And yet, a memory teased her, came close, and then darted away. A slippery combination
of words and light. The smell of lavender and Love’s Baby Soft …
Billy, don’t be a hero …
Katie saying,
Listen. It’s your mother.
Johnny pulled up in front of the house on Firefly Lane and stopped, turning toward
Tully. After a long pause, he said, “I don’t know how to tell you how sorry I am.”
The tenderness she felt for this man was so sharp it was almost pain. How could she
make him understand what she’d learned in that darkness—and in the light? “I saw her,”
she said quietly.
He frowned. “Her?”
She saw when he understood.
“Katie.”
“Oh.”
“Call me crazy or brain-damaged or drugged. Whatever. I saw her and she held my hand
and she told me to tell you, ‘You did fine and there’s nothing for the kids to forgive
you for.’”
He frowned.
“She thought you’d been kicking your ass about not being strong enough for her. You
wish you’d let her tell you she was afraid. She said, ‘Tell him he was all I ever
needed and he said everything I needed to hear.’”
Tully reached over and held his hand, and there it was, between them again, all the
years they’d spent together, all the times they’d laughed and cried and hoped and
dreamed. “I’ll forgive you for breaking my heart if you forgive me, too. For all of
it.”
He nodded slowly, his eyes glazed with tears. “I missed you, Tul.”
“Yeah, Johnny boy. I missed you, too.”
* * *
Marah threw herself into the decorations for Tully’s homecoming, but even as she talked
to her grandparents and teased with her brothers, she felt as if she were walking
on eggshells. Her stomach was tight with anxiety. She wanted Tully’s forgiveness desperately,
but she didn’t deserve it. The only other person who looked uncomfortable with the
upcoming celebration was Dorothy. Tully’s mother had seemed to lose mass in the past
few days, to grow smaller somehow. Marah knew that the older woman had begun to pack
her few things into a bag. While everyone had busied themselves with decorating, Dorothy
had said something about needing supplies at the nursery. She’d been gone for hours
and hadn’t yet returned.
At Tully’s homecoming, everyone cheered and clapped and welcomed her back to the house.
Grandma and Grandpa hugged her carefully and the boys shrieked at her return.
“I
knew
you’d be okay,” Lucas said to Tully. “I prayed every night.”
“
I
prayed every night, too,” Wills said, not to be outdone.
Tully looked exhausted, sitting there, her head cocked in a strange way; the clunky
silver helmet made her look almost childlike. “I know … two boys … who have a birthday
coming up. I missed a year. Buy
two
presents now.” Tully had to work really hard to say all that, and when she was done,
her cheeks were bright and she was out of breath.
“Probably matching Porsches,” Dad said.
Grandma laughed and scooted the boys into the kitchen to get the cake.
Marah made it through the party on false smiles and mumbled comments. Fortunately
for her, Tully tired easily and said her good nights at about eight o’clock.
“Roll me to bed?” Tully said, taking hold of Marah’s hand, squeezing.
“Sure.” Marah grabbed the chair’s handles and wheeled her godmother down the long,
narrow hallway toward the back bedroom. There, she maneuvered Tully through the open
doorway and into the room, where there was a hospital bed, and flowers everywhere,
and pictures cluttered on the tables. An IV stand stood beside the bed.
“This is where I’ve been,” Tully said. “For a year…”
“Yes.”
“Gardenias,” Tully said. “I remember…”
Marah helped her into the bathroom, where Tully brushed her teeth and slipped into
the white lawn nightgown hanging from a hook on the back of the door. Then she got
back into the wheelchair and Marah maneuvered her to the bed. There, she helped Tully
to her feet.
Tully faced her. In one look, Marah saw all of it:
my job is to love you
… the fight …
you’re my best friend …
and the lies.
“I missed you,” Tully said.
Marah burst into tears. Suddenly she was crying for all of it—for the loss of her
mom, and for finding her in the journal, for the way she’d betrayed Tully and all
the wounds she’d inflicted on people who loved her. “I’m so sorry, Tully.”
Tully brought her hands up slowly, cupped Marah’s cheeks in her dry, papery palms.
