The Lemonade Year

by Amy Willoughby-Burle

  I move away from him and continue down the hall, turning corners that I know will lead me to Cassie. I stop outside the last door.

  “Why?” I ask, but the heat is gone from my voice.

  “Because it was easy,” he says quietly. “At least at the time. I was tired, and it was easy to let you be mad at me and me not have to do anything. I just couldn’t deal with it anymore.”

  “Well, that’s stupid,” I say, pushing through the door.

  “This whole thing is stupid,” Jack says, following me past the glass walls and through the curtain.

  Then Cassie comes into view, and we both stop short. Mom, Lola, and Ray are all standing outside her door. Jack reaches out for my hand and I reach out for his.

  25

  It was a roller coaster the likes of which Cricket warned me about—except there was no enjoying the ride, only immense relief when it was done. We dipped into a drop of unknown hours waiting for Cassie’s body to do what it could while the doctors and medicines and, most importantly, God did the rest. We had moments where we thought it was over, only to corkscrew back into dangerous fevers and blood-pressure plummets. Then suddenly—she opened her eyes and spoke to me and the ride slowed. The cart stopped and the lap bar lifted. We got off the coaster and left the hospital, and she was fine.

  She is fine.

  Now, I’m in the grocery store with Mom on Thanksgiving Day buying an apple pie and a box of macaroni and cheese.

  Lola is looking after Cassie where she’s resting before dinner at Mom’s house. Lola was the strongest of us all. Her hope made all the difference. Cassie has been out of the hospital for a week, and we’re still taking cautious steps, although she’s ready to get back into the pool.

  She’s already upset that she missed two Teen Swim events. I met Zach, who turns out not to be the tall boy with six-pack abs. He’s sweet and concerned about Cassie, and although I’m not ready for my little girl to be interested in boys, Zach isn’t all bad. Life goes on like it should.

  This Thanksgiving, I had hoped for something a little less traditional and more laid back, but Mom’s house is about to fill up with aunts and uncles and well-wishers on this first holiday without Dad. His absence looms large in the wake of Cassie’s accident and the coming of a holiday and the end of a year. Time will go on, and I’m not sure how to measure it.

  “Do you think Cassie will be able to eat this?” Mom says, holding up the Kraft box.

  “Mom, Cassie had a head injury, not a root canal,” I say, trying to be reassuring, but likely coming off as sarcastic.

  Mom puts the macaroni in the cart. “Someone might want it,” she says and shrugs cheerfully.

  My phone rings in my purse, and I thrash around to find it—afraid that it’s Cassie, afraid there’s something wrong.

  “Hey, there,” Jack says across the phone line.

  “Hi,” I say, finding myself happy to hear his voice, my heartbeat slowing at the sound of his words.

  “Just checking in,” he says. “Happy Thanksgiving. How’s Cass today?”

  Jack and I did well in the hospital, when it was about Cassie. As parents, we were in sync. As “us,” I don’t know. The thought of it hangs overhead like a book on a tall shelf—just out of reach. I want to grab it, but I need some help. After the fight in the hallway, we agreed that the hospital would be neutral ground. Cassie came first, and we would deal with the rest of it later.

  It’s later.

  “Are you sure you can’t come?” I say, re-inviting him to dinner. “Cassie would really love to see you.”

  “I’ll just be in the way. It’s about Cassie and your dad this time. Maybe when things shake out I’ll come around again. If that’s ok?”

  Suddenly, it’s like I can see the door closing on what could be, and I feel an overwhelming need to push it back open. I know that things don’t “shake out.” We make them fall into the place they fall into—whether by action or inaction, but still, it’s in our hands. I don’t want to wait for it all to fall into place. I’ve been in the place where things fall, and I’m not interested in staying there.

  “Where are you?” I ask.

  “Home. Well, my apartment.”

  “I’m coming over. Wait there.”

