Chapter 39

Julia

Wednesday morning I wake slowly in Laney’s bed, drifting in the warmth and coziness of her flannel sheets and down quilt that smell like lavender. After taking two days off to spend with us, Laney went back to work this morning. We spoke briefly at six a.m., making tentative dinner plans, and then I rolled over and, miracle of miracles, I went back to sleep.

I open my eyes slowly, enjoying the quiet of the house. Laney’s boys are in school and I imagine Haley and Izzy are still asleep. I turn my head and glance at the digital clock on the chintz-covered night table. It’s 8:40. I reach my hands over my head and stretch. I’ve gotten nine hours of sleep and I actually feel rested. I can’t remember the last time I felt this good, waking up. Or this relaxed.

We’ve had such a good time these last couple days. That’s not to say every minute has been sunshine and roses. We’ve had some thunderclouds: the incident when Izzy tipped the canoe while trying to hit her sister with a paddle for instance. Which ended up turning out well because by the time Laney and I reached them (me about to have an apoplexy), they were climbing into the canoe, and Izzy was talking to Haley.

Yesterday morning Haley and I got into a heated argument. She wanted to walk to the bakery and get doughnuts for everyone. Aunty Em’s makes fresh doughnuts every morning, but once they’re gone, they’re gone for the day. It was nice of Haley to want to go get everyone doughnuts, but I didn’t want her going alone. What if she tried to take off? She accused me of punishing her for the frank conversation we’d had the night before about her having sex. Sex with anyone. She insisted it was her body and it was her choice, even if she made bad choices.

I didn’t let her go for the doughnuts. But I did apologize later and I promised to try to look at her more as an adult than I have. I also told her we’d revisit the subject of the sex. I warned her she would always be my daughter and I wasn’t going to be able to stop being her mom, but she had a point. I can be the mom of an adult child, too, which means I need to accept that I might not always agree with her choices. All I want, ultimately, is for her to be happy and healthy, and I have to keep that in mind when I make criticisms.

My gaze drifts to the double windows covered with blue and green chintz curtains. Laney’s bedroom is so girly that it tickles me because she’s not really a girly person. Her idea of makeup is Burt’s Bees lip balm, and she can burp on cue louder than any man I’ve ever known.

I’ve always kept neutral desert tones and simple patterns in our bedroom because no man likes sleeping on flowered sheets. But I love the floral patterns and fluffy bed linens and throw pillows that are lying all over the floor right now. Laney even has a scarf thrown over one of the bedside lamps so that at night, it throws off pretty, subdued light. It’s so bohemian.

My gaze drifts to the window again. The morning light slips through the narrow opening between the chintz curtains, falling to the honey-colored floorboards and making a bright pattern on the bed. I close my eyes and let the warmth of the sunlight bathe my face. How is it that the sun in Vegas seems like my enemy and here . . . it gives me a sense of peace? Of renewal.

Renewal. An interesting choice of words.

I get out of bed slowly, rolling the word around in my head. On the tip of my tongue. I even say it. “Renewal.” The state of being fresh or new.

Is that what this place is doing for me? Is it renewing me?

I go into the bathroom and do my thing and come back to the bedroom to get dressed, thinking I’ll go get doughnuts for my girls. A peace offering of sorts to Haley.

When I got in my car in Vegas and started east, I thought the change of scenery would be good for Haley. I thought she needed to get out of the house so full of Caitlin and out of town and its bad influences. But it hadn’t occurred to me that maybe I needed to get out of the house as much as she did. And when I pulled away from the curb, the first time for sure, I thought Izzy was fine. As adjusted as any ten-year-old could be, having just lost a sibling. But spending time with Izzy, especially since we’ve arrived here, tells me she was just coping better than Haley and I were. Izzy needed this journey too.

In jeans and one of Laney’s many plaid flannel shirts, this one in citrus colors, I sit down on the edge of the bed to put my shoes on. I keep going to the bright pink sneakers I took from Caitlin’s room the night before we left. I realize they’re supposed to be running shoes; I’ve actually toyed with the idea of taking up running. But I keep putting them on because I get some sort of comfort from them. I know it’s nonsensical, but it feels good to have a part of Caitlin with me, a part that doesn’t hurt so much.

I slip one sneaker on and then the other, and raise my foot to the edge of the bed to tie the laces. It’s not that I’m not hurting anymore. Maine and this town, this house, aren’t a magic elixir. But I really do feel better here. And I think my girls do too.

