The Things We Wish Were True

by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen

  It was a notebook she’d started, and kept with an embarrassing devotion, all about Everett. She had written down any information she gleaned about him—his favorite teams and hobbies, the names of his childhood pets, and his favorite flavor of ice cream. She’d written down the sizes he wore and what clothing he liked to wear, and on what days. She’d written down his daily schedule and what his dreams and aspirations were. None of those dreams or aspirations included her.

  She’d been both surprised and horrified to find this document, this proof of just how much she’d pined after him, and for how long it had gone on. It was clear she would’ve done anything to have Everett, and to keep him once she had him. Embarrassed, she’d quickly shoved the notebook into a trash bag and fled the room. Downstairs, she’d found her mother in the kitchen, frowning over a basket of tangled yarn.

  “Did you find anything you wanted to keep?” her mother had asked, her attention still on the yarn.

  She’d shaken her head and smiled, the taste of vomit still lingering in her mouth. “It’s just old stuff,” she’d said.

  “So you just want me to toss it all?” her mom had asked, looking up from the basket with surprise registering on her face.

  “You know what they say,” Bryte had quipped and rubbed her belly. “Out with the old, in with the new.”

  She hadn’t believed herself then, and she didn’t believe it now. Especially not this summer.

  She was about to stand up and get her phone to call Everett when she saw headlights swing into their driveway. She exhaled breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, and felt her stomach settle. She took another sip of wine and waited for Everett to find her instead of calling out to him. She waited in the dark as he entered the house and searched for her, feeling like a child playing hide-and-seek. He finally did, rushing onto the deck, panicked. “What are you doing?” he asked, a note of accusation in his voice. “You scared me.”

  She wanted to tell him that he’d scared her, too, that she’d imagined Jencey sending her girls home with her mother so that she and Everett could go find their old hiding place in the woods by the lake. But she couldn’t say those words out loud even if she could picture it fully in her head, Jencey’s late-night whispered confessions when they were girls coming to mind unbidden. She knew it all: how Everett and Jencey had dragged a blow-up mattress out to the woods. How they would lay there and stare up at the stars at night, talking and dreaming.

  Bryte didn’t think that mattress could possibly still be there after all these years. She resolved to venture into those woods again. Just to see.

  “I just felt like sitting outside,” she said.

  He looked around. “It’s a nice night. Cooling off some now that the sun’s gone down.” He gestured to the wine. “Should I pour a glass and join you?”

  She smiled at him, feeling relief flood her body. Surely he wouldn’t do that if anything had happened with Jencey. She willed herself not to ask and ruin the moment. “Sure,” she said. “That would be nice.” He disappeared inside again, and she looked up at the stars as she waited for him.

  He returned quickly and sat across from her at their little table. They were quiet for a moment as they both sipped their wine. She could feel the second glass beginning to blur the edges of her mind, doing exactly what she’d hoped it would.

  “Sorry you missed the end of the fireworks,” he said.

  She thought again of the voice-mail message. “It was OK. It was way past his bedtime. He crashed as soon as we got home.”

  “I wonder how much James spent on those fireworks,” Everett said. He was making small talk, and she was grateful for it. “They went on forever.”

  She nodded. “They must have. I was surprised by how long it took you to get home.” She had no right to challenge him, considering, but she also wanted to know. Her words hung in the air between them, and she saw him shift in his seat, then take a sip of wine. Her heart pounded and she, too, took a sip of wine. Only hers was more like a gulp.

  “Well, I talked to some folks as I was gathering up our stuff and loading the car. You know, being a good neighbor. Channeling my wife.” He gave a little laugh and nudged her.

  “Did you talk to Jencey?” she asked. She tried to keep her tone light, saying the name as if she was naming any other resident of Sycamore Glen. But she could tell her voice betrayed her by the barely perceptible wince on his part. This was ridiculous. They were married. They had a child. They had a good relationship, were good friends at their core. Her inexplicable unease about Jencey was either women’s intuition or complete paranoia. Or residual from their past, creeping in, never fully vanquished no matter how much they all moved on.

