by Gina Holmes
The thought overwhelmed me, but I refused to cry in front of my daughter. Unloading my heavy burden onto her delicate shoulders was not an option. I might not be able to control much in my life lately, but I could still protect her. Nothing mattered more.
“This was my thinking place when I was a little girl. I wanted to show it to you in case you wanted to think sometimes.” I breathed in the area’s familiar fragrance—a combination of damp leaves, pine, and earth—and eyed my surroundings. Same trees. Same sounds. Nothing much ever changed in this spot. That, more than any other reason, was why I loved it so much. Especially now.
I’d spent half of my life here, sitting on this unyielding rock, trying to make sense of the world. The loss of my mother. My father’s neglect. The sometimes-sweet, often-bitter, words of my ex-boyfriend, David. It was here I’d first gotten real with God, begging Him not to take my mother. Railing at Him when He did.
Isabella bounced on one foot. “What did you think about here?”
I poked my toes through water, watching droplets glide down my pink toenails. “Well, when I was little, I thought of catching frogs and grasshoppers and wondered whether I would ever have a best friend to share my secrets with.”
“Did you find your best friend?” A dangling pine needle twirled from one of her curls.
Love overwhelmed me. “Yes, sweetness. I got you.”
She gave me one of her endearing smiles, pulled the debris from her hair, examined it, then dropped it in the stream. I scooped a handful of the cool water and let it slip through my fingers like the life I’d just left behind—my studio apartment that never really felt like home, the corporate ladder I’d just begun to climb, my coworkers who never became the close friends I had longed for. All of it now gone, as though it had never existed at all.
My daughter looked at me askance. “I wanna go.”
The hum of nature faded. The only thing I heard now was the sharp tick of my wristwatch reminding me just how short time was. Standing, I assured myself that I could do what I had come to do. For Isabella, I could do it. I slipped my damp feet into my Birkenstocks and brushed off my rear before collecting my daughter’s chubby hand in my fingers.
I forced one leg in front of the other and made my way past my car, along the winding dirt road.
A familiar picket fence dressed in tangled braids of morning glories came into view. I clutched my daughter’s fingers tighter, feeling more like child than mother.
Placing a hand over my heart, I stopped and took it in. I’d forgotten how beautiful my childhood home was and how much I’d missed it. As I remembered running barefoot through this yard and cannonball jumping into the pond out back, joy pricked at me . . . until my gaze settled on the bare dirt beneath the stairs. How many times had I hidden under that porch, wounded by my father’s words? Too many. My smile died.
Isabella looked up at me eagerly, giving the motivation, if not the courage, I needed to continue. Ghosts of summers past faded as the fragrant scent of roses washed over me, and with it another wave of doubt so tall and wide, I felt as though I might drown in it.
What if my father wouldn’t receive me? Or worse, what if he didn’t accept my daughter? I felt sure Mama Peg would embrace her, but could he? Accepting me had proven impossible for him, but perhaps a child as charming as Isabella could thaw his arctic heart.
Now on the second stair, I paused to look behind me at the road, feeling a sudden urge to retreat. Isabella bounced on the balls of her feet, anxious to continue.
When we reached the porch, I squatted to her level. “Are you ready to meet your grandpa and great-grandma?”
The longing in her maple syrup eyes needed no words, but she added them anyway. “Jane has a cowpa, Natalie has a cowpa, Carter has two cowpas, and . . .” She gave me a look that said, Must I continue?
“Okay, I get it.” I stood and lifted a fist to the door. Before I could knock, Isabella lurched forward and did it for me. She tapped her sandaled foot twice, then reached to knock again.
I grabbed her hand. “Give them a chance.”
The oversize wildflower wreath swayed as the door creaked open. An elderly woman with thick gray hair fashioned into a bun stood before us, oxygen tubes protruding from her nostrils. Deep wrinkles fractured her leathery skin. Her eyebrows were bushes, her lips were shriveled like raisins, and a heavy, floral perfume emanated from her.
Isabella gasped, but I beamed. “Mama Peg.”
My grandmother winked at me before turning her milky gaze to her great-granddaughter. “You must be Bella.”
Isabella’s mouth opened and a strange squeal escaped. I don’t know who was more horrified at that moment—Isabella at the sight of Mama Peg, Mama Peg at Isabella’s revulsion, or me at their initial reactions to each other.
Mama Peg broke out in a deep belly laugh, intermingled with emphysemic hacks. Isabella leaped back as though she expected my grandmother and her tank to explode.
I laughed so hard tears streamed down my cheeks. That seemed to calm Isabella, and soon she was grinning too.
“I’m a wretched sight now, little girl, but not so long ago, I used to be as pretty as you,” my grandmother managed through her own amusement.
Isabella looked at me to dispel this ridiculous claim. I could only nod. I should have prepared her for this.
Mama Peg raised an unruly eyebrow at me. “I don’t think she believes me.”
Catching my breath, I wiped my eyes. “I’m not sure I do either.” I added a wink to soften the jab. I knew she had been lovely, of course. I’d seen the proof in photographs. She still was in my eyes—one of the most beautiful women I had ever known, despite the cruel effects of tobacco and time.
An exaggerated scowl deepened her wrinkles. “Genevieve Paige Lucas, you’re still a brat.”
Leaning in, I hugged her with all I had. “I missed you, Grandma.”
“You too, Jenny. You stayed away far too long.”