The Clover Girls

by Viola Shipman

  “We’re ready for you.”

  I follow a production assistant with a mic in his mouth who keeps whispering, “We’re walking, we’re walking.”

  I take a seat in a too-big chair that makes me look like Lily Tomlin’s child character, Edith Ann. They do this on purpose in order to make the host, Chip Collins, look powerful and in control. Old Rach would have demanded a new chair. New Rach thinks, Fill the space with your own strength.

  A team of makeup artists is redoing Chip’s foundation and touching up his hair, which wouldn’t move in a typhoon. When they leave, he looks at his notes but refuses to acknowledge me.

  “And we’re back in three, two...” Dana points at Chip.

  “Welcome back, America, to Red, White & You! Our next guest will be very familiar to you. Rachel Ives has been a political spokesperson for many controversial candidates over the years and has earned a reputation for her, let’s just say, outspoken demeanor. She recently shocked DC by quitting politics, and she’s here to talk about that decision.”

  I open my mouth to say, “Thank you for having me,” but Chip looks at me with a wicked smile and says, “But before she does, we thought we’d take a look at some of her greatest hits. And I mean that quite literally.”

  A prepared montage begins to play, showing me berating guests, challenging Chip, weaponizing faith, belittling politicians. The blood drains from my face, and I feel as if I might be sick. I look over at Dana. She is watching me. A Grinch-like smile grows on her face. Dana created this. She did this as payback.

  The montage ends with a clip of the viral parody video that Eunice Unicorn made of me.

  Chip turns to me for the first time. He is absolutely giddy. “Thank you for joining us today, Rachel. What do you think of that video? Seeing yourself over the years? Would you consider those your greatest hits? Or your greatest hit jobs?”

  I am beginning to sweat under the lights and the pressure. I blink and realize I look like a deer in the headlights. They have me right where they want me. They want old Rach to come out fighting and screaming and spitting fire.

  “I deserved that,” I say, my voice calm. “I deserve anything and everything you throw at me.”

  Chip’s face falls. I turn and look off camera. “Well done, Dana.”

  Her eyes grow wide, and she looks at Chip.

  “Well,” he starts. “I’m surprised by your reaction. Is this a new Rachel? Or am I watching a remake of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers?”

  An assistant does a spit take off camera at Chip’s remark. I stop, take a deep breath and look at Chip. “May I speak candidly?”

  “You always have.”

  “I am embarrassed and ashamed of my behavior over the last few years. It’s not who I am. It’s not how my parents raised me. This has nothing to do with politics. Politics is a big business. It’s a game. Most politicians, no matter the party, start out with the right intentions. They run for local office. They want to change their communities. They want to change the world in some way for the better. And then it goes off track. Things change as we grow older, bigger, more successful. We forget the people we used to be. We forget the people we used to know.” I stop and look at the crew beyond the camera. “I don’t know if your viewers know this, but I used to be friends with Dana, the brains behind Red, White & You. We grew up together on the sitcom I used to do. We wanted to change the world. Only one of us has.” I nod at her. “The last time I was here, she asked me which side I was on.”

  “And?” Chip asks.

  “That’s the whole point, Chip. There shouldn’t be ‘sides.’ There shouldn’t be walls that divide us. Growing up, the dinner table was where my family talked, shared our lives, aired our differences, discussed our viewpoints. That table was made by my dad from an oak tree. It was solid and stable. But most of all, it was unifying. We all had a place at that table, and that’s what we need to remind ourselves of. We all deserve a place at the table. There are more things that unite us than divide us. Simple things: family, friends, love, respect, a sunrise and sunset. We need to remember that. I forgot that for the longest time.”

  “But Rachel, you just can’t undo all the things you’ve said in the past in a few minutes today.”

  “No, I can’t. But I can try to make them right, over time. Starting now.”

