Broken Pieces: A Novel (16 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

As wonderful as our weekend had been, Ella came home from school on Monday in a mood that suggested either her hormones had gone wild or she’d had a really bad day. Based on what little I knew about nine-year-olds, I went with the latter.

Sydney had spent much of the day in bed, after a long night battling nausea. She slept now, and I did my best to keep Ella and her mood contained to the sitting room.

“I wish we never came here,” she said, keeping her voice low, but angry, in a manner that suggested she’d had plenty of practice not waking up her mother. “She was fine before we came here. Fine.”

Tears streamed down her face, her cheeks flushed a deep red. “Now she’s tired all the time, and her hair’s falling out again.” She pointed her finger at me. “It’s your fault. You didn’t even want us here, and now she’s sick.”

Ella’s every word hit me like a slap, spot-on in her accusations.

Her mother was sick. Just like my mother had been.

She was tired all the time. Just like mine had been.

I understood the anger and remembered the heartbreak, but instead of trying to soothe Ella, I unleashed the hurt and the sorrow and the disbelief I’d buried for most of my life.

“You’d better stop and think about who you’re talking to. I opened my home to you, Ella. I can’t control your mother’s illness any more than I could control my mom’s. Do you honestly think I want to go through this again? Do you?”

Guilt slammed me as soon as I spoke the words, but they were true. I didn’t want to go through this again—the hell of watching someone I loved dying.

She narrowed her eyes on me, hitting me with a glare that chilled me to the core. “You probably wish she was dead already so you could send me away.”

“No,” I said, suddenly realizing how I’d sounded. “Don’t ever say that again.”

“Why?” Her eyes blazed. “Because it’s true? You don’t care about us. You invited us here because you felt sorry for us, and now you’re probably just waiting to get back to your opera house work, right?”

Yes!
I screamed internally.
Yes, I did invite you here because I felt sorry for you, and yes, I’d love to run to the opera house or my shop and simply hide.

Instead I said, “Stop it. Stop it right now.”

But was she right? Was I as bad as my father had been, back when he’d disappear to New York or to a regional dinner-theater performance as my mother lay fighting for her life?

His job had come first.

His wife had been dying, and his job had come first.

No,
I assured myself. I had to work, and I thought I’d done a pretty decent job of keeping all my balls in the air.

“You’re not being fair,” I said, thinking I could reason with an angry, emotional child.

Ella picked up a pillow and hurled it at me. When I ducked, the pillow missed its mark, sending the photos of my mother and grandmother crashing to the floor. Glass shattered, shards flying in every direction. Slivers glistened in the carpet, beneath the end table, in the far corners of the room.

Ella ran, racing away from me and the echoes of our argument.

“Get back here right now and clean this up,” I shouted. But she’d gone, vanishing up the stairs.

Her bedroom door slammed, and I wrapped my arms around my waist, hot tears stinging at the back of my eyes.

You don’t love us at all.

Her words screamed through my mind.

I did love them, even though I’d once vowed to never love anyone again.

I’d let Sydney and Ella into my heart. They were part of me now.

My family.

That realization slammed me to my knees.

I could hear her in the distance, sobbing, the sound a knife to my heart.

What the hell was wrong with me? How had I come to this place of anger? Even worse, how had I let myself direct that anger at Ella, a frightened nine-year-old carbon copy of the kid I’d once been?

Was I so damaged that I was incapable of showing her kindness? Or listening to her fears? If so, how could I possibly help her survive the seemingly unsurvivable?

I’d failed to separate my pain from her pain, and I’d let my broken spirit rain all over hers. How dare I?

I’d lived through my nightmare, and I’d made it to the other side. Now it was my turn to protect Ella as she lived through her nightmare. Only, the difference was, if Sydney died . . . when Sydney died . . . Ella needed to know I’d never desert her.

“Destiny.” My father’s voice interrupted my thoughts as he placed a hand on my shoulder.

