The Moon and More (36 page)

I’d only been a kid when her accident had happened, but it was still an event that loomed large in my memory. I clearly recalled the bake sales and car washes that were held to raise money for her hospital expenses, as well as seeing her parents push her in a wheelchair into Da Vinci’s for pizza. Even after the hospital and rehab, Rachel had looked the same, for the most part, a pretty, normal girl. At least on the outside. Within her mind, though, she’d remained sixteen, even as her body, friends, and family grew older. How weird that must be, to stay the same as everyone else changes. Even if you weren’t able to understand, you had to notice.

For some reason, right then, I thought of my mom, seeing again her hurt face looking at me, once that missile was launched. She, too, had hit the pause button on her life, albeit
in a different way, when she got pregnant with me. Left behind while everyone else grew up, moved away, moved on. Talk about accountability.

I sucked in a breath, putting my hand to my chest. I knew the sound could not have carried far, but across the backyard, Rachel suddenly looked up, seeing me. A half-finished Gert bracelet hung from one hand, a bead poised in the fingers of the other. After a moment, she looked away.

I turned, walking quickly to the front of the store. The TV was showing a clip of a guy holding up a huge marlin:
RECORD BREAKER!
the text below read. I pulled out a couple of bills, put them on the counter, and left.

Make your choices well,
my mom had said. It was what she thought she hadn’t done, what she hoped above everything I’d do differently. On the flip side, though, there was Clyde, telling me that there
were
second chances, even—and especially—when you’ve given up all hope of them. But maybe, when a life and summer was going so fast, you couldn’t wait for fate to punch the time card. You had to do it yourself.

My father’s house was only a few blocks from Gert’s. When I turned in the driveway, the paper was still there, but the front door was open. Someone was already up.

Up on the porch, I peered through the screen, expecting to find Benji at the table with his laptop and other distractions. Instead, I saw only my father, a coffee mug in hand. He had his back to me and was sitting alone in the only chair remaining in the otherwise empty living room.

“Hello?” I called out.

He turned, squinting to make me out through the screen. “Who’s there?”

“It’s me,” I replied. Then, to clarify: “Emaline.”

“Oh.” I saw him check his watch. “Come in.”

I did, noting the loud creak of the screen door as I eased it open. I would have to tell Margo to grease that before she showed the house, although I was sure she’d already made a note of it, somewhere. “You’re up early,” I said.

“As are you,” he replied, as I came into the living room. He glanced around. “I’d offer you a seat, but …”

“It’s fine,” I said, sitting down on the bare floor. “You weren’t kidding when you said you were only keeping the minimum, were you?”

“I hadn’t expected to go
quite
this sparse,” he replied, looking around again. “Your sister, however, made a strong argument for having a ‘blank slate’ so possible buyers could ‘create their own vision.’”

I smiled. “That sounds like Margo. Not only a realtor, but a force of nature.”

“Not unlike another woman from the same family I know,” he said, taking a sip from his mug.

“Mom can be hard to deal with,” I agreed, pulling my legs up to my chest. “I can attest to that personally. Especially today.”

“Mom?” He looked confused. “I was talking about you, actually.”

“Me?” I said. He nodded. “Oh. Sorry. I—”

“Emily as a force of nature,” he said slowly, as if trying out
not only the words but the very concept. “Can’t say that’s the first thing that comes to mind when I think of her.”

I had a feeling I knew what that first thing was. Sitting here in front of him, eighteen years later. I didn’t say this, though. I’d start really talking when I was ready.

“Of course, she was young when I knew her. We both were. Just about your age, I guess. Wow.” He sighed, was quiet for a moment. Then, suddenly, he smiled apologetically, as if just remembering I was there. “I’m sorry. You caught me in an entirely too introspective moment. All too common lately, I’m afraid.”

“It’s okay,” I told him. “Seems to be going around.”

He picked up his cup again. “Honestly, I thought I’d be thrilled to get an early offer on this place. But now that it might really happen, the thought of leaving it behind, for good … it’s more bittersweet than I expected.”

“You got an offer already?”

