Chapter 14 #2
“I was thinking about the barn,” he answered. “Actually, Keon was talking about cleaning it up and in the future, it could stable animals again.”
“Would you want horses? You said that they’re a lot of work.”
“They are,” he immediately confirmed. “They eat their heads off and they limit what you can do with your own life. How do you go on vacation when you have giant animals depending on you?”
“You don’t take vacations,” I said, remembering again how we had talked about going to Florida.
“That could change. I could start, but it would be…” He stopped. “Never mind. It was a dumb idea.”
“No, I don’t think so. I would help you with your horses, so if you wanted to go away, I could hold on to them.”
“You would hold my horses?” I could hear the smile in his voice. “I was thinking that if I took a vacation, you would be there, too.”
“I would like that a lot. There might be horse babysitters we could look into,” I suggested.
Because I really, really wanted to go somewhere with him.
I liked being with him all the time, and now I was putting check marks next to the items on my lists.
It might take a while, but I would get all of them resolved and then I would be a much better person.
“I don’t think you should discount the idea, not before you think about it more. ”
“I’ll think about it more,” he agreed. “My favorite memories have to do with riding.”
“One time, you asked me about my favorite memory and I told you how Nicola had held me up so that I could swim. You didn’t tell me the whole truth about yours, though.”
“Didn’t I?” He tilted his head to look down at me.
“No, probably not. It’s because my favorite thing was riding with my sister.
She couldn’t stop smiling when she was on horseback.
She would actually laugh with happiness and it was so funny.
When she was older and really struggling, I tried to convince her to come ride with me.
I thought that would help, but she was so far gone. It was too late.”
“So it’s your best memory, but also your saddest.”
“Exactly,” he said, and I decided that I was going to get him a horse.
First, I would have to make sure that the roof of the barn wasn’t leaking and after that, there were probably a few more important steps, and then I was going to get the horse and make Theo happy for the rest of his life.
In fact, “Theo’s happiness” was item number one on my mental list and I planned to work on it harder than on anything else.
He sat up and opened his white coat before tugging me back to him, and that allowed me to snuggle closer. I took full advantage of it. “Are you going over to your sister’s?” he asked.
That could have indicated any of five locations, but I knew who he meant. “I’m meeting Nicola next,” I agreed. Then I still had one more stop, one that I wasn’t looking forward to.
“Are you still coming to have dinner with me?”
“Yes, definitely,” I answered. I wasn’t sure if he’d make it there himself due to his work, but I would be in attendance and punctual, too.
He had given back the key I’d left behind when I’d taken off in the middle of the night, so there would be no need for me to use the windows or the chimney. That was very narrow, anyway.
“Good. It gives me something to look forward to.” He rested his cheek against my hair and sighed, because it really had been a hard morning for him. We sat for a while talking, but then he had to leave me and the geese. I also needed to make my way to my sister’s house.
The first thing Nicola wanted to do was to make sure that I’d eaten, that I was clean, that I had gas in my tank to drive, and that I also had a license to do so legally.
She seemed impressed that she was able to confirm all those things.
“Good,” she told me as we sat at her kitchen table.
I got to hold her son Declan on my lap and he was so warm and cuddly. I kissed his round cheek.
“Why did you want me to come over? What did I do wrong?” I asked my sister.
“Nothing,” she said, and reached to remove some dripping fluid from her son’s chin. “You didn’t do anything.”
“That’s not true. It never is.”
Nicola didn’t cry very much. She never had and for a while in her life, she hadn’t been smiling very much either.
I had been glad when she’d started that again but I didn’t want her to cry, not ever—and at this moment, her eyes filled up.
“No! You can’t!” I burst out. “I mean, please don’t get upset about something I did. ”
She wiped her cheeks with a spare bib that had been lying on the table.
“You didn’t do anything, Gracie,” she repeated.
“I’m crying because I’ve been thinking a lot about your list.” She had always kept a journal, and she went to the counter and got the latest volume before she sat back down.
“I sometimes make lists, too, and I did one for myself.” She opened to a page titled “Nicola Fixes,” right there in plain English.
