It’s stifling hot; the thermometer on the porch hovers at ninety-four. We’ve been at it for a couple of hours, and I’ve removed all the grass from the ten-by-ten area we’ve staked as “Goat’s Garden West.”
“Now we need to shovel out a foot of the dirt,” my dad says. “Start digging.”
“Yes, Boss.”
I grab the pickax and start to loosen the soil. My plan is to start in the upper corner and work my way out in rows. The ground is hard, and my progress is slow. It takes half an hour to reach the end of the first row. At the last foot of the patch, I slam the pick into the dirt and it sinks to the handle, causing me to stumble. I pull the ax from the ground, and there’s a chunk of white dangling from the tip. I look closer and recognize it as bone.
I look back at my dad to tell him, but he’s asleep in his chair, his cheater glasses falling sideways off his face, his mouth gaping open.
I grab the shovel and dig in the spot where the ground is soft. It takes two shovelfuls to reveal what’s beneath.
“Jill, what are you doing?”
I turn quickly. “Nothing, Pops,” I say as I throw a smile on my face and dirt back over the discovery.
“It’s Boss, remember.”
“Nothing, Boss. Just taking a break. I think we should call it a day.”
“Okay. I’m going to take a nap.”
My dad limps into the house, and I follow.
The door to my parents’ room closes behind my dad, and I continue on to find my mom. She’s in the garage doing laundry.
“Tell me what happened,” I demand.
“What happened to what?” she asks brightly as she folds a shirt that at one time was white, but now is gray.
“What happened to Martha? I just found her in the garden. That was no car accident.”
She blinks hard three times, her face loses its color, and her hands stop folding the shirt she holds. “Does your father know?”
I shake my head. “Gordon did that?”
Her mouth is tight, and she inhales deeply to hold in the emotions, her head nodding up and down, her eyes on the ground.
My whole body trembles with rage, but my tone softens. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You had enough to worry about.”
“When?”
“The day you took the kids, he came to the house. It was very late. Somehow he knew you’d called me, and he thought I knew where you were and that I was helping you. After he left, I let Martha out, and when I went to get her…”
Her voice trails off and I want to comfort her, but I can’t because I’m already too far away, marching toward the car and the box Sherman gave me. I barely hear her voice as I screech from the driveway.
G
ordon’s Cayenne is in the hospital’s long-term parking lot. I park beside it, pull out the gun, and am surprised at its simplicity. The clip pops out, the bullets pop in. Release the safety, squeeze the trigger.
Aim low, because a gun has a tendency to rise when you shoot—Gordon told me that. I think about where I need to aim. I’ll aim at his balls and hopefully hit them, but if not, I’ll hit his gut or his heart.
I drape my sweatshirt over my arm to conceal the weapon and walk through the sliding glass doors of the hospital. I look at the menu beside the elevators. Children’s Oncology is on the fifth floor. Time ticks as I watch the three elevators’ glowing lights descend. The one on the right wins, and I step in and press five. A woman steps in beside me and presses two; her belly is much larger than mine. A hand stops the doors before they close, and the man attached to it says, “Thanks,” and, “Sorry,” as he steps in and presses the number three. The gun is heavy, and my hand trembles. The pregnant woman waddles out onto a floor decorated with colorful handprints and balloons. It takes forever for the doors to close again.
The man beside me rocks heel to toe. He’s about thirty. He wears a simple gold wedding band and a load of worry. The floor he steps onto is unadorned except for the navy letters ICU painted neatly on the wall.
The door closes again, and I’m alone for the remainder of the ride.
I step onto the fifth floor. “Can I help you?” a pink-scrubbed nurse sitting behind a pair of locked glass doors asks through an intercom.
“I’m here to visit Addie Kane.”
“And you are?”
“A friend.”
“Your name?”
“Michelle Garner.” I hope Michelle will understand. She punches the name into the computer, and the door buzzes. I push it open with my left hand.
“Room five-oh-eight,” the woman says with a smile as I walk past.
Even numbers are on the left.
In 502, a Hispanic family, maybe six of them, laugh and eat food from Tupperware containers.
On the door of 504, a finger-painted star says, “Liza’s Room,” but the bed is empty.
