Things Remembered (5 page)

Karla had pressed her back tighter into the corner of the hallway and told herself she didn't care that no one liked her. She could take care of herself, even preferred it that way. She looked a lot older than she was, everyone said so. She could get a job, and as soon as she'd saved enough money, Heather and Grace would come to live with her.

But then her grandfather said, “Maybe we should just let Anna have them.”

Her grandmother waited a long time before she answered. “We'll have to tell her about the money.”

“Do you think it will matter?”

“It would to me,” her grandmother said.

Three days later Karla and her sisters were on their way to California to live with a woman they couldn't have picked out of a room full of old people. Obviously, Grandma Becker had been right. The money did matter to their grandma Anna.

The first morning that she was alone in her mother's old room, Karla had pulled the covers to her chin, curled into a ball, closed her eyes, and mentally reached for her mother. Somewhere in this old house there had to be something of her left—in the rooms, the walls, the closets. These were the stairs she had climbed for eighteen years, the yard she had played in as a little girl, the shower she had used as she prepared for her wedding.

Karla knew she wouldn't hear her mother's voice or anything crazy like that. All she needed was a small sign, a touch of wind on her cheek in the airless bedroom, one of the pictures stuck in the mirror frame to fall onto the dresser, her grandmother to appear at the doorway and tell her that she'd changed her mind and that Karla could sleep downstairs with her sisters after all.

Now, nineteen years later, the memory of that morning was almost as painful to revisit as it had been to live.

Rolling over in the softly protesting bed, Karla abandoned the lonely little girl who had never found her mother again and opened her eyes. A male house finch, its head and chest a blaze of bright red, sat on the windowsill and stared at her. Karla remained perfectly still, resisting even the urge to smile at this lone, tiny member of the welcoming committee.

She imagined the bird to be a part of the fifth or sixth generation of the finches that had visited her window when this had been her room. She'd had four years to make their long-lost relatives her friends—her grandmother never had let her move downstairs to be with her sisters.

Simultaneously, the finch flew away and Karla heard Anna moving around in the kitchen. She swung her legs over the edge of the double bed, stretched, and reached for her robe. An unexpected feeling of rightness and familiarity came over her, as if she actually belonged in this room. She passed it off as the rush that came with bobbing in the eye of an emotional hurricane. Still, she sat a minute on the edge of the bed and looked around the room, giving in to the sentimental trappings as she had the night before when Susan had shown her around town.

The same wallpaper her mother had looked at when she was a young girl covered the walls—a narrow green and white and peach stripe. When Karla went to college, Heather had moved in and added a flower border around the top, something Karla had never even considered a possibility. The only other changes were the green braided throw rug beside the bed and the peach and green bedspread. The furniture and curtains, even the mirror over the dresser with the pictures of her mother and her friends stuck between the glass and frame, were the same.

A second sound came from the kitchen, prompting Karla to get moving. If she didn't make it downstairs before Anna started the coffee, she'd lose the chance to substitute her own.

She opened her bedroom door to the strong odor of burnt coffee beans. Too late. Living at the top of the stairs, she'd never had to ask what they were having for dinner. Nor had she ever had to sneak around to listen in on Anna's private conversations with her friends. The narrow stairwell acted like a megaphone for the rest of the house. She only had to be very still and she could hear most of what Anna and her friends said when they were in the living room playing cards. What she didn't hear was easy enough to fill in.

This was how she'd slowly added more pieces to the puzzle about the
money.
Anna would sometimes talk to her friends about how Karla's aunts and uncles and even her grandmother and grandfather Becker had taken Karla and her sisters in to live with them because of the
money.
But then not even the
money
was enough. Three girls were too much work.

Gleaning the bits of painful information by eavesdropping became a secret addiction. Every other Wednesday when the card club was there, Karla was in her room, sitting on the floor, her back to the wall beside the open door, her eyes closed in concentration. The four women had been friends for over twenty-five years and were as close, and at times as contentious, as Karla and her own sisters. They told each other everything, a lot of it embarrassing to a somewhat naive and innocent fifteen-year-old.

