by Pamela Crane
“Why Ploppy?” Debra asked.
“Because she just plopped a big poop on Dad’s foot!”
“What?” Oliver looked down in dismay. “Ohmygod! My brand-new Air Maxes!” He sat Eliot down on the porch steps, then hopped on one foot into the grass to clean the soiled shoe.
“Daddy got a doody shoe, Daddy got a doody shoe!” Eliot chanted.
Debra and I shook with suppressed laughter. As much as we loved him, we shared the unspoken opinion that Oliver was the kind of guy who needed to have his shoe shat on every now and then.
“Cute and clever, aren’t you?” Debra chuckled to the dog in baby talk, leaning down making kissing noises.
Oliver returned to the porch steps, dangling the befouled Nike by the laces. “Mom, what are you doing here?” he sighed.
“I came to see if Felicity wanted to go out for some girl time with me. Just us two. I was going to run down to the antique mall in town. Then maybe we could grab dinner out.” Debra turned to me. “You up for it? Dinner on me?”
I shrugged, not really interested in shopping, but even less interested in sharing space with my husband right now.
“Sure. Let me take the dog to the backyard and get her situated, and I’ll be right out.”
“We’re not keeping the dog!” Oliver hollered as I led the dog away.
“It’s too late—Eliot already named him,” I hollered back.
I walked around the side yard that led to a fenced-in area where the trampoline and playset took over one corner, and a stone outdoor patio jutted out from the back of the house. Opening the latch, I released Ploppy—name still undecided as far as I was concerned—into the yard and watched her run around, legs bounding, tail wagging, tongue lolling. I’d introduce her to the other dogs later this evening after she got acclimated—and after Oliver, as he always did, warmed to the idea of another fuzzy muzzle to feed.
After a wardrobe change out of my hair-covered scrubs and into a festive burnt orange sweater and high-waisted mom jeans—which I had once vowed never to wear and yet now lived in, thanks to Vera’s fashion advice—I slid into Debra’s car, debating whether to tell her about the strange phone call. When she started asking about Eliot and Oliver, I decided to keep it between myself and Detective Montgomery. The family clearly wanted me to move on, stop wallowing in anticipatory grief, forget my trauma. So I’d give them what they wanted and pretend everything was fine. I’m fine. You’re fine. Everything’s fine.
“Don’t worry too much about Eliot,” Debra was saying as we pulled into the parking lot, “kids are resilient. He’ll probably forget all about this by bedtime.”
“I hope so.” A question I hadn’t intended to ask aloud floated up and out. “Do you think Vera left because she overheard us talking about Sydney’s kidney match and didn’t want to donate to her?”
Debra parked and shut off the car before she answered. “I don’t know, honey. Do you really think that’s the kind of person she was—a girl who wouldn’t be there for her own sister when she was most needed?”
Many nights I had lain awake pondering this same question. As the days passed, weeks slipped by, months eroded, I felt like I was stuck in a fever dream, reminiscing about a girl who never existed. A happy girl. The more memories I collected, the more a portrait emerged of a girl who resented quickly, begrudged fiercely, and whose anger was too big for her body. Had Debra asked me six months ago if Vera would do anything for family, I would have wholeheartedly said yes. But now…after finding out more and more of who Vera truly was outside of our four walls, I realized I didn’t know anything about her.
“Was it too much to ask of her, to donate an organ to help her dying sister? Because if there was any other way, Mom, I would do it in a heartbeat. I would give up my own life to save Syd’s…but I suppose it’s unfair to expect Vera to do the same.”
“There’s no right or wrong here, Felicity. Whether or not that’s why Vera left, you did nothing wrong. You weren’t going to force her into anything, and she should have known that, not taken off.”
Except Debra wasn’t there the night I broached the subject with Oliver. Debra didn’t hear our heated conversation, didn’t know what I had said to Oliver in a weak, emotional moment. I had replayed the argument a million times since the night Vera left, memorized every word, wondering if there was any possible way Vera could have heard and how she might have interpreted it. Every time I came back to the same conclusion: it was enough to drive my daughter away.
