Summer on the Short Bus (26 page)

“My poor Constance,” she says, sniffling back her own, rarely displayed emotions as she strokes my head. “You've been holding on to this for too long. It's okay to let it go. Just let it go.”

Heeding her instruction, I cry until my throat aches and my head feels hollow and empty.

“I don't know how you could stand to work for him all these years,” I say. “He's awful. He's a selfish jackass who only cares about himself.”

“No, he's not,” she says. Her tone may be soothing, but her words are still loaded and are beginning to grate on me. “He's a good man. He's just hurting—”

“He's
hurting?” I push myself away from her. “He ripped you a second asshole for honoring the wishes of a dead woman, Carolyn. How is he the victim?”

“First of all, do not use that language with me. You are a young lady, Constance, not a sailor. And of course it hurt to be reprimanded by him, but I betrayed his trust. That's a hard thing for a man like your father.”

“But he screamed at you and said really horrible things.”

“Yes, I know. I was there.” She takes my hand in hers and gives it a gentle pat. “It's true he said some unkind things, but nothing he said was unexpected. Remember, I've been preparing for that moment for fourteen years.”

“So you thought he was wrong then—disrespecting my mother's wishes about Rainbow.” I make this a statement and not a question. By the way her narrow lips fold over her teeth to keep from answering, I know I'm right. “Why did you do it then? If you thought he was making the wrong decision?”

“It wasn't about right or wrong, Constance. You were too little to remember, but when she died it nearly destroyed him. He didn't go to work, he didn't eat. He couldn't walk by a picture of her without falling apart. It was all he could do just to get up every day. I had planned to tell him about your mother's request, to share your life with Rainbow, but with his state of mind I didn't think it would be wise, so I did it in secret.”

“Knowing he'd react this way when he finally found out.”

“Yes,” she says, chin cocked. “And I'd do it again. I would have done anything for your mother. She was the most generous, loving woman I have ever known.”

“Oh
please
. Spare me the recycled bullshit, Carolyn.”

She straightens up. “Excuse me?”

“Come on,” I say, dismissing all concern for etiquette or future sailor comparisons. “I've heard every two-minute fundraising blurb
about what an incredible person my mother was. How she was generous with her time and talents, how she sought to make the world a better place, blah, blah, blah. Nobody's ever bothered to tell me anything about her. Not the real her!”

“He didn't want me to,” she says. She's so quiet I actually squint in the hope of hearing her better.

“What do you mean?”

She stares up at me, her face sagging beneath fourteen years of memories. She looks about a decade older than she did twenty seconds ago. “He told me that my job was to take care of you, and that reminding you of her would only cause you more pain. I wanted to tell you about her, believe me I did, but had I ignored his instructions he would have fired me and hired someone else. A stranger. As much as I hated keeping her from you, I couldn't leave you with a stranger. I didn't have a choice, Constance.”

There's a tiny voice inside my head telling me to push her for more reasons to hate my father—the more ammunition, the better. But then there's another voice, this one louder and strangely very similar to Aidan's, that's telling me it's time to stop being angry and to just let it go. I open my mouth, unsure of which little voice will take the prize, when the helpless look on Carolyn's face determines the winner.

“Will you tell me about her now?”

Over the next hour I learn that my mother was a horrible cook and that she loved to dance, though she looked like a Labrador on roller skates when she did. Like me, she hated the color orange, and unlike me, thought that buying flowers was a waste of money. She only drank white wine, considered McDonald's french fries one of the five basic food groups, and thought that Aerosmith was the greatest rock band ever. She was kind and funny, ambitious and humble, and generous to a dangerous fault. Like me in a lot of ways—and so very different in others.

“I still don't understand why he didn't want me to know about her,” I say. “If he loved her so much, you'd think he would want to talk about her all the time.”

“He was coping,” she says. “Grief does strange things to people. It was easier for him to push all his feelings away.”

“Even feelings about me.”

“Well, that's certainly not the case,” she says, climbing out of the oversize chair we've been sharing. She gives her blouse a straightening swipe with her hand and faces me with a very serious expression. “He thinks the sun rises and sets in you.”

“Yeah, right,” I say, and try to keep my eye rolling to a minimum. “So that's why he dragged me away from camp and hasn't spoken to me since?”

She takes a deep breath, her glassy eyes a delicate mixture of frustration and amusement. “I know you're angry, Constance, and I understand why. But you must believe me when I tell you that
every decision he's made has been out of love. Just wait,” she says, raising her hand to silence me before I have the chance to object. “I'm not telling you what to do,” which means she is, “but I want you to keep something in mind. There's no right or wrong way to hurt. Everybody does it their own way. It's how we respond to pain that tells the kind of person we are. And I know that you're a good person, Constance. A
very
good person. Now come here and give me a hug before I leave.”

