“If she loved me, she wouldn’t have texted. I told her not to. She didn’t even have her seatbelt on. If she loved me, she wouldn’t have died.” Emma was sobbing piteously as the realities hit her again. She wasn’t angry now, just devastated.
“Sometimes people do stupid things. They think they’ll get away with it, or it’s just for a minute. She wasn’t thinking, but the one thing I do know is how much she loved you. She would never have wanted to leave you. She just didn’t think that something like this could happen. I was mad at her at first, because it was such a stupid thing to do. But it was just stupid, and careless. I’m sure she wasn’t thinking. She was probably in a hurry.” Emma nodded. It was true.
“We were late for my drama coach, and she was afraid he’d leave before we got there. There was a lot of traffic, so she texted him. She was texting so she didn’t see the truck.”
“The police thought it was something like that. But I’m not mad at her anymore, and you shouldn’t be either. The one thing I know for sure is that she loved you every second of her life. She never, ever stopped loving you.”
Emma nodded, looking heartbroken as tears rolled down her cheeks. “I’m glad she left me with you, Aunt Whit. I love living with you. I still miss my mom, but I love you so much,” she said and slipped her arms around her aunt’s neck and held her tight.
“I love you too, Em. We’re lucky we have each other.”
And then Emma pulled away and looked at her intently. “Do you think my mom would be mad that I don’t want to be an actress anymore, and I want to go to school like other kids?”
“I think all she’d want is for you to be happy. It doesn’t matter how you do that, or what you decide to be when you grow up. She’d be happy whatever you do, and so will I.” Emma nodded and looked relieved. Whitney lay down next to her on the bed with an arm around her until Emma fell asleep, and then she tiptoed softly from the room. She thought about Paige herself all that night, and how ambitious she had been about Emma’s career, how proud she had been of her, how much she had wanted her to be like their mother and become a big star one day. She thought of the foolish things they had done together when they were young, how silly Paige had been at times, how daring and how funny, how she flirted shamelessly and how men always fell at her feet. She had been a flake, and a stage mother, a lousy student as a kid when Whitney had written her papers for her, but she had told Emma the truth. Her mother had loved her more than life itself, and had only wanted the best for her. It was a comforting thought as Whitney lay thinking about her sister, missing her, and the memories washed over her again, but more gently now. And the greatest gift of all was that her sister had given her Emma to take care of now, and to love. She was the greatest blessing in Whitney’s life, and what she knew she had to do now was be there for her, love her like her own, and help her grow up and forgive her mother. And as she thought it, Whitney’s own anger at her sister ebbed away, like the tide going out to sea.
Chapter 15
Emma recovered slowly from the minor accident they had had. It had shaken her up badly, and her final memories of her mother flying through the windshield gave her nightmares several times, but she eventually seemed more peaceful, and her tenth birthday a week later cheered her up considerably. Whitney invited Bailey, Amy, Sam, Belinda, and Brett for dinner. They had pizza and an ice cream cake, and Whitney filled the house with pink and purple balloons. They played music and danced after dinner, and Emma looked happier than she had in a long time. The terrible images of her mother had slowly begun to fade. And with ice cream dribbling down her chin, she announced to everyone that her aunt was thirty years older than she was.
“I just did the math!” Emma said proudly. “It’s a subtraction!” Whitney groaned as she said it.
“You couldn’t figure out something else to subtract?” Whitney complained, and everyone laughed as Emma put her arms around Whitney and held her close. She said it was the best birthday she’d ever had, even better than the ones on the set. It was after ten o’clock when everyone went home and Emma slept peacefully that night. She was excited to be ten years old.
Right after her birthday, Emma started on her summer reading list for her new school with Belinda’s help. The reading wasn’t easy for her, but she improved with each book, and she enjoyed what she was reading, Little Women, Charlotte’s Web, and Stuart Little and some other chapter books. They were going to take a stack of them to Lake Tahoe. Belinda and Sam were planning to come up for a weekend. She had finally come to terms with her difficult decision, and told Whitney she and Sam were each going to leave their apartments and rent a place together in September. She was terrified, but she didn’t want to give up and run away from him. It sounded like the right decision to give the relationship a chance, and Whitney had the feeling that it was going to work.
“If it doesn’t, I can always find another apartment,” she said philosophically, “but not necessarily another guy like him.” Whitney was happy for her, and Belinda gave her full credit for introducing them.
“Tell me that if it works,” Whitney said, laughing at her. “If it doesn’t, it was an accident of fate.”
* * *
—
Whitney had called Emma’s agent, Robert Jones, by then and told him that Emma wanted to give up acting for a while and was going to start school in the fall. He was disappointed to hear it, and had liked working with Paige a lot better, whose priority had been Emma’s career on her path to stardom, not sending her to school like an ordinary kid.
“She can always come back to it,” Whitney said quietly.
“That’s not always true. People forget. She was a big talent, and she could be a major star, a legend like her grandmother.”