He looked at me, nodding. “Just yesterday. It’s only been on the market three weeks. So much for the bust, huh?”

“Are you going to take it?”

“We very well might.” He sat back, taking another sip. “It would really be ideal. We could get the paperwork going, then head back to the city. Benji would have time to get adjusted to me moving out before school starts …”

“He thinks he’s here for a while longer, though,” I said.

“I know. And he’ll be disappointed. But we have to leave eventually. A few weeks one way or the other won’t make that much of a difference.”

I wasn’t so sure about that. There may have only been a
certain number of days before I left myself for school—not that I had counted them out to the one—but if they were suddenly taken, I knew I’d feel cheated. And maybe a little scared. “I’m really …” I said. I swallowed. “I’ll miss him.”

He looked at me. “I know. And he’ll miss you. You’ve been the one bright spot in what was otherwise a pretty hard summer for him. I appreciate all you’ve done.”

“Of course,” I said. “He’s my brother.”

At this, he smiled. Then, we just sat there for a moment, in silence. If they were really leaving, it was all the more reason to handle this one last piece of our unfinished business. Maybe this, right here, was fate giving me that in. Now I just had to be accountable for what I did with it.

“I’m really glad you guys came down here this summer,” I began. “Even if the reason wasn’t, you know, so ideal.”

He smiled wryly, taking a sip of his coffee. “That’s a kind understatement.”

I took a deep breath. Here goes, I thought. “Truthfully, until that day you called, I was thinking I might never hear from you again.”

Again, it was instant, how he reacted to this last sentence: his entire body tensed, from his face to his shoulders, directly into fight-or-flight mode. “I told you, we don’t need to talk about all that,” he said, his voice stiff. “It’s in the past.”

“Maybe,” I replied. “But it was still really … hurtful to me. And confusing. I didn’t understand why—”

“Because I was getting a divorce,” he finished for me, his voice sharp. “Because I thought I would have the money, and then I didn’t. That’s why.”

It took me a minute, but finally I spoke. “Money? You think that’s what this is about?”

“I think,” he said, “that it’s bad enough that you’re having to go to a state school after all the work we did to get you into Columbia. The only thing worse is that you continue to feel the need to berate me about it.”

“Berate you?” I said. “You won’t even
talk
about it.”

He threw up his hands. “What are we doing right now, then?”

“This,” I said, circling my own hands in the air between us, “is only because I came here and forced the conversation. If it was up to you, I’d just suck it up, all that hurt and confusion, all because you don’t like feeling uncomfortable.”

“What I don’t like,” he shot back, “is rehashing my failures. I tried to help you, I failed. There. Is that what you want? Happy now?”

For a moment, I was speechless. Finally I managed, “I got a full ride at a good school. That’s not failing.”

“It’s not Columbia.” He sighed, rubbing his face.

“Wait, so that’s just it?” I asked. He looked at me, his expression weary. “Just because things aren’t exactly what you wanted, they’re nothing?”

“I was disappointed,” he said.

“Disappointment,” I reminded him, “is part of life. Just like change. You told me Benji should already understand that. Why can’t you?”

“You don’t understand!” he said, his voice rising. I’d never seen him upset, didn’t know this side of him, and I felt my skin flush, my own fight or flight. But I stayed put. After all that silence, for so long, I was ready for some noise. “Columbia was
my chance to fix everything for you. To get you out of here, give you a life not like your mother’s, or grandmother’s. And I
couldn’t do it
.”

I swallowed, making myself take a breath. I felt eerily calm as I said, “I was never broken. I didn’t need you to fix me.”

He shook his head. “That’s the whole point, Emaline. You don’t
know
what you need.”

“What I needed,” I said, picking my words and tone carefully, “was for you to reply to my graduation invitation. To come watch me walk. To be proud of me no matter where I went to school.”

“I wanted the best for you,” he said, his voice clenched. “
Only
the best.”

“Well, too bad,” I said. “When you have a kid, you sign on for the whole package: good, bad, everything in between. You can’t just dip in and out, picking and choosing the parts you want and quitting when it’s not perfect.”

“I was going to get you out of this place,” he shot back.

“I’m still going!”

