Blue Diary (35 page)

She keeps the windows open as she drives home, in spite of the clouds of mosquitoes, little cyclones buzzing through the night. The funny thing is, when she pulls into the driveway of their house on Maple Street, it just doesn't seem real to her anymore. She understands why Collie refused to come back and pack up his belongings. Jorie's had to empty the house by herself, and in the end she brought most of their clothes down to St. Catherine's over in Hamilton for the end of the season back-to-school jumble sale. Tonight, it doesn't seem as though they ever lived here, but that may change. Years from now; when Jorie and Collie stand on the sidewalk, they may remember things they've forgotten now: how the scent of grass came through the windows in summer, how the snow piled up on the front walkway, how he really did love them, despite what he'd done.

Jorie opens the garage door and goes inside. There are only a few cartons left, Ethan's belongings. On the workbench is his tool-box, along with files from every job hed taken on during his time in Monroe. Jorie opens the files, one by one. She drips lake water onto the pages and the ink runs, but it doesn't matter, no one will ever bother with these papers again. The new people will set them out on the curb on trash day, and they'll be taken to the dump at the end of Worthington, and that will be that.

Ethan's personal effects have been left in an orderly fashion on the workbench, but then he always was neat and methodical in his habits On a metal rack, behind glass jars of carefully sorted nails and screws, are the keys to every house he's worked on, each one tagged. in case of emergency. Say a family was away on vacation and the pipes burst, or perhaps raccoons managed to eat through wallboard or if a break-in occurred. Ethan always had the ability to set things right.

Among the keys on the board, there is only one that has no tag. It's silver, smaller than the rest, and when Jorie reaches for it, she knows it's the right one. It's been here all along. The key is attached to a bit of ribbon, frayed blue silk unwinding into strands. Jorie takes the key and goes out to her garden, where for years she has grown the sweetest strawberries, the crispest lettuce, bushels of snap beans so delicious even children begged for a taste. She thinks about the difference between right and wrong; she has already decided that if the key fits she will read Rachel's diary, even if that means she has to leave him.

This key has been in their garage for thirteen years; it's rusted and cheaply made, but it still turns the lock. Inside the diary, Rachel's name is printed carefully; the paper carries the scent of cologne, Jorie guesses lily of the valley, that flowery, young odor, as hopeful as it is sweet. There are pages of pretty, looping handwriting in several shades of ink. Rachel must have had one of those pens that can hold a dozen cartridges, the sort Collie got one year for his birthday, but her last entry is written in blue. That is the entry Jorie turns to, skimming past the pages that record the scant six months Rachel Morris had to live in her fifteenth year. Its the beginning of August, but it's the end of her life. She will brush her hair; she will give her little brother a piggyback ride; she will walk down the road to the store where she works on a day so hot the asphalt melts beneath her sneakers and the sunlight turns her skin the color of apricots, so that for that brief moment, as blackbirds swoop across the distance, she is the most beautiful girl on earth.

The final entry is a hurried, giddy paragraph in which every “i” is dotted with a perfect heart. Jorie can feel her pulse pounding; it's as if someone's life is rising off the page. She can feel Rachel's words in her own mouth, melting there, on her tongue.

 

After Jorie reads this passage, she goes back to the beginning. She sits in her garden and reads every word. Before long, she knows more about Rachel than she knows about her own sister, and by the time she is through she understands what James Morris meant. She knows exactly what to do. Some other man's wife might agree to go to Maryland, but Jorie has already been there. She knows how the blackbirds sing in the morning and how the roads skirt the brackish water and sweet gum trees. Instead, she'll set off for somewhere she's never been before: she'll pack up everything that's important to her, and she and Collie will drive as far and as long as they want to.

When they're tired at last, they'll stop at a motel where no one knows them, where they can be anyone they want to be, even themselves, if that's what they choose. She won't be thinking of Ethan as she packs up, nor will she dwell on her loss as she cuts down an armful of lilies to leave at Charlotte's door, a small token to assure her friend that there are some things that never change--their friendship, for instance, will go on and on, here and beyond. Ethan may pass through Jorie's mind as she drives down Front Street, a fleeting, sorrowful thought that pains her, but by the time she heads toward the highway Jorie will be concentrating on the map spread out on the dashboard. She won't care if Collie turns the radio up, and she won't be bothered by the heavy traffic as people return from their summer vacations. Another woman might drive to Maryland, but that's not what Jorie intends to do. Instead, she'll be imagining everything that's out in front of them, road and cloud and sky, all the elements of a future, the sort you have to put together by hand, slowly and carefully, until the world is yours once more.

I WAITED FOR MY MOTHER ON THE front porch to make sure she couldn't avoid me. When she came home from work, she wouldn't have any choice but to walk past, and then she'd have to listen when I told her what we had to do. I guess after she pulled into the driveway she could tell it was kind of a trap, because she stayed in her car for a while before she got out. She thought things over, then she came down the path and sat next to me on the porch steps. She shook her car keys until they sounded like bells.

“What is it now?” she said.

My mother smelled good, she smelled like Joy. the scent she always wore, but she looked so tired after working all day that I almost kept my mouth shut. Still, I couldn't ignore my second vow, even though it would have been easier that way. I told her we had some business to clear up, and that we'd better get it settled today.

“Does it have to be today?” My mother sighed and looked wary, as if I were just one of a thousand people who wanted something from her, as if there were a line of needy, demanding daughters that stretched from our house to the highway.

“I want you to take me somewhere.” I said.

