For a week, every time JoBeth saw Georgia, she’d brought up the idea of a weekend family trip. Georgia finally agreed. As they drove out of Chicago on Friday, she was thankful they’d rented an SUV; at least they weren’t piled on top of each other. She really didn’t have an opportunity to bow out. Even Vanna had been a collaborator. “If we rent an SUV, we can take Charlie. I’ll sit in the back with him. Come on. It’ll be fun, Georgia. It’s only three days.”
Georgia remembered how her father used to say fish and family started to stink after three days, but their persistence wore her down. Now on a crisp sunny morning, she was behind the wheel, her mother in the passenger seat. Charlie was in his car seat, babbling and waving his rattle. How bad could it be? Of course, Jimmy had ducked out, claiming this was clearly a girl’s weekend. Aside from that, though…
JoBeth’s expression was both proud and enthusiastic. “I’ve dreamed of this moment for years. The three of us together, sharing an adventure.”
“I never, ever dreamed this would happen, Mama.” Vanna’s voice, too, was loaded with emotion. “Let’s hope this is the first of many.”
Vanna and JoBeth glanced over at Georgia, but her ever-present caution kept her from replying in kind. “So where are we headed?”
“To the Mississippi River,” JoBeth said.
“What for?” Georgia asked. “A swim?”
JoBeth ignored Georgia’s crack, but her face flushed from the neck up. “I wanted to keep it a secret so I could surprise you, but since you’re driving, I guess that won’t work.” She turned to face Georgia. “Peaches, do you remember when you were a little girl, we had a dollhouse?”
Georgia frowned. She shook her head.
JoBeth nodded. A wistful look came across her. She sighed. “I guess you were too young. I think you might have been four or five. I found a perfectly good dollhouse at the Salvation Army and brought it home. I just loved dollhouses when I was a little girl, and I was hoping you and I could paint it and decorate it ourselves.”
Vanna piped up from the back seat where she was playing with Charlie. “I remember, Mama. You got one when we were—well, I don’t remember where we were living. But we started to work on it. You had all these little brochures with tiny furniture and stuff.”
“That’s right, sweetie. It was our favorite thing to do.”
Georgia asked, “Why a dollhouse?”
JoBeth turned back and settled herself. She looked through the windshield with a faraway expression. “I guess it’s because you can do whatever you want with a dollhouse. You can make it beautiful; put everything you ever imagined in there. It’s your dream house, you know? Nothing bad can ever happen inside. It’s perfect. Even when real life isn’t.” She shifted. “You can have a shingled roof, lights that actually turn on and off, even landscaping on the side. You can decorate it for holidays. I remember setting up a Christmas tree and stockings one year.” She smiled. “Nothing goes in a dollhouse that can destroy your dreams.” She swallowed. “Vanna and I played with it every day. Didn’t we?”
Slowly the image of a dollhouse materialized in Georgia’s mind. “I think I do remember,” she said quietly. “There was carpeting. But almost no furniture for some reason. That’s all I remember.”
JoBeth’s lips thinned, and her face grew taut. “Your father threw it in the dumpster.”
“Why?” Georgia looked over.
JoBeth was quiet for a moment. “He didn’t want it around crowding up the place.”
Vanna cut in. “Well, it wasn’t for him. Guys don’t do dollhouses.” She raised her voice to that high-pitched expression mothers always use with babies. “Right, Charlie dude? You get to play with trains and trucks and soldiers.”
Georgia knew there was more to the story.
JoBeth went on. “He claimed I was filling your head with garbage. ‘Life’s a bitch,’ he said, ‘and then you die.’ He said you needed to learn that early on. I shouldn’t be spinning dreams that would never come true. He threw it out when you and I were down in Georgia visiting my family.”
Bits and pieces of that trip came back to Georgia in kaleidoscopic images. Smoke and the aroma of barbecue in someone’s backyard. A table groaning with barbecued chicken, ribs, green bean casserole, biscuits, and, of course, peach pie. Grown-ups and kids around her own age, but they talked funny. Like they were slurring their words. It had been the first time she’d heard a southern accent from anyone beside her mother.
She didn’t recall much of her mother and father’s marriage. Except for the fights. She would run into her bedroom in their tiny bungalow every time one erupted and shove her pillow over her head until someone slammed out of their house and things quieted down. Then one day, her mother slammed the front door and never came back.