All the Good Parts (13 page)

“You need the hours,” she said, her mouth grim. “Why were you talking about the baby with Jerry in the first place?”

I shrugged. “Because he listens.”

“Wasn’t that kind of unprofessional?”

“And just when I feel I’ve hit bottom, you somehow manage to dig out another foot or two.”

“I’m sorry, Lee.” Carly threw her arm over my shoulders in an awkward embrace-apology. “But sometimes I feel like I have to put sandbags around your spine to keep it from spilling out your back.
You
let Paul do that to you. Why didn’t you at least insist he let you stay?”

It was a fair question, but thinking about it made me feel like I ate a brick. Why hadn’t I sat down at Jerry’s kitchen table and refused to leave? I forced myself to answer the question honestly—I didn’t think enough of myself to fight. I didn’t think I had it in me.

Carly kicked her slippers off and stretched out next to me on the bed. She took my hand, threading her fingers through mine. “I’ve got to say something, and I want you to listen.”

“Do I ever have a choice?”

“No, I mean really listen,” she said, and her voice was so serious the brick in my stomach sank further. She took a breath. “You know I love you, right?”

“Nothing good ever follows that question. Something good should come, but it never does.”

“I’m establishing a baseline.”

“For the uncertainty that is to come.”

“Look, I’m trying to tell you something.”

“Then tell it.”

“You’ve never been a fighter. You’ve been an
accepter
, and that takes a certain kind of strength, but not the kind you need right now.”

“Accepter is not a word.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Explain it to me.” I did know, but I wanted someone else to say it. I wanted her to create a map of all my faults and bad decisions so we could study it in an academic way. Maybe I had miraculously grown strong enough to hear the truth. Then again, maybe it was simply a need to distance myself from my problems.

“You went to school for art but accepted it when your grant ran out and you had to leave school early. Then, you couldn’t find a job at first and accepted every mediocre admin or temp job that came your way. You accepted Andrew’s assessment of your relationship—”

“Because he was right.”

“But you should have been the one to figure it out. You should have had the chance to do that, to grow from it.”

“Go on . . .”

She hesitated, and in that split second I knew where she was going.

“I said
go on
.”

“You accepted your job as Dad’s nurse without a fight. You gave up two years of your life.”

“Wait a minute. You weren’t exactly offering. You said it was the logical thing to do. The way I remember it is you had the husband and three kids and couldn’t manage. I didn’t have a choice.”

“You didn’t allow yourself to live for two years. You should have demanded a choice. You should have kicked my butt a little.”

How could I have found time for an ass kicking when I spent my days worrying about the correct dosages of a million different cancer drugs, frantically Googling the latest therapies, and trying to predict my dad’s needs before he called out his suffering? My anger ignited, blasting into fury. “So not only am I a pathetic loser, but you’re absolving yourself of any responsibility. Fuck you, Carly.”

“Yeah, fuck me three ways to Sunday,” she said, nodding her head encouragingly. “That’s the spirit! Fuck what I wanted or what Dad needed. You never did that! Never stood up for yourself. You were never even a little bit selfish, and that might qualify you for sainthood, but it also leaves you living in my basement, like you’re halfway in the ground already. You’ve been living a passive life, Lee.”

“I’m helping you raise your family,” I countered. “Last time I checked, that required a lot of activity. Do you think I’m wasting my time?”

Carly took a moment before saying, “I’m thankful for everything you do. I really am. But that doesn’t make me wonder any less if you have what it takes to fight for the life you want. I think the whole idea of this baby is a distraction, one more way to put off really, truly living the life you’re meant to live.”

“Do you consider your kids a distraction?”

“Of course not,” she scoffed.

“Then why are you so insistent that my goals should differ from yours?” Carly loved her family with everything she had—why would she criticize my desire for the same?

“Because
we’re
different,” she said softly. “Can’t you see that’s what I’m trying to say?”

Was this her truth . . . that I wasn’t up to the task? I didn’t know how to defend myself against her disappointment in me, but I had to try. “When Dad got sick, I did what was necessary to help him fight the cancer. It never occurred to me to say no. I made my decision based on what I felt was the right thing to do, regardless of what I wanted or needed. Isn’t that what being a mother is all about?”

