The Miles Between

  “No,” I answer. “No lessons.”

  Babs shrugs it off. “So many people come through here. I guess a few are bound to look alike.” She reaches over to a hook on the wall behind her and fishes off a long blue leash and studded collar. “Here’s a little something extra for Fido. No charge.” She hands Seth the collar and leash, and he gingerly takes it from her, raising his eyebrows at me.

  “Oh! Fido,” he says, finally connecting that the leash is for Lucky.

  Ya-oooooooof!

  “Another customer! Pete’s better than a bell.”

  We crowd the window and look out. A large wide-eyed man bounds out of his car and up the steps. Babs is right. We are amused.

  And she was also right about the music lessons.

  Not for me, but for my mother. I remember sitting on the piano bench as she took lessons. And then I would lay my head in her lap listening to what I thought was the most beautiful music in the world until finally Mother’s belly grew too large with the new baby for me to fit. Mother said I would take lessons one day, but that never happened. After that, it was all about my brother. The one they kept. The one still here in Langdon.

  When we reach the car, Mira raises her arms to the world and her face to the sky. “We look fabulous!” she shouts.

  I look at our reds, grays, blues, faded greens, blacks, and lamby whites, my new colors of Langdon, undistorted by time, and they pierce me in a way that hurts and exhilarates all at once, like walking out into blinding sun after a long period in a dark room. For a moment it is difficult to see and my head hurts, and then my focus returns, the colors brilliant. Fabulous. Yes, we are.

  Seth looks at me and nods. “You’re right, Mira.”

  My stomach jumps. “Shoes next,” I say, feeling the momentum of the day and wanting it all to be true and real.

  “Onward!” Mira proclaims.

  My heart beats madly. Onward.

  I open the door of the car, and I am stopped, reminded that some days are not ordinary in any way and never will be. A long, elegant peacock feather lies across the seat, perfectly placed, perfect in every way.

  “Where’d that come from?” Seth asks.

  “Not from Pete, that’s for sure,” Mira answers.

  Aidan scans the parking lot. There are no birds. “Maybe the wind caught it and blew it from one of those baskets on the porch.”

  I note the stillness of the air, and I know the others do too. Especially Aidan.

  “Yes,” I say. “It must have been the wind.”

  18

  I NEVER HAD DOUBTS about my place in the family. Of course, what six-year-old would? Especially one who never lacked for attention. So it was quite natural that I didn’t expect anything to change once the baby came. I even began calling him my baby long before he was born because I assumed Mother and Father were bringing him into this world to please me. And I was pleased. I truly was. I never blamed Gavin for my slip off the radar.

  Gavin was a healthy baby. Or at least he seemed to be. His face was round and plump, and his lips were rosy and perfect. But it is his fingernails I remember the most. Beautiful, tiny paper-thin nails that were like slivers of cockle shells. He would wrap his little fist around my finger and squeeze, and I found this small silent act even more joyful than pushing him in the pram.

  I even used my last wish on him.

  I remember my last birthday. At least the last one I shared with Mother. Gavin cried and cried. Mother hurried along our celebrations so she could be with him. Before we blew out the candles on the cake, we held hands and made our silent wishes together. “We can’t tell our wishes or they won’t come true,” Mother had said. I didn’t tell. I was a good girl. I didn’t tell anyone. But it didn’t come true. Maybe it was because we didn’t celebrate on the real and true day, but a day early because Mother and Father had to leave on the next with Gavin. He was sick. I didn’t understand. My doctor could see me anytime I sniffled, but Gavin had a special doctor who could only see him on this one special day, and they had to fly far away to see him. Gavin didn’t look sick at all to me, but that was the story they gave. Convenient.

  The next day I scowled and pouted, but it didn’t affect Mother and Father’s decision to leave me behind on my birthday. They were so focused on Gavin, my displeasure went unnoticed. I was dragged along to the airport only because my babysitter had to drive them. Who could blame me for not wanting to kiss the baby good-bye? But they did. They never forgave me, and I have been punished ever since. Or forgotten is a better word. Or perhaps I was destined to be discarded all along. Who knows, maybe by now Gavin has been too, and there is a new amusement in their lives, one who never cries or disobeys. One who is, for the most part, invisible, the way I have tried to be all these years.

