Hours later, when I opened my bedroom door, Jane was gone and Vanessa was sitting downstairs sipping a Big Gulp. As soon as I started down the steps, Vanessa clicked off the television and ran up to me.
“Hey there, Sleeping Beauty. You’ll really have to give me the 411 on this place sometime. Why don’t you have any furniture?”
“What the hell are you doing here? Where’s Jane?”
“Hello to you, too.” Vanessa took my arm and tried to help me down the stairs as if I were an invalid. “She had to go. Is she your aunt or something? I take it you two were supposed to go shopping, but… something came up?”
“What did she tell you?”
“Not enough.” It was obviously killing Vanessa to not know what was going on. “She called me an hour or so ago and said you’d had a shock and she didn’t think you should be alone. Apparently I was the only person programmed into your cell phone. I’m flattered, but that is pretty pathetic.”
I pushed her off. “I just got that phone yesterday. And the only reason you are programmed into it is because you put the number in there yourself.”
“Do you need to lie down? Can I get you something to drink?”
I got a Coke out of the fridge and pressed it to my forehead. “I’m fine.”
Vanessa followed me into the kitchen. “So it’s not the cancer coming back?” She opened one cabinet and then another. “You’re okay?”
“My mother’s husband showed up and… and…”
Vanessa stopped snooping around the kitchen and looked at me hard. I wanted her to stop.
“And?”
Where to begin? “I guess my Mama died a few weeks ago and her husband wanted me to sign some papers and…” My voice quavered and my hands began to shake again as Dale’s lecherous face appeared in front of my eyes. “And… and I really hate that guy. I can’t tell you how much I Really. Hate. Him.” It was like expelling toxic gas just to say the words.
Vanessa took the soda from my hand and thoughtfully placed it on the counter. She cautiously stepped closer and put her arms around me. Vanessa hugged me for several awkwardly long minutes before she whispered in my ear, “It’s okay, honey. I think I understand. We won’t let him hurt you again.”
“What? I didn’t say anything about—”
“Lara, honey, you don’t have to say it. I saw the go bag in your car when I drove it over here that time. I recognized the way you’re always looking over your shoulder. I know the sound of fear in your voice whenever you answer the phone.”
“You knew?”
“We’re like alcoholics, we can spot each other at twenty paces.”
“You?”
“My stepbrother.” Vanessa rummaged through the lower cabinets. “It sounds like your family should hang out with my family. I’m sorry your mother passed away.”
“I’m not.”
Vanessa shooed me aside and looked in the fridge. “That Jane lady was right to call me. Do you think he’ll come back? Do you want to get a restraining order?”
“I don’t think so. Jane scared him off pretty good.”
“That’s the spirit! Screw him!”
“No thank you.”
Vanessa swatted me on the arm. “Do you actually live here? There is no food.”
“There’s breakfast stuff. And you know I eat at Lucky Lee’s every night.”
“Still. What do you say we get a pizza?” She stepped into the bathroom and put on some lipstick. “We can stop on the way back and get a bottle of tequila and some limes,” she called from the bathroom. “We’ll make some margaritas. Swap stories.” For once, I was thankful that Vanessa was so nosey.
Hours later, Vanessa passed out on the couch. I curled up in my bed and stared at the ceiling. Thoughts were coming at me too fast to register one before I was confronted by another. Mama is dead.
She died of cancer.
I have cancer. My grandparents both died of cancer.
Grammy and PawPaw wanted me. They left me everything they had.
Mama is dead.
Mama knew PawPaw left me his stocks and never told me. Mama let Dale rape me. Mama knew about the money and still let Dale hurt me. Mama lied about not having any money and needing to stay with Dale.
Mama is dead.
***
The next morning I woke up face down in the center of my bed. My mouth tasted like I had been chewing on cotton balls. I rolled over. The morning sun reflected off my grandmother’s silver necklace still around my neck and cast rainbows on the ceiling. Knowing my grandparents loved me buoyed me, but I couldn’t stay afloat long. The possibility of Dale coming back weighed me down.
I snuck down the stairs, careful to not wake Vanessa, to retrieve the pile of papers and Mama’s crumpled note from the floor. I went into the living room and laid them out on the floor in front of the windows. I needed to understand what they meant. I smoothed out the piece of notebook paper. I could hear Mama’s cigarette ravaged voice in my head as I read:
Larissa,
I hoped I would see you in person but now I don’t think that’s going to happen. I’ve got the cancer just like Mama and Daddy. It’s in my stomach and the doctors don’t think I have too much time left. I called you, but you didn’t talk to me, so I made Dale promise to give you this when the time comes.
