“But she’s says no every time I ask her to go there.”
“It’s within driving distance and it’s not dangerous,” she said, then looked back to her newspaper, as if she hadn’t said anything at all.
“Why doesn’t she like it there anymore?”
“Oh, she likes it plenty. Now, go. Your fun day awaits.”
Mom was quiet in the car, and when I asked her from the backseat if we could stop by and see Daddy, she looked at me in the rearview mirror like she was surprised I was sitting there.
“He’s on the boat, Kat,” she said.
I looked out the window at the rain coming down; the fog was so thick, I could see only the outline of the stores as we passed them.
“He doesn’t usually go out in the rain.”
Mom shook her head. “He shouldn’t be out there today, coughing like that last night. I argued with him this morning when he went to leave, but he went anyway.”
“He said he feels okay. I asked him last night when he was reading me a book. But then he fell asleep, and he was making weird noises like he was having a bad dream.”
“Your father doesn’t know how to admit he doesn’t feel well. He thinks it makes him look weak.”
“Daddy weak? That’s crazy. His muscles are like BAM!” I flexed my arm and held my hand up to where Dad’s muscle would be.
Mom smiled, and I thought it would be a good time to bring up what Grandma said.
“Remember you said we could do anything I wanted today?”
“I think I did say that.”
“So we’ll go to the movies.”
“On our way as we speak,” she said.
“And then we’ll get ice cream,” I added.
“Of course.”
“And then we’ll go to the Salt House.” I held my breath after I said it.
She looked at me in the mirror.
“Please,” I begged.
“Kat, no.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Well, to start, it’s not open.”
Every summer Mom spent an entire weekend “opening” the Salt House.
The trunk of her car would be filled with cleaning supplies, clean sheets, towels, and grocery bags. Dad stuck to the outside, putting the screens on the windows and cutting the grass.
I knew this because I begged them to take me one year, and it was the most boring day of my life.
Mom kept kicking me out of the house because she was cleaning it, and Dad said he had special jobs for me, but what he really meant was yard work. I spent most of the day swinging on the hammock by the water wishing I’d gone with Jess to the town pool.
“We can still go and just see it. We didn’t even go at all last summer.”
“Yes, we did. You remember we went and took pictures in the beginning of the summer when they tore out all the walls and put new ones up?”
“I mean after that,” I said.
“Well, you know, it was a busy summer . . . with everything that happened.” Her voice faded away.
I could tell by her face that she meant Maddie. She died the day I got out of school for summer. After that, Mom didn’t want to do much of anything. Dad brought me to the house once after that. It looked the same on the outside, the yellow shingles still chipped, but the grass around it was so overgrown, it looked like you could get lost in it.
Dad had mowed the lawn while I walked from room to room. The walls were gray, and it just looked lonely and empty. All of our stuff was packed in boxes in the front hall, and the first one I opened had all of Maddie’s cups, with scrapes on the part you drink out of because she was just getting teeth and liked to chew on them. I closed the box and went down to the hammock until Dad was done.
But that was a year ago. It seemed like more than a year ago. It seemed like forever. And I told her that now.
She looked in the mirror and sighed. “Okay. How about this. I’m not ready to go today—”
I started to argue, but she held up her hand.
“But soon. I promise.”
We were in the parking lot of the movie theater, and she pulled in a space and turned off the car.
She gestured to the front seat. “Come up here.”
I climbed over, and she pulled me against her, her arms around my middle. I felt her chin on the top of my head.
“Question for you,” she said.
I tilted my head back and looked at her.
“There are a lot of memories for us in that house.” She played with a piece of my hair. “Of lots of things.”
She swallowed hard enough that I heard it.
“I mean lots of memories of your sister. Of Maddie,” she said in a voice that was loud, louder than it needed to be in the small space we were in, like she was forcing out the words before they slipped away.
“Isn’t that a good thing?” I asked.
She gave me a little smile. “It is a good thing,” she agreed. “I want to make sure you’re ready.”
“Ready for what?” I asked.
“Well, sometimes memories can make you happy. And sometimes, they can make you sad.” Her fingertips touched my cheek when she said this. Like she was brushing away invisible tears. “I just want to make sure you’re ready, that’s all.”
“I’m ready.” I nodded fast to prove it.
She didn’t look convinced. And then she looked out the windshield at nothing and started to get the faraway look that meant she was going to get very quiet. I pulled my knees underneath me so I was taller in the seat and stuck my head in front of where she was looking.
“Mom? I’m ready,” I said loudly.
Her eyes focused on me and she let her breath out, like she’d been holding it.
“Well, then. I think I need to be brave like you.”
“You’re brave, Mommy,” I told her, resting my head on her shoulder. “The bravest mommy in the whole world.”
When I looked up, she was smiling down at me. It wasn’t a happy smile, but it wasn’t sad either. We sat like that for a minute until Mom said we should go to get a good seat.
We were walking through the parking lot, holding hands, when I realized we had talked about Maddie.
And for the first time in as long as I could remember, Mom hadn’t cried.
?15
Hope
In the kitchen, Jess was on the phone.
“I’ll see you soon,” she said before she hung up, her voice chirpy, a sparkle in her eye when she turned around.
“Alex?” I asked her.
The cordless phone bobbled in her hands, slipped and clanged against the counter. She smothered it as though it were a football tumbling in the grass. After she placed it securely in the holder, she looked at me. I was smiling, but a look of panic crossed her face. I felt my smile fade.
“It was Bets. She’s home for the weekend.”
“Oh. That’s nice. I know you’ve missed her.”
She watched me warily.
“So, Alex,” I said. “I heard you know each other.”
I didn’t tell her it was Kat who told me about them. How she’d seen them having lunch on the hood of Alex’s truck in the parking lot in front of her camp. Kat and Jess got along great for the most part. But when they argued, it was usually Jess telling Kat to mind her own business. Now, I didn’t want Jess to be angry with Kat.
She shrugged. “He works at the sailing camp next to the shop.”
“And you met how?”