Chapter 42
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
I’m washing dishes the week before Christmas when the call comes in.
I wasn’t expecting to hear from Angie until after the holidays, when we’d know more about the options Lovie has for treatment facilities and when a spot might open for her.
She was vague on the phone, just kept requesting my presence at Lovie’s house, which made me want to throw up. I couldn’t ask if he was there—I’d hardly gotten used to saying his name to Liss and Dakota, and they’d witnessed my entire embarrassing descent down the Stairway to Hell (I mean, Love).
As I climb out of the Lyft now, I already know Adam isn’t here. His car isn’t in the driveway. The colors of the siding aren’t as bright. The inside is oppressive instead of comforting.
It’s louder than normal when I walk in, a telenovela playing in the living room. I slip off my shoes at the door. A habit I will never break.
Angie is at the table, a thick book of paperwork in front of her. My stomach sinks like a stone, and if I’m a little shaky, that must be ripples from the drop. I try to focus on her, but all I can stare at are the places Adam used to take up and doesn’t anymore. By the stove, the doorways, where he’d do his lean-and-cross routine until my insides were the same. How long has it been since he was here? A week? Two? He wouldn’t have bolted out the door—not like I did.
“Where’s Lovie?” I ask.
Angie clasps her hands in front of her. “There have been some developments,” she says, holding important eye contact. She’s trying to say more with that than her words.
Fear seizes my chest, my limbs turning leaded. Why did I ever leave? I can’t get enough air. “Did she—is she—”
Her eyes soften. “No, honey. Lovie’s fine.”
On fawn-like legs, I stumble and collapse into a chair. I grip the edge with shaking fingers.
If Angie’s waiting for me to say something, she’s going to be waiting a while. I still can’t get enough air. I nod feebly.
She scoots a pamphlet in my direction, the edges getting caught in one of the table’s grooves. “There’s a place in Osceola that can take Lovie next week.”
I glance at it, unseeing. “It looks really nice,” I say. Colors. Text. Graphics. It all blurs together into a whirling pulse in front of my eyes. “I bet she’ll love it.”
At her dry, sardonic laugh, the bind around my rib cage eases a little, and I let out a slow chuckle of my own. “Okay, she’ll hate it. But if it’s what’s best for her, then it’s what she needs.”
Her head tilts. “Elle.”
“Yes,” I say, squeezing my eyes shut. I can handle this, being back here. This was my home before it was ever his.
Another pause, and then she says, “Lovie is herself today. Lucid.”
My breath hitches. “What? Where is she?”
I’m out of the chair so fast it tips backward, landing on the floor with a crash. My heart is a bass drum in my ear.
I slide the patio door open, and there she is.
The space heater’s going, but there’s a thick plaid blanket stretched across her lap and another draped on her shoulders. I haven’t seen her eyes this bright in years.
“Oh, Ellie, there you are. Was wondering when you were going to show up. All Miss Angie in there wants to talk about is health care. Who needs to listen to that shit?” She smiles up at me, her finger marking her place in her puzzle book. “Those are cute pants. Are they new? I don’t think I’ve seen them before.”
Lovie.
My Lovie.
My eyes burn, the skin under them tight from the salt water. “I missed you,” I tell her, and she reaches up, cups my face the way she did when I was younger. When she was younger. I sit gingerly on the bench seat beside her. She slides half the blanket over me and tucks me into her side. The moment stretches forever and is over in an instant.
“I didn’t go anywhere,” she says, and her mouth pinches. “But I guess that’s not true, is it?”
I let my head fall to her shoulder, let my burdens fall at her feet. “You weren’t exactly the same, no.” Each of my words is dipped in disbelief and hesitation. “You were mean ,” I say, and a spit bubble pops the seriousness of this conversation.
We burst into laughter, clutching each other with everything we’re worth, all we have. This may be the first time this has happened, but there’s no guarantee it won’t also be the last. I couldn’t care less about the podcast right now, about saving these memories anywhere else besides in my heart.
That’s where they matter most.
