This Too Is Love, page 15
“Thanks, Aunt Lena. I know you tried to track her down. It is what it is.” I’m not dwelling on it anymore. I have people now. “So you have renters coming soon?” Looking around, her house is still a wreck. The kitchen needs to be scrubbed and the yard is an overgrown jungle. Still, a FOR RENT sign is stuck between two bush-like weeds.
“Larry wants to be on the road in a few days, so maybe someone will stop by and ask about it. Otherwise I’ll just give the keys to my manager at the gas station. The house was paid for long ago by Grandma’s second husband, so whatever I get for rent will be extra cash.” I can tell by the way she exhales that she likes this idea.
Larry is an odd guy, though. I mean, really, they hardly know each other. Aunt Lena barely ever says two words about him — yet they’re ready to go off into the sunset together and all that. I think Aunt Lena’s just using him as the first available way to start living her life. He is her ticket out.
And I guess we all kind of do that, in some way or another.
Looking for a way to escape the parts of life we don’t like or don’t want.
Her escape just happens to be a short, chubby, bald dude wearing leather chaps.
Last night Ricky stopped by Aunt Lena’s.
He offered to help me pack and I was terrified to be with him again, after all this time. I couldn’t tell him to leave, though, and really him being here was exactly what I wanted. What I needed. I needed to get closure with Ricky. It was time to say the words, but seeing him again, the first time since the funeral, my heart knew the truth. I couldn’t say goodbye to Ricky, not ever, not really. He had changed me.
So we were in my bedroom, heaviness so thick between us that I had no clue how to air it out. And then, after a bit of silence, it became less tense. Ricky caught my eye and smiled, and I remember that he was never a scary guy. He was soft and gentle and the kind of boy I was proud to have as my daughter’s father.
Together we boxed up my art pencils and papers, trying to pack, but we kept getting distracted by all the old sketchbooks I had filled. Mostly sad, pathetic scenes of those people in my past I longed for, dreamed of.
“Trixie, I can’t believe you’re going off to the city, going to college. Crazy, right? A year ago, would you have ever thought that?” Ricky spoke to me like we were old friends, trying so hard to move on, move past, put patches across the wide-open spaces of our hearts. His hair had gotten long and the summer sun was already turning his locks golden. The girls at his new school were going to be all over him.
I wonder if he will ever tell any of them about me.
About us.
Bea.
“Mrs. Carter says no one is going to recognize me after this summer. That I’ll become some hipster in the city and be into independent movies and call them films. She says that’s what happens to everyone when they go to art school.”
I laughed, thinking about how Mrs. Carter also told me it was okay to change, to become a vegan who reads Russian novels or whatever, but that I can’t forget where I came from, what made me who I am. “Are you gonna be some macho jock who dates the cheerleaders and joins a fraternity?”
“You know me, Trixie, cheerleaders are totally my type.” He leaned his forehead close to mine, like too close to know what’s going to happen next.
I leaned back. “So then, what is your type Ricky?” I picked up the pile of books, filling the box to the brim, and run tape across the top.
Ricky took the tape from my hand, pausing an extra second as our fingers brushed, then set it down. Picking up a black marker he answered my question by writing BEATRIX across the cardboard.
He put his hands on my chin and held my face close to his and whispered, ever so softly, “You, Beatrix. Exactly you.”
And the kiss.
Oh, that kiss.
It was full of the slow, nearly nine months that we shared, and the fall to the depths of despair that we shared, and the longing that happens when you want something that you think you’ll never have that we shared.
It was the kiss that reminded me why Ricky was the guy who I would choose if I could. If I was the kind of girl who gets the guy, but always feeling deep down I wasn’t cut out for that kind of love.
But the kiss told me maybe I was.
Maybe it wasn’t just about what kind of guy I could get, but what guy could get me.
And if Mrs. Carter preached something, it was all about self-love and self-like and being enough.
That maybe who I was right now was enough.
And that great big wall between us these past weeks was gone and the tension that had built was broken and we were able to talk again and be ourselves again, and thank God for that.
I couldn’t lose Ricky too.We finished packing my room until the night was dark and we climbed to the roof where I had stared at stars so many years ago with Justice.
We looked at the moon and his fingers laced mine and it was the sort of night that didn’t make me forget, it was the kind of night I always wanted to remember.
“Well, Aunt Lena, I hope it gets rented soon. But man, it’s gonna be weird not being here with you and Justice. Isn’t it?” I smile as Ricky’s truck pulls up in the driveway. “Are you going to be okay without us?”
