The Beautiful Misfits, page 25
“There’s a card too,” Pauline said, her face anticipatory, mascara like wet soot.
“Where did you find…it’s my favorite photo.”
“Your mother. I’ve had it for a month. I always wanted to have a relationship with you. I couldn’t sort out my thoughts or feelings. Envy can be all-consuming. I was intimidated by you.”
Josie walked to the window and stared into the parking lot. She tried to gather her thoughts but found them bouncing like the sun against the cars’ chrome. Then she thought of the photo in her underwear drawer.
“I found a picture of a baby girl in Dad’s car,” Josie said, directly to her mother. “Do you know anything about that?”
Katherine shook her head. “I told you I didn’t know any of this sordid business until your father died. It was probably of Pauline as a baby.”
She turned to Pauline. “But having me come to Asheville? I don’t understand why you wanted me there. To get me canned and berate me every day? I can’t figure out—”
“It’s messed up, I know.” Pauline dropped her head in her hands. When she looked up, fresh tears fell. “I had so many conflicting feelings.”
“The woman was in shock,” Katherine said. “Have some compassion.”
Oh, the nerve of Katherine Nickels. “Mother, why are you even having any sort of relationship with the love child of a cheating husband?” Josie walked from the window and sat next to Pog, who was the only composed person in the room.
“I was upset at first,” Katherine said. “Purely gobsmacked. When we met for the first time to go over the will… I don’t know… It was as if I had Juliette back. And she does favor your father a bit. Aren’t you overjoyed you’re going to be an aunt?” Katherine asked, beaming and trying, with her pleasantries, to sweep all this family dirt under the Hampton Inn bed. “I find it rather exciting.”
It struck Josie that she had no idea who the father of Pauline’s baby was, unless the rumors were true and she was in the family way with Mr. Hoven’s child.
“I find it to be like a soap opera,” Josie said. “Who’s the father, Pauline?”
Pauline smiled. “Kyle.”
Josie couldn’t have heard that correctly. Kyle was married. And gay! “I thought Mr.…well, how could Kyle…never mind.”
“For God’s sake, Josette,” her mother said, voice rising. “Kyle was the donor. It’s not like they actually shagged. Pauline has a fabulous partner who’ll soon become her wife.”
Wife? But Josie had seen Pauline leaving on Thursdays at three fifteen. With Mr. Hoven.
“I know what everyone thinks,” Pauline said, reading Josie’s thoughts. “Joel Hoven and I had a business relationship. I’ve been with Molly for almost two years.”
Josie was surprised. “I never saw you with a woman.”
“I keep my personal life private. She’s been with Doctors Without Borders the past year or so. Molly’s a midwife and will be back in time to deliver our child.”
“Such an accomplished woman,” Katherine chirped. “A real hero helping save all those poor babies and their mums.”
“I’m sure she is,” Josie said, but she was tired and had endured enough titanic revelations for a day. A lifetime. She was desperate to get back to Grady and read to Finley, give him the comfort she’d longed to provide for years. “Pog, you ready?”
“Josie, I know people talked about me and Mr. Hoven. But nothing ever happened between us. I teach his oldest son piano once a week,” Pauline said. “I’ve been playing since I was six.”
“Oh, my heavens, she plays brilliantly,” Katherine gushed. “Just like your…anyhow, the talent she has is astonishing.” Josie tried to take in all of this news, but by now it slid off like rain on a waxed car. The stress was too much. She couldn’t listen to one more shocking revelation, so she changed the subject.
“So, Pog’s getting Finn lined up for rehab,” she said, as if the earlier conversation had never transpired. “I’m planning to live and work there so I’ll be nearby until he stabilizes.” She didn’t dare allow herself to say if he stabilizes. If he doesn’t leave after a few days. What was the saying she’d heard from her group? Feeling good with a short memory? Forgetting what lurks beneath. Always with a fully charged battery.
“What about your condo?” Katherine asked.
“She’ll be working at the center,” Pog said. “Your daughter can bring to light this drug epidemic and the ineffective way our country runs rehabs.”
