Chapter 11
I don’t know how healing this place is. It’s somber, quiet, and a little lonely.
At home, my life has a steady melody that distracts me from my solitude.
I can hear neighbors walking their dogs, ice cream trucks rolling by, and music from my neighbor’s garage band.
But as Mom sleeps, the only sounds are the wind through the trees and the birdsong Sonny could have identified.
When Mom wakes, she’s in pain, and I wish I had paid closer attention to Caleb’s instructions instead of his pheromones, because I can’t remember which pill is long lasting but slow acting versus quick release but short term.
I didn’t prepare myself to change the dressing on her shin, but she’s bled through the gauze, and I don’t have a choice.
I hate the sight of blood and tending to open wounds—physical or emotional.
I think I’ve gone white, and my mouth fills with saliva.
I have to swallow rapidly and coach myself through my panic. It’s only a small gash.
“It’s okay, honey. I’ll have Caleb do it tomorrow.” Mom speaks in short bursts in a shallow voice as I kneel before her.
“We don’t want it to get infected. And I wouldn’t want Caleb to think I can’t handle it.” It fortifies me to remember I have something to prove and someone to prove wrong.
“He’s all bark,” she says. “Sorry that he’s giving you a hard time.”
“I can hold my own with him.” I sound more confident than I feel, however. That man rattles me like no other.
“Well, you let me know if I need to intervene.”
I laugh. “He’s not some big kid bullying me on the playground. I’ll be fine.”
Mom holds motionless as I unwrap the soiled dressing, use the ointment, and force myself to inspect it carefully.
She’s so bruised along her shin, her chest, and her arm.
Mom’s always been clumsy, more from hyperfocus and distractedness than physical limitations.
When I was a kid, I remember noticing all the bruises she’d earn by turning a corner too sharply, the scratches she’d acquire by stepping into a rosebush to analyze the texture of the petals. But she was never so fragile.
I rewrap her leg in the clean gauze, taking great care to be gentle, no matter how quickly I want this to be over. I don’t relax until the pain medication kicks in and the tension drains from her face.
As I’m cleaning up the bandages and ointment, she asks softly, “Why didn’t you tell me about Jeff, honey?” and I pause with my back to her as I turn to the kitchen.
“Why didn’t you tell me about your diagnosis?” I blurt, even though it’s not the time to get into it, or maybe it’s exactly the time, while the evidence of her illness is all over her.
“There was nothing you could do about it.” Each word is a labor from her wounded ribs, and I know neither of us has the energy to address all the elephants in the room.
“Same, I guess.” I cast a quick glance over my shoulder. “Can I get you anything else?”
“No, honey.” And that’s the last of our conversation for the day.
She sleeps in fits and starts. I pull out one of the premade meals for dinner, and we eat in silence.
I think we know each potential conversation is a quagmire.
At least we’re choosing to be gentle with each other.
It’s an implicit agreement that neither of us can handle difficult conversations yet. Maybe when she’s stronger.
Mom doesn’t even argue when I help her into the downstairs bedroom, seemingly unsurprised that her found family moved her from the bedroom she shared with Sonny, handling her belongings without her permission while she was at the hospital.
But once she’s settled for the night, I move on to something I can control. Work. I reach out to clients to reschedule in-person meetings and answer a few emails, which is easier to face than calling Dad. I want to put that off.
I come by avoidance naturally. I didn’t recognize it was part of my familial DNA until Jeff pointed it out.
If one of you forgot to put pants on for Thanksgiving dinner, no one would acknowledge it, he said after a particularly polite Sunday dinner with my dad.
You act like you’re strangers, he said the first time he met my mom.
There are some advantages, though. Neither of my parents asked if we were planning to have children. Dad didn’t even ask why we divorced. We give each other a wide berth in this family. When there are land mines anywhere you step, you learn how to tiptoe.
But I have to call Dad. He will often drop by my house unexpectedly, under the guise of checking on the native flowers he’d planted for me after Jeff left. But we both know what he’s really checking on, even if we’re not direct enough to discuss the details of my divorce or how I feel about it.
I head out to the porch and pace along the rickety boards while the phone rings.
