The Long Way Home

  “Lovey, that’s wonderful!” Abby leaped up from the table and put her arms around Dana.

  “The best thing,” Dana continued, “is that it’s a full scholarship. So, Julia — maybe you’ll get a scholarship to college, too, but if you don’t, well, this should make things easier.”

  Orrin smiled at Dana from across the table. “We’re proud of you. Awfully proud. You’ve worked hard.”

  “I’ll say she has,” said Adele.

  Dana turned to her twin.

  “I’m really happy for you,” said Julia.

  * * *

  A week later Dana and Adele stood on the platform at the train station. In a knot around them were Abby, Orrin, Julia, Peter, and Nell. When the train whistle sounded in the distance, Nell shouted, “Here it comes!” and Julia drew Dana away from the family.

  “I’m going to miss you,” she said.

  “Me, too.”

  “This was the best vacation ever.”

  “Let’s write more often,” said Dana.

  “Definitely.”

  Dana sat alone at the scarred table in the kitchen of the house in Little Grape. Only five thirty in the morning, but she was wide awake. The house was too still. She longed for all the noises of the apartment in New York, the noises that lulled her to sleep in a way that no amount of Maine quiet could.

  She stood up, considered making a cup of tea, then sat down again, and was still sitting in the uncomfortable wooden chair, doing absolutely nothing when her mother shuffled into the room and sat across from her. Abby’s eyes were puffy and her hair was rumpled from sleep. She was wearing a fuzzy blue bathrobe that Dana was certain was at least eight years old.

  Dana tried to see the mother she’d known long ago in New York. The mother who had arranged birthday parties and worn long gowns to balls and dined at the fanciest restaurants in the city. She didn’t see that mother. She saw a woman who looked old, although she wasn’t really, whose hair was shot through with gray, and whose hands showed signs of hard work and hot dishwater.

  Abby tried to smile. “What are we doing up at this hour? We got such good news yesterday. Better than we’d hoped for. We should be sleeping like babies.”

  Dana didn’t answer. She thought back to the previous Saturday. Just four days earlier. It seemed as though her summer had spun out of control in those four days. Before Saturday, her summer had drifted along in a lovely, predictable routine. She’d spent her days working alongside Adele at Bobbie Palombo’s, a job that was interesting and paid nicely. Dana had saved almost all of her earnings, and felt they would cover the few things her scholarship to Prescott wouldn’t cover — train fare to Manhattan or Maine on holidays, spending money, art supplies. She’d been working at Bobbie’s ever since her graduation from MHSA in June.

  Dana’s graduation had been wonderful. Her mother, Orrin, Julia, Peter, and Nell had taken the train to Manhattan and stayed for three days (her mother and Orrin in a hotel, her sisters and Peter camping out on Adele’s floor), and cheered Dana on as she’d graduated from high school with honors. They’d visited the Statue of Liberty and had gone to the tippy top of the Empire State Building, which Nell had enjoyed, although she’d been disappointed not to see a single sign of King Kong. “Not even a bit of his fur!” she’d wailed.

  At the end of their visit, Adele and Dana had traveled back to Maine with them and cheered Julia on as she’d graduated from Ronald Casey Central High School, also with honors, bound for Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, in September.

  And then . . . Saturday morning.

  A Saturday morning in New York City in August. Dana and Adele had slept late, eaten breakfast late, and were finally getting ready to leave the apartment.

  “Do you really have to go into work?” Dana had asked her aunt.

  “I really do. Just for a few hours. Bobbie needs me. I’ll be done by two. Three at the latest.”

  “Okay. I’m waiting for Loretta to call. She and Tanya and I are going to Gimbels.”

  Adele had smiled. “More clothes?”

  “Nope, just lipstick. For me anyway. Pink frosted. I don’t want to spend too much.”

  Dana, Loretta, and Tanya were tight with their money, a fact that amused Adele. All three girls had been awarded scholarships to art colleges, all were very grateful, and all were extremely careful where their finances were concerned.