In the front hall, I slip on one of Laney’s goose-down vests and tuck my wallet into the pocket. I’m still thinking about what making this trip has done for me when, on my way to the bakery, I reach the fried chicken restaurant that went out of business. I stop at the window and cup my hands around my face to look inside, just the way Izzy did the night we arrived.

I think about Haley joking about having a café and selling Ben burgers.

It’s a crazy idea.

The chicken place couldn’t make it here. What would make me think I could successfully run a business here? I don’t know anything about running a restaurant.

But I know a lot about cost-effectiveness, gross and net profits and overhead. I know numbers.

I stare through the glass at the little café tables inside and then the long counter that looks like it’s a repurposed saloon bar. A counter like that could mean no waitstaff costs. There’s a big red, white, and blue sign behind the counter advertising what chicken meals were available, but I imagine a huge chalkboard with menu selections and information about where, locally, the ingredients came from.

I doubt it would be difficult to do well through the summer months. The town is packed during the tourist season and there’s no café-type restaurant in town. Most of the restaurants are upscale. The trick would be not only to lure townies in the off-season, but to offer good enough food that people from surrounding towns would come for a Ben burger, or a grilled veggie ciabatta roll.

I take a step back, looking at the door. I imagine myself walking through it, saying good morning to staff.

It’s a totally unfeasible idea. I walk away.

Ben will never agree to move. He’d have to sell his portion of the lawn business back to his family.

But he’s always said he hated the lawn-care business. “Who needs lawn care in the damned desert?” he always says.

We used to dream about opening a café together, he and I.

I stare at the storefront. It really is a crazy idea. But maybe it’s not. I have the money my mother left me. My stepfather’s dirty money. Would this be a way to make it clean? I always thought one day when I did spend it, it would be for my children.

This café would be for my children. Maybe I can’t put the pieces of our life back together in Las Vegas, but maybe I could do it here. Maybe I . . . we, Ben and I, could build a new life for our family here. Maybe I’ve been thinking about this all wrong for the last two months. My life can never be what it was going to be, with Caitlin gone, but maybe it can be something else. Something I didn’t anticipate. Something good. Just not in the way I thought it would be good.

I smile to myself.

Ben’s flying into Portland tomorrow afternoon. Maybe he and I can go out for dinner, and go for a walk afterward, the way we used to before he started sleeping in his recliner at night. Before our daughter died. There’s a seafood restaurant around the corner from the bakery that he loves; we always go there when he comes to Maine with us. If he’s open to the idea of the café, at least in discussing it, we could even come by here and I could show him the place. He might have some great ideas. We could just start with breakfasts and lunches. Ben makes an amazing cranberry buttermilk pancake that Caitlin adapted to use fresh and organic ingredients. Anything cranberry sells well in the land of cranberries.

I check out the little sign in the window with the name of the Realtor to call about renting the space. I don’t have a pen with me, but I’ll remember the number. I think I’ll call when I get back to the house. Just to see how much the monthly rent is. Just to see if this is even realistic . . . before I bring up the idea to Ben.

As I walk the last block to the bakery, I think about our café. I go back and forth between telling myself it’s the most outrageous idea I’ve ever come up with, and thinking it’s brilliant.

At the bakery, I order a huge caramel latte for myself, and half a dozen doughnuts that are still warm when I walk back into Laney’s house.

 

“He’s never going to go for it, Mom,” Haley tells me, gazing out the window.

She agreed to ride to the airport with me to pick up her father even though she really didn’t want to. She’s been very indifferent about her dad since we left Las Vegas. Not in an antagonistic way. More in a philosophical way, and it has me worried. It’s like she’s disengaged herself emotionally from him.

But as Laney has pointed out to me several times over the last couple of days, I can’t expect Haley to change overnight back to the kid I knew. Or back to the kid I’ve got in my head that she was before Caitlin died. And how can I complain about her attitude with her father when she broke through Izzy’s wall and has her little sister talking to her again?

“You think the café’s a bad idea?” I ask Haley.

It’s raining today and visibility is poor. I’m glad we left a little early because 95 will be heavy with after-work traffic.

“I didn’t say it was a bad idea. I’m saying Dad isn’t going to move to Maine and open an organic café with us.”

I grip the wheel. The windshield wipers are whooshing rhythmically. “Do you think we could do it?” I glance at her, and then back at the road.