“Where are you going?” I ask, trying to swallow the pearl of wisdom she's just shoved down my throat.

“Bingo at St. Martin's,” she says, dropping a parting kiss on my forehead. “Dinner is warming in the oven. I'd really like you to eat something.”

“I'll think about it.”

“And take a shower,” she adds, wrinkling her nose. “That you may
not
think about.”

I don't bother to hide my rolling eyes this time.

I wait until I'm sure she's left the house before I venture out of my room. The distinct smell of cheese and garlic hits me right away. Until this moment, my appetite has been virtually nonexistent and easily remedied by a package of Pop-Tarts or a handful of Cheetos. But knowing that one of Carolyn's specialties is just a few rooms away, I'm suddenly starving.

Moving a lot faster than I was ten seconds ago, I pass by the two, never-used guest bedrooms and down the hallway that leads to
the formal dining area. I round the mahogany table and half of its fourteen, high-backed chairs, before I enter the kitchen where I come to a screeching halt.

Dad looks up from a tray of piping hot lasagna. His eyes are wide, his mouth stuffed, his fork loaded and ready for another round.

I turn on my heel, prepared to retreat, just as he pulls a fork from the drawer at his side. He slides it in my direction across the granite countertop.

I stare at it, debating whether or not I'm going to stab him with it.

He glances back and forth between me and the fork, before giving the empty bar stool beside him a shove.

I hesitate for a moment, but go over to sit down. I grab my fork and dive in to the opposite end of the tray. We don't speak. We don't look at each other. We just eat.

TWENTY-EIGHT

S
aturday morning greets me almost as gently as a box of rocks to the head. Almost.

As much as my body appreciates the thirteen hours of carb-induced sleep last night's gorge-fest provided, I still wake up feeling tired and pissed. Not to mention fifty shades of bloated.

I somehow manage to roll my fat ass out of bed and into the kitchen. The lasagna pan Dad and I killed last night is still soaking in the sink.
Ugh
. Just looking at it makes me feel nauseous. I dig a couple of Tums out of the medicine drawer, chew them up quickly, then wash them down with a bottle of Evian, and am just headed back to hibernate in my bedroom when the faint sound of an Eric Clapton song stops me dead in my tracks.

I follow the music through the kitchen and down the hall and come to a stop just outside the media room. Once again, I am shocked to find my dad somewhere other than his office. He's sitting on the sofa, with his attention fixed on the flat screen mounted on the wall in front of him. Thanks to the crack-head architect who designed our house, I can't see what he's watching, so I take the tiniest step inside, careful not to hit that squeaky spot on the floor that
will give me away. I drop my bottle, nearly fainting, when my eyes land on the screen.

“Mom.”

Before I can process what I'm seeing, Dad whips his head over his shoulder and looks at me. His eyes are red and swollen, his face sagging like his skin grew two sizes overnight.

“She found that dress at a street market outside of Tuscany,” he says. His voice sounds scratchy and raw. “She could have had any dress in the world.” He turns back to the screen, his voice fading away like the lyrics of a sad country song.

I'd given up asking about a wedding video long ago. You can only hear “it doesn't exist” so many times before you finally call it quits. But as I stand here now, witnessing the full and vibrant life I've only imagined in my head, I feel the need to pinch myself. Too captivated by the image on the screen to know better, I cross the room and sit down on the edge of the cushion beside him.

“She's so beautiful,” I say. The way her blonde curls bob like birthday ribbons when she laughs, swaying over the thin, antique lace of her peasant-style dress. Calling her beautiful should be a crime. She's so much more than that.

I watch with bated breath as the images of my youthful father and the woman I know is my mother dance across the screen. Him with his strong chin and proud smile. Her smiling more brightly than the center of the sun. You can actually feel the love between them; it's exactly the way Carolyn described. “Why didn't you show
me this before?”

When he doesn't answer, I ask again. “Why didn't you show me this before, Dad?” I turn to look at him and find fresh tears streaming down his face.

“I wanted to,” he says. “I did. I wanted you to know everything, I just . . .” His attention shifts from the screen to the floor, “I couldn't.”

“I get that it was hard for you,” I say, now blurry-eyed myself. “But I had a right to know her, too. Don't you know that?”

“I do,” he says, nodding slowly. “You're right. You had every right to know about her. I just couldn't. Seeing her . . . talking about her . . . it just reminded me of how I screwed everything up. How I took her for granted.” He pauses to look at me, his swollen eyes locking on mine. “How I took you for granted.”

Something deep inside my chest begins to ache, and I'm not sure if I'm going to break or implode. I've always wanted him to own up to what he's done, and to feel like shit for doing it, but now that we're here it doesn't feel right anymore.

“I get it,” I blurt out, shocking both of us. “But that still doesn't make it okay. I didn't deserve to be excluded from her life. Just because she wasn't here doesn't mean I didn't want to know her.”