Chapter Twenty-One
Twenty-One
“You don’t look so good, honey,” Laverne cooed when she opened the door to let Lulu into the hotel room.
Lulu glanced down at the polyester splendor. “I know. Sorry, I had to borrow your clothes ’cause…well. It’s a long story—”
“No…the outfit looks great.” Aunt Laverne tilted her head. “That green is fabulous on you,” she muttered. “But you look like you found week-old French fries in your handbag. What happened?”
Lulu slumped into the couch. “Are Rooster and Zoe here?”
“Rooster’s out on the pickleball court. You know that man can’t stop until both knees are shot and he’s run out of ibuprofen. And Zoe’s napping,” she said, nodding at the bedroom door.
When her aunt sat beside her and rested a hand on her shoulder, Lulu dropped her forehead into her hands and sighed. “Do you have a minute to talk?”
“Darlin’,” Laverne answered. “For you, I got days.”
Managing a weak smile, Lulu blinked her gratitude. Laverne returned the smile and waited. “It’s about Tyler. Demming,” Lulu added while Laverne nodded. And though certainly in the past he had betrayed her trust, now it was this resurgence of her feelings for him that terrified her.
“I’m still…I’m afraid I’m on the edge of something with him that is totally inappropriate for me in my life right now.” And for the first time she admitted, “I think I’ve fallen for him. Again.”
Laverne frowned. “Well, what would be so wrong with that?”
Lulu knew exactly what was wrong with that.
1. She was a single mom. 2. Her stable job was toast. 3.
She lived with her aunt and uncle in a modest West Seattle house.
4. Tyler Demming was the kind of guy who looked out for Tyler Demming.
And 5. She was wearing paisley polyester.
Five wrong things. If she thought about it, surely she could come up with a sixth.
Laverne placed her slender hand on top of hers. “Lulu, you don’t have to do everything right, all the time.”
Lulu squinted at her aunt, uncomprehending, so Laverne continued. “You don’t have to be in charge, or the one who organizes everything.”
Nodding, Lulu pretended to agree with this.
Her aunt gave her a wry glance, knowing her niece too well. “Why not just give things a try and see what happens? If it works, it works, right? Maybe it will, maybe it won’t, but you won’t know unless you give him a chance.”
Lulu pinched at her lower lip. What if? What if she let Tyler back in and all her well-laid plans for her and Zoe flew off-kilter?
The fact was, Tyler did make her feel happy.
He made her feel special, but still, she hesitated.
The last time she fell for Tyler, when she put herself first and went with the flow, look what happened.
Her heart got broken and her parents died.
Maybe his affections were real now, yet what would happen when he decided his pro tour and his social media image were more important than her feelings?
Her aunt, already a step ahead of Lulu, preempted the answer. “Don’t expect that you can plan the outcome in advance. Life just doesn’t work that way, you know?”
“I know.” But really, she did not know. What she did know was that anytime she let go of the reins, anytime she stepped out of the driver’s seat even for an instant, all hell broke loose.
Just look at her. Why was she even here in the first place?
Because she allowed Aunt Laverne to commandeer her laptop when she should have stuck with that grading until it was done. “But I wish it did.”
Again and again she had learned that caution and planning were her best friends. Lulu squeezed her eyes tight to watch her life’s retrospective. In fast-reverse mode, she reviewed the footage and pointed to each mistake—a missed bus, a slipped diet, an expired condom—
And then. The greatest misstep of all. Starts with a T. Ends with an emming.
Lulu was transported to the moment when the train slipped the track. And there she was, back on Bainbridge Island on the bed in his studio apartment, sleeping in the circle of Tyler’s arms and oblivious to the tragedy that had already come and gone. Blissfully unaware.
Her brain leapfrogged forward to the dismal days when Aunt Laverne organized the funeral preparations and Lulu waited bleary-eyed in the echoing skeleton of her parents’ house.
Her neighbor, clueless Mrs. Benning, had come by, fussing for updates and informing Lulu of the important part she, Mrs. Benning, had played in the tragic events.
She relayed it to Lulu, revealing details like she was describing fiction.
Around midnight the Gardners, worried that a noise they heard might be a break-in, found Lulu’s window open and their daughter missing.
They had woken Mrs. Benning to see if she had heard or seen anything.
Then, frantic with worry, at 1:30 a.m., they left to drive around the neighborhood.
Lulu could imagine them, even now, peering into cars and checking for movement on the side streets.
They must never have seen that drunk driver blow through the intersection.
“Oh, you poor thing,” the older woman cried.
“You didn’t have any idea, did you? You musn’t blame yourself.
Nobody thinks it’s your fault, dear,” she said in a tone that indicated that Mrs. Benning placed the blame squarely on Lulu’s shoulders.
