My musings continue as I watch Kara pull down our driveway. Even so far removed, the Andersons’ neon-yellow Jag stands out. An obnoxious car for obnoxious people. I don’t process what it means until I sense Kara’s panic and shame.
“Stay away,” she warned that night, her eyes frantic. But my mother’s face flashed before me and I knew I couldn’t turn my back on someone so desperate. Not again. Not a child. I replayed Brady’s lectures on having boundaries and saying no even as I nuzzled my way so far into the Andersons’ problem that it became my problem instead. I liked my life, loved it even, and Kara must be here to tell my family that. Thank you, I say now. Thank you. How brave of her to come forward. I honestly never thought she would. Of all the girls, Kara’s was a callousness I assumed incurable. I wonder what broke her down?
I linger briefly on the idea that I spared Christie the unnatural grief of burying her own. The thought warms me with pleasure and my spirit climbs higher still. I can’t make out Eve’s expression as she answers the door, but I’m no longer afraid. I have finally pieced together the corollary: they will find their way without me. My presence might expedite fate, but in loitering I give up whatever’s next for me. I’m inflated with the understanding that I wasn’t sentenced to this purgatory; I opted in, unready to leave my family. With the appreciation that their lives aren’t waiting on me I’m free to move on, but first, I pass one final message to Eve. Forgive her, I beg. Practice love, compassion and forgiveness. Anger is nothing but an anchor that keeps you from moving forward.
The peace surrounding me intensifies, and the vibration returns, creating a soft hum. I’m transforming. The light I craved as I fell finds me now, welcoming me toward it. It’s easy to identify the energy seeping in: it is love. I’m ready to be loved again. I have no duty to serve my past life, except every once in a while to offer a warm shiver of praise to my daughter or the sound of my laughter joining Brady’s for an inside joke.
Eve
I’m unloading groceries when the doorbell chimes. It’s Kara, only without her usual makeup and smug look on her face. She’s in a hoodie and reeks of rum. We stare at each other for a second.
“What happened to you?” I ask, but even as I say it I suspect it’s really me something happened to.
“Can I come in?” She looks behind her shoulder like she might’ve been followed.
“Are you drunk?”
“Does it matter?”
Given her paranoia she’s probably drunk and stoned. This should be a fun chat. I open the door. Kara stays standing, her eyes darting around the room as if she’s looking for something. “I was there,” she whispers. “Your mom didn’t jump.”
I’m still registering her words when I realize that she plans to bail, as if the movie is over, as if the movie has even started. I pull her down to the couch by the elbow, my nails digging into her skin. She waits for me to say something, which is crazy because I can’t even breathe. If Mom didn’t jump then how? Why? What could Kara possibly know about it? I stare at her, searching for my voice, until she gets that I can’t speak and starts talking. “So I used my dad’s laptop to get directions and his email was up. He was having an affair wi—”
“There’s no way in hell my mom—”
“Shut up and listen,” Kara snaps. “It was some slutty professor—Courtney Lawrence, Courtney Lawrence, Courtney Lawrence—there must’ve been forty emails all right there. I was so pissed off and I saw she had a Wellesley College email so I looked her up. A professor of psychology. Her bio said she enjoys mountain climbing with her gay-looking husband so I was, like, perfect, and after practice the next day I drank a three-hundred-dollar bottle of pinot noir my gigolo of a father had been saving for the perfect fucking occasion, and went to Wellesley to put the bitch in her place.”
For months I’ve practiced drowning Kara out; she’s such a fast talker it was easy to do. Now I’m desperate to catch every word. I read her lips to follow along. “Her office was in the library so I busted in and was all, ‘You better back off my dad or I’ll tell your husband what’s going on,’ and the trampy bitch looked at me like I was a little pathetic kid she felt sorry for and said, ‘I don’t think you understand the situation.’” Kara pulls a flask out of her hoodie, takes a sip, then grunts. “So I was like, ‘Pretty sure I got it—you’re a skank and you’re sleeping with my father and if you don’t stop I’m going to ruin your life.’ And she just looked at me with this shit-eating grin. I was totally confused. Then she goes, ‘You should talk to your parents.’ Talk to my parents? So I go, ‘WHAT THE FUCK?’”
I jump in my seat. Kara laughs, mumbles something more about Courtney Lawrence, and takes another swig.
My thoughts are frozen. I can’t see how this story and my mom collide, but they must. She didn’t jump. That’s what she said. And if she didn’t jump, then she didn’t want to leave me, and if she didn’t want to leave me, then I shouldn’t be alone. I grab the flask from Kara’s hand. She raises her eyebrows, daring me to hear more, like there’s anything she could say that’d be worse than what she hasn’t said all these months. “You’re cut off,” I say. “Keep talking.”
She rolls her eyes. “I stared at the ho. When she saw I wasn’t leaving I guess she figured what the hell and goes, ‘Do you know what an open marriage is?’ And I didn’t, not really, but as soon as she said it I did. And I said no, no way, and that skinny bitch just smiled and said yep. YEP. An open marriage meant it went both ways. It was such a mind fuck.
“I ran from her office, I needed to get the hell away, but then I didn’t know where the fuck to go. And then it was like, duh, oh my fucking god, all these things clicked. Like Coach Wilkins picking my mom up one night and the weird dinner we had with my old babysitter and her boyfriend from college and the time I called my parents’ hotel on vacation and the receptionist asked which of their rooms I wanted. It was this cracked-out list that kept growing and growing. I felt wicked sick. I ran to the bathroom to puke and as I was heaving I thought—it could be worse—at least no one else knows.”
She grabs the flask from my hand and tips it back, laughing when some of it misses her mouth. “It’s as close as I’ve ever been to a real live retard. EVERYONE KNEW. I mean, you knew, right?”
She’s so totally out of it. I’m afraid I’ll lose her if I give the wrong answer. “I just want to know what happened to my mom,” I whisper.
“You knew. I can tell you knew. Everyone fucking knew.” She looks at me, disgusted. “Right there on the bathroom floor I saw it so clearly—Mike’s jabs after I slept with Doug when I was dating Noel; the football guys laughing their asses off when I got on the swing after homecoming; making varsity this year even though I totally suck. I’m the only loser who didn’t fucking see it.”