“Traveling was all we worked for,” Estelle said, beginning to pull out snapshot after snapshot of herself and Ally’s father in various touristy locations around the country. “Mitchie went to work in construction, I got a job in a fabric store, and we’d cut corners and save everything we could for our vacation every year. We were going to see the whole country!”
“It looks like you almost did,” Ally commented, because there were photographs of her parents at Mount Rushmore, at the Grand Canyon, at Hoover Dam, at Yellowstone and Yosemite, even hiking in the Rocky Mountains.
“Was this why you weren’t planning to have kids? So you could travel?” Ally asked. She’d known that her parents had not intended to have a family, but she’d always assumed the reason was because they’d been so much in love that they hadn’t wanted anything but each other.
But like her comment about never remembering them traveling, Estelle didn’t answer this question either. She seemed lost in memories and reluctant to emerge from them.
“We went every year until we turned forty,” she said instead. “And then we started to talk about wanting to see more of the world, wanting an adventure, wanting to know what it was like to live in Europe.”
“You wanted to move there?”
“Not forever, but we thought if we saved enough money by not going anywhere for a few years, we could maybe stay six months. And if we had that long, we could travel and live for a little while wherever we felt like it. It would have been so nice…”
“But you never did that?”
“No. Just when we were going to, I got pregnant.”
“Oh.”
“Then all the money had to go for doctors and baby furniture and bottles and things,” Estelle said emotionlessly, merely stating fact. “And after that everything was different. It cost more for day care or to hire a babysitter than I could make working, so I needed to stay home. We barely got by on Mitchie’s wages alone with three mouths to feed, and that was that.”
Estelle gathered up her pictures as if that was that for looking at them, too. As she did she said, “Now you travel, Alice, and I just hear about it.”
Ally was surprised that there was no resentment in her mother’s voice. But still she felt guilty, as if she’d unwittingly gotten to live a portion of life her mother had wanted but been denied because of her.
“I had no idea,” she said.
“There wasn’t any reason for you to know. Once you were on the way we made our decision not to stop it. Mitchie said it must have been in the grand design that we have you so we should. That we could travel again later.”
Except later hadn’t come because her father had died when Ally was twelve.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly.
Estelle didn’t respond. In fact, the remark didn’t even seem to register.
“Maybe you and I could take a trip,” Ally added. “You could come to Italy the next time I need to go. We could arrange to stay for a few weeks, maybe go to Paris and London—”
“Oh, I don’t need that now,” Estelle said. “Just this is enough—you, here.”
That gave Ally pause. “It is?”
“I’m glad when you visit,” her mother said, and it sounded genuine. “I wish you would more often. Or move back, even—that would be nice.”
“It would?”
“You probably don’t think so, but I do. There’s so much of Mitchie in you—that was hard for me to see for so long after we lost him. But now it’s like getting two for the price of one. And you know I like a bargain.” Estelle smiled at her own joke and Ally managed to, too.
“You’re a good girl, Alice,” her mother announced as she stood and took her box of pictures with her. “I’m proud of you.”
Then she walked out of the kitchen, leaving Ally with the biggest surprise of this entire visit—praise from her mother and a warm feeling to go with it.
Chapter Eight
Ally was sitting on the lawn swing late Sunday evening, watching Jake come out of the back door of her mother’s house. He was in profile to her, holding the screen door open with his oh-so-terrific derriere as he bid her mother good-night. Then he stepped off the small landing and let the screen close, turning to cross the yard to her, carrying two glasses.
He was wearing jeans and a plain T-shirt, and he still looked outstanding bathed in the light from the fixture beside the door.
“The last two margaritas,” he announced, handing one glass to her when he reached her.
“Thanks,” Ally said, making room for him to join her on the dated lawn furniture that creaked and slid backward with his weight when he sat beside her.
Ally sipped her drink and watched the lights go off in her mother’s kitchen. She’d said good-night to Estelle moments before when her mother had announced that she was going to bed and Jake had followed her inside to refill his and Ally’s glasses.
Jake turned in her direction and she could feel his gaze steadily on her. It seemed to add to the warm summer air around them and Ally was glad she was wearing her lightest-weight jeans and only a thin scoop-neck T-shirt.
“When you clam up, Rogers, you really clam up,” he said before he took a drink of his own.
Ally smiled at him. “I haven’t clammed up,” she answered defensively, casting him a glance out of the corner of her eye.
“You’ve been quiet all day,” Jake insisted.
He was right, she had been. Luckily he’d done most of the talking at the half-dozen assisted-living facilities they’d visited that afternoon. Jake had asked questions she hadn’t even thought to and made sure she knew everything she needed to know. Then they’d come home and he’d suggested a backyard barbecue for which he’d done most of the work, with Estelle pitching in with more enthusiasm than Ally had seen from her mother in a long time. Ally had been able to go on wallowing in the thoughts that had kept her in their grip since that morning’s talk with her mother.
