The Best I Could (36 page)

Rampaging thoughts ran through my head. My
dad’s life insurance policy had been miniscule, just enough to
cover his funeral expenses and leave a couple thousand to each of
his children.

“I’ll take the Buick,” I whispered.

Nana smiled, the gesture tight. “Somehow, I
thought you’d say that. I can’t decide if I’m proud of you or
scared because you’ve grown up too fast.”

“Don’t be proud,” I said, surprising us both.
“I haven’t earned that yet.”

Oh, but I would.

Death was a cruel teacher. It didn’t look at
age. It only looked at capability.

It didn’t look at the issues you had. It only
looked at how well you could survive them.

Eli

The night was heaven. Completely unexpected.
Out of nowhere. Heaven.

Plain and simple.

Which should have been clue enough. A trip to
heaven almost always guaranteed a fall from grace.

The sun rose, I got out of bed, and I fell
straight to hell.

The attack came with no warning. One moment,
I was sitting on the side of the bed, a smile playing on my lips,
the next, my eyes were glued to a slammed open door, my
grandfather’s angry face glaring down at me.

“Can I have a cigarette first?” I asked
wearily. Because no matter why he stood there, I knew it wasn’t
good.

“You’re no longer working at the rescue.”
That was all he said.

His words sank into my sleep-fogged brain,
and I inhaled sharply. “What the fuck?”

I hadn’t messed anything up on the job, which
meant that …

“Shit,” I swore.

“Is that what they call it now?” Pops
asked.

Resting my elbows on my knees, I dropped my
head into my hands. “Is she okay?”

I didn’t give a damn how much trouble I was
in or what this meant for me. All I cared about was what this meant
for Tansy.

Pops sighed. “She’s going to Atlanta today
with Hetty. To pick up her dad’s car. It’s in impound there.”

That didn’t sound so bad.

“She’s looking into places to go.”

My back stiffened, my head shooting up. “She
got kicked out?”

“Once she has a steady job and a place to
live, yes.”

I stood, my blood boiling. “What kind of shit
is that?”

“You’ll pick up extra hours at the boxing
club, and do some volunteer construction work for charity to make
up your hours.”

“She could stay here,” I suggested.

We were ignoring each other.

“She
could
stay here,” I repeated
loudly.

“And make things worse?” Pops asked. “Why,
Eli?” He studied me, and then leaned against the door. “I think it
was a good thing making you come here this summer. As parents, we
question everything. Did you know that? You might not like what we
decide, but we’re not all public enemy number one. Do we make
mistakes? Hell, yes. Do we screw it up? All of the time. Life isn’t
easy. It’s about knowing when it’s the right time for something and
making it happen.”

“What does that have to do with Tansy?”

“It doesn’t. It has everything to do with
you. Do you care about her, Eli? Are you at a place now where you
could honestly enter a relationship? One where you don’t constantly
question yourself and her.”

My butt hit the bed, my hand pillaging a path
through my hair. “Are you saying I need to back off?”

“I’m asking if you’re ready to commit to
something. Because, up until now, the only thing you’ve felt toward
the women you’ve been involved with is animosity.”

I thought about Tansy.

The moment she popped onto the hospital roof,
the rising sun cloaking her in gold. Her beseeching eyes when her
grandmother’s van passed Jonathan’s car coming out of Atlanta. The
way she fell apart in the orchard while still holding herself
together. The cuts on her skin. The way she looked when she was
gardening, like her soul was hiding in the soil and she needed to
make it grow. The way she looked at life while running away from
it. The way she hit me when she really let herself go, with so much
turmoil I knew her heart was in the gloves, breaking. The way she
cared about people, often so much so that she gave up pieces of
herself for them. The way she made love, like her life depended on
it.

“I don’t hate Tansy. I don’t want to hurt
her.”

“That’s a start.” Pops straightened,
releasing a breath as he pushed his hands into his pockets. “Don’t
interfere in her life right now. She’s invited you into it, but she
hasn’t given you permission to run it. To choose for her. That’s up
to her, and she needs to find the strength to do it. You’ve lived
inside your anger and your thoughts for too long, Eli, and this
summer, I’ve watched you begin to let that stuff go. It’s been good
for you. Hetty’s decisions may not make sense to you, but the way
Tansy responds to them will say a lot about her.”

