“More like a nightmare.”
“You wake up from dreams and nightmares. But I’m not waking up from this, Teddy. I keep trying, but I can’t.”
He took her hand. His palm felt moist, clammy. He must have realized it because he quickly withdrew, wiped his hands on the cloth of his shorts, then picked up her hand again. “I wish there was something I could do for you.”
“Just stick close to me. Through the funeral. Please. I—I don’t want to fall apart.”
“You’re allowed.”
She looked into his face. Teddy, her friend since kindergarten. His eyes looked dark and sad, his face pale in spite of the sunburn that streaked his nose and cheeks. “Did you have fun at Six Flags?”
“Yeah. We had a great time.”
“Tell me about the rides. About every one of them.”
“Are you sure? It’s nothing.”
She nodded vigorously. It was easier to talk about nothing than something. Because something was too terrible to discuss. Too dark and terrible to even think about.
“I’m really sorry, Beth.” Terri stood just inside Beth’s bedroom door, fidgeting with the ends of her dark hair.
“Everybody’s sorry. But it doesn’t change anything.”
Terri chewed her lower lip. “Is there somebody you want me to call for you? You know, like a friend?”
“Everybody knows. Except Marcie. She’s away on vacation.” Beth wanted Marcie to know, but she had no way to tell her. She imagined her coming home and hearing. Marcie would cry, and Beth wanted to be there for her.
“This is the most awful thing to ever happen, Beth. I can’t stop thinking about Allison and Doug. I keep thinking about the last time I saw them. I got into a fight with them, remember?”
Beth shook her head. Her brain felt fuzzy and numb, and remembering hurt her head. “Just drop it, Terri.”
Terri took a step backward. “I’m sorry. I—I just don’t know what to say.”
“Please don’t say anything, all right? It’s just better if nobody says anything.”
Terri nodded, but a minute later she asked, “Would you like something to eat? We could go downstairs. People have been bringing food over.”
Beth whipped around. “I don’t want anything! Do you hear me? I don’t want to eat. I don’t want to sleep. I just want everybody to leave me alone!”
Terri looked terror-stricken. “Well, gee, Beth. Okay. All right. I didn’t mean to upset you. I—I was just trying to help.”
“You can’t help. No one can help.” Fresh tears flooded Beth’s eyes, surprising her. She’d thought she’d cried them all up by now. “Just go away. Please, Terri. Go away.”
Terri backed out of the room. Beth threw herself across the bed, pounded the mattress with balled fists, and wept.
6
Beth dressed slowly, her fingers stiff and awkward. Soon the limo from the funeral home would be picking them up to take them to the church for the memorial service, then to the cemetery where she would watch her family be buried.
She had decided to wear her bright blue dress with white flowers. It had been her Easter dress, and she remembered the day she and her mother had shopped for it. “You look lovely,” her mother had said. “You’re growing up so fast. Honestly, before I turn around, we’ll be shopping for your wedding dress.”
“No, we won’t, Mom,” Beth said to her reflection as she dressed for the funeral. She would never shop with her mother again. She also knew that once the day was over, she’d never wear the dress again.
An hour later she entered the church with her aunt, uncle, and cousin. The pews were crowded, and at the front, on the wide steps of the cold stone altar, were four flower-draped caskets: two large mahogany ones, two smaller white ones. The caskets were closed, and a framed photograph had been placed on each of them. Throughout the service, Beth stared at the photos, absorbing, memorizing the familiar images, not wanting to ever forget the way they were. Allison’s blond hair. Doug’s toothy grin. Her father’s intensely blue eyes. And her mother’s high cheekbones and freckled nose.