  He put his glass down. “Do we need to talk about her?” he asked, turning to face her.

  She shook her head, a reflex. That was the wrong answer—they probably did need to talk about her, but she wasn’t ready to, and probably never would be. They’d spent their courtship and married life successfully avoiding the topic of Jencey.

  “Are you sure?” he pressed. “Because I did talk to her. If that bothers you, then we need to talk about why.”

  She forced her mouth to smile. “Did she say she’s in love with you and can’t live without you?” She hoped she sounded like she was teasing. “Because if that’s the case, then, yeah, maybe we need to talk about Jencey.”

  His laughter in response was as forced as her cavalier tone. “No.” He reached over and laid his hand on top of hers, the weight and size of it so familiar. “She did tell me why she came back, though.”

  Bryte felt her heart pick up speed. She hadn’t felt comfortable enough to ask Jencey something that personal, yet Jencey had told Everett. She didn’t know if she was threatened by that degree of honesty between them, or jealous that Jencey had chosen Everett to confide in instead of her.

  “Oh?” she tried her voice. “And?” She moved her hand from underneath his and reached for her wineglass. Her wine was almost gone. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had three glasses of wine in one evening, but this might be the night to do it.

  He raised his eyebrows. “It’s pretty bad. Her husband’s in jail. They’re getting divorced. She was basically left with nothing and had no choice but to come back here and live with her parents.”

  “But she wears her wedding ring,” Bryte argued, as if it would change anything. Jencey wasn’t just here for a summer visit, Bryte had come to realize. She was staying.

  “She said she needs to take it off but . . . well, you can understand how final that has to feel.”

  With the thumb of her left hand, she felt for her own wedding ring, remembering both the night Everett had put the engagement ring on her finger at their favorite restaurant in town and the day he’d put on the band to match it, completing the set. It had been such a happy day, made even happier by the knowledge that Jencey wouldn’t be there. Jencey’s mother had relayed the news as if it was a disappointment, when it was anything but. Though she’d felt obligated to invite her former best friend, her presence on their wedding day was the last thing Bryte had wanted. Bryte had believed then that they would probably never see Jencey again, and that had been OK with her.

  “Yeah.” Her voice cracked and she cleared her throat. “Yeah,” she tried again. “I’m sure it is.” She stood up and grabbed her wineglass, her head spinning a little. “I think I’ll go get another glass. You want some?” She started to walk away without waiting for him to respond, but he stood up and stopped her, blocking her entry to the house.

  “Don’t let it freak you out, Bryte. Jencey being here changes nothing.” He looked down at her and gave her a reassuring smile. He put his hands in her hair, leaned in, and kissed her. She tried to go with it, to focus on him there, with her. Everything was OK. There was no reason to panic. Nothing changes, as he said. She kissed him back, trying to think about how much her adolescent self had craved this very thing. She had everything she ever wanted; they had everything they wanted
. She longed to melt into him, to lose herself in him just as she had always done. Except. Except Jencey was back.

  She let him take the wineglass from her hand and put it on the table, leading her inside. He led her right past her phone where she’d left it. She followed her husband upstairs to the room and bed they shared, knowing as she did that the next day she would return the call. She would blame Jencey for it, because it was easier than blaming herself.

  ZELL

  It was Cailey’s fault Zell was outside in this heat. The brim of her sun hat fell into her eyes once again, and she impatiently pushed it out of the way, feeling a smear of mud left behind on her forehead where her gloved hands had touched. With her gardening clothes and floppy wide-brimmed straw hat, she knew she looked every bit like Shirley MacLaine’s character in Steel Magnolias. But it was for a good cause. She straightened up and felt her knee respond. Cailey kept suggesting she see a doctor, not understanding Zell’s hesitance to do so. It wasn’t something she could explain.

