Austen Box Set

by Hart, Staci

  “It is now. We have nowhere else to go.” Her tears fell freely, her fingers squeezing mine, her sadness making her look young and vulnerable and small, propped up in that big bed, surrounded by pillows.

  “I know that too. And I know we’ll find a way through it all.”

  “One foot in front of the other, as your daddy would say.”

  My gaze dropped to our hands, catching on her simple gold wedding band. “I wish he were here,” I said barely above a whisper.

  “So do I.”

  Neither of us spoke for a moment, chasing our thoughts through the maze of our minds.

  When Daddy died, there hadn’t been enough money tied up in the house, not enough invested in Social Security, not enough shelled away in retirement. He was too young, and in his youth, he thought he had more time.

  We all had.

  Now, Mama needed full-time care, and Meg was still so young, years and years from being on her own. I had no job, no means to support myself, never mind Mama and Meg too, which was another reason I wanted so badly to find something, anything that could help ease that burden. We didn’t have the means to survive on our own. All we had left was each other.

  I only wished that were enough.

  A knock came from behind us, and we looked to the sound. Elle seemed both exasperated and relieved as she stepped in and closed the door.

  “Well, I’ve gotten us off the hook for dinner,” she said quietly as she sat on the other side of Mama’s bed. “I convinced Aunt Susan that you needed rest and that we could all use a minute to settle in before entertaining. Put that way, she agreed and rescheduled for next week.”

  I shook my head, frustrated and edging on agitated. My flair for drama and saying exactly what I felt won over my ability to be reasonable. “I know she means well, but we’ve been driving for days. How could she not understand we’d be exhausted?”

  Elle sighed. “Honestly, you should have seen her when I offered a little perspective. She was embarrassed and apologetic and…” She sighed again. “She felt like a fool.”

  The thought quieted my anger, replacing it with guilt. “This…this is so…” My throat squeezed closed.

  Elle reached for my hand. “I know. And Susan and John have saved us in a way. They’ve protected us from an uncertain fate, given us the chance to live well, for no other reason than kindness. Look around; look at what Susan has done just to make us feel at home and welcome.”

  A shuffling came from under the bed, and Meg’s head and shoulders emerged from under the bedskirt with a National Geographic book in front of her, split open to a spread about octopuses.

  “My room is one of the best things to ever happen to me,” she said matter-of-factly. “I like Aunt Susan. She gives good hugs and smells like flowers.”

  We all chuckled, and Elle stood, moving to Mama’s suitcase to flip it on its side and unzip it. “I know it’s hard, but it could be so much harder.”

  Mama nodded, but she still looked defeated and deflated.

  “How are you, Mama?” I asked gently.

  Her green eyes met mine. “I don’t know how to feel. Mostly, I think I’m numb. Like part of my brain is driving my body, giving the absolute minimum to consider participation, while the rest of me has retreated somewhere deep inside. Because when I reach in and think or feel, it’s too much. Too much—” The words were cut off by a sob that she swallowed, but her tears fell, unconfined.

  Those tears drew my own from the well that I realized would never run dry. “We’re gonna be okay,” I said, wanting to believe it.

  “I hope so,” she whispered, trying to smile.

  “We will,” Elle added from the other side of the bed. “We’ll survive. If Daddy were here, he wouldn’t let us give up. He’d tell us to find joy every day, to hang on to each other, to turn our faces to the sun and warm ourselves with hope. So that’s what we should do.”

  And we all knew she was right, though not a single one of our faces said we believed we could do it.

  We’d try anyway.

  Elle smiled, a comforting expression that coaxed a smile from my own lips, small as it might be. “I think a good night’s sleep in a real bed in a real room will do us all good. Annie will be spreading her sunshine again soon enough, and Meg will tell us the wonders of the deep ocean. And Mama will smile and laugh like she used to, and we’ll all love each other.”

