Last Summer (7 page)
Authors: Holly Chamberlin
7
R
osie went out into the backyard carrying a small basket of laundry to hang on the line her dad had strung up between the patio and a large oak tree in the middle of the yard. She went about clipping a pair of her mom’s linen shorts to the line, unaware that Meg had come to stand at the fence that separated her backyard from the Pattersons’.
osie went out into the backyard carrying a small basket of laundry to hang on the line her dad had strung up between the patio and a large oak tree in the middle of the yard. She went about clipping a pair of her mom’s linen shorts to the line, unaware that Meg had come to stand at the fence that separated her backyard from the Pattersons’.
“Hi,” Meg called out, startling Rosie into almost dropping a pair of her own clean, damp jeans onto the concrete patio. She finished attaching the pants to the laundry line and slowly turned around. She wasn’t sure why she had. She did not return the greeting. She was determined not to talk to Meg. Besides, there was nothing she wanted to say.
“It’s nice out today, isn’t it?” Meg went on. “Not like yesterday. I thought it would never stop raining.” She laughed then, a nervous kind of laugh.
Rosie turned back to her task. There was one final item to hang.
“I mean, we were afraid the basement would flood. But it didn’t, so that was good.”
Still, Rosie said nothing.
“Rosie, please talk to me.”
Rosie whipped around, clutching a damp T-shirt in her fist. “I don’t have to talk to you,” she blurted, surprising herself by replying.
“I know you don’t have to.” Meg’s voice quavered. “I just thought that, I don’t know, you might want to.”
“Why?” Rosie demanded.
Meg fidgeted with a thin braided bracelet around her left wrist. “Because ... Because I said I was sorry and I meant it. I still mean it.”
Rosie stood looking at her friend—her former friend—and could think of nothing else to say unless it was that the shirt Meg was wearing was a pretty color, like vibrant pink azaleas. But of course, she couldn’t tell her that. Meg had totally messed things up for the two of them. Frustrated, confused, and a little bit angry, she quickly clipped the T-shirt to the laundry line, picked up the empty basket, and without a backwards glance went inside the house.
Rosie tramped down to the basement to return the laundry basket to its home on the shelf above the washing machine. And then she leaned against the machine, suddenly feeling too tired to climb back up to the first floor. Or maybe “tired” wasn’t the right word. Maybe “confused” or “dispirited” was a more accurate way to describe what she was feeling.
Meg had apologized to her a few weeks ago and she had told Meg that she accepted her apology. But did that mean she had actually forgiven her? Maybe accepting an apology and forgiving a person weren’t the same thing. If they were the same thing, then maybe she had lied to Meg. Maybe her “Okay, I accept your apology” had been just an automatic reply, the words she assumed everyone had wanted to hear. If that was the case, then those words hadn’t solved anything and certainly hadn’t healed any wounds.
Rosie put her hands over her eyes. Why was she the one who was supposed to make everything all right again? She wasn’t the one who had broken a solemn promise to her best friend. She was the one who had been betrayed and humiliated in front of her classmates. It wasn’t her responsibility to wave the magic wand so that everything could go back to the way it used to be.
Rosie dropped her hands to her side. Still, she couldn’t help but admit to herself that part of her missed Meg. But every time she thought about the friendship she had lost—which was a lot of times—she tried ruthlessly to push the memories away. She couldn’t help but feel that missing the friendship of the person who had betrayed her only proved that she was a loser. Her own weakness embarrassed her. She hadn’t even admitted these feelings to Dr. Lowe.
Only months ago she could have written her thoughts in her diary and that would have helped her figure things out, but she had abandoned the diary just after Meg’s betrayal. Somehow it had stopped feeling like a safe and private space. If Meg could tell her deep dark secret to those girls, who was to say she or someone else couldn’t find her diary and expose all her thoughts to the world? Even if her thoughts weren’t so unusual, they were still hers and hers alone. That meant something.
