Chapter Twenty-Two
Jude sat in Celia’s hunter green Alfa Romeo outside her childhood home.
She’d been sobbing so hard when Emmy had left that she could barely think.
Every personal contact in her phone had a San Francisco area code.
She had called the number she’d memorized as a child and fallen into Celia’s arms when she’d gotten there.
Jude had gone through an entire pack of tissues on the drive over.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried so openly.
Her chest felt hollowed out, as if Emmy had reached inside her body and twisted out her heart.
Celia said, “It’s not like her to be cruel. She’s hurting. You’re an easy target.”
“She was right. I abandoned her.”
“You weren’t given much of a choice.”
Jude said the terrible part out loud. “I took my last drink when Emmy was three years old. I was shaky in the beginning, but when it started to stick, when I felt like I could really do it, I could’ve come back for her.”
Jude looked down at the tissue in her hand. Emmy had already done the math for her.
“That’s the unforgivable part—not that I left, but that I stayed away.
My absence had all these ripples throughout Emmy’s life.
When Jonah was abusing her. When she almost died giving birth to Cole.
When she struggled to get back on her feet after the divorce.
When she lost her friendship with Hannah.
When Mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
When Dad was murdered. I should’ve been here. I could’ve helped.”
“Are you forgetting what it’s like to be a Clifton?
You’re either on the inside, or you’re freezing out in the cold.
There’s no way in hell Myrna would’ve welcomed you into Emmy’s life.
Everybody would’ve followed her lead. They would’ve put you in Siberia.
All you could’ve done was move away with Emmy, and you would’ve never taken that child from the only home she’s ever known. ”
Jude pulled at the tissue, shredding it into pieces.
She knew that Celia was right, but it gave her no absolution.
“I spent most of my career interviewing mothers who lost their children. They all talked about this physical connection, how they felt tethered to their child, how that bond was unbreakable. I told myself in my head that I understood. That I was a mother, too. But since I’ve been here, since I’ve spent time with Emmy, I feel a physical ache every time she pulls away from me. The pain is excruciating.”
She looked at Celia, because this next part was almost too much to bear.
“I can’t understand how my own mother didn’t feel the same way about me.”
Celia rested her hand on Jude’s. “I’d be lying if I told you I know how Myrna felt.
She never told anybody. She hated talking about her feelings.
She’d walk across hot coals before she’d admit she was wrong about anything.
You know she was a proud woman. She never apologized. She never, ever asked for forgiveness.”
“She asked for me.” Jude heard the desperation in her own voice. “You told me that. Emmy told me. She kept asking for Martha.”
“Well, don’t let it go to your head. She asked for Tom Jones, too.”
Jude laughed so that she wouldn’t cry again. Her nose was running. She dabbed at it with the shredded tissue.
Celia leaned over, fished more tissues out of her bag. “Jesus Christ, we used to be the hottest pieces of ass in this town and now we’re a couple of old ladies who carry packs of Kleenex in their purses.”
Jude laughed again as she wiped her nose. “I told Emmy you and I used to do blow with Tanya Rawley.”
“God, I loved cocaine.” Celia was looking at the house. “How many times did I stand in this driveway watching you climb down that trellis so we could hitch a ride to the river basin?”
“I can’t climb anything now. My knees are shot.”
“I couldn’t walk the half mile down the road to my house if you paid me.”
Jude wiped under her eyes. She flipped down the visor to fix her mascara. An index card was tucked into the mirror. Jude recognized her mother’s handwriting.
Exculpate—to free from guilt, responsibility, and blame.
Celia said, “Funny, right? Myrna wrote out those cards before she lost her memory. Wouldn’t tell us why because she never told anybody why she did a damn thing.”
Jude slid the card out from the visor. She felt the loss even more deeply now, the phantom pain of a missing limb. “Mom gave this to you?”
“Not really. A few months back, she left it in one of my flowerpots when she thought I wasn’t looking. Probably thought I was the cleaning lady.”
Jude started to tuck the card back in place.
“Take it,” Celia said. “It just makes me sad to look at it. I miss the old goat.”
