by LJ Evans
Edie acted much like she’d always acted. Like she hadn’t lost a mother. Like she was just hanging on to Wynn and me like she had been over the last couple months anyway.
It made me think of the conversation Wynn and I had had about her dad. How she’d lost him at two and didn’t really remember anything about him that her mama hadn’t told her. It shredded my torn up soul another notch to think that Edie wouldn’t know Lita except through my memories of her. I didn’t know what I’d tell her. I didn’t want to taint those memories with the poison of her mom’s illness, but I also wouldn’t lie to her about Lita. About her death. I wasn’t sure how I was going to do that. Thank God I didn’t have to worry about it today.
All I knew was that Edie was now my responsibility. Forever. That was a heavy weight. I’d have to figure out all the paperwork. All the shit to make it happen for good. And that was just one more overwhelming thing in my new overwhelming life.
After knotting my tie in the mirror over the dresser, I glanced down at the letter that had sat there with my name on it that someone at the station had written. I’d opened it once, unfolding the paper, but upon seeing Lita’s sharp handwriting, I’d put it away without reading it. Lita had gone through a phase where she’d wanted to write like a vampire—whatever the fuck that meant—but it had become a permanent part of her handwriting after that. Sharp edges. Hard angles. A little like Lita herself.
I took the letter and sat on the bed, looking down at it. I still wasn’t sure I wanted to know what it said, but on the day that I was going to bury her, I felt like I owed her this one last thing. To read what she wrote at the end of her life.
My hands shook as I pulled it open.
Dear Lonnie,
Rochelle chose the wrong name for you. I mean, we both know she chose stupid, sucky names for both of us, but with you, she really got it wrong. If she was going to name you after that stupid story, she should have named you Hero and not Leander. Not because you’re some dumb girl who falls for some stupid boy, but because you are the exact meaning of that real word. Hero. You’ve been the Hero in my life. You’ve been my only solid ground. The only piece that never fell out from under my feet.
She named me wrong as well. I should have been Humbert, instead of Lolita, because his words fit better. “I have the feeling that something in my mind is poisoning everything else.” Nabokov was right. My brain has always been poisoned. “I talk in a daze, I walk in a maze; I cannot get out.” I’ve tried, Lonnie. I have tried to get out. To escape the poisoned mind. But I can’t.
I’m sorry to do this to you. But I don’t know another way. I know that, in making this choice for me, I’m leaving you without one, so I’m sorry. But I need you to be Edie’s Hero now. She deserves a Hero and not a Lolita or a Humbert. You offered for me to come to you both. And I seriously thought about it. It was a good offer. But the poison in my head would just have infected our lives there as much as it does here. You know that it’s true. Deep in that heart of yours that you try to hide, you know it’s true.
I know I’m screwing up your life one more time. So, thank you. Thank you for taking care of her and loving her like I know you will. Thank you for being the brother I always needed. I’m so glad that the two things I love most will always be together.
Lita
I crumpled it up after reading it. I took huge breaths to try to prevent the loud howl of sorrow from escaping me. But I was also pissed. Pissed at Rochelle for naming her Lolita and for letting her read that stupid-ass book when she was only twelve and already full of screwed up ideas and screwed up emotions.
I was pissed at Mark for never stopping any of it. For never standing up to Rochelle. For walking away. For letting us be raised by nannies, and housekeepers, and chauffeurs. I was pissed at myself for leaving her and Edie when I’d run after Derek. I was consumed with a guilt I wasn’t sure I’d ever not feel.
I was sad. I was heartbroken. I was wounded.
Wynn knocked on the doorframe and then saw me on the bed, letter crumpled in my hands, fighting for control. She eased into the room, sitting down next to me. She put her hands over mine. Over the ball of horrible words.
“Whatever it said…no matter what it said…you can’t judge yourself through her eyes. You don’t need to be the person she thought you were or the savior that she thought you were. You just have to be Lonnie. That’s all it takes to get through each day.”