My words echoed back at me: “The fact that Vera is a match is nearly impossible, Oliver, given her history. Clearly it’s a sign that she has to do it! Right now Syd’s life is more important, and if Vera can’t understand that, then maybe she’s not the daughter we thought she was.”
If only I could rewind to that night, to that conversation and delete it…but life didn’t have a rewind button.
We stepped into the cool October air and strolled along a covered walkway festooned with crisscrossing strings of LED ghosts flashing orange, green, and purple. Grinning jack-o’-lanterns, spooky in the gathering darkness, squatted atop artistic arrangements of hay bales, corn stalks, and friendly scarecrows. Paper bag luminaries adorned with witch and bat silhouettes lined the walkway. A ginormous inflatable archway in the form of a jolly Jack Skellington, natty in signature pinstripes, welcomed visitors at the mall entrance. It was about an hour before closing and only a few cars dotted the nearly empty parking lot.
I was walking a little ahead of Debra, admiring the Halloween extravaganza, when I heard her scream. I whipped around to see my genteel mother-in-law engaged in a fierce tug-of-war over her purse with a mugger wearing a cheap but creepy Pennywise mask (at least he had the holiday spirit) under his hoodie. Rather than let go like a sane person, Debra lunged at him, pulled the mask out by the elastic strap, and snapped it with a zing. The thug cursed and released the purse strap, but Debra was just getting started. In one fell swoop she poked him in the eye and kneed him in the crotch. He doubled over, hands on knees, moaning and rocking painfully on his heels. Before he could recover, she wound her arm up like a major league pitcher and whack!—the purse caught him square in the jaw. I knew that purse weighed a good ten pounds because Debra, like every good grandma, kept it overstocked with useful sundries and could produce from it, like a magician’s hat, practically anything you needed on demand. She kept swinging her lethal weapon with the terrifying skill of a ninja flourishing a katana, until the hapless thug, walloped at least six times across the head, face, and back, skittered away on all fours like a scalded dog.
“Why don’t you get a job!” Debra yelled after him. “Instead of picking on defenseless old ladies!”
Out of breath, she smoothed her hair and casually slung the purse strap over her shoulder as if she hadn’t just kicked the ass of an attacker twice her size.
“Defenseless?” I said, after I’d picked my jaw up off the ground. “Mom, if you’re defenseless, I guess Chuck Norris is defenseless too. I never knew you were so scrappy!”
“What do you mean? The jerk tried to mug me. And I didn’t let him get away with it. Simple as that.”
“No, Mom, you beat that thug up. How weren’t you afraid?”
“It’s not complicated. I took a class and learned how to defend myself.”
“But…how?” I was incredulous. Who was this fearless woman before me?
“If you knew how I grew up, Felicity, you’d understand that self-defense is one of the most important gifts you can give yourself. I’ll never be a victim again. And I’m not afraid to stand up for others.”
I only knew bits and pieces of Debra’s past, but I hadn’t given it more than a passing thought until now. We never made it inside the mall, as I was too freaked out to head anywhere but home after that. But I saw something in Debra that I wanted. Strength to fight back. Courage to face my failures. And it started with the truth, no matter what it cost me, even if that meant jail.
“Do you think that’s what Marin was doing for Vera when she kept her secrets for her, like the tattoo and the boyfriend? Was this Marin’s way of standing up for Vera?”
Debra shook her head. “Standing up for her against what?”
“Against me. I know I sometimes…expected too much from Vera.”
She scoffed. “No, dear, I don’t think Marin was trying to protect Vera. But I do think Marin is the reason Vera’s missing.”
Chapter 21
Marin
I had been warned beforehand that Felicity was still upset with me. But I insisted on showing up to family dinner with an apology, because I didn’t want to hide and my sister needed my support. Dad had raised me to confront problems, fix them, not to run from them because the chase only makes them grow. My mother had never learned this lesson as she buried her addiction, and in the end it buried her. I refused to follow in her footsteps. Besides, the more I hid, the more they’d dig. And I couldn’t risk anyone digging.
