Keep Me in Your Heart (27 page)

“Yes.” Tucker glanced at Trisha.

“Well, don’t I feel special,” she said. “I’m a blank in his mind, but your mud flaps make the grade.”

Cody blushed. “You’re not really mad, are you? Some things come back in a flash, and I never know when that’s going to happen.”

She kissed his cheek. “I’m not mad. Just teasing.”

“Was it hard for you to drive again?” Cody asked Tucker.

“The first time I sat behind the wheel after the wreck, my hands shook so bad I couldn’t even turn on the ignition. I thought I was going to throw up.”

“How about you?” Cody turned the question to Trisha.

“I’m all right about driving. At first I didn’t think I would be able to, but I can. I’m driving my dad’s old clunker now. He got a new one so that I could have a car.” It had been generous of her parents to sacrifice so that she could get around. Christina had usually driven Trisha around. Now Trisha drove alone.

Tucker said, “My dad took me by the salvage yard to look at my car a few weeks ago. It’s totaled. The roof was crushed, and there wasn’t a piece of glass in it that wasn’t broken. I couldn’t believe any of us got out of it alive.” Tucker’s knuckles had gone white, gripping the arms of his chair as he described the car’s condition.

One of us didn’t
, Trisha thought, but she knew he needed no reminding.

“I don’t remember any of it,” Cody said.

“Lucky you,” Tucker said, his eyes full of pain.

“It’s all like shadows to me,” Cody said. “Sometimes I think I see something that looks familiar, but then it vanishes and I can’t get hold of it again. The girl who died, Christina … I have her picture, but I don’t know if she looks familiar because I remember her or because I’ve looked at her picture so much.”

“She was beautiful,” Tucker said. “I miss her more than anything in this world.” Tucker struggled to his feet. Trisha could see that he was shaken. “I’ve got to go.”

“Will you come back?” Cody asked.

“Do you want me to?”

“We were friends. I’m not sure I had that many.”

“You did,” Tucker said. “You were a regular guy. Everybody liked you.”

His use of the past tense wasn’t lost on Trisha.

At the foot of the stairs, Tucker said, “You two hold on to each other. Okay?”

Trisha watched him take the stairs two at a time, as if he were being chased by a ghost.

*  *  *

Trisha found a note from her mother stuck to the refrigerator door when she got home. It read:
I’ve taken Charlie to b’ball practice. Julia called. She would like to see you. They’re moving
.

Sixteen
 

T
risha drove to Christina’s house on Saturday morning in the rain. She hadn’t been there since a week before the accident, which made her feel ashamed of herself. She’d known Christina’s parents for as long as she’d known Christina, and she’d always liked them. She should have come by before now, before poor Julia had to call and ask her.

She pulled into the driveway. Julia stepped onto the porch, and Trisha realized that the woman must have been waiting and looking for her. Trisha hadn’t seen her since the funeral and thought Julia looked thin, delicate, almost waiflike. “Hello,” Christina’s mom called, smiling as Trisha stepped out of her car.

Trisha, dodging raindrops, jogged up to the porch, where they stood looking at each other. “I—I’m sorry—” Trisha began.

“No apologies necessary.” Julia waved her off. “Come into the kitchen. I made us hot chocolate.”

Just entering the house felt dreamlike to Trisha. Every nook was as familiar to her as those in her own home. Yet things had changed too. Pictures had been removed from walls, and the living room looked uninhabited. In the kitchen, Julia made small talk as she set a plate of cookies on the table and poured steaming mugs of chocolate.

She invited Trisha to sit, saying, “It’s good to see you. How have you been?”

“All right.” Trisha cradled the mug, mostly to warm her freezing hands. She couldn’t look Julia in the eye just yet. “Mom said you’re moving.”

“Yes. Nelson’s company had an opening in Cleveland and offered him the position.”

“When will you go?”

“They want us there by mid-April.” Julia glanced around the kitchen. “Packing up is a real chore. Movers will do most of it. But, as always, there are things we must do.”