“How do you know what she said?” I asked, looking down into her blue eyes that were shiny with her own unshed tears, wondering if she’d read it when I couldn’t. And yet, I also knew she wouldn’t have without asking first.
“I don’t know what words she chose to use in her letter,” she said quietly, “but I can guess. You were there to pull me back from the edge that I was close to going over. And I’m sure she felt like you saved her from that edge many times. It isn’t fair for any of us to make you be that person, though. To let our choices force a decision on you that you can’t walk away from. That no good man would.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that. I didn’t feel like a good man. I hadn’t succeeded in pulling Lita back from the edge. Instead, I almost felt like I’d pushed her.
Wynn took the ball of paper from my hand. She set it back on the dresser, and then she knelt in front of me, hands on my face. “With Lita gone, you’re going to want to be Edie’s hero now, too. But she doesn’t need that. She doesn’t need you to slay the dragons for her. What she needs is for you to give her the tools, the strength, to do it herself.”
I wanted to kiss her as soon as the words were out of her mouth. Like I’d wanted to kiss her from the time I met her. But now, it was so much more than physical attraction that was driving my desire. It was because she’d become everything I needed. Everything I’d always said I didn’t want. Whether she knew it or not, she’d become my hero. But I also wanted her to have a choice. I didn’t want to force it on her so that she didn’t have any other option but to stay and help me through my grief. To stay because of Edie.
So I just let myself hug her, pulling her berry-scented body to my chest, letting myself feel her strength leach into me. And then, we left to go bury my sister while I held her daughter in my arms and swore I would do my best to give Edie a life that she deserved. A better life than our parents had given us.
Funerals & New Starts
EVERYTHING
“You are the hope that keeps me trusting.
You calm the storms and give me rest.”
Performed by Lifehouse
Written by Jason Wade
Wynn was surprised by the amount of people that showed up at Lita’s funeral. Both at the cemetery and the reception at Mark and Rochelle’s house. Most of the people were in expensive suits and designer shoes, but there were a few that didn’t fit. Like a guy named Manny who looked like he might live on the street, or pretty close to it.
So, she kept Edie close, making sure that the little girl was taken care of while Lonnie dealt with the crowd and his parents. He squeezed Wynn’s hand each time he left to talk with someone else. Then, he’d come back, tangle his hand with hers, and kiss Edie on the cheek before being pulled away by another person who wanted to talk about Lita. He didn’t want them talking about her in front of Edie. He didn’t want her to hear something that she wasn’t ready to hear.
The whole day was killing him, she could tell, but she was pretty sure not many other people could. He had his Lonnie smile on, and he’d laugh when they’d tell a story about Lita, but the laugh hid his pain.
Rochelle smiled weakly as she greeted everyone behind sunglasses, her blonde hair immaculately pulled back into a bun that was as tight and as controlled as her black suit. The suit that had to have cost more money than Wynn had made in a month at the hospital.
She’d barely registered Wynn when they had been introduced earlier in the week, and at the funeral for her daughter, she didn’t look in Wynn’s direction at all. Didn’t
once check on Edie, her granddaughter, who’d just lost her mother.
Mark drifted by them a couple times. He patted Edie on the head in that awkward way he did. At one point, he looked like he wanted to hold her, but Edie wouldn’t have anything to do with him, especially amongst the throng of unknown people.
Seeing Lonnie alone for a moment, Wynn grabbed a water bottle and brought it to him.
“I’m surprised at how much your parents have done for Lita’s funeral,” she said.
He’d told her how they’d cut Lita off when she’d gotten pregnant with Edie, so seeing the lavish outpouring at her funeral was like an oxymoron.
“This?” Lonnie said with scorn, looking at the wave of people drinking champagne and eating appetizers. “This isn’t for Lita. This is so they can get sympathy from all their friends. So they can be told they did everything they could. So they can be the grieving parents who had no other choice but to show tough love by cutting her off and who have now lost a child. Do not let it fool you. Real loss of a child looks like Marina and Scott’s loss of Jake. This is a show.”
