Her own mother must have wondered the same thing about her and Noreen.
Struck by a familiar longing for the woman who’d been yanked from her life far too soon, and for her father—-not to mention for her firstborn son, and her daughter—-Rowan feels as though most of her adult life has been spent missing the -people she loves. Just when you think you’ve moved past one loss, bam! Another one takes its place.
But eventually, you figure out how to survive without that person, and maybe you hold on a little tighter to the ones who are left.
When Braden first left for college, she couldn’t walk by his empty room without sobbing. She kept the door closed and avoided it until he came home the following May with a heap of clothes and dorm room accessories that seemed to have quadrupled over the course of two semesters. When he left again the following fall, she missed him terribly all over again, but was nonetheless relieved to see the pile of stuff evaporate. She took advantage of his absence to paint the walls, update the bedding, and create space in his desk drawers for some of her school files.
Katie’s departure last August brought another momentary wave of grief, but Rowan got over it quickly enough to move part of her accumulated wardrobe to her daughter’s half--empty closet and stash some of her books on built--in shelves left barren in Katie’s absence. She’s been in and out of the room often enough these past few months to feel that she isn’t violating her daughter’s privacy as she crosses the threshold now.
Dusk is falling beyond the tall, lace--curtained windows that overlook the street. She flips the overhead light switch. It throws a bright yellow glare over the room. She quickly turns it off again, feeling oddly exposed and reaching instead for the bedside lamp.
There. That’s better. Now the girly bedroom, decorated in pastel shades of green and lavender, is bathed in warm light, a sharp contrast with how she’s feeling inside. The moment she saw that snow globe, a chill snaked through her and withered every glimmer of contentment she’d experienced on the drive home from school.
Talking to Noreen had helped a little, but her sister doesn’t seem to grasp the gravity of this situation, and why would she? To her, it’s ancient history.
Rowan drags Katie’s desk chair over to the closet. Built on a swivel, the seat jerks back and forth beneath her weight as she climbs on it to retrieve a clear plastic bin from the top shelf.
Super--organized Katie keeps her belongings sorted and labeled. In some ways, she’s cut from the same cloth as Aunt Noreen.
And Mick . . . poor Mick is so much like me.
The conversation in the car had left her worried. There were so many things she wanted to say to her son; so many things she probably should have said to him long before now.
She’d been so determined to put her troubled teen years behind her that she hadn’t shared many details with the kids. Now she realizes that it might help Mick to know she gets it, gets him. That she knows exactly what it’s like to do . . .
Something I wouldn’t have done if I’d stopped to think.
Mick’s words, but they could have been her own, thirty years ago and fourteen years ago.
She won’t confess the most sordid sins of her past, but she’ll share what she can and suggest that they find a therapist for him. Armed with a diagnosis, medication and therapy, he can turn things around now, while he’s still young. Before he makes a reckless mistake that will have more serious repercussions than a friend’s cold shoulder.
Ah, there it is—-the bin marked in pink Sharpie: Polly Pocket, Hello Kitty, & Barbie. As she goes through the contents, she lays the entire collection of Polly Pocket dolls out on the lavender patchwork quilt. They’re neatly organized in Ziploc bags individually marked with each doll’s name and clothing and accessories. It looks like Katie kept them all.