Debra and Joe hadn’t been able to make it tonight, which gave me the freedom to loosen up a bit. By the time dinner was served I was on my third glass of wine, which was two glasses beyond my limit. At least I wasn’t the only one. Felicity was already plastered when I arrived, and I wasn’t sure if I was more annoyed or relieved. She tended to either get argumentative or overly affectionate when she drank, and I waited to see which version of her would emerge.
We sat around the dinner table, Oliver at the head, me catty-corner on one side with Felicity across from me, all avoiding the topic of Vera, instead picking random topics. The new COVID variant going around, Eliot’s science project (he was debating whether to feature bugs or wind—breaking wind, he added with a laugh, as they were studying weather right now), the Earth Day carnival coming up…and then Argumentative Felicity arrived.
“I’m taking a poll. Who thinks it’s okay for Cool Aunt Marin to give a teenager pot?” Felicity looked around the table, eyes wobbly, words a slurry of vowels and consonants. “Or am I just an unhip, cringey mom who doesn’t get it?”
Oliver, the only sober adult among us, bowed his head and rested his forehead on his palm. He thought he was embarrassed?
“Felicity, I wasn’t trying—”
“Shush!” Felicity aimed her finger toward my face, missing my mouth altogether and instead landing on my cheek. “I’m speaking, Cool Aunt Marin.”
“Mommy, you’re as cool as Aunty Marin to me and Idiot,” Sydney chimed in.
“Aw, thank you, babycakes. But apparently your daddy doesn’t think so,” Felicity slurred.
“I think you’ve had enough party time,” Oliver interjected. He stood up, slid his hand under Felicity’s elbow, and tried to lift her. But she resisted with a slap on his arm.
“No! Let me friggin’ speak, Ollie! I wanna know how to be cool like Marin. I always gotta be the one who rains on the parade. I’m tired of it! I want Vera to like me again, like she did when she was a little girl. She idolized me, you know? Now she hates me so much she ran away from me. So”—she turned her glassy gaze on me—“Marin, tell me, how do I win my girl back?”
“I don’t know what to say, Felicity.” It was the first time I questioned my father’s advice. This was one problem I didn’t want to confront: Argumentative Felicity.
“You could try dessert,” Eliot suggested. “That would win me back!”
“Me too!” Sydney chimed in.
“Good idea, Syd Squid. Do you mind if I give them a slice of that cake I brought? I added extra chocolate,” I asked Oliver with a wink toward the kids. The less interaction I had with Felicity, the better.
“First you two need to go upstairs and get in your pajamas, then we’ll have cake,” Oliver agreed.
In a stampede of bare feet on hardwood, Oliver and the kids scampered up the stairs whooping while Felicity disappeared into the kitchen carrying her plate, Cody following her.
“What can I do to help?” Something about Cody’s offer was strained. Pleading.
“Nothing. I’ve got it,” Felicity spat back.
But Cody followed anyway, and as I stacked dishes and silverware, I watched the two disappear into the guts of the house. I had read something in his expression over dinner, an unease. Guilt. With everything piled into a tall stack of plates, I carried it down the hallway toward the kitchen. Intense voices echoed in stern whispers. I crept up to the swinging door that separated the kitchen from the hall, overhearing first Cody, then Felicity exchanging harsh words. An argument, but over what, I couldn’t make out. Part of me wanted to interrupt them, see what excuse they’d come up with to explain the heat between them, but another part of me wanted to remain a silent, undetected observer.
I stood by the door and eavesdropped, hearing bits and pieces of the fight. Words like “lied” and “hurt” were tossed back and forth between them, and all I could wonder was who lied, about what, and who hurt who. I suspected that Oliver and I stood to hurt the most, though.
When I overheard Felicity sternly order Cody to “please just leave me alone, I’m dealing with enough already,” followed by his approaching footsteps, I scurried down the hallway, searching for a place to hide. I don’t know why I felt the need to hide; they were the ones who were clearly hiding something. But tucked safely in the corner where the hallway emptied into what had originally been a smoking room, I waited until Cody passed by before I slipped out and headed back toward the kitchen.
