It took her more than a month to stop being afraid, and it was more than six weeks
before the visiting nurse stopped adding to the notations on her list.
By late November, when the leaves had begun to fall and drop their bits of color onto
her black, muddy, overgrown garden, she began to think—at last—that she could really
do this, and by her first Christmas with her daughter, she had begun to leave her
to-do list behind. The cycle of her days became routine. The nurse—Nora, a grandmother
to twelve kids who ranged in age from six months to twenty-four—came by four times
a week. Only last week she’d said, “Why, Dot, I couldn’t do better myself. Honest!”
As Christmas Day 2010 dawned crisp and clear over the town of Snohomish, she finally
felt at peace, or as at peace as a woman with a daughter in a coma could feel. She
woke earlier than usual and set about readying the house to feel like a holiday home.
There were no ornaments in the back storage closet, of course, and she had no problem
with that. Making do was one of her life skills, but when she was in that dark closet,
she stumbled across the two cardboard boxes full of Tully’s mementos.
She paused, straightening, and stared down at them. A gray layer of dust covered the
top.
When Johnny had delivered these boxes, along with Tully’s clothes and toiletries and
photos, Dorothy had thought they seemed sacrosanct, for Tully’s eyes alone, but now
she wondered if the contents could help Tully. She bent down and picked up the box
marked
Queen Anne
. It was light—of course. How much would a seventeen-year-old Tully have thought to
save?
Dorothy wiped away the dust and carried the box up to Tully’s bedroom.
Tully lay still, her eyes closed, her breathing even. Pale silvery light shone through
the window, pooling and writhing on the floor, the pattern shifting with the movement
of the trees outside. Ribbons of light and dark chased each other across the floor,
amplified by the glass beads in the dream catcher hung at the window.
“I brought up your things,” she said to Tully. “I thought maybe, for Christmas, I
could talk to you about what’s in here.” She set the box down by the bed.
Tully didn’t move. A fuzz of graying mahogany hair had begun to grow back in, giving
her a chicklike appearance. The bruises and lacerations had healed; only a few silvery
scars marked where they’d been. Dorothy put some bee cream on her daughter’s dry lips.
Then she pulled up the chair and sat down at the bedside. Leaning over, she opened
the box. The first thing she pulled out was a small Magilla Gorilla T-shirt; at its
touch, she felt slammed by a memory.
Mommy, can I have a brownie?
Sure. A little pot never hurt anyone. Clem, pass me the brownies.
And then:
Dot, your kid is flopping all over …
She stared down at the T-shirt. It was so small …
She realized how long she’d been silent. “Oh. Sorry. You probably think I left, but
I’m still here. Someday you’ll know it meant something, that I kept coming back. I
always knew where I belonged. I just couldn’t … do it.” She set the shirt aside, folded
it carefully.
The next thing she pulled out was a large, flat photo-type album, its plastic cover
dotted with blue forget-me-nots and a pioneer-type girl. Someone had written
Tully’s Scrapbook
across the top.
Dorothy’s hands were shaking as she opened the book to the first page, where there
was a small, scallop-edged photograph of a skinny girl blowing out a candle. On the
opposite page was a letter. She began reading it aloud.
Dear Mommy, today is my 11th birthday.
How are you? I am fine. I bet you’re on your way to see me because you miss me as
much as I miss you.
Love, your daughter, Tully
Dear Mommy,
Do you miss me? I miss you.
Love, your daughter, Tully
She turned the page and kept reading. More letters.
Dear Mommy,
Today at school we got to ride a pony. Do you like ponies? I do. Gran says maybe you’re
lergic, but I hope not. When you come to get me maybe we can get a pony.
Love, your daughter, Tully
“You sign them all
your daughter, Tully.
Did you wonder if I even knew who you were?”
In bed, Tully made a sound. Her eyes fluttered open. Dorothy rose quickly. “Tully?
Can you hear me?”
Tully made a sound, like a tired sigh, and closed her eyes again.