One particular summer afternoon was forever imprinted on Karla's memory, however. It was one of those moments that remain as clear as yesterday, as piercing as sunlight after rain. Every word of Rachel Winslow's gravely voiced sentences reached Karla as she sat with a book in her lap and listened. “You were right to step in when you did before all that money was gone, even if it did mean you had to take all three of them. Marie was your daughter. You deserved that money.”

Anna's reply was lost in the sound of Karla's heartbeat as it thundered deafeningly in her ears. That afternoon was the last time Karla sat at the top of the stairs to listen to Anna and her friends. She'd heard enough to last a lifetime. Not until Karla was older had she understood that “the money” she'd heard talked about at both her grandparents' homes had to do with life insurance and lawsuits. Her parents' car was hit by a man driving a Mercedes. He was drunk and undeniably at fault. She had no idea how much the settlement had been, only that it must have been a lot and that neither she nor her sisters had ever received a dime directly.

Anna greeted Karla with a forced cheerfulness as she appeared at the doorway. “Good morning. How did you sleep in your old bed?”

“Fine—until the birds started in. I forgot how noisy they could be.”

“I guess I'm just so used to them I don't hear them anymore. Come sit down.” She motioned for Karla to come all the way into the kitchen. “Have a cup of coffee and talk to me while I finish making breakfast for us.”

“Don't bother fixing anything for me. I haven't eaten breakfast for years.” She stuffed her hands into the pockets of her terry cloth robe. “And I brought my own coffee.” Realizing how needlessly cruel she sounded, she added, “It's a special blend I make up at the shop to get me going in the morning.” And then, as an afterthought, “Would you like to try some?”

Anna smiled. “This special blend of yours wouldn't be called Self-Preservation, would it?”

Karla wasn't sure how to respond. Considering the circumstances of the visit, she hadn't expected Anna to put on a show of cheerfulness. But if Anna was going to make an effort, she could, too. “I'm sorry. I've become a bit of a snob when it comes to coffee. I tell myself it comes with the territory, but I was that way before I owned the shop.”

“Are you sure you won't have some breakfast with me? I've already made it up, or at least the batter. It won't take but a minute to heat up the griddle.”

“I told you, I never eat—” God, she was so inflexible. What possible difference would it make if she let Anna have her way about something as inconsequential as breakfast? “Sure. Why not?”

Anna opened the oven to take out the ancient cast-iron griddle she stored there, hesitating a fraction of a second too long for the chore to look as effortless as she tried to make it seem. “You still like French toast, don't you?”

“I don't know. It's been years since I've had any.” Karla took the bread and batter out of the refrigerator and put it on the counter. “It's Heather's favorite.”

“I thought it was yours,” Anna said softly.

“Mine is pecan waffles.”

Anna thought for a minute. “I don't remember ever making pecan waffles.”

“You never did. Mom used to make them for me.”

“You should have told me.”

“It wasn't important.” Karla lit the burner, then adjusted the flame. “I figured when I got my own place I'd learn how to make them for myself.”

“And did you?”

“Never did. Sometimes when I'm eating breakfast out and see them on the menu I'll give it a try, but I'm always disappointed.” Why this morning—after all this time—was she telling Anna about her mother's pecan waffles?

“With me it's peanut butter fudge.”

“I don't remember Mom ever making peanut butter fudge.”

“My mother made it. Your great-grandmother. It was her own recipe. I spent years trying to duplicate it, but finally gave up.” She glanced up at Karla and smiled. “I'm looking forward to my mother meeting me at the pearly gates with a great big hug and a pan of fudge.”

“When did she die?”