On the way I bumped into Felicity, almost causing her to drop the wine bottle she carried by the neck, and the plates swayed with me.
“Oh my gosh, sorry!” I yelped, jumping back.
In her other hand she held two wineglasses, her palm cupping the bottom of the glasses as the stems poked between her fingers.
“It’s okay,” she muttered.
“Do you want me to grab the other glasses?” I offered, trying to make peace, though I wasn’t sure what we were warring over.
“No thanks. I’ll get them.” Raising her chin, she shifted to step around me, but I stepped in front of her.
“Are you still upset with me about giving Vera that baggie of pot?” I asked. “Because honestly, Felicity, I never meant to do anything behind your back. I was just trying to prevent Vera from going to someone else for it.”
“Would you still be upset if I did that to your child?” Good ol’ Felicity, so political, answering a question with a question.
“I’m not a mother, so I can’t answer that. But I want to fix things between us, and I don’t know how.”
“Really? You’re going to claim you don’t know how to fix things? How about you bring my missing daughter home?” The accusation behind it bit me. She blamed me. Hell, I blamed me too, but for very different reasons.
“You know if I could I would.”
Felicity pointed at me, her finger hovering an inch from my nose, the wine bottle bumping my chin. “You, Marin, are lucky you don’t have to suffer the weight of motherhood. It’s an awful beautiful burden. And it hurts so damn much.”
Her arm tilted; her whole body tilted under the influence of the five glasses of wine and two fingers of whiskey. And that was only what I had witnessed her drinking.
“I’m lucky, huh?” Shoved in my face, dangling from her wrist, her gorgeous bracelet sparkled under the light. “If I was lucky, I’d have children who loved me like yours do, a home that wasn’t falling apart, and I’d be wearing a bracelet like that. You’re so spoiled on love and wealth and attention that you don’t see what you have. But the rest of us commoners do, Felicity.”
Felicity looked at the jewelry as if seeing it for the first time.
“You want jewelry? A fancy house? Here.” She fumbled to unclasp the bracelet, dropping the bottle of wine in the process. A tongue of red licked the floor while glass shards sparkled like stars in a crimson sky. Felicity ga
zed at the mess she had made, then contorted as she began to cry.
“This bracelet means nothing without Vera,” she muttered between sobs. “And I don’t care about all of this stuff. I’d give everything up to get her back, even though I know I never deserved her.”
I felt my cheeks flush with embarrassment at this intimate glimpse inside her heart.
“Don’t say that—you’ve been a great mom. And she loves you more than anything, Felicity.”
She sniffled, snatched a breath. “I hope so. I know you love her too. I’m trying so hard not to be angry at you, but it’s…complicated. I wake up wanting to feel okay, but then all the worry heaves itself on me, and suddenly I can’t breathe, can’t think, just wait for news about whether Vera is alive or dead…and just keep waiting and waiting for answers that may never come. I’ve watched one child disappear and another slowly fade away…and I need someone to blame. Someone other than myself.”
“Hey, it’s not your fault,” I said. My eyes watered with shared pain. I loved Vera like my own sister. “We all want to support you. I’m sorry I made this about me. I don’t want to get swallowed up in drama that doesn’t matter. All that matters is bringing Vera home, right?”
I thought this would be the end of the grudge over the baggie of pot. I was wrong.
I offered to clean up the broken glass and wine snaking its way into the cracks between the floorboards. By the time I finished, Oliver had set the kids up at the kitchen counter with their dessert and announced to Cody and Felicity, who had moved to the living room, that he was going to get some fresh air. I decided I needed some too.
“We’re all out of Collins mix, so I’m gonna make a run to the store,” I said with a grin, hoping to lighten the mood.
Only Oliver laughed, recognizing the line from Meet the Parents. Oliver understood me in ways no one else did. Cody and Felicity threw me questioning looks, shrinking my laugh down to silence.
“There’s Cool Aunt Marin again, not a care in the world.” Argumentative Felicity was back.