“Your voice brought me back.”
“The
Star
article—”
“Old news. Here, help me into bed. I’m exhausted.”
Marah wiped her eyes and pulled back the covers and helped Tully into bed. Then she
climbed up into bed beside her, just like in the old days.
Tully was quiet for a long moment before she said, “It’s true, all that going-into-the-light/your-life-flashing-before-your-eyes
stuff. When I was in the coma, I … left my body. I could see your dad in the hospital
room with me. It was like I was hovering in the corner, looking down on what happened
to this woman who looked just like me but wasn’t me. And I couldn’t take it, so I
turned, and there was this … light, and I followed it, and the next thing I knew I
was on my bike, on Summer Hill, riding in the dark. With your mom beside me.”
Marah drew in a sharp breath, clamped a hand over her mouth.
“She’s with us, Marah. She will
always
be watching over you and loving you.”
“I want to believe that.”
“It’s a choice.” Tully smiled. “She’s glad you ditched the pink hair, by the way.
I was supposed to tell you that. Oh, and there was one more thing…” She frowned, as
if trying to remember. “Oh. Yeah. She said, ‘All things come to an end, even this
story.’ Does that make sense?”
“It’s from
The Hobbit,
” Marah said.
Maybe someday you’ll feel alone with your sadness, not ready to share it with me or
Daddy, and you’ll remember this book in your nightstand
.
“The kids’ book? That’s weird.”
Marah smiled. She didn’t think it was weird at all.
* * *
“I’m Dorothy, and I’m an addict.”
“Hi, Dorothy!”
She stood in the middle of the ragtag circle of people who had come to tonight’s Narcotics
Anonymous meeting. As usual, the meeting took place in the old church on Front Street
in Snohomish.
In the cool, dimly lit room that smelled of stale coffee and drying donuts, she talked
about her recovery and how long it had taken her and what a dark road it had sometimes
been. She needed this tonight, of all nights.
At the close of the meeting, she left the small wooden church and got onto her bicycle.
For the first time in ages, she didn’t stop to talk to anyone after the meeting. She
was too edgy to play nice.
It was a blue-black evening, full of swaying trees and tiny stars. She rode along
the main street, indicated her turn, and headed out of town.
At her place, she veered down onto the driveway and came to a stop. Balancing her
bike carefully against the side of the house, she went to the front door and turned
the knob. Inside, everything was quiet. There was a leftover aroma in the air—spaghetti,
maybe—and some fresh basil. A few lights had been left on, but mostly it was quiet.
She reslung her purse over her shoulder and closed the door behind her. The sharp,
pungent smell of drying lavender filled her nostrils. She moved silently through the
house. Everywhere she looked she saw evidence of the party she’d missed—the
WELCOME HOME
banner, the stack of brightly colored napkins on the counter, the wineglasses drying
by the sink.
What a coward she was.
In the kitchen, she poured herself a glass of water from the sink and then leaned
back against the counter, gulping the liquid as if she were dying of thirst. In front
of her, the shadowy hallway unfurled. On one side was her bedroom door; on the other
was Tully’s.
Coward,
she thought again. Instead of going down the hallway, doing what needed to be done,
she found herself drifting through the house, heading toward the back door, going
out onto the deck.
She smelled cigarette smoke.
“You were waiting for me?” she said quietly.
Margie stood up. “Of course. I knew how hard this would be for you. But you’ve been
hiding long enough.”
Dorothy felt her knees almost give out. She had never had a good friend in her life,
not one of those women who would be there for you if you needed them. Until now. She
reached out for the wooden chair beside her, held on to it.
There were three chairs out here. Dorothy had spent months restoring these wooden
rockers that she’d found at the Goodwill. When she’d finished sanding and painting
them—a wild array of colors—she’d painted names on the back.
Dorothy. Tully. Kate.
At the time, it had seemed romantic and optimistic. As she held the paintbrush and
smeared the bright colors along the rough wood, she’d imagined what Tully would say
when she woke up. Now, though, all she saw was the presumption of her actions. What
made her think that Tully would want to sit with her mother in the morning and have
a cup of tea … or that it wouldn’t break her heart to sit next to a chair that was
always empty, its seat waiting for a woman who would never return?
