Chapter Eleven
Jude stared out her mother’s kitchen window.
The gravel driveway lolled out to the empty street.
The sun was peering over the treetops. She was alone in the house.
The only sounds were the occasional creak of wood adjusting to the morning temperatures and the gurgle of the coffee maker as it brewed a fresh pot.
Her hand dipped into her robe pocket. She felt the thick index card she kept like a talisman.
Jude had taken to carrying it around with her, moving it to her purse when she left the house, sometimes slipping it into the back pocket of her jeans.
The corners were dog-eared where her fingers had worried them.
Myrna’s handwriting was in red pen. Jude had found the note inside a drawer in the living room:
Filipendulous: hanging by a thread; dangling.
Had Myrna recorded the word because it captured the fleeting hold she’d had on her own mind?
Sometimes, Jude let herself think that the note had been left for her.
The Myrna she’d known had loved creating word games and puzzles for her children to solve.
She must have suspected that when she finally passed, Jude would return to North Falls.
It was an untenable position for anyone to be in: understanding that your time was limited, deciding not to spend it enmeshed in the web of lies that connected you to a child who was not your daughter and spurning the daughter you denied as your child.
Knowing her mother, Jude could see why Myrna had kept the status quo. A reunion would’ve been messy. Too much explaining to do. Too many tears. Too much heartache.
Too much blame.
Over the years, Jude had often wondered if Myrna had kept up with Jude the same way Jude had kept up with the rest of them.
Following Gerald’s stats in his annual law enforcement report to the FBI.
Searching for Myrna in the choir photos on the North Falls Church of the Redeemer’s website.
Stalking Celia and Tommy on Facebook. Combing the North Falls Register for news of Emmy’s prowess on the high school soccer team, her full scholarship to Mercer College, her marriage to a seemingly feckless musician, the birth of her son—Jude’s beautiful, funny, clever, precious grandson.
How many times had Jude bought a ticket to fly back east, booked a rental car, made plans to drive down from Atlanta and meet her daughter only to realize that blowing up Emmy’s life, trying to usurp Myrna’s place, taking away the only father Emmy had ever known, would be the height of selfishness?
Jude wasn’t a martyr so much as a realist. She would much rather sit with her grief than push it onto Emmy.
The situation reminded her of something Freddy Henley had told her the first time she’d visited him at Folsom Prison—
You learn it the hard way, doll. We’re only as good as the secrets we hide.
Of course, he’d been talking about the location of literal skeletons in the ground. Jude’s skeletons were metaphorical yet managed to shape every facet of her life.
She took her hand out of her pocket. Turned away from the window.
Looked at the same chairs and heavy wooden table that she’d sat at for every family meal for the first eighteen years of her life.
Cole had taken Tommy’s spot. Emmy usually sat in Henry’s old chair.
Jude’s place hadn’t changed, which should’ve made her feel more at home, but every time she sat down, she was overwhelmed by a feeling of displacement.
Forty-two years had passed since Jude had seen Myrna as her fully cognizant self.
Her mother had been sitting at the table with her jaw clenched in anger.
Jude had driven all night with Emmy Lou to the one place they should’ve both been safe, but nothing had felt safe from the moment Gerald had opened the door.
He’d taken Emmy inside to Myrna and left Jude freezing outside on the porch.
She had watched her parents discuss her fate through the kitchen window.
In the end, they had presented Jude with two options: she could take Emmy and leave, or she could leave without Emmy, and Gerald and Myrna would raise her as their own.
They’d framed it as a choice, but the word choice implied deciding between two possibilities.
Jude had been an eighteen-year-old alcoholic living out of a stolen car with the cops looking for her back in Memphis, a potential felony charge hanging over her head in Clayville, and no more than twenty dollars to her name.
She could barely take care of herself, let alone a baby.
Still, she hadn’t gone quietly. She had screamed abuse at her father. Banged on the kitchen window and cursed her mother. She had promised both of them that she wouldn’t step foot back in Clifton County until they were rotting in their graves.
Not exactly a promise she had kept, but close enough. By the time Jude had returned, Gerald’s body was lying cold in the funeral home and Myrna couldn’t recognize her own reflection.
Maybe that was for the best.
