by Karen Booth
“Grandma, that's not true and you know it. It wasn't fair, what you did. Amy and I deserve to have a small reminder of our mother. It's not too much to ask.”
“No, Katherine, it is too much to ask. I lost my daughter. She shouldn't have died that day. Nobody seems to think about what I went through. Nobody cared then, and nobody cares now.”
I drew a deep breath through my nose. Of course she'd suffered a horrible loss, but was I supposed to compare her pain to what Amy and I went through? “I cared. I cared a lot. I tried to hug you in the hospital the day after she died and you wouldn't even hug me back.”
“I was in mourning!” she snapped.
I nearly dropped the phone. Her voice was like a razor blade. I was stuck in that place where your brain is telling you to be sensible and walk away from an argument but your gut is telling you to fight. I didn’t want to take crap from someone who had no business serving it. But again, the necklace—I had to focus on that. “Okay. I'm sorry.”
“Nobody should be held responsible for what they did that day.”
That's very convenient for you. I wanted to ask if it was possible for her to say that no one should be held responsible for what they'd done the day before, or the day before that, but I knew better than to open my mouth on that subject. “Again. I'm sorry.”
“Do you know how old your mother would be right now if she were still alive?”
That was a dagger straight to the center of my heart. “Of course I do. Fifty-five.” I didn't like to think about what-ifs very often, mostly because it was hard for me to imagine things that hadn't happened. Too much of my brain was taken up by real events. But I did wonder every now and then what our mom would be like now.
“That’s right. Fifty-five. Prime of her life. She should be here right now. If she was, I might not be living here. But she's not here and I'll never get over it. Never.”
The guilt was pressing down on me, threatening to crush me right there, sitting on my old squeaky bed. Of course Mom should've been here right now. If I could take back everything I did, I would. But I couldn't. It had taken years to learn to live with that fact, and it was only to varying degrees of success. Some days it was much harder to accept.
“Do you think about that, Katherine? Because I do.” Her voice started to fall apart at the seams. “My little girl should be here and she isn't. That's why I'm not giving you a damn thing. It's all I have left.”
The line went dead, leaving me in silence. I ended the call and put the phone facedown on the bed. My face felt numb. There was an unsettling calmness to my thoughts. It was like everything had slowed down, stuck in the cold, creating too much quiet. One of the few ties I still had to my mother still blamed me. All these years later and she hadn't forgiven me for any of it. In some ways, I felt sorry for her. How could she walk the earth holding onto that much pain and misery? Did she think that was the only way to keep my mother’s memory alive?
More questions came, dribbling into my brain like a slow leak. Was I coping any better? Tamping everything down and hiding it, although a legitimate strategy, didn’t help me move forward. So what would? Because the plain reality was that my heart and conscience were as heavy today as they’d been the day she died. I was simply used to the weight. Nothing could make the load lighter. No amount of doing good would ever change my part in what happened.
The rattle of the door downstairs pierced the silence, the sound of happy voices wound up the stairs. That was when the tears came. I loved hearing Eamon's voice alongside my dad's and my sister's. I loved hearing Fiona's bubbly giggle. It made me laugh, even when I didn’t know the joke.
Eamon was coming up the stairs. I could tell by the pace of his footsteps. I wiped my cheeks dry with my hands. I didn’t want him to see me crying.
“Howya.” He appeared in the doorway. In this old house, especially on the second floor, his head came close to scraping the top of the doorframe. “We're back.”
“Did you have fun?”
“I’ve never seen anyone shop like your father.” He sat next to me on the bed and I instantly felt better. It was amazing how his presence calmed me. “It's a bloody tactical operation. Very fast. Very organized. No extra time allowed.” He made chopping motions with his hand.
A breathy laugh burst from my lips. For as laid back as my dad could be, he didn’t like being around a lot of people, and that meant most outings were swift affairs. “You should've seen Amy and I trying to keep up when we were kids. Now we don't even bother. We just hang back and let him gripe at us about dawdling.”
