There was no money for a funeral. Aubrey had none, obviously. Amanda, who drove a Mustang and had awfully nice clothes for a cocktail waitress, claimed to be flat broke. As far as Jenny could tell, Amanda would’ve been happy to leave her mother’s ashes in the trash can outside the funeral home. But Aubrey insisted on having some sort of ceremony. So at ten o’ clock that morning, with the mercury already at eighty-five and the desert sky a harsh blue, Jenny and the two sisters rented a rickety motorboat at a lake about an hour from the city, a place Aubrey said her mother had loved. Aubrey and Amanda didn’t know any prayers, so Jenny recited the Twenty-third Psalm while Aubrey and Amanda took turns reaching into the plastic bag and tossing handfuls of gritty, gray ash into the water. Aubrey sobbed all through their makeshift memorial and all the way to the airport, where Amanda waved a curt good-bye, obviously relieved to see the back of them. Jenny got the feeling Aubrey and her sister wouldn’t speak again for a very long time, if ever.
Now, at thirty thousand feet, Aubrey was passed out, eyes shut, mouth open, in an exhausted sleep. She had thanked Jenny constantly, proclaiming her tearful gratitude, saying Jenny and Kate were her only family now. The responsibility of that weighed on Jenny’s mind, simply because she knew it was true, and Kate wasn’t bloody likely to shoulder her half of that burden.
But maybe Jenny was wrong about that. Their flight had been delayed, first by air-traffic congestion in Las Vegas, and later by a blizzard at Logan Airport that kept them circling for an hour until the runway could be plowed and de-iced. By the time they landed, the last bus back to Belle River had left without them. Jenny looked at her watch when they got to baggage claim and started to panic. Her econ exam was the day after tomorrow. She needed to get back to school fast, but there were no good options. She could call an expensive car service. She could roust her parents from their warm bed and ask them to drive for hours in the middle of a snowstorm to rescue her. Or, she could sleep in the terminal tonight, in which case she wouldn’t make it back to campus till tomorrow afternoon and be too wrecked to study. That was her reward for being a good friend to Aubrey.
“Look, there’s Kate!” Aubrey said, taking off toward the automatic doors.
“Where?”
Kate’s bright hair stood out like a beacon in the gray-faced crowd waiting on the other side of the glass doors. By the time Jenny caught up, Aubrey was sobbing in Kate’s arms.
Jenny met Kate’s eyes over Aubrey’s heaving shoulders. “I didn’t know you’d be here,” she said. The words came out sounding accusatory.
“I thought you could use a lift,” Kate replied. “I borrowed Griff’s Jeep. It’s four-wheel-drive.”
Kate looked tired and pale. Outside the plate-glass windows, the snow fell steadily, and Jenny felt a tentacle of forgiveness creep into her heart. It was no small undertaking, driving from Belle River to Boston, and back, in weather like this. A ride home in time for a decent night’s sleep beat the hell out of camping on the floor of the terminal, using her suitcase for a pillow, and being too exhausted to study the next day. It was hard to stay mad at a person who’d drive four hours in a snowstorm to rescue you from a fate like that.
“Thanks, that’s really nice of you,” Jenny said, somewhat grudgingly, since Kate was still that same arrogant bitch who’d knowingly slept with her ex. She half expected a nasty retort. Kate was doing this for Aubrey, not for Jenny, et cetera and so forth. But Kate smiled in delight.
“What are roomies for? C’mon, I’m parked in the short-term lot.”
On the ride home, Jenny sat in the backseat with her head lolling and her eyes closed, drifting in and out of sleep. In her lucid moments, she eavesdropped on Aubrey and Kate’s conversation. They say eavesdroppers never hear good of themselves. That was a myth. Aubrey told Kate in detail about all the ways Jenny had helped out in her moment of need, and to Jenny’s surprise, Kate joined in the praise. Jenny was smart and together and a loyal friend, Kate gushed. Nothing fazed her. They were lucky to have her in their lives. Hey, maybe Kate suspected Jenny was awake, and was saying sweet things in order to get back in her good graces. But still. Jenny dozed off, feeling generous toward Kate. When she awoke, they had just crossed the New Hampshire border. The world outside the windows was white and desolate, and Kate was steady at the wheel.
“I’m sad for my mom,” Aubrey was saying. “She had such a hard life, and now it won’t get better. I always thought someday, things would finally be right between us, but now it’s too late.”
“I think a lot about my mom, too,” Kate said. “What would she be like now? What would I be like, if she’d lived? It’s not just that she died too young, but she left me too young. I needed my mother.”
Jenny wondered whether, if Kate hadn’t lost her mom at a young age, she would be a better person now. Maybe she wouldn’t take other people’s things, or lord it over them, or ruin their self-confidence. Kate’s relationship with her father and stepmother was dismal and wrenching. Jenny liked to think Kate had things easy, but maybe that wasn’t entirely true.
“We’re orphans,” Aubrey said.
“I’m not. There’s still Keniston.”
“Technically, my father is still alive, too. But I have no idea where, so he doesn’t count. And your dad disowned you, so he doesn’t count, either.”
“He didn’t exactly disown me,” Kate said defensively. “He held back my trust payments. I mean, yeah, that’s outrageous, but it’s Victoria’s doing. He’s under her thumb. I feel sorry for him, the old fool.” Kate’s condescending tone couldn’t hide the hurt she obviously felt at her father’s disloyalty.
The windshield wipers swished against the melting snow as they drove on. It got quiet inside the Jeep, and Jenny melted a little, too. She liked to think of herself as a fair person, and it seemed only fair to forgive Kate. As jealous as she might be over Lucas, the fact was, Jenny broke up with him before Lucas and Kate even met. Maybe Kate had lorded her conquest of Lucas over Jenny, but she did that in retaliation for Jenny saying mean things to her first. Ultimately, Kate wasn’t so bad. Her life was harder than it looked from the outside. Jenny decided to cut Kate some slack, at least for now.
*