Here We Are Now

  She touched my cheek. “Until the memorial.”

  DAY FOUR

  (In Which I Learn to Understand That Some Histories Have Not Yet Happened)

  I.

  Tom passed away at 11:17 p.m. Even though we had all been anticipating it, it still hit everyone pretty hard. I could tell that Debra and Julian were relieved to no longer exist in a state of anxious anticipation, but the devastating finality of it still shook them.

  I still wasn’t quite sure where I fit in. I kept thinking the universe would whisper into my ear and tell me exactly how I should behave, how I should feel. It seemed like something like this should change you. Make you wiser. Make you understand things better, have a new and sharper perspective.

  But I still felt like me. And I felt as clueless as ever.

  Of course I was sad. But I didn’t feel like I was as sad as I should’ve been. And again, I felt sad for mostly all the wrong reasons, which made me feel guilty.

  I think my feelings of discomfort were exacerbated by my mother. I had expected her to feel even more awkward than I did, but if she did, she didn’t show it. She immediately jumped right in, shooing Debra and Sarah out of the kitchen so she could unload the dishwasher and do other random and routine household chores.

  She said she wanted to give Debra and Sarah time to focus on planning the memorial. She volunteered to go with Sarah into town to buy groceries for the memorial, which I found to be beyond weird. When she came back and I confronted her about it, she said, “Taliah. I don’t know what you want from me. You asked to stay, and we stayed. So I’m just trying to be polite and help the Olivers through this difficult time.”

  I felt chastised, and maybe rightly so.

  But the weirdest thing was how she pretended like Julian didn’t exist. In the morning when she was emptying out the dishwasher, he walked into the kitchen to pour himself a bowl of cereal and was surprised to find her standing there.

  “Hey,” he said, and I could tell he was self-conscious from the fact that he kept tapping his spoon against the rim of his bowl.

  My mom barely said hello back and sped to finish unloading the dishwasher and then excused herself to the basement, where she was running a load of laundry.

  Julian shot me a helpless look and I just gave him a shrug because I had no idea what to say.

  It wasn’t until much later that day that I overheard them talking. I walked out onto the back porch and heard my mother’s voice. I looked around. She wasn’t on the porch, but I knew it was her voice. And then I heard Julian’s. I assumed that maybe they were standing out in the backyard, somewhere out of view of the porch.

  “You’re going to have to talk to me at some point,” Julian said.

  “Did you follow me out here?” Mom said, and I could tell from the sound of her voice that her arms were crossed. I knew that voice very well.

  “Yes,” he said, exasperated.

  “Don’t,” she said. “Don’t do this.”

  “Do what? Try to talk with you?”

  “I know you’re upset about Tom, but you can’t use that as an excuse to . . .” Mom went silent.

  “As an excuse to what, Lena? Ask you what happened to us?”

  I heard my mom sigh. “What happened to us? You know what happened to us. It’s the same thing that happens to everyone. We grew up. We changed.”

  “But I wanted to grow with you.” Julian’s voice made something inside me break. He sounded so desperate.

  My mom didn’t say anything. That somehow made it worse.

  “And I should’ve had some say about Taliah,” Julian said.

  “Don’t,” my mom said sharply.

  “Don’t? You don’t get to tell me that. I have the right to confront you about why you kept Taliah from me for all these years.”

  “All these years?” Mom’s voice was full of defiance. “You don’t get to rewrite history, Julian. You know as well as I do that you knew about Taliah long before you got her first letter.”

  My breath caught. I pressed my back against the wall of the porch and slid down to a sitting position.

  “That’s not fair, Lena,” Julian said quietly.

  “How is it not fair?” Mom’s voice was as firm. “I called you when she was five.”

  Five? I pulled my knees to my chest, trying to ignore the panic that was coming over me.

  “Exactly! Five! You robbed me of five years,” Julian argued. “And then out of nowhere, you called me.”

  “And you robbed yourself of the other eleven,” Mom seethed. “Don’t you remember? You questioned me about whether she was really yours? That’s when I knew I had made the right decision to keep you out of her life.”

  Julian didn’t say anything.

  “And then when you got her letter, you called me again,” Mom continued, her voice icy. “But not because you wanted to meet her. Because you wanted to know what we wanted from you. And the answer to that is: nothing. I don’t want anything from you, Julian.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  “You know that’s not fair, Lena,” Julian finally said. “When you first called me, I felt overwhelmed and confused. I hadn’t heard from you in years, and you just sprang that on me. You have to cut me some slack.”

  “Oh,” my mom hissed, “I’m sorry I didn’t break the news to you in a more gentle manner.”

  “Stop,” Julian pleaded. “I didn’t understand.”

  “I think you did,” Mom said.

  “That’s not fair,” he repeated. “And not true.” I could hear the anger in Julian’s voice. I wished I knew whether he was angry because Mom was right or because she was wrong.

  “I’m done fighting about this,” Mom said. “What’s done is done.”

  “I think that’s exactly what we have to talk about. What was done. The decision you made!”

  “Just let it go, Julian. I know I have.” Mom sounded tired.

  “Lena! Wait. I can’t let it go,” Julian said.