Her therapist, Dr. Lowe, had been urging her to start her diary again. She said that “free-form journaling” was supposed to help you name your anger. It was supposed to help you come to understand that anger and channel it somewhere else or whatever. But something was holding Rosie back from taking that step. Her old diaries, including the last one with the entries about Mackenzie’s campaign to torture her and the final entry about Meg’s betrayal, were now kept out of sight in a plastic storage box under her bed. Sometimes, in particularly bad moments, Rosie thought she should burn the diaries in the living room fireplace or shred all the pages and dump them off the cliffs on Marginal Way. It would be as if the dairies had never existed. But she never acted on those impulses. Besides, to dump the torn pages in the ocean would be littering, and she could get in trouble with the police. Or maybe a wild bird or a fish would accidentally eat some of the pieces of paper and choke. That would be horrible. She could never live with knowing she had hurt an innocent animal.
Rosie touched the scars on her left arm through the sleeve of her cotton blouse, then abruptly pulled her hand away. She didn’t like to feel the scars, but sometimes she couldn’t resist the urge to affirm that they were still there. It was upsetting and it was another thing she had yet to talk to Dr. Lowe about. With a sigh, she pushed off the washing machine and went back upstairs and into the kitchen. Her mother was there, at the sink, washing out the vegetable bin.
“Do you want something to eat?” her mother asked.
“No,” Rosie said, wondering why she hadn’t just gone straight to her room. “Thanks.”
“You didn’t have much of a breakfast.”
Rosie bit back an impatient remark. “I’m fine,” she said.
Minutes of silence followed as Jane finished scrubbing the plastic bin and then reached for a paper towel with which to dry it.
“I saw you talking to Meg out back,” she said when she had returned the clean bin to the fridge.
Rosie tensed but said nothing in reply.
Jane leaned against the sink and looked carefully at her daughter. “What did she say to you?”
“Nothing.”
“She had to have said something.”
Rosie sighed. Since when, she wondered, had her mother become so annoying? “Fine. She said they were worried about their basement flooding yesterday.”
“That’s it?” Jane asked.
“And she said that her apology was sincere.”
“What did you say to her?”
“Nothing.” Rosie took a dish towel from a drawer by the sink and started to dry the few already dry plates in the drainer.
“Do you believe that Meg is truly sorry?” Jane asked. Rosie shrugged. She wasn’t sure how to answer that question.
“You know, Rosie, you don’t have to forgive Meg, but you might feel better if you did.”
Rosie turned to face her mother. “How would I feel better?” she demanded.
“Well,” Jane replied, “you would feel better in lots of ways. For one, studies have shown that when a person forgives someone who did something hurtful to them, her blood pressure goes down and she feels less anxious and more empowered.”
“So?” Since when, Rosie thought, had her mother started talking like a textbook?
“So,” Jane said, “it’s a health issue, for one, physical and emotional. I’m sure Dr. Lowe can tell you more about it.”
Rosie tossed the dish towel onto the kitchen table. “Are you sticking up for Meg?” she cried. “Next you’re going to tell me I have to invite Mackenzie Egan over for dinner! Or ask Courtney Parker to stay overnight!”
“No, no, Rosie,” her mother protested, “please. I’m not sticking up for Meg and I’m not suggesting you have anything to do with Mackenzie Egan and her clique. I’m not. All I’m suggesting is that you think about forgiving Meg. You don’t have to be her friend again. Just—forgive her.”
Rosie didn’t say anything for some moments. “Do I have to see Dr. Lowe every week?” she asked finally. The question was a bit of a test. Rosie wasn’t entirely sure why she had asked it. She wanted to see Dr. Lowe every week.
“Yes,” Jane said firmly. “Your father and I think it’s a good idea. You like her, right?”
“She’s okay.” Rosie was lying. Dr. Lowe was more than just okay. But for some weird reason she didn’t want her mother to know that. She wanted Dr. Lowe to be entirely her own.
“Do you feel she’s helping you understand things?” Jane asked.