Beth sat ramrod straight while the minister spoke about her family and how their bodies might be in the caskets but their souls were safe in heaven. The eulogies were punctuated by the quiet crying of the congregation, especially the sobs of her aunt and Terri. Beth struggled to keep her sobs inside. She wouldn’t make a spectacle of herself by falling apart. Sunlight falling through the stained-glass windows cast colors over the caskets and flowers. The scene should have been pretty. It wasn’t. It looked staged, as if some celestial lighting director had rigged the whole thing. Illusion … all was illusion. Even the organ music sounded forlorn and desolate. And no matter how hard Beth tried to think about God and heaven, she couldn’t. It wasn’t fair for God to take away her family, even if they were in heaven. She wanted them here on earth with her. What right did God have to take them? Didn’t he know she loved them, needed them?
At the graveside, Beth stepped out of the car and into a smothering blanket of hot, muggy July air. She saw Teddy and his family, and he gave her an encouraging smile. She smiled bravely in return. The minister spoke again, and when everything was over, she stepped up to the caskets for a final farewell.
In the heat the flowers were wilting, their edges already turning brown. Beth pulled a single white rose from each of the four cascades. Her father had given her mother roses for Valentine’s Day. But now their heavy perfume did not make Beth think of luscious bouquets and timeless love. This time they spoke to her of death.
She clutched the roses against her chest, turned and walked back to the limo, and settled in for the ride back to the house. Her family’s house. The one she’d grown up in; the house she’d lived and laughed and cried in. She stared straight ahead, her mind blank and numb, her heart broken, heavy. All the light had gone out of her life. She didn’t know how to get it back.
“Honey, we must talk.”
“About what?” Three days had passed since the funeral. Beth had stayed in her room, eating food Camille brought her on trays, refusing to go to the table downstairs. Shut off in her room, she could pretend that the sounds she heard were from her parents. That the TV noise came from Doug’s programs, not Terri’s.
“Do you know what godparents are?” Camille asked, sitting on the side of Beth’s bed and taking her niece’s hand. “A godparent is someone who takes responsibility for another person’s child at the child’s baptism. Jack and I are your godparents, and your parents—” She paused, composed herself. “Carol and Paul were Terri’s godparents.”
“So?”
“Not only are we godparents to one another’s children, but we gave each other legal guardianship of each other’s children in our wills.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that you belong to us now, Beth. We want to take you back to Tampa to live with us.”
Move? She couldn’t move. “B-But this is my home. I won’t move away. You can’t make me.”
“You’re only fourteen, a minor. Who will take care of you?”
Camille’s voice was kind, but her questions made Beth feel cornered. She hadn’t thought about her future. “I can take care of myself.”
“Beth, I don’t want this to be any harder than it already is. We’re your family. We want you to live with us. You’ll have a room of your own. We’ll get all your furniture out of your old room to take with us—”
“But this is where I want to live. I don’t want to move to Tampa.”
Camille’s hand tightened around Beth’s. “I’m not trying to be cruel, Beth. I’m only trying to do what’s best for you. Don’t you understand? If you don’t come with us, you’ll have to go to a foster home. The courts won’t let you live alone.”
Beth pulled her hand from her aunt’s. “What have they got to say about my life? Who do they think they are, anyway?”
“They make the rules, honey. Jack and I’ve been to see your father’s attorney, and in your
parents’ will, everything is going to pass to you. But the legal process takes a long time, maybe a year or more. There’ll be estate taxes and attorneys’ fees.” She waved her hand impatiently. “Just take my word for it. You can’t stay here by yourself.”
Fresh tears filled Beth’s eyes. “You’re saying I have no choice.”
“I’m saying that Jack and Terri and I want you with us. We love you, Beth. You’re family. You’re all I have of my sister. I—I can’t let you go.”
Camille pulled Beth fiercely and protectively close. Beth kept her body rigid. Camille was her aunt, not her mother. Not ever her mother. She looked over her aunt’s shoulder and saw Terri standing in the doorway. Her cousin’s face was the color of chalk. Before Beth could move, Terri turned and skittered away, looking as if she’d been betrayed.
Beth had not been inside her parents’ bedroom since before the accident. That evening, she passed the door and saw her aunt and Terri going through the closets. “What are you doing?” she cried, darting into the room.