“I’ll be fine. It’s you who makes everyone worried, Trixie. Don’t get into no trouble out there with those boys, at that college, okay?”
She hugs me. I breathe in her smoke as I kiss her cheek, knowing this could be goodbye for a very long time. I’m not coming back here, it never was my home. This family — it’s never really been my own.
Ricky lugs my bags and boxes into the back of his truck, looking at me the whole time, like he can’t take his eyes off of me. Not because of what I can give — but because of who I am.
He honks his horn goodbye, leaving that life in the dust.
Week Forty
The morning has been busy with appointments and getting papers filed, and it’s nice not having time to sit and think about what this week was supposed to be for me.
And what it isn’t.
After a busy morning all I want to do is stretch out and take a nap.
Guardianship was granted this morning. I am officially in David and Julia’s care. They are my guardians. They are to guard me.
Protect me.
Care for me.
We went to lunch afterward and ordered veggie wraps and smoothies, and I was glad my pregnancy cravings were gone and that I could finally fit into my normal jeans.
A year ago I would never have ordered a veggie wrap. It would have been something from a drive-thru, but nothing about this life is like my old life.
It’s kind of strange, actually. Some of that is good, and some of that is sad. It’s a lot of change.
When I first walked into David and Julia’s apartment I was amazed at how pristine everything was. Ricky carried in my boxes and whistled low as he looked around and I didn’t know where to sit or stand. It was pretty awkward.
But then they showed me my room, explained how we can change things out if I don’t like something, how the bathroom right here would be mine and showed me how their room was right down the hall. The living room has a big, exposed brick wall. Exactly what you would think an apartment in the city should look like.
How was it that my old motel was just twenty minutes away?
On the mantel over the fireplace is a picture. The three of us on the beach, smiling. Me between them, looking nothing like either of them, but somehow I fit in just right.
When they asked me on our trip to the ocean if I would want to move in with them, I was afraid to answer too fast and freak them out.
My mind was filled with the memories of flipping through their adoption album. How when I looked at them, how when I spent time with them, I felt like I was theirs, like they were mine.
Sitting on beach towels, lemonade in our hands, David had said, “Beatrix, I know it might not make sense to everyone — but when Julia and I think about it, think about you, we feel like we are supposed to be together. I don’t understand why everything that has happened had to happen, happen to us. But the good, the good in all this mess, is us knowing you. Loving you.”
And of course I was crying, because that’s all I have done for nine months straight, and when he said it like that he said it all perfect, because I felt the exact same way about them.
The guardianship request happened so fast, David had done all the right steps and the judge pounded his gavel and out of the courthouse we walked.
We planned on filing for adoption next, to make it legal, bound. So that I will legally be their daughter.
Now, I’m tired. Not tired because I don’t want to think tired — more like sleepy. Being sleepy is so much better than being tired.
I take a blanket from the basket next to the couch, still trying to learn my steps around the house. Not wanting to mess up or break anything. Julia has told me a thousand times to calm down, that I can roam freely, that this is my home now.
But still, it’s all so new, everything about them is new and I’m getting to know my family for the first time at sixteen years old.
I have a family. A family that promises unconditional love. They have shown me since the day I met them that they are committed to me no matter what.
I wrap myself in the blanket, the house now quiet. Julia went grocery shopping and David had to go back to work. And here I am, lying on a couch that smells like lavender. I fall asleep, knowing I am home.
Acknowledgments
I am filled with gratitude for the people who walked alongside me as I wrote this novel. Thank you Sarah Brooks, Eryn Carpenter, Kassie Graham, Julie Hawkins, my parents, Cynthia and Tony Mora, Kristalyn Similar, and Alessandra Whitford for your early support of this novel.
I have Barbara Trageser to thank for the wonderful copyedits. Thank you, Christa Holland, for the beautiful cover art.
Lastly, thank you Jeremy, for walking the heart-breaking path with me that led to this novel. It was long and hard and broke us in so many ways. I’m so grateful I’ve never had to pick up the pieces alone.
About the Author
Anya Monroe likes to write stories and paint words on her walls. She believes in love at first sight and fights for happily-ever-afters. As a wife and mom to six kids, she carves out time to write between carpool pick-ups and date nights because words are her heartbeat.
She lives a ferry ride from Seattle and is a total Pacific Northwesterner who drinks chai lattes and wears Birkenstocks. She's a cliché, but doesn't mind it. Not even a little.
Anya Monroe, This Too Is Love
