The Shortest Distance Between Two Women (25 page)

Susie Dell came to her rescue immediately. Moments after she arrived, she ordered take-out food, poured the wine, and then demanded to know if Emma had Gilford whiplash from
every
damn thing that seemed to be happening in her totally out of control family.

Whiplash, and then some, Emma admitted during the first bottle of wine as she and Susie rehashed everything that happened at the
As the World Turns Gilford-Style
garden party.

“Why didn’t
you
run in your underwear with me?”

“Me?” Emma had laughed as the second bottle of wine opened. “Someone had to stay alert in case the cops showed up.”

“That’s a crock of shit.”

“It is not.”

“These people are your family members. You are not a zookeeper, Emma,” Susie Dell said.

Emma ignored that comment. She’d talked about how Joy for once was funny when she was tipsy. Then she talked about Stephie and how she’d felt all night as if her niece had something to say but never said it. She admitted she wanted to slap Erika upside the head because she was seriously thinking about moving back to Higgins and that is when Susie Dell surprised her.

Susie asked her why she’s always worrying about what her sisters think.

“I’m staying until you answer my question.”

“Seriously, Susie Dell, what have we been doing for the past several hours?”

“We’ve been talking about your mother, your sisters, your nieces, my adorable father, a mess of senior citizens, the damned family reunion. And not one word about
Emma
, not one word at all.” Susie starts to move the swing back and forth. “You’ve totally ignored the entire Samuel fiasco. And that makes me wonder what else you have ignored or avoided.”

“Geez,” Emma sighs. “Just when I thought you were my friend.”

“I am your friend, Emma.”

Later Emma will think this was her big chance to find out the truth about the photograph and whether or not Susie Dell took it, but Susie Dell would not let up.

“Emma, Emma, Emma,” Susie says, then states that she isn’t going to leave until they talk for a very long time about
Emma
. “And no wine until you answer my question.” Ms. Dell picks up the bottle, pours some for herself and sets the bottle down so that Emma cannot reach it.

“I really can’t have any until I answer your tough questions?” Emma asks as if she’s just found out that Susie is the redhead her brother-in-law has run off with.

Susie makes loud smacking noises with her lips as she takes another swallow of the wine.

“You shit,” Emma says. “I feel like the one who is about to run naked through the backyard.”

“It’s about time, sister.” Susie Dell says the word
sister
as if she’s said it a million times before.

The truth is that she’s more of a one-on-one kind of gal and not the whoop-it-up-at-a-party kind of woman.

The truth is she has felt for a long time as if one part of her head was going to explode with her familial responsibilities, even as the other parts of her head rejoiced with gratitude because she was at least part of a family.

The truth is that she has no idea what to do with the phone messages from Samuel she keeps listening to but is too cowardly to erase.

The truth is that sometimes she gets lonely and that she finds immense, and probably insane, sanctuary in her gardens.

The truth is that she sometimes sits in the parking lot at work for a very long time before she goes in because being inside the building makes her feel trapped.

The truth is that she is absolutely dying to talk to Erika, to understand why she would give up her big-city life to come back to this hellhole called Higgins.

The truth is her biological time clock has ticked her off.

The truth is also that she is terrified about her mother, because she realizes she doesn’t really know about Marty, and what’s in her heart. She also so needs to have a very long conversation with her—and she’s terrified to do that in case she might find out things she doesn’t want to know.

Emma finishes. Then she holds out her glass, which Susie refills as she leans over to give Emma a soft kiss on the cheek.

“There now, see?” Susie says. “That wasn’t so awful, was it?”

“I’m sorry I snuck some family things in there but I just couldn’t help it. And it’s not like I don’t think about these things or worry about them but lately, well, longer than lately, my family has sucked a hole right through the center of me.”

“Very funny.”

Susie Dell then tells her things that a real sister should be telling her and this is when Emma totally forgets about the missing photograph yet again.

Susie tells her that there are few women alive who do not feel as if they have been swallowed whole by their family obligations. And fewer women who do not wish they had made different choices and not married this man, or waited for this one thing, or had one more child or given up a career or not had a career or missed out on an opportunity because someone they are related to didn’t think that was the right direction. Fewer women than that who can stand up and pound their own chests and roar from the center of their souls and just say
Hey listen, you can say what you want and what you feel but when the curtain drops I am going to do what I want and feel
. And hardly any women at all who are not bound by the love of family, entangled in the memory of some tragedy, by the frightening notion that maybe they are doing the same things to their children, the people they love, that someone did to them.

