Broken Pieces: A Novel (14 page)

“I’ll never let you down,” I said.

Sydney spoke, so softly I could barely hear, her words quavering with emotion.

“Hold still,” she said. “I’m not done yet.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I was elbow-deep in salvaged maple lengths on Friday afternoon when my cell rang. I’d hired two laborers to help me transport the wood from the mill to my shop, and the last thing I needed was an interruption when I had assistants on the clock.

I glanced at my phone, not recognizing the incoming number.

“Destiny Jones.”

“It’s Doris over at the school,” a familiar voice said.

The Paris Elementary office manager. I’d installed custom wall units in her family room just last March.

“I’m calling about Ella,” she said, and my inner alarm began to chime.

What time was it? I’d been so engrossed, I’d lost all track.

I glanced at the old clock I kept mounted on the wall. Five minutes after three. Twenty minutes after school let out.

Ella.

I’ll never let you down,
I’d told Sydney.

And now, the very first day I’d agreed to walk Ella home from school, I’d forgotten her.

Sydney had an MRI and an infusion scheduled in the city, and Albert had driven her. Marguerite was tied up all day setting up for an art exhibit a few towns over.

My job—
my only job
—was to pick up Ella after school.

I glanced at the two men, who had at least another hour of work ahead of them.

“Shit,” I shouted far too loudly into the phone. “I’ll be right there. Tell her I’ll be right there. Five minutes.”

“Please hurry,” Doris said, then dropped her voice low. “The poor kid’s sitting in the lobby trying not to cry.”

Trying not to cry?
When I’d been just a little older than Ella, I’d walked home from school with my friends every day. Even if I’d been by myself, I’d known everyone in town.

But Ella barely knew anyone, and there she sat.

I knew her well enough to know she’d already run the on-her-own-in-life scenario through her brain countless times, wondering what it would be like if her mother died. She was too much like I’d been not to have done so.

Sitting alone in the lobby of her brand-new school wasn’t doing a thing to chase those demons out of her sweet mind.

I’d worked with the two guys hauling maple up the steps previously, so I trusted them. Truth was, I didn’t have much choice. The wood had to be unloaded, and Ella had to be picked up from school.

How did people juggle kids and work every day?

I turned over my shop keys and made them promise to lock up and leave the keys with the bakery downstairs when they were through. Then I grabbed my backpack and raced for the school.

I sprinted up the length of Artisan’s Alley, slowing only to cross Bridge Street.

While I might not have any parenting experience, I did have firsthand knowledge of what it felt like to watch your mother battle a faceless disease. I remembered what it felt like to be in a constant state of limbo, waiting for the next
thing
to happen.

Ella knew where Sydney had gone today, and I’d left her alone with those fears.

I scrambled up the front steps of the school just a few minutes later. Doris was standing by the door, waiting to buzz me in.

“I am so sorry,” I said as I brushed past her.

Ella sat in a standard-issue school chair, her back to the wall, her gaze on the floor.

I knelt in front of her, reaching for her chin. “Hey, I am so sorry. So sorry.”

But Ella said nothing, refusing to meet my gaze.

Had one screwup sent us back to round one, and no more eye contact?

“Momma promised you’d be here to pick me up.”

Her heartbroken tone and her words gutted me. I’d let her down. I’d let Sydney down. No doubt about it.

“Please look at me,” I said.

Ella begrudgingly met my gaze, but kept her scowl firmly in place behind her blue glasses.

“I messed up,” I said. “I have no excuse. I was working and cutting and measuring, and I didn’t pay attention to the time.”

“Isn’t that an excuse?” She twisted up her mouth.

“You’re right. Duly noted.” I took her hands in mine and held on tight. “This won’t happen again.”

Ella stared at me, unmistakably not fully convinced.

“I’ll get an alarm clock for the shop,” I continued. “Heck, I’ll wear it around my neck.”

Her lips twitched, but she held firm.

“You have my word, Ella. Forgive me?”

She let me sweat before she gave me her answer, but eventually she nodded.

Then we headed for the exit. “Thank you, Doris,” I said as Ella and I made our way outside.

That night, before dinner, my father pulled me aside. “Marguerite told me what happened. Are you all right?”

Was
I
all right? “Sure,” I said. “Ella’s the one you should be worried about.”

Recognition flashed in his eyes, but he shook his head. “I’m talking about the job. Your work. I know how difficult it is to manage a family illness like this and a career.”

While I imagined he’d intended his words to provide comfort, they actually did the opposite, making me realize he was speaking from experience, remembering the days he’d had to choose between taking a role and staying home.

The familiar anger simmered inside me.