“Two hours away.”

“Yes, at first,” I said. “But from there, I can go anywhere. It’s supposed to be a start, not a finish.”

“You’re so
young,
” he groaned, slapping a hand onto his forehead. “You have no idea how one bad choice, one stupid mistake, can change everything for you. And once it’s done, believe me: it’s
done
. But the sick part is, you’ll
still
spend your whole life trying to fix it.”

One bad choice. One big mistake
. One summer. One girl. One Emaline.

“You say
it
,” I said softly. “But you mean me. Right?”

He bit his lip, but didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. Because right then, suddenly, irrevocably, I understood. All this time, from the day at Igor’s when he’d first brought up the subject of college, I’d thought this was about what he wanted for my life, my future. But it was never about me.

My mom had taught me a lot of things. But one of the big ones was that if you made a mistake, you owned up to it, learned from it. My father, I saw now, wasn’t able to do this; he couldn’t even get past trying to fix it. That was his problem, though. No matter what he thought, I wasn’t a problem or mistake. I was his daughter. And despite all of this, and him, I was going to be just fine.

For a moment, we just sat there, staring at each other. Like the next word would tip the balance, for good, forever. So it was a fortunate thing, maybe, that it was neither of us who said it.

“Hellooo!” A loud, cheerful voice came through the screen door. “Anybody home?”

It was Margo. My father held my gaze another moment, then turned. “We’re in here. Come on in.”

She did, the screen door squeaking loudly. “Have to get that greased before the next walk-through,” I heard her say as she approached, heels clacking. “Among a thousand other things. But first, I have great news. The interested buyers want to—”

Whether she stopped talking and walking because she saw me or hit the wall of tension was hard to say. Either way, just like that, she, too, was silent. For about two seconds.

“Emaline,” she said. “What are you doing here so early?”

I swallowed, trying to calm myself. “I was in the neighborhood.”

“Oh.” She looked more closely at my face, which I knew was flushed, then at my father. “Well, great. Then you’ll hear it here first: the buyers are ready to sign a letter of intention!”

She was so excited and proud about this, she reminded me of Theo. Clearly, it was a moment for pomp and celebration. Which, unfortunately, was a bit harder to come by when you’ve just walked into a war zone. Still, I tried. “That’s great, Margo.”

“Isn’t it?” She looked at my father. “At this rate, we can go ahead and get all the inspections started, then begin working up a contract and the other paperwork.”

“Perfect,” my father said, pushing himself to his feet. “Let’s do it. It’s time for us to get home.”

“Oh, of course,” Margo gushed, “and really, you won’t want to be living here during all of this anyway, if you can help it. Now, I just realized I left my folder in the car—of course!—but let me just grab it, and we’ll go over some preliminary details.”

“Fine,” he said, cutting her off. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

And with that, he walked away. Down the hall, out of sight, gone once more. This time, though, unlike so many others, I didn’t feel confused or wrong or angry. Just sad and disappointed. Like I was finally catching up to some Big Event of my own I’d been chasing, only to find it was over and done long ago.

I got to my feet and walked to the door. Margo followed me. “Are you okay? You seem—”

“I’m fine,” I said, starting down the front walk.

“Were you arguing with him?”

“I have to go, Margo.”

“Hey.” She reached out and touched my shoulder. “Look at me.”

I turned to face her. “Please. I’m really late for work, okay?”

“What happened, Emaline?”

“Nothing.”

She cocked her head to the side, clearly doubting this, as I got into my car. But the thing was, it was the truth.
Nothing
. It had been what always happened when it came to my father, save for a few months where I mistook his ego for something else. That was the problem, though. When you’ve never gotten love from someone, you don’t know what it might look like if it ever does appear. You look for it in everything: any bright light overhead could be a star.

All the way back to Colby, all I could think was that I’d lost something I never really had. And yet, the sadness in finally letting it go was as real as the tears filling and blurring my eyes. Worse, I had no idea where to go, or anyone who could understand. Not Theo, with whom this was already a loaded issue, or even Morris and Daisy, who had heard enough about my father to last us all the rest of our lifetimes.