32
Harper
I run my finger over a rusty brass bin pull, trying to make out its intricate design. “How about this one?” I hold it up to show Ann.
We’re at one of my favorite stores in New Orleans. It’s an architectural salvage warehouse in Mid-City. Ricca’s has been around since the fifties; the family has made a business of going into homes that were scheduled for demolition and taking doors, windows, shutters, and every kind of hardware you can imagine, for resale. I like the idea of being able to keep a little bit of history of an old house when it can’t be saved. It’s a way of preserving Louisiana’s history, too. Whenever I need so much as a hinge for our house, this is the first place I come.
Ann and I shop here regularly. George owns an interior design company and even though Ann doesn’t work for him, she likes to shop for him. She enjoys finding interesting pieces of history he can incorporate into old and new homes. She also buys items for herself for her art. You never know what you’ll find at Ricca’s; our garden water fountain came from here.
Today Ann’s looking for drawer pulls and doorknobs to create a piece of artwork for a restaurant, using a door as her canvas. Apparently she’s going to attach all these old pieces of hardware onto a massive paneled door she bought here a few weeks ago. I’m having a difficult time imagining this piece of artwork, but I’m always game for a trip to Ricca’s. And I’m a little down in the dumps, as I always am around Mardi Gras. I’m hoping our outing will lift my spirits.
Ann studies the drawer pull I’m holding up for her through a pair of wild-looking readers that have faux jewels glued on them. Another piece of her artwork. “Put it in the maybe pile,” she instructs.
I go back to digging in the wooden box across from hers. “Jojo texted me as soon as they arrived at the campground last night. Then again this morning. It sounds as if she’s having a good time. She actually thanked me for making her take her hoodie.”
“Makayla talked to her briefly last night. She said the same thing.” Ann glances at me over the top of her wacky glasses. “Olivia’s a nice girl. Nice family. You did good, sweetie.”
I groan. “I can’t believe after the stink Jojo made over not going on vacation, on wanting to go to a parade, she just sashayed out of town.” I gesture with a cut-glass doorknob I’m adding to the definitely pile.
Ann laughs. “She’s fourteen. I’d expect no less of her.” She holds up a tiny knob that looks like some kind of bird. “Too weird?”
“Yes.”
She laughs and adds it to the definitely pile. “But Remy and Lilla are still going.”
I frown, looking at her. “Et tu, Brute?”
She meets my gaze. “She wants to be called Lilla.”
“I named her Georgina,” I counter firmly.
“You need to decide how important this is to you, sweetie. Because. . .” She holds up a pretty white glass doorknob and then adds it to the pile of yeses on top of an upended cardboard box. “I think you might get a lot of mileage giving in on this one. Couldn’t you just pretend it’s her nickname? I mean, I’m sure George’s mom doesn’t particularly like Skeeter, but that’s what everyone has always called him.”
“I should call Georgina by the name her abductor gave her?” I ask, knowing I shouldn’t be annoyed with her, but annoyed anyway.
She sighs and keeps digging. We’re both wearing disposable blue gloves I brought from the office. We’ll still feel like we need a shower when we get home. While the warehouse certainly isn’t dirty, it seems as if there’s a thin layer of dust and time over everything. The place has that distinct antique store smell, too. “I suppose I’m saying I think you should pick your battles.”
“And I have,” I say stubbornly. I hold up a drawer pull, reject it, and dig in again.
“Need any help, ladies?” a young woman asks, walking by us. She’s wearing a Ricca’s T-shirt.
“No thanks,” I say cheerfully.
“Holler if you do,” she sings, waving her hand over her head.
“So while we’re on the subject of Sharon Kohen,” I tell Ann when the employee’s gone, “listen to this. Georgina wants to go to the prison and see her.”
Ann looks up. “You’re kidding.”
I shake my head. “Indeed not.”
“You going to take her?”
I look at her as if she’s lost her mind. Which she has. “No!” I don’t mean to shout it, but it comes out that way.
A young woman considering a pair of shutters behind us looks at me; she has a tattoo of a python wrapped around her left leg. I force a smile. She walks on without returning the gesture.
“No,” I say more quietly. “I’m not taking her to see that woman. That woman is never going to see my daughter again. She’s never going to get her hands on her. She’s never going to—”
“You’re right about that,” Ann interrupts. She leans against a glass display case with a sign taped to it reading, Please do not lean against glass. “She’s never going to get her hands on her because she’s not even eligible for parole for what? Twenty? Thirty years?”
I suddenly feel tired. And old. I feel as if everyone thinks I’m crazy. Remy certainly does. My girls do. And I guess Ann, too. But I’m not crazy. It’s not crazy to want to use the name you gave your child at birth. It’s not crazy to want to keep her from the monster that kidnapped her.
