Chapter 31 #2
The radio playing gently in the corner slipped from a guitar line into an old Joni Mitchell song about looking at life and love from two sides, and Rebecca felt the powerful sadness of it, and also the comfort.
“I love this song,” Marion said, humming a few bars.
And all at once, her eyes filled with tears. She shook her head.
“Look at me. Getting all emotional on you. This song always does that to me.”
Now Rebecca’s eyes were the ones filled with tears. “Thank you,” she said. “Hearing that means so much.”
Marion paused. “This song makes me think of your mother and me, both being pregnant at the same time. That was really special, Rebecca. She just loved you so much, even before she met you.”
Outside the kitchen window, a tractor rumbled into view at the far edge of the orchard, and Rebecca could just make out James, at the wheel, as he lifted one hand in a salute toward the house.
“He is one of your people, no matter what,” Marion said with a smile. “We are. Which means, if you want to talk to James about Evie, you can. I think he’d be happy to. We miss her, even after all this time. Talking about her is a pleasure.”
Outside, the low rumble of an engine drifted closer. James had one arm draped casually over the steering wheel, waving as they approached the house. A spray of orange leaves lifted in the wake of the tractor like confetti.
“I’d better put the kettle on again. He’ll want hot tea; he always does.
And would you believe it? I just realized, I left my handbag in the back room at the market.
You know where the tea bags are.” She ducked out the back door and was gone, tossing a “Let James know where I went” over her shoulder as she left.
Out the open window, the tractor’s engine died out. Rebecca smiled through the windowpane, her reflection faint against the glass, almost not there, but still a part of the picture.
She heard James come inside.
He paused at the door to the kitchen, as if he could tell she had something serious on her mind.
“Everything okay, kiddo?”
She took a deep breath. Then she pulled the photo out of her pocket.
“I…I have to ask you something.” She took another deep breath.
“Did you and my mom date? Between this and the one from the other night, of the two of you at the dance, I couldn’t help but wonder.
” Her words sounded rushed, but she didn’t want to stop them.
“And it’s not something you’ve ever mentioned.
I know so little about my mom, about her past—and that makes me feel like I don’t know enough about my own past. Where I came from.
” She closed her eyes briefly, tried to gather the strength to say this.
“It’s just that if you were together, I can’t help but wonder if maybe… well…”
He smiled, and to her relief his smile was welcoming, full of understanding, plus a little bit of sadness and nostalgia.
He got himself a mug of tea and sat down at the table with her.
“I want to preface this by saying that actually, what you’re thinking in your head right now, what you might be inferring—I actually think that would be a wonderful possibility.
You’ve always felt like family; you are family.
What if you really were, by blood?” He shook his head.
“Alas, while I did have a rather massive crush on Evie, she turned me down. We were always just friends.” He blew on his tea and laughed quietly. “May I see the photo?”
She handed it to him and he looked down at it for a long moment, while she tried to read what was in his expression.
Finally, he looked up at her. “Marion’s a year older, as you know, and she went traveling after she graduated high school, while I stayed here—and that was tough for us.
Evie and I had always been close friends, and with Marion gone, and both of us still completing our last year of high school together, I think I got some ideas.
Started to mistake our closeness, our friendship, for something I know now it was not.
I’m grateful to your mother, for understanding what we really were, and not judging me for my foolishness.
I briefly did believe myself to be in love with her.
And I went so far as to tell her so.” Now his chuckle deepened.
“I remember it felt like such a big reveal to me, such a moment. She just sighed, a little wearily, and said, ‘Oh, James, I knew you were going to say this to me. But your true love is Marion, and once you get over feeling like she’s left you behind you’ll make the effort to catch up to her, and guess what?
She’ll be waiting.’ And she was right. I even told Marion about it, later, and we had a good laugh.
Marion told me it made perfect sense, that you probably couldn’t spend too much time with someone like Evie and not eventually fancy yourself in love with her.
I think she went to speak with her, to tell her how grateful she was to her, and that there were no hard feelings. She was special to both of us.”
“I wish I had known her,” Rebecca said.
His smile turned sad now. “I wish that for you, too, kiddo. And for her. She would have been so proud of you. Somewhere out there, I know she is. I know it here.” He touched his chest, where his heart was, under his flannel shirt.
“But I also know that doesn’t make it any easier.
For what it’s worth, I’m always happy to talk about her with you—to share stories, memories.
I know Marion is, too. And I’m glad you asked me about the photographs.
I never want there to be anything left unsaid between us. ”
Rebecca took a deep breath, then let it out, feeling relief flood through her.
She released a shaky laugh. “I’m glad I did, too.
I was holding it inside and letting it become something it wasn’t.
And hearing stories about her, it feels really good.
” She was telling the truth, but she also wasn’t letting on that there was still an empty space inside her, and it was one she knew this conversation, and any conversation she could ever have, could not fill.
James had his memories of Evie, Marion did, many of the townspeople in Bramley Hollow did—but she didn’t have any of her own.
What she knew of her mother was gleaned from conversations she had, cobbled together from other people’s memories. It didn’t feel like enough.
She stood. “I should get back to the diner,” she said. “There’s still so much to do.”
James stood and pulled her into a hug that smelled like hay and apples, like her childhood. She knew she would always have this, and allowed it to comfort her as much as it could.