  Cailey crouched down beside her with an intent expression, studying their efforts, trying her best to learn all there was to know about gardening in the short amount of time they had together. The kid was a sponge. Zell tried not to think of that eyesore house she lived in with the desert of a front and back yard. There were no trees, and no shade, shrubs, or plants. It would be cruel and unusual to send the child back to that hellhole, and yet she had to sooner or later. She didn’t like to think about that, didn’t want to face what would surely end. “That kid has an expiration date stamped right on her forehead,” John kept warning her. “Don’t get all wrapped up in her and forget that.”

  Though he was right, it didn’t make it any easier to think about saying goodbye. Cailey had given her someone to dote on, someone to nurture just as surely as she nurtured the plants and flowers in her yard. Cailey wasn’t taking her own children’s place, but she was a nice balm for Zell’s hurting heart. And, Zell liked to think, it worked both ways. What would Cailey have done this summer if Zell hadn’t offered her a place to stay? Spent a lot of time at home alone watching the boob tube and not learned nearly as much about the great outdoors, that’s what.

  “Zell, are you listening to me?” Cailey asked loudly, and Zell turned her gaze to meet those blue-gray eyes that commanded her attention. “I was asking you what you meant when you said that a garden is like a neighborhood?”

  She smiled and went into teacher mode. She’d taught Sunday school for years, substituted at her kids’ schools. She had it in her. “OK so we’re all pretty much living in our own houses, right? Doing our own thing?”

  Cailey nodded.

  “But sometimes we need the people around us.” She almost said, “Like you needed me,” but decided it was best not to say that. “Like sometimes Mr. Lance needs me to watch Lilah and Alec so he can get some work done, and I help him out.” Cailey nodded again. “Well, plants can help one another out, and a good gardener knows which plants make the best neighbors—and which ones don’t.”

  “Like neighbors who deal drugs or steal cars?” Cailey asked. Sometimes Zell had to work hard not to let the shock show on her face when the child revealed the parts of the world she’d been exposed to.

  Zell tried to steer the conversation back to a more positive light. “Well, like some plants take more than their share of water or sun, or they grow too fast and hurt the roots of other plants. Some give off toxins that can kill other plants.”

  “They’re the bad guys,” Cailey said.

  “Yes, some plants are bad guys. But some are good guys—they add nutrients to the soil or attract insects that are good, or repel insects that are bad. So when I’m planting my garden, I look for plants that work together well—that are good for one another, that help one another out.”

  Cailey pointed at the garden. “So that’s why you put beans near corn.”

  “Right. The beans add nutrients to the soil so the corn can grow better. And the corn provides a stalk for the beans to climb.”

  She looked around the garden. “And the marigolds are near the beans because they keep beetles away,” she added, recalling information Zell had shared days ago.

  Zell held up her hand for a high five, something she’d learned from her kids. “You got it.”

  “Plus,” Cailey continued, “marigolds are just pretty, I think.”

  Zell nodded. “I do, too.”

  Cailey wandered away, and Zell tugged at a few more weeds she’d spotted during their impromptu gardening lesson. Satisfied for the day, she pulled off her mud-caked gloves and called over to Cailey, who was over on the deck studying a piece of paper they’d printed off the computer. The paper detailed the steps needed to have your yard declared a wildlife habitat. “OK, where’s that hummingbird feeder we bought? We could hang it right over here.”

  “I think we need to build a pond!” Cailey hollered back, looking up from her paper. “Says here that ponds are good for frogs and also provide water for animals and insects. D’ya think Mr. John would dig us a hole?”

  Zell frowned at the girl, feeling another trickle of sweat snake its way down her chest and into her bra, which was already soaking wet. She didn’t say what she was thinking, which was that standing water also attracts mosquitoes.

  “I think we need to complete step one before we move to step four,” Zell responded. “You’re getting ahead of yourself again. What’s our motto?” She huffed her way across the yard to get closer to Cailey.