“I love you.” I curl into her side, take in the sweet scents of comfort and home. “I love you, and I missed you, and I don’t know how to—how to do this without you, Lovie.” My voice breaks off on her name.
Her arms tighten around my shoulders, shielding me from wind and hurt. She’s always been better at holding up my armor than I have. She hums in thought. “Don’t know how to do this without me, or don’t want to?”
Fear scrambles my gut, makes all my limbs loose. “I don’t want to have to. I’m not—I’m not as good at this as you were.”
“Good at what?” She laughs, kisses my freshly red hair. “ Life ? Oh, Ellie. Life isn’t meant to be easy. Nobody makes it out alive.”
“If anybody could,” I choke out, “you’d be the first.”
We have so many things to catch up on.
But she’s Lovie, and like that chip in the china and all the times I broke curfew, somehow, she already knows.
She pulls back. “So. Tell me about this man. Adam, if I remember correctly?”
I groan. It hurts to hear his name, but not as badly when she says it.
“Tell me,” she urges, softer, yet firmer.
“Adam is … intuitive, perceptive. And sarcastic. And cross .” I smile, the emotion snagged between sadness and fondness. “He looks like Bobby.”
She smiles, her chin on her shoulder. “And you look like me. Red hair and all. No wonder I was so nasty to you.”
I eye her white-blonde bedhead. “What do you mean?”
“When I met Bobby,” she says slowly, “when we got married, I … I wasn’t in love with myself yet. I hated my body, thought I was too much, too loud, too front and center. I think seeing you take up so many of those characteristics now, when I’m like this … it must have gotten to me in a way I wasn’t expecting. Subconsciously. We age backward near the end, remember.”
The filter over my memory switches to a different color. All the times Lovie hated me, commented on my body and my too-loud mouth—it was never about me at all. It was about her this entire time. I really was Lovie, through her very own eyes.
“That was never part of the stories you told me.”
She squeezes my knee again. Even her grip is surer today. “I really didn’t give it up until about … twenty-seven years ago, when a little hellion with freckles lost her parents and came to live with me.”
“ Oh ,” I breathe.
“I never wanted to hear you talk about yourself the way I talked to my own reflection. I wanted you to wake up every single day thinking you were strong. Be allowed to take up space, demand more when you need it, even if the room’s too crowded. And you do , Elle.” She pulls back. Her eyes flicker between mine. The band of her wedding ring is cool against my hand, and I rub my own thumb over it, the way she does when she’s nervous or needs comfort this world can’t give. Water pools in the bottom of her eyes.
“You know who taught me how to do all of that?” I say. Wind whips at our hair, the blanket, but I don’t feel the sting.
She gives me a wobbly, close-lipped smile. “Who?”
“You.” A few tears slip free as I return her expression. It’s closer to a grimace, but the intention is there.
“Well.” She quirks her lips, holding back tears.
“How much do you remember?” I ask. “About the last few months.”
“It’s a little like a dream. Remember feelings more than specific days or things, but I think I owe you an apology. I couldn’t forget that, ever.”
A vigorous shake of my head has those loose tears sliding haphazardly down my chin and neck. “You don’t owe me anything .”
The silence settles between us, and like Lovie said, I try to focus on feelings of this moment rather than the memories themselves. The few birds that have held out despite the chill of winter chirp in the sycamore against the back fence. The smell of the flower beds, which are packed high with new dirt and freshly watered, because she still hasn’t given up on them, even if the world has given up on her. Her hands, that should be fragile but are strong because they held this house together. For a long time, she held me together too. She’s doing that now, the way her arms are around me.
And isn’t the best part of any memory how it makes us feel when we remember it?
“You love him,” Lovie says, splintering the quiet. “Adam.”
“How’d you know?” I twist my fingers in the blanket. “If you don’t remember the specifics.”
The bench groans beneath us as she takes my face between her wrinkled, trembling hands. “Love is part of being human, Elle. The best part. It’s ingrained in our skin and bones … etched onto our souls. We don’t forget that easily, no matter how hard we try.”