And in that instant, Mrs. Benning knocked Lulu’s remorse out of the acceptable realm of suspicion into the undeniable world of fact.
Now, Lulu swallowed hard, surprised to find tears springing into her eyes. Laverne shook her head. “No.” Laverne, who knew her so well. “No,” she repeated, meaning it. “That was not your fault.”
See? Lulu’s damp eyes asked her aunt. See what happens when Lulu Gardner relinquishes control? “It was such a hard time,” Lulu whispered. “I felt so horrible.” And guilty. And lonely.
Reaching for her niece, Laverne drew Lulu’s head to her shoulder. Lulu rested there, comforted by the tender hand stroking her hair and the voice whispering, “Shh. Shh.”
“But why didn’t he come?” Lulu asked her aunt’s now-damp shirt. “I don’t know if I can let it go. What kind of guy disappears when I needed him most?” She sniffled. “Who does that?”
“Someone who keeps his promises, is who does that,” Laverne answered into her niece’s hair.
Lifting her head, Lulu’s voice faltered. “What?”
Her aunt exhaled a lengthy sigh. “I asked Tyler not to come to the funeral. That’s why he stayed away,” she confessed. “I made him promise.”
“What?!” The words coming out of her aunt’s mouth made no sense. Maybe she had misheard. Or maybe the jungle heat had scrambled Lulu’s brain cells. “Why?” Lulu’s voice shook with incredulity. “Why would you do that?”
Tenderly, Laverne pulled her arm from behind her niece and interlaced her fingers in her lap. Her aunt’s slim shoulders curled forward, and she released a trembling breath. “I am so sorry. I thought…I thought I was sparing you—”
“Sparing me from what?”
Laverne hung her head. “More pain. That awful Mrs. Benning. What she put in your head. And you know it’s not true.
You did not make that driver drink until he couldn’t control his car.
But you were convinced that if you hadn’t gone out with Tyler that night, your parents would still be alive.
And that’s an awfully heavy burden for an eighteen-year-old to bear. And not a load anyone should carry.”
The lump in Lulu’s throat felt like a stone lodged there. Of course, her therapist had repeated the same mantra of absolution, but try telling that to an eighteen-year-old who snuck out of the house to go do who-knows-what with who-knew-who.
“It’s true, your parents were worried about you and Tyler. Even a couple of years’ difference between you seemed bigger back then. Your mom”—Laverne pinched her lips together—“she wanted you to go to college, not run after some boy and give up on yourself.”
“I wasn’t giving up on myself. Maybe I really just wanted to play tennis.”
“Maybe,” Laverne admitted. “But at the time, after their deaths, you were drowning in guilt. And I was so worried about trying to hold you together. I was afraid that seeing Tyler would trigger an explosion of grief. Even more grief than you were already feeling.”
Lulu let the words wash over her and felt a million different reactions fizz in her veins. Anger at the unfairness of it all. Helplessness. Understanding.
Laverne continued, “I am so, so sorry, Lulu. It’s not an excuse, but I wasn’t thinking straight,” she said, moisture springing into her eyes.
Lulu’s lungs tightened with an empathy that had faded behind her pain for many years.
Aunt Laverne had been Lulu’s rock, the only sense and stability remaining after her parents’ sudden death.
But now her adult perspective threw a spotlight on the reality.
Lulu may have lost her parents on the night of that dreadful accident, but Laverne lost a sister.
“You were in pain,” Laverne said, “and I couldn’t stand to see you add guilt to that fire.
So, I asked Tyler to stay away from the funeral.
I told him…” She blinked slowly. “I told him that you didn’t want to see him.
That you blamed him for influencing you to defy your parents.
I made him promise he would leave you be,” she said, swallowing her words like a bitter pill.
“It was the wrong thing to do. He would have been there for you.” Her aunt blinked and swiped a hasty hand against the tear that threatened to slide down her cheek.
As the weight of her aunt’s words settled on her, seeds of forgiveness were already sprouting roots in Lulu’s chest. Sliding her arms around Laverne’s back, she pulled the older woman toward her and cradled her head in the nook of her neck, just like Laverne had done for her so many, many times before.
Her throat, choked with emotion, did not have the wherewithal to produce a sound, but she knew that her aunt could feel the compassion and absolution in her embrace.
In her mind she saw the caption again, sliding beneath the flaming paddles video. Tyler Demming keeps his promises.
But he made a promise to Lulu, too. And who was Tyler to decide that Laverne’s was the one to keep? She ached to forgive him, to understand him, and to let go of the whole stupid grudge once and for all.
A sudden realization occurred to her. Wasn’t a grudge just another way of asserting her control over things that were out of her control? And hadn’t she made a promise to herself that she didn’t need to be in charge of everything?
And right now, Tyler Demming might not be everything. But certainly, he was something. Something worth fighting for.