Trisha nodded. “I remember moving from Chicago. It was hard.”

“Right now, it’s harder to stay. I’m glad we’re going. Too many memories.”

Trisha met her gaze. “I should have come by sooner.”

“No. It’s okay. I know how difficult this must be for you.”

Julia’s kindness touched her. “Mr. Eckloe … how is he?”

“Better than he was the night of the viewing.” Julia pressed the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. “He must have seemed like a madman to everyone, especially Tucker.”

“His reaction was understandable.”

“We’ve talked to the police and have come to realize that it was an accident. It was just a senseless, stupid accident.”

For a moment, neither of them spoke, and Trisha heard the rain hitting the kitchen window and saw it running down in rivulets, like tears. “I’ll never forget her, you know,” Trisha said.

“I know that. She loved you like a sister. She often said to me, ‘Mom, if I ever had a sister, I’d want it to be Trisha.’ ”

A lump swelled in Trisha’s throat.

“She loved Tucker too,” Julia added. “I didn’t always approve of the way he treated her, though.”

Julia’s announcement surprised Trisha. It must have shown, because Julia added, “I was sensitive to their relationship. I knew he sometimes made her unhappy.”

“He didn’t want her to go off to college.”

“Selfish of him.”

“That was his idea of love.”

“You do think she would have gone whether he wanted her to or not, don’t you?”

Trisha thought about her answer and saw no reason to mention the marriage offer Tucker had been planning to make. “Yes, I’m sure she would have gone. She knew what she wanted and wouldn’t have let Tucker take it away from her.”

Julia relaxed. “It’s hard raising kids. We loved her so much and tried to do everything we could for her.”

“She wanted you to be happy with her.” Trisha knew how conflicted Christina had been about her feelings for Tucker and her desire to do what her parents wanted. Trisha thought of her own college dilemma and understood
the gift her parents had given her by not applying pressure and trying to make her decide something she wasn’t ready to decide.

“If you sit on a child too hard, they break. If you give them too much freedom, they don’t learn limits,” Julia said thoughtfully.

“You were great parents,” Trisha said.

Sadness filled Julia’s face. “The high school said they’d give us an honorary diploma for her. All her teachers said she was passing with As, but the rules say a child has to attend so many days before she can graduate. Stupid rule.”

Trisha squirmed. Julia’s sadness was breaking her heart.

Julia dabbed at her eyes with a napkin, then leaned forward, businesslike. “One of the reasons I wanted to see you is that before we dismantle Christina’s room, I thought there might be some things in it you’d want. You know, to remember her by.”

Trisha blanched. “Oh, I don’t—”

“Please, come see. Make sure. She would want you to have anything she owned.”

Reluctantly Trisha followed Julia upstairs and down the hallway toward Christina’s room. She steeled herself as Julia opened the
door for her. “Take your time,” Julia said. “Take anything you want. I mean anything. I’ll wait for you in the kitchen.”

Julia was gone before Trisha could say a word. Trembling, she walked inside the room. It was like stepping through a time warp. The room was exactly as it had been the last time Trisha had seen it. Posters of a popular boy band graced the sunny yellow walls. The bed was made with the soft white coverlet that Trisha and Christina had bought when they were in the tenth grade. The bulletin board was crammed with photos, dried flowers, ticket stubs, the program from the time they’d gone to Chicago to see a Broadway-style play. Christina’s dresser was lined with bottles of hair gels and hair sprays, pots of lip gloss, eye shadows, and hair baubles. Stuffed animals sat along the edges of a bookcase where Christina had last posed them. Half-burned candles and sticks of incense sat on a windowsill.

Trisha half expected Christina to burst into the room with a bowl full of popcorn and a couple of colas, their favorite after-school snack. She waited, but Christina didn’t come, would never come again. Finally, Trisha
began to walk around the room and touch Christina’s things. In some ways, it was like touching her. Trisha expected it to freak her out, but it didn’t. She found it comforting, almost soothing. Christina was still among her things. Her favorite fragrances laced the stale air like whispers, saying,
“I’m here. Right here.”