She put a hand on his arm. She couldn’t seem to prevent herself from touching him these days. She didn’t know how else to show him that she was full of sorrow for him. That she wanted to comfort him even though she knew it was pretty much impossible. That he had to go through this his own way.
“I’m gonna get some air. I’ll be right back,” he said, pushing through the crowds to the backyard and the pool that was as perfect as the rest of the house.
“Hungry, Edie?” She looked down at the little girl in her arms. Edie was overwhelmed not only by the people but by the somberness of the day. She was feeding off Lonnie’s sadness. She was clutching her bear and her cape like she hadn’t in a while, holding tight instead of letting go.
Edie nodded, and Wynn made her way to the buffet table. She balanced Edie and a plate, filling it with things that they could both nibble on before finding a seat in a corner. They sat by themselves for a long time. Not really saying much, but people watching instead. Edie was good at it, Wynn realized. She must have done a lot of it in her time with Lita.
A lady in a black sheath dress and red stilettos sat down on a chair near them, legs crossed like a beauty queen. Champagne in her hand and nothing else. She took in Edie and Wynn.
“Your daughter is so lovely. She looks so much like Leander.” Her statement stunned Wynn into silence. That this person thought Edie was hers. Hers and Lonnie’s. The lady continued. “We didn’t know that Leander had gotten married. Not that you need to be married these days.”
She was fishing for information. This lady that Wynn didn’t know. Wynn started to deny that Edie was hers but then realized that these people didn’t even know that Lita had had a baby. Mark and Rochelle hadn’t told any of their so-called friends that they were grandparents. It filled her with waves of conflicting emotions.
Anger filled her first. That Rochelle and Mark could deny this beautiful little girl. That they had so little care or involvement in the life of their daughter or granddaughter that they had hid Edie’s birth. Or worse, hadn’t even thought to acknowledge it. If they’d at least been embarrassed by the birth out of wedlock, it would mean they still had some emotions tied to their daughter, but not thinking to acknowledge it was a whole other level of screwed up.
Then, she was filled with a sense of overwhelming protectiveness. As if Edie and Lonnie truly were hers.
This lady didn’t deserve anything back. She didn’t deserve a juicy scoop. So, she just replied, “Thank you,” and then stood. “Excuse me, I need to go find Lonnie.”
None of them knew him. Just like they hadn’t known Lita. They didn’t have a clue what had really gone on in this life that Rochelle had tried to paint with perfection.
She knew at that moment that Lonnie would never again be anything to her but Lonnie. No Leo. No Leander. He was a man who had taken care of his twin sister when no one else had. And that sister had called him Lonnie, and she would too.
♫ ♫ ♫
They left the next day. Rochelle didn’t even bother to come down from her room to say goodbye, but Mark did.
He patted Edie on the head in the same way he had each time he’d seen her. He shook Wynn’s hand and attempted an uncomfortable hug with Lonnie.
“Will you let me know that you’ve made it home safe?” Mark asked.
The surprise registered on Lonnie’s face, but he nodded. Then, he climbed into the front seat of the Mercedes so that Tony could drive them back to LAX.
On the plane ride, Edie fell asleep by the window, head conked sideways in a way that made Wynn’s neck hurt just looking at it. Wynn was in the middle seat with a textbook that she hadn’t been able to focus on in forever. Lonnie was in the aisle seat. He had his earbuds in and was supposedly watching the movie that was on the screen embedded into the seat in front of him, but she could tell his mind wasn’t on it.
He was fidgety, hands swinging the earbud cords that seemed so out-of-date these days when everything was wireless. His knees were bouncing to an unknown rhythm. As if he felt her gaze, he turned toward her, taking an earbud out.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
It was. Everything was fine. But she’d had this thought sitting on her chest for a day now, and she had to get it out.