Katherine raised her eyebrows. “She needs to be back on the telly. Now, Josette, what about your little hovel in Asheville?”
“I guess I’ll sell it. I don’t know yet. The BMW sold fast, so I’m sure the condo will as well.”
“For the life of me, I can’t understand why you bought that hillbilly truck.” Katherine’s mouth rucked as if she’d swallowed vinegar.
Pog laughed and casually put an arm around Josie’s shoulders. “She’s going to need it. I’m going to have her pulling campers from all sorts of places.”
Josie reflected on buying the truck and adding the hitch. It was as if some deep and dormant part of her knew she’d end up needing them. Sometimes life worked itself out long before she was conscious of its plans. “Mother, Pauline, if that’s everything, we’re going to see Finn.”
Katherine rose in slow motion like a queen addressing her court. She placed her hands on Josie’s shoulders. “It’s not quite everything, dear. Since we’re clearing the air, getting all our secrets out in the open, you need to know more about your other sister. Your twin.”
“Mother, let’s address Juliette another time. I need to go and—”
“You’ve probably wondered from time to time about that scar running up and down your torso,” she said.
“Not really. I keep it covered and mostly forget about it.”
“Well…our genes…rather, your father’s were…well…for fuck’s sake,” she all but screamed. “You were ever-so-slightly…just a wee bit really…well…conjoined.”
A wave of laughter built like a tsunami. The days of no sleep, turbulent emotions, and family revelations crashed into her. She collapsed on the king bed and laughed until she lost her breath.
“Josette. I’m not joking.” Katherine stood at the bed and pushed her daughter’s legs to rouse her. “It was nothing but a slight case. They called it omphalopagus twinning. You shared a liver. Nothing else.”
Josie sprang from the bed. “Wait. Are you seriously saying this?”
“Just a smidge. Scant amount, in reality. So mild it was simply a few inches of connected tissue. Goodness, if you’d both sneezed, you’d have pulled apart. I wouldn’t even let the doctors make public notes of it. Of course, with your father’s genetics…”
“Mild? My sister died! I had a liver operation! Pog, it’s long past time to go.” She picked up her bags and marched to the door.
Katherine followed her, but not out of empathy. “Her body was weaker. You’ve always been so strong, Josie. Even with the televised—”
“I’m gone. Pauline, thank you for this lovely gift. Mother, I’m going on a sabbatical. Away from you for a while. Away from all of this craziness.”
It would have to wait. Perhaps forever. Josie ran a hand down the front of her blouse and grazed her scar, the only link she had to her sister. Maybe this connection, this conjoining, was why she never felt they were apart. Because in some ways, they’d always be together.
26
Eight days after Finley’s overdose, his doctors discharged him from the hospital. He was still fragile and unsteady as Josie helped him pack for detox and rehab. He looked like death. All bones and sunken eyes gone dark and dead.
As difficult as it was to watch her son rot from drugs, seeing him so beat down and remorseful was much harder than she’d thought. And the road ahead stretched as fragile as the one behind.
Physically, he’d dodged lasting damage. Mentally, the journey had just begun.
His moods alternated between crying and self-loathing. He constantly asked Josie for forgiveness. It was as if he’d hosted a demon for nearly a decade and a priest had successfully exorcised him. He didn’t know how to process these new feelings. Or any feelings. And Josie’s emotions shot all over the place, ranging from relief to crippling fear.
Pog had remained at her side for three days, before getting back to his work and young son. The admissions paperwork at Vintage Crazy had already been started. Her son would have a bed there. It was hard to believe. A dream come true.
In the back seat of the truck, Finley rested his head in Dottie’s lap and allowed her to pet him like a kitten. “Bubby’s good. Good boy, right, Mama?”
“You’re both wonderful and precious to me.” Tears pooled and she felt the muscles of her heart expanding. “We’re going to get your brother all better, sweetpea. Pog, the nice man you met, is fixing us up a real caravan like in the movies. We might get to live for a little while in an old Airstream that’s as silver as your princess crowns. Won’t that be fun?”
