“Please let me help clean up,” I say, milling around the kitchen after Bruce has taken the girls up to bed.
“Not a chance,” Clara says, clearing the table of sippy cups, plastic plates and her best china.
“You know I’m stalling, right?”
“Oh, yeah.”
I nod. A heavy sigh. John Henry lies, splayed and exhausted, under the kitchen table. I don’t want to wake him. I . . . I don’t want to say good-bye.
“Okay . . . thank you again,” I say, gathering my purse and giving Clara a big hug. She squeezes tight and pats my back.
“Thank you,” she says. I nod.
“Okay,” I say again. She smiles. I walk over to John Henry and squat down next to his snoring body. “Good-bye, sweet boy.” I look up at Clara. Good, she’s crying, too. I look back down at John Henry as he twitches in his deep sleep and whisper, “Your mom loved you.” Smiling. Sobbing. Smiling. Sniffling. Sighing. I want to touch him. Pet him. But I don’t want to wake him.
He looks so peaceful.
Finally.
I’m a wreck as I drive home. Tears roll down my cheeks. The paintings. Those girls. John Henry. All of it. It’s too much. I don’t know how much more of this I can take. I pull down my street. Sam’s Ferrari is out in front of my building. Sam’s Ferrari.
Sam.
I pull into my driveway as the security gate moans and whines along the ground. I roll down my window as Sam unfolds out of his driver’s-side door. He walks over to me, his hands stuffed in his jeans pockets.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, my stomach flipping.
“Can I come in?” Sam asks, motioning to my apartment.
“Sure, let me park the car and I’ll meet you at my door,” I say as the security gate opens. Sam nods as I drive my car into the garage. What exactly is happening here? I haven’t talked to him all week. I’ve seen him a few times, but he’s been distant and preoccupied. I just thought this was how it was. Or maybe I hoped one night I’d come home and he’d be waiting for me out in front of my apartment in that Ferrari of his. Am I finally having my Jake Ryan moment? I beep my car locked, gather my purse and walk toward my front door. My heart is in my throat; my mind is racing. I climb the stairs. Sam is waiting at the top, leaning against the railing.
“How long have you been here?” I say, fumbling with my keys.
“A while,” Sam says.
“Oh,” I say, opening up my door. I set my purse on the couch and close the door behind Sam. Here we are again. “Do you want something to drink?”
“No, thank you.”
“I’ve had a really rough night, so if this is going to be about you moodily answering simple questions, I think I’ll take a rain check,” I say, not knowing where to put my hands. Jake Ryan moment. Come on.
“I’m going back to Tennessee,” Sam says, not looking at me.
“What?”
“Daddy’s sick and not getting better. This is it.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I know.”
Quiet.
“Why did you come here?”
“I leave tomorrow morning. I didn’t want you to worry.”
I nod. “How long are you going to be gone?”
“I don’t know.”
“And Grady’s wedding?”
“I don’t know.”
I nod again. “Your business?”
“It’s taken care of.”
Quiet. Sam. His face creased and furrowed. His mouth tight, his entire demeanor changed. This is not the same man I knew.
“What’s happening to you?”
“What?”
“What’s happening to you? Where’d you go?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’ve just . . . you’re a black hole.”
“A what?”
“You’re folding in on yourself. Disappearing.”
Sam itches his neck. Looks away.
“Sam?”
“What?”
“What’s happening to you?”
“Nothing. This is who I am. We didn’t really know each other well enough to have you—”
“Bullshit.”
“What?”
“I know you. I know you, Sam.”
“No, you don’t.”
“What happened to us was terrible and—”
“You can’t know what I’m going through!”
“Make me understand then!”
“I can’t.”
“Jesus, talk to me.”
“Why?”
“It helps.”
“It helps you. Not everyone grieves and mourns the same way. You want to talk about things and go to memorial services and . . . that just sounds like bullshit to me.”
“I can understand that.”
“Good.”
“But you have to talk to someone about what happened to you.”