She stood up and tucked the covers back around me. “Maybe, but it’s also the definition of a martyr. I want better for you. Isn’t that what being a sister is all about?” Then she kissed my cheek and went back upstairs to join her family.

Nursing 320 (Online): Community Health

Private Message—Leona A to Darryl K

Leona A:
You up? Can’t sleep.

Darryl K:
Insomnia is the first refuge of the brokenhearted.

Leona A:
Ha. Yes. Probably true.

Darryl K:
Leona? Are you still there? I was just kidding.

Leona A:
I’m fine. Okay, I finished up that paragraph about subsidized day care. I’d like to look over it a few more times before I send it to you. Add it to the section on social services for single mothers.

Darryl K:
Great.

Darryl K:
But that’s not really why you’re messaging me at 3 a.m.

Leona A:
I had a fight with my sister. Well, I guess you could call it a fight. Mostly what happened is she told me what was wrong with me and I tried to defend myself by turning those things into positives.

Darryl K:
Is she right?

Leona A:
Maybe.

Darryl K:
If she is, does it change anything? Will acknowledging it change you?

Darryl K:
?????

Leona A:
Still thinking. Or hoping the question goes away. Or I suddenly develop narcolepsy.

Darryl K:
Because you’re afraid what she’s saying is true?

Leona A:
Because I’m afraid I might never know.

CHAPTER 15

“Why couldn’t we take him to the mall?” Maura said under her breath.

I ignored her question, hoping she’d understand that my glare meant
please stop talking, I’ll explain later
. Garrett sat silent in the cramped backseat, though I didn’t know if he could get anything out with his knees hitting his jaw.

The Goodwill was crowded for a weekday. I’d pushed Garrett to make this visit, so worried was I that someone would contact him for an interview and he’d show up in dirty jeans and a shirt advertising the company that fired him. If we had more money, I would have taken him to the mall, but as it was, Goodwill was all either of us could afford. Though I still had other clients, the loss of Jerry meant six to eight hours less pay every week. The need for home-health aides slowed down as the holidays approached. My service said I could most likely pick up a new patient in January, but that meant over two months of reduced pay, and with the holidays coming up, secondhand was all I could manage.

“I haven’t gotten any responses yet,” Garrett squeaked from the backseat. “Shouldn’t we cancel?”

“You need to be ready,” I countered, ignoring the look of utter fear in his eyes when I checked the rearview mirror. I had a thing against fear ever since my talk with Carly. I was going to stand up to it in all shapes and forms. “And this way we can take advantage of the fact that Maura has an Institute Day, so she can help us.”

“You’re going to look awesome, Garrett,” she said, bouncing in her seat.

We stopped at a red light, and I looked back. Garrett hugged his omnipresent duffel bag and folded himself into a tighter ball. “Maura has great taste in clothes,” I said. That was playing dirty, but I knew he couldn’t resist her obvious excitement at helping him.

“Okay,” he said uneasily. “As long as it doesn’t take very long.”

The Goodwill men’s section boasted an entire wall of suits in a rainbow of colors—some a little rough and outdated, some obviously donated by wealthy dudes with money to burn. I found a bunch in Garrett’s general size and shuffled him off to the dressing room with some surprisingly starched white dress shirts and a red-striped tie Maura found in an accessories bin. Maura and I sat on a bench, watching Garrett’s feet as he pushed them into some gray flannel slacks.

“This is like a fashion show,” she said, twirling her scarf with excitement. Every part of her was moving in some way, reminding me of what I felt like when I was young and had more energy than I knew what to do with. Impulsively, I moved to hug her, and she flinched away. The rejection stung, but I should have known she wouldn’t like it, and deep down I knew that taking her moodiness personally was a mistake. It wasn’t the embarrassment that bothered her, but the confinement. I didn’t want to be the adult who spent my energy trying to corral hers. I leaned back to give her some space.

“So what’s going on with you?” I asked casually. Garrett’s elbow shot out of the curtained dressing room, and we laughed, breaking any remaining tension. “What’s new and exciting in the life of Maura Brophy?”