  I begin to tell my story of going to summer camp and how I met my best friends. I talk about our lives, Em’s death and her gift to us. I tell them about Campfire Ashes and how it united girls. “It wasn’t the land Emily gave us, though, that matters. She gave us our collective hearts and souls back. Her final gift was that of purpose.”

  “How can we believe that you’ve actually changed?” Chip asks.

  “Watch me.”

  I smile, and the show goes to commercial.

  I take off my mic. Chip stands and actually shakes my hand. Dana throws her arms around me when I step down from the set.

  “Sorry about the video,” she says.

  “Sorry about, well, the last decade or so.”

  Dana laughs. “I want in,” she says. “Whatever your final plans are for your new camp. And, once you’re ready, I will work to help women in power get involved, either financially or personally. I’d love to talk about media and politics, something like that. How’s that sound?”

  “Incredible,” I say.

  “If this all works out, maybe you and your friends can come back on right before the camp opens.”

  “Thank you,” I say. “Truly.”

  “You’re a different person, Rach. I can tell. What happened?”

  I tilt my head and consider her question. “Girl power.”

  “Sounds very Spice Girls.”

  “Oh, that’s way after my time. It’s more Go-Go’s.”

  She laughs. “Talk soon.”

  I grab my purse and take the elevator down to the lobby.

  I pull on my coat, order a Lyft to pick me up and head out into the rain to meet the car. I open my umbrella but then remember the day The Clover Girls sneaked out from camp and then sneaked inside the local movie theatre to watch Purple Rain, thanks to the help of an usher who had a crush on V. We danced all night after that.

  I lower my umbrella and turn in a circle, feeling like Mary Tyler Moore, Gene Kelly and Apollonia all rolled into one.

  No, I think as my car pulls up to the sidewalk. I just feel like me again.

  Liz

  “I missed you, Mom.”

  My mother’s eyes remain shut, but her lids flutter when she hears my voice. I grab her hand, but it remains lifeless across the top of her body. I will myself not to cry.

  It’s amazing the clarity one gains when removed from a situation. I’ve returned from camp, just as I did as a girl, a different person. I am more mature, I am more confident, I have been hurt, and yet I have been healed.

  I also know my mother’s time is nearing its end.

  Early evening sunshine streams through the window in her room. Mrs. Dickens is sound asleep, snoring, her head lolled to the side, but my mom is quiet. She is bathed in light. I tilt her head toward the window.

  “Enjoy the sun,” I whisper. “I know how much you love summer in Michigan.”

  I listen to her sleep for the longest time. Her breathing has changed. My heart shatters.

  I know the drill.

  In the years my mom has been here, many residents have come and gone, in this home and in this room. Aides, nurses and hospice workers have filtered into my mother’s room, and I have become an expert on death.

  “You will know,” a hospice worker once told me. “The body is like a baseball stadium after the last out is made. Every living thing begins to stream out of it, it grows quiet, calm, cool, and then the lights begin to be shut off, one section at a time, starting with the feet.”

  I stand, walk to the end of
the bed and check my mom’s toes and feet. The skin is blotchy and mottled. I stand over my mom and look at her in the light. Her skin is cool, and the area around her mouth is blue.

  I slip out of the room, head to the kitchen and return with a tray holding a plate of cookies, a glass of milk and a cup of coffee. I pull the chair up next to my mom, just like I used to do when I’d return home from camp. She would always have cookies baked, and she’d pour me a glass of milk and fill her coffee cup, take a seat at the Formica table and say, Tell me all about your time at camp.

  “Let me tell you about my week at camp,” I say to my mom now, putting the tray down on the nightstand, grabbing a chocolate chip cookie and taking a big bite.

  I tell her everything, from the rekindling of my friendship with Rach and V, to our falling out over Color War and plans for the camp, to my burgeoning relationship with Billy.

  “Remember Billy?” I say to my mom. “Remember how I always used to talk about him when I was a girl? It’s the same Billy, Mom. The same Billy.”