Dorothy stood there a long time, waiting for more. It wasn’t unusual, Tully opening
her eyes, but it always felt meaningful. “I’ll keep reading,” Dorothy said, sitting
down again, turning the page.
There were hundreds of letters, written at first in a wobbly child’s hand, and then,
as the years went on, in a more confident young woman’s handwriting. Dorothy read
them all.
I tried out for cheerleader today, to China Grove.
Do you know that song?
I know all of the presidents. Do you still want me to be president?
How come you never came back?
She longed to quit reading—each word of each letter was like a stab to the heart—but
she couldn’t stop. Here was her child’s life, all laid out in letters. She read through
her tears, each letter and postcard and piece from the school newspaper.
In about 1972, the letters stopped. They never turned angry or accusatory or blaming;
they just ended.
Dorothy turned the last page. There, taped to the back page, she found a small blue
envelope, sealed, that was addressed to
Dorothy Jean
.
She caught her breath. Only one person called her Dorothy Jean.
Slowly, she opened the envelope, saying in a nervous voice, “There’s a letter here
from my mom. Did you know it was here, Tully? Or did she put it here after you’d given
up on me?”
She pulled out a single sheet of stationery, as thin as parchment, and crinkled, as
if maybe it had been wadded up once and then re-smoothed.
Dear Dorothy Jean,
I always thought you’d come home. For years I prayed. I begged God to send you back
to me. I told Him that if He granted me just one more chance I would not be blind
again.
But neither God nor you listened to an old woman’s prayers. I can’t say as I blame
either one of you. Some wrongs can’t be forgiven, can they? The preachers are wrong
about that. I must have made a million samplers for God. A single word to you would
have served me better.
Sorry. It is so small. Just five letters and I was never strong enough to say it.
I never even tried to stop your father. I couldn’t. I was too afraid. We both know
how he liked his lit cigarettes, didn’t we?
I am dying now, fading despite my best intentions to wait for you. I was better for
Tully. I want you to know that. I was a better grandmother than I ever was a mother.
This is the sin I take with me.
I won’t dare to ask for your forgiveness, Dorothy Jean. But I am sorry. I want you
to know that.
If only we could try again.
If only.
Dorothy stared down at the words; they danced and blurred in front of her. She’d always
thought of herself as the only victim in that house. Maybe there had been two of them.
Three if you counted Tully, who had certainly been ruined by her grandfather’s evil,
not directly, perhaps, but ruined just the same. Three generations of women broken
by a single man.
She let out a deep breath and thought:
Okay
.
Just that, a simple, single word.
Okay
. This was her past.
Her past.
She looked at her daughter, who looked like a sleeping princess, made young by her
fuzzy new growth of hair. “No more secrets,” she said—whispered, really. She would
tell Tully everything, including the regret in her mother’s letter. That would be
her Christmas gift to her daughter. Dorothy would say the words at this bedside, begin
from where she left off at the hospital. Then she would write it down, her entire
story, so that Tully would have it all for her memoir, whatever she needed. There
would be no more secret shame, no more running from the things that were her fault
or the things that weren’t. Maybe then, someday, they could heal.
“Would you like that, Tully?” she asked quietly, praying hard for an answer.
Beside her, Tully breathed evenly, in and out.
Twenty-seven
That year, winter seemed to last forever. Gray days followed one another like dirty
sheets on a line. Swollen clouds darkened the sky, releasing intermittent rain until
the fields turned black and viscous and the cedar boughs drooped like wet sleeves.
When the first sunny days of spring came, green swept across the fields in the Snohomish
Valley, and the trees straightened again, straining toward the light, their tips lime-green
with new growth. The birds returned overnight, squawking and diving for the fat pink
worms that poked up from the damp earth.
By June, locals had forgotten all about the dismal winter and the disappointing spring.
In July, when the farmers’ markets started up again, there were already complaints
about how hot it had grown in the summer of 2011.
Like the flowers in her yard, Marah had spent the long gray months gathering strength,
or finding that which had been in her all along.
