“Who told you that?”
Why not tell the truth? Mom never spared her feelings. “You did. You said you never wanted me anywhere near you.”
“That’s a lie!” Her eyes darkened in anger.
Carolyn pressed her lips together. She should have known better than to say anything.
“I suppose Oma told you that!”
Heat flooded Carolyn. “You always blame Oma for everything, but I remember you yelling right into my face, ‘Get out of here… Get away from me.’ Not Oma.”
“When did I ever do such a thing?”
“It’s the earliest memory I have.”
Mom’s expression changed, as though remembering. “When you brought me a bouquet of flowers…”
“Wildflowers. You didn’t want them.”
“You dropped them. They scattered all over the floor. I picked them up. Oma brought me a vase.”
Picked them up? Put them in a vase? “I never went into your room after that.”
Mom looked stricken. “I was sick, Carolyn. Don’t you remember how sick I was?”
Carolyn didn’t want to go back and visit that time. She wanted to close the trapdoor that had sprung open. She didn’t want to look down into the darkness and see what lay hidden there.
“I had tuberculosis. No one but Dad and Oma were allowed in my room, and they had to take precautions. Do you remember any of that?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“I loved you, Carolyn.”
Loved. Past tense. Why talk about the past? Why bring it up at all? Chel told her once that just because you were family didn’t mean you got along. Her father hadn’t liked her. “You just live with it and move on,” Chel said. “Don’t waste energy trying to make them love you.”
Chel. Why was she thinking about Rachel Altman now? Why were her words ringing in Carolyn’s head after all these years? Twice in the last few hours.
Carolyn tried to close that door on the past, but memories kept flooding in. She remembered sitting in the tall grass, plucking petals from a daisy. She loves me; she loves me not; she loves me; she loves me not…
Oma loved her.
Mom and Dad loved Charlie.
Charlie. Oh, Charlie. The pain came up quick, squeezing her heart.
“What are you thinking about, Carolyn?”
“Charlie.” She spoke without thinking. Did the mention of her brother still bring Mom pain? “Sorry.”
Mom appeared calm, pensive. “What about Charlie?”
“He told me you got sick after I was born.”
“Not right away. I let myself get run-down. I knew better. I’d had TB before.”
“When?”
“Your father and I were courting. I thought you knew all this.”
“I guess I don’t know anything.”
“I spent months in Arroyo del Valle Sanatorium. I got better, but the disease is always there, hiding, waiting. When I got sick again after you were born, I thought I was going to die. Oma came so I could come home. Die at home, I thought. I didn’t want to leave your dad in debt. So Oma moved in and… took over everything.” She smiled sadly. “That may be what gave me the incentive to get well-watching Oma take over my family.”
The rain pounded harder, like fists on the roof. “Oma loved me, Mom.”
“Yes. And you loved her. Exclusively. You never came to me. You always went to Oma. That’s why I told her to go home.”
“So I wouldn’t have anyone?”
Mom looked crushed. “You were my little girl, not Oma’s.”
Carolyn’s fingers curled around the seat cushion. She remembered Dad shaking her and telling her to stop crying or else. “I felt so alone.”
“You had me.”
When had that ever been true? “No. I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did!”
Carolyn refused to let it pass this time. “We moved out to the new property! You and Dad worked all the time on the house and gardens.”
“Not all the time.”
“You told me to stay out from underfoot, to go off somewhere and play. I’d wait for Charlie, but when he got home from school, he always grabbed his bicycle and took off.”
“You were right there with me. You picked flowers. You made mud cookies. You flattened down a little private place in the mustard flowers where you played with your rag doll.”
That wasn’t the way Carolyn remembered it. She didn’t want to tell Mom what she did remember. “I think I’ll go to bed.” She got up.
“Carolyn. Please. Can’t we talk about this a little more? I didn’t know you-”
“I’ll see you in the morning.”
“It’ll be cold downstairs.” Mom tried to push herself out of the chair. “I haven’t opened the heating vent to the downstairs yet. It’ll take half an hour to warm up the apartment.”
“Save the energy. I’ll be under the covers anyway.”
Carolyn struggled into her jacket at the back door. She had to get out of the house, away from her mother, away from the past that shoved its way up like a demon coming from Hades.
The cold hit Carolyn in the face. Rain pelted her. She held the rail as she hurried downstairs. The screen door stuck. She yanked twice before it creaked open. She flicked the light switch and stood in the sitting room, heart pounding. A whoosh of cold air hit her. It warmed quickly. Mom had opened the vent. Wrapping her arms around herself, Carolyn turned her face into it.
She heard muted voices. Dawn must have awakened. Carolyn thought about going upstairs again, but that might put a damper on their conversation. Mom and Dawn had always been able to talk. Carolyn knew there was more to Dawn’s cross-country trip than she’d said. She didn’t look well at all. Maybe she’d tell her grandmother what she couldn’t tell her mother.
Carolyn turned on the electric blanket before going into the bathroom. She brushed her teeth, then sat on the side of the bed, brushed and braided her hair. Changing quickly into her pajamas, she pulled on a pair of Mitch’s athletic socks and slipped quickly between the warming sheets. Shivering violently, she snuggled down deep into the covers, waiting for the warmth to soak in, while above her, Mom and Dawn went on talking.
Carolyn felt her throat close. Hadn’t it always been this way? How could it be any other way when her daughter had spent the first six years of her life completely dependent on Mom? Carolyn didn’t want to be bitter. She owed Mom gratitude for taking care of Dawn. If not her mother, it would have been some indifferent babysitter earning minimum wage in an overcrowded day care center.
Footsteps crossed the room above her-two pairs this time, one toward the master bedroom, the other toward the refurbished front bedroom. After that, she listened to the storm rattle the windows.
Closing her eyes, Carolyn listened to the surf and wind and rain. She dreamed she was a child again, walking in a forest of mustard flowers. Bees hummed around her, but she wasn’t frightened of them. She came to a barbed-wire fence and climbed through. Her dress caught and tore. She stood behind a white house watching a man in overalls walk among two rows of white boxes on wooden pedestals. He removed a lid, setting it aside, and then carefully and slowly lifted out a wooden frame filled in with honeycomb. Breaking off a piece, he turned and smiled at her. “Come on over, honeybee. I won’t hurt you.”
Carolyn awakened abruptly, heart pounding. It took a few minutes for the dream to recede. Shivering, she turned the electric blanket to ten and pulled the covers over her head.
54
Dawn awakened when the Black Forest cuckoo clock struck three. She curled onto her side, listening to the rain coming down like the cadence of a marching band. She and Granny had talked after Mom went to bed. Granny wanted to know about Jason, and she wondered what Dawn had done with her latest house. Dawn wanted to talk about Granny’s future. After some resistance, Granny gave in.