother’s musings had not mellowed. She closed the book and considered her choices, journal in the box or journal in the trash. Dinah, the aide Glory
said was mean, came in to offer condolences. Journal in the box.
“Sorry your mother passed,” Dinah said as she offered a warm hug.
“Thank you for being so kind to her.” As Dinah stepped away, Ginger noticed her calf. “Your leg is swollen. Have you had that checked out?”
Dinah looked down. “That? That’s nothing. It’s the phlebitis.”
“Usually it’s nothing,” Ginger agreed. “But it can be serious. If it’s deep in the vein, you never know. You could throw a clot. Have you talked to your doctor about it?”
“Well, not yet, but okay. Uh-huh. I will.” Dinah hurried down the hall.
“Wait,” Ginger called after her. “Sorry.” She didn’t mean to drive Dinah away. She didn’t mean to drive anyone away. She just wanted to make sure Dinah had the right information. Richard called her an alarmist, but Ginger couldn’t understand why everyone wasn’t alarmed, all of the time.
Her leg started trembling. What was that about? Could grief make her leg shake? Or was it possible she’d been so busy worrying about Julia and Glory that she neglected to notice something was wrong with her? She quickly ran through a list of tremor diseases. Parkinson’s, kidney disease, mercury poisoning. Could that be it? Could she have eaten too much tainted fish?
The problem was there were so many things that could happen and no way to predict which would be the one that actually did. At the last faculty meeting, she heard about another parent falling ill. A gluten-free vegan mother this time. Lately, it seemed like that’s how it always went, the moms who juiced and cycled from one city to the next to raise money for diseases, suddenly diagnosed with ALS. If she got sick, would Julia come home then?
Stop, she ordered herself. She pictured her medicine cabinet at work. Life Savers. That’s what she prescribed for children with clogged ears: two yawns and a Life Saver. Altoids. Those were for the sad children, who came in complaining of vague miseries but sometimes could be distracted by the sharp taste of a small mint.