  “You’re like a bunch of old ladies!” Adele had exclaimed once, and Dana had taken this as a compliment. She had her dreams and she had her plans. They all centered on being an artist — and being self-sufficient.

  And then the phone had rung.

  “That’s probably Loretta,” Dana said. She kissed her aunt on the cheek. “See you this afternoon.” She picked up the phone as Adele stepped into the hallway. “Hi!” Dana said. “Are you ready? I’m — What? Mom? . . . Oh — Adele! Wait! Come back!”

  Adele had turned around, a question mark on her face. Dana, already trembling, thrust the phone toward her aunt. “It’s Mom,” she whispered. “She said that Julia . . . Just talk to her.”

  Dana had sat on the floor, arms wrapped around her knees, and listened to Adele’s end of the conversation. She was only two feet from her aunt, but had felt as if she were seeing her through a tunnel — a tiny, faraway figure. She caught a word here and there. Meningitis. Hospital. Train. The conversation was brief. It had ended with Adele saying, “We’ll be there as soon as we can. I’ll let you know what train we’ll be on.” She looked down at Dana. “Do you want to talk to your mother again?”

  Dana had hesitated, then held out her hand for the phone. “Mom? What is meningitis? How did Julia get it?”

  Abby had tried to explain. Dana listened to the hurried description of an inflammation of the membranes surrounding the brain and of Julia’s symptoms — her stiff neck, the fever.

  “Is she going to die?” Dana had finally whispered.

  There was a pause at the other end of the phone. “The doctors don’t know. It’s very serious.”

  Dana had said nothing. She held the phone out to Adele.

  After a few more murmured words, Adele had said, “All right. We’ll be in touch,” and she hung up.

  Dana suddenly exclaimed, “Loretta! I was waiting for her to call. We’re supposed to go shopping! And you’re supposed to go to Bobbie’s.”

  “Settle down,” Adele had said gently. “Let me make some phone calls.”

  * * *

  Dana had let her aunt do everything, including phone Loretta to tell her what had happened. Somehow the day passed, Dana still seeing the world through the tunnel. By late in the afternoon, they were boarding a train north. Dana had sat nestled against Adele, her head on her shoulder, unaware of the curious glances of the other passengers. It was well after midnight when they’d stepped off the train and looked up and down the platform for a familiar face.

  “Who’s going to meet us?” Dana had asked.

  “I’m not sure.”

  A few seconds later Aunt Rose had wrapped them in her arms and led them through the silent Maine night to her station wagon.

  * * *

  Sunday and Monday had passed slowly, the events viewed again through Dana’s tunnel. Dana and Adele took turns joining Abby and Orrin at Julia’s bedside. When Adele was at the hospital, Dana stayed at home with Peter and Nell, fielding their constant questions.

  Is Julia lonely at the hospital? (Peter.)

  Am I going to catch her benavitis germs? (Nell.)

  When is she going to come home? (Peter.)

  How do you get benavitis? (Nell.)

  When is she going to come home? (Peter, the question asked endlessly.)

  When Adele stayed at home, Dana went to the hospital. The first time she saw her sister, her breath had caught sharply in her throat. Julia was the sole patient in a two-bed room, the other bed rumpled because Abby had slept in it the past few nights. Julia had been asleep when Dana entered the room, but had slowly woken and offered her sister a wan sm
ile before drifting off again. She had looked pale and tiny, and Dana had understood why the doctors wouldn’t say for sure whether her sister would make a complete recovery. There was talk of brain damage and hearing loss.

  Then on Tuesday afternoon, Dana had entered the room, now overflowing with balloons, flowers, and get-well cards, and found Julia propped up in her bed, her cheeks looking as if someone had brushed them lightly with pink watercolor.

  Julia brightened. “Dana. What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve been here since Saturday night.”

  “Really?”

  Dana sat gingerly on the edge of the bed. “Is it okay to do this? Am I hurting you?”

  Julia had smiled and shaken her head. “You’re not hurting me.”

  “Mom?” Dana said. “Orrin? Why don’t you go down to the cafeteria? You’ve been here all morning. Julia and I will be fine.”

