The Mourning After (5 page)

Sight unseen, they took it, and when they first walked through the stately double doors, Lucy was mesmerized by the high-beamed ceilings with whitewash finish and the antique oak floors.  The windows and French doors were outlined in ivory, and the coated walls were as light and warm as their finishes.  Lucy especially loved the lush ivy that draped itself down the weathered lime exterior walls, surrounding the windows and doors, and climbing along the clay-tile roof.  It reminded her of Tuscany, and she was obsessed with Tuscany ever since hearing that her mom and dad had gone there on their honeymoon.  Leafing through their picture album brought the scenic images of mountains, seashores, and historic culture to life.

“When do I get to go to Tuscany?” she had asked when she was in third grade.

“Soon,” they said.  It was baffling to Carol, her mom, when she arrived home from an afternoon of shopping in Buckhead to find eight-year-old Lucy packed and waiting for her by the front door.

“Where are you going?’ she asked her willful child.

“What do you mean where am I going?” she answered, her tone inescapably sure. “I’m going to Tuscany.”

Carol, dropping her bag on the floor, crouched down in front of her child.  “Lucy,” she said, threading her fingers through the golden strands of Lucy’s tousled hair, “What’s all this about Tuscany?”

Lucy could tell immediately by the question that there was no chance she was going to Tuscany that day.  Her mom tried stroking her hair to console her, but it didn’t stop the tiniest of tears from escaping her green eyes.  With her shoulders bent forward and her eyes focused on the floor, she returned to her room with her shiny yellow suitcase and began the depressing task of emptying the contents and placing them back in their drawers.  Then, she took off the outfit she had especially chosen for the journey overseas—a white cotton dress with pale purple flowers appliquéd along the seams and her brand-new patent leather dress shoes—and replaced them with her worn out blue jeans and a navy, long-sleeved T-shirt that had once belonged to her older brother Ricky. Shrugging her shoulders, the remnants of regret and disappointment fell away.

When her mother caught her walking past the kitchen, she called out, “You okay?”  She heard herself cheer loudly, “I’m fine.”  This display of maturity and awareness was not that of a child who was playing pretend; it was an inherited gift that would serve Lucy well over time.

Lucy is reminded of Ricky, and how odd it felt moving to a new house without him. They had saved him his own room and bathroom, though he was now living at the University of Maryland where he had begun his freshman classes.  Ricky was a year older than Lucy, thirteen months to be exact, and even though 390 days and what should have been a school year separated them, their parents—in a flash of impatience and pride—pushed their little boy a grade ahead when he was five.  That was why at fifteen, Lucy was in the tenth grade at Beach High while Ricky, at seventeen, was off in College Park, entrenched in Botany 101 and fraternity parties. 

It wasn’t uncommon for the two to be mistaken for twins—not because of their resemblance to one another but because of their closeness.  They were bound by an unusual friendship.  Lucy had often heard of twins feeling each other’s pain—mining each other’s stories—a creepy intuition that transcended explanation.  That was what she and her brother shared. It didn’t help that in the midst of jubilant, newborn baby bliss, her
I Love Lucy-
watching parents named their son Ricky after the televisions show’s lead actor, and when she came along, the awful joke became her namesake.  It had always been a source of great humor to hear Ricky come into the house after an evening with friends chiming, “Lucy, I’m home,” in the heavily Spanish-accented voice of Ricky Ricardo himself.

Gosh, she missed Ricky.  If he were there, they would hop in his car with George in tow and drive through Miami Beach, staking claim to new hotspots.  She would find her favorite place to buy vintage clothes; he would find the best peach smoothies in town.  Plotting her course and burying her feet in the warm Florida sand would not be the same without her other half, but it was something she would reluctantly have to accept.  She reminded herself that this wasn’t the same as the last time he wasn’t around, the only time, for that matter.  Lucy knew all too well how things could go awry when her brother wasn’t around.

One two three, step, one two three, step
, she counts in her head, while the distasteful thoughts transform her motion into hurried strides.  George has gone off sniffing his new abode and Lucy is alone in the empty living room where the massive crystal chandelier trickles from the ceiling.  Her very own private conservatory.  Floating through the space, powered by a quickening heart and the rushing sound of her pulse, Lucy dives into the air, breathing a shallow pitch.  Lucy loves to dance.  Having had no professional training or the desire to pursue it, Lucy used her body to help heal herself.  When her arms and legs were free to discover the air that enveloped them, her mind followed. 
Free, at one with myself, letting go
.  These were a few of the phrases she threw around when anyone would ask what she was doing, flying around the house with her arms spread-eagle, her torso moving to a song with no melody.