“I don’t even know how to answer that,” she said, her voice sounding jaded and world-weary. “Ava and Justin are going out. Like
out
, out.” She stopped, thought for a moment, and placed one small hand lightly on my arm for about half a second. “Don’t tell my mom, okay, Auntie Lee?”

Add it to the list,
I thought, my heart shrinking like a raisin in my chest. “What does that mean,
out
, out?”

“You know, like they text. Sometimes they meet up at Starbucks or that park by the highway, the one with all the picnic benches.”

“To do what? Kiss?”

Maura shot me a look. “Seriously?”

“What? More than kiss?” I sputtered.

“There’s nothing wrong with experimentation.”

“Who said that? Not your mother.”

“Why do older people always pretend to be okay with sex and stuff when they’re really not?” Maura scoffed. “It’s all such a lie.”

“Who said I was okay with you having sex? I don’t even know if you have a boyfriend or not. You’ve got to give me a minute to catch up with your status.”

Another withering look. “Oh, God, Auntie Lee. I don’t have a boyfriend yet. I don’t even have a period.”

“Do you need one before the other?”

“
I
do,” she said. “None of my friends take me seriously because I’m still a kid. It’s embarrassing to be a freak of nature.”

“You are not a freak. Who told you that?”

“Nature told me. I’m being ignored, passed up because I’m defective.”

“You are not—Oh, my God.”

I gasped. Maura’s eyes bulged out of her head like a Looney Tunes character.

Garrett stood in front of us, looking like a contestant on
America’s Next Top Model
, testosterone edition. The suit broadened his shoulders and tapered his waist, its rich gray color bringing out the tiny flecks of green and gold in his blue eyes, and the red tie contrasted nicely with the rich, deep darkness of his raven-pelt hair. Just looking at him turned me into a poet.

“Is it wrong?” he asked, biting his lip. “It’s wrong, isn’t it? That’s why you’re looking at me like that.”

“It’s far from wrong.” I stood, reaching out to smooth the tie and adjust his collar. Who was I kidding? I wanted an excuse to touch him.

“Why do you ladies look like I suddenly grew another head?”

“Every girl loves a makeover,” I explained, smiling up at him. “And this is a majorly successful one.”

Garrett focused his attention on Maura. “Is that right?”

She nodded like a bobblehead, his beauty stealing away her ability to speak.

His stiff posture loosened a bit. “The total for all of this is forty-one dollars and fifty-eight cents with tax.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “Okay, math geek, I think we have a winner.”

Garrett looked troubled. “I don’t know about that,” he said softly. “But this suit is certainly nice.”

In every neighborhood, there’s a house that draws children to it like flies to fruit. Usually, it isn’t the one you’d think—the one with state-of-the-art sports gear and a play gym built by a team of engineers—but the one where chaos is not only tolerated but also welcomed, where the mom screeches and threatens but her pantry is always full and her heart open, the house where kids are left to mostly work things out for themselves. Casa Brophy was it.

When Maura and I pulled into the driveway, a gang of unruly fourth and fifth graders approached us
Lord of the Flies
style, battered and dirt streaked, carrying sticks, leaves in their hair, looking as though they might tie us up and feed us to a wild pig. A basketball flew past our window, and half the kids ran recklessly into the street to retrieve it.

“Be careful!” I shouted out the window.

“At the last second, they look,” Maura said. “I hope.”

“Teachers must love Institute Day.”

Maura sighed. “My mom doesn’t.”

Someone cried out, and two boys wrestled each other on the pavement. “I’ll take care of it,” Maura said as we exited the car. Like a pro, she separated the two by yanking on their collars. “Either you stop fighting or you start walking home,” I heard her say as I went into the house.

The scene inside the kitchen was also thick with the tension of impending chaos. Carly didn’t acknowledge me right away—she sat at the kitchen table, staring into space and jiggling Josie on her knee so jerkily the baby’s small mouth turned down and she stared at her mother with watchful intensity. At first I thought it was my presence causing the strain—Carly and I hadn’t spoken much since our argument—but then I noticed her gaze shift to Donal, who pushed a mop over the floor like he was intent on rubbing the gloss off the hardwood.

