Chapter Seven Lillian
Chapter Seven
Lillian
Why must men insist on starting road trips at the crack of dawn? Or in Grady’s case, before sunrise?
I vowed that if I ever remarried, I would make a prenup that included a provision that no travel begins before nine in the morning. Not that I intended to walk down the aisle again. Which meant I would be able to make my own travel plans.
Eyes gritty, I swished mouthwash for the recommended sixty seconds while I tugged on my white tennis shoes to go with my jean jumper. The ultimate mom look. An identity I wore with pride.
At least I’d managed to snag a couple of hours of sleep after packing the cooler.
I spit in the sink, ran the water, and grabbed my backpack on my way into the hall, pausing at Rosalynn’s door.
I surrendered to the need to peek in on her one more time before we left.
Careful not to wake her, I tucked into the room still decorated with ballerina prints that she insisted on keeping even though they sometimes made her cry.
An old pair of her slippers hung from a hook on the wall.
I adjusted her pink quilt under her chin and checked her feet to make sure she was wearing socks.
Her body temp didn’t regulate as well since the accident because of disruption of signals from her hypothalamus.
One of the many crucial things I’d learned from the specialists and the stacks of medical journals by my bedside.
Sweeping her silky, dark hair back from her forehead, I pressed a kiss to her brow and whispered, “Love you, sugar.”
“Love you, Mama,” she murmured in a vulnerable way that her teenage self masked when awake.
Hitching my backpack onto one shoulder, I tapped the ballet slippers on my way out.
I hadn’t grown up in a home that could afford dance or music lessons.
But my mother had done her best to provide cultural experiences however she could.
As a school bus driver from the time I was three, Mom had volunteered for every shift to a concert, art museum, or theatrical performance, with me in tow.
During my pregnancy, I planned for the day my child could be a participant rather than just an observer as I’d been. We’d attended concerts in the park when she was a toddler. At three, I signed her up for gymnastics. Art classes came next with clay models and murals.
Then, when Rosalynn was five, I took her to a production of The Nutcracker. I’d packed my bag full of coloring activities and snacks to keep her entertained if she grew restless.
She never did.
With wide eyes, she’d stayed glued to the edge of the seat. My daughter had found her calling. From day one of dance lessons, while the teacher herded the rest of the class like a litter of boisterous puppies, my daughter pirouetted.
More importantly, Rosalynn sparkled. She had a gift that went far beyond the steps learned through repetition.
Until her accident.
Rosalynn’s sadness had been so intense in those first weeks, with a seemingly endless flood of tears from the pain of the procedures and therapy. Then she’d realized she would never walk, never dance, again. Sadness had turned into depression.
I understood that my crusade to DC wouldn’t change the past, but I had to do something.
Closing her door behind me, I trailed my fingers along the family pictures lining the corridor of our ranch home, purchased after the accident for its more accessible floor plan.
From the kitchen, sounds drifted of my mother preparing us breakfast for the road, even though we’d assured her we could each make do with a banana and Pop-Tart.
As the smell of coffee filled the air and the sound of frying eggs crackled, I was thankful she hadn’t listened to me.
Outside, the morning still carried a chill as winter gave up its last gasp in Charleston. We were leaving the newer conversion van behind for my mother to drive Rosalynn to appointments. We would take the older minivan, the one we’d owned before the accident.
The back hatch was open and waiting for the last of my gear while Grady checked under the hood. We’d honed our travel routine over the years. My body went on autopilot.
“Hey, Grady, this is the last of my stuff.” I tucked my backpack full of flyers alongside our rolled-up sleeping bags and tent. “Mom’s cooking us breakfast.”
“Della makes a mean fried egg sandwich,” he answered.
I hated how we resorted to benign small talk these days.
He slammed the hood closed and clicked off the flashlight.
His hair was slicked back, still wet, skimming the collar of his T-shirt.
He kept it longer than most of his firefighter workmates, pushing the regulations to the very last millimeter possible in honor of the free-spirited deep-sea fisherman he’d once been, with dreams of owning a home and business on the water.
Instead, we lived in a crowded landlocked subdivision.
Our gazes held for a moment, the silence awkward. In the past we could have sat in the same space for the longest stretch, hands linked in comfortable quiet without saying a word.
I backed away a step at a time. “Well, um, I’ll tell Mom goodbye and get our food.”
“Thanks. I’d like to hit the road before morning rush hour.”
I bit down the urge to remind him that we could also avoid traffic if we left at nine. He was already stressed about taking time off work.
“Well, Grady, I’ll skip my plans to churn butter before I go.”
He grunted in response.
Sighing, I made my way back to the kitchen, where my mother was wrapping the egg sandwiches in foil to keep them warm.
In a tracksuit, Della Avery wore her gray hair with pride, the spiraling curls unrestrained in broadcasting her survival.
She’d been a military wife. Then a widow too young, a single mom with no degree and no work history.
I poured coffee into two insulated travel cups, adding a heaping spoon of sugar to Grady’s and cream to mine. “Thank you, Mama.”
