Nathan shook his head, throwing away her words and turning back to Will. “Did you tell her what you said about her? Tell her why you started paying attention to her. Did you tell Judith?” His voice punched Will with each word, making him crouch.
“What? When? What are you talking about?”
“Don’t play dumb with me!” Nathan shouted. “Tell her that you hoped she’d take after her mom.
Like mother, like daughter
!” Nathan’s voice cracked and the red leaked from his face to his eyes. A tear trembled on his bottom lashes.
Claudia stumbled, taking a step away from Will, her face white with betrayal.
Will froze. “I never …”
Nathan lunged forward, seizing the small clearing Claudia made by stepping back. Claudia reached his arms just in time to deter him and helplessly she screamed, “Jennifer, do something!” I don’t know why she thought of me before her own mother, before Sarah, but it was my face she held with her terrified eyes. Her words woke me from the stupor of a spectator and I rushed forward, grabbing Nathan’s shoulder. It shook with power beneath my palm.
“He doesn’t remember Nathan. That was years ago.”
“I beat the brains out of his head – I think he remembers why!” Nathan said as he struggled to control his arms that wanted desperately to flail, but couldn’t with two girls so close.
“I don’t!” Will said, a frantic plea in his voice. “I don’t. I’d forgotten all about that. I would never. I didn’t start liking her … She isn’t like that!” His mouth fought for traction on his slick thoughts, looking for the one to make Nathan understand. His eyes pleaded for Claudia to believe him.
“What did you do with her last night?” Nathan demanded once more. I blushed as deeply as Claudia. I didn’t want to hear.
“Nothing! I took her to Bredford to see the lighthouse. I asked her if she’d want to get married in a few years.”
“And then?” Nathan snarled.
“And then I told him I don’t know!” Claudia shrieked. “We talked. I called Amanda and told her that I couldn’t come over because Will and I had to talk.”
“Talk?” Nathan ripped the word apart with sharp sarcasm.
“Yes, talk! And we fell asleep. In the car. We didn’t. We’ve never . . .” livid tears fell down across her red face. “Thanks for thinking so highly of me, Nathan.”
For the first time the savage tremors racing through Nathan slowed. I was surprised to see my hand still clamped on his shoulder. I slid it down to his arm, holding onto his elbow.
“And you’re thinking of it? Marrying this waste of space?”
“He’s not!” Claudia yelled. “You stupid, impossible jerk! He’s smart. He’s good. You never give anyone credit. I’ve been trying to be good enough for you my whole life. Make it up to you that I’m the reason your dad left. But I can’t. I can’t! I’ll never live up to what you want me to be.”
Will’s hand went up to Claudia’s face and he put his fingers to her mouth and looked at Nathan with a dark, accusing flash in his eyes. I’d never seen Nathan look so confused or shocked, but his expression mirrored mine, Sarah’s, Judith’s.
“Make it up to me? Be good enough for me? That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. You’re good enough for anyone. He’s not good enough for you!”
Will answered quietly. “I get it, Nathan. I know she’s smarter. I know she’s too pretty. I get it,” Will flinched at his own words, embarrassed. “But she likes me anyway.” His eyebrows drew up in surprise, like he couldn’t believe it either.
“Yeah, well, there’s no accounting for taste,” Nathan mumbled, the heat of his temper fading.
Claudia took Will’s hand. Her head didn’t quite reach the top of his chest and I looked at the mismatched pair, her proud eyes smiling up at his sunburned face like he was a rare prize to be won.
“Nathan,” Sarah came forward slowly. “My dad,” her eyes went to my mother, “Our dad was just a waterman. My mother’s family hated him. She didn’t. Sometimes it works.” I released his arm, suddenly too aware of his warm skin under mine. Too aware of the eyes around us. I drew back a pace to my mother and took her hand instead, needing something to hold. She clutched my fingers tightly and I couldn’t tell which of us was the scared child. Both, most likely.
“Your mom wasn’t sixteen,” Nathan started.
“May work. May not.” Judith interrupted. “That’s to be seen. But you’re still grounded for … ever. Get inside.” And her finger cut a path from Claudia Gale to the front door. She then raised it to Will, who looked like he would be grateful if an assassin took him out before she spoke again. “And
you
! I always liked you. But if you ever pull a stunt like that again … If you ever … I will sic Nathan on you so fast, so help me!” she vowed.
