Julia's Daughters (25 page)

“Now you're talking to me?”

I turn around on the little bench so I can face her, bringing my paddle with me. I have no idea why I do it. I don't want to, but I can't stop myself. “No, I'm not
talking
to you! I'm never
talking
to you again.”

She's just sitting there on the bench thingy watching me. She looks different without the black eye makeup. Even with the black hair, she looks a lot like Caitlin, which kind of makes me feel a little dizzy when I realize it.

“Izzy, I'm sorry. Okay?” She looks right at me. “I didn't hurt Caitlin on purpose.”

I don't get mad that much. I guess I'm really upset because Garret and I were going to practice some cool moves with the canoe and now I'm stuck here with
her
. “You didn't hurt her, you
killed
her.” I smack her paddle with mine.

“It was an accident,” she tells me.

I see tears in her eyes.

“I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.” She says it over and over again. “What else do you want me to say? What do you want me to
do?
If I could have died instead of her, I would have. But I didn't get that choice.”

“I'm not going to talk to you,” I tell her. “I don't care if you saved Mr. Cat. I mean I'm glad you did, but—” I hit her paddle with mine again.

“Izzy.” She stands up and starts to come toward me. She's only half-standing up, though, using the paddle to balance with.

I hit her paddle again. Harder. The canoe rocks. Beyond her, I see Mom and Laney in the distance. When I had my paddle in the water and Haley didn't, we went right. Everyone else went left. I think I hear Mom's voice, but I'm not sure. There are several motorboats on the lake and now that we've paddled away from the shore, the boats are louder.

“Izzy, please,” Haley says.

I'm crying, even though I don't want to. “Get away from me. Get away.” I swing the paddle at her. I don't hit her, but I hit her paddle again and when she gets too close, I stand up and swing the paddle again. She leans back out of my way and I swing so hard that I start to fall. I let go of the paddle, but it's too late. The whole canoe starts to tip.

“Izzy!” Haley tries to grab me and I feel her fall against me. One of the paddles hits me hard in the leg as I fall.

People say things like this happen in slow motion. They don't. It happens so fast, I don't even know
what
happens.

I hit the water hard. It's so cold that it takes my breath away and for a second I can't move. The water is disorienting and it takes my brain a minute to register what's going on. I'm underwater and my clothes are dragging me down. I'm freezing my A off. My lungs start to burn. I need air.

I kick and pull with my hands, swimming up to the surface.

The first thing I see is an orange life jacket and I grab it. The stupid canoe is tipped over. I look around, pushing my sopping hair out of my eyes so I can see. I'm so cold I'm starting to feel numb.

I don't see Haley.

I hear Mom holler, but she's far away. She's asking if we're okay.

In the summer, we tip the canoes on purpose. But the water isn't cold like this in the summer. “Haley!” I holler. I can't see on the other side of the canoe. I try to jump up in the water, using the bottom of the canoe to pull up. “Haley.”

I spin around in the water, looking behind me. No sister. “Haley! Haley!”

All of a sudden I'm scared and my heart is pounding even harder than it was a second ago. The water's at least a hundred feet deep here. It's three hundred feet deep in some places. What if she got hit in the head with a paddle or the canoe? What if she's sinking to the bottom at this very minute? I tread water, splashing myself in the face. I keep calling her name. Where could she be? Where could she be?

“Haley!”

I hold my breath and go under, letting go of the life jacket. I feel for her under the water.

I come up for air and dive back down. I'm so scared I can't think what to do. Not my sister. Not my sister! I need my Haley, cat defender of the world.

I go under again only I don't get enough air this time and my chest is burning and I get water in my mouth and I start flailing. It tastes bad and I'm scared and—

I feel something grab my arm and pull me. A hand.

Haley?

She pulls me up and I come out of the water under the canoe and there she is! There's my sister! I can see her even in the semidarkness under the canoe. My big sister Haley. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to tip us.” I cough and choke. I swallowed water and it's yucky and I'm cold and I'm crying even though I don't want to be a crybaby.

