The Shortest Distance Between Two Women (33 page)

“I think we tried to protect you,” Erika says, holding her hand tighter. “We all knew what was coming. We knew that Mom would grieve and that we all had to leave home and that in the end you would be the one to hold everything together and really, I guess we also felt terribly guilty. We still feel guilty because we helped you go from being a little girl to an adult too fast.”

“Yes,” Debra and Joy agree. “Yes, we do.”

Oh.

Oh shit.

Emma begins to cry from a place that she never knew existed.
It is a river that has been rumbling in an enclosed space for years and years. The crying starts softly and then builds as the river explodes in gratitude and relief and as Emma falls over and holds her head in her hands and sobs for reasons that she cannot even begin to list, accept, understand or acknowledge. She only knows that crying feels like sweet rain and the last day of a long fever and the physical relief that comes when someone tells you something you knew but have waited to hear spoken out loud for such a very long time.

Emma cries as Debra opens more wine and Erika notices that two bird-feeders are empty and gets up to fill them. She cries as Joy and Erika exchange very lovely stories about how their father led them into the backyard together and asked them to be strong, to help, to take the very best care of both Emma and Marty. And when Debra hears this, she laughs until she cries, too—because that is exactly what their father also told her.

Emma weeps as Erika says once again how glad she is that she is staying with Emma and as they all realize that they have forgotten to talk about Robert, and their mother having sex, the wild underwear, if they should make Susie Dell change her last name, and whether or not everything really is ready for the blasted reunion. And as Emma suddenly remembers that she must send Joy home first—somehow—so that she can talk to Erika, Debra and Susie Dell alone.

Susie Dell, who tells them all how lucky they are to be and have sisters even as all four of them grab Susie Dell and claim her as their fifth sister.

Joy, then, for the first time in years, totally cooperates by leaving first. Emma can barely look her in the eye. But when Joy does leave and Emma tells Susie Dell, Erika and Debra about the intervention, they so quickly agree to help that her heart is flooded
with a garden of gladness—not just because she is relieved, but because she always knew they would never say no.

And when Debra and Susie Dell finally head home, Emma decides she is finished crying. She decides she has had enough, and heard enough, and knows enough. So she sits in her kitchen and watches as Erika puts out the fire, throws away the napkins and plates, and then turns without instructions to throw a wide kiss to all the flowers and this makes Emma start crying all over again.

Finally when Erika crawls into bed with her and wraps herself around Emma as if she is made of plastic wrap—arms over arms, shoulders bumping shoulders, legs on legs, and whispers, “We slept like this for weeks after Daddy died,” Emma starts crying all over again until she falls into a kind of deep slumber that feels as if it is part of a glorious resurrection.

And for some strange reason when she gets up in the morning to start the coffee there is the missing photograph of Samuel propped up on the kitchen table as if it has walked there from its unseen hiding place.

Emma has no idea how it got there but she does know that not everything has been resolved by her backyard sisters garden party.

What she does know is that she is loved. And this knowledge has filled her with a sense of lightness and happiness that almost—just almost—makes her listen once again to the four messages on her answering machine.

Ducking instinctively so she will not be seen, Emma hovers on the steps as if she is in buns class down at the gym, closes her eyes, and asks herself,
Was I supposed to order the meat?

All courtesy of her sisters because Emma has just recently come back to life and is at long last back in the reunion game.

Emma can hear her mother banging something in the kitchen, and still she cannot bring herself to open her notes and see who was supposed to order what usually seems like several tons of uncooked meat formed into patties, wieners and an assortment of picnic-like edibles that are fried for hours while everyone consumes beer, plays horseshoes and volleyball, and gears up for the big auction.

Just as she is thinking of getting up, there are footsteps coming from the bedroom side of the house and Emma summons her ability to silently duck for cover as the footsteps come into the kitchen and then she hears the low murmur of what must surely be Robert’s voice asking her mother if everything is all right and that is when it hits her even harder than it did at her backyard sisters fling.

