Laura's Shadow, page 20
I spent the rest of that day and the next reading, losing myself in the happy moments and the tragic, weeping at both. When darkness fell on that second evening and Charles still hadn’t returned, Katrina and I warmed up the previous night’s supper and ate in near silence made up of questions and mutterings.
“Maybe he stayed on to work?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Could be there was a problem with the harvester?”
“Hmmm.”
We said nothing about Oscar, as if he wasn’t the sole reason for Charles to be away from home at all.
Oscar.
I went to bed imagining the two of them, Oscar and my brother, staying up late after a long day’s work, filling glass after foaming glass from a tapped keg, commiserating the end of their bachelorhood. Charles offering reassurance, Oscar feigning protest. These were the only two men I loved in the world, and surely Charles could broker a future that would bring a few tendrils of love my way.
With every fiber of my being—both of my beings—I hoped to wake up in the morning, put on coffee, and see the two of them walk through the kitchen door looking all the worse for wear. I did not dare envision Oscar taking me in his arms or any such romantic display. We were, in so many ways, only two travelers whose paths crossed one night, and now we were beholden to each other to continue on together.
At some point, I knelt by my bedside and prayed—wordy, rambling whispers, confessing the sin that was no secret to God and asking for His mercy. Not for myself but for the child. No child should have to pay for the sins of its mother.
“It will need a father,” I said, speaking into my clasped hands. “You are a Father; You gave Your Son a Father on earth. Let my child have the same.”
I don’t know exactly when I fell asleep. I only know that my window was full of morning light when I opened my eyes. At some point, I had crawled beneath my covers, but at the faint sound of my brother’s voice, I flung them to the floor, grabbed my dressing gown, and peeked into the kitchen.
Charles sat at the table, head cradled in his hands. Katrina stood behind him, her arms wrapped around his shoulders. She saw me and whispered, “Charles,” before stepping away.
“Oh Sister.” Charles raised his head, freezing me in place with his red-rimmed eyes. I needn’t ask a single question. The anguish on his face made clear: there had been no night of rollicking banter. All that I envisioned disappeared like vapor, washed away by tears like I’d never seen on his freckled cheeks. Those castles I built in my late-night dreams would have no foundation.
When Charles reached out his hand, I padded barefoot across the kitchen to take it. And when he bade me, “Sit down,” I obeyed.
CHAPTER 13
TRIXIE
The next morning, Trixie woke up to the flip on her clock radio when 9:26 turned to 9:27. She looked at the time, stretched, turned over, cuddled her pillow, and closed her eyes again. This kind of luxurious sleep-in was a rare treat for a Monday morning when, on any other Monday, she would already be making the second pot of coffee for Ron’s Monday Round-Up Meeting. Instead, she stretched her leg to find a cool spot between the sheets and let her mind wander to thoughts of Ron that had nothing to do with cups of coffee or a conference table.
Yes, from her first day at the Newz, she’d had a certifiable crush. He was so tall and big and warm. Manly. He filled the room with humor and comfort. And, yes, they’d cultivated a semi-flirtatious rapport, but did he ever show her any favor over any of the other women in the office? And how did that work, anyway? What makes years of professional interaction flip a switch to something more?
Flip. 9:28.
But last night was definitely something more. She couldn’t even begin to replay their conversation as it had wandered from one topic to the next like a peg-legged drunk (a favorite saying of her grandmother’s that had Ron laughing for a full two minutes). So while they racked up a long-distance bill that Eugenie would surely make her pay, they hadn’t solved any world problems or even scratched the surface of each other’s intimate secrets. Yet his very voice had imprinted on her like grooves in a record album. By the time they’d finally said good night (then laughed because it was technically morning), her throat was dry and her words were coming out like the scratch when you first drop the needle on that album. And everything after—every thought and memory—was nothing but smooth, perfect music.
Flip. 9:29.
Flip. 9:30.
Flip. 9:31.
Then a chipper, five-raps knock at the door. “Trixie? Honey? Are you awake?”
“No,” she said, answering her mother’s question exactly as she would have on a school holiday Monday morning.
“There’s coffee. And breakfast. Bacon chip pancakes.”
Trixie burrowed deeper. “Give me twenty minutes?”
“Exactly that,” her mother said. “And then it’s cold cereal and toast.”
She knew her mother meant it. There was an unwritten rule to have all of breakfast cleared away and the kitchen clean before nine o’clock on any given morning, so she was already snoozing on borrowed time, but nothing about the day stretched in front of her seemed appealing. GG may or may not be lucid and talkative. Her mother may or may not be bearable. Her grandmother may or may not be a reliable source of entertainment and support. The only prediction she could make with certainty involved episodes of Ryan’s Hope and a string of game shows. She could sketch out ideas for future Lost Laura cartoons or, better yet, think of how she would respond to The Guy.
Without leaving the bed, she stretched across and rifled through her bag, finding the letter typed on the impressive stamped stationery.
