The Lemonade Year

by Amy Willoughby-Burle

  All Lola’s cabinets have a basic description of what’s in them. Some have words, painted in beautiful script: cereal, mixing bowls, yummy snacks. Others are painted with pictures of coffee cups and plates, wine glasses and pie tins. The drawers are the same—forks and spoons, measuring cups. And one that says lovely random junk.

  “Your kitchen is a guest’s dream,” Chris says and touches her hair. “I’ve never once had to search for anything. I feel like I’ve been there forever.”

  What a lovely spin. I peek back at Ray. He’s completely taken off his tie and is twisting it around his wrist. I look at the circle of little kids, but Cassie is gone. I open the cabinet and take out a coffee mug.

  “What about you, Chris?” I ask him, turning back toward the kitchen. “Are you doing ok here? I see people trying to figure out where they know you.”

  “I’m not where they expect me to be right now—you know, inside the television. I’m just waiting for the jingle,” he says, shaking his head. “Someone will put two and two together soon enough.” He puts his arm around Lola’s waist, and she sinks into him.

  “It would lighten things up,” I say. “You want me to sing it?”

  “No,” they both say at the same time.

  They leave the kitchen together. I take a bag of coffee from the counter and pour too much into the basket of the coffee maker.

  “Making enough for two?” Mom asks from behind me, and I jump.

  I push Ray’s cup farther back on the countertop, hoping she doesn’t see it, figuring she can probably smell it. I should have dumped it out. I’m not used to spending one-on-one time with Mom so even something as simple as standing in the kitchen making coffee with her seems strange.

  All those years ago, I got lost in the Lola shuffle. Mom got so caught up in her that the rest of us disappeared. I was the only girl I knew whose father took her shopping for her first bra and helped her decide which type of sanitary pad to buy when the time came. That had been a shopping trip for the books. I had been mortified, but as Dad and I stood in the feminine care aisle comparing one package to the next, trying to decipher the pleasantly worded absorption ratings, things got silly and suddenly less dramatic. Dad had a way of taking the edge off life in general.

  We were finally assisted by a passerby—a young woman who looked at Dad with googly eyes the way women will look at a guy playing with a puppy in the park. For just a second, I wondered what life would be like, just me and Dad on our own in the world. Just for a second.

  Afterwards, Dad and I sat in the car in the parking lot, laughing hysterically, too doubled over to drive home.

  In my more bitter moments, I tell myself that Mom forgot me altogether, but I know that’s impossible. She was only one person with four others to care for, and I’m sure that’s hard to juggle in the best of times, to say nothing for the extenuating circumstances. But those are revelations that don’t come to you as a child. Those are the definition of hindsight.

  I wasn’t sure who the day was harder on, me or Mom. But she’d been Dad’s longer, so I’d have to give the day to her. The choice to love someone seems so doomed from the get-go. Even as you walk down the aisle toward him, every intention to stay together forever, you know there is no such thing. But no one thinks about that on their wedding day. Perhaps that’s the reason for all the intricacies, the four-tiered cake with alternating yellow and chocolate layers, the little plastic bride and groom atop the thick frosting, the days of indecision that result in just the right shade of pink roses in the bouquet, the back and forth over the typeset on the invitations, the bridesmaids’ dresses, chicken or steak, sit-down or buffet, what to use for the toast, and where everyone should sit.

  It’s all pomp and circumstance to distract you from the inevitable truth. That one day, one of you will agonize over the details again—urn or casket, blue lining or tan, silk or suede, which flowers at the front of the church, which stone for the gravesite, what to wear for this occasion now that you made it to death do you part.

  I can be pretty pessimistic. Mom pats my hand and leaves me alone again. I wait for the coffee to brew and pour Ray a cup.

  Through the pass-through in the kitchen, I see Jack outside in the front yard. I stop short. He’s standing on the front lawn, looking nervous. I pick up Ray’s cup from the counter and head back into the living room.

  Don’t go out there, I tell myself.