“She hasn’t been sentenced yet.”
“What’s Remy say?”
I toss the pull in my hand back into the wooden bin and go to stand beside her. I decide to be a rebel and lean against the glass case. “I haven’t talked to him about it,” I admit. “I’m sure he’ll be all in for it, though.” I shouldn’t be sarcastic, but I can’t help myself. I’m irritated with him. Angry with him. He hasn’t been himself and I think, deep down, I’m scared. I keep thinking about our conversation on the porch last week. He brought up moving out and I can’t bear to think about the possibility. Not after all we’ve been through. Not now, now when Georgina’s come home to us. I’ve dreamed of this family, the four of us, for all these years, and now we have it and he wants to bail?
“Remy, he’s . . .” I scratch the back of my neck trying to figure out how to express what I’m feeling, which is hard because I’m not sure. Ann knows all about the porch conversation, but she and I haven’t talked in a couple of days, except to check kids’ schedules and make plans for today. Two ships passing in the night. Much like a long-married couple with teenagers. “I can’t figure out what’s going on in his head and he won’t tell me. All of a sudden he seems, I don’t know. Overwhelmed?”
“With work?”
“Yes. No.” I raise my blue latex-gloved hands and let them fall. “With me, with the girls. The house. But this is what worries me”—I turn to look at her—“things are better with us. With him and I. Since Georgina came home. Things are good. I’m good. I’m the one who made him nuts all these years and now I’m better. I’m so much better. I let Jojo go out of town with a girlfriend. Me.”
“You are better,” Ann agrees.
“I think about all the things Remy had to put up with all these years,” I go on. “How many times he got me through a holiday . . . or just an ordinary day.” I gesture with both hands, pleading. “How can he be overwhelmed now?”
She’s quiet for a moment, then she says softly, “Do you think he’s seeing someone?”
I cross my arms over my chest. I stare at a beautiful stained-glass window hanging from wire from the ceiling. It’s a bargain at $325. “He said he isn’t.”
“Do you think he’s seeing someone?” she repeats.
“No.” I shake my head slowly. “I don’t.” I give a halfhearted laugh. “He couldn’t possibly have time between work and home and now we’re doing this family counseling thing and . . .” I sigh.
Ann steps back up to the bin she was looking through. She’s quiet. Which worries me.
I move to stand across the wood box from her. “Do you know something I don’t?”
She shakes her head.
“Ann?” It’s a plea.
She looks up. “I don’t know anything about what Remy is doing or not doing.”
“But you guys are close.”
“Not like we used to be,” she says thoughtfully. “Certainly not since Georgina came home. We had pizza together that one night when you guys came over, but I haven’t really seen him.”
“I suppose we haven’t really seen much of each other, have we? As a family. Not like we used to.” I think about it for a moment. “I suppose we’ve just been busier—you know, having Georgina home. Increasing our family by twenty-five percent.”
“Technically, you’ve increased it by fifty percent. Because Remy came home.”
“Right.” I pick up several pieces of hardware and reject them for different reasons. I think about what Remy said about us needing to tell Georgina about the divorce. I agree that we need to tell her, but how do you have that conversation? “Oh, by the way, honey, your dad doesn’t really live here. He and I aren’t really married.”
I find an interesting little knob that’s made of cut glass and add it to the growing pile Ann’s purchasing. “I’m thinking about going back to the church choir.” Before Georgina came back to us, I was singing in the choir. And I liked it. I liked getting out of the house one night a week for practice. Jojo would always go hang out with Makayla. Once in a while she’d have dinner with Remy. “And book club. I skipped book club twice in a row.”
Ann looks up. “That’s a good idea. You need to do things for yourself. You can’t always be about Remy and the girls and work.”
I hold a little metal bar in my hand, not really looking at it. “I have to be there at six, and Remy’s not always home by then, but . . . I’m sure Georgina and Jojo would be okay home alone for a little while. Together.”
“I’m sure they would be,” she says, smiling at me. “You know you’re right. What you said about you being good. Because you are, Harper. You’re great. And . . . with or without Remy, you can parent your girls. You can be a good parent. A great parent.”
I lower my head stubbornly. She and I have had conversations about my faith-related beliefs in marriage, but we’re not always on the same page with that. I try a different tack. “I don’t want to be a single parent, Ann. The girls deserve two parents. Who live together. You’ve seen him with them. He’s a great parent.”
“He is,” she agrees, holding my gaze. “I’m just saying I don’t want you to think again that you can’t do it without him. Because you can.”
I touch my fingertips to the crucifix around my neck and pray it doesn’t come to that.