33. Charlotte Next Chapter
Charlotte Next Chapter
I’ve never seen a bomb erupt in real life. Only on television. It’s at once horrifying and awe-inspiring the way the explosion starts at a center point and bursts in circles around it, leaving nothing in its wake untouched. That was how it was at this dinner table. Delia had dropped an atom bomb. Grace dropped the radishes, the dish shattering on the hardwood floor, the healthy and beautiful taco garnish scattering.
I hopped up to help her clean it up, wishing desperately that my daughter and I weren’t here to get entangled in whatever family drama was about to ensue, and practically feeling her embarrassment at having Ben witness this.
Grace seemed frozen to her spot, crouched behind Julie, as I scrambled to pick up the largest glass shards first. “You’re moving out?” she whispered to Julie. “You didn’t even tell me.” Her unspoken question seemed to be, And what am I supposed to do now?
I couldn’t blame her. Even though I had shared my tentative plan to move back to New York, I didn’t have a timeline for it yet. I certainly wasn’t ready to walk out the door tomorrow or anything. What if Alice decided that, with her niece gone, the mommune was a thing of the past? The idea of going back home without Bill still unnerved me. But Iris and I might not have a choice.
“Mom!” Julie scolded. “I told you I would tell them at the right time.”
Delia didn’t respond.
“How could you do this to me?” Alice exploded.
I jolted up from the floor to look at her. I had never ever seen her lose her cool until tonight. But I knew that certain people were triggering for even the calmest of us.
Part of me wanted to grab the children and run. Another part wanted to watch this play out. And the last part of me knew that I couldn’t do either because I had to get the glass off the floor. I tried to be as inconspicuous as possible as I walked to the pantry to retrieve the broom.
It was close enough that I caught Julie saying, “Aunt Alice, I am so incredibly grateful for your immense, total, unimaginable generosity. I just felt that I had long overstayed my welcome.”
“Julie, what did I do to make you feel that way?” Alice asked, her eyes filling with tears.
I turned to see always-strong Julie shrinking. “Nothing, nothing,” she stuttered. “But when I moved in three years ago, I think we both thought it would be for a few months. I…” She trailed off, looking down at her hands and, it appeared, trying not to cry. “I wanted to give you your life back.”
Alice’s eyes were glued to Julie. “I cannot imagine my life without you,” she said. “All I have ever wanted is to care for your family like you were my own.”
“But that’s the problem,” Delia said in a tone that made me want to drop the broom I was wielding and smack her. “As I continue to remind you: she is not your daughter.”
I’d just turned to empty the dustpan into the trash when Alice said, “Oh, just shut up, Delia.”
Brenna gasped. “We don’t say shut up in this house!”
That was when Grace finally unfroze and sprang into action. She walked over to the three little girls and, taking Audrey’s and Jamie’s hands, whispered, “I’ve been dying to finish that puzzle in the bunk room.”
“Yes!” Jamie said.
“But what about my tacos?” Brenna whined.
“I’ll bring you a special plate in there,” I said.
“We aren’t allowed to eat in the bunk room,” Jamie said.
“I think it will be okay maybe just this once,” I whispered.
They looked up at Grace, who nodded in confirmation.
“Hooray! Tacos in the bunk room!” Brenna shouted.
“Hooray!” Audrey parroted, and they all trooped down the hall.
If I had to guess, neither Delia nor Alice nor Julie was even aware of what was going on around them. Delia said, “Oh, there she is. The kumbaya-singing, house-opening Alice has finally cracked.”
My first thought was, What an odious human . But then it washed over me what I had done. I had moved into a house with a bunch of people I didn’t know at all. I had put my daughter in harm’s way. Or potentially, anyway. Yes, we had heard rumblings about Alice, but didn’t people love to gossip? Especially in a small town? And couldn’t people change? Alice had had a very difficult life. She couldn’t always be a perfectly poised lady.
I was trying to catch Iris’s eye, to indicate that she, Ben, Merit, and Emma needed to get out of here. But I could intuit in that way a mother can that every single one of them was ignoring me. Who could blame them? This was better than reality TV. If it wasn’t happening to my friends, obviously.
“I just don’t understand,” Alice said, fixed on Julie.