“Yeah,” Rosie said. “I guess. Yes.”
“Good.”
Rosie looked closely at her mother. “You look like you want to say something else,” she said.
Jane shrugged. “Just that, you know, I think we should understand that Mackenzie Egan must be a very sad person. Only people who feel bad about themselves feel the need to hurt other people.”
“How do you know what Mackenzie feels?” Rosie shot back. “Did you read that in one of your books, about bullies feeling bad about themselves? Maybe she thinks she’s so great that she has the right to make other people feel awful and left out.”
“I don’t think that’s likely,” Jane said calmly. “Look, Rosie, whatever the truth is about Mackenzie, she’s not the one I care about. I care about you and I want you to be happy again.”
Rosie looked away from her mother’s searching gaze. “I’m going to my room,” she said.
“Wait, Rosie. It’s such a nice day out, especially after all that rain yesterday. Maybe we could take a drive to the beach. Or maybe we could—”
“No thanks,” she said, already out of the kitchen. Once in her bedroom, Rosie shut and locked the door. She knew her mother meant well but lately, Rosie just wished her mother would stop trying so hard to make everything all right again. She knew her mother felt guilty for not having known what was happening to her. She had confessed as much. She had told Rosie that she more than anyone was to blame for driving Rosie to despair.
Fine. Let her feel guilty if she wants to. Now,
Rosie thought,
she should just leave me alone.
Fine. Let her feel guilty if she wants to. Now,
Rosie thought,
she should just leave me alone.
And all that talk about forgiveness! No one could force her to be friends again with Meg. No one could force her to forgive. Dr. Lowe had told her that forgiveness was something she didn’t owe to anybody other than herself. And that was a confusing enough idea to deal with right now, why she should need to forgive herself.
Rosie lay down on the neatly made bed and folded her hands over her stomach. She always made her bed, even on Saturdays and Sundays. She supposed she enjoyed the ritual of pulling the sheets tight and smoothing the comforter. Unlike Meg. Mrs. Giroux said that to get Meg to make her bed was like pulling teeth. Clearly, it was something unpleasant. But maybe Meg didn’t like to make her bed because she was such a violent sleeper. In the morning the covers were in a giant swirl half-hanging off the mattress. Rosie, on the other hand, barely moved all night. Her father used to say she looked like an Egyptian mummy while she slept, completely still and limbs ordered. Meg would sometimes wind up with her head at the foot of her bed and her feet up on the headboard. Rosie had seen it.
Would she never stop thinking about Meg Giroux! Rosie sighed and turned onto her side. She wondered why she had responded to Meg earlier in the backyard. She had sworn not to say a word, but then she had. She had sworn not to think so much about her. Sometimes it felt that she was in control of nothing at all in her life. The cutting had made her feel better, more in charge, at least for isolated moments. But she was done with that. The memories disgusted her. Rosie put her right hand on her left arm in a gesture of protection, closed her eyes, and willed the memories to go away, at least so that she could get some sleep.
8
J
ane scrubbed at the wooden cutting board with a green scratchy pad, vaguely aware that she had already scrubbed the board after breakfast. She would wear a crater into the wood if she went on this way, but she couldn’t seem to stop. Cleaning didn’t keep the sad thoughts at bay, but somehow it made them more tolerable. She wondered what Dr. Lowe would have to say about that. She would probably label her obsessive-compulsive or say that she was deflecting or burying her feelings. Well, that was just the way it was. Organization and discipline kept chaos at bay. Repeat continually.
ane scrubbed at the wooden cutting board with a green scratchy pad, vaguely aware that she had already scrubbed the board after breakfast. She would wear a crater into the wood if she went on this way, but she couldn’t seem to stop. Cleaning didn’t keep the sad thoughts at bay, but somehow it made them more tolerable. She wondered what Dr. Lowe would have to say about that. She would probably label her obsessive-compulsive or say that she was deflecting or burying her feelings. Well, that was just the way it was. Organization and discipline kept chaos at bay. Repeat continually.
