CHAPTER 82
Finn
It takes me a minute to find Aunt Phyllis. She’s not downstairs. Not in the basement. I go upstairs, but there’s no sign of her until I spot the open attic door. I yank on the ladder, unfolding it so I can climb up.
“Hey there, Aunt Phyllis.” She’s sitting in a corner of the attic in an old chair, leaning over a pile of dusty cardboard boxes.
When she sits up, she’s holding a large photo album, clutched tightly in her hands.
She looks over at me, first with a lost expression, and then her eyes seem to focus and fill with emotion and welcome.
“Just in time,” she says. “You caught me looking at the old family pictures. My old family, I mean. The family I had before Murray.”
I find another chair and drag it next to her to sit. It’s covered in an inch of dust, and I wipe at it with my hand and then wipe my hand on my pants. Aunt Phyllis rarely if ever speaks about her family before she became a MacLaine, and I’m honored that she would share the photos with me.
I’m also worried about her. A cloud of melancholy is wrapped around her. Normally, Aunt Phyllis isn’t the melancholy kind of person. She’s more of a straight-shooting, take-your-lumps kind of person.
I put my hand on her arm and give it a supportive squeeze. “What’s going on? Are you okay? You ran out of the party like you couldn’t stand to look at Emma.”
She shakes her head. “I had two children, a girl and a boy. Troy lives in Carson City, and it’s his kids I go to visit sometimes. You know I had a daughter too.”
I nod.
She cracks open the old photo album, and we look at the photos together. They’re typical family snapshots. Happy events. Holidays. The usual stuff. But as the kids get older, I’m getting a sense of déjà vu, but I don’t know why.
“Cindy,” I say. The name pops into my head, along with dim memories of grown-ups whispering in the kitchen when they thought the kids were asleep in their beds. Memories of tears and arguments. Of stress.
“It’s quite a thing, being a mother. To grow a person in your belly, feed that person from your body, nurture and care for that child.
Then the child grows up, and you see that you’ve failed that child.
They say love is enough. So I guess I didn’t love her enough.
And you know what? Maybe I didn’t. Maybe I failed.
But she’s passed and I can never make it right. ”
It’s a heavy load to bear, to think that you didn’t love enough.
“We all fail our children,” I tell her. “It’s impossible not to fail them. None of us are perfect.”
She closes the photo album. “You haven’t failed Jasmine. You’ve been the best father she could have ever hoped for.”
“But not the best mother.” I shrug. “But I think I’m learning that we parent the best we can and hope our kids find their way to becoming the best person they can be.”
She nods, thinking.
“Sorry. Why am I lecturing you? You know all about love.”
She ruffles my hair. “When did you get so wise, Finn? I remember when your favorite thing was to have hairspray wars with your brothers. For two years I couldn’t keep a can of hairspray in the house and had to go out in public with flat hair.” “Oh, the hairspray wars,” I muse. “The good old days.”
“It was hell getting that stuff off the mirrors, but I love you anyway.”
“I love you, too. We all do.”
She pats my hand. “You look so happy.”
“I am happy.” I smile at her.
“That’s the mystery of love, I guess,” Phyllis says. “Loving Emma doesn’t take away from the love you have for Amy or Jasmine. Love multiplies on itself, expands out as wide as you need it to.” She stands, and I help her through the cluttered attic toward the stairs.
“Finn?”“Yeah?”
“Find Emma’s parents. It’s vital.”
“Excuse me?”
She stares me down. Gone is the melancholy, and in its place is a dose of seriousness I’ve never seen on her face. “Do it fast. Use up some of that mountain of money you’re sitting on and find her parents. For her and for me.”
“Why do you care about her parents?”
“Don’t question me, boy. Just find them.”