“Edie.” His voice is timid but warm.
“Hi, Dad.” I keep my volume low, steeling myself for this conversation. I wish I could sidestep the subject of Mom like I usually do, but I can’t lie to him. There’s no way for me to hide my long absence. “I came to visit Mom this weekend.”
He swallows unnaturally, and I’m immediately guilt ridden. He’s never been able to conceal that the pain of her leaving is still raw. “Oh?”
“I was just coming for the weekend, but—”
“Is everything okay?” he jumps in, panic lacing his words. They’ve been apart as long as they were married, but Dad never moved on. Mom is the most perilous land mine of all.
“I need to stay here a bit longer. Mom . . .” I filter through the available options—had a small fall, had a minor injury, needs some extra help—and remember how good it felt to say what I meant this afternoon.
I think of how easily I communicated with Caleb and decide to tell Dad the truth.
The full truth. And let him take responsibility for his own emotions.
I finish, “Had a bad fall yesterday and broke several bones.”
His gasp, and the following rattle in his throat, make me second-guess my bluntness, but I continue, sharing everything.
He doesn’t speak for several minutes, and I don’t press him because some habits die hard, and bad habits rarely persist because they’re effective. But the silence is quicksand, and I want to yank him from it, pull him out of his old heartbreak, and force him into the here and now.
If only I could have done that years ago. If only he could have done the same for me.
“You’ll take good care of her, Eden, won’t you?” He doesn’t want me to acknowledge the tears caught in his throat, so I do the Hawthorne thing and pretend I don’t.
“I will,” I promise, even though I’m still not certain I have it in me.
“If you need help, you call me. I’ll come.”
I’ll never call him, and he knows it, but acquiescence is easier. “Sure.”
And then he’s silent again, and I worry he’s put himself on mute so I won’t hear him cry. Back when she left, we didn’t have that luxury. I’d hear him through the thin walls when he thought I was asleep.
“You know what, Edie?” And for the first time, he invites me to listen to the tears, to the grief, to the longing.
“I always thought she’d come back. I know it’s silly.
I’m an old man. But I thought there was still time.
That someday, we’d be together again . . . because I never stopped loving her.”
It’s the truest thing he’s ever said to me.
“I know, Dad.” I’ve always known. It’s a weight I’ve carried.
Because I’m the reason everything fell apart.
If I would’ve bitten my tongue, we could’ve kept pretending Mom was faithful and their marriage was fine.
Maybe Mom would have stayed. Perhaps she’d be living in the city right now, seeking treatment instead of mourning the loss of the second love of her life.
“I was furious at first,” Dad says. “I didn’t know how to handle that anger, and I froze her out instead of dealing with it. And then after she left, all my anger melted away and I was drowning in regret.”
I hate that this trip is dredging all this up for him. Grand Trees is pulling us both back in time. “But you have nothing to regret. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
He sighs. “Oh, sweetheart, I wish that were true. I refused to forgive her but wouldn’t let her go either. That wasn’t fair to any of us.”
Dad excuses himself soon after, and I am guilt ridden that I’m not there to tend to him, too, and frustrated that it’s always fallen on me to do so.
As a kid, Mom ripped me apart, and Dad chose the only functional piece of me as his. But now they both need me, and I don’t know if I can stitch myself back together so I can be helpful to either of them.
In the morning, I’m startled awake by something wet, and warm, and smelling of day-old fish. I scramble against the couch cushions as my eyes fly open.
“Houdini, off,” comes a loud voice.
But the dog jumps onto my stomach—paws, tongue, and fur having their way with me. I let out a guttural groan from the pain of being trapped under eighty pounds of animal. Houdini lets out an excited howl.
“Houdini.” Caleb barrels into the living room just as the dog in question pins my arms under his forelimbs and drags his tongue over my neck.
Caleb tugs on Houdini’s collar and pulls him off, but the dog’s nails catch on my blankets, yanking them into a heap on the ground.
It’s then I remember I’m essentially naked.
I packed in such a hurry that I forgot pajamas—or loungewear of any kind—so I’m sleeping in a tank top and underwear.
