The wind chimes hung limply, hollow shells of the tumultuous journey that had brought them to her. She willed them to move, to let her know that all of her efforts hadn’t been in vain, but they remained motionless, mocking her.
She turned her back on the river and headed into the house, but paused on the threshold as she felt the stirrings of a breeze at her back, imagined the gentle swaying of the wind chimes behind her. She closed the door without turning around, listening for the faint sound of the glass stones as they whispered together a soft good-bye.
chapter 32
MERRITT
I set down the suitcase on the dirt floor in the corner of the basement beneath the house, then placed the plane model and the bag of dolls and debris next to it. Last, I placed the letter on top of the suitcase, balancing it so that it didn’t rest flat as a reminder that I wasn’t finished with this—with the suitcase, the letter, the victims of the plane crash. With the memory of my grandmother. My grandmother. The woman who’d placed a bomb in her husband’s suitcase, expecting it to explode when he was safely in Miami, and had inadvertently killed forty-eight other people.
It was a horrible tragedy—no, an unspeakable and horrendous tragedy, albeit one that was more than fifty years old, the memory of those lost mostly faded by now, the survivors of their loved ones older now, or dead. Dealing with it would have to wait a little longer, because right now a ten-year-old boy was about to lose his mother, and I had to somehow find the resources I didn’t believe I had to be strong enough for both of them. I ignored the inner voice that continued to prick my conscience that said there were other, darker reasons for my reticence, an old, familiar voice telling me that I was a coward.
I climbed the steps to Loralee’s room, picking up a shopping bag in my room on the way. I paused on the threshold, listening to her labored breathing, her body emaciated except for the rounded dome of her belly. In the weeks since she’d been in hospice care, I’d seen Loralee gracefully surrendering her life bit by bit. She’d shrunk so much that I doubted she weighed much more than Owen. She’d sent me to Victoria’s Secret to get pretty nightgowns in the smallest sizes, but even those seemed to dwarf her.
The cancer had spread to her liver, which was what had caused her skin to yellow, and had continued its insidious and invasive spread to other organs. She didn’t get out of bed anymore, even to make her two laps around her room to “keep her girlish figure.”
Her bed was littered with Owen’s LEGOs and the Harry Potter book he was reading out loud to his mother. He didn’t like being away from her, and it would be only after Loralee told him to go to Maris’s or head to the store with me that he’d reluctantly leave her side. Several times I’d found him sleeping on the floor in the hallway outside her door, bathed in the light from the Darth Vader night-light, keeping the encroaching darkness away.
Gibbes came by almost every day if his work schedule allowed, usually bringing her flowers, and stayed for a bit to talk with her and to Owen. I always found an excuse to be in some other part of the house, because every time I saw him I thought of the letter. And how the truth kept nudging me, wanting me to face things I wasn’t ready for. I hadn’t shared the letter with him, not yet. I simply didn’t have the courage to watch him put the pieces together, and to confront the aftermath.
The television was on low, showing one of Loralee’s favorite soaps—one in which even I could now name the characters and who was sleeping with whom. I watched it for a few minutes, then walked over to turn it off.
“Just turn down the volume, please,” she said.
“Sorry—I thought you were sleeping.”
“I was mostly thinking.”
I sat down on the side of her bed. “What about?”
“About what I want to be buried in.” She paused to catch her breath. It was difficult for her to talk, and she paused often between sentences and sometimes words. “I’ve got a really pretty pink suit with a bow at the collar; I’ll show you which one. And I want my hair down and curled the way I like to wear it—nice and big. Will you take care of that for me? I want Owen to remember his mama looking her best.”
“Loralee,” I began, feeling the ever-present sob in the back of my throat.
“And I want you to wear red. Go buy yourself a new dress, and every time you wear it, I want you to remember me and how fabulous we both looked at my funeral.”
A half sob, half laugh erupted from my mouth. “All right. What about Owen?”
A soft smile fell on her lips. “He’ll probably pick his little-man suit with the striped tie, but if he doesn’t that’s all right. Let him wear what he wants to. Maybe he’ll rebel and wear tennis shoes or something. There’s nothing wrong with that. A show of independence now and again is a good thing.” Her breath rattled as she tried to suck in air.
“Got it,” I said, wishing I had my own journal to write down all of Loralee’s child-rearing tips and general wisdom. I had a strong feeling I would need it.