“Well …” Emma stammers because she realizes Susie Dell has just told her the truth of female life.

Susie takes a breath then and stands up quickly before Emma can even ask her about the missing photograph, or why she is so wise, and she announces that she just remembered she has to meet someone.

And then she drives away, leaving Emma sitting on her porch swing with her mouth hanging open.

And alone yet again.

Emma scoots to the edge of the porch swing and feels as if she is dangling out over a cliff. A cliff with a view that she bypassed all those years ago when she went seemingly overnight from being
the little sister to the only one who was left in the house with a set of life instructions that were written in a language she did not understand.

What she sees when she looks down is an abyss of lost chances and loves, people constantly calling for help, the backside of love disappearing into the darkness, the little girl she once was growing overnight into a young woman and switching her school backpack for a load of life that no one should ever have tried to carry at such a tender age.

But that’s life, she tells herself. People everywhere have “stuff.” Life abounds with lost chances.

And while she clutches her empty wineglass Emma cannot even bring herself to get up and walk through her own gardens.

All of this while Susie Dell drives off into the long past sunset thanking God she got the hell out of Emma’s backyard before Emma could ask her about the photograph she must by now know is missing and hurrying like hell to meet Erika, Debra and Joy.

The
other
three Gilford sisters.

Erika is hungover for the second day in a row, exhausted, emotionally drained and on the verge of a Gilford-and Higgins-induced hysteria. So when she hears her mother’s voice, assimilates the question, and begins laughing, it is almost impossible for Marty to get her to stop.

“Er-ika?” Marty wonders.

“What in the holy hell is going on?”

“I’m just wondering how I could have missed so much drama simply by living a few states away. I feel like I’ve missed dozens of episodes of a very cool and somewhat controversial television show. Now I’m being asked to have a walk-on part and act as if I know what has been happening since the beginning of time.”

“It’s not
our
fault you stay away so much,” Marty throws back at her.

“To be honest, Mom, the real reason I don’t come home more than once a year is just because of time, and because I have a family of my own. And also, just so you know, I really do miss coming home,” she tells her mother. “It’s not what you or anyone else might think.”

“Are you really looking for work here?”

“Who told you?”

Now it’s Marty’s turn to laugh, which she does in a way that makes Erika smile and remember how much she has missed hearing her do just that.

“Sweetheart, I know all. That’s my job. I know that you’ve seen your evil brother-in-law and spent time with Debra and that you are hoping to have dinner with Emma tonight. And I know that for some reason she is really mad at you, and that she keeps avoiding me when I ask about the reunion assignments.”

“Is the homing device thing in your uterus what helps you know all of this?” Erika asks, knowing that at least one part of that device is broken because Marty does not know
everything
.

“No,” Marty answers, in all seriousness. “That’s just for finding things that men cannot locate like the pickles on the third shelf of the fridge. I’m a mother. That’s what mothers do. We keep track of things, of our kids even if they are grown, and we like to stick our
nose in every possible corner. So do you know anything about all the reunion assignments? Because Emma has not told me a thing and your other two sisters are worthless right now.”

“No,” Erika replies with her fingers crossed. “But what’s with the bones-dragging-in-the-river thing?”

“I thought Emma would still be at home. She and I need to talk.”

“Like that doesn’t happen enough?”

Erika wonders what it might look like to see Emma dragging their mother’s bones through a verbal river. What in the world could those two possibly have to say to each other that they have not said in the past forty-plus years?

“Mom, can you have lunch with me?” she decides to ask.

“Heavens no,” Marty answers without hesitation. “Robert and I have duties at the senior center. Then we are going on a beach hike and we’re having friends over to eat the leftovers from the party.”

Erika is not just stunned but her feelings have also been hurt. Emma gets to drag bones through the river and
she’s
home on a special visit and her mother is too busy to have lunch with her? Maybe she’s an idiot to think about coming back to Higgins to live. Maybe she should stay in Chicago and let her son grow up without cousins and underwear-streaking and the mad rush of Sunday brunch and Easter and Christmas and every other frigging holiday that binds all the Gilfords together.

“Mom, really, you can’t see me today?”