True Blend (15 page)

“I don’t know what to do,” she continues. “Every day she’s more and more quiet.”

“Listen.” He pulls out a chair for her to sit. “Have you been to your bridal shop at all?” he asks as he gets the coffee and pours their cups.

“No. I can’t think about gowns and brides right now.”

“Maybe that’s the problem,” he answers, setting their coffee down on the table and sitting with her. “Maybe Grace has to see normal again. You know. Doing things you love. Gowns and lace and happy brides. She has to get past that day.”

“But I try, George. I take her outside, on the swing. I had her coloring this morning. We take little walks. I coax her words, begging her to speak.”

George is shaking his head, no.

“What?” Amy asks.

“Maybe she’s not getting past it because you’re not. Amy, even if you have to pretend, it doesn’t matter. It’s for Grace’s sake. Hang veils, order gowns, stop at your friend’s antique shop that you told me about.”

“Sara Beth.”

“Right. Maybe she has some vintage wedding things you can use.”

“I don’t get it. How would that help Grace?”

“You’re all she has, Amy. Just you. And if you’re still in that day, she’s with you. But if you leave it behind, she’ll follow you.
Show
her how.”

Thirteen

PLAY HERE ISN’T JUST PRETEND, isn’t just fun. The next day, that is especially clear to Amy when they move from the playroom, with its low tables, small chairs and puffy clouds painted on a sky blue wall, to the doctor’s office with mahogany furniture and laden medical bookcases. Play is a mirror to her child’s mind.

“She’s withdrawn even further this week, Dr. Brina.”

“Does the regressive behavior persist all day?”

“It’s starting to.” Grace sits in her lap with her arm around Bear. “I try to engage her as much as I can. The bear is from the Strawberry Festival, which she loved with all the food and sounds, and the horses.” She strokes Grace’s hair. “Remember the pretty horses?”

“So the stimulation lessens the regression.”

“Only when it’s almost over the top. And then she sleeps really deeply afterward. But I can’t stimulate nonstop. I’m a single mother and have to get back to work. A couple employees open Wedding Wishes for a few hours each day because shipments come in and brides are stopping by, but it’s time for me to be back there.”

“Of course. It’s best for both of you to resume some sense of normal routine.” Dr. Brina writes notes in Grace’s folder. “But what really worries me is that Grace still hasn’t expressed any emotion,” the doctor says, glancing up at Amy.

“No she hasn’t,” Amy answers, almost in fear. “No crying, no anger. Nothing.”

“It would help her tremendously to have that release. If you can visualize it, the bad feelings from that day will start to dissipate.”

“Is there any way I can help bring that on? To break through this wall?”

“You just keep doing what you’re doing. Your role is comforter and you need to remain calm, thoughtful and really connected. Does she still talk to Angel?”

“All the time,” Amy answers. “They’re thick as thieves, those two. I even bring the cat to my shop when we’re there, to keep Grace engaged and talking.”

“Good, good,” Dr. Brina says as she stands to walk them out. “She’ll come around, won’t you, Grace? She’ll be back to normal soon. You’ll see. It just takes time.”

But what is normal? When they get home, Amy first brings her daughter into the gown room on the back of the old farmhouse. Two gowns hang on a rolling rack, one tea-length, the tulle stirring in the fresh summer air as though a bride just walked past, her vows whispered softy. But she’s been anxious to see another gown that arrived, this one a silver silk brocade from the mid-1920s that she bid for on eBay. Unwrapping the tissue from the fabric, the soft color shimmers beneath her touch.

“See the pretty silver gown, Grace?” Maybe George is right. Maybe if she gets on with her life, Grace will too. She has to try. “Help Mommy hang it up, okay?”

Grace climbs onto a stool beside her and touches the swirled fabric, tracing a finger along the floral brocade. “Do you like it, Gracie? Hm?” Amy will take anything, any response, as talking. But nothing comes, so she reaches for a padded hanger and lets her daughter hold that while she slips the gown onto it. “It looks like pretty stardust, doesn’t it?” she asks as she holds it up and the silver threads glint in the sunlight.