Since her brief, somewhat heated conversation with Rosie yesterday afternoon, Jane had been feeling uncomfortable. When Mike got home from work she had told him about what had gone on between Meg and Rosie over the backyard fence, and then about her own failed attempt at—at what? What had she really been trying to say to Rosie?
Mike had considered for a while before saying, “I’m not sure it’s the best thing for Rosie that she talk to Meg, but I’m also not sure it’s the worst thing.”
“But she was upset!” Jane had argued.
Mike, ever the rational one, had pointed out that Rosie’s being upset at this early stage of her recovery was totally normal. She had a lot to be angry about.
“Look,” he added, “she’s going to come around on her own schedule, no matter what we want from her. And she’s going to make her own decisions regarding Meg. I’m not sure we should be hovering over her, watching or directing. If she needs to talk to someone, she knows she can come to us. And she’s got Dr. Lowe. Let’s allow the doctor to do her job.”
“But I feel so helpless,” Jane had admitted, remembering that Rosie most certainly had not come to either of her parents the last time she was dealing with a difficult issue. “And so horribly guilty.”
The look on her husband’s face then had startled Jane. She had never seen such raw anguish there.
“I do, too, Jane,” he had said. “Believe me. Some mornings I wake up and think it all had to be a nightmare. I wonder, where the hell was I, not to see my own daughter deteriorating before my very eyes? What kind of man lets down his own child that way? I know no parent is perfect, but right now, I would do anything to turn back the clock and be given another chance to prove I’m not the lousiest father ever.”
They had hugged then and the conversation had drifted away, nothing concluded, only guilt confirmed. The depth of Mike’s pain continued to haunt Jane. Until that moment he must have been hiding his grief for her sake, and realizing that made her feel even worse. She felt that she had been a failure as a wife and partner. She hadn’t been there for him when he might have needed her, so absorbed was she in her own misery and self-blame.
Jane sighed and thoroughly rinsed the green scratchy pad. She reached for two lengths of paper towel and went about drying the wooden cutting board, then carefully put the used paper towels into the trash.
Jane turned her attention to the toaster. No matter how many times she cleaned the tray, a few crumbs continued to lurk. It was probably her fault that Rosie hadn’t wanted to talk that morning, Jane thought as she rinsed the offending toaster tray. “Fine” and “okay” weren’t very informative responses. But she had pushed Rosie too far the day before, suggesting that she try to forgive Meg. Maybe Meg didn’t even deserve forgiveness. In the course of her recent reading Jane had learned that some people argued that no one deserved forgiveness. They argued that forgiveness was a gift given freely from one person to another. But Meg was only a child, and no matter how angry Jane was with her, she found it difficult to say that Meg didn’t deserve forgiveness. Meg’s mother ... Well, that was a different story.
At least I didn’t quote Gandhi at my daughter,
Jane thought as she returned the tray to the toaster. Teenagers just loved to be lectured! Gandhi had said, “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” Those words had been haunting her for weeks. She wasn’t sure if she agreed with them. If Rosie couldn’t or wouldn’t forgive Meg for her betrayal, did that really mean she was a weak person? And if Jane herself couldn’t or wouldn’t forgive Frannie and Meg, did that mean that she was also weak? Or did it mean that the standards of good behavior to which she held other people as well as herself accountable were admirably high?
Jane thought as she returned the tray to the toaster. Teenagers just loved to be lectured! Gandhi had said, “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” Those words had been haunting her for weeks. She wasn’t sure if she agreed with them. If Rosie couldn’t or wouldn’t forgive Meg for her betrayal, did that really mean she was a weak person? And if Jane herself couldn’t or wouldn’t forgive Frannie and Meg, did that mean that she was also weak? Or did it mean that the standards of good behavior to which she held other people as well as herself accountable were admirably high?
