They pulled off again, this time at a mini-mart in Clarion, Pennsylvania, to refill on gas, drinks, and snacks. Ozzie, who had volunteered to buy the food, returned with a gigantic package of Nutter Butter cookies, four strawberry yogurts, string cheese, and six bottles of water.
“Oh my gosh, all this junk food reminds me of the Chore Chart at Turning Winds.” Grace said suddenly. “Remember all those jobs we had to do?”
“Yeah, because Elaine didn’t feel like doing any of it herself.” Ozzie peeled open the package of cookies. “Fat slob. She probably sat around all day and ate potato chips while we were at school. I don’t remember her picking up a broom even once when we were there.”
“She ran the place!” Monica said. “And she was the only one there half the time, remember? Everyone else worked part-time. Besides, she wasn’t so bad. I remember she sat up one night with Ella after she’d come back from visiting her dad. I don’t know what happened, but the poor little thing wouldn’t stop crying. Elaine stayed in her room for most the night, until she fell asleep again.”
“And I remember she crocheted a huge baby blanket for D’Shawn,” Grace piped in. “It was all these different colors. Just beautiful. It must’ve taken her months.”
“D’Shawn,” Ozzie murmured, looking out the window. “My God. I wonder whatever happened to her.”
“She was going to move in with the boyfriend and his mother,” Grace said. “Remember?”
“I’m sure that went over like a lead balloon,” Ozzie said. “She was constantly bribing me with her Newports to get me to do her jobs on the Chore Chart. She hated doing any kind of housework.”
“What job from the Chore Chart did you hate the most?” Monica asked. “Mine was cleaning the bathrooms.” She shuddered. “Ugh. All that hair in the drains, and the crud around the bottom of the toilet?”
“Do you mind?” Grace asked, holding up a piece of cheese. “I’m eating here.”
“Well, that was my worst,” Monica said. “What was yours?”
“Cooking dinner.” Grace’s response was immediate. “I used to break out in hives when it was my day to cook. I thought I was going to have a heart attack.”
“You did fine!” Ozzie insisted. “We all did, considering. I don’t remember very many meals I didn’t eat.”
“I do!” Monica said. “And a lot of them were yours.”
“Mine?” Ozzie looked shocked. “What’re you talking about? I was a great cook! I’m still a great cook. Maybe not as skilled as Henry yet, but close.”
“I’m with Monica,” Grace said, stifling a giggle. “You did get a little weird when it came to food combinations. Admit it.”
Ozzie put a hand on her hip. “Give me an example.”
“Scrambled eggs with cut-up Slim Jims,” Grace shot back.
“It’s the same thing as sausage and eggs!”
Nora raised an eyebrow.
“Fine, gimme another one,” Ozzie demanded.
“Peanut butter toast with sliced tomato and bacon.” Monica stuck a finger in her mouth. “Blech!”
“My BPTs?” Ozzie looked hurt. “You didn’t like them at all?”
“Horrifying,” Monica said, shaking her head. “Nightmare-inducing.”
“Peanut butter and tomato do not go together,” Grace added. “Under any circumstances. Ever.”
“What about you, Norster?” Ozzie looked pleadingly at her. “You liked my BPTs, didn’t you?”
“I don’t remember the BPTs,” Nora said, spooning the last of her yogurt. “But I do remember the time you made something called Popped Cereal.”
“Oh my God, Popped Cereal!” Monica and Grace began to laugh wildly. “Popcorn and milk! Ozzie, you were nuts! How did Elaine ever let you get away with that one?”
“Oh, I told her it went way back.” Ozzie was finding it hard not to smile, too. “Which it did. Growing up, those were the only two edible things in our house half the time. Elaine was all tickled, though. She thought I was trying to share a piece of the old family heritage.”
Their laughter filled the car, and Nora thought as they sped along that it was still one of her favorite sounds in the world.
I still have no idea if my parents are even alive, but has anyone else been in touch with theirs?” Ozzie asked as the car raced on. “Any phone calls maybe, or sudden encounters?”
“My father called me once at Liam’s place.” Monica’s voice was tentative, almost fearful. “I almost fell over when some guy told me I had a collect call from the Richmond State Prison and asked if I would accept charges. I have no idea how he even found me.”
“Wow,” said Ozzie. “What’d you do?”
“I hung up,” Monica answered. “I said no, that I wouldn’t accept the charges, and I hung up.”
Ozzie nodded. “What about you, Grace? You ever hear anything again from your mother?”
“I saw her once.”
“Your mother?” Ozzie sounded as flabbergasted as Nora felt. “You did? My God, after all that time! Where?”
