“Falling down a flight of stairs can do it to anyone.”
“What if my being there makes things worse?”
He reached for my hand. The Jeep was warm, so my gloves were off. When he linked our fingers and rested them on the console, I didn’t resist. His touch made me feel less frightened.
We drove on in silence. He took his hand back when he needed both to signal and steer around a massive eighteen-wheeler. And then, way too soon for my nerves, we were on I-91, with Brattleboro in the rearview, Massachusetts ahead. Had I been driving myself, I’d probably have turned around, which was another reason I was grateful Edward was there.
We passed a family packed into a large SUV. That could have been us, I thought, and shot him a glance.
“Could’ve been us,” he said. “Still can.”
“You’re crazy.”
“It’s what we always wanted.”
“Once.”
“Still.”
“After everything I did? That takes a whole lot of forgiveness.”
“You’re the only one hung up on that,” he muttered and added, “I need coffee,” when a rest stop appeared out of the mist. When I declined his offer of the bathroom, he steered into the drive-thru lane. In no time we were back on the road with two coffees and two breakfast sandwiches.
We ate as we drove. Actually he ate. I was too tense to do more than nibble. When he was done with his, he finished mine.
“I used to send her things when I first moved to Devon,” I said, “you know, postcards and cards silk-screened with scenes from Devon. She never acknowledged receiving them. I emailed. She never answered. I posted comments on Facebook. They disappeared.”
After a minute, he said, “Your mother is a tough woman.”
I sputtered a facetious agreement. The mist had cleared, leaving only the very palest of gray days. There was actually glare. Fishing sunglasses from my bag, I put them on, but the world felt too dark then. So I took them off again, tucked them in my lap with my phone, and said, “What she did—shutting me out—was like another death. First Lily, then my dad, then her. I couldn’t be happy, so I blocked them out of my mind.” I eyed him beseechingly. “Was that wrong, Edward? Is it wrong to want to be happy?”
“Christ, no.”
“Then why is this happening? I survived by not thinking about her. Now I have to.”
“Maybe it’s time.”
“To move on? Easier said than done. I’m so sorry—for what I did to her—for what I did to you. That whole scene,” not the accident, but the fiasco it caused, “was a nightmare. I did that. I inflicted that on you. How can you forget?”
“You don’t. Maybe you incorporate it into who you are and move on.”
“But Lily—”
“Is dead. We have memories. They need a place in our lives.”
I thought of the nights I spent with her, so many nights over the last five years. She felt so real.
I glanced at Edward. When his eyes flicked to mine, leaving the road for just that split second, they were sad. “You are the problem, honey.”
“I know! That’s what I’m saying.”
“No. Not the accident. Not the media circus. Not even your mother’s detachment. You’re the one who can’t move on.”
“Can’t forgive?”
“That, too.”
The words hung in the air, along with the smell of man and car and drying pavement. We had crossed the state line and were in Connecticut. If the weather were an omen, it should have been raining like hell. If the weather were kind, it should have been raining like hell. Clearing skies? Clearing thoughts? Not a help, when we were moving closer to my mother, mile by mile.
“Maybe,” he finally said, “you don’t need to completely forgive. Maybe it’s like memories of Lily. Maybe it just becomes part of who you are.”
“Resenting someone forever?”
“Yes. A very small part.”
“But can you be happy living like that?”
He leaned forward to check an overhead sign as we passed beneath. We were still several exits away. Then he sighed. “Okay. Here are the choices.” One strong finger rose from the wheel. “You shut it all away, pretend none of it happened, lock the box, and never look back. That’s total denial.” Another finger rose. “Or you put the past on a pedestal—”
“Not a pedestal. That’s too rosy.”
“Dais, stage, front-and-center, whatever. You make it the first thing you think about in the morning and the last thing at night. You let it dominate everything you do. That’s obsession.”
I waited. “What’s my next choice?” I knew there was one, because these two were extremes, and Edward was not.
He didn’t bother with the finger this time, but said with resignation, “You accept what you can’t change and move on.”
“Is that what you do?”
“It’s how I wound up in Devon.”
“But you still resent me.”
“No. I don’t. I told you. I don’t blame you for the accident. But I can’t vouch for your mother. If she needs a scapegoat for her disappointments, you may be it.” Grabbing my hand, he gave it a little shake. “Or not. We’ll know soon.”
* * *
I had grown up on a street of modest homes in Bloomfield, a suburb of Hartford, and there had been changes over the years, but they always seemed small. Signs of a new family, a new paint job, or an addition connecting house to garage were topics of discussion when I came home to visit. In my life, I hadn’t ever gone a month without a visit home.
Now, four years had passed, and—like us—my parents’ street was the same, but not. The ranch house where a high school classmate had lived was still there, but the one beside it had been torn down and replaced with a large arts-and-crafts-style home. The gorgeous hedge of forsythia that had positively glowed for three weeks each spring had been replaced with arborvitae. The plain shingle home across the street from the hedge had been dressed up with fieldstone, dormers, and skylights. And the maple trees I loved, the ones that had been planted before I was born, when farmland was first carved up into streets?
Gone!