Trisha picked up a perfume bottle, spritzed it, and closed her eyes and breathed in her friend’s essence. The scent of the lemon-lime concoction reminded Trisha of summer and lazy days at the pool—days that would never come again. She studied the images on the bulletin board, pictures from the past, of Christina and Tucker, Trisha and Christina, Trisha and Cody … Together they presented a story of a life half-lived, of a promise made but unkept. Life was gone for one of them. The others lingered on like half-finished portraits. Trisha, Cody, Tucker—they were the same but different now. So very, very different.

Trisha crossed to Christina’s closet and opened the doors. The hangers were stuffed to capacity with Christina’s clothes. Trisha fingered the tops, skirts, a row of pressed jeans,
and even the cheerleader uniform. She recalled the day—it was at the end of their sophomore year—that Christina made the team.

“You won’t hate me because now I’m one of them, will you?” Christina had asked.

At the time, Trisha had felt pangs of jealousy, of being left out of the tight little world that belonged to pretty, popular girls with perfect smiles and winning personalities. “No more than you hate me for being on the yearbook staff,” she’d replied.

“You’ll be the editor by the time you’re a senior,” Christina had said.

“No way.”

“Way!” Christina had countered.

And of course, Christina’s prediction had come true.

The uniform hung in the closet, discarded and useless. Their senior year, Christina had quit the squad right after football season ended. “More time with the books,” she’d told Trisha.

More time with Tucker
, Trisha had suspected. He’d never liked the way the guys ogled his girlfriend when she was on the squad.

Trisha was unaware of time passing, but realized it must’ve when she heard the grandfather clock downstairs chime one o’clock.
Knowing it was time to go, she glanced around quickly to fulfill the mission Julia had sent her on. She picked up the bottle of perfume, a flowered top she’d often borrowed when she’d wanted to feel “summery,” a bracelet that sparkled with green and yellow crystals, and a romance novel they’d read together and loved when they were juniors.

Julia met her when she came down. “Is that all you want?”

“These are the things that remind me of her the most,” Trisha said, still uncomfortable about taking anything at all.

“Then take them with our blessings. Here, I’ve got a bag for you.” Julia held out a plastic grocery sack, and Trisha slipped her possessions inside.

“I should go. I told Mom I’d be back by lunch.”

“Certainly. Of course.” Julia didn’t move. “May I ask a favor?”

“Anything.”

“Would you let me hold you for just a minute?” Tears shimmered on Julia’s lashes.

“Hold me? Well, gee, sure.”

As Julia wrapped her arms around Trisha, Trisha felt the woman’s body shudder. “It feels
so good to hold a child in my arms again. Not that she let me cuddle her once she was a teenager. She was too big, too old … you know. But how I wanted to! When she was a child, she’d sit in my lap and I’d read to her, and sometimes the sunlight would bounce off her pretty golden curls. She used all those gels to straighten her pretty hair. She hated how curly it was.”

Trisha shut her eyes, saw the images Julia painted, and felt her throat close tight.

“I miss her so much. So much.”

“Me too,” Trisha managed to say.

Julia pulled away, her face wet. “Thank you. Your parents are so lucky to have you. Kiss your mother for me.”

“Will you write?”

“A Christmas card, I promise.”

Trisha stepped onto the porch; Julia followed. The rain had stopped.

Julia said, “I put fresh flowers on her grave yesterday. I know they’ll only die, but it made me feel better to visit her. She loved pretty flowers.”

Trisha got into her car and drove away, left with the image of Julia forlorn but waving
from the front porch, a memory she would never erase.

“Hello Mrs. Kimble. Remember me?”

The nurse looked up from behind the desk and broke into a smile. “Why, Trisha Thompson! How good to see you, girl.” She came from around the desk and took Trisha’s hands in hers. “My, my, you look so good. So much better than the last time I saw you. Your face is all healed and your crutches are gone.” Her gaze swept Trisha head to toe. “Any lasting effects?”