“That will still be the case in a few years. She needs a chance to recover from her injury and her mother’s death. She has to have time to be just a kid for a while.” Whitney was firm about it, and had Emma’s best interests at heart. She still had memory lapses, although fewer now, and going to school full-time would be a big change for her after having been tutored on the set for so long. Whitney wanted her to make some friends her own age, not just play poker and chess with the actors she worked with. She could make up her mind later about her career. She didn’t need to do it now, at ten.
“I’ll call you if any great opportunities come up,” he said, clinging to the hope that he could talk her aunt into it, although Whitney sounded like a stubborn woman to him. She had her own ideas about what would be best for the child, and they weren’t the same as his and didn’t benefit him.
Whitney had rented a house in Lake Tahoe for them for the month of July, and Emma was excited about it. It would be the first summer she’d had when she didn’t have voice and drama lessons, no dancing classes, and no lines to learn for the fall. Other than her reading for school, she was going to have the summer off. Whitney had gone up to check out the house. It was a large rambling home with lots of bedrooms, and came with a boat and its own dock. She had invited Amy and her fiancé up later in the month. They had just gotten engaged. And Bailey was coming up for the Fourth of July, during their first weekend in the house.
“And what are you going to let Emma do while she’s up there?” Amy questioned her when they saw each other. “Ride a bike? Water ski? Play with other kids?”
“We’re starting with swimming lessons at a club nearby,” Whitney said vaguely. “She needs to relearn how.”
“What about the rest? You can’t overprotect her forever,” Amy said, concerned that Whitney would try to keep her from normal activities.
“She had a serious brain injury less than a year ago, and a trauma over her mother’s death. I’m not going to let her do anything dangerous on my watch,” Whitney said nervously.
“She’s almost recovered from her injury, and she may never get back some of the skills she lost. But you have to let her be a regular kid now
, fall down, hurt herself a little, get banged up. You can’t keep her from that,” Amy reminded her, as Whitney looked worried.
“Why not? I don’t want anything bad to happen to her.”
“Neither do I, but that’s part of life. You can’t stop her from leading a real life. She’s not going to slip into a coma or forget how to speak again, unless she has another major traumatic injury, and chances are, she won’t.”
“I have a responsibility to her mother,” Whitney insisted. “I don’t want her to get hurt.”
“The only thing she shouldn’t do is get a blow to her head. Other than that, she needs to experience being a normal kid. She’s never really had the chance.”
“I know,” Whitney said pensively. All she wanted to do now was keep Emma safe. She couldn’t bear the thought of anything bad ever happening to her again, which she knew wasn’t entirely realistic, but her sister’s death had affected her too. Paige had left her a sacred responsibility, and Whitney wanted to live up to it. She had left her the child that Whitney would never have had the courage to have herself.
“What about you and Bailey? What’s happening there? He clams up whenever I ask him.” Amy smiled, curious about them. She had grown very fond of Whitney in the past year.
“I’m playing that safe too,” Whitney said with a shy smile. “I don’t want us to get hurt either. He’s coming to Tahoe for the Fourth of July weekend.”
“You two should go away somewhere together, and have some fun. God knows you’ve earned it after the past year.”
“Tahoe will be fun. And I’m taking some neurology classes in September. I enjoyed the work we’ve done together a few times. I want to start seeing some brain injury patients, for the behavioral aspects. It’s more interesting than dealing with teenagers smoking too much dope, Beverly Hills housewives with shopping addictions, and corporate husbands who cheat on their wives.”
“I want you to come and work with us eventually,” Amy said seriously. She had brought it up to Bailey several times, but he wasn’t sure where their relationship was going and didn’t want to create an awkward situation by working with her, at least not yet. “You two were made for each other,” she said. “I wish you’d figure that out.”
“Maybe we’re too old to take a leap of faith like that,” Whitney said thoughtfully.
“I don’t buy that. I’m forty-one, planning to get married, and trying to have a baby as soon as we are. People do things later these days, particularly with jobs like ours. It’s never too late to take a chance on someone you love. Look at you with Emma. Suddenly, you have a kid. You could even have kids of your own if you wanted to. It’s not too late for that either.”
“If I had the guts,” Whitney said and laughed. “My sister was a lot braver than I am. I have Emma now, that’s enough.”
“I’m going to try IVF, if we can’t do it on our own,” Amy confided. “We’re going to try this summer, even before we get married. My family will have a fit, if I get pregnant before the wedding, but I’m old enough to do what I want.” She envied Amy’s ability to please herself and not worry about what everyone else thought. But what was holding Whitney back from throwing her heart over the wall was the same thing that had held her back all her life—the fear of making a mistake, or being controlled by someone else. After generations of divorced parents, it seemed to be what a lot of people worried about these days, and Whitney was no more confident than some of her patients. Her practice was full of women who were afraid to get married, didn’t really want to, and decided to have babies on their own, but she didn’t want that either. Often their male counterparts saw no reason to marry either. It was the old story of why buy the cow when you could get the milk for free, and there was a lot of free milk around these days. And she hadn’t even gotten that far with Bailey. She hadn’t gone to bed with him yet. They’d been flirting and kissing and skirting the issue for six months. But what if she did, and lost her head over him? The thought of it scared her to death. Hiding behind her responsibilities to Emma was always safe. There was a guest cottage at the house she was renting in Tahoe, and she was planning to have Bailey sleep there. She didn’t want to embarrass Emma, or create an uncomfortable situation by having him in her bed. She had made that clear to him too, and he agreed.