“This is going to sound awful.”
“Nah,” he responded.
“Yes, it will, but I can say it this once to you because I know you won’t judge me and because I think you need to hear it.” He waited, and she took a deep breath and said the thing that sounded so horrible she couldn’t believe she was going to say it aloud to another human being. But it had grown into a truth in her heart. “Sometimes, I think Jake was supposed to die.”
That stilled his knees. “What?”
She took another deep breath. “Well…I mean…if he hadn’t, Cam would never have gone to Nashville and helped all those kids. She’d never have had Mayson because she and Jake were never going to have kids. Mia would never have found Derek. She would never have gone on that tour with him. And me… I would never have found you.”
She hadn’t meant to go that far down the rabbit hole. All the way to them. And instead of taking a breath, she held it, unsure of how he would react. She saw him swallow hard, taking in what she’d just admitted to him: the fact that he was important in her life.
When he didn’t respond, she finally took a breath and filled the silence between them with more words. “I’m not saying that it isn’t awful that he died. Because it was. And no mother…” she paused, thinking of her own losses, “should have to lose a child. But maybe God really does have a plan that we can’t see. Like that Garth Brooks song.”
He sat considering her. Sadness in his eyes but also a stillness that wasn’t there before. “Then that would mean you were supposed to lose those babies, too.” Because he knew her. He knew that her mind had gone there.
She looked up into his dark eyes and nodded. “But don’t you think that’s true? I wasn’t supposed to have them with Grant. He didn’t really want me. Or the babies. He would have left anyway. Not only me but them. And well…now I don’t have two fatherless children.”
“So, what you’re trying to tell me is that, in this big master plan, Lita was supposed to die also?”
She made a barely perceptible nod once more.
“I’m not sure I can buy into that,” Lonnie said with grief and anger taking over his face. Grief for his sister. For what she could have been if she’d let herself become it. Anger at the world and even a little at Wynn for saying it was supposed to be this way.
Wynn entwined her fingers with his and squeezed, asking for forgiveness. He squeezed back, but they didn’t let go of each other like they normally would. Like they normally avoided prolonged contact of skin on skin.
Wynn rested her head on his shoulder. “Edie is better off with you than with your sister… I’m not
saying that our choices don’t impact the outcomes. I’m not saying there’s only one unseen plan for us. But I guess what I am saying is that sometimes…sometimes the thing that seems so awful is actually the best thing in our lives.”
Because she knew now that Grant leaving her had been the best thing that had happened to her. It seemed weird. She’d been so full of sadness and failure for almost a year after he’d left. She’d been embarrassed by what others would think of her and her divorce. But she hadn’t felt that she’d lost the most important thing in her life. That, in and of itself, spoke volumes.
It was more like she’d lost a dream she thought she’d wanted. And that did hurt. Like every time you wish for something and it doesn’t come true. But it had been the wrong dream. She just hadn’t known it at the time. She hadn’t known that the skin she was wearing was the wrong one. That it hadn’t fit her right.
She felt more comfortable sitting in the middle seat of this airplane with Lonnie on one side and Edie on the other than she ever had in her life with Grant. Like this fit. Like there was nowhere else she needed to be.
“I see what you’re saying. But I don’t think I can ever see Lita’s death as a good thing.”
Wynn understood that, too. Loss of life was never good.
He looked down at their twined hands, acknowledging it without pulling away. Then, he leaned his head on top of hers and turned back to the movie. He offered her the other earbud which she took. As she turned to the movie, she knew she’d never remember what it was that they watched, because all she could think about was the man that was sitting next to her and the life with him that fit.
♫ ♫ ♫
It was almost midnight by the time they got back to Lonnie’s apartment. Edie had gone from awake to asleep, to awake to back to sleep, on the journey. Her schedule so screwed up that it was going to take a miracle to get her back on track before they had to leave again for the next tour stop.