I broke emotionally, dropping my head, letting the sadness and the anger and the frustration win.

“How do I do this?” I asked, and then I thought of Jessica’s words when I’d asked her how she managed work and motherhood.

I just do.

Then I saw it in his eyes. He didn’t know. My father had no answer for me.

He gave my shoulder a squeeze. “I’ll check on Sydney; then I’ll help clean this up.” He nodded toward the shards of glass strewn across the floor.

I followed the sound of Ella’s sobbing, making my way up the steps to the landing, then to her closed bedroom door.

I knocked, and her sobs grew quiet, but she said nothing.

“I’m coming in,” I said as I turned the knob, grateful to find it unlocked.

Inside the bedroom she was nowhere to be found, but her closet was closed.

I tapped lightly against the paneled door. “Ella?”

Silence.

“I’m opening the door, honey. I had no right to yell at you. None. I’m coming in. Ready?”

She shrank back into one dark corner as I peered inside.

“I’m so sorry, Auntie D,” she sobbed. “I didn’t mean to break it. Please don’t be mad at me.”

I saw her then, the little girl terrified of losing her mother, terrified of disappointing me, terrified of being left alone.

Twenty years of grief and betrayal and loneliness welled up inside me, threatening to pull me under, but I steadied myself and focused on Ella. Just Ella.

I hesitated before I answered, working to keep my voice calm, steady. “Oh, honey, I’m the one who should be apologizing to you. I’m sorry I yelled. I never meant to frighten you.”

“But I broke your picture.”

The fear in her voice hurt my heart, the thought that I’d value a picture over her feelings. “You’re more important than a picture.” I pulled the door open wide. “Let’s be honest, it was the pillow’s fault.”

Her sweet, scared face looked up at me, and I pointed to the empty floor beside her in the closet. “May I?”

She nodded, pulling her knees to her chest and making herself appear even smaller than she had seemed a moment before. I crawled beside her, careful to give her plenty of space.

“I think sometimes we get so angry we don’t know what to do, so we act out.” I stole a glance and spotted the drop of her chin.

“You’re angry at me,” she said.

“Never. I’m not angry at you.”

“Not even for the picture?”

“Especially not for the picture.”

“At Momma?”

I shook my head. “No way.”

She frowned.

“I’m angry at the cancer. I’m guessing that’s what you’re angry at, too.”

She nodded.

“You know, when my mom had cancer, I once tried to punch my fist through a wall.”

“You did?” Her voice climbed three octaves, curiosity pulling her ever so slowly out of her shell.

“I did.” I rotated my right hand until I found the spot where the silvery scar still showed. “Three stitches.”

She winced.

“You’d think that would have taught me to cool it, but sometimes I’d do things before I even realized I was doing them.”

“Like what?”

“Like one time I threw a baseball through Marguerite’s window.”

“Was she mad at you?”

I nodded. “For about a minute, and then she handed me a bucket of broken crayons.”

That got a smile.

“Because she loved me,” I said. “She still loves me. Just like I love you.”

I loved her—this wonderful little kid with the clunky glasses and the huge heart. The realization bolstered my resolve to get through to her, to make her hear what I was saying.

“And,” I continued, “she had room in her heart to be sad about my mom—who was her best friend—and still have patience with me.”

Ella’s focus dropped to her lap, where she worried the edge of her shirt between her fingers. “How old were you when your mom died?”

“Ten.”

Silence beat between us.

“And it sucked,” I added.

She snapped her attention to me, eyes wide.

“Worst thing that ever happened to me,” I said. “I’m not going to lie to you. But I survived.”

She swallowed visibly, then opened her mouth as if she had another question, but she remained silent.

I’d been in her place, though. I’d lived her fears.

“No matter what happens, you’ll survive, too,” I said.

“Sometimes I just get angry,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper.

“Honey, if you weren’t angry, you wouldn’t be human. Maybe the trick is to find words to use instead of actions.”

“Sorry,” she said again, sniffling.