  I go out there.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask in a loud whisper, even though no one is around but the two of us.

  “Cassie called me,” Jack says and steps in to offer that estranged, significant-other, obligatory cheek kiss required on occasions that supersede the awkwardness at hand.

  I jerk back from him.

  “When did she call you?” I ask. “Is everything ok? Where is she?”

  I look around suddenly and slosh some the contents of the coffee cup onto the grass, realizing that I hadn’t grabbed the cup with the coffee.

  “Vodka?” Jack asks, sniffing deeply.

  “Ray,” I answer.

  Jack nods and touches a tulip with the edge of his shoe.

  I stand there, nerves getting the best of me. I bring the coffee mug up to my lips and then remember that it isn’t mine and that it isn’t coffee. Jack smiles a little.

  “Cassie wants to stay with me tonight,” Jack says, getting us back on track. “Didn’t she tell you she was calling? She told me she told you.”

  “Do I look like she told me?” I ask, squelching any good humor that might have been forming.

  “She’s had a rough time,” Jack says, donning his Concerned Dad face. “Lay off her.”

  Suddenly, I want to throw the coffee mug, vodka and all, at Jack’s head.

  “You don’t think I’m aware of that?” I ask. “You don’t get to do this, you know.”

  “Do what?” Jack asks, and I believe he actually doesn’t know what I’m talking about, which ticks me off even more.

  “Be the good guy,” I say. “You don’t get to swoop in and save the rough day. You don’t get to put out the fire that I’ve already exhausted myself fighting and call yourself the hero.”

  Jack scoffs and looks towards the house. I turn as well, watching to see if Cassie is coming out.

  “Settle down,” he says.

  I throw the coffee mug, vodka and all, at his head.

  He ducks past the ceramic, but the potent liquid sloshes across his shirt. He doesn’t say anything; he just lifts his hands in protest. I hear the front door open and shut, and Cassie sighs when she sees me. She walks over to Jack.

  “Hey, Pooh,” he says and kisses her forehead.

  I want to pick up the mug and throw it at him again.

  “What happened to your shirt?” she asks, looking at me.

  “I spilled a drink on myself,” Jack says. “Wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing.”

  Cassie rolls her eyes and snickers at him, and he pushes her playfully. I want this for her. Even if it hurts me.

  “You could have told me you wanted to go, sweetie,” I say. “I understand.”

  Cassie gives me the textbook, teenager head tilt and scoff, eye roll, and hands to hip all in one fluid motion.

  “You wouldn’t have let me call Dad,” she says, so certain.

  “Of course I would have,” I say, feeling something like heartbreak at her certainty that I don’t care about her. “Do you have your key? Stop by home and get your things.”

  Not all of your things, I want to say. I notice that there are way too many cars in the drive and lining the street. Mom’s neighbor’s cat is sitting on the hood of someone’s Lincoln Navigator.

  “So, you don’t care if I stay with Dad for a couple of days?” she asks sheepishly.

  A couple of days? I look at Jack to see if he knew this part as well and if it’s
ok. He shrugs that, no, he didn’t know that she wanted to stay a couple of days, but then nods that it’s ok with him.

  “No, honey, I don’t mind,” I say, although that isn’t true. “I know this is a hard day and you probably want out. That’s ok. I understand.”

  She rolls her eyes again. I think she’d rather I didn’t understand her sometimes. Maybe I don’t.

  “Go ahead to the car,” Jack says.

  She runs to Jack’s car as if I might change my mind. I want to yell at her to “Come back and give your heartbroken mother a hug,” but no good will come of that. Jack and I face off, and I know I should apologize for the vodka bath, but I don’t.

  “Where are you staying, by the way?” I ask.

  “Sarah and Bruce’s house,” Jack says. “They’re in Europe for several months. It’s free. Still have to pay our mortgage, you know.”

  “I didn’t do this, Jack.” I cross my arms in front of me. “I didn’t make you leave.”

  “No?”