“What happened to me? Nothing happened to me. I killed someone. I. Killed. Someone. I happened to him. You’ve got it all wrong.”
“You saved us. You’re a hero.”
“I may have been a hero after one shot, but four? What does four bullets into someone mean? Is that a hero, Frannie? Or was I just as bad as Jamie?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your eyes were closed, right?”
“Yes.” Remembering.
“You don’t know what happened. What really happened.”
“I heard . . . I know what kind of man you are, Sam. I know—”
“No, you don’t. I do.”
“Then tell me.”
Sam is quiet. Twitching and shaking.
“Sam?”
“I wasn’t any better than him. I was someone my daddy would be proud of. And that . . . that just doesn’t sit right with me. Four bullets. He went down with the first. Why did I fire three more shots?”
“Because there was a lunatic with a gun pointed at a group of innocent people and you knew he wasn’t going to stop. He’d just shot at you, thankfully missing, and you had one opportunity to take him out. You shot four times because you had to make sure he wasn’t going to get back up. You’re not a bully, Sam. You’re not your father.”
“You can say that as much as you like, but when the chips were down I handled my shit just like an Earley. All these years running from my name and there it is bubbling up like sewage. I can’t run from it. I just . . . I just need to admit that that’s who I am, but . . . that’s not the man you want, Frannie.”
“You need to let me decide about that,” I say, finally stepping closer. He lets me. He watches me. Close.
“You met someone else before, Frannie. This . . . this is the real me. You can take the boy out of Shelby Forest, but . . .” Sam turns his face away from me, his eyes down. I step closer and reach my hand out to touch his face. He lets me. I turn his face so he’ll look at me.
“I need you to hear me. There was nothing you could have done. I know. It’s sad, but it’s not your fault.” Sam smiles as he recognizes the speech I gave to Harry Sprague in that hallway not four days ago. I smile back and continue. “It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault, Sam. That man pulled the trigger. That man is to blame. I need you to understand that.” My eyes are fixed on his. I wait. Held breath.
Sam takes my hand from his cheek and holds it tight. He licks his bottom lip and I smile. His eyes crinkle as a smile takes over his face. He leans down and kisses me. Warm, soft and far too long in the making. Sam breaks from our kiss, his hand still gripping mine, his eyes downcast. I wait.
“I don’t think I can be the kind of man you need,” he says, kissing the palm of my hand and letting it fall.
“You’re the best man I’ve ever known,” I say, trying to get him to look at me.
Sam looks up, those cinnamon-spoked brown eyes now red-rimmed and desperate.
“I love you, darlin’. Which is why I know you deserve better than me,” Sam says. And he’s out the door, rumbling d
own the stairs. I can hear the Ferrari start up in the distance, tugging on my aortic valve. I’m standing in exactly the same spot, my hand frozen in thin air.
“I love you, too, Sam.”
Chapter 18
Privilege
It really is an art. The sparkling water and the Teddy Grahams work as an enchanting combination that fuels both driver and navigator toward their destination,” Jill says, sitting in the passenger seat of my SUV the next day as she, Lisa and I zoom toward San Francisco.
“My concern isn’t the alchemy of your chosen foods, my concern is your insistence on stopping every half hour,” I say, making an allusion to Jill’s love of all things interstate highway bathroom related.
“The gas stations along the 5 are some of the best in the world!” Jill exclaims, finger pointing, hand held aloft.
“I’m sure they are, I’m just wondering why we need to see so many of them,” Lisa says from the backseat.
“I hope you guys are proud of yourselves, ganging up on a pregnant lady,” Jill says.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Lisa jokes, giving Jill a little wink.
“Hot,” Jill says, tossing a few Teddy Grahams in her mouth. Lisa laughs and gives Jill an affectionate nudge. Jill laughs.
“So, we’re crossing the Bay Bridge?” I ask, motioning to the approaching signs.