Haley's hair is plastered to her face. “It's okay. I'm okay,” she tells me. And then she pulls me against her with one hand while she holds on to the bench seat with her other hand. Even though she's wet, too, she feels warm against me.

“We're okay, Sizzy Izzy,” she whispers in my ear.

Chapter 39

Julia

Wednesday morning I wake slowly in Laney's bed, drifting in the warmth and coziness of her flannel sheets and down quilt that smell like lavender. After taking two days off to spend with us, Laney went back to work this morning. We spoke briefly at six a.m., making tentative dinner plans, and then I rolled over and, miracle of miracles, I went back to sleep.

I open my eyes slowly, enjoying the quiet of the house. Laney's boys are in school and I imagine Haley and Izzy are still asleep. I turn my head and glance at the digital clock on the chintz-covered night table. It's 8:40. I reach my hands over my head and stretch. I've gotten nine hours of sleep and I actually feel rested. I can't remember the last time I felt this good, waking up. Or this relaxed.

We've had such a good time these last couple days. That's not to say every minute has been sunshine and roses. We've had some thunderclouds: the incident when Izzy tipped the canoe while trying to hit her sister with a paddle for instance. Which ended up turning out well because by the time Laney and I reached them (me about to have an apoplexy), they were climbing into the canoe, and Izzy was talking to Haley.

Yesterday morning Haley and I got into a heated argument. She wanted to walk to the bakery and get doughnuts for everyone. Aunty Em's makes fresh doughnuts every morning, but once they're gone, they're gone for the day. It was nice of Haley to want to go get everyone doughnuts, but I didn't want her going alone. What if she tried to take off? She accused me of punishing her for the frank conversation we'd had the night before about her having sex. Sex with anyone. She insisted it was her body and it was her choice, even if she made bad choices.

I didn't let her go for the doughnuts. But I did apologize later and I promised to try to look at her more as an adult than I have. I also told her we'd revisit the subject of the sex. I warned her she would always be my daughter and I wasn't going to be able to stop being her mom, but she had a point. I can be the mom of an adult child, too, which means I need to accept that I might not always agree with her choices. All I want, ultimately, is for her to be happy and healthy, and I have to keep that in mind when I make criticisms.

My gaze drifts to the double windows covered with blue and green chintz curtains. Laney's bedroom is so girly that it tickles me because she's not really a girly person. Her idea of makeup is Burt's Bees lip balm, and she can burp on cue louder than any man I've ever known.

I've always kept neutral desert tones and simple patterns in our bedroom because no man likes sleeping on flowered sheets. But I love the floral patterns and fluffy bed linens and throw pillows that are lying all over the floor right now. Laney even has a scarf thrown over one of the bedside lamps so that at night, it throws off pretty, subdued light. It's so bohemian.

My gaze drifts to the window again. The morning light slips through the narrow opening between the chintz curtains, falling to the honey-colored floorboards and making a bright pattern on the bed. I close my eyes and let the warmth of the sunlight bathe my face. How is it that the sun in Vegas seems like my enemy and here . . . it gives me a sense of peace? Of renewal.

Renewal
. An interesting choice of words.

I get out of bed slowly, rolling the word around in my head. On the tip of my tongue. I even say it. “Renewal.” The state of being fresh or new.

Is that what this place is doing for me? Is it renewing me?

I go into the bathroom and do my thing and come back to the bedroom to get dressed, thinking I'll go get doughnuts for my girls. A peace offering of sorts to Haley.

When I got in my car in Vegas and started east, I thought the change of scenery would be good for Haley. I thought she needed to get out of the house so full of Caitlin and out of town and its bad influences. But it hadn't occurred to me that maybe
I
needed to get out of the house as much as she did. And when I pulled away from the curb, the first time for sure, I thought Izzy was fine. As adjusted as any ten-year-old could be, having just lost a sibling. But spending time with Izzy, especially since we've arrived here, tells me she was just coping better than Haley and I were. Izzy needed this journey too.