Jane went to the small, narrow pantry Mike had built for her just after they bought the house. There was little doubt that every can and bottle and jar was in its proper place, but ascertaining that fact was always comforting. Her eyes roamed each shelf in turn, from left to right, slowly, so as not to miss anything. And while she confirmed the order of the pantry, she realized she had been glad to see Rosie express some much-justified anger after her encounter with Meg the day before. But at the same time, Jane absolutely didn’t want her daughter to be provoked into negative feelings that might disrupt her healing process. Rosie had stayed locked in her room all yesterday afternoon and had refused to eat the dinner Jane had taken up to her on a tray. Even Mike hadn’t been able to coax her downstairs with the promise of a game of Scrabble, or even with the suggestion they watch the original black-and-white movie version of
Wuthering Heights
. It was one of Rosie’s favorite movies; she had asked for a copy of it on DVD for her tenth birthday.
Wuthering Heights
. It was one of Rosie’s favorite movies; she had asked for a copy of it on DVD for her tenth birthday.
Jane closed the pantry door. Except for a small glass bottle of vanilla extract that was on the wrong side of the bottle of almond extract—items read alphabetically from left to right—the pantry was in perfect order. She wished she knew what was being said in Dr. Lowe’s office at that very moment. (Mike had an errand to run in Portsmouth, so he had taken Rosie to Kittery and would pick her up after her session.) But the sessions were inviolate. Short of some dreadful criminal revelation, their contents would remain between Rosie and her counselor.
Jane stood in the middle of the kitchen, hands at her side. There was work to do for a client and she knew she should be attending to it, but she just couldn’t seem to make her way downstairs to her sewing room. Not until she went through with the mission she had set for herself.
Everything in her world might be in a state of confusion, but one thing Jane did know for sure. She did not want Meg accosting her daughter again. Well, maybe “accosting” was too strong a word to describe what Meg had done in trying to have a conversation with Rosie, but Jane was taking no chances. Even though Mike thought they should neither hover nor direct, Jane was fully prepared to do both. She would tell him what she had done later, when he got home from the office. Maybe.
Jane looked out of the window over the sink at the Giroux house. The house needed painting. And the roof didn’t look quite right, either. It looked like it was sagging a bit over the living room. Mike would know about that, and about what it would cost to get it repaired. Even when Peter had lived there the Giroux house had begun to get run down. No matter how Frannie had begged, pleaded, and finally, nagged her husband to keep up with the basic maintenance, he had refused. Or maybe he just hadn’t listened to his wife in the first place. Peter Giroux was the kind of man who believed that he was superior to all women, no matter how intelligent, simply because he had man parts.
Jane shuddered. She had often wondered why Frannie and Peter had gotten together in the first place, let alone married. Well, she hadn’t known either of them when they had first met. Maybe Peter had once displayed some actual charm. She doubted it, but anything was possible. Anyway, it wasn’t a question she could just come right out and ask Frannie, was it? “You married a jerk. Why?”
Jane turned away from the window and slid open the silverware drawer to ascertain that every fork, knife, and spoon was in its proper place. Satisfied, she closed the drawer and for the first time in ages actually noticed the small ceramic plaque hanging on the wall just above. Frannie had given it to her years ago. Inside a painted border of hyacinths were the words “Friends Are Forever.” Without a thought Jane yanked the plaque off the wall. No, she thought, friends are not forever. This is a lie. She carried the plaque to the trash can, fully intending to jam it deep inside, but her hand hesitated. She couldn’t do it. She hated herself for not having the nerve or the courage or whatever it was that would allow her to throw away the plaque for good. Instead, she stuck the small plaque in the back of the drawer where she stored the dish towels. Out of sight, out of mind.
No, Jane thought, closing the drawer tightly, friends were not forever, not when they betrayed you. Not when their children hurt your children.
Jane had not spoken to Frannie since Meg’s awkward apology in the Patterson living room. Actually, it had been fairly easy to avoid Frannie. She left her house and came back to it every day at set times, at least during the week. Weekends had proved a bit more difficult. Schedules weren’t as set, and they often changed. Jane felt slightly ridiculous peeping through the curtains before she left the house on a Saturday or Sunday, hoping that Frannie wasn’t about to mow the lawn, hoping she wasn’t about to get into her car to go to church.