  I take the cart from Mom and wheel around to the next aisle. I grab something off the shelf and head for the checkout. Mom calls to me from somewhere inside the store. I hear her voice getting closer until she finds me on my way out the door.

  “Were you just going to leave me here?” she asks, walking briskly to keep up with me.

  “I knew you’d catch up,” I say, sliding into the driver’s seat.

  I drop her off at her house—making sure to hand her the bag with the pie and the noodles.

  “Where are you going?” she asks.

  “I have to pick up a few things.”

  “We were just at the store,” she says, hesitating to get out of the car.

  I wave her out and reach over to close the door behind her. She jumps out of the way so as not to get clipped in the rump. She stands in her driveway looking at me indignantly and then winks.

  “Come with me,” I say to Jack when he opens the door.

  There’s one injustice that still needs to be undone in order to have a proper Thanksgiving Day. I take Jack by the arm, pulling him through the door and out to my car. I slide in and start the engine. Jack opens the passenger door and gets inside even as I’m pulling the car away from the curb. He doesn’t ask where we’re going. He doesn’t say anything at all. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see him looking at me. We drive in silence. Finally, we pull off the road and pass through the predictable iron gates of the cemetery.

  “What are we doing here?” Jack utters the words so slowly they don’t seem to go together in the same sentence.

  I kill the engine and get out. I open the trunk like we’re in some bad movie and pull out a shovel. I’m manic with the idea of this shovel, which I’d stuck in the trunk last winter, before Dad passed, after spending the day planting bulbs in mom’s yard—those pink and white tulips that seemed so out of place in front of the house the day of the funeral. Turns out you don’t need a shovel this big to plant bulbs.

  I walk into the graveyard like a woman possessed, unnecessary shovel in hand, and mind determined to undo what never should have been done. Jack catches up to me when I stop at my dad’s headstone. He takes the shovel from me and spades the edge into the ground.

  “What are we doing here?” he asks again, more firmly this time.

  I’ve finally figured out what has been pecking at my ribs all this time. I know now what will begin to make this better.

  “We’re digging up my father’s ashes,” I say.

  “Oh, Nina, no.”

  “It’s cathartic,” I say, and grab the spade from the earth. “Besides, isn’t this the sort of wild and crazy thing that people do when they’re grieving the loss of their dad and rejoicing because their child almost died but didn’t?”

  “No, this isn’t the sort of wild and crazy thing that people do,” he says, calmly. “This is what lunatics do. This is what psychos in the movies do.” He grabs the shovel away from me.

  “Just start digging.” I point to the gray stone marker that bears my father’s name.

  “Look, Nina, if you’re trying to take the heat off Ray by being the crazy one at dinner,” Jack says, looking from me to the headstone, “I think you can let him fend for himself.”

  I grab the shovel back from him. “Give me some credit, please.”

  “That’s really hard to do when you drag me out to a cemetery on Thanksgiving Day and ask me to help you dig up your father’s ashes,” he says, talking to me like I’m four years old.

  We both stand there looking at each other, at the shovel, at the name—Nathaniel Baker. Beloved Father. Cherished Husband.<
br />
  I take out my phone and find the picture of the grave. I hold it out to the real thing and compare the image. I point to the spot where the urn is buried. I look around to see if anyone is watching, spending the holiday with a dead loved one.

  “Why did you guys bury the ashes?” Jack speaks softly, breaking the stillness around us. “Aren’t you supposed to put them somewhere important?”

  I look at him and burst into tears.

  “Oh,” he says.

  He takes the shovel from me and starts digging. That’s when I start to think there might be hope for us yet.

  When we hear the clink of shovel against metal, we both get down on our hands and knees. Like kids digging in the sand at the beach, we swipe at the dirt, brushing it away until we’ve reached our goal. Dad’s urn.

  Jack pulls Dad from the earth and hands him to me. We sit there looking at each other and then Jack voices what I’m thinking.

  “Run,” he says, and we do.