Dottie squealed and Finley flinched. “Let’s let Bubby sleep a little while and you play your movies. You’re going to love it out in the country. There’s a preschool close by and lots of fun stuff to do where we’re going. Won’t it be nice to be a hop away from Bubby?”
“What about Daddy? He still in sick place?”
Dottie had visited Frank in the hospital. She jumped on his hospital bed and he gave her his ice cream. They’d enjoyed a cuddle or two, and Josie wondered if that was all it would ever be. She hoped not.
“Daddy is all better and back home,” she said. “I’m sure he’ll come visit once we get settled.”
Maybe that white lie wouldn’t hurt. Maybe Dottie’s questioning wouldn’t last. Maybe Pog could step in and become a father figure to her little girl. Maybe Josie should loosen that tape around her heart and reopen the doors to possibilities. She couldn’t help smiling as she thought of Paul Oscar Gavins. He’d shown them all honesty, integrity, caring, and compassion.
It was Pog who’d encouraged her to forgive Pauline. At least in words. And it was Pog encouraging her to accept her mother’s failings but not tolerate any abuse from her.
Six hours after leaving Atlanta, stopping twice, for lunch and a break, Josie turned into Vintage Crazy’s entrance, the truck crunching pea gravel. She had with her only the clothes she’d taken to Atlanta, but she planned to return to Asheville to get her affairs in order. She opened the car door to a blast of late summer heat just as Pog and a few of the staff rushed out with balloons and a cake. “WELCOME TO NEW BEGINNINGS” was written in blue frosting across the white cake featuring an aqua vintage camper.
Finley was sound asleep in the back seat. Josie unbuckled Dottie from the truck, leaving the AC running for Finn. She didn’t want to wake him until it was necessary.
Within minutes, a registered nurse and heavyset male technician came out with a wheelchair and rolled her drowsy son toward the detox center.
“It’s going to be okay,” she said, kissing the top of his head which lolled to one side. He’d already fallen back to sleep.
Once they’d checked Finley’s vitals and assigned him a room, Pog took Dottie to a play area, giving Josie privacy with her son, who was in and out of sedation from the seizure medication. “We’ll meet back at four-thirty for a group session and have dinner an hour later. If Finley doesn’t feel up to it, that’s perfectly fine. We aren’t too rough on our newcomers the first couple of days. Most of them sleep a day or so.”
His room was nothing like Josie’s at the state-run facility. There were two single beds, one of them empty. Pog advocated privacy during the first week of a patient’s stay. Instead of papery hospital blankets, plump comforters printed with colorful vintage campers covered the beds. Murals lined the walls. On one side of the room, clouds seemed to drift against a powder-blue sky. Another painting displayed dozens of motivational quotes, and large whales and dolphins came to life on the wall behind the two beds. There were two desks and chairs and a bathroom with a toilet and shower, spa-grade toiletries lined on a shelf above plush towels.
“Nice, isn’t it?” Josie said, her voice nervous. Here was the moment she’d spent years wishing for. Finley. In rehab. Not dead or in jail. But here. Safe. Still, she couldn’t relax, fearing what the MAC mothers wrote about so frequently: their loved ones leaving treatment. But then again, this was different. This wasn’t your standard run-of-the-mill rehab.
Finley slumped in the center of the bed, arms folded across his ravaged body. His skin had a gray pallor and a fresh crop of acne sprouted through a week’s worth of facial hair. “I guess it’s okay. Honestly, Mom, I feel much better. I want to go home.”
And here it came. Even Pog said it would, that this was to be expected in the beginning. She had one shot at this and would do everything not to judge or scold. Not be that mom. Not pull that trigger. “I understand how you feel, son. It’s normal. I was in rehab once and felt the same way.”
“I need to get back to Dad. What if he goes to jail?” Finley fell against the bed and curled into a fetal position. “It’s my fault all this happened. I should have—”
“Don’t. He’s fine. The kid isn’t pressing charges. He has enough other stuff to worry about.”
“Dad didn’t choke him. He wouldn’t do that.”
