One More Day (13 page)

Carrie used to pretend her mother had been adopted by her grandmother. Found in a basket, dropped on the doorstep. How else to explain the difference between the two women? Her mother, thin and almost brittle, angled and sharp from a lifetime of determination. Always working or cleaning, barely sleeping. And her grandmother, slight but soft, even her hair feathery. How could cancer even take hold in a body like that? Gran moved almost silently, a perfect body for secrets and surprises. Carrie wouldn't hear her matches strike as she lit the candles on her birthday cake or sense her moving toward her with that circle of light; she just heard a dozen party balloons squeaking softly against the wall in the room behind her. Gran would set down the cake, illuminating herself and her granddaughter, with Carrie's mother still in the dark. All of Carrie's birthday photos had Gran's arms in them—placing the cake, distributing the presents. Gran would go through her photo album with Carrie and say, “I really should have invested in more bracelets.”

And here she was, with her smile too wide for her small face and her blue eyes lighting a way out of her laugh lines. Her colorful words always surprised, coming out of that soft little body.

Tears ran down Carrie's cheeks onto her grandmother's sleeves. She felt so solid, so real. And Dr. Kenney had met her! Now John would surely believe her. If she told him at the right time in the right way, even Dr. Kenney would have to back her up!
She was there. She was real.

“I suppose you're wondering why I'm here,” Gran said finally, giving her a big squeeze before releasing her.

“No.”

“No? Poppycock! It's not like I'm here every day.”

“I wish you were.”

“I wish I could have been here Monday,” she said with a sigh. “So I could have met your little boy.”

Carrie's tears flowed again, and she wiped her eyes with one hand.

“The first thing I said when I gave birth was ‘I wish Gran could be here. I wish Gran could see this.' Okay, that was the second thing. The first thing was ‘I want a glass of wine and a cheeseburger.'”

Gran laughed and patted Carrie's hand. “Well, I did see it, of course. I was there with you the whole time. But seeing him is not quite the same as meeting him.”

“So…it doesn't work like that? You won't meet him…up there?”

“It's not the country club everyone thinks it is, Carrie. Everyone you love together, having a big party. No. I'm mostly in transit.”

“Why? Because people here need you?”

“No, dear,” she said and smiled. “Because I need them.” She looked around the living room with satisfaction, ran her hands across the velvety throw on the back of the herringbone couch. “I miss things,” she said. “Isn't that horrible to say? But you don't just miss people, it turns out.”

“I think I would miss hot showers,” Carrie said.

“I miss mohair,” Gran said. “There is really nothing in the world, known or unknown, like mohair.”

“Dogs. Kittens in a box,” Carrie said.

“Tumbleweed. Queen Anne's lace. The curls at a baby's neck.”

Carrie sucked in her breath, holding it in, thinking of Ben's curls, his hair so slippery and soft, it wasn't even capable of tangling.

“You have your mother's gift for decorating houses, I see. But thank God you didn't have her taste in men.”

“Don't speak ill of the dead, Gran,” she said.

Gran burst out laughing, so loud it sounded like it might break her, if she'd been breakable. If she'd ever been just human, flesh and bone only. Maybe that was the difference: some people are indestructible and others are ephemeral. Only a few were built to last forever. Maybe it wasn't heaven and hell at all; maybe it was just venerable versus vulnerable. Some people simply
stay
.

“Well,
him
I haven't run into yet. I suspect your father is probably avoiding me.”

“Yes,” Carrie said. Her father had never forgiven her grandmother for uncovering his infidelity. Maybe that was why he didn't come to her yesterday—he knew Gran was nearby and simply didn't want to see her, to deal with her again. Carrie smiled at the illogical logic of that.

“Well, what should we do before John gets back? A game of Scrabble?”

“I don't have a board.”

“What? Well, I'll tell your mother to get you one for Christmas.”

“Wait, you see Mom?”

“Not really. But she talks to me every night.”

“My mother? Seriously?”

“She wasn't born a stick-in-the-mud, Carrie. Life made her a perfectionist. As if that would fix her marriage, her finances, her unhappiness. That's why she pushed you so hard too. Why she expected so much. She believed in the power of doing. But I don't think she believes anymore. You ought to give her another chance.”

“To do what? Love Dad?”

“God, no.”