“You and Mother seem to get into your own rhythm,” she said as if that explained her not saying much all day and evening.
“Even when we tried to get you to talk tonight you weren’t into it. What’s up?”
She sipped more of the tart beverage. “I just have a lot on my mind today.”
“Such as?”
“Such as who knew my mother could make such a mean margarita,” Ally joked.
Jake laughed, toasted her with his glass and enjoyed another taste of the beverage. But he seemed determined not to be detoured.
“Were you put off by the places we looked at today?” he asked.
“No, they were all nice enough. Not luxury living, but nice.” She repeated what she’d said as they’d driven home when the conversation had stalled so as not to alert Estelle to what they’d done while they’d been out.
“And yet you hardly said two words and didn’t make even tentative commitments to any of them,” Jake pointed out. “Do you want to see more of them?”
“No.”
“So what’s up?” he said again.
Ally shrugged. “I’ve just been thinking a lot today—and tonight—about how important it was to my mother to keep this house after my dad died. How she said more times than I can remember that the house was our security. That it was all she had…”
“And now she’d be losing it,” Jake guessed.
“Well, yes. And even if she hasn’t been doing so well at keeping up with the lawn, she still has her flower gardens and her few vegetable plants—she wouldn’t have any of that in assisted living.”
“No, she wouldn’t.”
“Plus, the places are all far from the senior center and the park, and from those of her friends who live around here. She’s only driving when she has to, so she probably wouldn’t be able to walk with you guys, or get to the senior center. She could lose touch with her friends—”
Jake had sobered considerably. “She wouldn’t lose complete touch with her friends—they all still have telephones and they make an effort to incl
ude even those of them who move into assisted living or with family members. But you’re right—when they aren’t close by, they don’t see as much of each other.”
“It’s sad and it’s all the same reasons she gave for not wanting to come and live with me in L.A.,” Ally said. “They’re valid reasons, too—I’d hate it if I were her, it doesn’t seem good for her, and I don’t want to be the one who takes more away from her.”
“So, you be the one to move, then. Pack up and come back to Chicago.”
“We already went through that—it isn’t as if I can ask my boss for a transfer to the Illinois branch,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean that I don’t feel bad that I can’t just do that.”
“If it were an option, would you?” he asked, sounding as if it gave him an idea of some kind.
Ally didn’t know what idea it might have given him, but she did think about the what-if of having a choice. “I don’t know if I would do it or not. It would be a hard decision. But it doesn’t matter because it isn’t an option.”
“Which again brings us back to assisted living.”
Ally sighed wryly. “And what a great choice that is. I ruined some of her life by being born, and she’s spent my adult years watching me do what she wanted to and couldn’t because she’d had me, and now I can strike one final blow, too.”
“Wow!” Jake said, rearing back. “What’s all that?”
“The truth. Some of it I just learned this morning.”
“Sounds like a big load to be carrying around,” he said.
Ally groaned theatrically. “Ugh! Don’t treat me like one of your patients.”
He grinned. “Okay, where the hell did all that come from and what are you talking about?”
Ally laughed. “Better,” she judged even as she debated whether or not to bare her soul to him.
Things were different between them now. He didn’t seem like an adversary the way he had then. And he was a good listener and she was really in need of unloading, so she decided to do that soul-baring after all.
“My parents had not planned to ever have kids—that’s why I’m the age of most of Mother’s friends’ grandchildren rather than their children. I was an unwelcome surprise.”
“Do you know you were unwelcome or is that just something you’ve felt?”
“Oh, I know it. Even before she told me, Mother kept me at arm’s length and made me feel like a stray cat that had just been given a home out of necessity.”
“Come on,” Jake said in disbelief.
“I’m serious. She and my father adored—and I mean adored—each other. They were closer and meant more to each other, were more important to each other and more kindred spirits, than any two people I’ve ever met. And I always had a strong sense that I was butting into that. My dad put effort into hiding it—he went out of his way to spend time with me and really tried to be interested in what I liked to do. Which was nice—I felt closer to him because of that. But the flip side of it was that Mother resented it.”
“What made you think that?”
“She’d say that Daddy was spread too thin because of me. She was always aggravated with how needy I was. Or she’d tell me I was too demanding.”
“Ouch.”
Ally shrugged as if it hadn’t been as hurtful as it had. “But this morning I found out, how much my being born had changed for her and the strangest thing happened—for the first time I put myself in her shoes and even though a part of me still resented the way she handled things, another part of me understood. I kept thinking that if, right now, I was where she’d been and suddenly all my plans, everything I wanted, had to be put on hold for some unforeseen reason, and I had to share a man I was blissfully happy not sharing, I’d probably resent it, too. And considering that now she’s had to watch me go on to have those things she was denied? I ended up feeling guilty.”
“You can’t feel guilty because you’ve been successful and built your own life. It isn’t as if you won’t have your own disappointments to deal with.”