  Cailey rolled her eyes, already approximating a teenager just a little too closely. “One step at a time,” she moaned.

  Zell smiled. “Well, now, taskmaster, do I have your permission to go inside and fix us some lemonade?”

  Cailey grinned and nodded. “That sounds good.”

  “OK, you wanna come in, too? Get out of this heat?” The July sun was particularly brutal, a blinding white orb relentlessly shining above their heads. Truth was, summer wasn’t the best time to undertake such a project—spring or fall would’ve been much better. Zell had tried to convince Cailey that they didn’t have to make the wildlife habitat in a rush, but she could tell the girl knew she didn’t have long before she went home and didn’t want her efforts to be lost again.

  In her frequent check-in calls and stop-in visits, Cailey’s mother had offered for her to come back home, but Zell had always replied, “Well, she’s no trouble at all. You just let her stay, and it’ll be one less thing for you to worry about.”

  John thought the whole habitat idea was plumb crazy, and he’d told her so in private, but she just told him to mind his own business. “I don’t tell you that chasing a little white ball all over God’s creation is crazy,” she’d scolded. He’d given her that look that told her there was more he wanted to say, but thirty-five years of marriage had taught him it was best not to. He’d kissed her instead and strolled out of the house, his golf shoes clacking across the hardwoods. She’d told him a hundred times not to put those damn things on in the house.

  Zell mixed the sugar and water to heat on the stove, then got out the juicer to juice some lemons. Cailey had never seen lemonade made this way—she’d had only the powdered kind—and now she begged her to make it. The girl had put on some weight since she’d gotten to her house. Zell supposed that was a good thing even if that simple syrup was wreaking havoc on her own waistline. But she couldn’t resist at least a small glass if she went to the effort of making the stuff. She’d been cooking up a storm for Cailey in the weeks she’d been there, reveling in the girl’s delight at what she prepared. It was nice to cook for someone who appreciated it.

  She fished her cell phone out of her purse just to check and make sure none of the kids had called or John hadn’t had a heart attack on the golf course (a real fear she’d had ever since that very thing happened to Lars Petersen several years back). She saw that she had indeed missed a call, but it was from Lisa. She peeked outside to make sure Cailey wasn’t coming inside, Zell’s heart thrumming in her chest as
it did any time Lisa called. Zell always feared bad news about Cutter. How in the world would she break that kind of news to this child she’d grown so fond of?

  Cailey had ventured into the front yard and, from the looks of things, was trying to find a good spot for the pond that John would probably never consent to (though Cailey had charmed him no matter how much he said otherwise). Her heart in her throat, Zell clicked on the number and listened as it began ringing. Lisa answered on the third ring, her voice husky and gravelly, typical of smokers, though Cailey said her mother had quit. She guessed that she’d probably gone back to it due to the stress.

  “Lisa?” she asked. “It’s Zell Boyette.” She almost explained who she was but stopped herself.

  “Oh, Zell! I tried calling you earlier!” Lisa chirruped, her voice rising higher than Zell had heard it before. She got the feeling there was good news.

  “I saw that. Cailey and I were outside working on that wildlife habitat she was telling you about. Boy, when that girl gets a bee in her bonnet—”

  “Cutter’s awake!” Lisa interrupted. “He’s awake! He’s got a long road ahead of him, but they expect him to make a full recovery.”

  “Well, that’s just . . . just wonderful,” Zell replied.

  “Can you bring Cailey up here? Today?” Lisa asked. Zell didn’t know her heart could lift and fall at the same time. This was the best possible news, and yet, Cailey would be leaving. Even as she was gushing to Lisa about how happy she was that Cutter was going to be OK, she was thinking about finishing that habitat. She’d just make sure she could have Cailey over to visit as much as it took until school started back. She would make sure the girl got to see the sign declaring it an official habitat planted proudly in the yard.