He inched back and sat against the wall, pulling his leg up onto the bed. “Fiona was the only one he’d stop for. She had a lot of questions. It's the first time she's been in a proper American grocery store.”
“Those two are totally hitting it off. It's adorable.” My dad was having the fun with Fiona that he'd missed out on with me and Amy. It was so lovely to see that I couldn't even be melancholy about it. It only made me happy.
There were more footfalls on the stairs and Amy turned up. “Hey. Fiona wants to go for a walk in the woods. Just us girls. And Julia's dogs, of course. She said they could use some wearing out.”
“Sounds good. I need some fresh air.” I reached over and placed my hand on Eamon's knee. “You won't be bored if we leave you at home? It sounds like no boys allowed.”
He shook his head. “It'll give me some time with your dad.”
“Dad!” Fiona called up the stairs. “Come here! Grandpa Mark is doing magic!”
“The fun around here is non-stop,” Eamon said.
“It was one of his many hobbies when we were little,” Amy said. “It's been years since he's done any of that.” She looked right at me, a bit horror-stricken. “I hope he doesn't try to do the one where he lights the dollar bill on fire.”
“I’d better go down and supervise, huh?” Eamon got up from the bed.
“Yes. Please.” A fire was the absolute last thing we needed.
Eamon left and Amy leaned against the doorway. “You okay? You seem down.”
“I talked to Grandma Price. I called about Mom's necklace.”
“You did? What did she say?”
I wanted so badly to spill my guts to my sister. She was the one person in the world who could understand what I was feeling. Plus, she'd experienced our grandmother's ire up close. She knew exactly how ugly it could be. But I couldn't do that to her. I'd promised her the necklace and I would deliver it. Maybe not on this trip. Maybe I'd have to bring in Aunt Lucy. But somehow I would get that damn necklace. Even if it killed me.
“She was her normal grumpy self. She's pissed at Aunt Lucy. She doesn’t want to be living in that home.”
Amy sat next to me and crossed her legs. “Can you blame her? I wouldn't want to live somewhere like that either.”
“I’m sure it's not fun.”
“What did she say about the necklace?”
I glanced over at Amy and saw more hope in her face than I could wrap my head around. I couldn't saddle her with this. I'd figure it out. Somehow. “She's looking for it. She told me to call her next week.”
“But we'll be gone by then.”
“I know. She said she would mail it to us. Made a big deal about me paying for the postage.” I hoped that somewhere God would be okay with me lying like this. I was just protecting her.
“I hope she can find it.”
I wrapped my arm around Amy and pulled her closer. “Don't worry. She will. I talked to her nurse. Beverly. She seemed nice. And reasonable. I can always talk to her if we need help.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“I’ll get it. I promise.” Even if I have to put on a catsuit and sneak into a nursing home in the middle of the night and nab it.
“Thanks.” Amy dropped her head and started picking at her nails. “So, something sort of terrible happened at the grocery store.”
“Did Dad do that thing where he argues with the butcher? It's so embarrassing.”
/> Amy laughed quietly. “No. Not that. I, uh…” She looked over at me, her blue eyes wide. “I thought I saw him, Katherine. Gordon. And he looked at me. I don't think it was him, but damn, it really looked like him.”
My heart wound up into a tiny ball. I slapped my hand against my chest to see if it was still beating. “You're sure it wasn't him? What did he look like? Did he say anything to you?”
“I can't really explain what he looked like. I only know that I don't think it was him. Didn't he say something once about a brother who lived here? Maybe that’s who it was. Honestly, I'm glad it wasn't him. I don't know what I would've said or done. I probably would've punched him in the face.”
“I forgot about the brother, but I think you're right. I'm pretty sure Gordon moved away. The last time we saw him was in high school. Remember? The football game?”
Amy nodded. “How could I forget?”