“Still, it was because of me that her life played out the way it did—”
“I understand what you’re saying, Ally. And what you’re feeling. But you’re doing the best you can for Estelle now. Using your advantages to help her in the present and the future to make her life better are productive ways to pay her back for whatever sacrifices she might have made. But guilt for being born?” He grasped the crown of her head with his fingertips and then pulled his hand away. “I’m absolving you of that.”
Ally laughed again. “Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome,” he answered as if he’d actually done something.
He finished his drink and set the glass on the swing’s platform. Then he sat back again and looked at her.
“It seems I’m still missing some of the picture, though,” he said then. “What was your father’s role while all this was going on?”
That put a new damper on Ally’s mood. “That’s something I can’t ever make up for,” she said, bending forward to deposit her own glass under the swing.
“But we’ve come this far, you might as well take me the rest of the way,” he cajoled, again stretching his arm along the cushion so he could fiddle with her hair, rubbing a strand of it between his fingers as if it were silk.
Ally took a deep breath and sighed, deciding that since she had come this far she might as well tell him the whole story. Even if it was something she’d never confided in anyone.
“When I was twelve I left my bicycle in the driveway behind my father’s car—”
“Something just about every kid does at least once,” he said as if he was contradicting her dire tone.
“My dad didn’t see it and backed out over it—”
“Again, something that happens.”
“And doesn’t seem like a big deal, does it?” she agreed. “Except that apparently some part of the bike pierced his tire. He didn’t notice it and the tire went flat on the highway. My dad had to change it and while he did, he was hit by another car.”
Jake’s whole face scrunched into a sympathetic frown. “That’s how he died, isn’t it?” he finished for her because she stalled before getting to that point.
She nodded her confirmation. “That was when I found out for sure that I’d been an unwelcome surprise. My dad dying was more awful for me than I can tell you. But for Mother? He was her other half. When we found out he was dead she just lost it. She kind of went crazy. She told me it was my fault—as if I didn’t know that. She said it was bad enough that she’d had to share him with me for twelve years but she couldn’t believe that my dad had been taken from her and I was what she was left with. She told me straight out that she’d never wanted me, that she wished she’d never had me, that if she hadn’t he would have still been alive.”
It was too awful and ugly a memory to go into any further and Ally stopped.
“You’re right, she did go crazy,” Jake said softly. “Grief can do that. But what gets said in a time like that—”
“Can still be the truth,” Ally said before he could tell her her mother hadn’t meant it.
“It did damage,” Jake conceded.
“I knew after that that I hadn’t been imagining what I’d thought before—that I was an intrusion and that she resented it. And even though she never said it again, I knew from then on that she blamed me for my father’s death. The rift between us just got wider after that. Everything was so much harder without my dad around. Plus, Mother had to support the two of us and she wasn’t educated or experienced enough to get a job that paid well, so she had to work long hours, she was always tired—”
“And there had to be a lot of grieving and depression over a loss like that. For both of you.”
“She definitely wasn’t happy-go-lucky. And the financial problems made it worse. Keeping the house became such a big thing—it wasn’t easy for her to go on making the mortgage payments, but she was determined. It was like her lifeline or somethi
ng…”
Jake motioned with his chin in the direction of the garage apartment. “And you ended up living there instead of in the house with her?”
“Like I said, things between us just got more strained. As soon as I was old enough, I found an after-school job so I could contribute to the household income. Around that same time I started to think about the space above the garage. Daddy had been working on it before he died to turn it into an apartment. He’d gotten about half finished—it was wired for electricity and heat, the plumbing was in, and he’d even collected those old appliances and cupboards from garage sales. Anyway, I started to think that maybe I could do the rest of the work. I saved the money I wasn’t putting in on the family budget so I could buy the materials. I checked out how-to books from the library, I asked a lot of questions at the hardware store, and I managed to finish the apartment. Then I really got into painting it, decorating it, adding throw rugs and my own touches—”
“Was that when you realized you wanted to be a decorator?”
“It was,” she said. “And when I was finished with it, I just moved up there.”
“Estelle didn’t mind?”
“We never really talked about it. I started to stay up there more and more, and she seemed to accept it. My being in the apartment more than in the house made it easier for us to just sort of coexist. We had meals together. Mother kept tabs on me. I had curfews and rules and all of that, but when I was home, I was in the apartment and she was in the house, and that’s how it was. I stayed through college, and when I graduated, I applied for a job with a design firm that came to my school to recruit. The firm was in California, so with the job, came the move, and that’s where I went.”
“And you’ve never tried to heal all those old wounds?”
She shook her head. “I think it’s better to just move on.”
“Sometimes that is better,” he agreed. “But sometimes people come to me because they’ve taken that route and the parent has died and they feel differently. They wish they hadn’t just gone on. It can be tougher to work through those things then.”
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