Even so, we sit in silence for a little while longer, the mini grandfather clock that’s older than Macon tick-tocking on the mantle the only sound. Well, that and my sniffling. I can’t seem to stop the damn river leaking out of my eyes.
Then Luca turns his head and gently bites my arm.
“Ow!” I shake him off and he laughs, which makes me laugh a little.
Emmy reaches across me to slap his shoulder.
“Sorry, sorry,” he says. “I just wanted some damn smiles up in here.”
“There’s a time and a place,” Emmy says, standing up. “Grace, I’ll get some blankets for the couch. Hope that’s okay. Eva took over Macon’s old room.”
“That’s fine,” I say, my eyes darting down the hallway leading to the bedrooms.
“Unless my chivalrous son would like to give up his bed for you,” Emmy says.
“Hell, no,” Luca says, yawning.
She whacks his shoulder again.
“I’m kidding! Take my bed, fine, fine.”
I laugh. I’ve always loved Emmy and Luca’s playful dynamic, and the fact that they maintain it even when the shit goes down makes me love them even more.
After Luca changes the sheets on his bed—thank god—he smacks a kiss on my forehead and stumbles back to the couch.
I’ve just brushed my teeth—something I neglected to do last night—and settled under the R2-D2 sheets when Emmy comes in with an extra pillow. She hands it to me, then sits on the side of the bed, spinning the silver-and-rose-gold ring on her middle finger. Luca and Macon gave it to her for her birthday a few years ago.
“Think you’ll be able to sleep?” she asks.
“I don’t know. I hope so.”
She nods, patting the pillow in my lap and standing. She takes a step toward the door, but then stops and turns. She cups my chin. “You’re a brave girl, Gracie. Braver than me. I’m sorry that I ever made you doubt that you belong here. That we’re on your side. I lost my friend and I gained a daughter, and, I’ll admit, I was overwhelmed and worried about Eva spending so much time with Maggie. But, honey, I’ve always been worried about you, too. I couldn’t simply take you away from your own mother, though you know how much I wanted to. But Eva, well, I thought I could control whether or not she got hurt. She’s my responsibility. Does that make sense?”
I nod, my throat thick as a damn tree trunk.
“Maggie loves you, Grace,” Emmy goes on, sliding her hand up to cup my cheek. “Things haven’t always been easy or even friendly between her and me, but I know she loves you more than life. No matter what happens, she’ll always be your mom and you’ll always be her girl. But you’re my girl too. As much or as little as you need to be. Okay?”
And this time, when I say okay, it doesn’t feel like a duty. It feels like letting go.
I know the Michaelson house inside and out. I know Luca’s and Macon’s double beds are situated on the shared wall between their rooms. When they were younger and Macon still lived here, they would tap out Morse code at night—or their own indecipherable version of it—staying up way too late telling secrets through little knocks on the drywall.
I press my hand against this wall, knowing Eva’s sleeping on the other side, probably conked out from exhaustion and painkillers. Even in the barely burgeoning dawn, I can see the smooth, natural hue of my nails, so foreign and familiar at once.
I wish.
Shoving the covers back, I tiptoe across the room and crack open the door. I wait for an alarm blast, half expecting Emmy to have set up some sort of obstacle course to prevent me from sneaking out. I know she knows about Eva and me, and I assume she would view my slipping into her ward’s bed about the same way she’d view Kimber snuggling up with Luca in the middle of the night. As in total mom freak-out.
Considering Maggie wouldn’t bat an eye, the thought sort of makes me smile. Still, freak-out or no, I need this. Eva needs this. At least, I hope she does.
Hearing nothing but a silent house, I slip from Luca’s room and into Macon’s in a few quick motions, wincing as the door clicks shut a little louder than I intended.