“My pleasure. It’s frustrating to stop for food thirty minutes after pulling out of the driveway.”
Again, not a problem if the trip had started at nine. Not my mother’s fault, though. “I don’t mean just for the breakfast. Thank you for looking after Rosalynn and for everything else you’ve done this year. I don’t know how we would have managed without you.”
We’d asked my mother to move in with us so I could go back to work while she helped with Rosalynn’s appointments.
The decision made financial sense for all of us.
I earned more as a paralegal than my mother did as a school bus driver.
Plus, she’d been struggling to pay her bills.
Without missing a beat, Mama had given thirty days’ notice on her apartment, packed up her old Ford station wagon, and relocated to our home across town.
Rosalynn started to smile again at the prospect of seeing Nana Della every day.
Della patted my cheek. “You would have been just fine. You come from a long line of strong women. I’m just doing for you the way my mother did for me, and the way you’ll be there for Rosalynn and her child someday.”
At the mention of children, my throat went tight. Grady and I had wanted three or four kids in the beginning. Since Rosalynn was a whoops pregnancy, we’d assumed we would have no trouble when the time came to add to our family.
Life hadn’t worked out that way. I wondered if Grady would find someone else and have more children. I didn’t quite know what to do with that thought. Especially now that things were already so strained between us.
“I made some banana bread too, since Grady has a sweet tooth. He’s a good man, sugar. Like your daddy.”
It stung hearing her talk about her perfect marriage to my father, usually followed by reminders of how a successful relationship required plenty of effort.
As if I hadn’t already worked my tail off to save my marriage before and after Rosalynn’s accident.
Grady had even stopped drinking, but it had been too late for us.
If anything, her injury had held us together longer, as we hadn’t wanted to do anything to hinder our child’s recovery.
I pushed back those memories and focused on the here and now, on what I could control. “Thanks. I wrote down Rosalynn’s entire schedule, and all the meals are prepared with labels in the refrigerator.”
“We’ve got it.” She shooed me away with her hands.
I stifled the defensive urge to explain myself. I’d yet to figure out how to stop being so prickly around my mom, but I vowed that my daughter and I would have a different, easier time.
“I just don’t want you to overdo.” Or for something to go wrong with Rosalynn. I jotted an extra note about cranberry juice on the dry-erase board, right under the medication schedule and a reminder about socks.
“I promise when y’all get home, I’ll take the longest bubble bath ever.” Smiling, she folded her arms over her chest. “You remind me so much of your father—always wanting to change the world.”
I wished I had more memories of him. And the ones I did have? I couldn’t be sure if those were real or just a product of hearing stories and seeing photos. “Have fun with our girl, and we’ll be back before you know it.”
“I never could protest when your dad was in the Navy. Well, I guess I could’ve, but he couldn’t, and in those days what a wife did could reflect badly on the military member. Anyway, make sure you’re heard.”
My mom had found a megaphone at a thrift store and packed it in the van before anything else. “Absolutely. If there’s press coverage, I’ll do my best to give you a shout-out.”
“Now that would make my year.” My mother pressed a hand to her chest.
I hugged her hard, breathing in the scent of fried eggs and face cream. “I love you, Mama.”
“I love you too, sugar.” She pressed a kiss to my forehead as I’d done to Rosalynn’s. “Now drive safe. Remember, your guardian angel doesn’t fly faster than the speed limit.”
“And I won’t forget to lift my feet when we cross railroad tracks.” Opinions varied on the reason for that superstition.
As I stepped outside, backing through the screen door, I balanced two thermoses of coffee, a stack of egg sandwiches, and two wrapped slices of banana bread. Not easy. Especially functioning on four hours of sleep.
Grady leaned against the front quarter panel checking his watch. Sheesh, the sun wasn’t even up yet. Would it hurt him to try my way on this, just once?
Was I a micromanager, as my ex-husband always complained?
Well, I can tell you one thing. I wasn’t sticking my head in the sand. And I most definitely wasn’t holding back my daughter’s recovery by overindulging her the way her father did.
We argued in those days. A lot. Over how to best care for Rosalynn—and everything else, for that matter.
No matter how often I tried to tell myself that we were simply taking out our grief and frustration on each other, I also knew our marriage had been struggling before the accident.
Our relationship had been built on the shaky foundation of a shotgun wedding when I was three months pregnant with Rosalynn.
Then there’d been my friction with his mom. Plus his drinking.
And the most frustrating part of all? The attraction that had landed us in that speedy ceremony still burned hot when, for the first time in a year, we were absolutely alone together.
Truth be told, we’d never had much time with just the two of us.
A whirlwind courtship. Baby on the way. Bills piling up, which gave us both an excuse to become workaholics.
Further avoiding each other because when together we argued over just about everything, from child-rearing to what brand of ketchup to buy.
How easy it would be to surrender to that temptation to avoid tougher subjects as we’d done in the past. However, more and more those encounters, while physically satisfying, only reminded us of the growing emotional void.