I clutch her forearms, giving her some of my strength. Taking some of hers for myself. “Is that one of Lovie’s Hard Love Rules?”
“The very first,” she says. “The most important.”
Lovie starts to prepare for her lunchtime nap, but not before I hug her tight enough to crack her spine.
“Easy, girl,” she says. “You’re stronger than you think you are.” I think she means it in more ways than one.
I stop at her wedding photo in the hallway. There’s a fingerprint on the glass above their wedding rings, and I pull my sleeve over my hand to wipe it clean.
With Lovie moving to a new facility, what will become of this house? Selling it isn’t an option, not when most of my best memories took place within these walls. It’d be nice to see more children grow up here, the way I did. Make their own memories in the pink bathroom, run more grooves into the laminate, put bigger dents in the walls. Then again, it might not last another generation. So much life has been lived in this house. Maybe I’ll turn it into a rental in the spring, when there’s time and fresh air to do the updates it will need.
Steeling my spine, I push open the door to my room.
The bed is made. I told Adam during one early-morning conversation—or was it late-night?—that one of my favorite things in life is a freshly made bed, but I also really, truly, can’t ever be bothered. He must have adopted the habit on my behalf.
The curtains are tied up, sunlight warming the floors and illuminating dust motes. There are still a few obvious clues we shared this space. Clothes and shoes I forgot to grab before I left are stacked neatly on the dresser, next to packages I’d guess contain the Christmas presents I started ordering. One of them, I know, is for Adam.
Extra pillows line the headboard. Two chargers are plugged in by the bed—he must have forgotten his too. And ohmyeverlovingGod, there’s an open box of condoms on the nightstand, shoved back behind the miniature Christmas tree.
Someone coughs politely from the doorway. Angie. I hope she drank decaf this morning. That somehow she misses all these glaring signs, even though they’re screaming at me.
My hope dies quickly. It takes two seconds to know she’s seen everything. Her eyebrows are raised high on her forehead, her mouth pulled into a firm, disappointed line.
“I’ve got to say,” she starts, turning that curious look on me. “A few more things make sense now.”
“Angie, I—”
She holds up a hand. “I don’t need to hear details, but I do need to know if you think this has impacted your ability to care for your grandmother.”
She’s never taken this tone with me. It’s so jarring, I can’t answer with anything but the truth. “Yes.”
She nods once, her gaze weighted, like her words. Like my stomach. “And Adam? Did it affect his ability?”
I don’t hesitate. “No. Adam would never”— let me get in the way of his job —“make that mistake.”
The television still blares from the living room, and every few seconds one of Lovie’s snores breaks through the stagnancy. But in here, the air is suspended. Seconds stretch to eternities in this limbo.
“Adam is, as of this morning, no longer employed with AngelCare,” she says.
Something hot twists in my gut.
“You can’t fire him,” I choke, panic rising in my bloodstream. “He needs this. He takes care of his sister, his nieces. They’re so sweet. Cora and Chloe and Claire. I usually hate matching names, but they’re just … amazing, honestly, and I don’t care if it ruins everything with insurance or ethics or what, but Angie, he needs this job.” My breaths are raspy, uneven, and not working all that well. My head is spinning. Maybe I’m still hungover from that $500 bottle of wine. Then again, for $500 a bottle, it probably comes with a magical hangover cure. Not to mention I drank it weeks ago.
Then, Angie does something completely unexpected. She laughs. A full belly-shaking, shoulders-hunching, tears-streaming kind of laugh.
This is not the time. “You have to call him. I told him you’ll keep paying him through the holidays while we transition everything. You said it’d take another week, right, to get Lovie settled? I’ll leave if that’s what it takes. But he has to stay.”
“I’m not laughing because it’s ridiculous.” She lays a hand on my shoulder, the set of her eyes sharp enough to kill someone. Even as she smiles. “I’m laughing because I didn’t fire Adam.” Her eyes glimmer with something I can’t read. If she were Adam, I’d be able to tell what she felt based on the set of her shoulders, the slope of her smile. “He quit.”