  “Well, I have been reading about anglerfish,” Meg said from the floor after a pause. “Did you know they can eat fish twice their size?”

  I laughed. “You have something in common; you can eat a pizza twice your size.”

  “Dare me to try!”

  I winked. “Double dog dare.”

  Her face brightened as she scrambled to her feet. “Oh, man, now I’m asking Aunt Susan if we can have pizza for dinner.”

  “I’m sure she has something planned, baby,” Mama chided.

  But Meg shrugged, grinning. “I’ll tell her I’ll name a fish after her.” And with that, she bounded out of the room.

  I looked from Mama, whose smile finally touched her eyes—not deep down, but enough—to Elle, who watched us with a veil of love and pride that covered her own sadness.

  As for me, I found Elle’s words to be true, simply by her having spoken them. And my heart lifted, that sagging balloon rising, warmed by the sun and reaching for the forgotten clouds.

  Mittens

  Annie

  Elle was right; a good night’s sleep and a hot shower had done wonders for my disposition. The luxurious sheets and pillows helped this endeavor.

  Each night got easier, and each day brought with it a little more happiness. And over the course of the following week, I found a glimmer of hope that this could someday be home.

  This morning, I woke like a princess in a Disney movie, fresh as a daisy and smiling like the world was full of possibilities. Because it was.

  Mama had agreed to let me get a job.

  It was likely due to my incessant pestering, bolstered by Susan’s and Elle’s support. Susan had been insistent in my favor and oblivious to Mama’s distress. Elle, ever the voice of reason and sense, had noted that I needed a job, something to do, and really, there was no reason to refuse besides Mama’s worry over my health.

  I’d almost done jumping jacks to prove just how fine I was, but I hadn’t wanted to push my luck.

  Of course, fine was a relative term.

  From the time I had been born, I’d been sickly, subjecting my parents to the pain and stress of having a child with a heart defect. I was diagnosed with a rare defect called Ebstein’s anomaly, noted by a deformed valve—pulmonary stenosis, which obstructed blood as it attempted to leave my heart—and an atrial septal defect—the fancy name for the hole between the chambers of my heart. I had an arrhythmia, too—you know, because all that other mess wasn’t quite enough for the universe to bestow upon me.

  The result was a busted up jalopy of a heart, sputtering exhaust as it clanked and clacked around in my rib cage.

  My first open-heart surgery was at three weeks old when they put in a temporary shunt. I tried to remember that fact when Mama was overprotective. I would imagine her lying in a hospital bed, her brand-new baby whisked away and put in an incubator so that she could breathe. I would picture Mama in the NICU, staring into that plastic box at her newborn whose skin was a terrifying shade of blue, her tiny body full of tubes and wires, her chest stapled up after being cracked open like a melon.

  That usually worked to temper me.

  My second open-heart surgery was at six months old, this time for a permanent shunt. At two, the shunt was no longer enough to keep my blood pressure and flow regulated. And so my third open-heart surgery was scheduled for the final phase in rigging my heart up in an effort to get me to my teenage years when the muscle would be fully grown, and then I could have surgery to fix it once and for all.

  All of that, my mother had endured. She endured the fear and anxiety of having a child so sick.
She endured my strict diet and inability to walk or run or play like a normal child. And all of that endurance had made her overprotective. As frustrating as it was and as angry as it sometimes made me, I couldn’t blame her.

  It had been traumatic for her, and I forced myself to remember that. It was easy to forget. I didn’t know any different. She knew too much.

  Nevertheless, it seemed we had worn her down by showing her the merits of my liberation—under the solemn promise that I’d be careful and mindful and safe.

  So when I woke, it was with a smile on my face and arms stretched over my head. The winter morning sunshine filtered in through the curtains, and I greeted the day with hope and optimism and giddy, good cheer.

  A job!

  I found myself grinning as I reached for my little notebook on the nightstand. It was a hardback the color of a marigold with fine golden strands woven into the canvas and a shimmering satin ribbon resting between the pages where my list began.