  “Are you kidding me?” I ask, unfolding my arms and stepping back like I’m assuming some fighting stance with a less-than-threatening name like wildcat-caught-in-trap or backed-in-a-corner-bear. “Today is not the day for this.”

  “I didn’t start it, Nina.” Jack steps closer to me despite my hostile stance. He reaches for my hand, grabbing hold of my forearm instead. “I don’t want this,” he says and tightens his grip, his face firm and demanding.

  I try to yank free of him, but as my arm slips through his grip, he catches hold of my hand. His eyes find my wedding rings still on my finger. He looks at me and I look away. The papers are signed and stamped, filed and final, and I’m still wearing my rings.

  “Don’t make it mean something,” I say.

  He runs his fingers softly over the rings.

  “Shouldn’t it?” he asks, his voice a whisper. “Doesn’t it?”

  I pull my hand free when I see Cassie walking back toward us.

  “What are you guys doing?” she asks, looking back and forth between us. “Dad?”

  “Nothing, Pooh,” he says and lets go of my hand with a thick sigh. “Let’s go.”

  Cassie looks at me, imploringly. I nod to her to go on and go.

  “It’s ok,” I say. “Everything will be ok.”

  Because that’s what you say to your child. How can you not? I want Jack to look back at me when he walks away, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t pause to look at me over the top of the car. He just gets in and leaves.

  I pick the mug up off the lawn and go back inside the house. In the kitchen, I rinse out the vodka and retrieve Ray’s slightly cool cup of coffee. When I finally make it back to the living room, Ray is gone. It’s getting late in the afternoon, and most people are saying their good-byes. I have to stop a few times to hug and nod and tell whomever how much I appreciate their being here. A couple of people look at me imploringly—eyebrow lifting, sympathy exuding.

  I inch my way through the crowd and out the back door, where I find Ray on the porch. He’s sitting in one of Mom’s lounge chairs, his legs straddled on either side. He’s taken off his suit coat and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. I hand him the coffee, sit in a lounge chair beside him, and stretch out my legs. We sit for a long few minutes and say nothing. I cut my eyes at him to see what he’s thinking. I can’t see anything.

  “He’s five?” I ask, trying to get Ray to talk to me again.

  “Yeah,” Ray says, and his tone holds no animosity.

  I don’t really know which question to ask first. It dawns on me whose child it is.

  “Why didn’t Nicole tell you?”

  “She did,” Ray says. He takes a solid drink from the mug, unfazed by the tepid temperature. The late afternoon air shifts back toward cool, and I fold my arms over my chest. Ray looks at me and I unfold.

  “Oh,” I say. “When?”

  “She told me she was pregnant when she came to visit me at the prison, right after I went in,” Ray says and downs the last of the coffee. “You know, through the glass and all that. She seemed pretty angry at me.”

  There’s nothing I can say that will come out right so I don’t say anything. I just watch the sun set behind Mom’s dogwood trees and listen to the sounds of cars driving away, of people returning to the safety of their normal lives.

  “I guess I didn’t handle it well,” Ray says, shifting in his chair and biting his lip. “She didn’t come back or call.”

  I have to ask. “What did you say when she told you?”

  “I said, ‘That’s nice.’ I told her if she was lucky it wouldn’t turn out to be mine.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said, ‘Let’s pretend it isn’t.’ So that’s what I did.”

  I sit up and swing my legs off the lounge chair so I can turn toward him. “That may be the stupidest thing you’ve ever done, Ray. And you’ve done some stupid things.”

  “Thanks for this amazing level of support,” he says.

  “You’re welcome. You deserve every word of it,” I say, forgetting that I was trying to play nice.

  Ray lifts the cup to his lips and then, realizing it’s empty, tosses it into the yard. He rubs his hands over his face. Tattoos flow out from underneath his shirtsleeves.

  “We’re going to have to buy Mom some new mugs,” I say. “I threw one at Jack earlier. Got your vodka all over him.”

  Ray peeks at me through his hands. His mouth is covered, but I know he’s smiling.