“Parent me?”

“Well, sort of. To comfort you. It's kind of nice having someone living to hug.”

“I hug her,” Carrie said defensively.

“You know what I mean.”

“Well, I also have John to hug.”

“Yeah, that's not exactly working like gangbusters, is it?”

“I have friends.”

“Really? All those muckety-mucks you went to high school with who wouldn't give you the time of day? And when was the last time you saw your college roommates anyway?”

“I'm not alone, Gran.”

“Carrie, you need your mother. And did it ever occur to you that maybe your mother needs you?”

“She doesn't need anyone,” Carrie said. Wasn't that what her mother had told her friends on the phone night after night when she dialed them instead of dialing Carrie's father? That she could do it on her own, that she didn't need anyone?

“Balderdash. Now, what about a game of cards? Double Solitaire maybe?”

Carrie smiled. “Would it be okay if we just made cookies like we used to when I was little?”

“Thumbprints with jam?”

“Yes!”

Together they assembled flour, sugar, butter. Carrie brought out raspberry jam and a new jar of strawberry. They worked side by side, taking turns sifting and stirring, while Carrie told Gran all about Ben. The details, like his long lashes and wide platypus feet. The way he looked mostly like John but a little, Carrie was certain, like her grandfather. If you laid the baby pictures side by side, you could see it. And she told her grandmother about seeing Jinx and finding the shoe. Gran nodded, just letting her talk. Carrie would realize later she'd already known everything she'd told her. Like she'd been watching everything, everywhere, all along.

They dropped the cookies onto baking sheets, and Carrie pressed her thumbs in while Gran dropped in the jam.

“Fix that one, will you?” Gran pointed to the second row. “It's gone all catawampus.”

Finally, the cookies were in the oven, and the house smelled like home again. When the first batch came out, Gran held them aloft, inhaling the buttery scent.

“Too many for just you and John,” she said. “Are you thinking what I'm thinking?”

“That I should freeze some for the funeral?”

“No, Care Bear. That you should bring some out to the reporters.”

“Feed them? And talk to them? No, thank you.”

“They've been out there all day.”

“I don't think we should reward them for invading my privacy.”

“Carrie, really. They're doing their jobs.”

“That's the problem, Gran. They only care about their jobs, about ratings. And one of them, well…one of them knows too much about me already. I don't want to give them any new material.”

“Just take out a plate. If you don't do it, I will, and I'll tell them I'm your dead grandmother, resurrected. How's that for juicy material? Now giddyap.”

Gran watched Carrie walk outside. She held the plate in front of her like a shield, and miraculously, the reporters put down their microphones and cameras. She did one nice thing, and no one recorded it. But if she started throwing things or screaming, that would be captured for posterity.

“I'm sure you're hungry,” Carrie said to them evenly, not smiling, not frowning. She had trouble holding her face that way. It hurt to keep it still; that felt like lying, that stillness. “And I'm sure you're hungry for answers too, but I don't have anything to say right now, okay?”

“Okay,” one cameraman said as he took the plate. “Thank you!”

“You're welcome,” she said over her shoulder as she walked back up the driveway.

“That's my girl,” Gran said, putting another tray in the oven.

While subsequent batches baked, Carrie walked Gran through the house, showing it to her as if she'd never seen it. In Ben's room, Carrie stood at the crib, gripping the sides. She bit her lip and looked up, trying to keep the tears from starting again.

“You knew, didn't you?” Gran asked.

“Knew what?”

“Knew that Ben was dead?”

Carrie nodded but added that John didn't know. Didn't believe it. And didn't believe her about the dog either.

“But he'll believe it if he sees you,” she said.

Gran shook her head slowly. “I can't stay that long, Care Bear. And it wouldn't be right.”

“But what about the funeral? Mom will be here, and I—”

“That's not why I'm here, dear heart. Remember I said we come because we need to, not because you need us?”

“So you…missed me?”

“Every day,” she said and sighed. “Of course. But I came to tell you, even if you don't listen to me about being kinder to your mother, that you have to tell John now, sweetheart. You have to tell him what happened.”

“What? Grandma, no. No.”

All those years ago, when she'd confessed to her grandmother, it had almost seemed redundant, as if she'd already known.

“Yes.”

“No, don't you see? I'm a suspect! They think I had something to do with this!”