The contrast between this silver gown and a white lace gown hanging on the black dress form will be striking in her shop display window. Two variations of normal, Amy thinks, because it wasn’t until shortly after this silver gown had been worn in the 1920s that white became the accepted norm for bridal gowns. So normal changes, then.

Without Angel in the gown room with them, Grace is quiet. She stands in front of the painted shelves for a moment before lifting off a birdcage veil and moving it as though it’s living and talking to her. But still, no sound. So has normal changed for them? Is it normal now for Grace to talk to a cat, but not to her? Is scribbling slashes of crayon color on paper, but not verbalizing slashes of emotion, something she’ll take for granted now? That’s what she’d like to ask Dr. Brina at their next appointment. To define normal.

After putting Grace in for a nap, she goes to make a cup of coffee and stops short in the kitchen. She’d had a coffee this morning, but two cups sit in the sink now, hers and Mark’s. It’s just like after Mark died; she’d sometimes pour two cups of coffee without thinking as though longing to hear his voice, to feel him close again. Her doctor assured her then that it was part of grief, reenacting old rituals in an effort to hold on to someone gone, particularly with the suddenness of his death.

So does she need him again, now? Would it help to hear what he’d say about their daughter’s silent suffering? Why else would his blue mug be sitting in the sink, a ring of dark liquid pooling in the bottom? She empties out the cold coffee, rinses and dries the mug and sets it back up on the shelf, all the while trying to visualize herself pouring coffee into it earlier that morning.

*  *  *

How do you know when it’s the end? When something’s over. When it’s the last time you’ll see a face. The last time you’ll hear a voice, left only with a memory bringing it back, often on the wings of regret. Regret for what you didn’t say. Or did. How do you know when you’ll never be somewhere again, that you’ve had your last glimpse of the sea, your last breath of its salt air? Would you cherish it any more, knowing? How do you know when it’s the last foul ball you’ll catch, the last time your bat will send a fastball into a line drive bringing you to second? The last time you’ll feel the summer sun on your face, the touch of a hand in yours. Would knowing make it sweeter, or sadder?

Years ago, George had spent the morning following his father’s funeral walking along the high tide line, making peace with a decision. The sea, and its rhythms, and salt air, and deep blue sky meeting the water at the horizon, it all spoke to him. Standing at the edge of the sea had a way of stripping life down to what mattered. And what mattered was his father. He’d never dreamt their phone call the week before would be their last.

He walked back to the cottage then and cleaned up the yard, raking up the winter debris, leaves and twigs that had accumulated over the cold months. His arms, arms that would make something else of his life now, worked with a gentleness as the rake pulled over the grass. Because it was scraping over the last place his father had walked; the last place on earth that he had set his feet; the place where EMTs carefully lifted him onto the stretcher as he took his final breaths. Maybe he’d plant something in this spot. A flowering shrub, or the beach grass his father loved, tall thin blades swaying in the slightest hint of a sea breeze, whispering fleeting memories in their sound.

Afterward, he pulled his two overnight bags from the car and set them on the enclosed front porch. The cottage was musty still. Nate and their father had been there for just that reason, to open it up for the summer. And so George opened all the porch windows to finish what they weren’t able to and warm air drifted in with birdsong, carrying a sense of voices on its ethereal wings. That’s what life asks of us sometimes, he knew, to step up to the plate and take your place. He went out on the back deck then and sat for several hours on one of the Adirondack chairs facing the lagoon, letting the day unfold on its own as he just let things be, let life be, at the sea. Let the blue heron stand still, the minnows swim, the grasses sway, the tides change. Until Nate’s car pulled into the stone driveway.

“George,” Nate said, stopping in his tracks when he came out the back screen door.

He didn’t answer. He didn’t even look at him. Instead his eyes closed with a long breath as the sea life that had hung in limbo for the past few hours suddenly resumed.

“George. What are you doing here?” Nate glanced back into the cottage as though there was an answer there, then back at George. “I thought you left for the airport.”

“I’m not going.”

“What?”

“I’m not going back. It’s all done.”

“What are you talking about? You made the cut. You’re this close to being called up to the major leagues. George.” Nate stepped closer, watching him carefully.

George shook his head. “My decision’s made. I can’t do it, Nate. I’ve got to stay here now.”