Dear Ms. Gowan it began. Ms. She once tried to convince her mother to take on that identifier and received a tongue-lashing in return about how women needed to accept who they are—married or not—and not hide behind some made-up feminist title. And so there were two Mrs. Gowans by marriage, one Miss Gowan by missing out on marriage, and now, representing the latest generation, Ms. Gowan, by choice. She thought of her signature in the corner of her cartoon, the T and G nestled together with the owan tucked inside. She’d spent time developing the perfect look, balancing an Old World sensibility with a modern, stylish twist. Reflective of the cartoon itself. And at some point, she’d decided she’d never change her name, married or not—which had nothing to do with an all-night conversation with Ron and the fact that, were that to develop, she’d be Trixie Tumble. The thought never entered her mind until now.
Flip 9:42.
Breakfast beckoned, and Trixie gave herself over to a tiny suspicion that had been niggling since her mother announced the treat of bacon-chip pancakes. These weren’t chocolate chip pancakes, but pancake batter infused with cooked and crumbled bacon—a family delicacy that she’d never experienced outside of this kitchen. She’d told Ron about them last night, somewhere between their dissection of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the debate over which was the better Darren on Bewitched. He’d declared he’d never heard of anything so awesome and begged her to make them for him some morning for breakfast.
The statement had earned a moment of awkward silence, as if breakfast between the two of them would ever be a common occurrence. Trixie broke it by reminding him that breakfast makes the best suppers and promised him a supper some evening. But now she had a new suspicion: that her mother had conveniently overheard the discourse and this was her way of confession.
A more strident knock on her door and her grandmother’s voice to match. “Trixie! Get up! Morning is wasting away.”
She squinted at the clock. “Ten more minutes.”
“Ten minutes, my eye. No good ever came from lazing past the sunrise.”
Trixie flipped her pillow to the cool side. Her grandmother had no idea.
Strange, wasn’t it? How this—this thing with Ron blasted off the moment they left each other’s orbit. Like they’d been circling each other in a parallel path day in and day out until the time came for a true send-off, and he’d sent her off with a kiss. At least she thought he did. Somehow, that never came up in the anecdote marathon of last night. Still, it was such an opposite phenomenon of what happened with Cam. Years they’d been together—years—and formative ones at that. Young love, first love, physical longing, a life built from the same bricks, and yet once he left, that was it. If Ron was a rocket launch, Cam was a refrigerator light. A handsome, sexy, successful, great refrigerator light, but only alight when he was right in front of her. Close the door, and all goes dark.
Flip. 9:45.
Groaning, she slid her legs over the side of the bed and planted her feet on the floor. She had a roommate in college one semester who swore it was bad luck to start the day with your left foot on the floor and good luck with the right. Trixie had indulged the girl and given her the side of the room that would best suit her fortune. Though she had never been superstitious, she’d developed a self-consciousness about the habit and ever since had made it a point to put both feet on the floor at the same time. Every morning—another tidbit she’d shared with Ron sometime around 1:00 a.m. when they were trying to decide who was more of a morning person.
Flip. 9:46.
This time the knock on her door was so soft, she might have missed it if her head was still buried in her pillow with the blanket drawn up to her ears. More like a soft pawing, followed by an even softer “Trixie? Are you still here?”
GG!
Trixie tugged on a pair of jogging shorts to go with the T-shirt she slept in and opened the door to find her great-grandmother fully dressed, though her blouse was misbuttoned, her patterned shorts didn’t quite match, and her Keds were untied. She shifted her eyes to the left and right before saying, “I need you to take me to town.”
Trixie sighed. “I told you, I can’t.” She’d been hoping her great-grandmother would forget this request, but apparently her mind was the same trap it had ever been. “I don’t have my car.”
“Eugenie has a car.”
“Which only she can drive.” It was a fact. Her ancient Oldsmobile seemed to have the supernatural ability to know when somebody other than Eugenie was gripping the gearshift and would refuse to obey. “But maybe she can take both of us?”
“No.” GG’s lips puckered toothlessly around the word. “This is for you. And me. They won’t understand.”
“Then maybe tomorrow?”
“I don’t know how many tomorrows I have left.” There was no sadness in the statement, nor resentment, nor anger. Nothing but the South Dakota prairie pragmatism that carried everything she said.
“Then let’s hope you have at least one more. Now, this is too deep of a conversation to have before coffee. Have you had breakfast?”
“Course I have.”
“Well, I haven’t. Do you want to come downstairs with me?”
GG looked like she was calculating the cost and whether or not the trip would mean a depletion of what life might be left for the day. Finally, she muttered, “Better not,” and turned to go back to her room, already deflated from the woman she’d been when Trixie opened the door.
“I’ll phone about my car,” Trixie called to her back. “If it’s ready today …” But GG didn’t turn around to hear anymore.
She finger-combed her hair and braided it into a single, loose plait as she descended the stairs and had a ready smile for the feast that awaited. Her coffee was already poured into a favorite mug, and Alma took a plate stacked with bacon-chip pancakes out of the oven where they’d been keeping warm.
“Careful,” she said, putting the plate on the table, “hot plate. Don’t touch it.”