In 506, a boy about twelve sits in bed watching television. He’s bald, and his eyes are bruised.
Addie’s door is decorated with a drawing of an elephant, and the “e” on her name is backward. We had been working on that, but sometimes she still forgets. The lights are off, but I see her through the window sleeping in the bed.
Addie.
Her skin is almost as white as the sheet, and the bed is so big around her that she looks like a doll waiting for a little girl to come and claim her. Her hands rest on top of the neatly tucked-in blankets, and a pulse monitor is taped to one finger. An IV drips into the neck of her hospital gown. Gordon isn’t there.
I step close and watch her small shallow breaths—they’re thin and steady—and every few, she double gulps, then licks her lips. Her hair has been cut short, and she must be losing it because patches are thin and bristles sprinkle the pillow around her head.
“Oh, baby,” I whisper, “I’m so sorry.” My voice is only to myself because I don’t want to wake her.
Tears trickle from the corners of my eyes.
My baby.
Footsteps behind me cause me to turn.
“Her father’s in the chapel,” the pink nurse says, “if you wanted to say hello. Addie’s going to be asleep for a while.”
I nod.
“Ground floor next to the cafeteria.”
I don’t pivot and storm from the room as I intended. The rhythm of Addie’s breath has captured me. I stay rooted where I am, studying how her nose twitches and her lashes flutter.
The gun dangles loose in my hand, a ridiculous, dangerous notion of irrational impulsive thinking that weighs down my arm and makes me feel very stupid. I am not him. I can’t be him. I won’t be him. I close my eyes.
No more mistakes.
Addie is mine. I am hers. I am all she has.
I’m going to fix things, baby.
The promise is silent, but the conviction in my heart is deafening.
I ride the elevator to the ground floor, glance down the hall that leads to the chapel, then continue through the lobby and into the glaring sun. The time has come to fix things.
T
he beach is teeming with sun worshippers and families soaking up the last days of summer on a perfect afternoon.
I sit on the boardwalk and lift my face to the sun, feeling the heat on my skin and the light behind my lids. I inhale the scent of summer, and it fills my nostrils—pizza from Cucina Alessa on the corner, salt and seaweed, exhaust from the Coast Highway, and suntan oil.
I exhale, open my eyes, and squint at the waves. A swell rolls from the south, and the sea looks lazy and dangerous.
I’m not a murderer, I’m not Gordon. It’s both liberating and terrifying—I’m not evil, I’m not him, I’m at his mercy. Overwhelming relief, petrifying fear, and I wonder if again, I will come to regret this moment. I need to fix things, Addie and Drew need me to fix things, and today might have been my chance. I would have destroyed myself in the process, but it might have been worth it. Declaw the lion—it sounds so simple—but I’m not as wily as Aesop or his crafty farmer; either would have shot the lion had they had a gun. How many chances will I get to save them? Or was today the only one?
Seagulls wheel overhead. I watch them spin in circles, effortlessly suspended in the breeze, until my eyes blur and all I see is Addie in the hospital bed. Life isn’t fair. It’s full of injustice and tragedy and unforgivable mistakes that beg for forgiveness.
I turn the revelation in my mind until the clouds take on the pink of the setting sun and the air chills, causing me to shiver, then I pick myself up and drive back home.
* * *
My mom and dad sit at the table. My dad holds my mom’s hand; in her other hand is a tissue. When they see me, my mom jumps to her feet and my dad breathes. Until I had children of my own, I couldn’t understand those expressions—the way they looked when I was five minutes late from a date, how angry my dad would get if I didn’t call to tell him I was going out with friends after school—now I feel horribly guilty for the worry I caused them.
“Sorry.”
“You okay?” my mom asks.
I nod, then my head reverses direction, and in an instant, she’s beside me and I’m in her arms.
“Come, sit,” she says, and guides me to the table.
“I’ll get coffee,” my dad says, and limps toward the ancient GE percolator.
The quiet lingers between us, the only sound my dad pouring the coffee and adding cream and one cube of sugar. I’ve since graduated to taking my coffee black, but I’ve never told my dad that. He holds out a steaming cup to me. My mom releases my hand, and I take the mug. My dad brushes my hair with a kiss. “Good night, ladies,” he says, and both of us watch him go.