  I stretch back out on the chair and put my feet up again.

  “I called her when I got out,” Ray says. “I wanted to see her and the kid too.”

  “And?”

  “She said it wasn’t mine,” Ray says. “I knew she was lying. Maybe it was a test; maybe it was an out. I don’t know.”

  “What did you do?” I ask.

  “Wished her luck and went on with my life,” Ray says.

  “How do you feel about that?”

  “Is this a therapy session?” Ray asks, but doesn’t look at me. “I felt like a jerk. I always feel like a jerk.”

  “What’s his name?” I ask.

  “Michael.” Ray makes a strange little noise like a sigh and snort combined. “I guess she didn’t hate me too much.”

  Michael is Ray’s middle name, and Michael’s mother, Nicole, is the woman Ray left behind when he went to prison for a few years for repeated stupidity, some minor drug dealing, and grand theft auto. The woman he didn’t go back to once he was out. When you add jail to his self-inflicted exile, Ray’s been gone for the better part of six years.

  “So where did you get the picture?” I ask.

  “She gave it to me yesterday,” Ray says. “She found me over at the Thirsty Monk, said she heard Dad died. Wanted to see how I was doing.”

  “I miss her. She was nice,” I say.

  Ray smirks at me.

  “Then she gave me the photo,” Ray says, pulling it out from his pocket again. “Said I could call her.”

  “That’s a good thing, right?” I ask.

  “No.” He shakes his head. “I think she needs money. Not that I won’t give it to her. My lawyer says we can have the test done to find out if he’s really my kid, but one look at him will tell you that.” Ray flips the photo around for me to see again.

  He’s right.

  “Do you want to be more than just the money?” I ask, suspicious of the weight this seems to be laying on him.

  “I don’t think I deserve to be,” he says, and when I open my mouth to speak, he holds up a hand to stop me. “That’s what I was telling her back then—through the glass. Nothing’s changed about me.”

  “No?”

  “Well, if it has, it’s too little, too late,” Ray says.

  I reach over and take Ray’s hand in mine. I fear he’ll jerk it
away, but he doesn’t. Not at first. Our hands seem to grow hot around each other like a transfer of guilt and sadness, and when it seems Ray can bear it no more, he gently pulls his hand from mine.

  He sighs and looks at the photo with such longing that my throat tightens. “Do you think I could just send the kid over here and let him tell Mom?” Ray asks. He looks hopeful and pitiful.

  “I think that’s a great idea,” I say, feigning support, aware that we’re almost joking with each other. “We can lose both of our parents to a stroke.”

  I know why he chose me though. Telling Lola would make him accountable. She would demand that he stay and would make him choose between his love for everyone else and his hatred for himself.

  While he was in prison, Lola painted nothing but him. Ray as a child, Ray as a devil, Ray inside Ray. The art gallery that shows her work sold nearly every painting. I imagine all the living rooms and studies with little art lights illuminating some unknown young man whose sorrow won’t let them sleep. At dinner parties, people will wander into the study, bourbon in hand, and ponder aloud to each other, “What could life have done to him to turn his eyes so dark? Have you tried the pâté? It’s simply divine.”

  “He does look just like you,” I say. “Poor kid.”

  Ray laughs. The sound of it seems to scratch its way out of his throat, like it’s a sound as hard to make as it is to hear. He punches me in the arm and that old playfulness that we haven’t shared since before Lola was hurt catches in my throat. This is how it all could have been.

  I think sometimes that the ability to see what might have been is a cruel prank and I don’t understand it.

  5

  Later, after the mourning party is over and Mom’s sleeping pills have kicked in, Lola and I sneak up to our childhood bedroom. It’s pink and frilly and rife with memory. We open our suitcases and pull on pajamas. We sit cross-legged, like old times, on my bed; she at the foot and me at the head, our knees touching. We both claim to be spending the night with Mom because we don’t want her to be alone. While that’s true, I think we’re both trying to turn back the clock—even just a bit.