She does remember tiptoeing through not just the rooms of the very house she is now sitting in front of, but years as well—tiptoeing because she was afraid of something—of rocking the boat, knowing something that she already knew, thinking that someone had pinned a sign on her that said
Handle with care
. Tiptoeing through years when she felt as if her assigned job was to be quiet, sit unseen, lie motionless so that all the other Gilfords could do whatever it was that they were also supposed to do. Tiptoeing when she should have been walking through her own life like a woman who had at least a partial road map.

“Oh no!” Emma says out loud without even realizing she has spoken.

Robert almost drops Marty as they hear Emma and both turn at the same time so that almost all of the weight of both their bodies is on Robert’s right leg.

“How’s that meat search going, Mother?” Emma asks innocently as she pushes through the door. She wonders if there is a human timing belt that has come loose inside of her that makes her show up, open doors, walk into rooms and appear at a moment that would be perfect timing in a dramatic or comedic movie although not necessarily in real life.

“Emma,” Marty says very quietly as if anything louder would tip them over. “Pull us up from Robert’s side, will you, dear? We seem to be stuck here.”

Emma holds her laugh until she anchors her feet and leans back so that her weight gives Robert just what he needs to get Marty centered again. Then as the couple staggers upright Emma lets out a laugh that could flip on several remote control switches from across the room.

“I wish we had this on film,” Emma snorts.

“It might have looked funny but it didn’t feel very funny,” Marty admits, shaking her arms as if she has just finished lifting weights.

“Robert, is this what you do when you want her to shut up?”

“Sometimes,” Robert admits. “Occasionally I throw her over my leg like that just for the hell of it.”

This is definitely a fine start to the last planning session, here on the afternoon before the Gilford Family Reunion begins. After
Robert Dell straightens up, leans over to peck Marty on the lips, and Marty squeaks like a baby, they still do not know who was supposed to order the meat.

The meat that should now be resting in the refrigerator just the other side of the storage boxes that house all of the leftover prom dresses, baby booties and plaid jumpers that should have been passed on to a secondhand shop a very long time ago.

Emma suddenly remembers that she is holding the latest reunion notes, throws them on the table, and thumbs through the pages until she gets to the lists they made during the last get-together, when Rick had just allegedly abandoned his family.

It’s Joy.

Damn it.

Joy was supposed to have ordered the meat and have it delivered to Marty’s industrial-sized garage refrigerator two days ago.

Emma looks up to see her mother standing with her hands on her hips and she wonders if anyone has bothered to tell Marty about Joy. She surely has not, what with her emotional hangover from when Rick spilled his guts before the Gilford siblings party—now known as Emma’s Lovefest. Emma realizes, with a sinking heart, she will have to be the one to tell her mother about the severity of Joy’s drinking problem and the pending intervention.

“Mom,” Emma finally manages to say, “Joy was supposed to order the meat.”

“No surprise there,” Marty answers.

“Has anyone talked to you about Joy, Mom?”

“Anyone?” Marty asks.

“Rick. Debra or Erika, perhaps?”

“What happened at your little-sister festival the other day, Emma? Did Joy show up and streak through the yard?”

“Mom, this is really important. Can you back off for a minute and just sit down? I need to tell you something.”

“I think you are going to need Robert for this one, Mother,” Emma agrees, wondering if there will ever again be another calm moment in her life. “He not only can stay but he should stay.”

“What?” Marty demands, a little sharply.

And then Emma tells her about Joy and the drinking and the intervention and how Rick is not such a bad guy after all, well, except for that sleeping-with-the-redheaded-woman part, and how he is working hard to still be a father, and how they decided that Marty should be involved in the intervention, which they hope to stage the day after the reunion, when Joy will most likely have a huge hangover and not be quite so feisty.

And.

Marty holds up her hand like a stop sign and starts shaking her head left to right. It is definitely the international signal for the lovely word
no
.

“No what?” Emma wants to know.

“No, I didn’t know all of this, and no, I do not want to be part of your intervention.”

Marty says this very slowly as if she is trying to convince herself of what she is speaking out loud.

“No?” Emma manages to say back to her as a sort of question.

“Yes, no,” Marty says again and then realizes how silly that sounds.

Robert’s head is going back and forth between both of them as if there is a string attached from their lower lips to his head that pulls it every time one of them speaks.

“Mother, are you serious? I’m the one who insisted that you must be a part of this whole thing.”