She’s been wearing the same jeans and Laney’s green polar fleece since we arrived. I wonder if she’d be open to going clothes shopping. She looks good in the green top. I like seeing her in a color other than black.

She has the pink ball in her hand. I haven’t seen her bouncing it this week, but I do see her take it from her pocket and roll it between her fingers sometimes like a talisman.

“I could work the register,” Haley tells me. “I know how to do that. But I’d like to make sandwiches, too. Maybe come up with some new things on the menu. Seasonal stuff.”

“Like what?” I ask.

She actually sounds enthusiastic as she talks. It’s been too long since I’ve heard that in her voice. Usually she sounds so . . . flat.

“Like . . . in the fall we could do a turkey wrap with fresh cranberry sauce and walnuts. Maybe make a salad with apples and pears in it. At Christmas we could do peppermint hot chocolate with fresh whole milk from the dairy and . . . and something crazy like a sandwich with goose or duck and call it the Christmas Carol special.”

I smile at the idea, impressed with her off-the-cuff creativity. “But you’d have to finish high school. And some sort of culinary classes at a local college would be smart.”

She shrugs. “Maybe a business class or two? We’d have to do some research into what kind of organic food is easy to get around here. We’d be smart to start with a small menu and work our way up to a bigger one. If we wanted. Or maybe we’d offer half a dozen sandwiches and burgers, a couple of salads and just make them amazing, so amazing that people can’t wait to come back and try something else.”

“It would be a lot of work.” I turn up the speed of the windshield wipers because it’s really raining hard now. “Long days, at least to start out. And there would be no way we could open the doors before we had every step of the plan laid out.”

She turns to look at me. “How much do you think it would cost? How would we pay for it?”

“Well,” I say. “I’ve been thinking about that. We could use that money I inherited from my mother as the start-up money. Of course we’d also have to be sure we had enough money to live on until the place started becoming profitable. Something like this isn’t easy to do.”

“You have that much money?”

The girls know I inherited money, but I’ve never discussed how much there is. The amount would sound astronomical to them, but of course that’s because they’ve never made a mortgage payment or paid an electric bill in their lives; they have no idea what things cost. “I think I’d have enough to get us started.”

“Wow,” Haley breathes. “It would be so cool to take an empty store like that and make it a place people lined up to get into.”

I see her rest her hand on her forearm.

“How’s your arm?” I ask casually, keeping an eye out for our turn.

She hesitates, then pushes up her sleeve. “I took off all the bandages. It hurt,” she says, “but I just ripped them off.” She touches several bumpy scabs. “I think it’s looking better since I left it open to the air.”

I think about our emotional wounds and the parallel. We’ve sort of ripped the bandages off. It hurt, but now that they’re in the open air . . .

“Have you felt like you wanted to do it again?” I ask, taking care not to allow any judgment to resound in my voice.

It’s raining cats and dogs now. Traffic is getting heavier. Everyone seems like they’re in a rush this afternoon, except for us. I’m not in a hurry to get to the airport. I’m not in a hurry to have the discussions Ben and I need to have.

“I’ve thought about it, but not enough to do it.” She looks at me as she pushes down her sleeve. “I don’t know how to explain it, but I never wanted to do it, Mom. It just . . . I just . . . did it.”

I look at her and smile. I can’t tell her I understand completely because I don’t, but I want her to know that I empathize with her. I exit the road, following the signs to Interstate 95/Maine Turnpike South. We’ll be at the airport in fifteen minutes.

I glance over my shoulder as we get to the bottom of the ramp and I start to merge. I’m just turning my head to say something to Haley when I hear someone lay on the horn behind me and brakes squeal. I jerk the wheel and a big white utility truck goes flying past me, still laying on the horn.

“Oh my God,” I murmur. My heart is pounding as I ease back onto the interstate.

I look at Haley. She’s pale, paler even than usual. “Are you okay?” My heart is pounding in my ears. “Haley?”

She looks at me. “That truck almost hit us.” Her voice is shaky.

“I’m sorry.” I feel shaky. That was way too close a call. “I didn’t see the truck. I don’t know where he came from.”

Haley turns her head slowly to look out into the driving rain and I see her reflection in the window. She hasn’t asked to drive since the accident. I wonder if my near-miss brought back all the memories. “Are you all right?” I ask. “Do you need me to get off the interstate and pull over?”

She shakes her head. I can’t read her face. “Let’s just get Dad and go home.”