 Escape
, her father called it.

When Lucy’s mom enters the room, flanked with the last of the movers, Lucy draws her arms to her sides and quiets her legs.  A line of sweat has formed above her top lip, and it takes one swipe of her hand for it to disappear.  George has returned from his parade around the house and edges closer to Lucy’s side.  He sits his behind square on her foot and although Lucy loves and appreciates George as if he were her child, and not the year-old puppy they rescued from the shelter, the idea of his butt on her freshly manicured toes rattles her.  She gives him a gentle kick, which he obeys, while remaining close.  The movers are watching her, leering, and Lucy wishes she were wearing something over her tank top and shorts, but it is dreadfully hot in Miami, far worse than the heat in Atlanta.

Her mother addresses her with interest, “Is everything set in your room, Lucy?”

“Yes,” she says, rubbing George’s head between his ears, his favorite place to be scratched.

“Are you sure?  They’re leaving so if something turns up missing, there’s no going back.”

As if there could be anything in the world to make her go back there.  Everything she needs is right here, she decides.

“I’m all set,” she says, careful that her eyes stay focused on her mother and not on the sweaty men.  George lets out a yelp. 

“Where’s Daddy?” she asks.

“Out back.”

Curious, Lucy excuses herself from the room and makes her way through the wood-paneled hallway that leads to the patio and pool.  George follows loyally, a few steps behind her, while she contemplates changing his name to Shadow.  His responsive bark, albeit at the lizard he spots sliding across the natural-stone patio, informs Lucy of his opinion on the subject.

Despite the previous owners’ attempts to fill their lushly landscaped backyard with trees and plants indigenous to the tropical climate, they failed miserably to shade the confines of the yard.  Indeed, the patio area, surrounding the lagoonlike pool with a lovely waterfall, is breathtaking with tropical flora. The sun’s glow, though, beaming alongside her face singes her tender skin, and she ducks to avoid the burn.  Striding past the crystal blue water and the rock formation that empties the cascade into the pool, Lucy eventually arrives at the fence that surrounds what looks remarkably like a golf course.

Lucy can make out the outline of her father’s navy blue shirt where he is stationed against the iron fence with his arms resting atop the finished metal.  The sweltering sun has hosed him in sweat, licking the ends of his hair and dripping down the back of his neck.  He could easily be mistaken for Ricky; they are about the same height with similar medium skin tone.  The two have dirty blonde hair, messy and tangled.  It is her mother’s one wish to take a brush to both of them.  The family resembles one another with the same light hair and greenish-yellow eyes, though the women of the household are softer, lighter versions of their rugged counterparts. 

Lucy liked being called feminine.  It reminded her that she was clean and fresh and irrefutably innocent.  And while she wasn’t one to focus on one’s physical attributes, especially her own, nothing filled her with more satisfaction than seeing the golden tufts of her hair falling past her shoulders.  It had taken forever to grow—five harrowing months to be exact—and when it finally reached the optimal length, long, thick layers framed her face and fell dramatically down her back.  It didn’t matter that hair was dead.  She could attest to the fact that her hair was a sign of life, proof of her growth, and verification of how far she had come.

“Hi, Daddy,” she says. 

George has stationed himself along the perch of the rocks, making many failed attempts to lure lizards and frogs into his hungry jaws.  Lapping at the wetness with his paws, he positions himself for entry while Andy Bell turns to face his daughter. 

“Hey, Honey.”

“I didn’t know we backed up to a golf course,” she says.

“It’s La Gorce Country Club.  They just had it redone.”

Lucy situates herself alongside her father where their shoulders almost meet.  She watches two older men step into their golf cart and drive away from sight.  Lucy studies the wide-open grounds.  From her vantage point, there are neatly manicured fairways with the essential Bermuda grass.  Her father confirms it is, in fact, an 18-hole course; their house rests on the sixth and seventh holes.  Lucy notices how the expansive lawns are checkered in patches of green, giving way to spots of burned gold.  The turf appears hungry for water, a reprieve from the unrelenting heat.  Even with the renovation, nothing beat the pristine Atlanta courses on which her famed brother had once set records.  The thought made her bare feet tickle, remembering the way the lush grass felt beneath her toes.