Lindens stood in their place—spindly saplings with cords holding them straight, and while I knew that lindens were fast-growing and would interfere less with overhead wires than the maples had done, I felt a sense of loss.
The sense of loss, of course, included Lily and my dad, both of whom were newly gone when I was here last. And the feeling only intensified when we turned into the driveway I knew so well.
I put a hand to my chest, which had gone hard. “I can’t do this,” I whispered. If my mother rejected me now, I would be destroyed.
Edward turned off the motor. “Too late. We’re here.” In a gesture so casual it might have been a stretch, he reached out to massage the back of my neck.
“You’re supposed to say I can do it,” I said when I could breathe again.
“That’s a given. You’re a strong woman, Mackenzie.”
“About to face a far stronger one.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” He was leaning forward to study the house. “It doesn’t look so good.”
My own vision had been clouded by emotion. Now I took a clearer look. There were other Colonials on the street, many wearing the same gray-and-white, so ours totally fit in. But our gray body was peeling, our white trim stained, our front walk cracked, and our shrubs overgrown.
“Doesn’t bode well,” I said with a wince and sat back.
After a minute of silence came a quiet coaxing. “You can do it.”
When I turned to look at him, his eyes held utter conviction—and how not to believe it? He certainly said everything right. Lord knew, his life in Devon hadn’t been a cakewalk. And still he was here.
In that instant, I felt love, appreciation, even awe. For his sake alone, I had to face my mother.
Unbuckling my seat belt, I reached for the door.
20
And so I found myself—well, Edw
ard and me—at my mother’s front door. Was I supposed to ring the bell? Knock? Use a key to let myself in? I had always done this before—used a key. And that key was still on my key ring, which, since I hadn’t needed car keys and had left in an emotional firestorm, was back in Vermont.
That said, times had changed. I was a stranger here. If my mother heard the door opening, she might be terrified. Might call 911. Might even have a gun.
I gave the wood three soft knuckle-raps, then waited, listening, but my heart was the only beat I heard. I knocked more firmly. Still nothing.
“Ring the bell,” Edward said.
“What if she’s sleeping?” And if she was? Would I turn away? Drive off? Chalk the whole thing up to a mistake and return to Devon?
“Ring the bell.”
I rang the bell. I put my ear to the door, just to the right of a faded wreath. The silence I heard gave me permission to use the key. Sure, she might be out of the house, but if Annika was right about her refusing the help of friends, that chance was slim. And if she was home and not answering, not even yelling from wherever she lay, it could be that she’d fallen again or worse. I had to go in.
Slipping my fingers behind the wreath, I circled until I found the key. It turned easily in the lock. I opened the door.
“Mom?”
Typical of many small Colonials build in the 1980s, there was no front hall, just a small space framed by openings that led elsewhere—left to the living room, right to the dining room, forward to a narrow hallway leading back, with a flight of stairs straight ahead and up.
“Mom?” I called again. Behind me, quietly, Edward shut the door.
From the living room came a groggy, “Hello?”
Frightened by the sound, I hurried there.
Like the outside of the house, the only thing about the living room that had changed was its age. At its heart, two upholstered sofas faced off over an oblong table centered on the hearth; twin armchairs anchored the room front and back, two chairs each of the faux–Queen Anne sort. The chairs were empty, and Mom wasn’t on the sofa that faced us, but a vague wave rose from its mate.
Swallowing hard, I rounded the sofa—and it was all I could do not to cry out. For all the times I’d imagined seeing my mother again, it was the vibrant, active, officious woman I pictured. This woman was none of those things. This one lay inert on the cushions, her lower half haphazardly covered by an afghan, her upper half by a wrinkled cotton shirt and skewed sweater that bulked over the cast on her left wrist, all of it crying disheveled as Margaret McGowan Reid never, ever allowed herself to be. But her face was what shocked me most. It was too drawn, too pale, seeming bled of life, like the florals around her.
My mother had always been a striking woman, with long legs, a straight back, vivid auburn hair, and eyes the color of spring grass. In my mind, she would always be energetic and young. Today, though, she looked every one of her sixty-five years.
Her eyes were disoriented as they met mine. They flew to Edward when he appeared at my shoulder, and there was a flash of alarm before they returned to me, all without a blink.
Was she drugged? Half-asleep? Was she wanting to believe but afraid to—wanting to disbelieve but unable to? Was she confused? Frightened? Angry?
I couldn’t begin to figure out which. I only knew that this was my mother, who, sternness and all, had raised me, clothed me, read to me, cooked with me, glowed for me on the day I’d become a mother myself. This was my mother, whom I had missed nearly as much as I missed my child. This was my mother, those whatever eyes in that hurting body.
My own eyes blurred, tears gathering as they hadn’t done in many, many months. They didn’t go far, too rusty to do more than gather on my lower lids, but it wasn’t my chest that squeezed me breathless this time. It was definitely my heart.
In a beat, I was squatting beside her. “Mommy?” I cried, barely a sound. “It’s me.”
“I know that,” she whispered, not unkindly. Her eyes cleared as reality registered. But clouds remained. “Why?”
“I heard you’d fallen. How do you feel?”
