At the end of the upstairs hall, the door to Nana’s bedroom is shut, undisturbed as far as I can tell since Mom returned from Shane’s with the urn. I took her advice and stayed away from it, but tonight is different. Maybe it’s the universe Rachel’s always talking about, trying to send me another message. Maybe the ashes are calling to me, or maybe my heart is just full of love and hope and nostalgia after hearing Patrick sing, because tonight, I don’t want to read Stephanie’s diary. I want to be with my grandmother.
The door isn’t locked; it opens easily when I turn the knob. There’s no creaking or moaning or shifting shadows to warn of poltergeists or haunting doom, and when I flick on the light switch, I find only a regular bedroom with regular bedroom stuff, two big windows, and the lingering scent of medicine, hand lotion, and perfumed powder.
The room is wallpapered as I remember it—same neat rows of tiny yellow tulips on a white background. The beige carpet looks new, but the fluffy yellow comforter and curtains are the same, faded now from years of washing and warming in the sun beneath the windows. A glass of water sits on the night table next to one of those plastic pill boxes with individual compartments for each day of the week, S M T W T F S, and it occurs to me that this is where she took her last breath.
On top of Nana’s oak dresser, the urn rests as if it’s always been there: a simple black box etched with pink-gold flowers and vines. Two china dolls with shiny black silk for hair and painted-on eyes guard the box, watching me as if I owe them an explanation.
Can we help you, Miss Hannaford?
I ignore the dolls, resting my hand atop the black box, fingers tracing the grooved vine at the edge.
It’s cold. I pull away.
In front of the dolls, the dresser is piled with randomness: Receipts. A watch that doesn’t work. Four gold bracelets. A mini-book about the U.S. first ladies. A silver sculpture in the shape of a hand with costume rings stacked on each finger and a glass bead bracelet draped over the thumb. A small hinged metal box with pink glass jewels on the outside. A loose photo of a Saint Bernard lolling in the front yard with his tongue out—Ollie, I guess.
I slide open a dresser drawer, so hoping that I’ll find letters or
her
diary or photographs or keys to a hidden chest that holds all the answers—so expecting it, even—that the plain ordinariness of her socks and stockings, tucked neatly into rows of white and black and beige, surprises me. The next drawer is lined with slips and underwear in the same basic palette. The next is for clothes—sweatshirts, T-shirts, nightshirts. Pants. Shorts. Back on the top, behind the dolls and the black box, there’s one more drawer, small and neat. I tug on the center handle, careful not to disturb the urn. The drawer is mostly empty. Just some pastel-colored hand lotion samples. Loose change. A box of Q-tips. My grandmother’s prescription cache.
The bottles are see-through orange with printed labels from a chain pharmacy in town. I recognize the names of most of the drugs from the commercials that show people talking to their doctors and then dancing or swimming or fishing with their grandkids. There’s a pill for cholesterol and one for blood pressure, and another I think for calcium and bone density.
But there are others, too. Three bottles half-empty, their forebears probably already allocated into their appropriate slots in the S M T W T F S box near the bed. And as my mind again connects the names with the commercials, the symptoms with the side effects, the befores with the afters, I understand.
My grandmother was being treated—medicated—for clinical depression.
Through the translucent orange of the pill bottles, some of my memories clarify, while others shift slightly out of focus. I think about my grandmother that day with the cardinal—how little she was affected. I remember during some of the summer festivals and parties, Nana would make excuses to retire early from neighborhood gatherings or dinners with friends.
Not now, Delilah. Why don’t you and Ricky go outside so I can rest?
I roll one of the bottles in my hand, fingers rocking it against my palm as the pills slide back and forth inside the plastic. Imagining her here in the bedroom, alone at night, taking a dozen pills before bed, falling asleep with nothing but her blue regrets—well, considering she never tried to get in touch with me after that family fight, I shouldn’t even care. But I do care, and all the soft parts beneath my ribs squeeze together when I think about it.
The china dolls still watch me. Next to their long, lace-and-velvet dresses, I’m practically naked in my white tank top. I unfold a thin beige sweater from a shelf next to the dresser and pull it over my head, static crackling through my hair.
There’s a pile of books under the table next to her bed. I sit on the floor in front of them, pulling out several horror novels—
Pet Sematary
and
Thinner
by Stephen King.
Flowers in the Attic
by V. C. Andrews. I read a few random passages aloud, convinced that a combination of particularly haunted phrases will summon her ghost and induce a message from the other side.
None comes.
Still wearing her sweater, I move to the vanity table and sit on the small wicker stool in front of it. I rummage through her makeup and jewelry, hoping to catch a side-glance at her through the mirror—the looking glass to the great beyond. I clasp a delicate necklace around my neck—a tiny silver heart suspended from a wire-thin chain—and dab a bit of her talcum powder on my face with a soft, pink poof.
“What would I say to you, anyway?” I ask the air in front of me, staring in the mirror at the silver flash on my collarbone.
“Maybe you’d tell me what you’re looking for?” A voice speaks from the hallway.
I jump up from the stool, knocking it over.
