Chapter 15
Anne
“Did you get your desk?” my mother asked when I got home.
I shook my head. Two hours ago, demanding the return of my father’s workbench had seemed like a no-brainer, an excusable, even fair, request. But that was before I talked to Joe.
“You can talk to me anytime,” he’d said. Like he was an open book. Not a chapter from my past. Not a volume full of secrets.
I used to revisit prom night in my dreams. But I had never, in my wildest fantasies, pictured Joe Miller apologizing for hurting my feelings.
Or telling me his wife had left him in increments before she took off for Vegas.
I’d never imagined him asking about my writing, never considered he might have his own ambitions of creating something lasting and beautiful out of leftover pieces of wood.
It was easier to think of him as a jerk. Easier to ignore who he really was, because the character in my head fit more comfortably into the narrative I’d written for my life.
An image flashed—Joe, in a faded gray Henley that bared the vulnerable hollow at his throat, the sleeves pushed back to expose his corded forearms. Each tiny revelation made me curious for more.
The warmth of his skin, for example, or the texture of his hands.
His fears. His goals. His dreams. It was as if I were only now seeing him after a long time or for the first time.
What else, I wondered, had I been blind to?
I prowled the living room, familiar details leaping into the same startling clarity.
The arms of my father’s favorite chair, the fabric worn almost through.
The couch cushions, permanently sagging in the shape of our butts.
The dings in the coffee table where I used to chuck my book bag when I got home from school.
All my life, I’d accepted the slivers of soap in the shower, the margarine tubs that were “too good to throw away,” as products of my mother’s upbringing and mine—Midwestern Cheap, I’d told Chris once.
He’d smiled politely, not understanding the joke or my pride in my parents, who had worked hard and made do as far back as I could remember.
I’d always dismissed the comments that we were poor.
I’d never considered that my parents might actually be struggling.
“Mom?” On the TV, palm trees waved over the crystalline pool of some luxury resort. “Are you doing okay? Financially, I mean.”
She glanced away from her show. “I’m fine.” A corner of her mouth hitched. “As long as people keep buying fudge.”
I wanted to believe her. But twenty minutes ago, I’d told Joe everything was fine, too. Which meant she could be lying. And also that I was more like my mother than I wanted to acknowledge.
I flung myself on the couch beside her, grabbing a pillow to my chest. My parents had filled out my college aid applications, but we’d never discussed their finances. Asking them about money was like inquiring about their sex life. The very thought made me flush with embarrassment.
“I was just wondering, with Dad gone, if I can do anything to help.”
She turned her face to the TV. “You are helping. In the shop. Unless you’re expecting a raise.”
“But Dad’s business—”
“It’s Joe’s business now.”
“Yeah, he said.” I picked at a pillow seam. “But it’s still yours, too, right? I mean, unless Dad left everything to Joe.”
“Joe and I came to an arrangement.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m satisfied, and you don’t need to worry.”
Possibilities circled my brain like water swirling around a drain. “I’m not worried. I’m just trying to take an interest—a grown-up interest—in my aging mother’s well-being.”
“Good of you,” my mother said dryly.
“Did you know Joe took Dad’s bench for scrap wood?”
“Can’t say I did.” She shot me a sharp look. “You didn’t fight with him, did you?”
“No.” All that tension swarming and sparking between us…Not a fight. My blundering exit? Awkward, but again, not a fight. Maybe that’s why I felt so unsettled. Resenting Joe had been a part of my emotional landscape for so long, I was lost without it.
On Love Is Blind, a woman was crying about being left behind while her partner went out drinking with the rest of the cast.
“That will never last,” my mother predicted, her attention on the TV.
“You’re such a romantic.”
My mother snorted. “Heard from Chris lately?”
“Wow. Are you actually asking about my love life?”
Because that wasn’t us. My mother had never invited girlish confidences while she braided my hair.
She didn’t deliver the Sex Talk over tea and cookies or leave a box of condoms on my bed, the way Daanis said her mother did.
(“It was so embarrassing,” Daanis had wailed while I shrieked with laughter.)
If my mother ever bragged about her only daughter dating a doctor, I never heard it.
She never even told me she liked him, which, given the adoration he got from his patients’ parents, had to be on her.
Or on me. Their first (and only) meeting, during a campus visit my senior year, did not go well.
My parents didn’t understand why we had to drive downtown to a fancy restaurant near the hospital for dinner.