But now, Jane thought, taking a deep breath and walking with determination out of the kitchen and to the front door, it was time for a confrontation. Meg had seen to that with her unwelcome presence.
The short walk from Jane’s home to the Giroux home seemed like her own version of no-man’s-land. Her stomach twitched and her heart began to race. How many times over the years had she made this journey with a light heart, anticipating the welcome that awaited her? Certainly too many times to count.
Frannie opened the door almost immediately. Jane couldn’t help but wonder if Frannie had seen her coming across the yard. She looked more tired than usual. There were dark circles under her eyes and her hair looked lank, as if it hadn’t been washed in a day or two. Jane felt a flash of concern—only habit, she told herself—and tried to ignore it.
“Jane,” Frannie said, offering a tentative smile. “It’s good to see you.”
When Jane didn’t respond, Frannie gestured behind her. “Would you like to come in?” she asked.
“No,” Jane said. She was aware that she was holding her arms stiffly by her sides and that there was a purposeful steadiness in her tone. “I’m here to ask you—to tell you—to keep Meg away from my daughter. She upset Rosie yesterday.”
Frannie’s brief smile died on her lips and Jane thought she saw her grip on the door tighten. “What did she do?” Frannie asked. “What did Rosie say she did?”
“Nothing specific,” Jane admitted. “Meg just wanted to talk. But that was enough to upset Rosie for the rest of the day.”
“I’m sorry that Rosie ... got upset,” Frannie said after a moment. “But maybe it would help if the girls did talk to each other. Seriously, Jane, maybe if we encouraged them to talk it all out, then—”
“No,” Jane retorted. “I don’t agree at all. I think they should have nothing to do with each other. So does Mike.”
That last part was an outright lie, but Frannie didn’t need to know that.
Frannie briefly put her hand to her forehead, as if to confirm a pain there. “I’ll talk to Meg when she gets home from the library,” she said.
Jane nodded and turned to leave. And there was Petey where he hadn’t been moments before, sitting cross-legged on the Giroux front lawn, playing with some sort of plastic action figure.
“Hi, Aunt Jane,” he said as she walked toward him. Petey had called her Aunt Jane since he could first talk.
Jane wondered if Frannie was still at the door, watching this encounter, or if she had retreated inside the house. She smiled awkwardly at the little boy. Of course she felt bad about being forced to abandon Petey because of his sister’s careless actions, but she just didn’t see any other way.
Jane willed a smile to her face. “Hi, Petey,” she said, hoping he didn’t hear the strain in her voice.
Petey squinted in the strong afternoon sun. Jane wondered if he had a pair of sunglasses, but doubted that he did. “I saw you talking to my mom,” he said.
“Yes. I had something to ask her.”
“Oh. Are you going home now?”
“Yes,” she said. “I have a lot of work to do this afternoon.”
“Okay.”
Jane hesitated. She was torn between wanting to race away and to stay longer with the little boy. “How’s day camp?” she asked, noting that his T-shirt was one he had been wearing for at least two years now. It was clean but tight and the neckline was a bit frayed.
Petey smiled, but Jane thought there was something guarded now in his smile. Or maybe she was imagining it.
“It’s good,” he said. “We’re going to a pool tomorrow.”
“I’m glad you’re having a nice time. Well, I have to go home now, so ...” With a little wave, Jane continued on to her own home. Her face felt heated. It might have been anger but more likely, she thought, it was shame.
Jane went straight to the backyard patio and sank into a chair at the small wrought iron table. She made certain that she chose a chair facing away from the Giroux property. She couldn’t bear to catch another glimpse of Petey. She sighed and rubbed her forehead. The stand of bright orange daylilies and the profusion of pink and white lilies she had so lovingly planted and nurtured failed to boost her spirits as they so often did.
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