“I know.” But Josie didn’t know. If she’d been down in the basement witnessing her son overdose under the nose of his dealer, she might have choked him herself. “Your dad said he’s coming up next week. After you get into a routine here.”
“I love you so much, Mom. But I want to leave.” Finley cried and rubbed his bloodshot eyes.
She prayed for patience. With newly clean addicts, land mines simmered at every turn. “No one is forcing you to stay. But this place is different. I hope you’ll give it a chance, sweetheart.” She grew still for a few moments. When she turned toward her son, he was asleep.
Later that night, after “lights out,” Pog led Josie and Dottie to one of the log cabins. “You can stay here. It’s fully furnished. Even the kitchen.”
“I don’t mind staying in one of the bigger campers. It’d be like that guy on Trapper John, M.D., Doctor Gonzo. Dottie’s insisting we camp out in a silver Airstream. Once she makes up her mind, whoo.” Dottie had fallen asleep and Josie tucked her into a queen bed covered with two handmade quilts. The cabin was perfect with its old-school logs on the outside and modern amenities and bright colors indoors. Art and pottery gave the place warmth and a homey feel. All created by the residents. Josie didn’t want to call them patients.
There was an odd awkwardness without Dottie as a buffer. She and Pog faced each other in the living room, eyes locked and neither saying a word. Then he pulled her toward him and she relaxed for the first time in weeks. She felt safe and protected. She was surprised at her disappointment when he didn’t kiss her.
“Look, I know we’ve barely discussed salary and your role here. And I’m not sure how to broach this.”
She knew where this was going. “If Finley leaves. That’s what you mean.”
“Some do. It’s the reality of addiction. When the doctors say, ‘the next twenty-four, forty-eight hours are crucial,’ it’s pretty much the same thing in rehab. But at this place, if they make it through a week, the rest is where the transformation begins. After the detox protocol, we give them medications to help with cravings. Places that don’t…it’s like ripping a pup from his mother’s teat and leaving him to flail on his own. Medication has proved as effective as therapy.”
Josie sat on the sofa, trying to process everything.
“I’d still want you to stay. No pressure. It’s a good job and I’m sure what we can pay is as well or better than selling promises at the counter.” His eyes danced. “He’s going to make it. Just remember to lie low the first few weeks. None of the other parents are here.”
“I’m going to stay a few days, then head home to tie up loose ends before coming back. Is that good for you?”
He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “You’re good for me.” He kissed her lightly on the lips and said his goodbyes. Whatever this was, he seemed in no hurry. And shouldn’t that be how love is? Like a long country two-lane with double yellow lines? No passing. No speeding. No ramps for runaway trucks. Just a meandering trip at forty miles per hour. Taking in fresh air, sunshine, and a world through a different window. One tree, one field, one town at a time.
EPILOGUE
They darted past her. The fish.
Her favorites: the angels and parrots, colors impossibly bold, nature’s tattoos on skins slick and shining. Josie slowly swam over the corals and sea fans, some torn and broken, a few reefs battered and ghostly.
It had been almost two years since Hurricane Irma whipped St. John into a war zone, the Category 5 storm one of the strongest on record, its savage lungs ripping up trees and swallowing, digesting, then spitting remains.
Josie’s beloved island, at least half national park and all but leveled in the storm, now stretched lush and green, having mostly recovered. In some places blue tarps draped roofs and rubble remained from houses beyond repair. The island’s beauty was profound, survivable. All around were sounds of construction, new businesses coming where others had perished in the storm. Houses going up. Roads repaired. And the grand hotels opening and flowing with tourists.
Recovery is a slow journey, a voyage you don’t see until it’s over. For the island. And for her son.
Josie kicked her legs and leisurely snorkeled her way back to the shallows of Salt Pond Bay. She lifted her mask, rubbed out the dents on her face, and shook the sea from the mouthpiece. The sun bit into her skin and climbed the sky, its heat both fierce and comforting. She pulled off her fins and walked a few yards down the crescent beach until she reached the portable cabana.
