Chapter 31
31
L ater that morning, Damon drove Sam back to Grandma Pearl’s. Just yesterday, she’d made this ride with him, but now she wrapped her arms tighter because she knew there was a clock ticking down the minutes on their time together.
As they stopped at a red light, Damon lifted one hand off the handle and put it on top of her own clasped hands, as if he wanted to savor what they had, too.
When they pulled up to the house, Grandma Pearl and Jessie were out on the front lawn, sitting in metal chairs with big sunglasses on and a beer for each of them.
Damon killed the engine and flipped the kickstand out. As she got off the bike, she peeled off the helmet and squinted at the two women. “Little early for beer, isn’t it?” Sam called out.
Pearl startled, as if she hadn’t even heard the motorcycle and was only now registering that Sam was even there. “The power is still out. If we don’t drink the beer now, it’ll get lukewarm.”
Sam laughed at that.
Damon lifted the face shield of his helmet, then said, “You sure it’s okay if I head to the brewery? I want to make sure the generator’s still working.”
She knew that if she asked, Damon would stay. And while she wouldn’t mind having him around to deal with the fallout, she also knew he’d come running back if she really needed him.
“Go,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”
“Keep me posted.”
He still wore his helmet, but she angled herself to kiss his lips, then flipped the face shield back down; as simple as breathing.
Damon put the kickstand back up, revved the engine of the bike and then took off down the street. Sam watched, and when the sound of his motorcycle faded, she turned to find Pearl and Jessie smiling widely at her.
“Enjoyed the ride, did you?” Grandma Pearl asked with a knowing smirk.
Sam tried to hide her own smile. “I did,” she eventually said. Jessie let out a wolf whistle.
A man in a hazmat suit carrying an animal crate came out the front door and onto the lawn. Which was when Sam noticed the rather large white van parked on the street just ahead of them. “Rodent Rick!” was emblazoned over a massive cartoon smiling rat.
“Tell it to me straight, Rick. Did you catch her?” Pearl slid her sunglasses down her face, and Rick lifted the hat part of his hazmat suit.
“Oh, I got her.” He held the cage up. “And you’re lucky you called when you did, because this mama is about to give birth to a whole litter of pups.”
“Pups?” Pearl gripped the plastic armrests of her chair. “Thank God for you, Rodent Rick.”
Sam tried to hold back the bile rising in her throat. “Yes,” she finally said. “Thank you, Rodent Rick.”
“You cool if I keep this little lady?” He patted the side of the cage. “I lost my gal Rosie the Rat recently, and it’d be nice to have some kids around.”
“By all means.” Pearl waved her hand in some kind of blessing. They all watched as Rick lovingly carried the rat cage toward his van, like the odd proud new father he was.
“I think I need a beer now,” Sam said.
Jessie reached into the cooler next to her, popped the top and handed one to Sam. Sam sipped the beer and glanced around the lawn for signs of life from her mom, but saw nothing. “Where’s Bonnie?”
“She’s at my place taking a shower,” Jessie said.
Sam’s gaze drifted over to Jessie’s single-story cottage next door, almost identical in style to their own, but with a hot orange door painted to match Jessie’s nails. Somewhere in that house was the person she’d dreamt about seeing for years, and now she was just a short walk away.
“She didn’t sleep well,” Pearl added. “Why don’t you go over and make sure she’s all right?”
Sam wasn’t sure if the women were giving her an opportunity to be alone with Bonnie, or just politely telling her to leave, but Sam decided that she might as well take them up on the offer, either way. She didn’t owe Bonnie anything, but she did owe it to herself to try to get the closure she needed.
“Speaking of my place...” Jessie told Pearl as Sam walked away. “I think you Letos will be bunking with me until the roof gets mended.”
“But you hate my sound machine, and it’s the only way I can sleep through your snores,” Pearl said.
“Well, the insurance isn’t covering the cost of a hotel, so I’ll just have to invest in earplugs,” Jessie said.
“Or get those nose strips I keep telling you about,” Pearl chided. “I saw them again on the Home Shopping Network.”