“Did I say tell the detectives? No. But John is confused, darling. He's hurt. He doesn't understand why it's all so much harder for you. Harder than it is for him. You need to explain to him that, well, you're sort of grieving, in a way, exponentially.”

“No.”

“You have to trust me on this, Care Bear. He needs to know. Someone else besides me needs to know.”

“Ethan knows,” she said softly. “Father Paul knows.”

“That won't help, and you know it. Now, look at me. Promise me.”

“Stay,” Carrie said suddenly, gripping her grandmother tightly. “You can tell him. He'll believe me then, about everything. And you can explain what it was like. What she was like. What I was like. And the church, how I always went to church, and I was sure if I—”

Gran shook her head slowly. “John doesn't have to believe in me to believe in you, Care Bear. Now, wipe those tears. I have to skedaddle soon.”

“I can't do it,” she sobbed. “I can't bear to watch you leave.”

“I'm always with you, Carrie. Always. Now, close your eyes,” she said, pulling her into the rocking chair. “Close your eyes, and I'll sing you a song.” She started in with a slow rendition of “Amazing Grace,” then stopped.

“Hell's bells.” She sighed. “What are we doing up here for my last five minutes when there are cookies to eat downstairs?”

Carrie didn't understand how it worked; all she knew was that her grandmother had said not to think of it as good-bye, just see you later. Gran had walked to the door, holding a cookie, and told Carrie to close her eyes. Carrie heard the door close heavily, and she jumped up for one last glimpse of Gran in the driveway, but she wasn't there. And neither were the reporters; they'd given up after the last batch of cookies.

Carrie grabbed her car keys and circled around the block. Where would Gran go next? To the park? Or would she travel to their old house, to remember Carrie as a baby? Carrie drove out to Ludbury Avenue and turned left, the route she knew by heart, to the neighborhood one street from the trolley tracks.

She hadn't seen her childhood home in years, and she almost didn't recognize it. The street wasn't littered with bikes and skateboards anymore; it was tidy, with a bright, new, almost-white sidewalk, but no people or cars except for what looked like a young man sitting in a dark car idling down the block. Probably a boy texting a teenage girl, telling her to come out. Nobody went up to the door anymore.

The new owners had painted the exterior a dove gray, almost blue, and trimmed it with maroon shutters.
Awfully colorful for Pennsylvania
, Carrie thought,
but still pretty.
Small houses should either be light or bright, her mother used to say. Not dark. These people had chosen bright. On the porch, two yellow rocking chairs moved slightly in the wind. No car in the driveway or tucked up against the curb. Carrie went up to the porch and looked through the mullioned windows of the front door. No Gran inside. No one home. She circled around the back. The patio stones were neatly edged with grass, and planters flanked the back door. A woodpecker tapped on an upper eave, making her jump. She realized how terrible this would look if someone came home—the infamous mother of a murdered child lurking in someone else's backyard, as if she were looking for someone she didn't dare to name. The thought deflated her, and she headed back to her car.

On the sidewalk, a few doors down, a young blond woman stood watching her. Perhaps this was the girl the boy had been waiting for? But no, she was too far away from that car. She continued to stare.

Yes
, Carrie wanted to say.
I'm the woman on the news. I'm the one they don't believe. Go ahead and call the police.
But something in her easy girlish stance, hand on one hip, head cocked, made her think that wasn't what she was thinking at all. Carrie lingered for a moment before she opened the car door, then returned her gaze.

“I like your belt,” she called out to Carrie.

“Thank you,” Carrie said instinctively. And then thought,
That was random. That was odd.

Carrie blinked, got in her car. She drove toward the girl, but she was moving faster and disappeared into the gated garden of one of the houses. Blond and tiny, like a bird. Something familiar in the set of her jaw and the feathery lines of her hair, and yet old-fashioned, like she'd been lifted from another era. And wearing, she saw, a needlepoint belt too. In the same colors.

She put her hand up to her mouth. Could this be Libby's daughter? Was this Mary, who recognized her belt?

The other car on the street pulled out behind her, and when Carrie glanced back in her rearview mirror, she didn't see anyone in the passenger seat. Just the boy. Just a boy with long hair who seemed to be waiting for something or someone.

Ben's shoe swung beneath the mirror as she turned to go home.