I anchored my arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. “No more apologizing. Let’s figure out how to get through this together. Want to?”

Ella nodded.

“Any ideas?” I asked.

“Stop throwing pillows?” she answered.

I gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Good one.” Then I added, “How about we both stop yelling?”

She patted my knee. “Another good one.”

I pulled her up onto my lap and to my surprise she curled into me, tucking her head beneath my chin. I breathed in the citrus scent of her shampoo, suddenly filled with the urge to hide with her there forever, in her closet, where the real world couldn’t touch either one of us.

“So what else can we do?” I asked, having trouble forcing my words through the knot in my throat, the knot of fear and grief that didn’t want Sydney to die, didn’t want Ella to grow up without her mother.

“We could get a password,” Ella said.

“Password?”

I felt her nod beneath my chin. “Momma and I have a password for when I’m scared.”

“Want to tell me?”

Another nod. “Rainbows.”

“Rainbows?” I screwed up my features, but she couldn’t see me. “Doesn’t exactly sound scared.”

“That’s the whole point,” Ella explained. “Momma says it’s to make us stop and talk about whatever the bad thing is. It makes us remember the good stuff.”

I hugged her tight, love welling up inside me for this child I hadn’t even known a few months earlier. “Your momma’s pretty smart.”

“The smartest.”

She was correct, of course. Wasn’t every little girl’s momma the smartest? Mine had been.

“Any ideas for an angry word?” I asked.

Ella sat quietly, but offered no suggestions.

“Can we stay with rainbows?” she asked finally.

I shifted from one butt cheek to the other, wishing Ella’s closet had a padded floor. “I don’t see why not. Think your momma would mind?”

Ella shook her head.

“We should ask her anyway.”

“OK.”

“So whenever one of us feels angry—”

“Or scared,” she added.

“Or scared,” I corrected myself, “we say rainbows.”

“And then we talk it out,” Ella said.

“Want to tell me what happened today to make you so angry?”

She hesitated momentarily, then spoke slowly. “A girl at school said you’ll probably send me away after Momma dies because I’m not your kid.”

I flinched, wondering how another kid could be so cruel. But she was right—Ella wasn’t my kid.

Could
I do this? Parent her? Day in and day out?

For the briefest moment, I understood why my father had run. But I wasn’t my father.

“That kid’s a jerk,” I said. Then I waved my hand in the air. “Rainbows. That wasn’t cool. I should have said, you tell that kid that you’re my niece, and you’re not going anywhere. Not now. Not in the future. Not ever.”

I wondered then if Sydney had shared her decision with Ella. Had she told her what we’d discussed?

“Has your momma told you what she and I talked about? That if someday she can’t take care of you, you’re going to stay with me?”

She nodded.

“What do you think about that?” Nerves built inside me, and I realized I was worried about what Ella would say.

“I think I’d like that.”

With those five words, Ella released a flood of relief inside me, feelings so intense I realized I’d kidded myself about how anxious I’d been.

I took a moment to settle on what I could do to show her how I felt in addition to telling her.

“Listen,” I said. “I know it may seem like I spend a lot of time on the opera house project. Want to come with me sometime? When you’re not in school.”

“To your shop?”

I nodded. “Maybe I could teach you how to sand the cut lengths of wood, apply finish, maybe even hit some nails.”

Beside me, Ella straightened. “And I can stop worrying about what that girl at school thinks.”

I kissed the top of her head. “Know something?”

She shook her head.

“I think you just might be even smarter than your momma.”

“No way.” She laughed, pushed free of my embrace, then stood up inside the closet.

A sudden idea hit me, the image appearing fully formed in my mind’s eye.

She fit this space. Her safe space. Here, inside the closet.

Padding for the floor. A built-in seat. Throw pillows. Shelves. Books. Art supplies.

Escape.

“Ella?”

She stopped, one foot outside of the closet, one foot still inside.

“I think I have an amazing idea.”