Chapter 9 Olivia
“Look who’s here to take you home.”
Marcus gives me his flash of a grin and steps aside. Mom, alone, looking small, clutches her purse like someone’s going to snatch it. I haven’t seen or heard from her since we met in the café two days ago.
“Hi, Livvie.” She’s finally able to use my name without Dad around, it seems.
I drop the book I’ve just finished on the tray table, rising. “Mom. I’m so glad you came back. Are we really going home? Is Dad okay with this?”
Thank goodness I pushed through this morning’s depression enough to get myself showered and dressed.
Mom gives me a small nod. “He will be. For now, he’s agreed you can stay in the pool house. He has some terms, but I think we can work on those.”
I let out a breath. “Thank you. Thank you so much.” I want to hug her, but she looks so delicate and frail, despite being a fit fifty-six year old. Maybe it’s too soon for hugs.
She smiles at me, casting a glance around my curtained space. “I’d ask if you’re all packed up, but . . .”
I stretch out my arms. “This is it. And even these clothes don’t belong to me.”
I nod at Marcus, who gives me another grin. “I think you can keep the clothes,” he says with a chuckle. He’s looking happy for me. Not just happy, but relieved. As kind as he’s been, he must surely be glad I’m now somebody else’s problem.
“And the bill?” I ask him with a grimace.
“All taken care of,” Marcus replies, with a tiny sideways wink at my mother.
“Thanks, Mom. Again. You’re saving my life. Possibly, literally.”
I give Marcus a hug, and return the borrowed book to him. “Thanks for everything — you’ve been great. I’d have been miserable if it weren’t for you. Well, even more miserable.”
He bear-squeezes me for a moment. “Good luck, Liv. I hope it all works out for you.”
Mom is nervously chatty on the car ride home, spewing out the latest gossip about various relatives.
Aunt Sandra and Uncle Bob are away on a Norwegian fjord cruise, and my eldest cousin Kate is pregnant.
Poor Charlie is still struggling with drugs and went into rehab.
All of this is true in my life, too, but I can’t tell Mom we discussed it all the last time Jake and I went over for dinner less than a week ago.
One thing remains unsaid. It’s clear Mom has told none of our extended family about my miraculous resurrection.
And who’s going to believe it, anyways? Even my dad doesn’t. I’ll be stashed in the pool house like some dirty little secret, and I guarantee Mom and Dad won’t be hosting their usual Fourth of July barbecue this year. I would make a pretty shocking surprise guest.
What are Dad’s terms for allowing me to live at home? Will I even be allowed to show my face around town?
I don’t ask Mom, though. Not yet. She’s still jabbering about some second cousin of mine, the cadence of her voice picking up as we near my parents’ neighborhood. She pulls in, unexpectedly, outside an AT&T store.
“We need to get you a phone,” she announces, getting out of the car.
At least a prepaid cell is something that doesn’t require an ID — only money. And it seems Mom is taking care of that aspect. She buys me a basic smartphone and a prepaid plan that will alert her to add money when the balance is running low.
“Thanks so much, Mom. I really appreciate it,” I tell her, yet again.
I’m grateful, but . . . wow. I’m going to be forced to rely on her for everything, like some helpless kid.
Like a twelve-year-old being given her first cellphone.
Back to pre-teenage years. Living in my parent’s home, eating their food, using their energy.
Hoping for some kind of cash allowance so I can buy clothes and toiletries.
Hoping they’ll let me out. Probably having to ask permission to leave the property.
Mom’s chest expands and she beams at me, my gratitude clearly affecting her. Or my helplessness. She has her little girl back.
Thing is, I’m not a little girl anymore.
“You need some clothes, while we’re shopping.
” The cellphone store in Mayfaire is close to a Gap and several other clothing outlets.
This might be my best chance to get my hands on something other than these hand-me-down jeans, parentally unapproved T-shirt, and ill-fitting ballet flats.
God knows when I’ll have the money to go shopping for myself.
“If you don’t mind, that would be amazing,” I reply. “Just some basics. Nothing from the fancy stores you like — just the Gap and Rack Room.”
We spend nearly two hours shopping for jeans, two pairs of shorts, a simple jersey summer dress, three T-shirts, a couple of light sweaters and a supply of underwear, and then to Rack Room for a pair of leather sandals and some sneakers.
By the time we’re done, I’m almost tearful with gratitude. I’m like a bargain-priced Pretty Woman.
