When the Morning Glory Blooms (32 page)

Having more than two bathrooms had a downside, apparently. They all needed cleaning.

Had Monica mentioned that each of the five bedrooms had its own bath, plus the powder room by the front entrance and the half bath in the finished basement? Becky couldn’t remember hearing Monica complain about an excess of toilets and tubs. But she wondered now how her friend had managed to get anything else done before hiring a scullery maid.

With four second-floor bathrooms sparkling and one to go, Becky hauled her bucket of cleaning supplies to the door at the end of the hallway and bumped it open farther with her hip.

A caterpillar of discomfort crawled up the back of her neck, every hair disturbed by the action. Something wasn’t right. Her stomach clenched. It was odd enough being alone in her friend’s house, moving possessions that weren’t her own, rearranging microscopic dust molecules and praying she was putting the magazines back exactly as Monica had artfully splayed them on the coffee table.

She wasn’t about to use the sound system, as Monica suggested. She touched only what she had to in order to do her job. But here, in Brianne’s room, something made her want
to go digging. Trouble had an odor. Acrid. Sulphurus. She smelled it now.

Becky hadn’t been quiet while scrubbing, flushing, and vacuuming. Any intruder—hiding—would know she was there. The thought did not bring even a dust bunny of comfort. Someone knew. Waited. Lurked. Hidden.

If she were going to make a career out of cleaning houses, she’d have to conquer the squirmies. Ridiculous.

She steadied herself and made each footstep solid, WonderWoman-like, as she moved deeper into the sunlit room. She swung her bucket of supplies and contemplated whistling, but couldn’t think of a whistleable song.

A wave of outright envy replaced the silly ruffling she’d felt. Brianne’s room didn’t need vacuuming. Not even a gum wrapper or fleck of potato chip on the floor, much less the Lauren piles Becky was used to. Nothing on the floor.

Except Brianne.

On the window side of the bed, Becky found Brianne sitting on the floor, her back against the eyelet dust-ruffled bed, her bare feet straight out in front of her, eyes locked on emptiness.

“Hey, Brianne. You scared me. I thought  . . .  your mom thought  . . .  we thought you were at school.”

No answer. But the girl drew her thin arms around herself.

Becky slid to the floor beside her and assumed the same position, back against the bed, feet in front of her. “Not feeling well today?”

Nothing.

Kids playing hooky didn’t scare Becky. But the utterly blank look on Brianne’s face did.

“Hon, I know things have been rough lately.”
Lord God, if You ever had words to spare, I could use some!
She waited.

Brianne’s toes must have been cold. They were almost blue.

“Do you want me to call your mom?”
I’d like to call mine
.

Becky rubbed her hands on the knees of her jeans. “I’m here if you want to talk. Even if you don’t. I’m  . . .  here.”

Several moments passed, each more awkward than the previous.

“Look, Brianne, why don’t we go down to the kitchen and make some tea. Do you drink tea? We can talk down there. I’m getting too old to sit on the floor for too long.”

Brianne’s arms fell limp into her lap. Her left fist unclenched, releasing what she’d been holding—an orange plastic bottle with a white childproof cap.

Becky grabbed for it. Empty. “Oh, Brianne!”

By the time she’d called both Monica and Gil, the paramedics were flying up the stairs. Becky shook and paced as they checked the girl’s too-faint vitals and tried to stabilize her enough to get her loaded onto the collapsible gurney.

“I made her throw up,” she coughed out. “But I don’t know if that was the right thing to do. It’s all here in the bucket.” She pointed to the repurposed cleaning bucket with a pool of stomach contents and partially dissolved pills. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. And I just sat there with her when I found her. Probably five minutes. I should have called right away when I saw her sitting on the floor that way. I just never thought  . . .  I didn’t think  . . . ”

“Mrs. Trundle, it’s going to be okay. We need all of our people working on Brianne right now. Why don’t you give her mom another call and tell her we’ll be transporting Brianne to Memorial.”

“I think she knows that. It’s the closest hospital.” She circled the huddle of paramedics.

The female paramedic nearest her laid a hand on Becky’s forearm and gave a comforting squeeze. “Just call to confirm, okay?”

“Okay.”

Memorial Hospital. Where Lauren and Brianne were born, three months apart. Where life began for them, in a way.
Life, Lord. Please, spare this life
.

No mere cry for attention, the doctor said. Brianne took enough painkillers—leftovers from Monica’s hysterectomy a year earlier—to completely silence whatever voices screamed inside her head.

Becky couldn’t hear what screamed inside Monica’s, but she could imagine.

Motherhood isn’t for sissies. She’d read that somewhere. She’d lived it. Still did.