  My entire life, my mother has been there for me, listening. For every momentous marker in my life, and for every tragedy—big and small—she has been my rock. When my hair didn’t turn out right for prom—I mean, I quite literally fried it off with a crimping iron—she was there. When my marriage went south, she was there. When I tried to start a real estate career, she was there.

  Who will be there for me now?

  I feel my phone trill, and I clamber from the chair for my purse, pulling it free.

  Text message from V.

  I feel awful about how things went down.

  Can we talk?

  I want to make it right. We need to make it right. I’m sick inside.

  I am overwhelmed with emotion in this moment, and my anger rises to the surface, out of nowhere, like the waves in a sudden windstorm.

  With my mom. Not much time left. Not much to say to you anymore either.

  V responds:

  I’m so, so sorry, Liz. Is that why you left? Anything I can do? Let me know. Sending BIG prayers and all my love.

  I don’t respond. I put my phone on the little nightstand, kick off my shoes and crawl into bed next to my mother. She is so tiny now in this bed, a baby bird in a nest, and there is more than enough room for me. I pull her into my arms.

  “You have never left me, have you?” I stop. “You will never leave me, will you?”

  She does not answer, and I know there are two answers to my last question: no, she will never leave me, but she will be gone. And I must carry on the final chapter of my life alone, without my greatest supporter, cheerleader and confidante. How does one continue when the person that loves you the most, unconditionally, dies? There is a hole in my soul so deep that I feel I can’t breathe, much less wake up when she is gone and walk a single step alone without her.

  “I will never leave you either,” I whisper, kissing her cheek.

  I fall asleep and dream that my mom is driving me to camp. We do all the things we used to do on the drive up from Holland: We get root beers and Coney dogs at Dog ’N Suds in Montague and then ice cream at House of Flavors in Ludington. We stop at all the quirky little haunts along the way—the concrete statuary shops and Lake Michigan overlooks—and giggle, listen to music and talk about the important things in life, like boys. When I get to camp, Em, V and Rach are waiting for me. They rush up to me as I get out of the car, barely giving me enough time to slide my feet into my flip-flops, and yell, “You’re back! You’re back! We missed you!”

  I look at Em. “Wait,” I say. “What are you doing here?”

  “Oh,” she says, in her sweet Em voice. “I’m not here for you. I’m here for your mom. We all just thought it would be easier this way.”

  I look at her, and then Rach and V. I turn around. My mom is not at the trunk, pulling out all my stuff for the summer. I look inside the car. She is still sitting behind the wheel.

  “Mom?”

  “Oh, honey,” she says. “I’m not getting out here. This isn’t my stop.”

  I stand and look at Em. She strides past me and gets into the passenger seat. “I know where to go,” she says confidently. “Don’t worry. I’ll be with your mom. And she’ll be with your dad.”

  They begin to pull away, and I chase after the car, racing after it. Finally, I have to stop. Rocks are caught in my flip-flops, and the soles of my feet hurt.

  “Where are you going?” I cry.

  Em leans out the side window. “To summer camp,” she says. “Forever.”

  I fall into the road, and V and Rach lift me up, hold me and take my hand.

  “Where are we going?” I ask.

  “To summer camp,” they say. “Forever.”

  * * *

  “Ms. Anderson? Ms. Anderson?”

  I wake with a start. Someone is gently shaking my arm. I open my eyes, and Tammy is leaning over me.

  “She’s gone. Your mother is gone.”

  I sit up in bed. “What? What?”

  “She passed away sometime this morning,” she says. “With you beside her.”

  “Mom?” I turn and gently shake her, like Tammy did to me. “Mom?”

  She is lying next to me, peacefully.

  “I think she waited for you,” Tammy says. “She waited for you to come home. She waited for you to be here with her.” She hesitates and reaches out to touch my shoulder. “They do that, you know. Wait until it’s just them and the ones they love the most to be in the room with them. They know.”

  Tammy hugs me. When she lets go, I heave and cry, burying my head in my mother’s hair. I kiss her cheek and inhale her scent, as if I’ll need to remember it forever.