“Fine,” she said but didn’t move.
“Are you in pain?”
“I thought you were my physical therapist.”
“What time does she come?”
“Two. What time is it now?”
I pushed at the sleeve of my parka to free my watch. “Ten.”
Appearing surprised by that, she made to get up. When she fell back, I slipped an arm under her shoulders to help her sit. My mother had always been admirably slim, but now, through the sweater, I felt skin and bones.
One didn’t turn to skin and bones in a single week, which was how long it had been since her fall. Nuh-uh. This had been a while coming. Like five years? For a split second, I blamed myself. If it hadn’t been for the accident, those years would have been happy.
Or not, I could hear Edward saying. Or not, I could hear Kevin saying. Or not, even Cornelia would have said if I ever dared tell her the truth. Life happened, they would say, and maybe they were right. If it hadn’t been one thing, it might have been another.
“My walker,” Mom said, eye-pointing at the thing that stood between the sofa and the hearth.
“I’ll help you walk.” I slipped off my coat and tossed it aside. “Where do you want to go?”
“The walker is fine.”
“I want to help. Are you hungry? Do you need to take a pill? Go to the bathroom?”
“They want me using the walker,” she insisted.
It was a test of wills, I realized, and while hugs and kisses, even tears might have been nice, challenging me over a walker was better than, Leave my house right now, you murderer.
Gently, I said, “The walker is fine if you’re alone, Mom. If the point is having backup when you put weight on your hip, I’m like a walker. Just tell me where you want to go.”
She stared for an uncertain moment before conceding. “The bathroom.”
I felt absurdly victorious when she let me help her up. Determining where to hold and how was awkward at first, but once we found it, we were good. She used to be two inches taller than me—literally five-eight to my five-six—and now we were closer, though, in fairness, she was neither standing straight nor wearing shoes. Her weight was negligible. She actually bore most of it herself, using me largely for balance.
This was a good sign. A person who was seriously depressed didn’t do pride.
She let me guide her into the small lav, but once inside, she used her casted arm to nudge me out and close the door.
I waited for the thud of falling, but only heard normal bathroom sounds. Meanwhile, Edward was in the kitchen. The fridge door opened. I heard the crinkle of tinfoil as he checked packages there before closing the door. There were more tinfoil sounds from the counter. One cabinet opened and shut, then another.
He ran the water, filled the kettle, and lit the gas with a tick and a whoosh. All were familiar sounds, but of my mother’s habitual doing, not Edward’s. He and I had never used a kettle. A Keurig, Nespresso, or Instant Hot—yes. But not a kettle. I might have been fascinated by what he was doing and why, if I wasn’t suddenly concerned with the silence in the bathroom.
“Mom?” I called against the wood.
She opened the door only enough to hold up her casted wrist. “Makes things harder,” she said and set to washing her hands.
When she was done, I returned my arm to her waist. “I’d like tea. You?”
Her answer was a soft snort. Of course, she’d like tea.
“Are you in pain?” I asked as we approached the kitchen table. Something about the room was different, but not the table. It was the same one I’d grown up at, carried the same nicks and scratches on its aged oak face. That face now also held a laptop whose screen saver was emitting starbursts of color, suggesting fairly recent use.
“Some,” she said, sounding vague. With a hand on either chair arm, she lowered herself, but it was a minute of gingerly
shifts before she found the best spot.
“When do the stitches come out?” I asked, taking a seat beside her.
“Tuesday.”
“Who takes you to the doctor?”
“Uber.”
That broke my heart. “Not a friend? Someone from work?”
“The drivers are great,” she challenged.
But not family, I might have said if she hadn’t been daring me to argue. But I had won on the walker; I could let her win here. If this was a truce, I wasn’t messing with it.
From the counter, Edward said, “Your friends brought enough food to feed an army, Margaret, but it’s early for lunch. Did you have breakfast?”
She shot him a nervous glance but didn’t answer.
Taking that as a no, he said, “You have eggs. I could scramble some.”
Looking at me again, she screwed up her face. “Didn’t you get divorced?”
“Yes,” I said. “I moved away. He followed.”
“When?”
“Two weeks ago.”
“It was in the works for two years,” Edward put in.
“Unknown to me.”
“Unknown?” Mom asked me.
“She would have said no,” Edward said from behind. “Mackenzie, does your mother eat eggs?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Yes,” Margaret said and aimed her voice at Edward. “You don’t really need to do that.”
“I do.”
She looked like she wanted to object but was at a loss for how. So again, she conceded. “Eggs. Yes. Thank you.” Back to me, sotto voce, she said, “I didn’t know he could cook.”
“Neither did I.”
“Is it safe?”
I smiled. “What he cooks? We’ll soon find out.”
I was trying to lighten things up, but my mother seemed too burdened for that. She looked as if she would have run in a split second if her hip had allowed it.
And me? For those times during the drive when I would have turned back, I didn’t consider it now. I was exactly where I wanted to be. That said, it was a precarious spot. I didn’t know what she was thinking; our landscape had changed. And then there was Edward, who, since showing up last night, was doing everything right, absolutely everything. I wasn’t sure what to do with him either.
Before and Again Page 29