“I’m all right,” I muttered, although I wasn’t sure I was.

If I’d screwed up the first time I needed to be somewhere for Ella, how would I juggle the opera house renovation and her needs?

Maybe I was no different than Albert had been, and that realization shook me to the core.

After dinner, Sydney and I took our usual walk.

She said nothing until we got to the corner of Stone Lane and Bridge Street.

“Got a call from school when we were driving back from the city.”

I winced. “I should have told you right away. I’m sorry. I lost track of time, but it won’t happen again.”

Tension crackled off her as we crossed the street. “You’re talking about my daughter, the daughter I just asked you to
raise
when I die, and you lost track of time?”

Remorse welled up inside me.

“They told me she was sitting there crying, Destiny. Crying.”

“I’m sorry. I won’t let you down again.”

“Again,” she said sharply. “Which means you’ve already let me down once.”

I was wrong. I knew that. And I was sorry, but something told me there was more to Sydney’s anger than me being late to pick up Ella today.

“Want to tell me what else is going on?”

She turned on me sharply, her gaze burning with a fury I hadn’t yet seen in her. “What else? Do you think there needs to be something else?”

Her voice cracked on the last word, and she sank onto the next bench we reached.

By the time I sat beside her, tears were streaming down her cheeks.

“Don’t you think if I had anyone back home, I’d be there instead of here?” she said. “I never asked to be here.”

Her words cut more deeply than those of someone I’d only known a month should.

“Do you think I wanted to be here, Destiny? In Paris? Dying?”

“You’re not dying.” I took one of her slender hands between both of mine and squeezed.

“That’s the thing,” she said, dragging her free hand across her face, trying to eradicate all evidence of her outburst. “I found out today that I am.”

For a split second, I felt as though my heart stopped beating. The world around us fell silent, and the only sound I could hear was the echo of her words.

I am.

She swallowed, squeezing her eyes shut tightly before she continued.

“My tumor marker’s still climbing, my MRI shows a new inflammation in my brain, and the rest of my blood work indicates I’m a total treatment failure on this clinical trial.”

Fresh tears slid down her cheeks, and I fought my own as I held on to her hand, not knowing what to do or say.

“I’m so sorry.”

She nodded. “Me, too.”

“Options?” I asked.

She shook her head. “More steroids, which I hate, and we continue the clinical trial so they can track their precious numbers.”

“Continue chemo?” I asked.

“Only to buy me some time.”

We sat side by side, letting the world pass by as Sydney’s new reality sank in.

My mind traveled to nights spent listening to my parents talk behind closed doors, the sound of my mother’s tears, and my father’s insistent voice.

“Hey,” my father said, startling me from my thoughts. I struggled momentarily to figure out whether his voice was in my head or real, but there he stood, hands shoved into his pockets, worry painted across his features.

“Marguerite said she’d get Ella ready for bed so I could check on you two.”

I looked at Sydney, narrowed my eyes.

She nodded. “He knows about my news.”

He settled at the other side of the bench, taking Sydney’s hand, his move the mirrored image of my own.

We sat together, staring into the future, as life in Paris passed by and the song of late-summer crickets chirped to life.

I couldn’t help but wonder if their thoughts were carbon copies of my own, one word repeating over and over, on an endless loop.

Why?

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The next morning, at the first sign of light, I tiptoed into Ella’s bedroom.

While I realized it was somewhat unfair to wake a nine-year-old so early on a Saturday morning, I also knew the payoff would be worth the effort.

I wanted to make up for yesterday, and I was pretty sure I’d hit on a perfect solution.

Sydney had helped me pack for our excursion late the night before, but had encouraged me to make our trip without her.

“Hey, sleepyhead.” I gave the lump beneath my niece’s giant pile of covers and quilts a shake. “Let’s go hide some rocks.”

We made our first smile-distribution excursion down by the river. The final traces of summer clung to the riverbanks in gardens of withering daisies and impatiens. The Paris Garden Club’s chrysanthemum beds had bloomed in all their glory, like a carpet of yellow and white, edging the walkways and circling century-old oak trees that seemed to disappear into the brilliant blue September sky.

Ella gasped as we stopped on the opposite side of Front Street before crossing.

I instinctively grabbed for her hand, suddenly filled with images of her racing into traffic in her excitement.

Ella, however, was far less concerned with traffic than she was with sport.

“Do people ever swim there, Auntie D?”

Did they ever.

I nodded. “There’s a huge river festival every July, and there’s a place farther down where you can rent tubes and float out on the river. It might be getting too cold now, but we could plan on it for next year.”