“Mom, you scared me half to death!”
“I was hoping you’d leave this room to me and Aunt Rachel.”
I look down at my feet, which, along with everything around them, are covered in the talcum powder I dropped when I thought my grandmother was scolding me from the great beyond.
“I just thought—”
“It’s all right, Delilah.” Her voice is limp and wilting after the long estate meeting. “We were planning to start on it this week, anyway.”
I reach for the chain around my neck and hold it up to show her the heart. “I found this with the jewelry,” I say. “I wasn’t going to steal it, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Cut it out.” Mom sighs. “That day at Blush was just… look, I realize that I can’t be home with you very much. I know we don’t spend time together like we used to. And I’m sorry, but you know how much time and energy my job requires. I need to be able to trust you to take care of yourself so that I can go to work to earn money and plan for our future.”
“I know. It’s just that—”
“No, Del, I don’t think you realize how much pressure I’m under at DKI. Corporate budgets are being cut everywhere, and we need to work even harder to keep clients and win new business. That means a lot of hours for my entire team. What kind of message does it send if I have to constantly leave the office to follow you around and make sure you aren’t getting yourself into more trouble?”
“I’m sorry. I know. I—”
“And you have so much to look forward to this year. Your SATs are coming up in the fall, and soon we’ll be looking at schools and filling out applications… you really need to stay on track. I know this trip isn’t the ideal place for it, but I’m hoping we can use the time to regroup. Take a break from life back home and return at the end of the summer for a fresh start. I’m willing to forgive and forget and give you that second chance, but only if you’re willing to take it.”
She lifts my chin with her fingers, smoothing my cheek with her thumb.
“I love you, Delilah. I just want you to be happy and safe, okay?”
“I know.”
“Let’s go,” she says. “Keep the necklace. It’s pretty on you.”
“What about the mess?” I find the empty makeup pot and try to scoop some of the talcum powder back in, sending up clouds of white dust.
“Just leave it. I’ll vacuum tomorrow.” She reaches for the light switch, waiting for me to follow her out. Maybe it has to do with being in my grandmother’s room, here among her ashes and the common things of the dead that become sacred, wanting so much for my mother to like me, to understand me, to mean what she says about me being happy and safe… I don’t want her to turn off the light. I don’t want us to go.
“Mom?” I look at her, my hand hovering near my hip, searching for something to hold. “Well… what happened at the estate meeting, anyway?”
She pauses for a second. Her body leans forward as if to come closer, but her feet don’t cooperate. “Nothing to worry about,” she says, sliding out of her taupe suit jacket. “Just… you know what, Del? I’m exhausted, and I still need to check my e-mail before I call it a night. We’ll talk about it tomorrow, okay?”
“Sure, Mom.” I don’t believe her any more than she believes herself, but I nod and follow her out anyway, ducking back into my room to dust off the lingering powder as she pulls Nana’s door closed with a soft
click
.
I didn’t tell Mom about finding Nana’s prescriptions last week.
We didn’t talk about the pills or the estate meeting or Patrick’s show or the way Aunt Rachel is pulling away from us, hiding in the basement to sort through Nana’s stuff by day, out with Megan for drinks at night.
I didn’t tell Mom about the diary either, the entries growing more intense and personal as Stephanie falls headlong for Casey and begins to lose some of herself in the process. When I think about Patrick’s show last week, hearing him sing as if it was for me alone, I understand how easy it would be to lose yourself in the heart of another. It’s frightening. Exhilarating. An ocean with no lifeguard. Stephanie was in deep with Casey, and knowing that as I do now, seeing it written and feeling it crackle in the air around the pages as I read the words… I can never share it with my mother. It would just about kill her, the intensity of Steph’s life on the pages a sharp contrast to the cold, unchangeable reality of her death. How can anyone accept that someone once so vibrant, so alive, is never coming back? The right to read the diary is more hers than mine, but even if I thought it wouldn’t wreck her… Love? Passion? Life? Mom and I just don’t talk about such things.
I’m so used to avoiding her now that when she knocks on my door this morning as I’m pulling on my painting clothes, it takes me a minute to remember the words to invite her in. When I do, she says she wants to talk.
Needs
to talk. And I wonder what I did this time.
“Um, okay,” I say. “What’s going on?”
Mom sits on the edge of the bed and smoothes out her robe, though it’s not wrinkled.
“I thought we could talk about… I meant to tell you about the estate meeting,” she says. “I was so tired the other night and then it just slipped my mind.”
“It’s cool. I kind of forgot about it, too,” I lie.
“Apparently the town declared the house a historic point of interest last year. It’s one of the only remaining original settlement homes of its size in Vermont.”
“What does that mean?” I ask, lacing up my old sneakers. “We have to turn it into a museum or something?”
Mom shakes her head. “No, nothing like that. Just more paperwork. They also think we can find a private buyer without listing.”
“Oh.” I stand to look out the window. Patrick and Em wave from the backyard, ready for our painting party. “Okay. Well, we’re doing the shed today, so—”
“Wait—there’s more,” she says. “My parents had some money saved—they were smart with their investments and still had a lot of Dad’s veteran benefits.”
