Julia's Daughters

I drift in the airy place between being asleep and awake. I know I’m not asleep anymore because I feel the warmth of Izzy’s hand on my stomach and I hear the rush of air from the air vent near the window. I don’t open my eyes because then I’ll have to come fully awake and deal with . . . with everything going on in this room and beyond it.

My thoughts drift.

It’s almost Haley’s birthday. I haven’t gotten her a gift. I haven’t even thought about it and she hasn’t mentioned it. No one in our house has. I guess we’ve been kind of busy. She’ll be eighteen on May 11.

I remember being almost eighteen. Thinking I was an adult. Being frustrated that no one, especially my parents, would treat me that way. Of course, looking back, I certainly wasn’t behaving very maturely.

I think about the day I jumped out of my stepfather’s car. I could have been seriously hurt. And then I was gone three days. Eventually I realized I had to go home. I had to finish my senior year of high school. I needed food and a place to sleep and do my homework. I’d already been accepted to Cal State in Bakersfield. If I wanted to go the following fall and have my parents at least help pay for my education, I had to make nice with my mom. That meant making nice with my stepdad. Apologizing. Saying whatever I had to say, do whatever I had to do to get back in their good graces.

When I walked back into the house after being gone those three days, I remember Mom being in the kitchen. She had been playing golf. She was still wearing a white visor. She looked up when I came in the door. She didn’t run to hug me. She didn’t even look all that glad to see me. Or relieved I was okay. I remember how heartbroken I was. She hadn’t called a single one of my friends asking if anyone had seen me. I had told myself that she hadn’t called anyone because she didn’t want to be embarrassed by the idea that her seventeen-year-old had run away from her nice house on the nice lot on the golf course. That she knew I was okay and she knew I’d turn up.

But when my mom saw me when I walked into our kitchen, she looked disappointed. Like she’d been hoping I wouldn’t turn up.

“You’re in a lot of trouble, girly.” That’s what she said. That was all she said.

Growing up, I always believed my mother loved me. In her own way, I used to tell myself. I made excuses for her. Things were hard after my dad left. When she met Francis, it was a stroke of luck for her. But being married to him was difficult. He was a hard man to please. It was only natural that he took priority over me. I was just a little girl. And when I got older, I was difficult. I was moody and I didn’t always make the best choices. It wasn’t until college that I became the Goody-Two-shoes my daughters have accused me of being.

I wonder if my poor relationship with my mother is why I’m not doing a better job with Haley right now. But I’ve tried so hard to not be my mother. To be involved in my girls’ lives. Shoot, I’ve devoted myself so much to my girls that I don’t have a personal life. And my marriage is certainly not doing all that hot.

My mother was so strict with me . . . or rather my stepfather was and my mother always did as he said. I wonder if that made me too lenient with my girls. Is that why Haley’s such a mess? Is this my fault, somehow?

Or am I just overthinking this whole thing?

And does it matter how we got here?

I lift my hand over my head and stretch. I slept surprisingly well last night, considering the weight of my woes. It was nice to have Izzy snuggled against me. And the cat.

I roll over slowly. I’m actually looking forward to today. We’re going to cross Colorado through the mountains, through the Arapaho National Forest, and into Nebraska. With my merry band. I’m thinking we might delve right in today, once I’d had my coffee. We need to talk about the night Caitlin died. The details are blurry to me because I was in such shock. I wonder if they’re blurry to Haley. Does she want to talk about it? Maybe not. And that’s okay, but I feel like I should give her the opportunity.

I open my eyes and I see Haley’s form in the bed. Then I realize her head is not on the pillow and she’s not in her bed. It’s just the way the blanket and bedspread are rolled up. I feel a flutter of panic in my chest and I sit up, eyeing the bathroom door. It’s closed.

The clock says it’s 8:15.

I throw my feet over the side of the bed and walk toward the door. I’m wearing a T-shirt I packed and a pair of Izzy’s sleep pants. SpongeBob of all things. I don’t know how I forgot to pack anything to sleep in. “Haley?” I whisper.

At the bathroom door, I tap lightly. I don’t want to wake Izzy. “Haley?”

It’s closed, but not all the way. She doesn’t answer. I don’t hear any water running. I hate to cross any lines of privacy. My mother used to do that and it really upset me, but—“Haley?” I hear the slightest hint of panic in my voice.

Again, no answer. I push the door open. No Haley. I open the shower curtain. No Haley.

My heart hammering, I grab the room key off the desk as I yank the front door open. I don’t take the time to wake Izzy. I run out into the hall in bright yellow PJ bottoms, a bubblegum pink T-shirt, and no bra.

No Haley in the hall, either.

There’s a breakfast buffet. Maybe she went down to the lobby for a cup of orange juice. I push the call button on the elevator. Then I push it a second time and a third when the elevator doesn’t respond fast enough to suit me.

As the doors finally open, I hear Izzy calling me from the doorway of our room. “Mom? Where are you going?”

