The Charm Bracelet (13 page)

“Mom, I know who I am,” Arden said. “I have fun. I've just been so busy lately. Please don't ever think you let us down.”

Lolly adjusted her wig, tucking a few tendrils into her late mother's scarf. “Then show me how to have some fun.”

“What?” asked Arden

“Show me how to have fun,” Lolly repeated.

“What do you mean?” Arden asked, her voice a bit nervous. “You know how to have fun.”

Lolly scrunched up her face, thinking, before she smiled as big as the Grinch. “Run headfirst into Lake Michigan.”

“What? Really? Are you serious? The sand is too hot. The water is too cold. I'm wearing an old swimsuit. My hair will get wet. I'm too old to be silly.”

Lolly continued. “Arden, you can't schedule fun, and you can't put it off for the future. At some point, you just have to say to heck with everything and dive in headfirst.”

Arden looked at her mother, stood, and slowly emerged from the shadow of the umbrella.

“Attagirl!” Lolly urged. “Go, Arden go!”

Ow!Ow!Ow!Ow!Ow!
Arden thought, dancing to keep her feet off the sand.

“The sand is scorching, Mother!”

“That's what the water is for … Go!” Lolly waved toward the lake.

Arden ran to the edge of the water, her bobbed, dark hair as rigid as her body. She began to edge into the cold water like a zombie, body and arms stiff.

Oh!Oh!Oh!Oh!Oh!
Arden repeated to herself, feeling the cold water hit her skin.

“The water is freezing, Mother!”

“We should rename you ‘Ow!Ow!Ow!Oh!Oh!Oh!'—sort of like
Dances with Wolves
,” Lolly shouted to her daughter, laughing. “It looks like you're being robbed! There is no etiquette to getting into the water! Miss Manners isn't here to judge you!”

Lolly grunted as she got to her feet. “Good gracious, Lauren. Let's show her how it's done!”

Lolly yanked off her wig, and she could see her granddaughter's surprised look.

“What? You expected perfection?” Lolly said, touching her curly, thinning, grey-white hair. “I know I look like a yard sale Barbie. Why do you think I wear a wig? But I'm not ashamed. It's just who I am. But I can't get my mom's scarf wet, and nobody cares what you look like at the beach anyway! Everyone looks bad wet … except for James Bond. Now, are you ready to show her how it's done?”

“I'm glad I'm here, Grandma. Until we arrived, I'd been so stressed. I feel bad about what I said earlier,” Lauren said, a look of sadness on her face. “I'd never want to upset you or my mom.”

Lolly sighed. “I'm so sorry the problems of others have affected your life so deeply. Humans are like dominoes. Once we start to fall, we tend to take everyone along with us. I promise we will work this out, okay? Now, we can't solve everything this minute, but we can have a beach day.”

Lauren nodded, and the two sprinted hand in hand toward the water, both still in the bikinis they had worn earlier that morning. They rushed past Arden and into the lake like wild horses.

“Wheeeeeeeee!” Lolly screamed, jumping headfirst into the water, before coming up and shaking like a wet dog.

“Wheeeeee!” Lauren echoed.

“There's only one way to tackle life, enjoy a day at the beach, and jump into a Great Lake: Headfirst!” Lolly yelled. “Okay, my dear! Your turn!”

“Mom, it's too cold!”

Arden was still standing at the edge of the clear, cold water, her arms overhead, her teeth chattering. Lolly began to splash her daughter. Lauren followed suit.

“Mom! Lauren! Stop it! Grow up!”

“No!” they replied. “You grow down!”

“Stop it!”

“No!”

“MOM!”

“ARDEN!”

“LAUREN!”

“MOM!”

Water was now running down Arden's face.

“I'm already wet!” she yelled at them, spewing water.

Arden gave her mother a menacing look, took off her glasses and tossed them back onto the sand where they landed with a soft whoosh, and sprinted directly into the lake toward her mother, screaming like a banshee.

Arden dove into the water, grabbing her mother as she submerged, the cold of Lake Michigan taking her breath away. The two opened their eyes as they plummeted toward the sandy bottom.

Arden—sans glasses—watched her mother through the prism of the rippling water, smiling, now laughing, the sun reflecting off her head and off the water, the ripples erasing her age, making her look smooth and young.

As the two rose to the surface, Lolly messed up Arden's hair, and laughed, huge air bubbles leaving her mouth and revolving around her head, like a character in a cartoon strip who has a lot to say.

And then Lolly reached in to hold her daughter, and, for the first time in ages, Arden felt safe, weightless, protected under water—even for just an instant—and when they came up and headed toward the shore, Arden watched their reflections—mother and daughter—dance in the water.

“I love you more than anything,” Lolly said to her daughter, and Arden felt overcome with happiness.

Lauren was waiting with towels for her mother and grandmother as they came out of the water, the sun-dappled droplets shimmering on their skin like glitter.

“Are you ready, Grandma?” Lauren asked, smiling.

Lolly stared at her granddaughter. “For what, dear?”

“Our surprise.”

Lolly cocked her head at Lauren as she dried her face.

“Grandma?” Lauren said, starting to frown. “Remember?”

Lolly studied her granddaughter's face, searching for a clue. She shut her eyes for a few seconds. “Oh, yes,” she started. “The … the…”

Arden and Lauren stared at her.

“I can't come up with the word,” she said.

For a moment, Lolly stared into her daughter's eyes, and they gave each other a look that seemed to say, “What are we going to do?”

Without warning, Lauren took off running across the beach. Arden walked over and put her arm around her mother.

“It's going to be okay,” Arden said, as much for herself as for her mother.

“Here, Grandma,” Lauren gasped a brief moment later, out of breath. “I think this is what you were looking for … the kite.”