“That’s good.”
“We won’t have any issues getting the house renovated and getting it on the market. Her funeral services are covered, too.”
“Cool. Thanks for the update. Can I—”
“Delilah, she also left quite a bit of money for you. For your education.”
“
What?
”
“It’s in a trust. It’s enough to cover a good chunk of your college expenses. Maybe a little extra.”
Mom’s gaze slides to the jar of buttons on my dresser, tears gathering in her eyes.
“But… I don’t understand, Mom. She had nothing to do with me since we left Red Falls. Why would she leave me anything?”
She smiles, looking back to me. “I don’t know, Honeybee. I guess she wanted you to be taken care of, despite… well, despite a lot of things.”
“But if she cared about me so much, why didn’t she try to call or write? All those years, I never heard from her. Now she’s trying to make up for it by paying for college? Who cares, Mom? You have money saved. I don’t want hers.” I rub the silver heart necklace on my collarbone, wishing I could trade all those thousands of dollars for the lost eight years between us.
“Delilah, it was generous of her. We don’t know her motives. She’s gone. We’ll never know—”
“I don’t remember her, Mom,” I whisper, my throat tightening. “I keep trying to see her face or to hear her voice, and I can’t.”
Mom puts her arm around me and pulls me against her chest, but she doesn’t say anything, and soon I feel the unevenness of her breath on my hair and wish that we could just go back to Key, back to the day before Blush Cosmetics. I’ll remember to pay for the lipstick and I’ll convince her to stay home from work and disconnect the phones and we can order pizza and watch movies, just the two of us. We’ll ignore Aunt Rachel’s call and we’ll never know that any of this ever happened and then we won’t have to be here now, sitting in her dead sister’s old room, wondering what the hell we’re supposed to do next.
“All right,” Mom says, rising from the bed and wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “It’s going to be a beautiful day today, and you’ve done a lot of work already. You guys should enjoy the lake a little before the July Fourth crowd gets here. The shed can wait. Consider it a day off, okay?”
Mom starts to move toward me, but stops midstep, distracted as if she suddenly realized she left the car running. She puts her hands in the pockets of her robe as she backs out of the doorway, our eyes locked until she turns away toward her room.
Outside, Patrick and Emily sit with their backs against the shed in the shade, paint cans and rollers and tarps piled on the ground around them.
“Day off,” I call out the window. “Let’s go kayaking.”
Mom and Aunt Rachel don’t hear me as I approach the kitchen, but I hear them, bits and pieces of a whispered conversation floating to my ears.
“Claire,” Rachel says, “instead of getting angry with me, why… talk to her about it?”
“You know I can’t,” Mom says. “It’s way… complicated and…”
“Because you complicated… the longer you… worse…”
“Don’t you think…?”
I take one more careful step down, straining to hear them through the wall of the stairwell and the chopping of Rachel’s kitchen knife against the cutting board.
“No, I don’t,” Rachel says.
Chop chop chop.
“… bring it up here,” Mom says. “… expect me to say?”
“… no idea,” Rachel says. “You… I didn’t agree… handled it… Casey?”
Chop chop chop.
My ears perk up at the mention of Stephanie’s boyfriend. What does he have to do with anything? Do they know where he is? I wish I could hear what they’re saying, but one more step down and they’ll see me.
“… only sixteen,” Mom whispers. “The situation… extremely… won’t understand.”
“… not an eight-year-old kid…” Rachel says. “Talk to her… truth.”
I wait another minute, but there’s no more talking, just Rachel frantically chopping vegetables. I take the last step down and face them in the kitchen, both of them going as white as the curtains over the window.
“Delilah?” Mom says, clearing her throat when the last part of my name sticks. “Are you… I thought you were going out for the day.”
“I was upstairs getting ready. What were you guys talking about?”
“What do you mean?” Mom looks at Rachel.
“I heard you.”
“Heard us what?” she asks. “We’ve been talking about things all morning.”
“Come on, Mom. Just now. Rachel’s was trying to convince you to tell me something. What’s going on?”
She looks at her sister again, but Rachel’s on a mission to dice up those carrots and doesn’t respond.
“Your aunt and I were just discussing some of the details of the will,” Mom says. “I told her that I let you know about the college fund. We need to clear up a few more points with her lawyers in order to access money for the remodel and the headstone. Nothing for you to worry about.”
I can’t connect the dots of complicated and Casey with will details and headstones, but Mom’s not going to share any more, and Rachel might as well be out drinking with Megan for all
she’s
contributing to this conversation.
“Fine,” I say, grabbing an apple from the bowl on the table. “I’m going kayaking with Patrick and Em. I’ll be back before dinner.”
“Veggie chili tonight,” Rachel says, as if her announcement deserves applause. “A favorite at Sundance.”
“Sounds good. See you later.”
“Delilah?” Mom calls as I reach the door. “Don’t forget to wear a lifejacket out there,” she says. “I don’t want you getting hurt.”