  My angled, looping handwriting smiled back at me.

  LIVING OUT LOUD—or Things Annie Daschle Has Never Done and Is Ready to Do Already

  1) Get a job. A real job with a paycheck and coworkers and maybe even benefits.

  2) See falling snow.

  3) Make a snowman.

  4) Have a picnic in Central Park.

  5) Get a tattoo.

  6) Meet a boy,

  7) Who will take me on a real date,

  8) And kiss me.

  9) *And maybe be my boyfriend.

  I stopped scanning there. There were pages and pages of things listed—everything from, Get drunk, to, Play piano onstage. Some of them were specific to New York, and some of them were just specific—like, Use very own money to purchase something completely unnecessary simply because it makes me happy.

  But that item on the top, that very first one—that one, I might cross off in a matter of hours.

  It was enough to make me giggle there in the silence of the room, snapping the notebook closed and pressing it to my chest just over where my heart tha-dumped in a syncopated rhythm that felt like a cha-cha bongo.

  Because for a moment, my pain was behind me in the coolness of my shadow and the whole world was spread out in front of me like a feast of possibility.

  And I would take a taste of everything I could.

  Greg

  I never saw Annie Daschle coming.

  I meant that in the most literal sense. Her small body slammed into my much larger one with enough force to send her reeling backward. The crates in my hand clattered to the ground, abandoned in favor of reaching for her.

  I caught her by the wrist and pulled, righting her a little too suddenly. She tottered back into me—though softer this time. She landed in the circle of my arms, looking up at me with eyes the color of a green glass bottle, lit up from the inside with sunshine.

  It was maybe only a heartbeat, a breath, but it felt like that second stretched out in a long thread between us.

  She laughed, her cheeks high as she leaned away. The chilly air cut between us the second she stepped back, leaving me colder than the moment before.

  “God, I’m sorry,” she said in a lilting Southern accent. “Are you all right?”

  I smiled. “I could ask you the same thing.”

  She brushed her wild blonde hair back from her face with a mittened hand the color of pink lemonade. Not a glove. Mittens, like a kid would wear. On anyone else, I would have considered it ridiculous. On her, it was adorable.

  “I’m just fine, thanks to you. If you hadn’t caught me, I’d have gone tail over teacups.” She laughed again; the sound set a smile on my face. “Do you work here?”

  We had collided just inside the doors to Wasted Words, the bookstore-slash-bar where I’d worked for the last year and a half.

  “Almost every day. Anything I can help you with?”

  Her smile widened. “Why, yes, there is. I’ve come to see if you’re hiring.”

  The answer: no.

  So like any good, honest employee, I said, “As a matter of fact, we are.”

  She lit up like the Fourth of July and began pulling off her mittens, which complemented her bright yellow peacoat and made her look a little bit like an adorable popsicle. “Oh, that’s great. What are you looking for?”

  “What kind of work are you interested in?” I asked, gesturing to a booth next to the bar.

  Her face fell just a touch as she slid into the bench seat. “Well, I used to volunteer at the library back home, so I have plenty of experience with cataloging books and that sort of thing. And I’m pretty sure I could get the hang of a cash register, if you need a checkout girl. Really, I could learn just about anything,” she added hopefully.

  I’d unknowingly boxed her in, my hand resting on the back of the booth and my body blocking any exit she might have, as if I could pen her in and make her stay. At the realization, I stepped back.

  “Let me go grab you an application.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “Oh, what’s the manager’s name?”

  I smirked and offered my hand. “Greg Brandon. Nice to meet you.”

  Her big eyes widened in surprise as she took my hand. “Annie Daschle. Nice to meet you, too.”

  Her hand was warm in mine, her fingers long for such a small girl, just a wisp. I wondered absently how old she was before letting her go.

  “Be right back. Can I get you anything to drink?”

  She unwound her pink scarf. “Water would be fine, if it’s no trouble.”