  I have never made a wish since that birthday. Except for today. A wish for a fair day, and I should know better. Fairness is always trumped by destiny.

  19

  JUST AHEAD IS THE RUST-STREAKED truss bridge that leads to the heart of Langdon. Of all my memories of Langdon, the musty smell of the river and the thump thump thump of the bridge road as I left are the clearest. Through the crisscross of girders a mini skyline emerges. I can already see that Langdon is larger than I remember, or maybe it has just grown in the years I have been away.

  Mira claps her hands with excitement. “We’re almost there! Last chance, Des. A secret?”

  Last chance. Seal the deal. Be part of the game.

  After so many years of sitting out, do I even know how to play anymore? Tell. It’s only a game. And it’s only fair. I speak, hoping to get the words out before the safe and wiser part of me clamps down. “I have a brother. He’s here in Langdon. So are my parents.”

  “I knew it,” Seth whispers under his breath.

  “What?” Aidan’s voice is laced with suspicion like he’s been led astray.

  Mira leans forward and touches my shoulder. “Truth, Des?” I turn and look at her.

  We begin our trek across the bridge, the familiar thump, thump, thump beneath us, the shadows of the girders flashing across Mira’s face. Dark, light, dark, light, like an old film that is skipping. I look at her eyes. At Aidan’s.

  “Yes. True,” I say and wish I could snatch the words back as soon as they are said.

  “I thought your parents were in another country, or at least another state,” Aidan says. “And that’s why—”

  Mira elbows him. Here I am, the fragile twit again. I turn and face forward.

  “Is that why we really came here?” Seth asks. “Do you want to see them?”

  “No!” I say. “Absolutely not.”

  “But maybe you should go visit,” Mira says. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it? When was the last time you saw them?”

  I look at her sharply. A long time ago. Too long. Longer than she could possibly understand. “A year.” That seems like a sufficiently long amount of time that is believable. One that will not make me too much of a freak of nature, which, arguably, is what I am.

  “A year!” Mira says in disbelief. Her reaction almost makes me smile. If I had told her the far graver truth, she would have thought me to be a liar.

  Aidan falls back against his seat. “I see my family every holiday and plenty of weekends in between too. I can’t understand how—”

  Another sharp elbow from Mira.

  “It’s all right, Mira,” I say, hoping to put on some scrap of dignity and spare Aidan a bruised rib. “I’ve gotten used to it. My parents simply don’t have room in their lives for me. And I’ve adjusted my own life accordingly.” All the explanations I’ve silently devised over the years are now coming out with practiced ease. But I feel anything but easy.

  “Except for today!” Mira says indignantly. “For this to be a fair day, I think you should see them. Tell them what you think, Des. It’s not right!” Her chin juts out farther, and her lips pull tight. “How dare they treat you like that!”

  “We’re with you, Des.” Seth turns his gaze br
iefly from the road to look at me. “If that’s what you want.”

  I shake my head. “No. It won’t change anything.”

  Aidan leans forward with his hands gripping the front seat. “I think she’s right. In fact, maybe we shouldn’t even go into Langdon. What if we run into them? They might notify—”

  I cut him off. We must go into Langdon. Today. “They travel a lot. There’s no chance of us bumping into them. And today is Mother’s birthday. She always travels on her birthday. They spend more time in planes than they do at home.” Forever in planes, I think. Going to places they won’t let me go. I turn briskly toward Aidan. “And that’s why I never see them, if you were wondering.” I look back at the road. “Isn’t that what everyone wonders at Hedgebrook?”

  “We don’t wonder,” Mira says softly. “At least not too much. And we only talk about it a little.”

  “Mira,” Aidan whispers.

