Chapter 20
20
“W hen’s Damon coming over?” Pearl licked a blob of sugar from her lips.
The Leto women sat at the kitchen table with mugs of hot coffee and two enormous cinnamon rolls Sam had picked up from the farmers’ market. She’d stopped there after Rachel left, in need of some comfort. Cinnamon rolls for lunch were perfectly reasonable.
“I’m not seeing him again.” Sam watched as Alligator Alice power-walked down the beach.
“What happened?” Pearl asked, taking an enormous bite of cinnamon roll.
Sam wasn’t going to tell Pearl everything, but she could give her a crumb. “I accidentally kissed him. It was a mistake.”
Pearl sat back in her chair, and absentmindedly scratched a spot on her cast.
“Go ahead,” Sam said. “Just say whatever it is you’re thinking.”
“It sounds like you’ve got feelings for him. Not that I can blame you. The man has the thighs of a rodeo cowboy.”
“Grandma.” Sam wished Pearl could keep it in her pants sometimes.
“I slept with a cowboy once on a trip to Dallas.” Pearl looked off, as if remembering. “It’s true what they say. Everything’s bigger in Texas.”
Sam was learning way too much about her grandma’s sex life. As if coming to Tybee had not only caused some magic portal to open, but also allowed Pearl to finally reveal exactly how grand of a life she’d once led.
“So, do you have feelings for him?” Pearl tried again.
That question made Sam tired. Of course she had feelings for Damon, but how could she know if what she felt was genuine, or just a projection of the possible life she’d never been able to lead?
“Of course I do,” Sam said. “Like you said, he has the thighs of a rodeo cowboy.”
Pearl gave her a look like the joke had been funnier when she said it—which was true.
“I can’t have feelings for Damon. We’re way too different.”
“Yeah, but ever since you’ve come home you seem more relaxed. Whenever I usually see you, you’re so...”
“So what?”
Pearl sat back in the chair and cleared her throat, as if preparing for a long speech. “You’ve changed a lot in the last few years. Not necessarily for worse, or anything, but when I see you with Damon, you’re all lit up again, the way you used to be when you were around him.”
Sam was done fighting against the memory of who she was and the suggestion that she was somehow a different person entirely. She wasn’t different at all—she was still Sam—she’d just left Tybee.
“I don’t want to talk about Damon anymore,” Sam insisted.
“Suit yourself.” Pearl found a dribble of icing on her plate and scooped it up with her finger.
“Let’s make a to-do list.” Sam pulled her phone out and opened the Notes app. She wasn’t different. She’d always been motivated and organized, and she could prove it. “Which room should I clean next? We’ve got yours—”
“That’s a no,” Pearl cut her off. “I need to be here for that, but Jessie and I are trying a new lemon rotisserie chicken at the Handy Market.”
“And that’s an all-day endeavor?” Sam asked.
“Krissy Conway choked to death on a chicken bone, you know. It takes time to eat a chicken safely.” Pearl sipped her coffee.
“Mmm,” Sam eventually said. “There’s the living room, linen closet—”
“Save those for last,” Pearl said.
Sam blew out a breath through her lips. “Mom’s room, then.”
Pearl started to say something, then stopped herself. “Bonnie stayed away for all those years. It was silly of me to reach out. It’s for the best she never came back.”
Sam reached for Pearl’s hand and intertwined their fingers. They both knew that Bonnie’s room was one of those places they had a hard time acknowledging. Sam had always assumed her mom would find her way back. Maybe Pearl had, too. Neither of them talked about it much.
But cleaning out the room would be good. Healthy. Help Sam and Pearl move on. Or at least that was what she told herself as she stood from the table, cleared the plates and headed down the hall to open her mom’s bedroom door.
Rachel had stripped off the sheets before she left and folded them neatly at the end of the queen-size bed. But other than that small change, Bonnie’s room remained untouched. The textured walls were sponge-painted red, and a giant metal celestial moon hung on the wall. The furniture was a heavy matching light wood, with a giant TV armoire against one wall. A clear beaded curtain led to the en suite bathroom, and the curtains against the picture window matched the bed skirt—a museum of nineties interior design so well preserved it could be submitted to the Smithsonian.
Sam had spent so much time in this room as a kid—crawling into bed with her mom when she’d had a nightmare, then crawling into her mom’s empty bed when Bonnie left. Sam used to walk into the closet, close the door and bring the old clothes to her nose, just to remember what her mom smelled like.