“Do you remember what I told you about motherhood?” Margie said in the darkness, exhaling
smoke.
Dorothy eased around an empty basket and sat down in the chair with her name on it.
Margie, she noticed, was sitting in Tully’s chair.
“You told me a lot of things,” Dorothy said, leaning back with a sigh.
“When you’re a mom, you learn about fear. You’re always afraid. Always. About everything
from cupboard doors to kidnappers to weather. There is nothing that can’t hurt our
kids, I swear.” She turned. “The irony is they need us to be strong.”
Dorothy swallowed hard.
“I was strong for my Katie,” Margie said.
Dorothy heard the way her friend’s voice broke on that, and without even thinking,
she got up from her chair, crossed the small space between them, and pulled Margie
up into her arms. She felt how thin the woman was, how she trembled at this touch,
and Dorothy understood. Sometimes it hurt worse to be comforted than to be left alone.
“Johnny wants to scatter her ashes in the summer. I don’t know how to do it, but I
know it’s time.”
Dorothy had no idea what to say, so she just held on.
When Margie drew back, her eyes were wet with tears. “You helped me get through it,
you know that, right? In case I never told you. All those times you let me sit over
here and smoke my cigarettes while you planted your seeds and pulled up your weeds.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were there for me, Dorothy. Like you were there for Tully.” She wiped her eyes
and tried to smile, then said quietly, “Go see your daughter.”
* * *
Tully woke from a deep sleep, disoriented. She sat up quickly—too quickly; dizziness
made the unfamiliar room spin around her for just a moment.
“Tully, are you okay?”
She blinked slowly and remembered where she was. In her old bedroom, in the house
on Firefly Lane. She turned on the bedside lamp.
Her mother sat in a chair against the wall. She got up awkwardly, clasping her hands
together. She was wearing bag-lady clothes, white socks, and Birkenstock sandals.
And the tattered remnant of that macaroni necklace Tully had made for her in Bible
camp. All these years later, her mother had kept it.
“I … was worried,” her mother said. “Your first night here and all. I hope you don’t
mind that I’m here.”
“Hey, Cloud,” Tully said quietly.
“I’m Dorothy now,” her mother said. She gave a hitching, apologetic smile and moved
toward the bed. “I picked the name ‘Cloud’ at a commune in the early seventies. We
were high all the time, and naked. A lot of bad ideas seemed good back then.” She
looked down at Tully.
“I’m told you took care of me.”
“It was nothing.”
“A year of caring for a woman in a coma? That’s not nothing.”
Her mother reached into her pocket and pulled out a small token. It was goldish in
color, and round, a little bigger than a quarter. A triangle was stamped onto the
coin; on the left side of the triangle was the word
sobriety
in black, on the right side was the word
anniversary
. Inside the triangle was the Roman numeral X. “Remember that night you saw me in
the hospital, back in ’05?”
Tully remembered every time she’d ever seen her mother. “Yes.”
“That was rock bottom for me. A woman gets tired of being hit. I went into rehab not
long after that. You paid for it, by the way, so thanks for that.”
“And you stayed sober?”
“Yes.”
Tully was afraid to believe in the unexpected hope that unfurled at her mother’s confession.
And she was afraid not to. “That’s why you came to my condo and tried to help me.”
“As interventions go, it was pretty lame. Just one old lady and a pissed-off daughter.”
She smiled, a little crookedly. “You see life a lot more clearly when you’re sober.
I took care of you to make up for all the times I didn’t take care of you.”
Her mother leaned forward, touching the macaroni necklace at her throat. There was
a softness in her gaze that surprised Tully. “I know it was only a year. I don’t expect
anything.”
“I heard your voice,” Tully said. She remembered it in pieces, moments. Darkness and
light. This:
I’m so proud of you. I never told you that, did I?
The memory was like the soft, creamy center of an expensive chocolate. “You stood
by my bed and told me a story, didn’t you?”
Her mother looked startled, and then a little sad. “I should have told it to you years
ago.”
“You said you were proud of me.”