  As if I don’t know. I hear the whispers. I notice. Everyone has always talked about it a little. Except me. Except for today, when I have shared a secret that they have all been curious about. Yes, my parents have left me to my own devices. Yes, they have provided for my care, my education, but not given me what I really need. Their time. Their interest. Their presence. I have worked for years to make it all their fault and not mine but have never won myself over, and now in a brief moment of sharing, I have won three over. Maybe they can convince me. Maybe I could believe it is not my fault. Maybe on a day like today, anything is possible.

  “But, Des, if today we did run right smack into them, well, on this day, I would know it wasn’t a coincidence, and I’d give them a piece of my mind.”

  Why has Mira taken up my cause? Why has she always taken up my cause? I’ve never understood that about her. Maybe because I’ve never tried. Observing and understanding are two different things. One is amusing; the other, risky. I don’t even care to understand myself. It’s always served me well. But like Mira, I too would give my parents a piece of my mind, that is, if I could. I would scream and yell and rant and shame them, and when I was done, I would beg for forgiveness so that everything could go back to the way it was before. But maybe that is asking too much of any one day.

  “Thank you, Des,” Mira says softly.

  “Thank you?”

  “For playing the game. It makes us all a team. We’re in this together, no matter what happens. Don’t you think?”

  Is this the part where she expects us to all raise our hands and clink swords? How does she put these thoughts together? I sigh. Mira wears her heart firmly on her sleeve, and sometimes her grip on reality seems to be more tenuous than mine. But I suppose if she can take up my cause with such passion, I can take up hers with small effort. I raise my hand upward toward the center of the car, and three hands meet it, and Mira squeals with delight, “Watch out, Langdon. Here we come!”

  Watch out. Indeed.

  20

  WELCOME TO LANGDON, POP. 34,019.

  “Wowee.”

  Mira looks up at the skyline. You could almost call the buildings genuine skyscrapers. A cluster of modern high-rises in the downtown area that are eight, ten, twelve stories high are wedged between the older storefronts of Langdon, a main street on the cusp of change. A jackhammer rattles somewhere on the edge of the parking lot where we stand, grating evidence of a town that is eager to move forward.

  Nothing is familiar, and I am surprised at the relief that brings. The jackhammer rests, and the other city sounds take its place, medium city sounds because Langdon is only flirting with being a big city. Cars, a horn, the whir of a woman pedaling by on a bicycle, a truck rumbling to a stop, friends greeting each other in front of a café, a man with a white apron sweeping a gutter, a chocolate-colored dog hanging out the window of a passing car, barking. At us!

  I look at Seth. “Lucky has an admirer. Did you bring his leash?”

  He nods. “You think he’ll wear it? I mean, he’s not a dog, you know.”

  “Shhh,” I tell him. “Why put doubts in Lucky’s head? Life is hard enough when you don’t fit in with everyone else. Let’s put it on.”

  Seth sets him between us on the sidewalk, and Lucky strains to get going while I adjust the collar and hook the leash.

  “Come on, Lucky,” Seth says. “Make us proud.”

  The sidewalk is wide, so we walk four abreast, Mira and I in the middle, Seth and Aidan on either side of us, and all of us following behind Lucky. He takes to his leash like a veteran at Westminster, and I think of the nursery rhyme and the lamb that followed Mary everywhere, except that we are following Lucky. I notice that Mira and Aidan somehow manage to end up side by side without any discussion of who will walk where and without awkward maneuvering to make it happen. It is almost like they are experienced at this. And of course that leaves Seth and me to walk side by side, and I am definitely not experienced at anything other than walking alone. I feel the irritation of his arm bumping mine whenever Lucky veers to one side.

  We pass older storefronts, a dry cleaner’s, a real estate office, a notary public, and a fabric store wedged between newer buildings, the anonymous shiny-glass types. I almost wonder if I only imagined that I once lived in Langdon because it is all so unfamiliar.