Now, though, it was late August. Time to look forward instead of back.
“Are you sure you want to do this alone?” her dad asked, coming up behind her. She
closed her eyes and leaned back against him. His arms curled around her, held her
steady.
“Yeah,” she said, and it was the one thing in all of this about which she was sure.
She had things to say to Tully, things she’d held back, waiting for a miracle; but
there was not going to be a miracle. It had been almost a year since the accident,
and Marah was preparing now to go off to college. Just last night, she’d helped her
dad with his street kids documentary—and the images of those poor lost kids with their
hollow cheeks and empty eyes and fake bravado had chilled her to the bone. She knew
how lucky she was to be here, at home. Safe. And that was what she’d said when her
dad filmed her.
I’m glad to be back.
But still, she had something left to do.
“I promised Mom something and I have to keep that promise,” she said.
He kissed the top of her head. “I’m really proud of you. Have I told you that lately?”
She smiled. “Every day since I got rid of the pink hair and the piercing in my eyebrow.”
“That’s not why.”
“I know.”
He took her hand and walked her out of the house and to the car parked in the driveway.
“Drive safely.”
It was a sentence that meant a lot more to her these days. Nodding, she climbed into
the driver’s seat and started the car.
It was a gorgeous late summer day. On the island, tourists thronged onto and off the
ferry, filling the sidewalks of downtown Winslow. On the other side of the water,
the traffic was typically bumper-to-bumper, and Marah followed the crowd north.
In Snohomish, she turned off the highway and drove out to Firefly Lane.
She sat in the driveway for a moment, staring at the gray Nordstrom bag beside her.
Finally, she picked it up and went to the front door.
The air smelled fresh and crisp, of apples and peaches ripening in the sunshine. From
here, she could see that Dorothy’s small vegetable garden was teeming with growth:
bright red tomatoes, green beans, rows of leafy broccoli.
The door opened before she knocked. Dorothy stood there, wearing a flowery tunic and
baggy cargo pants. “Marah! She’s been waiting for you,” she said, pulling Marah into
a tight hug. It was what Dorothy had said to Marah every Thursday for nearly twelve
months. “She opened her eyes twice this week. That’s a good sign, I think. Don’t you?”
“Sure,” Marah said in a tight voice. She
had
thought that a few months ago, back when it started to happen. The first time it
happened, in fact, it had taken her breath away. She’d called for Dorothy and waited,
leaning forward, saying,
Come on, Tully, come back …
She lifted the gray bag. “I brought her something to read.”
“Great! Great! I could use some time in the garden. The weeds are bullying me around
this month. You want some lemonade? It’s homemade.”
“Sure.” She followed Dorothy through the scrupulously clean rambler. Drying lavender
hung from the rafters overhead, scented the air. Bouquets of fragrant roses displayed
in cracked water pitchers and metal pans decorated the counters and tabletops.
Dorothy disappeared into the kitchen and came back with an icy glass of lemonade.
“Thanks.”
They stared at each other for a moment, and then Marah nodded and went down the long
hallway to Tully’s room. Sunlight poured through the window, making the blue walls
shimmer like seawater.
Tully lay in her hospital bed, angled up, her eyes closed, her brown hair dusted with
gray threads and curled riotously around her pale, thin face. A creamy coverlet was
tucked up to just below her collarbone. Her chest rose and fell in a steady, easy
rhythm. She looked so peaceful. As always, for a split second, Marah thought Tully
would just open her eyes and give her that wide, toothy smile and say,
Hey
.
Marah forced herself to move forward. The room smelled of the gardenia hand lotion
Dorothy loved. On the bedside table was a worn paperback copy of
Anna Karenina
that Desmond had been reading to Tully for months.
“Hey,” Marah said to her godmother. “I’m going off to college. I know you know that,
I’ve been talking about it for months. Loyola Marymount. In Los Angeles. Ironic, right?
I think a smaller school will be good for me.” She wrung her hands together. This
wasn’t what she’d come for. Not today.