They were uncomfortable with the setting, the servers, and the prices on the menu.
I talked too much, to compensate. Even Chris’s polite bedside manner could not put them at ease.
My gentle dad was quiet, my mother brusque.
Three years had passed, and we still sucked at mother-daughter communication. I hadn’t told her Chris and I were taking a break.
“Maybe I’m taking an interest in my grown-up daughter’s well-being,” my mother said, deadpan, turning my words around. Wow, a joke.
“Very funny, Mom.” But maybe she meant it. Maybe, now that I was home for the summer, we were finally growing closer. At least, I hoped so. “He texted me last night.” I hesitated and then added, “He graduates this weekend.”
“Are you going?”
The question cut right to my heart. “He invited me.” Sort of.
Big weekend. Wish you were here, he’d typed. Not asking. Hiding his hurt. Leaving the decision up to me. And wasn’t that what I wanted?
I could choose to do this, I thought, with a shiver of excitement. I’d spent more than two years believing Chris and I were going to move in together. I’d imagined marrying him. Sure, he’d committed to Emory without talking to me first. But this was in my hands.
I still hadn’t figured out who I could be without him. Didn’t know who I was supposed to be with him. But supporting him felt like the right thing to do.
“I know it’s short notice,” I said. “I can’t ask you for three days off at the beginning of the season.”
My mother raised her eyebrows. “You haven’t been home in six years, Annie. I think I can manage without you for one weekend.”
“You just said I was a help,” I reminded her.
I held my breath while the living room echoed with my father’s absence and the sound of the TV. Waiting for my mother to tell me she needed me.
“I’ve got Zoe and Hailey mornings and Della to help out in the evenings.” Della was her summer hire, a student from East Lansing. “You don’t have to stay on my account.” Her gaze met mine. “Or leave, either.”
Was she talking about this weekend? Or something more?
“I don’t know if I can get a flight. Not at the last minute.” Unless I could beg a ride with a private jet flying charter.
“Take the car,” my mother said.
My stomach dropped. Like most other residents of the island, my parents rented a parking spot on the mainland. I used to ride the ferry with my father when he went over once a month to pump the brakes and check the air in the tires.
But I’d barely driven in six years. My mind skittered. I could hit a pothole or a deer or a tree. What if I got lost, got a ticket, got a flat? What if the Good Samaritan who stopped to help change my tire was a serial killer?
I swallowed. Sometimes you just had to drive the car. Be an adult. “Yeah, okay. Thanks.”
“Don’t forget to fill the tank when you get back.” Mom turned to the couples on Love Is Blind, signaling this conversation was over.
A rush of affection filled me. “I can do that,” I said to the back of her head.
But apparently she wasn’t done yet.
“If you need a hand,” she said, her gaze fixed on the television screen, “moving your old desk into the work shed, let me know.”
The offer tugged at me sweetly, like a brush drawn through my hair. “Thanks, Mom.”
—
The next morning I was late to work. Again.
I dodged the line of fudgies on the sidewalk and slipped inside the back door. My mother’s voice carried clearly from the front of the shop. “…sweep before you put the chairs down. Otherwise you’re just pushing dirt around.”
Zoe was in the kitchen, retying her apron. “Hey, darling!”
“Hi, Zoe. What’s up?”
She pulled a face. “I believe Maddie’s going over opening procedures with Hailey.” And Zoe, catlike, had left the room at the sound of conflict, I thought with a flare of amusement.
“I said I was sorry,” Hailey was saying.
“I don’t need you to apologize,” my mother said. “I need you to get it right.”
I walked through to the front, where a red-faced Hailey clutched a broom. Mom, tight-lipped, had crossed her arms over her apron.
“I know. I will,” Hailey said. “Eventually.”
“Good,” Mom said.
“Or she’ll be forced to kill you,” I added, earning a weak smile from Hailey and a sniff from Mom.
“You all right?” I asked Hailey as we finished setup together.
“I feel stupid I can’t remember.”
I pushed the last chair into place. “It helps if you write things down.”
“You mean, like a checklist.”
“Yeah. But it has to be where you can see it. That’s why I always write student assignments on the board.” I grinned. “Also, I’m always writing little reminders to myself. Colored Post-its everywhere. Like a rainbow threw up all over my desk.”
Mom unlocked the door and flipped the sign to open.