Changing Lanes: A Novel (13 page)

“I leave every night to walk home, Macaroon.”

“Nice try.” I sat beside her on the floor, crossing my legs as I plucked a photo from the box. In it, Grandpa sat at a table of trains, his grin as wide as that of a five-year-old on Christmas morning. “I watched you walk to the cemetery and sit by Grandpa’s grave.”

“How do you know it wasn’t the first time I’d ever done that?”

I slung my arm around her shoulder and squeezed. “Face it. I’m on to you.”

Nan blew out a sigh and took the photo from my fingers. “He loved those trains. Do you remember them?”

I nodded.

“Did you tell your mother you saw me?” Nan asked.

I shook my head. “Not a word.”

“Good.” Nan patted my knee. “She can be a little bossy in the grief-recovery department.”

“No kidding. Don’t even get me started on her fiancé-recovery techniques.”

Our laughter built, mixing together and pushing aside Nan’s tears.

We fell silent for several moments before I pointed to the photos. “Who took these?”

Nan ran her fingertips across the collection of photographs. “Your mother took most of them.”

I reached out to touch a picture of my grandfather. The photo had captured the essence of the man I remembered so well, creating a lasting memory of his laughing eyes and crooked smile.

I flipped through several more shots, each capturing the personality of the moment, the photographer’s skill evident.

Surprise washed through me. “Mom took these?”

Nan smiled. “I can remember a time when she was never without that camera of hers around her neck.”

I, on the other hand, couldn’t remember ever seeing my mother
with
a camera.

“What happened?” I asked.

Nan handed me two photos. “Life, Macaroon.”

I dropped my focus to the captured images. In one black-and-white shot, my mother was young—all flowing hair, laughing smile, and carefree joy. Sure enough, a camera hung around her neck.

In the second photo, a Polaroid snapshot, my parents cradled a newborn me in their arms. My mother’s smile was perfectly posed, an expression I knew all too well.

A wave of sadness threatened to overwhelm me.

“How far apart were these taken?” I asked.

Nan sighed. “About a year, give or take a month.”

I pointed to the first picture and my mother’s amazing expression. “Did she ever smile like that again?”

“Of course she did. She loves her family, Macaroon.”

While I knew Nan was telling the truth, I couldn’t help but stare at the picture of my carefree mother. In it, there was nothing posed; there was only genuine happiness.

“Who took this?” I asked.

“Your grandpa took that the day we gave her that camera.”

I set the two photos back in the box, adding them to the countless others. “You have so many beautiful photos, Nan. Why don’t you put these in an album?”

She hesitated before she answered, and when she spoke, raw emotion hung heavy in her words.

“These aren’t pictures to be catalogued and forgotten on some shelf. These are memories.”

I said nothing, letting the weight of her words settle inside me.

“These are all I have left,” she added, her voice barely audible.

Then it hit me.

Just as I’d become shaped by expectations of my future, Nan had been shaped by memories of her past. The real question was whether or not we were both letting life pass us by while we focused on what might have been or on what once was.

I kissed the top of her head as I stood to leave, wanting to let her get back to memory lane.

“Take this, Macaroon.” She pulled the carefree, happy photo of Mom from the box and handed it to me.

I froze momentarily, entranced by the sheer beauty of my mother’s face. I held the snapshot gently as I stepped out into the hall. Then I walked into my room and slid it into a drawer, a treasure of the past and a reminder of how happy my mother had been when she hadn’t been my mother at all.

I turned to study my own memories. Snapshots sat tucked into the corners of the mirror that hung above my bureau.
Photographs and ticket stubs covered the surface of my bulletin board, still holding the positions into which they’d been pinned more than a dozen years earlier.

There had been a time when I’d documented everything—significant and insignificant moments alike.

But were the insignificant moments really insignificant?

I scrambled across my bed, moving within inches of where the bulletin board hung on the wall. On it, countless faces smiled back at me in photos of middle school and high school memories captured for eternity.

A tug-of-war at the school picnic. A bathing-beauty shot at Paris’s annual Parispalooza festival. A hug among best friends, determined to never lose touch.

Sure, the photos of awards night, senior prom, and graduation were there, but it was the other photos—the photos of the everyday moments—that brought back a rush of emotion. Those moments weren’t insignificant at all…and they weren’t boring. They were moments that mattered.

There had been a time when I’d gone everywhere with my camera in hand.

Nan’s words about my mother and her camera echoed through my mind.

Had my mother been the same way?

After all, Mom had given me my secondhand Minolta at the start of senior year. She’d taught me everything I needed to know in order to add photography to my growing journalism skills. I’d gone on to document life at Paris High for the school newspaper and the yearbook.

I slid off my bed and opened my closet door, wondering where on earth I’d tucked the camera.