I sip the warm coffee, focusing on the taste and the smell, wishing it could transport me back to a time when I sat at this table drinking out of this same cup and my greatest worry was whether Gary Branch, a boy with a Mustang and really great sideburns, would ask me to the prom.
My mom’s voice brings me back. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Martha. I don’t know why it’s always been so hard between us.”
And for perhaps the first time, I see my mom as she is, a woman like me, not at all sure of herself, just trying to do the best she can, bumbling her way through life like the rest of us. Stuck with an only child who’s bucked her every step of the way, a daughter who always chose her father over her and never let her in. And I wish I could rewind time, have the chance to do things over.
“It’s still that way,” she finishes, “always arm’s length, a line in the sand between us.”
I want to deny it, to say, “Don’t be ridiculous. We’re good. I love you,” but I don’t. I won’t trivialize what we’ve lost with placation. We shared my dad and existed in the same bubble, but not in each other’s lives. And though the past two months have brought us closer, history can’t be undone, and I won’t pretend we’re something we’re not.
“I saw Addie,” I say instead.
My mom accepts the truth with only the smallest twitch of her right eye, then her attention turns entirely to worry for Addie. “How is she?”
I shake my head and swallow to hold back my tears.
My mom takes my hands. “She’s a fighter. She’s got your spirit. She’ll pull through this.”
I nod.
“And Gordon?”
“I snuck into her room while he was in the chapel.” I leave out the rest.
My mom crosses herself in thanks.
I’m not as grateful, and I wonder if, in thirty-five years, Addie and I will be having a conversation similar to this one, as estranged as my mother and me, a lifetime of regret between us, because today I failed.
M
ichelle’s watching Drew again for Gordon. She’s taking the boys to Little Corona in Newport, a remote beach where I can join them and we won’t be spotted. So I’m waiting on the corner, tucked out of sight, for Gordon to drop Drew off. It’s a sweltering day, well over ninety, and even with the windows down, my skin sticks to the seat with sweat.
The car that pulls up, a white Mercedes SUV, is not Gordon’s.
Drew slinks from the passenger side, and Claudia steps from the driver’s seat. She reaches into the trunk to retrieve a beach bag, then follows Drew to the front door.
I watch as she crosses the lawn and climbs the steps to the porch. Something’s different about her, but I can’t put my finger on it. Her gold hair still drapes to her shoulders. She’s still fit and toned. She still walks with more swagger than necessary. And she still has the annoying habit of flicking her hair back every five seconds. But something’s changed.
Michelle answers the door, and Drew launches away from Claudia and into Michelle’s home without a good-bye. Michelle and Claudia have a brief exchange, then Claudia turns to leave. Michelle stays in the doorway, the heather gray beach dress she wears revealing her athletic legs.
My eyes shoot to Claudia as she climbs back into her car and I realize what’s changed. There’s not enough skin.
Claudia’s notorious for the short shorts and tank tops she wears that reveal J. Lo legs and Angela Bassett arms. Today, on the hottest day of the year, she wears jeans and a long-sleeve polo. And I’m probably the only other person in the world who knows why.
The Mercedes drives away, and I run to the front door.
“Michelle, I can’t stay,” I say, barely allowing her to say hello.
Drew runs up behind her. “Hi, Mom.”
“Hey, buddy.” I kneel to his height and give him a high five. A smile fills his face.
“You’re coming to the beach with us, right?”
I shake my head, and his smile gets smaller.
I take his hands in mine and hold his eyes. “I can’t,” I say. “I wish I could, but from here on out, you and I are going to follow the rules because I need to figure out how to make this whole crazy mess right, and to do that, I need to be smart and you need to be strong, and that means I can’t take the chance of messing up.”
“I don’t want to live with Claudia.”
I nod. “I know, and I don’t want you to live with her, either, and I’m not sure exactly how I’m going to fix things, but I have an idea. So, if it’s okay with you, I’m going to pass on going to the beach today, and instead, I’m going to see what I can do about making things better.”
His small jaw pushes out a centimeter and quivers. I pull him into my arms, and he must have forgotten about Max because his thin arms are around me.