In jeans and one of Laney's many plaid flannel shirts, this one in citrus colors, I sit down on the edge of the bed to put my shoes on. I keep going to the bright pink sneakers I took from Caitlin's room the night before we left. I realize they're supposed to be running shoes; I've actually toyed with the idea of taking up running. But I keep putting them on because I get some sort of comfort from them. I know it's nonsensical, but it feels good to have a part of Caitlin with me, a part that doesn't hurt so much.

I slip one sneaker on and then the other, and raise my foot to the edge of the bed to tie the laces. It's not that I'm not hurting anymore. Maine and this town, this house, aren't a magic elixir. But I really
do
feel better here. And I think my girls do too.

In the front hall, I slip on one of Laney's goose-down vests and tuck my wallet into the pocket. I'm still thinking about what making this trip has done for me when, on my way to the bakery, I reach the fried chicken restaurant that went out of business. I stop at the window and cup my hands around my face to look inside, just the way Izzy did the night we arrived.

I think about Haley joking about having a café and selling Ben burgers.

It's a crazy idea.

The chicken place couldn't make it here. What would make me think I could successfully run a business here? I don't know anything about running a restaurant.

But I know a lot about cost-effectiveness, gross and net profits and overhead. I know numbers.

I stare through the glass at the little café tables inside and then the long counter that looks like it's a repurposed saloon bar. A counter like that could mean no waitstaff costs. There's a big red, white, and blue sign behind the counter advertising what chicken meals were available, but I imagine a huge chalkboard with menu selections and information about where, locally, the ingredients came from.

I doubt it would be difficult to do well through the summer months. The town is packed during the tourist season and there's no café-type restaurant in town. Most of the restaurants are upscale. The trick would be not only to lure townies in the off-season, but to offer good enough food that people from surrounding towns would come for a Ben burger, or a grilled veggie ciabatta roll.

I take a step back, looking at the door. I imagine myself walking through it, saying good morning to staff.

It's a totally unfeasible idea. I walk away.

Ben will never agree to move. He'd have to sell his portion of the lawn business back to his family.

But he's always said he hated the lawn-care business. “Who needs lawn care in the damned desert?” he always says.

We used to dream about opening a café together, he and I.

I stare at the storefront. It really is a crazy idea. But maybe it's not. I have the money my mother left me. My stepfather's
dirty
money. Would this be a way to make it clean? I always thought one day when I did spend it, it would be for my children.

This café would be for my children. Maybe I can't put the pieces of our life back together in Las Vegas, but maybe I could do it here. Maybe I . . . we, Ben and I, could build a new life for our family here. Maybe I've been thinking about this all wrong for the last two months. My life can never be what it was going to be, with Caitlin gone, but maybe it can be something else. Something I didn't anticipate. Something good. Just not in the way I thought it would be good.

I smile to myself.

Ben's flying into Portland tomorrow afternoon. Maybe he and I can go out for dinner, and go for a walk afterward, the way we used to before he started sleeping in his recliner at night. Before our daughter died. There's a seafood restaurant around the corner from the bakery that he loves; we always go there when he comes to Maine with us. If he's open to the idea of the café, at least in discussing it, we could even come by here and I could show him the place. He might have some great ideas. We could just start with breakfasts and lunches. Ben makes an amazing cranberry buttermilk pancake that Caitlin adapted to use fresh and organic ingredients. Anything cranberry sells well in the land of cranberries.

I check out the little sign in the window with the name of the Realtor to call about renting the space. I don't have a pen with me, but I'll remember the number. I think I'll call when I get back to the house. Just to see how much the monthly rent is. Just to see if this is even realistic . . . before I bring up the idea to Ben.

As I walk the last block to the bakery, I think about our café. I go back and forth between telling myself it's the most outrageous idea I've ever come up with, and thinking it's brilliant.

At the bakery, I order a huge caramel latte for myself, and half a dozen doughnuts that are still warm when I walk back into Laney's house.