“Here?” Nate crouched down beside his chair. “Bullshit. Those your bags on the porch?” he asked, hitching his head in that direction. “We’ve got time. I’ll get you to the airport.”

“Drop it, Nate. I’m staying. I’ll go to the shop in a couple days and keep things going for Dad.”

“The Main Course? Are you crazy? Dad’s gone, George. Let it go. You don’t belong there, twenty-five years old and cutting meat.”

“Yes I do.”

“The hell you do. Your team needs you. After the spring you’ve been having? You’re at the top of your game.” Nate stood, pacing the deck, throwing a stone in the still water. “It’s baseball, man. It’s your thing. You’re living the dream.”

“We can’t let that shop close, Nate. That was Dad’s dream. You know that.”

“Not for you, it wasn’t. His dream for you was playing ball. You’re just grieving, George. The funeral was only yesterday. Shit, give yourself time before you decide, you’ll see. It’s what you’ve worked for. Don’t blow it because of this. You belong on the field.”

“Maybe once I did. But not now. I’m staying, like it or not. For Dad.”

“I won’t let you.” Nate looked long at him, then turned on his heels and walked inside.

George could just picture him rushing through the cottage to his bags on the front porch, picking up one in each hand. It would be easy to come under his sway, to let his kid brother’s insistence, his kid brother’s vision of a baseball dream, get him to change his mind. He could stand, hesitate, then lock up the cottage, convincing himself that it was the right thing to do. But there was the catch. The right thing never needed convincing.

Minutes later, Nate hit the screen door handle with his elbow, then kicked the back door open and headed through the side yard to his car, carrying George’s bags. “Let’s go, George,” he called over his shoulder.

George didn’t move. He just sat there in the misty salt air hovering over the marsh, late day sunlight turning the grasses golden, Long Island Sound out beyond the marsh, where he knew gulls swooped and sailboats drifted in the gentle breeze. And he knew what he was leaving behind, could picture clearly exactly how he left it all in the locker room. His mitt, the batting gloves, uniform, a couple favorite bats. The guys on the team. The line drives, the stolen bases, the workouts. But life came down to choices, and whether it was to steal a base or take over your father’s business, the one thing baseball had taught him was that once you made that choice, you didn’t look back.

“George,” Nate called out from his car.

George knew without watching. He heard every bit of the sound on this quiet afternoon at the beach cottage. He heard Nate’s keys jangle as he opened the trunk. He heard the thud of his overnight bags being heaved inside, followed by the slam of the trunk. He heard Nate’s footsteps on the stone driveway and it made him think that his father’s feet made the same sound a few short days ago, at this place he loved. It wasn’t until there was a silence, a long minute of it, that George actually turned and saw Nate standing beside the cottage where their father died, tears streaming down his face.

George stood then and their eyes locked on to each other’s.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” Nate said, his words nearly choked back by a sob. “It was an accident. Just an accident. Don’t quit baseball because of it. Don’t walk out on your dream.”

George squinted, his throat tight as he fought his own emotion.

“I tried to save him. I did the CPR thing, but it wouldn’t work. I couldn’t get him back.” Nate’s face twisted in grief, and in remorse for whatever happened a few days earlier between their father and him. “Don’t let baseball die, too, George. You’re so close to the majors.” He checked his watch and opened the screen door, going in to close up quickly. “We have an hour,” he said through the screen. “I’ll get you to the airport. Come on, we have time.”

As George turned and sat in the white chair again, he heard his brother call out his name once more. Just once.
George!
It carried through the cottage on the sea breeze and kept going, reaching out over the breaking waves, echoing up to the skies above the sea.

*  *  *

Standing in front of the bedroom mirror now, after more than a decade had passed since that day, he sees his father looking back at him. It’s there less and less now, that glimpse of recognition in his dark eyes, that familiarity in his gaze, the same strong hand rubbing the set of his jaw. And unless he does something to fix his life, and Amy’s, his fear is that one of these times, it will be the last time he sees his father this way. Because the more that crime changes him, the more unrecognizable his reflection becomes.

“George!” Nate calls out again from the living room. The poker game had broken up and the other guys had left. Only Nate stayed behind, eating one of the leftover grinders and watching the Yankees on the television. “Come on, you’re missing the game.”