  “We’ll give you a few minutes,” Tammy says, “and then we’ll need to make arrangements.”

  She leaves, and I lie back down against my mother for the last time on earth. I pull her next to me and hold her, whispering, “I love you, Mom. Thank you for everything.”

  I do not let her go until a throng of people appears in the doorway. I stand and watch them take my mother. When I turn, Mrs. Dickens is awake, waving goodbye to my mother.

  An administrator talks to me about what I need to do next, but all I hear is the voice of Charlie Brown’s teacher. When she leaves, there is silence, a deafening silence, that grows so loud in my head, my ears ring. I stare at my mother’s empty bed. I stare at all the photos I have placed around her room, to make it seem like home.

  Home.

  My mind circles back to camp. I think of Rach and V, our laughter and tears around the campfire.

  Ashes to ashes, dust to dust...

  I see my cell. I walk over, grab it and text my kids.

  I’m so sorry to tell you, but Grandma died this morning. I was with her. I’m devastated and need you. I haven’t even been home yet. You should have been here. I told you she didn’t have much longer. I will have to make a lot of arrangements very quickly and will need lots of help. I will be here for the next few hours. Come ASAP.

  I hit Send and stand, unable to move, as if my feet are set in concrete.

  I look at my cell. A row of dots undulates.

  Oh, Mom. I’m so sorry.

  More dots.

  First week of sports camp. I have to get Teddy to practice by eight. Then a play date for Sam. Then grocery. Hank is swamped at work right now. Can’t say this was unexpected. And can’t stop by this morning with Sam. Too much for him. Want to come for dinner tonight? Then we can talk?

  I do not respond. I finally realize what I’ve known for a while: my family is dead. I sound like a monster in the wake of my mother’s death. Yes, my children and grandchildren are healthy and happy, but they are gone. I have been alone for a long time now. Too long.

  I stand there in the middle of my mother’s room, twisting my phone in my hands. I don’t know what to do
with all of my grief and rage and loneliness, so I walk over to my mom’s closet and begin to fold her clothes into neat little piles. I have zero clue what I will do with these, but I know I must busy myself. I begin to fold her belongings. Her name is written in my handwriting—which is really my mom’s handwriting as we have such similar, signature writing styles—in the back of her gowns, sweats and pajamas. I suddenly think of camp again, of the days when Birchwood would send campers what they called “early bird shirts.” Birchwood drummed up anticipation for the upcoming summer season by sending veteran campers limited-edition T-shirts, often as early as Valentine’s day, to get their enrollment filled as quickly as possible. As a designer, I loved the T-shirts because they usually featured campers’ names in a clever way. One year, I received a T-shirt that read:

  You Can’t Spell BIRCHWOOD without LIZ!

  My name, Liz, was cleverly spelled out vertically on the T-shirt, the “I” in BIRCHWOOD comprising the middle letter of it.

  I kept all those shirts. In fact, I still have them, and I know I will keep my mom’s shirts as well. I have no idea what I will ever do with them...

  Yes, I do, I think. I know exactly what I will do with them. I will use them as a teaching tool for future generations. Even if my own family doesn’t care, others will.

  My eyes wander back to my mother’s empty bed, and emotion overwhelms me. I place her shirts on top of the dresser and race out of the room, out of the home, off the porch and to the edge of the little pond nestled along the far side of the property. When my mom was in decent health, before her memory went completely, we would come here and watch the deer drink every morning and evening.

  At Birchwood, Rach told me how different trees reminded her of her father. V said birds reminded her of lost loved ones. For me, deer will always remind me of my mom: beautiful, quiet, protective of their children...

  In love with the beauty of Michigan.

  I hear a rustling, and a deer jumps into the clearing, looks around, and then high-steps toward the pond. A second deer, a beautiful whitetail fawn, spotted and soft, eyes as big as its body, jumps into the clearing. It seems spooked, but its mother looks back at it reassuringly, and it moves toward the pond and begins to drink.