  “None at all. Coming right up.”

  I turned and walked away, grinning like a fool as I made my way behind the bar, first pouring her a glass of water, then fishing around under the bar register for the folder of applications.

  Technically, I was a manager, just not a hiring manager. I ran the bar, not the store itself. That was Cam’s job—on top of running me. But I had a feeling I’d be able to secure her a spot doing pretty much whatever she wanted. I found myself already rearranging the schedule and concocting a plan to convince Cam.

  I stopped for a moment to consider what had gotten into me. I’d never taken an interest in new hires before, but for some unknown reason, I felt compelled to help her.

  I wasn’t quite sure what it was that had struck me. She was just a girl, probably younger than I figured, maybe even as young as twenty. But there was something about her, something small and vulnerable, like finding a stray puppy or a floppy-eared, big-eyed bunny that needed a home. Something that made me feel the urge to protect her, to button up her coat and make sure she didn’t lose a mitten or her hat. At the same time, she seemed perfectly self-sufficient with a sunny, optimistic look to her that spoke of a girl who would walk home in the rain or dip her hands into a bag of grain to feel every seed.

  Living in New York my whole life, the concept was as foreign as it was fascinating.

  I brushed my thoughts aside and took her the application and water, setting it on a coaster. She caught a glimpse of it as I set the glass on top, immediately moving it to read the coaster aloud.

  “No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call— / All mine was thine before thou hadst this more.” She beamed. “Shakespeare, Sonnet 40.” She recited the rest from memory, “Then if for my love thou my love receivest, / I cannot blame thee for thou love usest; / But yet be blamed if thou this self deceivest / By wilful taste of what thyself refusest. I love the sonnets.”

  “I can see that.” I chuckled. “They barely read like English, but hearing it…I think I actually understood it that time.”

  She blushed, just the slightest tinge of dusky rose in her cheeks. “It’s always better spoken. All mine was thine before thou hadst this more,” she said with depth and passion. “She loved him before he took her love, and she’s begging him not to hurt her for the sacrifice. It’s about the power one holds over another who gives their love. It’s beautiful. Are all the coasters the same?”

  “Cam, one of my bosses, loves finding quotes fo
r these things.” I grabbed a stack off the back of an adjacent booth and tossed them on the table.

  Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. —Jane Austen

  Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine. —Lord Byron

  And your very flesh shall be a great poem. —Walt Whitman

  Annie looked them over with her big eyes and wide, smiling lips. “Would it be pathetic to beg for a job?”

  “You wouldn’t be the first. Let’s start with you filling that out for me.” I nodded to the application.

  She straightened up seriously, a little embarrassed. “Yes, of course.”

  “Just come get me when you’re through, and we’ll chat.”

  She nodded, but I caught a glimpse of her nerves; she was an open book, her pages fluttering from one emotion to the next with an easy whisper.

  I walked over to the empty crates, still sprawled across the entry, and picked them up. I carried them out to the sidewalk where my beer delivery guy was waiting, nose in his clipboard. We exchanged a few words, but I wasn’t really paying attention; my mind was turned back to the girl sitting in the booth with pink mittens in her lap.

  Her head was down, attention on her application. The tip of her tongue poked comically out of the corner of her lips. And I kept on walking until I was behind the bar, busying myself with anything I could think of, which wasn’t much. We hadn’t been open for long enough that morning to actually have anything to do.

  I was in the middle of pretending to do inventory when she set her pen down. I was so aware of her, I sensed the motion rather than saw it.

  I smiled and made my way back over, sliding into the bench across from her.

  She beamed and pushed the paper in my direction. “Here you go. All done.”

  I glanced down the sheet, taking in the details. Her name and address—

  Surprise jolted through me that she lived on Fifth and 94th, the Upper East—the Upper Crust. That surprise turned to downright shock when I noted her birthday.

  She was eighteen.

  Fresh out of high school.