She'd been a freshman and I was a junior, the first home game of Amy's high school life. As much as my few friends and I had been outcasts, we still went to the football games. It was fun to sit in the stands in the crisp fall air, drinking soda and making fun of our classmates under our breath. We always sat in the same seats, off to the side and about ten rows up. A few minutes into the first quarter, we spotted Gordon marching up the concrete stadium steps. He looked at us as we walked by, both Amy and I in shock. He sat six or seven rows behind us. It made Amy and me deeply uncomfortable and nervous. We left at halftime and treated our friends to sundaes at McDonald's as a bribe for taking off early. We had to get out of there. We were too freaked out.
“Even if it wasn't him, I'm sorry you had to go through that. It must've been awful.”
Amy shuddered. “Ugh. The thought of him is so creepy. I hope I never see him for real.”
I might have been pretty traumatized by my phone conversation with Grandma Price, but at least I hadn't had to go through the shock of thinking I'd seen Gordon. “Me neither.”
“I’m glad Luke was there. I told him who the guy looked like. He was a little fascinated, but the whole cheating thing is a mystery to him. His family is so…what's the word?”
“Committed?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
“So you told Luke? About everything?”
“Well, yeah. As soon as I knew we were coming for Thanksgiving, I sort of had to. I just didn't want it to be weird.”
“What did he say?”
“What everyone says. That he was so sorry and that it must have been so hard for us. It was sweet, but you know what it's like. You just sort of want the conversation to end.”
I never talked about it to anyone, not since high school, but I knew exactly what she was saying. That pitiful look on people's faces—it only made you wish that much harder that the bad stuff had never happened.
“You told Eamon, right?”
Slow as molasses, I shook my head. “Nope.”
She sighed. “I say just get it over with. You'll feel so much better.”
“Like ripping off a bandage?”
“More like ripping a fifty-foot long dressing off a gaping head wound, but yeah. It's better to get on with your life. You can't live under the shadow of it forever. It'll bring you closer together. I promise.”
I drew in a deep breath. I hoped she was right, especially since I wasn’t convinced at all about that last part. As madly in love as Eamon and I were with each other, I knew our dynamic would change when I told him. I had no reason to think otherwise. It had gone that way with everyone I’d ever told, which was why I’d simply stopped talking about it.
“Of course, it's probably easy for me to say that,” she went on. “I was unconscious after the accident. You were awake. Sitting in the car for hours, waiting for someone to rescue us. And you were the one with mom before she came to get me at school.”
Once again I felt like my whole body had been dipped in ice water. My brain was moving at half speed, dragging me back again, like it wanted to torture me and force me to remember every last detail.
As if I could ever forget.
Chapter Seventeen
Amy and I headed downstairs to pry Fiona from Magic Hour with Grandpa Mark so we could go on our hike. The days were so short now. Mid-day was really the best time to go. We didn't want to risk getting stuck in the woods in the dark. Amy and I knew our way very well, but anyone could get confused.
“Fiona's going to need boots,” I said, walking into the kitchen. “Maybe I can run into town and find her some that will fit.”
“I think I've got a box of your old winter stuff in the attic,” Dad said. “I’ll get it down.”
“You kept that stuff? For what?”
“I keep everything, Katherine. You know that.” He got up from the table, but I stopped him before he could leave the kitchen.
“I don't want you going up into the attic and digging around. Eamon and I will do it.”
“You realize I’m perfectly fine when you're not here,” Dad said.
“No, no,” Eamon said. “Katherine and I are happy to do it. Fiona wants to be with you anyway.”
Eamon really did have a knack for smoothing things over. We headed back upstairs to the pull-down for the attic, in the hall between my room and Amy's. Eamon did the honors and went up first, but I got the benefit of watching his perfect behind in motion. The man's butt was made for jeans.