  A breeze stirs, whisks around my ankles, the gauzy uneven hem of my new skirt flapping. For a moment the sunlight changes, freezes time, like I could almost run backward and start the day over again, or maybe my whole life. Would I? Somewhere else besides Langdon? Someplace where I know every avenue, a place where my initials are carved in a tree, a place where I have more memories than a scant few years, a place where someone remembers me and wants me to stay? But just as quickly, the sun is bright again and movement resumes, Seth, Mira, and Aidan none the wiser.

  “Look who’s coming,” Mira says between gritted teeth and a smile.

  I hear Aidan draw in his breath. “He swaggers just like Constable Horn.”

  “There couldn’t be two of him, could there?” Seth whispers.

  A portly man walks down the middle of the sidewalk toward us, tipping his hat back as he gets closer. As he nears, I can see that his uniform is quite similar to Constable Horn’s, and I fear our day in Langdon is over before it begins.

  “What do we do?” Aidan whispers.

  “Shhh! Act natural.”

  “Good morning, Constable,” I say.

  He looks at his watch, like he is trying to decide if it is still morning. “Deputy, miss,” he clarifies. “Deputy Barnes.” He points at Lucky with a stick that is a dangling extension of his arm. “You can’t be walking livestock down a city street.”

  “Livestock? Oh, you mean him?” Seth says. “This is my dog, Lucky. A lot of people make that mistake. But he’s a lambadoodle. A new breed.”

  “Yes!” Mira adds. “A cross between a Lambshire terrier and a poodle.”

  Baaaa!

  “Lucky, stop barking,” Aidan admonishes him. “He does that when he wants to play ball. You have a ball?”

  The deputy’s eyes narrow. He pushes his hat farther back on his head and rubs the side of his face with his free hand. “A lambadoodle,” he repeats.

  “That’s right,” I say. “They’re all the rage in Paris.”

  Mira leans closer to the deputy. “Very expensive,” she whispers, rolling her eyes. “Ooh-la-la!”

  “Thousands,” I add. “But you can pet him, if you like.”

  He is silent, carefully eyeing Lucky. He takes a step to one side and then the other, checking Lucky out from all vantage points. He pinches his chin.

  “Just make sure you clean up after your dog,” he finally says.

  “Yes, sir!” Seth and Mira spout at the same time.

  The deputy reluctantly reaches out and touches Lucky’s head.

  Baaaa!

  He walks past us, shaking his head. I hear him mumble under his breath, but the only word I catch is Paris.

  We wait until we are half a block away, walking as straight as wooden soldiers,
before any of us say anything. Aidan stiffly turns around and looks behind us. “All clear,” he tells us, and we let loose with riotous laughter.

  “Never in a million years did I think he would buy that,” Aidan says.

  “Me either!”

  Mira pats Lucky’s head. “But Lucky was behaving himself. It’s only fair!”

  “Great performance, Lucky,” Seth says. “You were right, Des. Why put doubts in his head?”

  So I am finally right about something. It is good to hear. Especially from Seth. “Let’s go get our dog a ball.” Kicking one foot out in front of me, I add, “And some shoes that don’t remind me we are Hedgebrook escapees.”

  “Field trip,” Aidan says. “It’s only an unauthorized field trip.”

  “Right. A field trip,” I answer. No need to put doubts in Aidan’s head either.

  21

  WE WALK IN SEARCH of a shoe store. Mira asks me for the hundredth time if I am sure that I want to spend my money on shoes for the rest of them. I am tempted to tell her it is not my money at all just to quiet her, but then I might have to explain even more, like the car that is not truly mine. I know that might bring the day to a bitter halt. I am not ready for that. “I’m sure, Mira,” I tell her. She thanks me for the hundredth time. I want to punch her, but I refrain.

  “I could really go for a hot dog,” Aidan says.

  Seth laughs. “You? What about all those fillers you complain about at Hedgebrook?”

  “I’m already going to get chewed up and spit out for our little escapade today. Might as well live dangerously with the time I have left.”

  “That’s you. Danger boy,” Mira says, and giggles. But the way she says it, it sounds more like a compliment than a dig, and I wonder if that is how Aidan takes it.