Sam bit the corner of her lip as the voices of Pearl and Jessie faded. She hadn’t been in Jessie’s house in years but wasn’t surprised to find that it still smelled like the watercolor paints she liked to use. Jessie was an artist who not only specialized in nudes, but also painting scenes from Tybee—the rolling waves, the lighthouse, the row of colorful beach cottages that were protected from development. Jessie’s art hung in simple wooden frames throughout the home, and Sam stopped to stare at a new painting: a woman with bright purple hair in an Adirondack chair, flanked by two empty Adirondack chairs. She recognized this to be Pearl, and a little ache in her chest rose at the idea that her grandma would be remembered as alone on the beach and surrounded by the ghosts of the women who’d left.
Bonnie stood next to Sam and looked at the painting. “I miss sitting out there with both of you,” she eventually said.
Sam turned to Bonnie. She could say something mean like, You have a funny way of showing it , but held back. Fighting wouldn’t solve anything. It wouldn’t answer the questions Sam had for Bonnie. And, ultimately, what was done was done.
“I’m ready to talk, if you are,” Sam said instead.
They walked along the wet sand of the beach, and the smell of seaweed and suntan lotion surrounded them. The beach wasn’t soothing to Sam the way it was for Pearl, but in some ways this scenario did feel safe—they could walk without having to look at each other so Sam could say exactly what she wanted to.
“Are you sure you’re feeling okay?” Bonnie asked. “You were so out of it the other night. It was weird. I’d never seen you like that before. You’ve always been such a light sleeper.”
This little reminder that at one point, her mom had been a mom and noticed things about her was a little unnerving, especially as Sam had squarely filed Bonnie away in the land of people who didn’t deserve nice things.
Sam deftly changed the subject. “What I want to talk about is why you really left.”
Okay, maybe not so smooth of a transition.
Bonnie pulled at the ends of her sleeves. “I know it’s hard to imagine, or even to forgive me, but I was suffering from depression. I didn’t know what else to do except leave. Pearl, you know, she’s from a different generation of women. When I told her something was wrong, she told me that I needed to get a hobby. When I said it didn’t help, she told me I was being selfish. And it’s not her fault—that’s how she was raised. They didn’t talk about mental health back then. She just didn’t think what I was going through was real. She made me feel worse, like I was crazy for having any feeling that wasn’t gratitude.”
Bonnie must be crazy for leaving this , Pearl would say when they sat on the beach. You’re crazy! Pearl would scream at Bonnie during their epic fights. Sam had always cringed at Pearl’s use of the word, but she didn’t know what to believe.
“If I didn’t leave when I did, I’m not sure I’d be here today. I felt so stuck and broken, like I was drowning. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Bonnie searched Sam’s eyes for understanding, and Sam did understand what she was saying. Or at least, her visions of Alt-Sam saying a similar thing to Damon helped her to. After the miscarriage and failed eye surgery, Alt-Sam said she’d felt stuck and broken and needed to leave. Had Bonnie felt the same? Alt-Sam hadn’t had a baby, but her mom had. Alt-Sam arguably had more choices than Bonnie had at the same age. So part of Sam could understand that her mom had felt stuck , even if Sam had been the thing keeping her that way.
“Why didn’t you bring me with you?” she asked.
Bonnie kicked a spot of sand as they walked. “I didn’t think I’d be gone for very long. I could barely take care of myself at that point. I’d been self-medicating with drinking, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to take care of you. I waited as long as I could. And then you were fourteen, and you seemed so grown-up. Looking back, I know you were just a kid. You needed me. But then, your grandma convinced me that maybe you didn’t.”
“What do you mean?” Sam started, but then stopped herself. She didn’t want to seem insensitive, but she also didn’t totally buy what Bonnie was pushing. “Grandma convinced you that I didn’t need a mother?”
“That’s not what I meant to say,” Bonnie said. “Grandma Pearl wanted what was best for you. And she told me your life was better without me in it.”
“She wouldn’t say that.” Sam scowled to herself. How many nights had Sam spent sobbing into Pearl’s shoulder, asking why her mom had left and when she would be back. There was no way her grandma would keep them apart, not when she knew how broken Sam was over the loss.