I peered up at him. “I hate you sometimes,
you know that? I hate that you say things that make sense when I
don’t want them to.”

“I hate it, too,” he replied, surprising
me.

“What? I was teasing, Pops.”

He gave me a soft smile. “I wasn’t. It took
screwing up as a parent the first time to learn what I have now.”
His face fell. “Wisdom often comes from hard places. It comes with
a price.”

“Mom isn’t your fault.”

“No,” he agreed, “but protecting her from her
mistakes was.”

For a long time, we stared at each other. A
man hardened by war, by the loss of his wife, and his daughter’s
fight against mental illness. A younger version of the same man
hardened by abuse and distrust.

Standing, I closed the distance between us,
squared my shoulders, and offered him my hand.

Ignoring my palm, he drew me into a hug.

No words. We’d said enough of those.

Tansy

The sun glared into the van, striking the
windows before shattering over pavement and trees, burning a path
to Atlanta.

The air conditioner was set on high,
releasing a roar of air, filling the interior with something other
than silence.

Hetty’s hands gripped the steering wheel, her
face stoic, and her eyes on the road. In the backseat, Deena sat
slumped against the seat, her gaze traveling back and forth between
us, her anger subdued for once.

Halfway to the city, my sister broke. “Is
anyone going to say anything?”

I glanced at Hetty.

“Why are we doing this?” Deena continued. “Is
it because Tansy fucked Eli?’

Hetty’s gaze shot to the rearview mirror.

Deena frowned. “It’s not like I didn’t
overhear you going all cavewoman on her last night. What’s the big
deal? Jet totally holds the award for most screws out of the two of
them, and I’m pretty sure he lost his virginity way before
Tansy.”

“I see you,” Hetty said suddenly, glancing at
Deena and then at me, startling us. “Don’t think I don’t see you
both. The anger, the fears, and the things you need that you don’t
think you do.”

“What—” Deena began.

“Your hearts are burning, and you’re both
working so hard to hide it that you’ve forgotten how to look at
yourselves.” She glanced up at Deena again. “You really think I’m
doing this to Tansy because I’m angry? Because I can’t handle it?”
She winced. “I’ve made myself a stranger to you. I admit that. I
walked away to grieve, to lick my wounds, and forgot about what I
needed to do for my daughter. For my grandchildren. I’m the worst
kind of saint. The kind that wants to make a difference but fucked
it up first.”

“Nana!” I breathed.

She glanced at me. “I’m doing this because
you need it, Tansy. Because you’ve had too many strings in your
life. Too many things you’ve had to take care of. All of the pain
you’ve caused yourself …” Her gaze dropped to my legs before
returning back to the road. “You’re screaming, and I’m listening.
You hear me? I’m listening.”

The van sped up, Hetty’s fingers tightening
on the steering wheel. Inhaling, she forced herself to slow down.
“Those strings that have been attached to you … you’re not required
to carry that weight. You shouldn’t look at love and expect it to
hurt. Love doesn’t always hurt. What I’m doing is cutting those
strings. I don’t want you to stay with Deena. I need to do that,
and she,” her gaze found my sister, “can do this. She can! She can
make it without you or Jet.”

Deena slouched in her seat, her expression a
mix of anger and confusion.

“I’m letting you go, Tansy. Not because I’m
angry, but because you need to know what you’re capable of. You
need to take care of yourself instead of everyone else. With your
dad gone, and me here, you finally have the chance to do that. I’m
sorry. I’m sorry because when I came to the hospital when they
called me, I still saw children. I didn’t see what death had stolen
from you.”

“So this isn’t because she slept with Eli?”
Deena asked snidely.

I stared at the passing road, at the houses
and lawns which blurred past. So many lives out there in the world,
so many things that could go wrong or right in them. So many
people. So many voices, smiles, and tears.