  By the time we reach the car, we’re laughing and panting. I hold Dad close with one hand and reach in my pocket for the keys with the other. Jack takes the urn from me and sets it on top of the car. I make a move to reach for it, and Jack takes my hand.

  “Your father is fine,” he says and steps in close, pressing me up against the side of the car.

  Jack runs his finger over my wedding rings and then brushes a strand of hair from my face. His body is warm against me. He leans in close, brushing his lips across the edge of my ear.

  “We forgot the shovel,” he says, his words brushing against my skin.

  “Never mind it,” I say, my heart racing.

  “It looked like a good shovel,” Jack says and kisses my neck.

  I can’t breathe. I pull in little ragged tufts of air.

  “It’s yours,” I whisper, breathlessly.

  “I know.”

  “You want to go get it?” I press my body harder against his.

  “No,” he says. “I want to kiss you.”

  “Ok,” I say into the warmth of his neck. “Kiss me.”

  Jack pulls back from me and looks me in the eye. I think for one moment that this is some twisted trick of my imagination, but then Jack puts his arm around my waist and pulls me to him hard. He touches my lips with his finger for just a second as if he’s checking to see if they’re real. Then he presses his lips to mine and kisses me slow and deep. His hands move into my hair, gripping tight like he’s hanging on for life. I hope he is. I am.

  Guys—I just dug up my father’s ashes and made out with my ex-husband. Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving.

  The kiss ends, and I take a moment to catch my breath.

  “There’s something else I need to do,” I say.

  Jack looks at me quizzically.

  “It’s not anything weird.”

  “Comparatively?” He touches my hair again.

  “Everything’s relative.”

  We get back into the car, and I drive to our condo building.

  “Did you need to get a change of clothes?” he asks.

  “No. I need to show you something.”

  We ride the elevator up in silence. Jack is holding Dad’s urn. I turn on the light in the entry hall, and Jack looks around like he’s never seen the place. I go inside, but he hesitates at the door.

  “Come in,” I say. “You don’t need an invitation.”

  Jack holds onto Dad and steps inside. I motion Jack toward the nursery door.

  “I need to show you this,” I say.

  “Nina.” Jack’s voice is suddenly breathy with fear and trepidation. “I’ve seen the room. I’ve seen it too much. I can’t go back to this.”

  I open the door and turn on the light. The room is empty. I stand in the middle of the space.

  Jack steps in. He sets Dad on the floor.

  “I created a shrine to something that wasn’t going to happen,” I say. “I polished it and decorated it. Meanwhile, everything else was getting covered in dust. Forgotten.”

  I take his hand and pull him from that room to Cassie’s room. I open her door and turn on the light. This room is alive with teenage girl—pictures on the mirror, clothes on the bed, posters on the wall, fingernail polish and hair accessories flung across the dresser.

  “I was looking for a miracle across the hall,” I say. “When there was one right here.” I move closer to Jack and put my hand over his heart. “And another one right here.”

  He puts his hand over mine, and I know there is hope for sure.

  “The woman from your office?” I ask, and he raises his eyebrows at my change of subject. “Did she want something more?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is she still there?”

  “No.” He takes hold of both of my hands. “She left. Her replacement is terrible. He’s not nearly as cute.”

  I give him a look, and he nods concession. “Ok, so we’re not making jokes yet. Maybe we never will. That’s ok. I have absolutely no desire to break up our family. I don’t want to live in a terribly sad apartment on the opposite side of town from you and Cassie. I also have no delusions that fixing this will be easy. I’m ok with that. I’m ok with a period of difficulty so long as it’s putting us back together again. I’m not ready to give up.” Jack looks directly into my eyes. “Are you?”

  I can’t speak around the lump in my throat, so I shake my head.

  “Good,” he says. “Now, I don’t want to keep running into you with that guy—even if he is a priest.” Jack winks at me, turning his command into a request.

  “Technically he’s not a priest yet,” I say. “But he will be.”