How many nights would she relive the scene in Brianne’s bedroom and everything she’d done wrong? She’d cleaned four bathrooms while a young girl suffered in silence down the hall, slipping closer to the edge of eternity. She’d shaken off the unease rather than listening and acting sooner. She’d thought she could
talk
to Brianne and make her feel better. She’d suggested
tea
to a young woman an inch from death.

Not exactly impeccable mothering instinct.

“It’s my fault.” Though softened because of the crowd in the hospital cafeteria, Monica’s voice shook so much that it sounded like a choir member with excessive vibrato.

Becky sipped her coffee and temporarily suspended her own guilt. “Monica, this is not your fault.”

“Yes, it is. I  . . .  I didn’t say it aloud, but I thought it.” Her gaze registered as blank as Brianne’s a few hours earlier.

“Thought what?”

“How  . . .  lucky we were.” She huffed. Monica no longer exhaled. She sighed her way through life. “Blessed. I used the word
blessed
.”

Becky’s mind wandered close to the edge of what Monica might have meant, then shrank back. “What do you mean?”

Monica tore her napkin into scraps of discomfort. “My grandchild is gone. That will never be okay. But few people knew  . . .  or will ever know. Life  . . .  life was going on as if nothing ever happened.” She swept the scraps into a small pile. “But look at you and Lauren.” Her eyes flicked to Becky, then quickly away. “It’s always
with
you. The problem. The history. The fallout.”

The debt. The sleepless nights. The smell of sour milk. Smeared diapers. More diapers. A ceaseless echo of concern for Lauren’s and Jackson’s futures.

The smell of baby lotion after Jackson’s bath. The sight of his only-for-Grammie smile. The bubbling giggle that was worthy of YouTube. The feel of his hand on her cheek, no heavier than a birthmark.

“Jackson’s life may not have started the ideal way, but that’s what grace is for.”

“And I think I was secretly grateful, in a twisted sense, that Brianne and I didn’t have to deal with it anymore. It was over. Done. Sad, but  . . .  behind us. You know?”

The look on Brianne’s face a few hours earlier said it was anything but behind them.

“Beck, I brought this on, thinking thoughts like that. It’s a miracle Brianne’s alive, considering what an idiot I’ve been.”

Becky’s next swallow of coffee tasted especially bitter. Or maybe that was the taste of sorrow.

“I’ve been thinking about this since the moment Lauren came to me a year ago, broken. I’ve wrestled with the question, desperate to know an answer that would make sense.”

Monica sniffed. Twice. “What question?”

“What comes after remorse?”

“A constant, relentless, throbbing pain.”

“That’s all true—the relentless, throbbing, piercing pain. And mercy when we’ve blown it. And grace for the next step.”

“Lauren, what are you doing here?” The sight of her daughter alive, upright, and standing in front of her in the hospital hall brought Becky within a hair’s breadth of tears.

For the first time in a long while, the hug Lauren returned was at least as strong as her mother’s. “I had to come. Dad said he’d watch Jackson longer so I could  . . .  be here. Is Brianne  . . .  ?”

“It’s not good, honey. But the doctors are hopeful. The paramedics were there so fast.”

Lauren’s chin quivered. “I should have been there for her.”

“We all have our regrets. Every one of us.”

“Brianne and I used to be so close. Jackson kind of changed all that.”

“Changed a lot of things.” Becky put one arm around Lauren and squeezed.

“Yeah. Like teaching me the meaning of love.”

Whoa! Where had that come from?

With a mittened hand, Lauren swiped at her eyes. “Can I see her?”

“We’ll ask Monica.”

“I need Brianne to know I get it. I understand.”

Becky’s vision blurred. It happened a lot lately.

When Monica’s ex-husband arrived from Colorado Springs, the hospital shrank. Lauren and Becky stepped back, promising the hurting ones that they were a phone call and five minutes away, if needed.

Becky considered asking Lauren to drive them home. Her eyes hurt and a headache flashed across her forehead like an electronic tennis match, all service aces.

But Lauren seemed just as shaken, and she blinked her eyes as if fighting a dislodged contact lens.

Tragedies without explanation provoke either copious amounts of speculation or complete silence. The Trundle car remained a vacuum chamber of silence on the ride home, until they pulled into the driveway.

“It’ll be all over school in the morning,” Lauren said, face forward, hands pressed between her knees.

“I imagine it will.”

“That’s one of the hardest parts.”

Becky steered into the garage, put the car into park, and turned off the engine. “Was it the hardest part for you  . . .  with Jackson?”

“No. I mean, there’s always gossip, even if kids are getting pregnant on purpose.”

“What?”

Lauren looked at her. “Not me. That was a total accident.”