Which, of course, Trixie did and snapped her finger away. “And why am I getting such a treat for breakfast this morning?”
“Can’t a mother make her daughter pancakes for no reason at all?”
“You made pancakes yesterday.”
Alma sat across from her with a steaming cup of coffee. “I overheard you talking about them last night.”
“Overheard?”
“When I came downstairs to get a glass of water.”
“Why would you come all the way downstairs to the kitchen for a glass of water?” Trixie was lifting each pancake off the stack and placing a pat of butter between each one. “Besides, you never came in here.”
“Because I heard you talking. And I wanted a little snack too. So now that you’ve thoroughly investigated my pancake motive, who were you talking to at all hours last night?”
Trixie drizzled syrup over the top of the stack and cut down through it, stuffing her mouth before saying, “Ron. My boss.”
“Who talks to their boss all night?”
Trixie chewed, savoring the mix of the salty bacon and the sweet syrup. Not even her mother’s inquisition would ruin this moment. “He’s also house-sitting for me. And taking care of my cat.”
“What about Cam?”
“What about Cam?” She dug in again.
“It seemed like you two were getting along well enough yesterday.”
Trixie swallowed. “Don’t tell me you were out getting a snack by the silo.”
Alma wrinkled her nose in the way she did when she wanted to come off as a prude. “It’s not good of you to lead one man on in the afternoon and spend the night talking with another man entirely.”
“I didn’t lead Cam on. There’s nothing between us.”
“It didn’t look—”
“Appearances can be deceiving, Mom. We had a moment. And then a talk. And now it’s done.”
“But—”
“Done.” Trixie punctuated by pointing her pancake-laden fork and took satisfaction in her mother’s visible retreat.
“So, then, can we talk about this other man? Your boss?”
“Ron?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Now Alma pouted like a child, her perfectly made-up face taking on the visage of a toddler. “Why not?”
“Because, Mom, there’s nothing to talk about. Not yet, anyway. So let me enjoy my breakfast while we talk about something else. Anything else. Like how Great-Grandma seems to be doing really well.”
“Isn’t she? I hope you don’t think we lured you here under false pretenses. She has these swings, you know. Where we think she might be cleaning her feet on heaven’s welcome mat. We can’t hardly stand to let her go to sleep for fear she won’t wake up again. And then—boom—she’s down here making oatmeal.”
Trixie smiled at the familiar image. GG cooked a pot of oatmeal every day and had throughout two world wars and the Depression. “Quaker could make a fortune from her testimony.”
“It’s only lately that she’s seemed … agitated.”
Trixie almost choked on her coffee. “Lately? I’ve never known her not to be agitated.”
“I mean in a preoccupied way. She’s always been one to speak her mind, but these days it’s like she’s holding something back. Like she has unfinished business she doesn’t want any of us to know about.”
She chewed, thoughtfully, letting all the flavors fall into place, and washed them down with coffee. “Why did you call me to come here, Mom?”
“Grandma—”
“Truthfully.”
Alma set her coffee down. “Truthfully. Because you great-grandmother seemed to be edging away, and I didn’t want you to hate yourself for missing her final moments.”
“You just told me she has a lot of final moments. You’ve never called me before.”
“But this one seemed—”
“At first I thought it was to try to get me and Cam back together.” “Well, yes. That too.”
“Aha!” Trixie pointed with her fork again—this time empty—and Alma jumped. “That too. What’s the too, Mom? You know GG has a secret.”
Alma took a deep breath and looked over as Eugenie came into the kitchen. “She was all about muttering, ‘A first time and a last time.’ And that she shouldn’t have waited. But when your grandma or I would ask her, she’d clam up. Tell us it was the rambling of an old woman and not to pay her any mind. And,” Alma added quietly, “she kept asking for you.”
“So you lied to me?”
“The way we see it,” Eugenie said, easing into a chair, “she just as much lied to us. Taking to her bed like she did. Laid there looking like death itself come to visit, but then I’d look close and see her eyes dancing whenever we said your name and that you were coming.”
“You made Cam call me?”
“That was your mother’s idea.”
“Of course.”
“Two birds,” Alma said, shrugging.
“Has she said anything to you?” Eugenie asked. “Anything … important?”
Why did Trixie all of a sudden feel like she was in some film noir confession scene? Like Eugenie was two steps away from slapping the rest of her pancakes away from her while Alma tilted the Depression glass light fixture to try to burn out a confession. What did she know that they didn’t? She thought of her conversation the previous night with Eugenie, her grandmother’s verbal tiptoe. Was there anything about this visit that wasn’t tinged with subterfuge?
“You could have asked me, you know,” Trixie said. “You could have called and said that GG was acting odd and that you wanted me to come talk to her. Why couldn’t you be honest about something so simple?”
“I don’t think we were dishonest,” Alma said.
“Of course you don’t,” Trixie said, her words laden with the subtext of the entirety of her mother’s facade.
Alma steeled herself against the insult. “And now, knowing what’s brewing between you and—well, I don’t know if we could have enticed you away for an afternoon, let alone a nice, long stay.”