  “Is that the guy you kissed in the parking lot at the nursing home?”

  “And a few times after that, too,” I confess.

  Jack turns one of my hands loose and motions for me to stop. “I don’t want to know about that. I don’t care. Wait—how close to being a priest is this guy? Did you two, you know . . .”

  “No, we didn’t,” I say. “He was pretty saintly actually.”

  Jack nods. “Good,” he says. He steps across the hall and picks up Dad’s urn again. “A priest,” he says and chuckles. He thumbs his finger toward the front door. “I think we should get this show on the road.”

  26

  “Do you want us to wait in the car?” Jack asks when I pull up in front of Nicole’s apartment building. I love that he says “us.”

  “You’re neck deep already,” I say, shutting off the engine and unbuckling my seat belt. “No sense sitting it out now.”

  I ring Nicole’s bell and wait. Jack stands with Dad in the crook of his arm. We stare at the door.

  “I really appreciate this, by the way,” I say, not looking at him.

  “I’m not sure appreciation is the right sentiment for this.” Jack shifts Dad to the other arm. “It seems a little lackluster.”

  I look at him, thinking he’s serious, but he’s smiling instead.

  “I’ll try to do better later,” I say.

  “I missed you, you know,” Jack says. “That’s the whole story. Beginning, middle, and end.”

  I can’t keep a smile from dividing the clouds on my face. I hear noise behind the door, and then it opens. Nicole looks perplexed. Not surprised—perplexed. She doesn’t say hello.

  “Come to Thanksgiving dinner with us,” I say. “With me and Jack and Dad.”

  “What?” she asks, looking at Jack and then at the urn.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, something occurring to me. “I’m assuming you don’t already have plans.”

  “Actually,” Nicole says, still looking at the urn, “Ray invited me. But I’m not sure I’m over it yet. I know he was trying to make it better with that news stunt, but I’m just not sure.”

  “That was Ray?” Jack asks. “The guys at work were ta
lking about that video, but I didn’t see it. What’s he done now?”

  “He left me while I was pregnant and then he got sent to prison,” Nicole says. “Then he kidnapped our son.”

  Jack’s mouth opens and he looks at me. “Ray has a kid? How did I not know this?”

  “It wasn’t kidnapping. He brought him back,” I say, looking at Nicole. “You’re leaving out parts.”

  Nicole cocks her head at me, and I return the gesture.

  “Please, Nicole,” I say. “I just dug up my father’s ashes from the cemetery.”

  “Well, actually,” Jack chimes in, “I dug them up.”

  “I suppose you did do most of the work,” I say, looking at the cemetery dirt rubbed into his pant legs.

  While we stand there discussing the details of Dad’s extraction from the ground, Michael walks up beside Nicole and wraps his arms around her leg.

  “What’s that?” he asks, pointing to the urn.

  “It’s your granddad.” Jack kneels down so he and Dad are eye to eye to urn with Michael. “I’m your uncle.”

  Nicole puts her hand on top of Michael’s head and tries to push him behind her. He doesn’t budge.

  “This isn’t a good idea,” Nicole says. “I’m not even sure I’m willing to give Ray another shot, so the whole family holiday thing is more than I can do. I’m sorry.”

  “Please, Nicole,” I say.

  She sighs and closes the door on us.

  Jack stands up and shrugs at me.

  There is more noise behind the door and, after a moment, Nicole and Michael emerge with coats and hats. The five of us walk in silence to my car.

  “Are we going to Pizza Hut?” Michael asks once we’re on the road.

  “No, sweetie,” Nicole says. “We’re going to dinner with some crazy people.”

  “And your grandfather,” Jack says, looking into the backseat and holding up the urn.

  “Let’s take him to Pizza Hut,” Michael says.

  When I ring the bell at Mom’s, Lola answers the door.

  “You’re late,” Lola says. “Everyone is already sitting down to dinner. Why did you ring the bell?”