I'd forgotten how huge our attic was, with ceilings high enough for Eamon to nearly stand up straight. “I have no clue where to start,” I admitted. There were cardboard boxes everywhere, none of them stacked neatly. “I guess I should've asked him. Maybe we should start over by the Christmas stuff. Maybe he put things in here seasonally.”
“I like the way your mind works.”
Eamon kneeled down in front of a stack and began shifting crates. It only took a few minutes before he found it. “Here we go. Winter coats and boots.”
“Hopefully there's only one of these. I still don't know why he wouldn't donate this crap to the thrift store. Or throw it out. Who wants twenty year-old coats and boots?”
“Mam never threw anything out either. Had a devil of a time going through everything after she passed.” Eamon's mom had died a few years after I left Ireland, another detail of his life I'd had to learn from a magazine.
“Perils of being an only child, huh?”
“One of many.”
“Did it take you a long time to sort through her things?”
“Months. Rachel came and helped a few times. She and my mam were close. They liked each other quite a bit. Of course, my mam knew the truth of our marriage and our divorce. Rachel's mam never did. I think it was a big relief for Rachel. She didn't have to come clean about anything.”
I crouched down next to him. “I really wish I could've met her. Your mom.”
“I feel the same way about yours.”
A vision popped into my head, of me as an adult with my mom. My conversation with Grandma Price had planted a seed in my brain. Would we have been close? The sort of mom and daughter who talk on the phone every day? Who tell each other everything?
These were questions with only hypothetical answers. Any closeness I'd had with my mom, or lack thereof, was framed by the trappings of childhood—the times we baked cookies together or the times she sent me to my room with no dinner. Wasn't closeness with a parent measured in the later years? When bigger, more life-changing issues were at stakes? And anyone, at any time, could decide that they wanted out?
Maybe she and Dad would've patched things up. Maybe she would have changed her behavior because of the things I said. I might have grown up a far less hardened person. I might have said yes on that night when Eamon first proposed to me. I might not have thought he was making a joke. I might have stayed in Ireland and never left Eamon at all.
“I know about the photos and why they're gone, but nobody talks about your mom, either,” Eamon said. “What was she like?”
Another question with no easy answer. “I gue
ss she was a regular mom. She did normal mom stuff like make us school lunches and helped with our homework. She worked at the flower shop in town.” And she tried to fold us into the life she wanted with a man who wasn't our dad.
“Nice.” Eamon began fishing things out of the box, coats and old ratty mittens. At the bottom was a pair of pink fleece-lined rubber boots that had once belonged to me. “These?”
“Oh. Wow. These were mine.” I took one of them in my hand. They were a lighter color than I'd remembered, but perhaps the years had faded them. I should've been wearing them the day of the accident. If I'd gone to school that morning, they would’ve been on my feet. But I was home sick with a high fever, half delirious. When Mom made me get in the car so we could get Amy from school, I couldn't find my boots, and she told me there was no time to look for them. She'd told me to wear sneakers, with my pajamas no less, because she didn't want to wait for me to get dressed in proper clothes. If I'd had those boots on, I wouldn't have come so perilously close to getting frostbite on my toes from all those hours in the car, stuck at the bottom of an embankment, begging God to let Amy and me live. Why Dad had kept these boots was beyond me. But at least they hadn't been with us in the car that day. I would've been sick to my stomach right now.
“Sure,” I said. “I was ten when I wore them, but Fiona's much taller than I was at her age. Her feet might be bigger.”
“The MacWards are known for their big feet.” Eamon chuckled and tossed the box back into place. “That's settled then.”
We climbed down the rickety wood ladder and he closed up the hatch. Amy and Fiona were downstairs already bundled up, Fiona standing there in her socks.
“These are Katherine's. Take good care of them.” Eamon handed over the boots.
“Don't be silly. Get them as dirty and wet as you like. You can trash them for all I care.”
Fiona worked her feet into the boots while I grabbed my coat, mittens, hat and scarf. Amy headed out into the front yard with the dogs, which were starting to get hyper.