Tommy had told Jude that their parents had changed, that Emmy had softened their hard edges, but Jude couldn’t quite buy the transformation.
At least not where she was concerned. Airplanes flew west just as easily as they flew east. They’d had four long decades to buy tickets and book rental cars, and as far as she knew, they’d never made the effort.
If her parents had changed, they obviously couldn’t accept the possibility that Jude had changed, too.
Which was unsurprising. Families tended to hold on to the version of you that they had the most control over.
The sound of a car in the driveway pulled her out of her thoughts.
She heard the soft putter of Celia’s hunter green Alfa Romeo before she saw it through the window.
Celia had to launch herself out of the low-lying car.
The morning light caught the gray showing at the part in her hair.
Since they were both teenagers in high school, she had favored a boho style of dress, but today she was wearing a ratty-looking gray cardigan over a pair of black leggings and brown fleece-lined Uggs.
The screen door screeched open. Celia walked in with a confused look on her face. “Why can I remember I forgot something, but I can’t remember what I forgot?”
Jude smiled. This was why Celia was such a perfect fit for Tommy. She was the constant sound to his interminable silence. “You want some coffee?”
“Two sugars and a scoop of Cool Whip.” Celia sat down in Myrna’s chair. “Had a bit of a panic back at the house. Forgot I sprayed cleaner in the bathroom last night. Went to take my shower this morning and I thought I was having a stroke because the glass looked blurred.”
Jude smiled as she opened the fridge to get the Cool Whip. She was shocked to find every shelf stacked with matching dishes. Each item had a color-coded label. “I see Taybee’s been here.”
“Bless her heart. She’s just like her mama. Remember that Easter Cynthia had a meltdown because she couldn’t figure out all the clues from Myrna’s treasure hunt?”
Jude felt an unexpected pang of grief. She reached into her pocket and touched Myrna’s index card. She couldn’t let herself get pulled under this early in the day.
She grabbed the Cool Whip and a spoon for Celia. “How’s Tommy?”
“Sad. You know he’s always been a mama’s boy. He’ll get through it. Just needs some time.”
Jude poured the coffees. “How about you?”
“Oh, well, it sucks, doesn’t it? I wasn’t talking to the old bat when she lost her last marble.
Thought I’d have more time to tell her she was wrong about everything.
Took all the fun out of it when she stopped being able to argue back.
” Celia shrugged, but it was clear Myrna’s passing had affected her.
“She asked for you a lot toward the end. Did Emmy tell you?”
Jude felt a swell of emotion. “No.”
Celia slowly stirred Cool Whip into her coffee. The silence stretched out. She’d clearly come with an agenda.
Jude tried to hasten it along. “I was thinking I should check on Tommy later.”
“He’s not the checking-on type. Prefers to keep his emotions bottled up. I’ll give him a few more weeks to silently grieve, then I’ll drag him to the mall to buy a new hat, and that’ll be that.”
Jude was beyond psychoanalyzing her brother. Tommy had always been closed off, but in her absence, he’d practically folded himself into an origami crane. “Doesn’t it drive you crazy?”
“Oh, hell no. Peace and quiet is our love language. The best thing you can do for Tommy is look after Emmy. Her happiness is his happiness.”
Jude wasn’t sure she was up to the task. “Ninety percent of our interactions consist of Emmy finding new ways to tell me to fuck off.”
“She’s got some Myrna in her, that’s for sure. Don’t let her take the Weeble out of your Wobble.” Celia picked up her mug. “Are you going to tell her the truth?”
Jude felt her breath catch.
Celia kept her gaze locked on Jude as she leaned back in her chair.
“Toward the end, Myrna kept calling Emmy by your name. Then she started saying all this stuff about how she had to make sure your baby was taken care of. She was well past making any sense by then. We all thought she meant Cole. When he was a baby, there was a lotta head-butting between Myrna and Emmy over who knew what was best for him.”
Jude could feel her heart pulsing inside her throat.
“Then you sauntered back into town and goddam if she’s not your mirror image. Tommy figured it out before I did, which annoys the shit out of me.”
Jude realized she had stopped breathing.
“It’s the way you look at her.” Celia’s faint smile softened her words. “You get this longing in your eyes, almost like a hunger.”
Jude let the tears roll down her cheeks.