“I was there, honey.” Bonnie gritted her teeth. “My memory isn’t always perfect, but I do remember your grandmother telling me not to come back once I decided to leave. That’s a hard one to forget.” Bonnie looked out to the ocean and the gulls cautiously circling over the water as if gauging whether or not the storm would return. “But all you need to do is ask her about it.”
Sam took a deep inhale and studied her mom. Why would Bonnie lie about something like this? Why would her grandma omit this fact from her? She’d ask Pearl for the real story, but for now, she still had questions for the Leto in front of her.
“Do you regret having me?” Sam asked.
Bonnie shook her head. “Depression is a nasty thing. I remember when I had you, I was terrified. I thought I would accidentally drop you, or you’d die in your sleep, or I’d do something wrong. You were this tiny, helpless little thing. I’d gone from high school to being a mom, and I just wasn’t ready for any of that responsibility. I had no idea what I was doing. You have a baby, and then they send you home and there’s no help. No instruction manual. They just expect you to figure everything out on your own. But it was just me and your grandma.”
But Bonnie hadn’t been responsible for Sam. She’d given that job to Pearl. Sam decided to also keep that thought to herself, for the moment, at least.
“I got better, I thought. You grew and grew. I mean? you were three years old and up to my belly button. Always so tall.” Bonnie shook her head at the memory. “Things got easier. But then I’d get depressed on and off. Some days I could barely leave the house, and your grandma would get so frustrated with me. She couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t just get out of bed. By the time you were in middle school, you had your own life separate from mine. And I just thought, Maybe she’d be better off without me altogether . So I left after you started high school. In hindsight, I realize that was my depression doing the thinking for me.”
Sam remembered her mom holing herself up in her bedroom. But at the time, she’d assumed her mom just didn’t want to see Pearl, or her. That was how Bonnie had always been—moody, hard to read and in ever-shifting moods. Sam never considered the possibility that it was the result of anything other than Bonnie’s wanting to be anywhere else.
Bonnie sniffled, trying to hold back her emotions. “I don’t regret having you,” she said through a sob. “I just wish I’d gotten help sooner so I could’ve been the parent you deserved instead of the one you ended up with. Deep down, I always loved you. I hope you know that.” Bonnie’s hand reached for Sam, but then her mom seemed to think better of it and pulled back.
“Why did you wait until now to come back?” Sam couldn’t hide the skepticism in her voice this time.
Bonnie looked out at the sand ahead of them before answering. “When your grandma called to tell me she was selling the house and you were coming back, I just thought that maybe this could be my chance to finally tell you the truth about why I left and how sorry I am. I didn’t tell your grandma I was coming, because I was afraid she’d talk me out of it again.”
Sam’s eyes narrowed as she processed what Bonnie had said. Grandma Pearl had always firmly stood by the fact that Bonnie never reached out, but now her mom was suggesting that she had wanted to come sooner.
“That’s not true,” Sam said. “You didn’t reach out at all.”
Bonnie stopped walking, which forced Sam to stop walking. She took Sam’s hands and said, “It’s true that I didn’t reach out for a long time. I had to find a therapist, and get on medication and I was so ashamed of both of those things that I didn’t feel I even deserved to be your mom. But eventually, when I was sober, and stable and had my own place, I called. I told Pearl I was coming, but she told me you were doing better without me and I don’t know, I believed her.”
Maybe Sam was getting too much information all at once, but her head felt heavy. She squatted down and put her head in her hands and massaged her temples. This was a lot, too soon, and too fast. She didn’t know what to think or believe—either her mom was telling the truth and her grandma had lied, or Bonnie was lying to her now.
“Sam.” Bonnie’s voice was laced with concern. She dropped down and rubbed a hand over Sam’s back. They stayed like that for a good long while, and Sam was surprised to find that Bonnie’s hand gently soothing her was helpful.
A ping from Bonnie’s phone broke the moment, and she said, “Grandma got the all-clear to go into the house so we can get our things. Should we head home? I’m so sorry to tell you all of this. I’m sure it’s a lot. We don’t have to—”
“Stop,” Sam managed to say. “Please, just stop.”
“Okay.” Bonnie stood and held out a hand, which Sam took. As she stood, she couldn’t help but clock the sad expression on Bonnie’s face. Maybe sadder than she’d ever looked before.