Julie’s face was red. “Alice, I mean it, I don’t want to leave. I just thought it was time for your next chapter.”
Alice smiled sadly down at her hands, and Julie picked up: “I see you with Elliott. You can’t let him go again for us.”
Alice nodded and looked as if she were about to speak. But then Delia said, “Plus, it’s high time that my daughter and my grandchildren were with me.”
“Delia, what about when she was practically poverty-stricken? Was it not time then?” Alice asked. She stopped, and I saw something dawn on her. She laughed. “Oh, I see. Now that Julie can help out with the bills, you want them to be with you.” She looked at Julie. “If you want to be on your own, fine. Be on your own. But do not let her take what you have worked so hard to build back up. I mean it, Julie.”
Julie looked like she was holding her breath, her head swiveling from her mother to her aunt and back again.
Alice put her head in her hands. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I don’t want you to feel stuck in the middle of our problems.” She took a deep breath. “If you want to go with your mother, then that’s fine. You know I get scared about being alone and—”
“You aren’t going to be alone,” Julie said.
“Well, with Charlotte and Iris moving back to New York and—” Alice gasped, clasping her hand over her mouth.
My jaw dropped.
Suddenly, all the eyes in the room I couldn’t get to look at me before were now laser-focused. Iris jumped up from the table. “What? Is that true?”
I let out a deep sigh. “Honey, nothing is decided yet. But obviously our future is looking a little different, and I have to think about what’s best for the two of us.”
“Fine. Then I’ll go live with Dad.”
“In jail?” I asked. Maybe not the right thing to say to a volatile teenager, but honest to God.
Iris’s face turned red. “Mom, I love it here and I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to go back to New York!”
I knew she wouldn’t want to leave, but she hadn’t wanted to leave New York either, so I figured a part of her would be happy. Then again, this wasn’t exactly the perfect way for her to find out about my plans. Thanks, Alice. Really.
Before I could respond, Iris said in a strained, devastated voice, somewhere between screaming and crying, “And it’s not like I can stay here because Alice is moving in with Elliott!”
Everyone swiveled to look at Alice.
“What?” Julie asked.
“Honey, we can talk about this later,” I said to Iris.
But before the sentence was even out of my mouth, Iris was flying out the porch door. Ben scrambled out of his chair to follow her.
“I’m so sorry,” Alice said to me, her hand on her forehead. “It just flew out of my mouth. I am such an idiot.”
Delia chimed in, “Making a big deal about my daughter leaving when you’re the one leaving her.”
Alice took a deep breath, and I could see her returning to herself. “Del,” she said, “I would never leave her. I’ll give her all the time she needs. But Julie is right. I love Elliott, and I do want a future with him.”
“I sensed that, Alice. And I want you to be happy,” Julie said.
Delia rolled her eyes, and I was shocked at how much hatred I was able to find for a woman I didn’t really even know.
But I was also gobsmacked about Alice and Elliott. I couldn’t unpack that right now though. “I’m going to go check on Iris,” I said.
Merit stood up. “No, no. Let me. I think that might go over better.”
I had been worried about them being under the same roof, but gosh, what a good kid that Merit had turned out to be. He was so mature, so wise beyond his years. He took care of everyone in this house like it was his job. And he was just a kid, something I had to remind myself of.
“I’m right here if you need me. Okay?”
He nodded. “Okay. But she’ll be fine. She just needs time to cool off.”
Emma looked up and said, “You know, Mom isn’t that great at puzzles. I think I should go help.”
Smart girl. This wasn’t my drama around this table, and I had inserted myself way too far into the fire already. I’d gotten burned, too.
“You know, I think I’d better take those tacos in there.”
I gathered the plates and left the other women behind. Voices rose around the table again, but I didn’t really care what they were saying anymore. All I could think about was my child, out there on that beach, hating me with all her heart.
I knew part of this was regular teen girl stuff, but she had also been through so much these past few weeks. I wished we could rewind to those simple days when it was just the three of us around the table. I wanted to hold on to the hope that we would get there; I wanted to believe that a miracle would happen for our family. But I had to be practical. I had to prepare for our future too. And whatever happened with the mommune, my realest future, my top priority, was my daughter.