“Yep, then through San Francisco, across the Golden Gate,” Jill says, taking a long, quenching drink of her sparkling water.
“I thought your enchanting combination of ingredients was supposed to help with your navigation capabilities,” I say.
“Isn’t this where you’re from?” Lisa asks.
“I’m terrible with directions,” I say.
“Well, that’s obvious, ma’am,” Jill says. And then catches herself.
“It’s okay. It really is,” I say, now crossing the Bay Bridge. We are focused as we weave through the streets of San Francisco and happy to finally see the Golden Gate Bridge ahead of us. The abundant and green surroundings of Northern California begin to infuse into my every pore. The deep green of the trees, the dark blue of the sky—it’s just . . . it’s just better up here. It’s exactly what I need right now.
“He did say he loved you,” Jill says.
“Right before he left, yes,” I say.
“But he did say it,” Jill says.
“Right before he left.”
“But he did say it.”
“Enough,” Lisa says.
Jill whispers, “But he did say it.”
We are quiet.
I’m trying to keep everything in check while being grateful that Emma’s memorial is here, of all places. Home. Hoping this place will help bring closure to something that has left me inside out. That the safety of my hometown, where I feel the most authentic, is nothing short of divine. Being here is forcing me to stay the course, stand up and be who I really am.
We end where we began.
Jill guides me across the Golden Gate Bridge and toward Mill Valley. We’re almost home.
“It really is beautiful up here,” Jill says, watching the lush landscape whiz by.
“Isn’t it?”
“It’s a shame we’re coming up here under such unusual circumstances,” Lisa says, giving me a quick look.
“I know,” I say honestly.
“We’ll have to plan another trip,” Jill says. I get off the freeway and find Miller Avenue. We slow down as we drive through the heart of Mill Valley. I take a deep breath. Taking it in. The dark wood shingles of the storefronts, the luxurious yet environmentally friendly vehicles parked diagonally as the citizens of Mill Valley stroll and chat down the streets.
“That’d be amazing,” I say. All will be well. We’re in Mill Valley, for crissakes.
“Right here, see? The Two A.M. Club? Huey Lewis and the News got their start there,” I say, pointing.
Lisa and Jill just look at me.
“What? They’re . . . oh, never mind,” I say, driving up the winding road that leads up to my parents’ house.
“This is beautiful,” Lisa says.
“I’m going to throw up,” Jill says, rolling down her window.
“We’re almost there,” I say, smiling over at Jill.
“Okay, Castle Rock is . . . right . . . right there. Do you see it? Right there on the left?” I say, pointing to a tiny street most people drive right by on their way to Mount Tamalpais. Lisa nods and Jill just moans a little. I put on my indicator and make the left down my street. I park in the driveway right behind my mom and dad’s cars and turn the engine off.
I continue. “You guys ready?”
“We were born ready!” Jill says.
“This is going to be a long coupla days,” Lisa says with a yawn, gathering her stuff up in the backseat.
Knockknockknockknock.
“Frannie?!”
“Holy shit!” Lisa and Jill are terrified.
Oh. My. God.
My mom, in all her glory, excitedly waving just outside my window. By the time I reach to unclip my seat belt, Jill is out of the car as Lisa is just closing her door.
“Sweetie!” my mom says, pulling me in for a tight hug. Her smell, her . . . everything. It’s good to be home. For a lot of reasons. I . . . need this. I breathe her in and just let myself be swept away to the land where moms are magic and they make everything better with a glass of milk and an apple.
Mom pulls back from the hug and focuses on Jill and Lisa. “Now, who’s this, sweetheart?”
“Mom, this is Jill Fleming and Lisa Campanari. Lisa and Jill, this is my mom, Polly Reid.” Lisa and Jill extend their hands and excitedly greet my mom. The drive up was fine, Mrs. Reid. No, we don’t need to use the bathroom, Mrs. Reid. We’d love a little nosh, Mrs. Reid.
“Well, aren’t you something?” Mom asks, looking from Jill and Lisa to me and back to Jill and Lisa.