“A week to the day before your mother was born. It broke my heart that she never got to know her granddaughter. They would have been such great friends—as I'm sure they are now. Frank and I had picked out the name Marie Lynne for your mother, but when Frank filled out the birth certificate, he changed it to Marie Karla after my mother.”

Karla felt a jolt of surprise followed by a peculiar, compelling connection to the woman who'd also carried her mother's name. “No one ever told me.”

“Your mother knew she was named after her grandmother, but I never told her how it came to be. I didn't want her to know how sad I was when she was born.”

Karla smelled something hot and remembered she'd turned the fire on under the pan. She reached over to turn off the burner.

Anna waved her off. “You go on up and get your coffee. I'll take care of this.”

“It can wait until tomorrow. I suppose one cup of the stuff you've been drinking all these years won't leave too many permanent scars on my palate.”

Anna yielded the stove and instead set the table. “Have I ever told you I take credit for your going into the coffee business?”

“Oh?” Karla stopped dipping bread to glance at Anna. “And why is that?”

“I was the one who taught you to appreciate a really good cup of coffee.”

Karla was no more prepared for humor from Anna than she had been for the family history, and it took a minute for her to understand she was being teased. She didn't know how to respond, and emotion came before words. She was angry. “It's too late for us to become friends, Anna. You might as well save your time and energy for something that matters.”

“It's my time and my energy,” she snapped back. “I'll spend it and use it as I see fit.”

“You never have listened to me about anything. I don't know why it should be any different now.” She shoved the spatula under a piece of toast and flipped it over. If she had anywhere else to go, she would leave that day. It didn't matter to Anna whether or not her estate was in order; why should Karla care?

“How long did you say you were going to be here?”

“A month. Heather said you were only up to working a couple of hours a day, so I figured it would take at least that long to get everything done.” Her answer rang true, but lacked logic. Most of what had to be done, Karla could do alone.

“Oh, at least.”

She'd agreed too easily. Karla grew suspicious. “There are some things I want to get settled between us first. I was going to wait until later to bring them up, but since we're headed in that direction now, we might as well get them out of the way.”

Karla stopped to finish the French toast and put it on plates before she went on. Facing Anna, looking her directly in the eye, she said, “Just so you know—I haven't come here to make sure I get ‘my share.' I don't want to be included in your will. As a matter of fact, there isn't one thing you have that I want.”

“Then you can give it away for all I care,” Anna said. She took the syrup and butter out of the refrigerator and dropped them on the table. “There is no way I'm going to take you out of my will. I'm not saying there's anything I'm leaving that's worth having, but what's here is one-third yours. Now, if the real reason you came was to badger me until you got your way, you might as well pack up right now and head back to that fancy little town of yours.”

By the time she'd finished, Anna was holding onto the side of the table and fighting for every breath. For the first time Karla saw real evidence of Anna's crippled heart, and it scared the hell out of her.

“Sit down,” Karla said, her fear making it sound like a command rather than a request. “I'll get what we need.”

Anna lowered herself into the chair. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have yelled at you.”

“You're supposed to stay calm? Is that what the doctor told you?”

It was a moment before Anna answered. “My God, Karla, is that what you really think?” Several seconds passed before she quietly added, “Have we always been like this with each other?”

“I don't understand what you mean.”

“That's exactly what I mean. It's as if we're having two completely different conversations. The doctor had nothing to do with why I shouldn't have yelled at you. I can't even come up with a reason you would think that except you believe I'm so caught up in myself I can't see you standing in front of me.” Anna paused to catch her breath. “We have this one month left to us. Why would I want you to go the rest of your life remembering me yelling at you?”

Karla could feel herself being pulled into the drama of Anna's dying, something she'd thought about long and hard before leaving home and had sworn she would not let happen. To do so was the worst kind of hypocrisy. For all of her faults, for all of the things she would change about herself if she could, there was one she wouldn't. She was not, and never had been, a hypocrite. “How we are now is the way we have always been, Anna. Sad, maybe, but honest.”