“I’ll pay you back for all this, I swear,” I tell Mom as we load the bags into the trunk of her Tesla. “When I’ve figured it all out and I can start earning.”
Mom brushes my promise away with her manicured hand. “If I can’t spend my money on my long-lost daughter, who can I spend it on? I’m just so happy to be able to do it.”
She’s noticeably calmer as we wind our way through the gated Landfall community, past row upon row of fancy houses.
Do they even have the same house? In my world, Mom and Dad’s place is on the far side by the water, close to the country club and golf course where Dad spends his time and Mom plays bridge with her girlfriends.
Their house, one of the bigger homes, is on a coveted lot, backing onto the creek that divides the mainland from the long strip of barrier islands sheltering the coastline.
My stomach flips as we park outside the house I know. I get out of the car, grabbing my shopping from the trunk.
“Your father is on the links.” Mom’s checking her phone. “Let’s get you settled in the pool house. We’ll catch up with him later.”
She takes me down the side of the house and through the locked gate onto the pool terrace, treating me like I’ve never been here before. For her, I haven’t.
“Feel free to use the pool. Oh! We should’ve bought you a swimsuit. Well, we have some old bikinis of Charlotte’s in the guest closet — you can use one of those until we get one for you.”
She’s clearly enjoying this. Dressing me up like a doll.
“Thanks.” It’s all I’ve been able to say all day.
Mom points past the lawned area beyond the pool to where the land drops into mudflats, and their ultra-long dock reaches its wooden arm into the creek, Dad’s prized boat gleaming white at the end.
“That’s our dock, you can take a walk out there. The view is lovely from the boat house.”
I know, Mom. I’ve been here hundreds of times since you guys moved here four years ago. Jake and I have driven that boat up and down the creek more times than I can count.
She unlocks the pool house, a space I’ve never stayed in since I’ve always lived close by.
It’s a large studio with a lofty vaulted ceiling and French doors to the side of the pool terrace.
There’s a modern queen bed, dressed in highly questionable floral linens I’ve never seen before, plus a sitting area with a tufted armchair, a tiny wall of kitchenette, and a small table with two chairs.
The far side of the space is taken up by the closed-in bathroom and walk-in closet.
Even a pool house needs a walk-in closet, according to my mother.
The main room doesn’t look as nice as it does in my version, with its pale-blue bamboo bedlinens and navy chaise lounge, but compared with the hospital — indeed, compared with a lot of people’s homes — this is heaven.
I drop the shopping onto the bed. “This will be great. I’ll be very comfortable.”
It’s true, but it’s also notable that I haven’t been accommodated in one of the four luxurious guest bedrooms in the main house.
Maybe there’s still a residual fear — from Dad, probably — that I’m a scammer on a long con, after all.
If they let me sleep in the main house, I might sneak into the safe, and hack their computers and bank accounts.
Better not tell them I already know the safe’s combination number, and that it’s behind the framed Picasso sketch, and that it guards Mom’s wedding diamonds and her grandmother’s sapphire necklace.
“I’ll leave you to get settled.” Mom’s looking around as if there’s something she needs to do. “Do you want to join us on the terrace for dinner? Your dad will be home in an hour. We’ll eat at six.”
“Sounds great. Thank you so much.” There it is again. That gratitude.
Mom lifts two keys off her keychain, handing them to me. “The back gate, and these doors.” She’s not giving me a key to the main house, though. It’s obvious Dad doesn’t want me there. “See you at six. At least you now have some fresh clothes to change into, right?”
I’m clearly expected to discard the faded Whitesnake T-shirt if I’m going to sit down to an alfresco dinner with my parents on the terrace.
“Right. I’ll wear that jersey dress. It’s such a warm evening.”
Mom nods her approval, then leaves me alone in the cool room.
The wide-bladed ceiling fan emits a gentle hum and I sink onto the soft bed beneath it, marveling in my turn of fortune. Doesn’t seem like I’ll be a panhandler on the streets, at least.
Still, I may have to live in this pool house for the rest of my life, if I can’t get proper ID and a Social Security number so I can work or get benefits. Or until I’m written back into Mom and Dad’s will.
Charlotte won’t like that.
She won’t like any of it.
But right now, this is a hell of a lot better than the uncertainty of the past couple of weeks.
Baby steps.
I drift into unconsciousness, waking an hour later to the scrape of chairs. I peek through the closed drapes over the French doors, to see Mom setting a third place at the outdoor dining table.