“Good,” she smiled back as her eyes reddened. “Oooh, I'm gonna miss you, you little chunky bunny,” she said. She picked up Summer and showered her with kisses. Summer looked so much like her father. She was tall for her age, like him. And she had those honey-colored eyes of his that made you instantly feel understood when you looked at them. She had his spirit. Which meant she was a handful. Already so sharp and rambunctious. She liked to play in the dirt and climb and I couldn't keep her still for a minute. She loved the water. She was her father's daughter.
“Alright. We should hit the road. The first leg of the drive is a long one.” I had a secret stop along the way. I was going to show Summer her dad's and my favorite place in the world.
“Okay,” Will replied solemnly. His jaw tightened as he held his emotions in check. “Anything you need. You understand?”
“I know. And that goes for you both as well.”
Our embraces lingered for a while. But I had to let go.
I packed Summer into the truck and took one last look at the world I knew. And then I slid into the driver's seat to see the world through Bobby's eyes. To stay close to him.
I always wondered why my childhood was so different from most other kids. There was even a short while where I resented my mother for her need to always move us from place to place. We never stayed anywhere longer than a few months until I was about thirteen. But the truth was, it was an amazing childhood. Nights camped out in the desert with so many stars you didn't need a lamp. Huts on the beach. Farms on snowy mountainsides. A summer living with conservationists on a safari. Weeks with strangers who became friends who sometimes spoke my language, but other times did not. Yet they all had stories to tell.
Now, as an adult, I understood the lessons she was teaching me. Things that no book or classroom could provide. But as open as my mother was, she never told me the full story of my father. No, he was not a secret. She showed me pictures, she explained that she had known him since she was a little girl. He fought in Korea. She even explained that he was shot and killed in a case of mistaken identity. Growing up, she reminded me that he would have wanted me to see the world like this. But whenever I tried to dig deeper, she would stop. I would see a melancholy creep into her eyes. It was so deep that the air around her seemed to shift. I loved my mother. And I didn't want to see her sad. So I stopped asking. I knew enough. I knew he would have been a great dad. I knew he was taken from this world unfairly. And I thought that was all I would ever know.
I flipped through the photos my mother handed to me. She had shared so much, but these, she had kept from me. One was of my godparents, Uncle Willy and Aunt Sasha, with my mother and father. They were standing just under a marquis. Dazzling letters spelled out the names of jazz greats over their heads. My dad had his arm wrapped around mom's shoulder. Mom was wearing a polka dot dress and dad was dressed like James Dean. Seeing my mother lying in bed now, shriveled and frail, I sometimes forgot how stunning she was. And my father, towering over her, looked so handsome and lively. My godparents and mom were smiling at the camera, but my dad was looking down at my mother. He looked like he thought she was the best thing in the world all wrapped in a polka dot dress. The smile on his face was not broad and staged for the cameras, but instead it was subtle and brimming with wonder. As if he couldn’t believe he had her wrapped under his arm.
I thought about all those times I didn't get to sit on his lap. That he didn't get to tuck me into bed and kiss me goodnight. Or ask me about a boy I was dating. Now I think I knew why my mother shielded me from the full story.
“Why now, mom?” I asked softly. “I understand when I was a little girl why you wouldn't tell me. But why did you wait so long?”
She sighed. “Sweetie. Sometimes I thought you were better off only knowing the good things. There's no justice in what happened to him. I didn't want you to carry that sense of unjustness. I wasn't proud of some of the things I did. I was afraid it might paint your father in a bad light. And the truth was it hurt. It still hurts to think about it. And to tell.”
“So Uncle Rory?” Like my father, I only knew of him from pictures. My mother didn't share much about him. I got the sense she didn't like him much. All I knew was that his story also carried what I assumed was bad luck for the Lightly boys. Needless to say I was shocked to learn they were once married. “He killed himself . . . is that because . . .?”
She nodded. “I had heard he cleaned himself up. He got a few months for Barbie's death. And he seemed to be doing well for a while. But um . . . a few months later I called your Aunt Julia to check in and she told me the news. About how he hung himself. He didn't leave a note or anything, but we all knew why.”
“And Stan?”
“Oh, Stan,” she said half-heartedly. “Stan plead guilty. Spared us all the spectacle of a trial. Was sentenced to twenty years. Died of a heart attack towards the end of his sentence.”
“And the twins?”
“I believe they were taken in by Barbie's sister.”
I sensed no relief in her words. None of the misfortune of those who wronged my father could ease the pain of losing him.
“Summer, I guess I decided to tell you now because I want you to understand how much your father meant to me. How much I meant to him. I think sometimes I had to hold back how I felt for myself. And I know it might be too late, but your father was the love of my life. Still is. You are the product of something very special. Every mother loves her child, but you . . . you brought me back to life.”
My mother always smothered me in love. I thought it was because she was making up for the loss of my father, but now I understood it was because I was the human embodiment of their love. Evidence of their story. Something permanent and lasting from a union so fleeting.
“What about Dean?” I asked of my stepfather, the man who stepped in when I was eight and helped raise me. He had died four years prior.
“Oh, of course I loved Dean. He was a good man. A good father to you. His son needed a mother, my daughter needed a father. I respected him. But it was different. He was a widower. We both lost people we would have spent our lives with. And we had an understanding, I think. That we would be partners in this life, but if there is an afterlife, we would let each other be with the ones we had lost.”
I took my mother's right hand, the skin as thin as rice paper, adorned by the apricot-colored gem she had worn for as long as I could remember, and kissed it. “Mom, I love you,” I cried. I didn't know how much time I had left with her. But she was my hero. The strongest woman I knew. I had always thought she was brave, but when I realized what she had gone through to become who she was, that respect grew even more.
“I love you too, sweetie. Your father would be so proud of the woman you have become. He was good with his hands. And you got that from him. He may not have been a surgeon like you, but you definitely didn't get those skills from me,” she chuckled. “And the way you go around the world, fixing those little kids’ mouths . . . that's your father right there. He lives in you.”
I nodded and I pressed her hand to my cheek. “I know, Mom.”
“Not to mention, you're just as handsome as he was,” she let out a throaty cough as she laughed.
“Nice, mama,” I retorted.
“No, you are lovely. It caused me a lot of grief during your teenage years. But you have his kind eyes and his wavy hair, and those legs that go for days. Good genes.”
“You passed down some pretty good ones yourself.” I winked.
“Mmmhmm,” she conceded. “But inside,” she pointed her wrinkly, shaky finger to my chest, “I couldn't have asked for a better daughter.”