“We have to put everything into storage,” Camille said. “Jack’s hiring a realtor to rent the house.”
“But it’s my house. I don’t want somebody else living here.”
“We must, Beth. Please try and understand. We have to get everything packed up and stored and your things ready for the move. Jack has to get back to work. We’re renting a trailer for your stuff and leaving for Tampa in a week.”
Beth felt as if she’d been assaulted. People were making decisions about her life and she had no say in it. “This isn’t fair!”
“I agree,” Camille said, folding several of Carol’s dresses and stacking them in a large box. “But there’s nothing I can do to change what’s happened. Don’t you think I would if I could?”
Beth swiped at the hot tears collecting on her cheeks.
“Would you like to do some of this?” Camille asked. “Believe it or not, it helps.” She caressed the folded dresses lovingly.
How could Beth pack up her mother’s and father’s lives and cram them into stiff brown boxes? In a heap on the floor, she saw her father’s ratty old shirt and picked it up. She rubbed the worn, soft fabric against her cheek, caught the scent of his aftershave, and, shaking her head, said, “No. I don’t want to do this.”
Still clutching the shirt, she backed out of the room. Her father was gone … gone. And he was never coming home again.
7
“So you’re moving tomorrow?” Teddy rested the basketball on his hip.
Beth, sitting on the stone wall that edged the driveway, stared down at the ground. “Yes. Some of Dad’s friends are coming over to help Jack load the trailer with my stuff tonight. Then we’ll go right after we get up and get ready.”
“Bummer.” Teddy bounced the ball several times. “I guess you won’t even get to tell Marcie goodbye.”
“Guess not,”
“I’ll tell her for you.”
“Tell her I’ll write. And e-mail. And I’ll call too. Jack and Camille won’t keep me from staying in touch with my friends.”
“You think they’d try?”
Beth shook her head, slightly ashamed. “They’ll pretty much do anything for me. Except let me stay here by myself.”
“My mom asked if you could live with us.”
Beth’s raised her head. “She did?”
“She told your aunt you could stay all through high school and go down to Tampa in the summers. But your aunt said you belonged with your family and that since you were starting ninth grade at a new school in the fall, it wouldn’t matter if you started it down there.”
Beth, Teddy, and Marcie were all due to begin classes at Red Bank High School. “Except that I’ll know a lot of the kids at Red Bank, and I won’t know anybody at the school in Tampa.”
“Mom told her that. Your aunt said you could hang out with Terri and her friends.”
“Oh, thrill,” Beth said in a flat voice. “As if Terri even has any friends.”
“How are you getting along with Terri?”
Beth shrugged. “She stays out of my way. We haven’t talked much.”
“I guess she doesn’t know what to say to you,” Teddy suggested. “Her life’s changing too, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“According to you, she’s been a little princess with the castle all to herself all these years.”
“True.”
“Well, now you’re moving in and it’s Sharesville. Even her parents are yours now—sort of. I mean, she lost her aunt and uncle and two cousins. You’re the only cousin she has in the world, Beth. The one and only.” Teddy paused. “I don’t want to upset you. Did I say too much?”
Beth grimaced. She hadn’t thought about it that way before, but Teddy was right. Jack had no siblings, so she and Terri were the only cousins each would ever have. “Tell your mom thanks for the offer,” Beth said. “I—I would have really liked to live with you-all.”
“Sure,” Teddy said. “You want to play one last game of Horse? For old times’ sake?”
Beth didn’t. She just shook her head. “You write me, you hear?”
“I’ll write.”
“And don’t make a pest of yourself with Marcie.” Tears blurred Beth’s eyes. “The two of you are my best friends in the whole world, and I’m going to miss you like crazy.”
“Me too,” Teddy mumbled. He walked over, pulled Beth to her feet, and put his arms around her.
She began to cry but held on tight, the way a drowning person would hold on to a rope in a wind-whipped lake.