The room hasn’t changed much since Eva moved in. Emmy used this for extra storage after Macon moved out, and there are still remnants of its former purpose. Books stacked along a wall. Boxes full of Macon’s old soccer trophies in one corner. But there are traces of Eva, too, if only a few. A picture of a woman I assume is her mother on the dresser. A wide smile like Eva’s, hair in a bun, arms stretched to the sky and her toes raised up on pointe. There’s another picture next to that one. It’s Eva and she’s dancing too, body flexed into the same position as her mother’s. I run my fingers over both frames. Side by side, their mirrored bodies are beautiful, almost sad, almost haunting. I can’t decide which effect is stronger.
On the bed, Eva is curled up under a handmade quilt, facing the wall. I slide in beside her, breathing out a sigh of relief just to be this close to her, to smell her jasmine scent, to feel her warmth. I lie there, not touching her, for a while. I listen to her breathe, thanking every wish I’ve ever sent floating into the sky that she’s safe, that I’m safe, and that I’m here next to her.
She rolls over and releases this cute little moan that makes me almost smile. I watch her sleep, drinking in all the details of her face that I love so much. I could watch her for hours, her gentle breaths, the soft flutter of her lashes against her cheek, everything that makes her Eva and takes her through the minutes, through the world. Then, suddenly, she’s not sleeping. Her eyes are open and on mine. She puts a hand on my face, letting it drift down my jaw and neck to press against my chest where my heart thrums underneath.
“You’re back,” she says. “Thank god, you’re back.”
“I’m back.”
“Maggie?”
I press my eyes closed and shake my head, all the explanation I can manage right now.
“I was so worried about you,” she says, her palm still hot against my skin.
“I’m sorry,” I say. I feel like I’ve been apologizing for the last hour, but the word fits on my tongue just right.
“For what?”
That is the question. For what? There is some fault to bear, but there’s also a lot of fault to go around. Hell, maybe no one’s really at fault. So I just say, “For everything,” because it’s true. Sometimes you say you’re sorry because you fucked up. Sometimes you just say it because everything is fucked up.
She curls her hands together against her chest. “I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have said what I did the other night.”
“No, you were right. My mom is here. But you have to understand that it’s never felt like that. It’s never felt like I had my mother—at least, not my mother like she should’ve been.”
“I know. I’m so sorry.”
I reach out and touch her, just two fingers pressed against her cheek. I’m relieved as hell that she lets me, that she’s warm and soft. “It doesn’t mean what happened to you, to your mom, sucks any less.”
She nods, her tears building and spilling over, a beautiful sort of release. Like always, she doesn’t fight it. She just lets it all wash, run, stomp through her.
She is like Maggie in that way, I guess. In a good way.
“I missed you,” she says through a shaky breath.
“You did?”
In answer, her hand slides around the back of my neck. My eyes flutter closed as she pulls gently, moves forward gently, until our foreheads touch. Then our noses. Then our lips. We fit together like two puzzle pieces. She sighs into my mouth. Or maybe I sigh into hers. Either way, we get all mixed up, and it’s perfect and wild, a desperate holding on.
“I don’t want this to be all we are,” she says against my mouth.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Me, the girl whose mom died when she should’ve lived. You, the girl whose mom can’t seem to be a mom. We can’t be like that Hattie girl, the one who jumped off the lighthouse a hundred
years ago and now that’s all she’s known for. We have to be more than that.”
“We will be. We are.”
“Can I tell you something?”
“Anything.”
She inhales deeply. “I’m . . . I’m still a dancer.”
The smile on my face is immediate and huge, even through my leftover tears. “You are.”
“And you’re a pianist.”
“I am. Always.”
“And we’re more than that.”
“You and me,” I whisper, “we’re sandy spoons and fireworks, lighthouses and wishes and peanut butter.”
She smiles and kisses me again.
And I know it’s all true. I know we’ll be okay. I know we’ll be more, for ourselves and together.
Even after loss.
Even after saying goodbye.
Eva and me, two motherless girls finding a new home.