  “I guess we could use some coffee,” Abby replied.

  When Dana and her sister were alone, Dana said, grinning, “Well, you really did it this time.”

  Julia smiled back. “Wow. I can’t believe how bad I felt. I mean, before I went to the hospital. My head, my neck . . . How long did you say you’ve been here?”

  Dana had told her sister about Saturday — about the phone call and the train ride to Maine. “Nell thinks you have something called benavitis,” she added. “And Peter just wants to know when you’re coming home.”

  “I had such a weird dream,” Julia said suddenly. “I just remembered it. There was this empty room, and you and I were the only people in it. We were standing against opposite walls, and even though the room wasn’t very big, it was like we were really far apart. And I kept calling you but you couldn’t hear me.” She paused. “Maybe that’s why I’m surprised to see you.”

  Dana had laughed. “I guess you don’t have to be an expert to figure that dream out.”

  “What?”

  “It’s obvious. We learned all about dreams in this psychology class I took last semester. Dreams are fun to analyze.” Dana had inched closer to her sister. “Julia, I know you think I deserted you when I decided to live with Adele, but I really didn’t. I mean, maybe it felt that way to you, but I just couldn’t stay here any longer. I was going crazy moving around Maine. You didn’t know how much I missed New York.”

  “Yes, I did. I knew. I just didn’t want you to leave. I guess that was selfish.”

  “No, it wasn’t. We want what we want. But I hope you truly know that I didn’t leave because I wanted to leave you and Mom and Peter and Nell. I love all of you. It was just that I had to go back to New York. I had to. New York was where we had lived with Dad. It was where I’d been happy. Maybe that was selfish of me.”

  “No.” Julia had reached for a cup of water and taken a sip. “It’s like you said. We want what we want. We each wanted different things.”

  “But we still love each other. I loved you then and I love you now.”

  Julia’s eyes had filled. “Of course we love each other.”

  Dana had reached for her twin’s hand then and held it until her mother and Orrin returned.

  * * *

  Now Dana and Abby were seated across the table from each other.

  “It was the best news,” Dana agreed. “The best news the doctors could have given us.” Three doctors had entered Julia’s room the previous afternoon to proclaim that Julia was out of the woods. “Not even any permanent damage,” Dana went on.

  “She’ll have to postpone college, though,” said Abby.

  “Just for one semester. That’s not so bad.”

  Abby shook her head. “And off you go again.”

  “What?”

  “You said that so easily. ‘Just for one semester.’ In a few weeks you’ll be leaving for Prescott to pursue your dreams, while once again Julia is left behind.”

  “Well, jeez, not permanently. Besides, when was she left behind before?”

  Abby softened. Dana actually watched her mother’s face loosen. “I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant. It’s just that you — you’re driven. You’re on a true career path. That’s a gift your father gave you.”

  “What are you saying? That Dad left Julia out? That he didn’t give her a career path? Julia didn’t want what Dad had, Mom, she only wanted what I had.”

  “My point exactly.”

  “This is so unfair!”

  “Dana, calm down.”

  “You know, you’re acting like nothing bad ever happens to me. All the bad things happen to Julia. And somehow they’re my fault.”

  “Of course that’s not what I mean. Although you have to admit that you have led a rather charmed life.”

  “I led a charmed life? Just me? I grew up in the same family Julia did and the same family Peter and Nell did. Do you think I’m responsible for Peter’s Down syndrome, too?” Dana watched color rise in her mother’s cheeks, but she couldn’t stop the words that were forming in her brain. “Why did you really let me go back to New York, Mom? You let me go awfully easily. Was it because you thought Julia, Peter, and Nell needed you, but I didn’t?”

  “Dana! I let you go because that’s what you wanted. Not that I ever had much say in your life anyway. You always do whatever you want to do. That’s something else you —”

  “Don’t you dare say that’s something else I got from Dad. And by the way, I work for the things I get. You’re the one who said I was driven. Things aren’t just handed to me.”

  Abby shook her head again. She turned angrily from Dana and glared out the window.