“I’m going to say something, and you can take
it or leave it. I deserve that,” Nana said, and I knew without
looking that she was speaking to me. “Love is a terrifying thing,
but it doesn’t have to be everything. You’ve got to love yourself
first. Real love is when someone makes you look at yourself, see
what you could be, but then steps back so you can be that. You and
Eli came into this summer with explosive emotions. Two matches,
that when rubbed together, flared bright. That’s not a bad thing.
Matches can light the way in the darkness.”

My gaze shifted to her profile. “So I need
him?”

“Hell, no,” she rushed to say. “You need
yourself. Being in love should be a bonus, not a goal.” She glanced
at me, caught my expression, and sighed. “I know you don’t want to
hear what I’ve got to say. I was wrong. I made a mistake.”

It
was
hard to hear her give me advice,
but I admired her for trying to be something more than what she’d
been in the past. By doing that, she was proving she wasn’t like my
father. She’d moved past death. He never did.

“You’re right,” I said, finally. “I really
want to take care of myself. I want to see what I’m capable
of.”

“Tansy!” Deena exclaimed, leaning
forward.

Hetty smiled. “And if you fail the first few
times, that’s okay. My door will be open, and my table will be
waiting with a cup of tea and a box of Kleenex. But …”

“You’ve got to try to fail,” I said,
finishing her thoughts.

The city rose up in front of us, loud and
shiny. Like a picture in a pop-up book.

“Deena, you see that?” I asked.

“What? Buildings?”

“No. Opportunity.”

I’d done a science project once, one of many,
on turtles. They fascinated me. Their shells the most. Because they
didn’t just exist, they carried their home on their shoulders,
their safety net, and their place to hide when danger came
lurking.

Turtles were slow creatures. Tons of jokes
have been made about their speed, expressions created from it.

I didn’t see the joke.

Slow wasn’t bad. Being like a turtle meant
taking life one minute at a time and knowing when it was okay to
just stop, duck into the shell, and stay.

After all, I’d read the children’s book, the
one where the turtle beat the hare in the race. Being fast didn’t
always mean winning.

I’d been in my shell for too long, and I had
a long, slow road ahead of me.

Slow didn’t bother me. I’d seen the worst
thing death could turn people into. I was ready to see what life
and living did.

“Maybe we could take our time today,” I said.
“Get Dad’s car, go out to eat, and window shop. Maybe even go to
the zoo.”

“We’re not kids, Tansy,” Deena groused.

“Yeah, we are. You, especially. I don’t know,
I think part of us will always be kids. If there isn’t a kid inside
of us, then there’s no room to grow, no lessons to teach it.”

Hetty snorted. “I’ve got a lot of kids inside
this old frame. Every year, they learn something new.”

Deena groaned. “I hate this right now, you
know that, right?”

I glanced in the backseat, caught the smile
ghosting on her lips, and faced the street again. “Yeah, I hate it,
too,” I said lightly.

“Can’t stand it,” Hetty agreed.

I had to bite down on my bottom lip to keep
from laughing. Hetty didn’t feel like a grandmother to me. Maybe
she would in time, but for now, she was family. She was cutting me
loose, and I wanted that. It was like jumping, flying through
space, wondering where I’d fall.

I’m not going to lie. I felt kind of hollow
inside, even with everything. With the new people in my life. Eli.
They were beginning to fill a lot of space inside of me, but there
was one place no one could fill. No one but me and time. Lots and
lots of time.

Eli

I found my mother in her room sitting in
front of her vanity. Her hair was loose, flowing in soft curls
around her shoulders. Black tights stopped at her calf muscles, a
bright green tunic top resting above her knees. A black belt around
her waist cinched the fabric and showed off her figure. Black
strappy sandals covered her feet.

Leaning forward, she applied a thick coat of
mascara on her lashes, and I knew without looking it wasn’t
waterproof.

“You must have big plans today,” I said.

Startled, she jumped, dropping the mascara
wand. It rolled, drawing a black streak across the white wood.
Sunlight slanted into the room from half-open blinds, the glow
catching on light beige carpet and a floral bedroom suit. It
reminded me of Tansy. Modern was more my mother’s style.