Nathan’s mouth raised in a smirk until her finger made its way to him. “You shut up! You don’t fight with your fists. Not with a mind like yours. Get inside. Now!”
We all stood back in shock as Nathan made his way to the front door, turning his head just long enough to see his Mother following behind him.
The door shut behind Judith, enveloping the yard in an eerie stillness. My mother flashed her eyes to Sarah and Little and all the questions that waited behind the unfolding dramas of the day rushed the gates of our minds. I felt mine building. Saw the confounded look in Sarah’s eyes as she looked at her sister. Whatever my mother was thinking she hid well. She gave my hand a small tug and said, “Let’s get your stuff and go.”
I felt the blow of her words across my back, lashing me home, away from Sarah, away from Nathan. I couldn’t argue. A promise is a promise. I looked up to Little with my stricken expression, something that said,
this is it
, and let my mother guide me forward. I was certain one of the women would save me from this abrupt departure, say something to slow my mother’s exit, but they watched us cross the yard to the road.
“Mom,” I said when I recovered my speech, drawing my hand out of hers as we reached Shelter Cove. “The thing is that I thought you would call first. Give me a warning. So I could say good-bye. I haven’t said good-bye to anyone.”
“You can say it on your way out. We need to leave now,” She wasn’t angry, but there wasn’t an inch of compromise in her voice. “Just throw your stuff in your bag.”
I struggled against the tears, out of ideas. Obediently, I left her standing in the driveway while I walked inside, trying to understand I wouldn’t walk in again. Not for months. Maybe a year. Even Chester sensed something amiss because he graced me with a rare caress across my legs after I entered. Everything was slow, each step, each turn. I mounted the stairs and gathered my clothes, neatly folding even my underwear. Stalling. Computing. Waiting for someone else to think of something. I finished packing one drawer when I heard footsteps outside my room and braced myself to look at Sarah, to tell her bravely that I would be back soon. It was a different face that peeked in – my mother’s.
“Are you done yet?” She asked impatiently, as if she didn’t want the house to hear her. Even though she spoke to me she was looking at the room, her eyes drinking in the details like I had the first time I saw it.
“Almost,” I said, looking at the drawers of clothes I hadn’t emptied yet. I let my gaze wander, trying to see the room as she saw it, after twenty years. “Do you remember when you wanted to move in here with Sarah and you got stuck between the beds?”
She pierced me with a frown but didn’t answer; looked like she never intended to answer again. “Sarah told me about that the first night I got here. She laughed so hard she cried. Do you remember?” I looked down at the quilt beneath my suitcase, waiting for a response she refused to give. “Was this quilt on the bed when you were here? I’ve been using it since I got here.” She recoiled when I said that, turned toward the desk and ran her hand over wood, disregarding me. My pride prickled and the heat of it rose up inside of me. It didn’t really matter what I said anymore. I just wanted her to answer. “Do you remember her making it? Do you remember anything? Do you remember Sarah’s senior recital, when she had all the solos? Do you remember when your dad took you with him on his boat?” I wasn’t pausing to let her answer – I was reciting any stray story I could remember Sarah telling me. “Do you remember …”
“Stop it, Jennifer! You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she snapped. “I remember everything. You don’t need to ask.”
Not good enough. “So you remember when you begged your dad to buy extra fireworks because you wanted the best show and how your mother wouldn’t let you talk like the other kids …”
She turned from the room and disappeared. I jumped up, leaving my clothes in a heap on the bed and stalked her down the hall, down the stairs, unrelenting. “And Harvey? Remember him? And the storms? And your cat that you buried with fish bones because you’d just learned about the Egyptians feeding their dead?”
At the bottom of the stairs my mother spun blindly, pacing the living room. “Do you remember your father working at the factory and your mother wearing her aprons? Do you remember?” I didn’t know what was happening to me. Maybe Little’s unexpected resurrection or Nathan’s violent fight were too much for one morning, but my voice was growing, a hot balloon inflating in my chest, ready to break. Explode. “Do you remember Sarah trying to talk to you, trying to find you, trying to be your sister? Do you remember lying to me for sixteen years?!” There was an ugly scream ripping from my mouth, a noise I’d never made before. And all along, as hateful as it sounded, I never once hated my mother. I was trying to reach her across an ocean of pain - bring her back home.