“Can we play here?” she asks, eager to return to the green, anxious to step on a course again.

“We’ll see,” he says, which can mean a lot of things, none of which Lucy is sure she can believe. 

At one time, they had enjoyed playing golf together.  It was the only activity that required one hundred percent attendance of the whole brood.  Sure, Lucy had her dancing and her doodling; Mom had her cooking; Dad, his job at the radio station; Ricky, an endless stream of girlfriends.  But golf became a group activity for the Bells.  Every Sunday morning for as many years as Lucy could count, the family gathered in their father’s Denali for the twenty-minute drive to the Dunwoody Country Club.  The soulful mornings began at dawn.  While the dew dusted the ground, the sun slowly edged itself off the horizon, sprinkling the sky with possibility.  Lucy, typically one who relished action, transformed during those afternoons.  She was forced to slow down, quiet her brain, and expel the impulses that dared her to run across the velvety green fields and dip into the choppy blue waters teeming with fish.

Gazing at the field in front of her, she muses aloud, “Consider the irony.”

Her father flinches at the comment.  She should have anchored it down and forbade it from slipping out; her candor, most times, was an admired trait.  What neither of them dared to acknowledge was the scathing twist of fate that granted them this view.  The golf course was where it began, the setting of why they fled Atlanta in the first place.

“Ricky’s gonna freak,” she adds, keenly aware of how this coincidence must pain her father.

When he doesn’t answer, she follows with: “Let’s start our Sunday tradition again.  It’ll be good for us.”

The shrugging of his shoulders is the only response she is going to get, which isn’t enough for an optimist like Lucy. Even when her defenses were tried and tested, she soared back to a positive place, healed and strengthened.  Dad is less flexible.  Discussing the particulars of that afternoon in Atlanta sickened him and distressed the others. Lucy was not one to engage in self-pity nor sweep the shrapnel of that afternoon under the carpet. Malevolence and evil had pierced them all.  There was a distinction between what many perceived as denial and the act of forgiveness.

Just because she forgave didn’t mean she forgot.  Lucy would remember that afternoon and the way the shame engulfed her—penetrating her—first physically, then emotionally.  The damage left her vocal on the subject and much to her parents’ dismay, uncharacteristically droll.  She loathed those around her walking on imaginary eggshells.  Lucy Bell was proud and strong.  They could walk on all the eggshells they wanted; she would never crack in two. 

“You all right, sweetie?” he asks, slipping his arm around her narrow shoulders, sensing where her thoughts had gone.

“Yeah,” she nods, finding his eyes and holding them with hers so he can see that she means it.  She was more than all right.  And she knew that the move couldn’t have come at a more opportune time for her dad.  ClearChannel’s reigning general manager of Top 40 radio station Y-100 had announced his retirement, and the executives were vying for Andy Bell to take his place.  Mr. Bell abruptly accepted the position and immediately put the house on the market.  The right offer came through, and Lucy’s childhood was packed up in a line of boxes fleeing their gated community.  The change in scenery provided a much-needed pardon from the serious events of that May afternoon.  Whoever said evil didn’t rear its ugly head in broad daylight?

“The house is great,” she says, changing the subject.  It was impressive and probably very expensive.  She wanted her father to know that she appreciated the way in which he provided for them.  She thought not being in a safe, fenced-in community like her old house might bother her, though, to her mind, her old security-conscious neighborhood spit out cookie-cutter homes fresh off a suburban assembly line.  She was stifled by the likeness of them. 

Lucy scans the backyard.  She knew she was going to like Miami Beach when they pulled off the interstate and leafy green palm trees dotted the road on either side.  And the water, there was so much of it!  The pool had once been their only option; now they had miles of beach right outside their front door.  When their caravan arrived on La Gorce Drive, the street was lined for blocks with cars, and when they stopped at their address, several of them were spilling out of their next-door neighbor’s driveway and into theirs.  Her dad had to walk over and ask politely for someone to move a car that was blocking the movers from pulling into their gravel driveway.