“The car’s packed and ready,” Jack said, coming into the kitchen.
Beth looked up at him. “Already?”
Her uncle put his arm around her shoulder. “I’m sorry, honey. I wish there was some other way. I wish none of this had happened.”
Teddy’s father would help get the contents of the house into storage once they were gone, and a realtor would begin showing the house to prospective renters as soon as it was cleaned and painted. Beth nodded, not trusting her voice. She felt like a condemned prisoner.
Outside, the trailer containing all her bedroom furniture, books, clothes, pictures, and keepsakes had been hooked to a rental car for the ten-hour drive to Tampa. Her memories were in there—her very life was packed into that trailer. What was left of it, anyway.
Teddy and his family gathered on the driveway, and they all hugged goodbye. “I’ll watch after your mother’s flowers,” Faye said.
“That would be nice,” Beth said. “Mom liked her flowers a lot.”
She struggled to hold back tears as she climbed into the backseat, where Terri was already settled in, her nose in a teen magazine, a wad of gum in her mouth. Terri blew a bubble, popped it, and kept reading. Beth plopped her bed pillow between them like an imaginary line. Don’t cross over, it said.
“You want anything?” Aunt Camille asked from the front seat.
Beth shook her head.
Uncle Jack backed out of the driveway, tooted his horn, and waved to the Carpenters. Beth gazed out at her neighborhood sliding past the car window like photos in an album. All the pretty houses, in neat, orderly rows. And the trees, lush and green with summer leaves. Beth had spent almost fourteen summers in this place. Her lifetime.
Jack drove down Signal Mountain and across the Tennessee River and merged into traffic on the expressway. When the car moved onto Interstate 75, Beth saw a sign announcing that Atlanta was 103 miles away. In the distance, the foothills looked blue and hazy, the sky a murky bluish gray.
Against the sky, in her mind’s eye, Beth saw the faces of her mother, father, Allison, and Doug as they had looked on the day they left for the picnic. She was going off to a new life, leaving them behind, just as death had left her behind when it had taken them.
Beth slipped on her sunglasses, hoping to shield her eyes, not from the glare of the sun, but from the stares of passing motorists. For surely they might wonder why a girl who looked for a
ll the world as if she were headed off on vacation with her family was sitting in the backseat crying hard.
WINTER
8
Hey Marcie,
I know I’m e-mailing you every day, but you’re my only friend, and I really miss you. I miss home too. And Teddy (but don’t tell him—it’ll go to his fat head) I’ve been living with my aunt and uncle for over a month, and I still can’t get used to it. Uncle Jack travels a lot on business. Sometimes he leaves on Monday and doesn’t come back until Friday. (My dad was home every night, remember?) So, we eat a lot of dinners without him. Terri and Aunt Camille argue, which makes me crazy. I want to tell Terri, “Shut up, already! Don’t you know how lucky you are to have a mother?” I stay in my room as much as I can, but Aunt Camille is always dragging me and Terri someplace. She says I need to get out more. As if!
I was wrong about Terri having no friends. She has two, LuAnne and Kasey. They’re a lot like Terri. They giggle a lot and talk about boys ALL the time. When school starts next week, I plan to stay as far from them as possible. Which is another thing. I’ll be going to Westwood Jr. High. They do things different down here. No middle schools, but jr. highs and high schools. Wish I could start 9th grade in high school like back home.
When you wrote about shopping for school clothes, it made me cry. Mom should be shopping with me. I keep remembering last year and all. Who’d have ever guessed that it would be my last shopping trip ever with my mother?
I know Aunt Camille is trying hard to help me be happy here, but all I want to do is go home. I want things back the way they used to be. Got to sign off now, but I’ll write again tomorrow. Unless I think of something else I have to tell you today.
Bye for now. And go hug your mother.
Beth clicked on the Send E-mail button just as there was a knock on her bedroom door. “I’m busy,” she called.