  I crept around the porch, hoping to catch a glimpse of them. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my mom heading toward me. She quickly adjusted the expression on her face to look normal. She climbed the stairs up to the porch and opened the door.

  “Tal, HB,” she said warmly.

  I shook my head. “Don’t bother. I heard your fight.”

  Her face dropped. She reached out to touch my shoulder, but I shrugged her off. “I don’t like this,” I said. “I feel like I’m being blamed for something that I had no say in. Like you guys are pretending to fight about me when you’re really fighting about you.”

  Mom tried to reach out for me again and I dodged her. “Don’t,” I said.

  “Taliah. Come on. It’s complicated.”

  I pulled open the door to the porch. “You keep saying that, but you never explain anything.” I walked away as she called out behind me. In my mad dash to get away from Mom, I ended up bumping into Julian.

  “Tal,” he said.

  “Forget it,” I said before he could say anything else. “I heard everything. Including that you wanted nothing to do with me when you first found out. When I was five,” I spat.

  “Look,” he said, and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He shifted his weight from his right foot to his left. “It’s not like you think.”

  “Let me guess, it’s complicated?”

  “Exactly.”

  I shook my head. “I’m tired of hearing that.” I looked up at him again and felt hot tears building in the corners of my eyes. I walked away.

  “Taliah! Please!” he shouted after me.

  I waved my hand over my shoulder to let him know I needed some space. I walked quickly away from the farmhouse. So quickly that I was almost jogging, which made me winded, which made me not notice Toby until he called out to me.

  “Hey there,” he said. “I know you’re dying to see me, but there’s no need to run.”

  I laughed a little as I caught my breath.
I put my hands on my sides. “Sorry. It was just a lot back there.” I gestured toward the farmhouse.

  He nodded solemnly. “I imagine.”

  His sincere look of understanding made me feel like an ass. “I’m actually not talking about Tom.”

  Toby raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”

  “Yeah. My mom’s here.”

  “Oh,” Toby repeated, but this time as a declaration instead of a question.

  “Yeah. And she and Julian have been . . . I don’t know.” I was about to say more, but I stopped myself. “But never mind. I don’t know why I’m going on and on about it.”

  “Hey,” he said, and put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “You aren’t going on and on.”

  When I didn’t say anything else, he said, “Hey, you want to get out of here for a little?”

  I did. I so did.

  “I do,” I admitted. “But am I awful if I leave right now? You know, with everything that’s going on?”

  He gave me a mischievous smile. “I bet they could do without you for a few hours.”

  “You really think so?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. I do.”

  “Okay then.”

  “Okay then,” he repeated, and motioned for me to follow him.

  II.

  “Bertha?” I asked.

  He laughed. “Can you imagine any other name for her?” He was referring to his bright red pickup truck.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I’m not very well versed in the naming of pickup trucks.”

  “Oh. Well, it’s an art.”

  “I’ll have to trust you on that.”

  “Please do,” he said, glancing over at me. His eyes were warm, and the farther away we got from the Oliver farmhouse, the better I started to feel.

  “You’re always outside,” I said.

  He looked amused. “Is that a question?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “And an observation.”

  He pressed down on the brake as we came to a red light. “I don’t really know how to answer that.”

  “Why? I mean, what do you like about being outside?”

  “Everything,” he said.

  “No. Seriously.”

  The light turned green and Bertha lurched forward. Her engine let out a low rumble. “I don’t know.”

  “Come on. Yes, you do.”

  “You’re right. I do. But you’re going to make fun of me.”

  “No, I won’t. Give me a chance.”

  “Simplest answer is: I like trees.”

  I fought back a laugh. “That’s your answer? Trees?”

  “See? I knew you’d poke fun at me.”

  “It’s not that there’s anything wrong with trees, I just thought you’d have a deeper answer. Like something philosophical and transcendentalist.”

  “Naw,” he said, his cheeks a little red. “Best way to explain it is I like trees.”

  “And what do you like so much about them?”

  “They’re good listeners. And they know how to let go.” Toby parked Bertha in front of a building with a neon sign that read OAK FALLS CLASSIC LANES.

  “Explain?”

  He took the keys out of the ignition. “The way they lose their leaves in the fall but then regrow them in the spring. I think we could stand to learn a lot from trees. They’re resilient. And they’re always growing. You see, I lost my dad in October. I remember sitting by the window, watching the trees slowly lose their leaves. And then I remember a sad, long winter. But come spring, I watched as the trees sprang back to life, and it gave me hope. I learned a certain type of grace from the trees. The way they just let things go, knowing that there is always something new on the horizon. I know that sounds cheesy, but when I was six, it really had an impact on me.”

  I smiled at him. “I like that.”

  “Really? I figured you would have some smart reply to make about it.”

  I shrugged. “Nope. I like it. I really do. It sounds like I could stand to learn a lot from trees.”

  He gave me a smile. “I think you could.”

  “So,” I said, focusing my attention on the neon sign. “Where are we?”

  “The best bowling alley in Oak Falls.”

  “Bowling?” I let out a dramatic sigh. “Really? I’m not athletic at all.”