“I’m still in touch with my little brother,” Grace said. “You remember me telling you about Sam? He lives out in Arizona, right near the border.” She smiled. “He’s married now, has three kids, and owns his own construction company. He’s doing so well. Anyway, he called and told me that she was in some asylum out there, receiving electroshock therapy.”
Ozzie whistled through her teeth.
“Sam said he thought the shock treatments were working, but that she kept asking for me. Over and over and over again. He said she just kept repeating my name, and nothing else.” Grace stared into the horizon at something and then refocused. “Anyway, he begged me to come see her and I went. More for Sam, I think, than for her. I flew out there, it must be two years ago now, and I met Sam, and we went together to go see her.” She pressed a finger against the bottom of her throat and left it there, but her eyes were blinking rapidly, as if she were trying to dislodge a wayward thought inside her head. “It’s funny, the expectations you carry around when it comes to certain people, isn’t it? I hadn’t seen my mother in almost thirteen years by then, but for some reason I was still holding on to the same ridiculous reunion scenario I’d had when I was a teenager. You know, her freezing for a split second when she saw me, eyes filling with tears. And then rushing over, screaming my name, and throwing her arms around me.”
“She didn’t?” Ozzie looked perplexed.
“She refused to believe it was really me,” Grace said. “She just kept saying, ‘You’re not my Grace. You don’t even look like Grace. Grace is much shorter than you. And skinnier.’” Grace brushed the top of her arm with her fingertips. “She even pinched me, like she was trying to make sure I was an actual person.”
“Why?” Monica sounded pained.
“Sam said she was probably waiting for that sixteen-year-old girl she’d left behind to walk into her room.” Grace shrugged. “Who knows what shape her brain was in, after all those years? In and out of treatment. On and off drugs. Maybe she was just stuck back there, you know? Back when I was younger.”
“Oh, doll,” Ozzie said. “How awful.”
“In a way it was good for me to see,” Grace said. “It made me realize how sick she was, how sick she’d always been. I think it even helped me forgive her for everything she put Sam and me through.”
Outside, the sky looked endless, a pale blue color shot through with clouds. Nora couldn’t help but wonder if it had been Grace’s meeting with her mother that had triggered her last suicide attempt. Grace blamed it on the pregnancy, but what had she really thought, having her mother, who had abandoned her so many years ago, deny her existence yet again? What did something like that do to an already fractured mind?
“What about you, Nora?” Ozzie asked. “You ever hear anything from your mother?”
Nora thought back to the letter she’d received twelve years ago. It had been from Mama, postmarked from some seaside town in Maine and mailed to Turning Winds, which in turn had forwarded it to her at the library. The letter had been long and sloppy and rambling, but the gist of it was that Daddy Ray had died and Mama was all alone, living in a little house by the sea. She hadn’t asked Nora directly to come and visit, but Nora could feel the request implied there between the lines. She’d crumpled up the paper after reading it and thrown it away. Later, just before she locked up the library for the night, she’d gone back over to the trash can and fished it back out again. It was still in her dresser drawer, hidden behind her old running socks.
“I got a letter once,” she said. “She’s somewhere up north.”
“What’d the letter say?” Monica asked.
“Nothing much. She moved to Maine after her husband died. She wanted me to come visit.”
Silence.
“What was her husband’s name?” Grace asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say a word about him.”
“George,” Nora said. “But I had to call him Daddy Ray.”
“Why Daddy Ray?”
“That was his last name. It’s what he wanted to be called.”
“You never said much about him,” Ozzie said. “You know, back then.”
“There wasn’t much to tell.”
“Did you go to Maine?” Ozzie asked.
Nora shook her head. “I’ll never go. I have nothing to say to her.” She hadn’t realized she had even felt such a thing until it came out of her mouth.
Ozzie nodded. “That’s kind of how I feel now, too. I used to think that I’d go back and rage and scream at my mother. Maybe even throw something at her. But what would that do?”
“It might make you feel better,” Monica offered.
“I don’t think so. Or maybe it would, but just for a few minutes. And then afterward, I think I would feel even worse.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to be better than her,” Ozzie said. “My mother’s way of handling things and dealing with people was to scream and yell and then beat them to a pulp if she could. I know I’m in a relationship right now that says otherwise, but I don’t want to scream and yell at anyone anymore. Not even her. I want to figure out another way of communicating. And if I ever go back there and have it out with her, I want it to be done in a decent, respectful way. I want her fucking jaw to drop open, listening to me talk. I want her to see that she spent her life stepping on me and that I got up anyway, and walked away from it with my head held high.”
Not me, Nora thought.
Not ever.
Ozzie’s plans were respectable, even admirable, but Nora knew that if she arrived at her last day on Earth without laying eyes on Mama again, she would be just fine.