Chapter Thirty-Two
HERE’S THE THING ABOUT WISHES: THEY’RE ALWAYS changing on you. They’re either dying out or they’re realized, and then they’re not wishes anymore. They’re only truly alive in their anticipation. When I was a wide-eyed little girl, I used to kiss my fingertips and wish I was as beautiful and spirited as my mother. A few years after that, I wished for quick and graceful fingers over the piano keys. Those wishes turned into silent tears at night when my mother brought home some strange guy and all I wanted was for the two of us to go away somewhere together and never talk to another living soul.
I wanted us to run away.
Then, years later, I wished for freedom. I wished for my own life. I wished for the courage to really mean that wish for my own life. I wished for normal days and family dinners and New York City concert halls.
I wished for a sad and beautiful girl to smile at me.
To love me.
I wished against all other wishes to become someone who could love her well.
So many of those wishes have come true. Are coming true. It’s such a strange feeling, standing on Luca’s porch right now, watching him load our overnight bags into his truck, bound for New York so I can audition for Manhattan School of Music tomorrow morning.
So I can play Fantasie and bring a wish to life.
Eva comes up behind me and circles both of her arms around my waist, her cheek pressed against mine.
“You ready?”
I don’t answer at first because, honestly, I don’t know. I never thought I’d get here. And in those moments when I allowed myself to believe New York was a real possibility, I never imagined I’d be doing this without Mom.
But I am.
Because she’s not with me.
It’s been a little over two weeks since I left her in Portland, since the night I made my wish and said goodbye. The morning after, I called her phone no less than a hundred times, but it always went to her voicemail, and because her box is always full, there was nothing else to do but hang up.
Since then, I’ve spent most of my time with Eva. I’ve cried a lot, which pissed me off because I’m not used to crying, but dammit if it didn’t feel good. Eva cried a lot too. We’d climb to the top of the lighthouse in the middle of the night, the key Pete gave me when I went by to apologize for everything that happened and get the rest of my stuff safe in my pocket, and we’d trade stories. Good stories. Happy stories of happy mothers during happier times.
Still, I wasn’t unhappy.
A weird thing I’m learning about grief—grief in all its forms—is that you can feel almost everything once. You’d think all those tears, all that laughter, all that deep sadness and even deeper hope would still the lungs and stop the heart.
But no. It’s sort of the opposite.
And that’s the funny thing about wishes—only when one comes true do you realize the full scope of that wish. What you really wanted. The beauty of it. The complexity.
The cost.
I cover Eva’s hands with mine. “Yeah. I think I’m ready.”
She presses a kiss to my temple, and I turn, resting my fingers on her slim hips. “Are you ready?” I ask.
Her eyes dim a little, but she smiles. Eva’s coming with me to New York. In a few months, we’ll all pile in Luca’s truck again for her audition at NYU. About a week ago, I sat with her on the floor of Macon’s old room while she got out her pointe shoes for the first time since her mom died. They were ripped and dirty and smelled like resin.
“Wow, those are so old,” I had said, and she laughed.
“They’re actually pretty new. We have to break them in when we first get them. Run razors over the bottoms, rip the satin, burn the tips.” She ran a finger along a shiny ribbon, a sad smile on her face.
“I want to see you dance again.”
She lifted her eyes to mine. For a few seconds she just looked at me, but then she leaned forward and kissed me. A few days later, I went with her to her first dance class at the studio in Sugar Lake, and I watched her come alive again.
“I’m ready for more,” she says now, her voice a soft whisper.
I run my hand down her face and cup her jaw. “Something more than a sad little swan.”
She leans into my touch, a single tear blooming and spilling over. We both let it fall. “Yeah. Something more than that.”
Luca slams the bed cover on his truck closed and takes out his phone. I know he’s texting Kimber that we’re about to leave to pick her up. She’s coming with us, much to my chagrin, but she makes Luca happy, so I know she and I will find a middle ground somewhere.