“Don’t you think it’s clean enough?” Carly muttered.

Donal stopped and leaned the mop against the counter. “Of course, yes, you’re right.” He glanced at the dish rack, which was empty, and at the empty table. “Josie’s due for a nap, isn’t she?” He didn’t wait for Carly to answer before sweeping the baby into his arms. “I’ll bring her up, then.”

“He knows,” Carly moaned after we heard him dash up the stairs. “He’s been acting so strangely. Do you think he hates the idea of a party?”

“Donal is kind of private.”

“Donal? The man pisses outside in front of the neighbors when he’s mowing the lawn. Since when did he get so introverted?” Carly ran her index finger over the scratched table. “It’s the money he’s worried about. He doesn’t want me spending it.”

“It might not be a good idea. With Christmas coming up,” I said hurriedly. The secret-keeping part of my brain pushed against its constraints. I wanted to let it out, but then I had to give Donal a chance to come clean. But it had to be soon.

“My husband is turning forty,” Carly said. “That demands celebration. I’ve put some money to the side, and I’ll figure the rest out.”

“I’ll help where I can,” I said, my voice sounding gauzy and unfamiliar.

Carly looked at me sharply. “What happened today? Was it a bust?”

“No, Garrett found something great,” I said quickly, eager to change the subject. “The suit was a little bit dated, but he looks amazing. Like a model.”

“You like him.”

“Of course I like him.”

“No, you
like
him, like him.”

“Now you sound like Maura.”

Carly scooched closer. “What’s his story? Has he told you anything?”

“Not really. He’s kind of the strong, silent type.”

“I’m not familiar with silent, but strong sounds pretty good to me. He’s skinny, but he’s got shoulders you can hang on to.”

My mind immediately leaped to an image of Garrett in that gray suit, those shoulders of his straight and proud under the fabric. “I’m trying to help him. I think he needs a little push is all.”

“I can see that. Give him a shove if he needs it. That man is wasting his talents.”

“What do you think did it? Why is he living in the back of a church with men who piss their pants and don’t even notice? Doesn’t he care for his future?” My voice must have sounded more upset than I’d realized, because Carly’s sharp edges softened.

“Are you thinking about a future with him? I thought that wasn’t your endgame.”

“I don’t want hearts and flowers. Like I said, I want to help him. I don’t even care about what he can do for me.”

“You don’t? You aren’t thinking this is a reverse
Pretty Woman
? I can see it in your eyes. You want to be living in some loft somewhere in the city, with skylights and big-bottomed red-wine glasses, and you’ll be sitting on your balcony laughing with him about how he was homeless when you met and you were ready to take out a ‘woman seeking sperm’ ad in Craigslist.”

“That is so not what I want from him.”

“Have you asked him yet?”

“The time isn’t right. It’s not an easy thing for me to ask. I’m going to help him get his life sorted out, and then I’ll broach the subject.”

“After he’s back to the land of regular paychecks and Starbucks runs, he might look at the issue differently.”

“Where are you going with this? I can feel you shifting into manipulation mode.”

“And what you’re doing isn’t? Playing dress up, finding him a job, molding him. It’s not right, and I’m allowed to worry about you. This whole thing isn’t going to work out the way you hope.”

“I’m
helping
him. Don’t make it into something dirty.” And with that, I retreated to my basement lair, trying to avoid the Carly-like voice inside my head telling me she just might have a point.

I did want to ask Garrett. I also wanted to help him get his life together. But I also wanted to undo the cord holding his hair back and run my hands through it like a model on the cover of a romance novel. Did that make me a creep?

I had no one to ask. Except I did. Darryl. I flopped onto my bed and reached into my bag for my laptop. When I tugged open the zipper, a small piece of paper came floating out. On it was Donal’s spidery handwriting:

Kara called. Appeal denied. I’m going to tell Carly soon, but please keep it to yourself for now. She needs to hear it from me. Be sure to take a morning jog tomorrow and I’ll catch you up.

Donal