I’m sorry, baby. I made a lot of mistakes in life but the biggest was letting Dale ever touch you. I was real young when I had you and I guess I thought you needed to learn the ways of the world early so you didn’t end up like me. I should of known you were better than that. You were always so smart reading those big books. Dale says you’re too smart for your own good, but he don’t know the half of it. I was real proud when I found all those empty Mason jars. I don’t know how much you got, but I hope it was enough. Remember, I fixed it so he didn’t know. That’s all I’ll say.
All the things in this box are yours. Daddy gave it to me before he died and I was keeping it until you were grown. When you left that day, I never thought you wouldn’t never come back.
I hope you have a good life.
Mama
I refolded the note and put it down beside the box. Her words meant nothing. I felt nothing but emptiness.
Then I remembered that Mama was actually dead now. A sense of relief spread through my chest. Maybe the world isn’t as cruel a place as I had thought? Mama had taken pleasure in telling me that I had no one else in the world and that my grandparents had thrown me out as so much human garbage. That was not true. They did want me. They had turned their backs on their daughter, or perhaps simply grew tired of her antics, but they wanted me. They loved me.
Mama was such a pathetic liar. I am not all alone in the world. Jane thinks I’m a valuable person or she wouldn’t have defended me against Dale. She could have just driven away yesterday, and she didn’t. She even left a message while Vanessa and I were out to see how I was doing. She didn’t have to do that.
Slow footsteps advanced behind me. They stopped every few steps, then resumed. My first thought was that Dale was back. Oh no, he’s killed Vanessa and is going to kill me now. The footsteps stopped then started again.
“I made tea,” Vanessa said. “Careful walking to the kitchen. I spilled a couple of times.”
Vanessa set a steaming cup on the floor beside me and plopped down. “What do you say? Brunch at O’Reilly’s? You look like you could use a mimosa and some French toast.”
***
Two hours and three mimosas later, Vanessa pointed a waffle-laden fork at me. “You know what you need? A good man to help you forget all that shit that happened to you back in New Hampshire.”
“I don’t see that happening, Vanessa. I’m damaged goods.” I took a bite of strawberry blintz and savored the creamy fruit laced filling. I wished Jane were with us to enjoy the food. “Anyway, Jane says I need to stand on my own two feet. That I need to claim my power, whatever that means.” I filled my fork again. “Then again, she did give me a hard time about the flirty guy in the bike shop.”
“Guy? Bike shop? What guy in the bike shop?”
“We start training for the bike portion of the race next week. Remember?”
Vanessa rolled her eyes and took a huge bite of fried chicken.
“Liam gave me the name of a bike shop near Jane’s house in Northwoods. So when I told her how this Evan guy was totally coming on to me, she was like, ‘Maybe he likes you.’”
Vanessa chewed for a moment. “I don’t get it. You expected him to run you out of his shop with a ratchet wrench?”
I laughed at the idea of Evan chasing me through the maze of bicycles with a wrench. “I guess not.”
“So what kind of bike did you get?”
“Yellow.”
“Do they come in orange?”
“This guy, Evan, said it was the right kind of bike for what we’d be doing. He’s even fitting it with a special seat for me.”
Vanessa licked her lips. “You mean you haven’t picked it up yet? Why don’t we go over there and get it?”
“I don’t know. It’s all the way over in Northwoods.”
“How were you going to get it home? In the back of your bug? We have my truck.”
“I don’t think—”
“I need to buy a bike too, don’t I? You could help me pick one out.”
I realized there was no way I was going to get out of taking Vanessa to meet Evan. “Fine. We’ll go.”
Cosmic Cycles was thankfully empty when Vanessa and I arrived. Evan was again working in his workshop at the back. I recognized Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me playing on the boom box. “Hey,” he called and walked toward us.
“You didn’t say he was gorgeous,” Vanessa whispered. Evan was tall and lean with a shaved head, not what I would call gorgeous. Striking maybe.
“Is my bike ready yet?”
“Sure is. And who is this pretty lady?”
Oh my god, what a horn dog. “Vanessa needs a bike. She’s doing the Women’s Cancer Race, too.”
“Can I get an orange bike?” Vanessa said, batting her heavy lashes.
“You can if you want to,” Evan said with a broad smile. I couldn’t take it. I walked over to a rack of padded bike shorts and loudly clacked the hangers around the rack to drown out the sound of Vanessa making a fool of herself. Twenty minutes later, we left with two bicycles, matching black and teal bike shorts, and Evan’s phone number.
“How can you flirt with men like that after what your stepbrother did to you?”
Vanessa didn’t respond right away. I sensed she was biting back one of her sassy remarks. “You really should get some counseling, honey. I’ve seen a slew of therapists. Some good, some not so good. One lady told me the best revenge is living well. I know that’s true. I can’t let what Derrick did to me hold me back.” She roared up an on-ramp. “I can hook you up with a support group if you want.”
“Oh my god, Vanessa. I couldn’t talk about Dale to total strangers.”
“They wouldn’t be strangers anymore once you talked to them.”