“Mom,” I say, hoping I can move things along.
I hear the creaking of the stairs leading up to the house. Big, heavy footfalls descending the staircase. One by one by one.
“Oh, Hank!” Mom says.
“I see the girls, Polly. Frannie, sweetheart, why don’t you introduce us?” Dad gives me a quick hug and kiss on the cheek before introductions.
“Dad, this is Jill Fleming and Lisa Campanari. Jill and Lisa, this is my dad.”
“Hank Reid,” Dad says, extending his hand to Jill and Lisa.
Hands are shaken. The drive was good, Mr. Reid. No, we didn’t have trouble with the roads, Mr. Reid. The weather held up great, thank you, Mr. Reid.
“Why don’t you come on up then?” Dad finally says. Lisa and Jill scamper up the steps to my house, leaving my mom and me alone.
“How are you doing, sweetheart?” Mom asks, lacing her arm through mine. All you can see from my parents’ house is trees upon trees upon trees. Mount Tamalpais, with its verdant, green landscape, was the backdrop to my childhood. There’s nothing like it in the world. This view is exactly the elixir I needed.
“I’m doing better now. Happy to be home,” I say, following Dad, Jill and Lisa across the deck, through the large glass front door and into the house. I can see Jill craning her neck to get a long look at the view. It is neck-craning worthy. Mom closes the door behind us and the classical music that was a constant soundtrack to my life wafts through the house. As it always has. I breathe it all in and my shoulders lower, my heartbeat slows and a smile spreads across my face. For a millisecond. And then what sounds like a herd of the world’s tiniest dogs bounds into the living room.
“Winston! FDR!” Mom says, as if this would do anything. Then they’re all in a ball, rolling around the living room floor in a tangle.
“Jill? Lisa? Before we sit down to dinner let me show you to your rooms. It’s the Jungle Room for you, bride-to-be!” Mom says, guiding Lisa back into the main house. In the distance I hear her offer the Floral Suite to the mom-to-be.
“So, when does this memorial service start??
?? Dad asks, sitting down on the couch.
“Tomorrow. Ten A.M. And it’s not a memorial service, it’s a celebration,” I say, my voice dripping with sarcasm.
“A celebration? Of what?”
“That’s what was on the announcement.”
“Hippies.”
“I don’t think they’re hippies, Dad.”
“Well, they’re something.”
“I think they’re a couple of people who are doing the best they can with a really shitty situation.”
“Watch your language around your mother.”
“She’s not here.” Dad motions for me to look behind me.
“Lisa’s all set up in the Jungle Room and Jill’s perfectly settled in the Floral Suite,” Mom says, walking into the kitchen.
“Take me to your dinner,” Dad says in that robot voice he thinks sounds like a 1950s-era alien saying, “Take me to your leader.” He’s been doing the voice for years. “Take me to your teacher” at Back-to-School Nights. “Take me to your bleeder” when a little girl in the neighborhood fell off her bicycle and skinned her knee. And his favorite and mine, “Take me to your weeder” when Mom first introduced him to the poor guy she’d hired to tend the garden.
“It’s almost time, Hank,” Mom says, shooing him off with a quick pat to the bum. She slides her hands into a set of oven mitts fashioned after a pair of roosters and opens the oven door, pulling a cherry pie from its depths. The perfume of pure, unadulterated Americana wafts throughout the entire house. The intricately latticed pastry on top gives way to little bubbling red volcanoes of napalm cherries. Jill and Lisa emerge from their quarters, perking up immediately. Mom sets the pie on the counter. She whips off the rooster oven mitts and quickly checks under the tinfoil of the resting roast beef. Halved roasting potatoes are still whistling with doneness in the roasting pan’s bottom. I can see Lisa and Jill trying to see . . . smell . . . get closer. Mom walks over to the counter with a head of iceberg lettuce. Cuts it into fourths and sets it on the dining room table with homemade thousand island dressing.