Chasing Rainbows A Novel

TWENTY-ONE


“VX OPRX FQPAX VQP MLPV FQX VPJAF PZ YA SLC CPL’F FYJL FQXHJ ZSEXA SVSG.”

-VSOMXJ WXJEG

A decent amount of trepidation filled me as I pulled into my mother’s drive on Easter Sunday. I hadn’t seen or talked to Mark in the two months since our argument, and while I’d seen my mother plenty of times since that day, we’d avoided the issue, dancing completely around the topic.

We’d also avoided my mother’s to-do list, or at least, I had.

Mark, Jenny and the kids hadn’t arrived yet, so I let Poindexter out into my mother’s fenced yard then followed her into the kitchen.

I spotted a small silver object hanging from the waistband of her jeans and pointed. “What’s that?”

“A pedometer.” Mom gave the tiny device a pat. “Ten thousand steps a day and I feel like a new woman. You should try it, honey.”

I bit my lip to avoid laughing. “I’ll do that.”

Then I opted for a subject change.

“I was thinking about your list.” I swiped a pickle from the crystal serving dish while my mother wasn’t watching. A move I’d perfected in grade school.

“It’s done,” she said.

“What’s done?” I muffed the question through pieces of dill. So much for subterfuge.

“The list.”

“Your list is done?” Was she serious?

“Mm hm.” She nodded as she slipped a tray of dinner rolls into the oven.

“Since when?”

“Since I started attacking it item by item.”

Without me. I cringed. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

She spun on me, her brows crumpled. “For what?”

“Mark was right. I’m not here enough. I should be here. I should--”

“You have your own life,” she interrupted me.

“But I--”

“And you should live it.”

The doorbell rang just as she stepped toward me. She ignored the chime long enough to cup my chin in her fingertips.

“Live your life, Bernie. That’s all your dad and I ever wanted for you.”

I stood frozen in place, working to swallow down the knot of emotion in my throat as my mother headed for the front door.

“Don’t you look handsome.” I heard her say.

“Is she here?” Mark asked.

Mark.

I drew in a fortifying breath. The time had come for me to say I was sorry. Hell, the time had come and gone. A good sister would have apologized weeks ago. But not me. No sir.

I heard Mark’s approaching footsteps and opened my mouth to speak. When he cleared the threshold, sporting Dad’s favorite jacket--navy blue with brass buttons, words failed me.

Don’t you look handsome. My mom’s words rang in my ears.

He did look handsome.

And he looked like Daddy. The sight stole my breath away.

Mark smiled, knowing the exact effect he was having on me. Sudden tears swam in my eyes and he frowned, reaching out to grasp my arm.

“Hey.” He pulled me close. “This wasn’t supposed to make you cry.”

I tried to choke out a response, a word, anything, but nothing came.

Mark steered me toward the back door, a move my father had made countless times during my childhood. A moment later, we were sitting on the back step, the warm spring air caressing our cheeks.

“I wasn’t ready for this before,” he said. “I’m sorry--”

But I squeezed his hand, stopping him short.

It had taken me five years to face Emma’s room. Mark had faced Dad’s closet in only seven months.

“No.” I forced the word through my throat. “I’m sorry. I was wrong. So very, very wrong.”

He hooked an arm around my shoulders and pulled me close. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d sat like this. Hell, I couldn’t remember ever sitting like this.

“We were both wrong.” The soothing tone of his voice washed over me, calming any tinge of anxiety I’d still held inside. “I think losing a father will do that to people.”

“Make them crazy?” I asked.

“Yeah.” He chuckled lightly. “Make them crazy.”

“Nice jacket.” I pulled at the hem.

“A little something I picked up.” He teased.

“He’d be proud of you.

Mark’s voice tightened then. “Think so?”

“Know so,” I answered.

He gave my shoulders a squeeze.

“What do you think he’d say about your hair?” he asked.

I reached up to self-consciously smooth a strand. My hair had grown long enough now for the uncontrollable wave to become...well...uncontrollable. Let’s just say the effect left a lot to be desired.

And then we spoke the words together. “I don’t care what anybody says, I’d wear it anyway.”

We were still laughing as we stepped back inside, but just before we left the mudroom, he grasped my arm again, pulling me to a stop.

I turned to face him, my eyes widening.

“You’ve been through a lot, Bernie.”

I shook my head. “No more than anyone else.”

He nodded, his eyes narrowing. “I’m proud of you.”

We stared at each other for a few moments, the silence comfortable, a bit like coming home.

“I cried for days when Emma died.” Mark spoke the words so softly I thought for a moment I might be imagining them. Moisture glistened in his eyes.

I’d never seen my brother cry.

Never.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” My throat tightened again, relief and sadness and grief washing over me all at once.

He sighed, the sound more shudder than exhale. “Because big brothers aren’t supposed to cry.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck, tears stinging behind my lids. “Yes they are,” I whispered the words in his ear.

“A bebe.” A shrill little voice sounded just before a tiny pair of arms locked around my knees.

I pushed away from Mark, holding his gaze long enough to read the truce in his eyes.

I turned and hoisted Elizabeth into my arms.

“A bebe,” she repeated as I pressed a kiss to her chubby cheek. My heart ached wondering how much she’d look like her cousin Emma might have looked.

“She’s been practicing your name all week,” Mark said, smiling proudly.