I expected my mother to argue with me, I thought I'd have to beg and plead to get my way. but she just stood up and went back to the car. She got in behind the wheel and turned the key in the ignition, so I took my place in the passenger seat, and we started driving toward Hamilton. The stonecutter was right at the end of King George's Road, past the Monroe house and the fallen-down stone walls. My mother sat in the car while I went in, but that was fine with me, I knew what I wanted. There were blocks of marble and granite lining the path, every color from pale pink to black, but when I went inside I told the stonecutter I wanted something that looked as if it had been there forever. I wanted gray slate lined with mica, and the only thing I wanted written on it was my father's name,

It was dusty in the stonecutter office, and the walls were covered with patterns that had previously been used for memorials, messages of heartbreak and love. In the back of the workshop, there was an angel whose wing had cracked in two that the stonecutter was in the process of repairing. There were still bits of granite in the air, floating around like moths, but I didn't care. I closed my eyes and made a wish on that angel; then I went out to the car to get a check from my mother.

“Did we get something expensive?” she asked me.

“We got something he would have liked.”

My mother laughed at that. “He would have liked to be here with us.”

This was more than we had talked to each other in the past year, and we both sounded funny, like people who'd been lost in the desert, whose throats were bound to hurt every time they spoke. My mother had begun to riffle through her purse to look for her checkbook. She was acting like finding her checkbook was the most important thing in the world. I thought about how I wished I could have seen my father one more time. I thought about how he would always be with me, no matter what.

After I took the check in, the stonecutter wrote out a receipt. He must have thought I was younger than I am, because he patted me on the head.

God bless you, he called when I ran back outside, and for some reason his blessing meant something to me. When I got in the car I didn't wait for my mother to start driving. I threw my arms around her, and she let me hug her. Then we were careful to act as though nothing had happened, but something had. My mother stayed on King George's Road, and she took the turn that leads to Hamilton instead of heading for home, and we went out to the cemetery. We knew exactly where the spot was, the place where the orange lilies were growing, the last blooms looking like sunlight even when they fell onto the grass. I was glad my mother had had that fight with the cemetery owners and that she'd insisted on getting what she'd wanted, at least that one time.

“It looks good,” I said to her.

We didn't get out of the car, that would have been too much, we couldn't have taken that just then, but I could tell that the stone I picked would look as though it belonged here. I knew I'd done the right thing. We drove home with the windows open, and for once my mother looked young. We stopped at the Dairy Queen and got banana splits, and my mother laughed when I took huge spoonfuls of ice cream and whipped cream and stuck them in my mouth so that my cheeks puffed out like a hamster's. We had more fun than we'd had in ages, but when we drove home in the dark, I knew my childhood was over. I felt it the way some people can feel the weather changing, deep in their bones.

That night I waited up for Rosarie, who was staying late at a defense fund meeting. I knew what she was planning, but I'd kept my mouth shut.

Where is your sister? my grandmother would ask at suppertime and on Sunday mornings, and I'd just shrug.
She's probably with
Kelly, I'd assure my grandmother, but of course that wasn't the case, since Kelly was no longer speaking to Rosarie.

“I can't believe the way you hurt Brendan! You never think of anyone but yourself,” Kelly had said to Rosarie the last time they'd happened to meet at Hannah's Coffee Shoppe. I was there with my sister, and I wanted to say,
Wake up, Kelly. If Rosarie hadn't dumped Brendan, you never would have had him. He'd be right in the palm of her hand, hanging all over her, crazy in love.
But of course I said nothing. I just waved when she huffed off, like I wished her well.

“You have so few friends, you can't afford to lose one,” I advised Rosarie as we walked home. “Unless you think the only person you need is Ethan Ford.”

My sister looked at me. “For your information, his wife has taken off and nobody knows where to, but she won't be going to Maryland with him, that's for sure.”

I understood then. Somebody had to be there for Ethan Ford, and Rosarie had decided that someone was going to be her. She was in a spiral, but no one saw it except for me. My mother and my grandmother thought everything was fine because Rosarie wasn't going running around town with one or another of her boyfriends anymore. She was so well behaved that if grades had been given out for all-around conduct, she could probably match Gigi Lyle. If any boys called Rosarie, she refused to come to the phone. She said she had far more important things to think about. She looked so serious these days, with her long hair knotted, and her face washed clean, and her dark eyes burning as though she were on fire. My mother and grandmother didn't see that fire when they looked at her; they didn't notice the suitcase she had stowed under her bed. But I knew Rosarie had withdrawn every cent from her bank account. She'd started confiding in me, so I knew about how she was planning to go to Maryland with Mark Derry and be his assistant so she could stay close to Ethan Ford. I let her talk, I acted as though I was behind her all the way, but the vow I had made to protect her was going to put a stop to her plans. I just didn't know how I'd manage it until I got a letter from Collie.

He wasn't supposed to write to anyone, at least not yet, but he'd written to me. He told me that his mother was trying to get a teaching job in a small town in Michigan, and the funny thing was the countryside was filled with orchards. Even though they had different varieties than we did, Jonathan and Honeygold and Fire-side, the air smelled like apples and reminded him of home. It wasn't so bad, not as bad as he'd expected, and the best thing was, he'd gotten a dog. Before theyd bought food or unpacked their belongings, Collie and his mother had driven down to the pound and gotten a puppy, a mixed breed they'd named Toad because it couldn't seem to stay out of mud puddles. Hed send me a picture, he said, and I planned to keep it on my bureau when I got it. I planned to look at it every day.

I was glad that Collie didn't hold what had happened against me. At the very end of the letter he wrote that he knew I'd been the one who made the phone call to the television station. He wrote that he forgave me, and I read that line over and over again. But I couldn't forgive myself until I completed my third task. so I waited for Rosarie on the night before Ethan Ford was being sent away. I closed my eyes for a minute, but I must have fallen asleep, because I didn't hear her come in until she lay down beside me.