Jude held the card in her hands. It didn’t feel right to put it with the one in her back pocket. “I’m flying home to San Francisco tomorrow afternoon. I think Emmy needs some space.”
“You give a Clifton some space, you might as well move to Mars.”
“I need to regroup. Emmy’s so vulnerable right now. She needs to grieve. To find a way back to herself. I can’t put my needs above hers. Sometimes, the truth can be more damaging than a lie.”
“Don’t you think she has a right to know who her real mother is?”
“Myrna was her mother.” Jude had never said the words before, but she had to accept them. “She raised Emmy. She was here. I’m the one who abandoned her.”
“Jude—”
“Thank you, Ceals.” Jude grabbed her hand. “I want to keep you in my life. Both you and Tommy. I want you to come visit me.”
Celia guffawed. “Tommy would rather eat rat poison than get on a plane, but I’ll take you up on it. I’ve always wanted to see Alcatraz.”
“It’s a date.”
Jude got out of the car. She waited for Celia to drive away.
She looked up at the sky. She’d become accustomed to the light pollution in San Francisco.
Jude had forgotten the way the stars flowed through the river of the night sky.
She wiped her nose again. Her tears felt as if they were crystalizing in the cool air.
She didn’t go into the house.
She went into her father’s office.
The lights flickered on like fireflies. She looked around the room. The filing cabinets and photographs. The school desk with its sturdy rolling chair. The photographs and the record player and the old shotgun hanging over the door.
During Jude’s childhood, the shed had housed old farming equipment that had rusted into steel monsters.
Now, the space felt solid and utilitarian, two words that would describe the better parts of her father.
Since her return, the few times she’d been inside had felt like a violation.
The Gerald Clifton who had worked behind that desk, the doting father, the sober confidant, had been a total stranger.
Now, Jude sat down at his desk. She propped Myrna’s index card against a photo of Cole in his sheriff’s uniform.
Then she pressed her palms flat to the paper blotter.
The calendar that was filled with doctor’s appointments and haircuts and birthdays that Gerald hadn’t lived to celebrate.
The silver Wahl-Eversharp pen that had belonged to his father was still where he’d left it.
So was the folder that had contained a note he’d never finished.
Jude closed her eyes.
To become an alcoholic took a certain amount of arrogance.
You put your needs above the needs of others.
You convinced yourself that you were entitled to your indulgence.
You justified the trail of destruction, the constant lying, cheating and theft, because you had been destroyed in some way, too.
No one got blackout drunk every night because they were happy.
Thirty-nine years and three and a half months ago, Jude had approached sobriety with an academic rigor. She’d wanted to understand the processes of intoxication, the faults in her thinking, the genetic inner workings, that had made her vulnerable to alcoholism.
In recovery, the body could let go of the physical addiction—the lingering cravings, the brain struggling to rewire its reward system—but the emotional addiction never fully went away.
Neither did the arrogance. The belief that you had it all under control.
That you’d put in the hard work to examine your life, your bad choices.
The knowledge that for thirty-nine years and three and a half months, you had slayed your demons.
The blind delusion that you could walk into your father’s office, sit down in his chair, and not drink the bourbon in his desk.
Jude opened the drawer. Took out the flask. Felt the worn imprints in the leather of her father’s fingers beneath her own. Penley had bought Gerald the flask as a gift. Which was fitting.
Penley had given Jude her first drink. She had hated the taste, felt like fire had burned down her throat, but Penley had assured her that she would get used to it.
He’d been right. She had loved the heat on her tongue.
The way her stomach had churned. The sensation of her body blissfully letting go.
The white noise of intoxication drowning out the bad voices in her head.
Jude twisted open the flask.
Gerald had filled it to the top. Bourbon sloshed onto her hand.
The caramel and charred oak scent of Old Rip Van Winkle hit her senses like a baseball bat.
Her eyes burned from the 107-proof. Her taste buds flooded with the memory of toasted nuts, cinnamon and dried cherries.
She heard echoes of laughter from a thousand different bars.
Felt the warmth of camaraderie. Saliva filled her mouth.
What was she doing?