 

“He's never going to go for it, Mom,” Haley tells me, gazing out the window.

She agreed to ride to the airport with me to pick up her father even though she really didn't want to. She's been very indifferent about her dad since we left Las Vegas. Not in an antagonistic way. More in a philosophical way, and it has me worried. It's like she's disengaged herself emotionally from him.

But as Laney has pointed out to me several times over the last couple of days, I can't expect Haley to change overnight back to the kid I knew. Or back to the kid I've got in my head that she was before Caitlin died. And how can I complain about her attitude with her father when she broke through Izzy's wall and has her little sister talking to her again?

“You think the café's a bad idea?” I ask Haley.

It's raining today and visibility is poor. I'm glad we left a little early because 95 will be heavy with after-work traffic.

“I didn't say it was a bad idea. I'm saying Dad isn't going to move to Maine and open an organic café with us.”

I grip the wheel. The windshield wipers are whooshing rhythmically. “Do you think we could do it?” I glance at her, and then back at the road.

She's been wearing the same jeans and Laney's green polar fleece since we arrived. I wonder if she'd be open to going clothes shopping. She looks good in the green top. I like seeing her in a color other than black.

She has the pink ball in her hand. I haven't seen her bouncing it this week, but I do see her take it from her pocket and roll it between her fingers sometimes like a talisman.

“I could work the register,” Haley tells me. “I know how to do that. But I'd like to make sandwiches, too. Maybe come up with some new things on the menu. Seasonal stuff.”

“Like what?” I ask.

She actually sounds enthusiastic as she talks. It's been too long since I've heard that in her voice. Usually she sounds so . . . flat.

“Like . . . in the fall we could do a turkey wrap with fresh cranberry sauce and walnuts. Maybe make a salad with apples and pears in it. At Christmas we could do peppermint hot chocolate with fresh whole milk from the dairy and . . . and something crazy like a sandwich with goose or duck and call it the Christmas Carol special.”

I smile at the idea, impressed with her off-the-cuff creativity. “But you'd have to finish high school. And some sort of culinary classes at a local college would be smart.”

She shrugs. “Maybe a business class or two? We'd have to do some research into what kind of organic food is easy to get around here. We'd be smart to start with a small menu and work our way up to a bigger one. If we wanted. Or maybe we'd offer half a dozen sandwiches and burgers, a couple of salads and just make them amazing, so amazing that people can't wait to come back and try something else.”

“It would be a lot of work.” I turn up the speed of the windshield wipers because it's really raining hard now. “Long days, at least to start out. And there would be no way we could open the doors before we had every step of the plan laid out.”

She turns to look at me. “How much do you think it would cost? How would we pay for it?”

“Well,” I say. “I've been thinking about that. We could use that money I inherited from my mother as the start-up money. Of course we'd also have to be sure we had enough money to live on until the place started becoming profitable. Something like this isn't easy to do.”

“You have that much money?”

The girls know I inherited money, but I've never discussed how much there is. The amount would sound astronomical to them, but of course that's because they've never made a mortgage payment or paid an electric bill in their lives; they have no idea what things cost. “I think I'd have enough to get us started.”

“Wow,” Haley breathes. “It would be so cool to take an empty store like that and make it a place people lined up to get into.”

I see her rest her hand on her forearm.

“How's your arm?” I ask casually, keeping an eye out for our turn.

She hesitates, then pushes up her sleeve. “I took off all the bandages. It hurt,” she says, “but I just ripped them off.” She touches several bumpy scabs. “I think it's looking better since I left it open to the air.”

I think about our emotional wounds and the parallel. We've sort of ripped the bandages off. It hurt, but now that they're in the open air . . .

“Have you felt like you wanted to do it again?” I ask, taking care not to allow any judgment to resound in my voice.

It's raining cats and dogs now. Traffic is getting heavier. Everyone seems like they're in a rush this afternoon, except for us. I'm not in a hurry to get to the airport. I'm not in a hurry to have the discussions Ben and I need to have.