Lolly's face lit up. “Yes. Yes, my dear. That's it.”

“Here,” Lauren said, thrusting a handmade kite made from the Sunday funnies into her mother's hands. A long tail of fabric scraps that had been haphazardly tied together dangled onto the sand, leaving a shallow trail—all the way along the beach where Lauren had just run.

“What's this?”

“Haven't you ever seen a kite before?” Lolly laughed, shaking her head like a dog, her hair drying quickly in the sun and frizzing into an impossibly adorable version of cotton candy. “That's why I told you my story. I realized I never made you a kite.”

“We made it for you this morning,” Lauren continued, “but I didn't know the whole story until just now.”

“What do I do with it?” Arden said, feeling a mix of emotions.

Lolly walked up to her daughter and put her arm around her goose-pimpled back. The two began to walk the edge of the shore, the waves churning at their feet, erasing their footsteps as quickly as they left them.

“We have so little in life that we can control,” Lolly said to her daughter over the surf. “But our happiness is one of those things. That's what your grandmother was trying to teach me: That no matter what happens in life, we can still have fun and be happy.”

Arden looked skeptically at her mother from behind her water-spotted lenses.

“Now, go fly a kite!” the two generations said at the same time.

Arden slowly began to walk the shore alone, the kite still in her hand. She felt silly.

Overhead, a few puffy, white clouds bounced along the horizon, occasionally blocking the sun, as if someone turned off the overhead lights without warning.

Arden began to trot, slowly at first, until her legs were turning as quickly as they did in her spinning class. Her trot turned into a jog that morphed into a run, which, finally, became a full-out sprint.

The strong lake breeze made Arden's dark hair dance, and spray from the lake coated her glasses.

But Arden, for once, didn't care.

She kept running and running, churning sand, waiting for the right gust of wind, until …

Arden tossed the kite into the sky, a gust off Lake Michigan caught it and sent it flying up, up, up.

Arden screamed in delight, and, for one moment, time stood perfectly still. As Arden continued to run with the kite, she turned and looked back at her family: Her mother was no longer getting older, her daughter was no longer unhappy, and Arden was no longer consumed by work.

For one brief moment, life slowed. Arden was simply a child, flying a kite, having fun.

 

part five

The Puzzle Piece Charm

To a Life Filled with Friends Who Complete You

 

Fourteen

Any plans to cut your vaca short? We NEED you back … NOW! (Isn't Michigan boring, btw?)
—Van

Arden stared at her phone, her fingers poised over the keys, unsure whether to reply to her boss or e-strangle him. Still, she was about to give in to his request, tell him, yes, she would come back ASAP, when she heard the outdoor shower roar to life.

Though her mother was hidden just out of view, she could hear her humming an old tune and watched as a cloud of steam danced its way toward Lost Land Lake.

Arden felt as if she were caught in no-man's land. She wanted to stay and help her mother, but Van's thinly veiled threats scared her.

Arden looked over at her daughter and watched her furiously texting. Lauren felt her mother's stare and looked up.

“Grades haven't posted yet,” she said. “I think I'll get all A's again. Don't worry.”

Arden's heart sank, realizing how much pressure Lauren must feel to excel.

Before Arden could say anything, Lolly called to her from the stoop of the screened porch.

“Your turn!” Lolly stood, clutching her wig, drip-drying in a big towel tied around her body. “Water's warm.”

Arden looked down at her phone, hesitating.

“You both need to wash that sand off your feet before you track it around the cabin,” Lolly said, pointing at their feet.

Arden sighed. “Okay. I'll go.”

Arden walked around to the shower, only slightly hidden from the world on the back side of the cabin, and tested the temperature of the water.

Lolly had already hung towels for her and Lauren on side-by-side hooks, one hook in the form of a fish, the other shaped like a pine tree.

Arden started to shower in her swimsuit, but then said, “Oh, what the heck,” hanging her suit on one of the hooks and placing her glasses on the grass.

Arden washed the sand from her legs and then reached into an old minnow bucket holding a variety of mismatched shampoos, conditioners and shower gels to pluck a shampoo.

As she lathered up her hair, Arden squinted and took in the view from the shower, and the simple beauty caused her heart to skip a beat: Boats zipped across the hazel water, while smoke from grills cast the scene in an ethereal haze. Lolly's makeshift shower was, in its own way, as lovely as any luxury spa in Chicago.

Arden leaned her head back and let the warm water run over her hair.

There was something about showering outdoors—that mix of water and nature, body and soul, trees as your ceiling—that reawakened Arden's spirit.

Arden opened her eyes, her vision blurred by the steaming water and her lack of glasses, and saw something she couldn't quite make out which seemed to be coming toward her.

“Mom? Lauren?” she asked.

Arden squinted and fumbled for her glasses. Not finding them, she called, “Hello?”

No answer.

She shook her head and leaned toward the minnow bucket, plucking out an apricot scrub for her face. She shut her eyes and began to massage her skin, before turning her face to the water. As she opened her eyes, something big yet still very blurry seemed to be approaching.

Arden shut her eyes and quickly rinsed her face, rubbing her eyes. When she opened them again, what looked like a bear was standing directly in front of her.

Arden jumped.

“I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I didn't see a thing, I promise.”

Arden screamed.

Lolly came running, Lauren by her side. “It's okay, Mom! We're here,” Lauren said, handing her mother her glasses and shielding her as Arden hastily draped a towel around her body.

“It's not a bear!” Lolly explained. “It's a man!”

“You sound a bit too excited, Mother. Who are you?” Arden asked, pointing at the man.

“Jake. I'm here to check on Lolly, remember? We met the other day at Lakeview. I'm the geriatric nurse who will serve as her caregiver.”

“Don't you call?” Arden asked. “You just show up?”