“And it sounds perfect.” I gave Elizabeth a squeeze and reached my open hand for Mark’s, sliding my fingers inside his. “Perfect,” I repeated as the three of us headed back toward the rest of our family.

o0o

“We were at the mall,” Diane said as she and Ashley let themselves in my front door later that evening.

I wondered briefly if the day would ever come that Diane didn’t feel she could walk in without knocking.

I hoped not.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on bed rest?”

Weeks had passed since the pre-term labor scare, and, with the exception of mild cramping, Diane’s pregnancy had continued along smoothly.

“We’re close enough to term that I’m allowed to do light activities.”

“Like going to the mall,” Ashley chimed in, rolling her eyes.

Ashley’s forehead captured my attention as I nodded in response to her statement. Her eyebrows were...perfect. I mean, truly perfect.

“Rediscover You?” I asked. She and I had never gotten back to the makeup kiosk but she’d obviously found a solution to the smearing issue.

Diane shook her head. “We bought some things at the drugstore and did them ourselves in the parking lot. They look great, don’t they?”

I stepped more closely to Ashley and reached out a finger to lightly trace her brows. I smiled. Her stubbles had almost grown in. Someday soon, the kid would have her brows back.

“Nice.” I gave her a hug.

Ashley took a backward step and hoisted a paper bag into my arms. “Open it,” she commanded.

I scrutinized the bag and frowned. “What is it?”

“Open it.” Diane repeated Ashley’s words.

So I did.

I unfolded the top of the bag, peered inside and studied the vivid lilac shade. I reached into the bag, pulled out the thick cotton knit and shook out the sweatshirt.

A new sweatshirt.

I looked down at the ratty sweatshirt currently covering the upper half of my body and laughed. The cuffs were no longer attached and the zipper was on its last tooth, literally.

“Read it.” Ashley’s eyes grew even brighter.

Read it?

I turned the garment around and read the single word emblazoned across the chest in big, bold letters.

Goddess.

“Oh, shit.” I slapped a hand across my mouth as I started to laugh. “I mean...shoot.”

“Isn’t it great?” Ashley didn’t miss a beat, snatching the new sweatshirt out of my hands and reaching to unzip the one I wore.

I captured her hand in mine. “Excuse me?”

“We’re burning it.” Diane waggled her fingers at my zipper. “Get that off.”

“Burning it?” My voice squeaked on the last word.

Diane pursed her lips and nodded. I’d forgotten just how bossy she could be.

But, I liked it.

A grin spread across my face as I looked down again at the sweatshirt that had been my faithful companion through most every moment of my recent metamorphosis.

Burning it.

I liked that idea a lot.

I unzipped my top, shrugged out of the offending garment and let it drop to the floor in a faded gray puddle. Diane plucked the beyond repair sweatshirt from the floor and headed toward the back door as Ashley stepped behind me, holding up the lilac sweatshirt as if the garment were a coronation robe.

I slid my arms into the new sleeves, savoring the plush feel of unworn cotton against my skin. I reached down to pull the zipper home, stepped in front of the hall mirror and smiled.

Goddess.

Not even close, but I’d take it.

I laughed.

“Where are your matches?” Diane’s voice rang out from the kitchen.

Matches.

Now, I might be a tad on the uncoordinated side, but the thought of the now-very-pregnant Diane lumbering about in the backyard with a pack of matches made my blood run cold.

“I’ll get them,” I answered.

Several minutes later, we’d successfully fired up the barbeque pit. Diane held the old gray sweatshirt in her outstretched arms as if it reeked of disease.

“Anything you want to say?” she asked.

I reached for the shirt, plucking it from her grip. “Let me do that.”

I dropped the sweatshirt on top of the fire, frowning momentarily when I thought it might extinguish the flames instead of catching them, but the fire’s glow grew, sparkling through the beads on my bracelet.

I smiled, knowing exactly what I wanted to say. Exactly what I wanted to believe.

“To chasing rainbows.” I hoisted up one of the three glasses of water we’d poured to celebrate the moment.

Ashley’s forehead crumpled, but Diane beamed. Someday Ashley would know exactly what I meant. For the time being, she merely shrugged and took a sip of her water.

We watched as the flames licked up from the barbeque pit Ryan and I had used just once.

“Aunt Bernie, do you have any--”

“For the love of God, do not say peas.” I shot Ashley a warning glare.

“Marshmallows?” She finished her question and shook her head. “Why would I want to roast peas?”

The three of us laughed, the sound of our happiness mingling with countless sparkles of light, lifting from the burning sweatshirt and dancing on the night air before fading away, leaving only the promise of things to come.

The drone of a plane sounded overhead and Poindexter took off running, paws pounding against the yard, snout pointed skyward, his gaze fixated on the lights of a cargo plane circling for landing.

As Ashley headed inside to look for marshmallows, I did something I’d thought about doing countless times before.

I put down my glass and ran with my dog, racing back and forth across the yard, keeping the target in focus.

A single airplane. Poindexter’s rainbow.

We chased until the plane was out of sight, then I dropped down onto the grass, laughing, pulling Poindexter into my arms.

If I wasn’t mistaken, a silhouette moved away from the patio doors down at Number Thirty-Six.

And I smiled.

o0o

“We love those who know the worst of us and don’t turn their faces away.”

-Walker Percy