“You don’t need any fixing,” I told her. “You’re amazing and we all love you so much.”
“Thank you.” She wiped her eyes again, and I began to think that keeping those soft bibs around was a good idea. “But everybody has things they should do better.”
“Like how your husband is so bad at shaving,” I commented, and her cornflower blue eyes flashed in anger instead of sadness.
“He is not! Yes, he misses spots but it’s because he rushes so he can spend more time with the kids.” She smiled at her son on my lap. “Ok, Jude has flaws, but these are things about me.”
She watched me read from the page in her journal.
That went so much faster and was so much easier now that the letters were clear and I didn’t have to move the book around, tilt my head, or squint—plus, this wasn’t in code.
“Your list is all about me,” I said when I’d finished.
“This is stuff that you wish you’d done when I was little.
Like, ‘I should have showed Grace how to use tampons.’”
“I don’t even know how you learned that. I was out of the house by then and I was…I was having problems.”
“I watched videos. They made it pretty clear, and I took some of Brenna’s stash. She never noticed,” I assured her.
“That wasn’t the worst one. I made so many mistakes with you, Grace. You were really my first baby and I was terrible.”
“You were ten when I was born,” I said. “Nobody’s going to be a good parent at that age. I was so lucky that I had you and I’m so grateful for everything you’ve done for me.”
“I didn’t know that there was something wrong with your vision. I totally missed that.” She started crying again. “The way you talked annoyed Sophie, but I thought that it was cute. I didn’t get that you should have been in speech therapy.”
“How would you have known?”
“I made this list so that I won’t mess up again with Amelia and Declan. I don’t want to hurt them the way I hurt you. I’m so sorry.”
It was really hard to hug her while carefully holding her child, but I managed.
I also managed to stop crying enough to tell her that I was sorry too.
“I feel guilty that I ruined your whole childhood,” I sniffed.
“I didn’t understand it at the time and I thought you were so old, but because of me, you never got to have any fun.
” And she was still worried about me, so I was making her life worse even now.
“That’s not true! I loved being with you,” she said.
“I mean, I did feel resentful at times, and I’m sure I took that out on you.
It wasn’t your fault, though, none of it.
Kids are so much work. I don’t know how Mom and Dad thought they could have seven of us and then wipe their hands and go about their business, like they were done.
” She sighed. “I thought I had let go of all the anger surrounding that. But now, Mom gets to be the fun grandma and Dad wants to step in and be a fun grandpa, too. It makes me get furious all over again.”
“But you’re not mad at me? Because I am so sorry.”
“No, I’m not mad at you, no matter how many things you think that you need to fix. I love you very much,” my sister said. After a moment, she had to fetch a few more bibs for our tears. “I’m going to do better with these guys,” she promised as she bent to kiss her son’s head.
“I don’t know how you could,” I answered. I would have to prove that I was a better person, in order to show her what a good job she’d done. I hadn’t realized that my failures reflected on Nicola, but cleaning up my issues would solve it.
I called Theo from the car, once I’d pulled around the corner where my sister couldn’t see me crying. He didn’t answer but I hadn’t really expected him to. I felt the need to share with him what had just happened.
“Nicola has her own list,” I said into the phone, “and not in code. She feels guilty!” I explained everything, from the bibs to getting to feed Declan and him spitting up on me.
“It was a mistake and I didn’t really mind.
I never thought I would like to have a baby because I guess I knew that I was one, just a big child myself, but would it be so bad?
I understand that it’s more of a commitment than fish and even more than horses.
I wouldn’t be like my parents or like yours.
But I guess we all just do the best we can.
I’m going to keep doing that and I’ll get there, gradually.
Ok, I’m going to pick up some bibs and also, I love you. Bye.”
I hung up. He might have been a little surprised by my idea of getting bibs and I should have clarified that I meant those for tears and not for babies of my own. Those were a way off, in my estimation, but I could still see them in my future.
I drove carefully to my next stop and I parked next to the Coney Island restaurant where I hadn’t gotten to eat with my dad on my previous visit to his office. On this occasion, the receptionist was equally friendly.