Emmy comes out the front door, Macon and a waddling Janelle behind her. They all hug me, wish me luck, say all the right things a family should say. Still, it’s not the same, and a knot forms in my throat so huge, I’m not sure I’ll ever swallow again. Emmy must read something in my expression, because she cups my face in her hands and kisses my forehead.
“Is this what you want, Gracie?” she asks, peering into my watery eyes.
“Yes.” No hesitation. I know this is what I’m supposed to do, what I want to do, but it’s still hard as hell. Because getting what you want always means giving up something else.
Emmy nods knowingly. She runs her thumbs over my cheeks and winks before enveloping Eva in a hug.
True to form, Luca gives me a noogie as I pass him to get into his truck. I slap his butt and he yelps. He’s just started the engine when a brown UPS truck pulls up behind us, blocking the driveway.
“Dammit,” Luca says.
“Oh, chill, it’ll only take a second,” Eva says from the back seat, but I’m sort of with Luca on this one. My entire body feels like it’s lit on fire. Like, if I don’t go now, I never will. Or something will happen to prevent this whole thing. Luca’s truck will break down before we even get off the cape. Manhattan School of Music will call and cancel. New York City will sink into the Atlantic. All of these thoughts are totally stupid and paranoid, but, hey, my butt’s in the car, so I’m already way ahead of where I’d ever thought I’d be.
We watch Emmy walk over to the driver and sign for a package a little smaller than a shoebox. She tells him thanks but frowns down at the package. When she lifts her eyes, they land right on me.
The truck rumbles away and Luca’s just about to throw the truck into reverse when Emmy walks over and knocks on my window. I roll it down.
“Is that for me?” I ask, even though I can’t possibly imagine why it would be. But Emmy nods and holds up the package.
There’s my name right above the Michaelsons’ address. My full name.
Margaret Grace Glasser.
Written in a chicken-scratch handwriting I’d recognize anywhere.
Suddenly I’m standing in the driveway, the box in my hands. I don’t remember getting out of the truck, but Eva’s right there next to me, Luca on my other side, his finger trailing over the return address label.
No name.
At least, not a person’s.
Mountainside Behavioral Health Center. Portland, Maine.
I feel Eva’s hand press into my lower back as I tear the package open. The tape is stubborn and I’m pretty sure I get a paper cut on my thumb, but I barely feel it. I keep tearing until all I see are balls of white tissue paper.
Carefully, I sift through them until my hand collides with another box. I lift it out. It’s a simple white box, square and light. Luca holds the ripped-to-shreds UPS package while I remove the lid and blink at the contents, hardly believing my eyes.
It’s a necklace.
Triangles of aqua sea glass, edged in rusty red copper. At first, I’m confused. I angle the box in Luca’s hand to check my name, wondering for a split second if this was meant for Eva instead of me because I know Mom never got around to giving it to her. But no. It’s my name. And looking closer at the necklace, I can tell it’s not the same one Maggie made for Eva. The glass is lighter, more blue than green. I remember Eva’s had a little smear of copper on one of the triangles, but this one is nearly flawless, the copper applied expertly around each cool edge.
Hot and cold.
Calm serenity rimmed with fiery energy.
Us.
There’s no note, but that’s not too surprising. The necklace speaks for itself. The return address speaks for itself.
She granted my wish.
She’s getting help. She’s still my mom and I’m still her daughter and we’re still us, somewhere under everything we’ve been through.
“That’s beautiful,” Eva says. “Did she make that?”
I can only nod, the tears blurring my vision.
“Want me to help you put it on?”
She takes the necklace out of the box, and I lift my hair so she can circle the delicate chain around my neck. Her hands linger on my throat as the cool glass settles on my chest, just above my sternum.
I look down at the necklace. It’s not a lot. Such a small thing, really. But it’s something. A start. A hand reaching out. A change. Maybe it’ll all go to shit again. Maybe real healing for Mom and me will take a few rounds of falling apart and coming back together. I don’t know. Time will tell, I guess.
How to Make a Wish Page 23