“Oh, holy hell.” Caleb turns away and releases the dog, who hops on me again, and I squeal as his nails make landfall on my bare skin.
I wrangle him by the collar, but the dog must think this is good fun because he’s leaping and flailing, and trapping me and exposing me anew, like we’re both in on this game. I shriek when Houdini pins me between his paws, hovering over me with a long trail of drool suspended from his jowls.
Caleb issues commands punctuated by expletives and scrambles blindly for Houdini as he squeezes his eyes closed to avoid my nakedness. All the while the drool lengthens and thins, inching toward my nose.
“Caleb.” I regulate my voice, hoping to lull Houdini. “Please get him off of me before he showers me in drool.”
“I’m trying,” Caleb says but swipes aimlessly at the air as Houdini dodges.
“Oh my God.” I laugh. “Just open your eyes.”
Caleb grumbles but does as he’s told, wrapping his arms around Houdini’s torso and lifting him from me in one heave. But I see the moment his gaze catches on my bare leg, and his face freezes before he turns away to shuffle Houdini out of the house.
It gives me just enough time to wrap a sheet around my body like a toga and step behind the couch for good measure.
When Caleb faces me again, he looks like he’s just survived a barroom brawl.
He presses his back to the front door as Houdini cries from the porch.
The dog shoves his mug in the window, dragging his tongue across the glass in a desperate attempt to lick his way back inside.
And then I lose it, the laughter starting low before it topples me. Caleb can’t maintain his stern expression and grins at me. It’s a lot—how his face changes. The smile takes over. His eyes crinkle at the corners, his mouth breaks apart, his cheeks rise, and he’s so beautiful that I feel winded.
Abby got her smile from him. Not her mother. That broad, lovely smile I adored in her at first glance—it’s his.
It’s a moment before I realize I’ve stopped laughing and am staring at him like an idiot. His face straightens, and it’s like the sun disappearing behind clouds.
He clears his throat. “I didn’t know you’d be sleeping on the couch and . . .” He trails off, and I fill in the blank with half naked.
I clutch my makeshift toga tighter around my chest. “I didn’t want to be far from my mom in case she needed me.” And I wasn’t about to sleep in Sonny and Mom’s bed.
“I’m just checking on Nicki before heading to work. I shouldn’t have let myself in.”
“You have a key?”
He fishes it out of his pocket and holds it aloft like he’s a suspect surrendering a weapon. “I’ll leave it.”
“No, no, it’s fine. It’s just good for me to know.”
His face flushes the barest shade of pink, and I’m sure he’s remembering me in my underwear—my fuchsia thong, I realize—and my face turns crimson.
I haven’t shaved my legs, or anything else, and it wasn’t like I was posing in flattering angles as I defended myself against the benevolent wolf dog, who’s now standing on his hind legs and whimpering in the porch window.
Caleb spares him a glance. “I think he likes you.”
“He’s coming on a little strong. He might want to work on his game.” Houdini howls and hops on his hind legs, slamming into the window in his attempt to reach us. Poor guy. I don’t think he knows what he did wrong.
Caleb’s smile cracks again, making me want to keep joking with him and finding ways to please him.
“I seem to have a habit of rescuing you from overzealous admirers.” He gives me a real smile, this one intentional, and it’s like he’s offered me a carefully wrapped gift in the palm of his hand.
“You must be shocked that some males aren’t repulsed by me,” I tease.
Caleb’s Adam’s apple bobs in his throat on a hard swallow. “Not even a little bit.” His voice is such a low timbre that it makes me shiver.
My embarrassment fades, replaced by a flush born of a different emotion entirely.
“Eden? Caleb?” Mom’s voice breaks through the ruckus. “Is everything okay?”
Caleb gestures toward the room down the hall. “I’ll go help Nicki.”
“And I’ll go”—I motion to my suitcase, open on the floor—“put some clothes on.”
Caleb blushes again, this time deeper, and hangs his head as we shuffle by each other. “Sorry,” he reiterates. “I didn’t see anything.” But he avoids my gaze, and we both know he’s lying. There’s the embarrassment, of course.
But also, I couldn’t miss the look of shock on his face when he saw my mangled leg.