“Well, I hope you two figure it out one of these days,” Amy said to Whitney, and she promised to come to Tahoe for a weekend sometime in July. Whitney had met her fiancé, Ted, and liked him too.
* * *
—
Before they left for Tahoe, Whitney took care of something she’d meant to all year. She hadn’t had the time or the courage, but the anniversary of Paige’s death was in a few weeks, at the end of July. She had never picked her ashes up from the funeral parlor, and she called them, and the cemetery where her parents were buried. She hadn’t had a funeral for her, and it seemed late to do a memorial service a year later. Paige had had very few friends, her whole life had centered around Emma.
Whitney was going to bury her alone, without a service, and then decided to tell Emma. Paige hadn’t been religious, so she decided to simply make arrangements to bury her ashes next to their parents, with no ceremony. But she didn’t want to cheat Emma of the experience if it was important to her.
“You mean bury Mom?” She looked shocked when Whitney mentioned it to her cautiously over breakfast one day. “Where’s she been till now?” Emma hadn’t let herself think about it, and didn’t really want to now.
“Her ashes are at the funeral home, in a box, like about the size of a jewel box. I’ve been meaning to bury her with our parents at Forest Lawn. They’re going to make a little plaque with her name. And I guess I’ll be buried there one day too, since neither of us were ever married.”
“Is that what people do?” Emma had never thought about it before, and Whitney nodded.
“They get buried with their families, their husbands and wives, and their kids, or their parents.”
“That seems really sad. Can I be buried there one day too, with you and Mommy?”
“I hope not.” Whitney smiled at her. “I hope you’ll have a husband and about ten kids.”
“That’s too many,” Emma said practically, thinking about it. “Why didn’t you ever get married, Aunt Whit?” It was a big question which would have required a long answer if she told her the truth.
“I don’t know. Scared, I guess. I never really wanted to get married. I was too busy studying to be a doctor, and enjoying my work. And now I think I’m too old to have kids, except for you.”
“Mom said she never met the right guy, or she would have gotten married. So she had me anyway. My father was her best friend, but he wasn’t really my father, he just wanted to be friends.” She said it very matter-of-factly. Her mother had shown her a photograph of him, but she didn’t know much more than that.
“I’m glad she had you,” Whitney said, although she had been vehement with Paige at the time about what a mistake it was. But now she was glad Paige had done it. It was the right thing after all. So as it turned out, Paige wasn’t wrong, even if it had seemed that way to Whitney at the time. Things looked different with the perspective of time.
“I’ll come with you.” Emma answered her initial question. “Should we bring flowers?” Emma looked serious as she asked, and Whitney nodded. She hadn’t thought of it. “My mom liked pink roses and daisies.”
“I’ll order some,” Whitney said softly.
“What about balloons? She liked those too.” It sounded a little too festive to Whitney, but why not? Paige belonged to Emma too, and she wanted it to be the way Emma wanted. And Paige had had a childish side to her, even at thirty-seven. In some ways she never grew up, which was part of her charm. Whitney could see that now, although it had annoyed her at times.
“I’ll get balloons,” she promised.
* * *
—
The day before they left for Tahoe, Whitney and Emma went to the cemetery. The funeral parlor had dropped off the ashes at the cemetery office, in a discreet bronze-lined wooden box with a bronze heart on it. They walked to the grave site where two of the cemetery workers were waiting for them with the box. The small hole had already been dug. The monuments to Whitney’s parents were a pair of white marble angels that stood about five feet tall, side by side, holding hands. It seemed the perfect memorial to them. The small spot next to them for Paige seemed dwarfed by the angels, and looked insignificant when one of the workers put the box into it. Whitney had ordered a heart-shaped white marble marker with Paige’s name on it, which wouldn’t be ready for several months, which she explained to Emma. Whitney was carrying the bouquet of pink roses, and Emma held the daisies, and the bunch of pink and white heart-shaped balloons were fluttering in the breeze, as though struggling to be free as Whitney held the ribbons that hung from them.
Emma and Whitney stood holding hands as the box with Paige’s ashes was lowered into the grave, and then they each laid the flowers down on the place where she should have been for the past year, next to her parents. It was a beautiful cemetery with rolling hills and a view of the L.A. skyline, and many famous actors buried there.
“Is there anything you want to say?” Whitney whispered to her and Emma thought about it for a minute.
“I love you, Mommy. Sweet dreams,” she said in a soft voice, as Whitney thought about it too.
“Thank you for Emma, Paigey. I love you too.” There was no anger left, no resentment for what had happened. That was all there was left to say. Then Emma reached up and took the balloons from Whitney and gently let them go, and they watched them drift away. They watched them for as long as they could see them in the sky. Then Whitney kissed Emma’s cheek, took her hand, and they walked back to the car and drove home. They both felt an overwhelming sense of peace.
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