Sam opened the top drawer of the armoire, which still had some neatly folded cotton T-shirts, like Bonnie had never left. While there was a faint scent of the lemony citrus perfume her mom liked to wear, it was almost completely gone, some phantom memory Sam had.
She would treat this as a job—something with steps to follow—rather than wiping away any trace of her mom. Starting with removing all of the items from the drawers. So she carefully took out each flannel, tie-dyed and acid-washed item before tossing them into an open trash bag. She’d emptied out the drawers and filled up two garbage bags with clothes, scrunchies, knee-high socks and vests. She was great at her new job, as it turned out.
But when she opened the third and last drawer and lifted out a moth-eaten quilt, she discovered a small pile of neatly folded cards. They were the handmade kind Sam had given her mom every Mother’s Day. The first was from when Sam was just two years old, the date on the card—written in Grandma Pearl’s handwriting—was 1993, and a series of squiggly lines covered the white paper, which had been cut into a heart. The last card, the one on the very top, was from 2005, the year her mom had left. On the front, Sam had drawn a portrait of Bonnie, and even captured the square-tipped French manicure her mom had loved getting. She opened the card and read the message.
Dear Mama,
Happy Mother’s Day! You’re the best mama ever, and I’m so lucky to be your daughter. I love you. Thank you for being here with me.
Love, Sam
Sam licked her bottom lip as her eyes welled with tears. It was pointless to cry over this card, and she wasn’t even totally sure why she was so upset. But she was. Her mom had left these here, along with Sam. The tears rolled down her face and smattered her shirt until her top clung to her chest.
She didn’t know how long she sat there, looking at the card and crying, but eventually the tears dried up; she had no more left. She’d planned to bring the bags to the front door so she could load them into the car and donate them, but she suddenly felt very tired, like her head was floating in jelly. If she didn’t lie down soon, she’d fall down. So Sam crawled onto the bed, brought the card to her chest, curled up on the bare mattress and closed her eyes.
When Sam woke up, the sound of the overhead ceiling fan churning in a slow and steady loop greeted her. The room was pitch-black, save for a small seashell-shaped night-light. A blanket had been carefully draped over her, and she figured that Pearl had managed to cover her up while she slept. The digital clock on her mother’s dresser blinked back that it was a little after 10 p.m., which meant Sam had slept all day. It was nighttime in Tybee, but early morning in Paris.
She missed her bed with the fluffy comforter she’d bought from a French flea market, and the gray morning light that streamed through her one enormous window. She missed the copper teakettle she used to make slow-drip coffee, and the smell of fresh baguettes from the bistro at the bottom of her building.
Instead of waking up rested in Paris, Sam was hungry and groggy in Tybee. She stretched her legs and arms until her fingers and toes reached the ends of the mattress. When she stood up, she was wobbly from all of the sleep. Still, she managed to make her way out of the room and into the hall. She paused at Pearl’s bedroom door, peeked through the crack and heard the unmistakable sound of her rainstorm white noise machine.
Sam switched on the overhead light in the kitchen and rummaged through the fridge. She pulled out a pitcher of sweet tea and the leftover rotisserie chicken Grandma Pearl must’ve brought home. She sat at the table and ate cold chicken and drank down two tall glasses of tea, focused on nothing but feeding herself.
When she was done, she wiped her greasy fingers on the front of the newspaper Pearl had left out, smearing the headline about an approaching tropical storm. She listened as the waves from the ocean sloshed onto the shore.
This was the first day she hadn’t seen Damon. They hadn’t even spoken to each other. Sam unplugged her phone from the charger, but there were no new messages from him, just a text from Rachel to let Sam know she’d made it home to her wife, and that the turkey sandwich from a new kiosk in Terminal A was worth the trip. Sam gave the text a thumbs-up.
Isolating herself from Damon was likely for the best. This way there would be no more distractions, just packing and leaving. She could get back to the life where she was a respected pilot, where she didn’t have to think about high school. Pearl would be taken care of, and Sam would find ways for them to see each other without having to step foot in Tybee again.
Sam put the remaining chicken and pitcher of tea back in the fridge, flipped the light off and walked back to her room. The glow from the lava lamp spilled into the hallway, like a beacon. She was ready to get back into bed.
When she pushed her bedroom door open, it wasn’t just the lava lamp that glowed, though. There was an eerie light from her desk drawer, too. When she opened the drawer, her eyes met the silver of the CD player. She took a step back.
So now it was just running by itself?
Sam shouldn’t touch it. But then again, the thing glowed up and begged her. Her hand didn’t wait for Sam to decide, apparently, because she reached right for it.