While other kids in my class had sported newfangled digital cameras, I’d carried the classic Minolta like the precious prize it was—a gift from my mother.

The camera had required thought, planning, and real film. I’d loved every moment.

I searched my brain for the last time I used it to take photographs, and my mind locked on the one night I’d worked so hard to forget.

I’d put away the Minolta the night the Paris Oak burned down. I hadn’t touched it since.

I found the beauty tucked inside its black leather bag, braced against the wall of my closet between the chipped baseboard and a pair of forgotten snow boots.

I pulled out the bag and set it on my bed, running my hand across the dark, pebbled leather.

The zipper still stuck where it always had, about an inch and a half from the end of its run. I managed to pull the camera free just the same. It gleamed, the sight of it making my heart catch, and an odd flutter of excitement buzzed to life in my stomach.

I hurried back to the drawer where I’d tucked the photograph of Mom and compared the camera in my hand to the one that hung around her neck.

Identical.

My heart swelled with my new understanding of just how important this camera had been to her.

An idea swirled through my brain and lodged there.

I sank back onto the bed, cradling the Minolta in my lap.

Could I do for Mrs. O’Malley what my mother had done for Nan? Could I help her hold on to her memories?

You can’t fix everything
, Mick had said.

Maybe not.

But maybe, just maybe, I could help.

That night, in the final moments before I climbed into bed, I did not call Fred. As a matter of fact, I turned off my phone and set it on the far side of the bedroom.

I ran my hand across the Minolta’s case and smiled at the photos on my bulletin board, seeing as if for the first time just how many of them included Mick. A shiver traced its way across my shoulders, and I pulled the covers up to my chin before snapping off the bedside lamp.

Moonlight spilled through the windows, distorting the shadows of my belongings, the mementos of my youth.

I couldn’t help but wonder whether or not the shadows resembled the images inside Mrs. O’Malley’s brain—distorted and just beyond reach.

Then I thought of Mick and how painful it must be to watch his mother slip away. Yet, after a lifetime of running, he’d come home.

A moonbeam bounced off the smattering of painted stars above my head, and I sighed. I studied the play of light against the iridescence, and then I did something I hadn’t done in a long time.

I began to count.

I sat at the Paris River Café breakfast bar the next morning and stared at the estimate from Chuck Matthews.

“Nice hat,” Jessica said as she refilled my coffee.

“I get a lot of that,” I muttered, unable to rip my gaze from the sheet of paper’s bottom line. I’d known the repairs would be extensive, but I hadn’t been prepared for
this
.

Not covered by homeowner’s insurance
, I thought.

How in the hell was I ever going to pay for this? I had some money set aside for my honeymoon. Based on the continued lack of communication from Fred, I might have that cash available, but it still wouldn’t be enough. Plus, the yellow Victorian was Fred’s house as much as it was mine. Shouldn’t he have a role in all this?

He was a man of integrity
, I thought with a laugh. If I went ahead with the repairs, he’d surely help foot the bill. Of course, I’d also expected him to honor our wedding plans. Silly me.

Truth was, I had no idea of what he’d want anymore, but I wanted to fix the house. The question was how.

“You okay?” Jessica gave my forearm a quick shake, as if she’d been trying to get my attention and I hadn’t heard a word.

“Yeah,” I said out loud, even though I screamed
No way!
on the inside. “I’m fine.”

“Is that Chuck’s estimate?”

I nodded, carefully refolding the paper to make it fit back inside the envelope in which Chuck had delivered the news.

“Can I see it?” Jessica asked.

Her long blond hair hung straight today, with the top and sides anchored behind her head. I’d shoved my own hair up under the fedora, knowing I’d have a long day.

“Abby.” Jessica gave me another shake. “Can I see it?” She reached for the envelope and then took it.

I read my scrawled name on the outside as Jessica slid out the sheet of paper and shook it open.

Too bad. For a moment, I’d hoped Chuck had given me someone else’s project costs.

Jessica skimmed the piece of paper and swore. “Holy—”

“Hell,” I said. “Holy hell.”

My if-you-can’t-say-anything-nice days were over.

I pressed my cheek to the cold, smooth counter and wished I could somehow transport myself back into the warm bed I’d left not even an hour earlier.

“Maybe we can get some of the materials ourselves,” Jessica said. “Destiny’s probably got tons of sources. And there’s a great salvage yard just outside of town.”

But my brain caught on one word in particular.

Destiny.

I straightened, thinking of how Destiny had mentioned work being slow.

What if I asked her to branch out from cabinetmaking? What if I convinced her to try a whole-house rescue?

She might say no. But maybe, just maybe, she’d say yes.

A few moments later, I burst out of the café’s door and jogged down Artisan Alley.

Destiny’s shop sat over a converted garage. The bottom area served as a small florist shop, while Destiny and her partner, Rock, worked upstairs.