“Coffee. Stay in the room.” The elevator doors begin to close and I step in.

“But, Mom, there’s a—”

“Go back in the room, Izzy!”

The doors shut and the elevator begins to drop. On the first floor, I race out the doors before they open completely. The breakfast area is just off the lobby. There are a dozen people helping themselves to hard-boiled eggs, cold cereal, and pastries. No Haley. I force myself not to run.

Off the lobby, I check the ladies’ bathroom. All three stalls. Not there, either.

Now I feel like my heart is going to burst out of my chest. Where is she? Where’s my daughter? How could I have been so stupid? I should have slept on the floor in front of the door. I should have figured out a way to keep her from taking off. I should have known she was going to do this. I should have stayed home like Ben wanted me to. I should have stayed in bed with the blanket over my head.

No. I couldn’t have stayed home. We couldn’t have stayed there. We had to do this. We had to get away from the house and all the sadness there.

There’s no way I could have known Haley would leave the hotel room. Where the hell would she go? We’re in Colorado. She doesn’t know anyone in Colorado. And yesterday, at least by the afternoon, she had seemed . . . if not enthusiastic, at least tolerant of the idea of making this trip.

The cool morning air hits me as I rush out the front doors and come to a halt under a white and green canopy. The pneumatic doors whoosh and click behind me. No Haley. No Haley on the benches near the door. No Haley in the circle drive. Someone is parked in front of the door; a man is loading suitcases into the back of his minivan. I can hear children’s voices drifting from inside the van.

The car. It’s the only place I can think to look. After that? I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do.

I run barefoot, in my daughter’s pajama pants, along the front of the hotel. The pavement is cool on my feet; there are loose stones that hurt. We parked in the side parking lot. We used that side door, with our passkey, to get in last night after we had dinner.

I fly around the corner, looking for my little SUV. There are more cars in the parking lot than there were last night and it takes me a second to orient myself. I spot my car in the third row, but it’s partially obscured by a white pickup truck.

I run into the parking lot and behind the row of cars. As I come around the white truck, I stop abruptly. Haley’s lying on the hood of my car reading a tattered copy of To Kill a Mockingbird.

“Haley,” I say, coming around the car.

She looks me up and down, taking in the pajamas and bare feet I’m sure, then back at her book. She’s leaning back against my windshield, legs stretched out like she’s lying in a lounge chair. “School property,” she says, indicating the paperback. “I guess I should return it.”

I can’t catch my breath. I lean forward, panting. “What—are—you—doing—out—here?” I manage.

“You thought I left?” She says it quietly, putting the book down on the hood.

I stand up and meet her gaze. My heart is still pounding in my chest. I feel light-headed. But I’m so relieved. I’m so thankful to see Haley’s inky black hair that I don’t even care that it looks like she dyed it with shoe polish. “Did you leave?” I ask her.

She holds my gaze for a long moment. “I’m here, right?”

A dark spot on her sleeve catches my eye and I stare at it. It’s the arm she cuts and I’m pretty certain that splotch I see is blood.

She looks down at her arm and touches the wet shirt. Then she looks up at me.

“Oh, Haley,” I breathe. “Did you—”

“Only a little bit.” She speaks in a single exhalation and I see the pain in her eyes. Pain that hurts me so deeply that I feel wobbly on my legs.

I take a step toward her. I want to ask her what she used to cut herself, but it doesn’t seem right to ask. What does it matter?

“It’s not bad,” she says. I can tell she’s upset.

I’m still staring at her arm. “Let me see, Haley. Will you let me look at it?”

She hesitates and then slowly pushes up her sleeve. I immediately see a piece of bloody white gauze. Fresh blood.

Slowly she peels back the gauze and I see two wet wounds, but they’re the same ones I saw Sunday and they’re not actively bleeding anymore. Just oozing a little. It looks like she just dug at the old ones; there are no new cuts.

I fight my panic, trying to tell myself this is good. No new wounds. This is actually good. “You should clean that up and put fresh gauze over it. Maybe get some big Band-Aids next time we stop at a store, like the kind for skinned knees,” I say, keeping my voice even. Then I look at her as she pushes down her sleeve to cover the bloody bandage. “You okay?”

She hangs her head. But then she nods, and looks up at me. “I think I’m okay.”

I have so many questions, but I sense this isn’t the time to ask them. It may even be years before I can. I need to be in the moment, though. I need to say and do the right thing at this moment. “I want you to tell me when you feel like you want to do this. Can you try and do that? Can you tell me?”

“Okay,” she whispers.

And the way she says it makes me think maybe she will. She has a long way to go, but there’s something in her eyes this morning that I haven’t seen since Caitlin’s death. Life?

“What’s going on?” Izzy appears from between two parked cars. She’s in her PJ bottoms and bare feet, too. “Are we at least getting dressed before we go?”

I stand there, hands on my hips, still trying to catch my breath, and laugh out loud.