  He got out of the car and quickly slid around to my side to open the door. He held his hand out to help me with the high step. “You don’t have to be athletic to enjoy bowling. You just have to be a good sport and enjoy greasy pizza.”

  I took his hand and a slight jolt went through me. I stepped down from the truck. “I can get into greasy pizza.”

  We walked inside and Toby got us set up with shoes and helped me select a ball.

  “The trick,” he said, “is to pick one that’s heavy enough that it will do the job, but not too heavy that you won’t be able to get a good spin on it.”

  “So bowling is another thing you love? How does it rank compared to trees?”

  “Below,” he said, smiling. “But not that far below.”

  We had our lane to ourselves. He typed my name in as “TAL” and put himself in as “TOBY.”

  “Hey,” I said. “Why do I get an abbreviation and you get your full name?”

  “Because I wasn’t sure I knew how to spell Taliah correctly.”

  “Am I the first Taliah you’ve ever met?”

  He nodded. “I hope you won’t hold that against me, though.”

  “Not as much as I hold your no-swearing rule against you.”

  He laughed. He picked up his ball and bowled it down the lane. He knocked down an impressive number of pins. Toby was clearly no stranger to the bowling alley. He grabbed his ball off the ball return and bowled his second turn. A spare. He did a goofy dance in celebration.

  “Stop,” I said. “You’re gloating before you even see how bad I am.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Carter and Brady are some mean bowlers. And you have those Oliver genes. I wouldn’t count you out yet.”

  I didn’t actually perform as badly as I thought I would. Toby still squarely beat me, but I managed to not make a complete fool of myself. After we’d bowled one game, Toby went to the concession stand to get us the greasy pizza that he had promised. He returned with two large cheese slices on paper plates.

  He handed one of the plates to me. I took an appreciative bite, chewing through the melted cheese.

  “See?” he said. “Told you the pizza was good.”

  “You said it was greasy. You never said anything about good.”

  “Greasy is basically synonymous with good.”

  “I don’t know if that can be universally applied,” I said, and took another large bite. “Probably just with pizza.”

  “With pizza for sure,” Toby confirmed. He took a bite of his pizza and then asked, “So your parents are fighting?”

  I set my half-eaten slice back down on the paper plate. I blotted my hands with a napkin. “It feels weird to refer to them as my parents.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Let me rephrase. Julian and your mom are fighting?”

  “I don’t know if ‘fighting’ is the right word. My mom is doing everything in her power not to talk to him.”

  “That’s rough,” Toby said.

  “Yeah. And I overheard some . . . stuff today.”

  “Stuff?”

  “I think my mom might have told Julian about me when I was five.”

  Toby’s eyes widened a little and he took a deep breath. “Pamplemousse.”

  “Yeah. What the hell, right?”

  “Are you sure that’s true?”

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure of anything right now except for the fact that all they seem to want to do is fight. Or do whatever weird passive-aggressive non-fighting thing my mom seems into. And I just feel like they’re using me as an excuse for all of their bickering. When really what they’re truly upset about has little or nothing to do with me. And for some reason that makes me even m
ore pissed at them. Which I know sounds crazy self-involved—”

  “No. I get it,” Toby assured me.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Really. I mean, whatever problem they have clearly resulted in a big problem for you—your dad being kept from you.”

  “Yeah. I don’t know,” I said, and stared down at my bowling shoes. “But sorry. I don’t mean to bore you with all of my family drama.”

  “You aren’t boring me,” Toby said gently. “You can talk to me.”

  Typical me would’ve shut up. Eaten her pizza. And gotten through the rest of the night by being amiable, but definitely not open. But I surprised myself. I wanted to keep talking to him. And that felt good. It felt really good.

  “Okay, fine,” I said.

  “Okay, fine?” His face looked hopeful.

  “You want to know what else has been bothering me?”

  He put his hands on his knees. “Yeah. Lay it on me.”

  “My grandma”—and then I quickly corrected myself—“Debra. Yesterday she told me this theory she has about how all of us have multiple versions of ourselves. So like we aren’t just one static personality. We all have different sides.”

  Toby nodded.

  “And that the tricky thing about love is learning to accept and cherish all the versions of the person you love.”

  “Makes a lot of sense to me,” Toby said.

  “But the thing that bothered me is I don’t think I do have multiple versions of myself. I’m just Taliah. And just Taliah isn’t even that interesting. She’s just . . . well . . . sort of ordinary. And I want to be a musician. I don’t think I’ve told you that because I didn’t want you to think I was some lame girl imitating her dad.”

  “I wouldn’t think that,” Toby said softly.

  “But you know what I mean. Anyway, I’m worried that the reason Julian has been able to craft so many incredible songs is because he has all these versions of himself. Like the Julian his mom describes is really different from the Julian I’ve seen. Even the glimpse I got of how Julian talks to my mom seems different from the Julian I’ve come to know. And I’m starting to really worry that I’m just not an interesting enough person to make art, to write songs that will matter to other people. I don’t know how you go about cultivating these different selves. I feel like I’ve hardly found my one self, how am I supposed to go about collecting multiples?”