At last she flung herself to face me, her neck scarlet. “I remember the call from the hospital saying she collapsed in the grocery store! I remember burying my father. I remember being the only one here to bury my mother! I remember picking out the clothes to put on her dead body! So don’t play this game with me. Don’t play
do you remember
, because I will win every time. I remember
everything
! I
can’t
forget anything. I can’t!”
The front door slammed and we both looked up to see Sarah pressed against the golden wood, blocking it with her body, her hand guarding the handle. “I remember, too,” She said softly. “And this time I’m not letting you run out on me. There are things to say.”
“Don’t push me,” My mother threatened, looking like a cornered animal. I wouldn’t put it past her to claw her way out. She looked nearly as mad as Nathan when he confronted Will. She lunged toward the kitchen, looking for her escape but I anticipated the move, stepped in front of her. She stopped midstride. Trapped. She wouldn’t fight me.
Sarah’s voice was level. “You do what you have to do. You can scream and hit me and bite and I don’t care what else. I don’t care what it takes. You can leave, but not like this. I won’t survive if you run out of here again.”
“You won’t survive?
You
won’t! Is it always about you?” My mother looked to the tall picture windows, wild to get out of the tiny space. I felt the walls of the room shrinking, pulling the three of us closer. Dangerously close.
Pain crossed Sarah’s face but she didn’t interrupt. Didn’t move. Just kept her back pressed to the heavy door. When she saw my mother was done speaking she quietly asked, “What did you bury her in?”
“What?”
“I’ve always wondered what you buried her in. Little couldn’t remember when I asked her. Harvey said he didn’t see her clothes because there was a blanket around her.”
My mother’s lips moved, her head shook, fighting the impulse to answer. “I wouldn’t have had to pick anything! If you came home. If you were here.”
“What did you bury her in?” Sarah was cracking her, the lines in my mother’s forehead deepening.
“You should have picked it! She asked for you! And I told her you were coming. She woke up and she could barely talk but she asked for dad and she asked for you and I told her you were coming! I lied to her. The last thing I ever said to her was a
lie
.”
I wanted to throw my arms around both of them. Their similar faces mirrored decades of anguish. My mother was breaking from telling the truth for the first time, Sarah was breaking from hearing it.
“At least you were there, Claire,” Sarah said.
“She didn’t want
me
. She never asked for me. Not once.” Mother choked on the last word.
“She never had to,” Sarah whispered. “You were already there. You were the one she could always count on, without asking.”
My mother continued like she didn’t hear Sarah. “She remembered that Dad was dead and she gave up. I wasn’t enough. She wouldn’t stay for me. But if you were there, maybe if there had been two of us . . .” My mother wiped her tears away so roughly that it looked like she slapped herself in the face.
Sarah waited, watched, before she spoke again. “That wasn’t it. You were enough. She didn’t give up on you. She loved you.” Her voice fell even softer and as it dipped lower, a certain calm emanated from Sarah. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there. I’m sorry for you, and yes, I’m sorry for me. I would give anything to go back and be by her side like you were.”
“That wasn’t your fault,” my mother said. “I forgave you that because you didn’t know. But you didn’t come! I told you and I thought you’d be here that night. And I
waited
!” A torment I couldn’t comprehend filled her last word and I closed my eyes, willing the pain to pass.
“I know. I’m so sorry. I’m sorrier than you’ll ever know.” I don’t know how Sarah kept her composure. Maybe the shock of my mother’s sudden appearance helped numb her to the stabbing words.
My mother ignored her apology. “Where were you?” She cried, a sob tearing the words, a child breaking out of her adult face.
“I meant to come right away. Can I tell you? Really tell you? Will you give me two minutes?”
“Two minutes? Why not five days? Take all the blasted time you need!”
“Claire, I …”
“One day!” my mother screamed, slamming her finger against her palm. “Two days!” Another finger fell.
“Claire!”
“You listen to me! Three days! Four days!” Could the gavel hitting the bar on judgment day sound any more dreadful that her slapping fingers? “Five days!” She held up her hand, finger’s outstretched and I thought of Lady Macbeth, dripping with blood.