  Dana watched her for a moment, then shoved her chair away from the table and said, “I don’t know when Adele is going back to New York, but I’m leaving today.”

  “Don’t you dare walk away, Dana. Don’t you dare.”

  “Too late, Mom. You walked away from me a long time ago.”

  Dana leaned over the crib and reached for the baby’s hand. She felt the fingers curl around her thumb, and she looked at the nails, impossibly tiny. She remembered that she’d been afraid to cut those nails when Francie was a newborn. She’d made Matthew do it for months until at last he’d said, “Dana, you have to learn to do this.”

  “Why?” she’d asked. Then she added, “I’ll trade you poopy diapers for nail cutting.”

  Matthew had grinned. “Nope. You need to learn.”

  “Hi, sweet girl,” Dana said now. “How long have you been awake?”

  Francie smiled up at her mother. She waved her hands and kicked her feet.

  “Oof,” said Dana, picking her up. “You are the sweetest girl ever. And maybe the biggest.”

  Dana turned around to find Matthew smiling at her from the doorway of the nursery. He was so tall that his head nearly touched the top of the door frame. “I think Francie is going to be tall like you,” said Dana. She set Francie on her hip and looped her arm through Matthew’s, and they walked into the room that served as living room, dining room, and art studio. She studied the painting Matthew was working on. A commissioned painting. It was hard to believe that this time a year ago, they had still been students at Prescott — married students living in an apartment off campus, but students nevertheless — and already Matthew was getting commissions. The current piece showed the Swan Boats in the Public Garden in Boston. You had to squint to recognize the boats, but they were there, in Matthew’s broad-stroked style.

  Matthew walked across the room and stood before the painting. Nearby was a half-eaten bagel that he’d left on a footstool after breakfast. On the floor were a shirt and a single sock. On the back of an armchair was a page from the newspaper. All day long Matthew set things down and forgot about them. They became part of his landscape.

  Dana didn’t care. It was her landscape, too, and she liked it just the way it was. A room with a canvas leaning against the wall, a drawing table, an easel, a playpen, and a couch that had originally come from the street where someone had left it out for garbage pickup. All fine with her. Dana set Franci
e in the playpen. “Okay, baby girl,” she said. “Here’s your bunny. Here’s Bugs.”

  Dana settled herself at the drawing table. Matthew was holding a large brush coated in white paint, but not moving, lost in thought. Dana picked up a pencil and started sketching. She was employed part-time as a designer at a Boston publishing company, since they needed every cent they could earn. But her dream was still to illustrate books. That hadn’t wavered.

  “Are you going into work this afternoon?” asked Matthew, without turning around.

  “Yup. But I’ll be home by six.” Dana hated leaving Francie, even though Matthew was a wonderful father. She’d had no idea how attached she would become to the baby — instantly attached — but the job at the publishing house had been too good to hope for. It had been offered to her a mere two months after she graduated from Prescott, and when she revealed that she was pregnant, her boss had arranged for her to work part-time after the baby was born. Dana knew she was very fortunate.

  Dana and Matthew worked quietly. Francie crawled around the playpen. She gripped the bars, pulled herself to a standing position, and then fell over on purpose, laughing.

  Matthew turned to look at her. “Remember when falling on your rump was the funniest thing in the world?” he asked.

  “That’s what attracted me to you.”

  This was true. Dana had noticed Matthew Goldberg on their very first day at Prescott. She had arrived on the campus tired and cranky, after a hot ride from Manhattan in a wreck of a car that Adele had borrowed from a friend, followed by a tearful good-bye with her aunt. She was standing glumly in her dorm room, having already decided that her roommate, Shelley, an adenoidal blonde with a custom-made tennis racket, was a dweeb.

  “I claim the desk under the window,” Shelley had just said.

  “Fine,” Dana had replied. She peered into the hallway. Suddenly the stairwell door had banged open and the handsomest guy she’d ever seen strode through it, carrying two very heavy-looking cartons.

  He’d noticed Dana noticing him, had grinned and said, “Hey,” in an overly casual way, and then tripped over a hockey stick, dropped the cartons, and fallen on his behind.