Next year,
I thought wishfully, hoping she and Sydney would both still be here in Paris with me.

Back in high school, my girlfriends and I had spent most every summer afternoon along these banks, talking, lazing about, swimming. Summer had been my favorite season, and September had always made me a bit sad. It was a reminder that everything faded. Leaves. Flowers. Even the warmth of the Delaware.

I’d long since stopped noticing the river, much as I hated to admit that to myself. But the unfiltered amazement in Ella’s eyes was enough to pull me back, and when I looked across the street for a second time, I tried to see the park and riverbank through her eyes—imagining I were the one seeing this part of town for the first time.

Magic.

This had once been mine.

I spent most of my time in downtown Paris. Which, given that the town was the size of a postage stamp, wasn’t what anyone from a real city would call much of a downtown.

There were a handful of antique shops for tourists, one very narrow toy shop housed inside the oldest building in town, a hardware store, several restaurants, two hotels, Mrs. Leroy’s bed-and-breakfast, Jessica’s café, and Artisan’s Alley.

I walked to work every morning. I walked home every night. And on the occasional night when I couldn’t sleep, work was only three blocks away.

But now, standing on the edge of town, with the expanse of the Delaware River before me, I remembered how I had once explored every inch of Paris.

I let my mind wander to the possibility of Ella growing up here, just as I had. She’d paddle and swim in the river all summer long. Explore the bike trails in spring and fall. Camp out beneath star-filled skies. Perhaps get a summer job downtown when she was old enough, either with me in the shop or with Jessica in the café.

Life in Paris had been good for me. It would be good for Ella, too. Wouldn’t it?

“Looks like we’re clear,” I said, refocusing on the here and now and Ella’s mission. I checked for traffic to our left, to our right, and to our left again.

“Want to see my favorite place?”

She nodded eagerly, so I took her hand and led her down the path, then over to Lookout Rock.

“Whoa,” she yelled out as she dropped her pillowcase full of rocks to climb the massive boulder beside the river. She stood at the top, hands fisted on hips like an explorer who’d just discovered the Delaware and planned to claim this territory as her own.

I scrambled up beside her, taking in the view. “This is where I used to do all my thinking when I was your age.”

“Your momma let you come here by yourself?” she asked, excitement in her voice.

“She did,” I answered simply, leaving out the part about how my mother had been too weak to notice. “Sometimes I came with my dad.”

“Lucky,” she said, and I kept myself from telling her the truth about what most of my life had been like with her Grandpa Albert.

A moment later I decided we needed less introspection and more action. “Ready to hide some smiles?”

I climbed down, caught Ella when she jumped, then hoisted her pillowcase full of rocks into the air.

She pulled ahead of me once we reached the path, racing toward the water farther up the bank. My heart caught, but as quickly as she’d sprinted away, she returned, her cheeks flushed with color and excitement.

She held out her hand, reaching for the pillowcase. “I can carry them.”

“OK.”

And she was gone again, moving from tree to tree, garden to garden. She hadn’t yet reached for a single rock, but seemed to be taking in every inch of the park, studying the spaces, reveling in the solitude. I sank to my knees and then sat cross-legged in the damp grass, tipping my chin to the sky and shutting my eyes. Just listening. Stopping.

For a moment I could almost pretend my life hadn’t shifted in ways I could have never imagined.

I could pretend Albert Jones was still a Broadway fixture, that he’d never come home.

I could pretend Sydney and Ella didn’t exist, or that they did exist somewhere out in Akron, Ohio, and I lived my life without ever knowing them.

“Auntie D,” Ella’s voice called out from a distance, and my thoughts scattered.

I didn’t want to pretend any of those things. The surety of that realization spread through me, enveloping me even as I pushed to my feet and jogged to where Ella stood, frantically waving her arms over her head.

My anger toward my father had loosened its grip, and Sydney and Ella had filled a part of my life that had long been empty.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

She nodded, eyes bright. “What do you think?”

She’d picked a group of three trees planted together near the riverbank. The garden club hadn’t added any mums or daisies or impatiens, yet the barren ground and exposed roots had been transformed by Ella’s rocks. Smiles and hearts and whimsical faces peered up from the ground, flashes of vivid color woven between dirt and root and grass.

I laughed, emotion welling up inside me, pure joy.

“See?” Ella asked, excitedly pulling at my hand. “It works. Come on. Your turn.”

She fished inside the pillowcase and pulled out the rock I’d painted, the saddest attempt at a smiley face I’d ever seen.

“Sweetie, I don’t think that’s going to make anyone smile,” I said. “He looks demented.”

Ella rolled her eyes, and I had to wonder who it had been back in our bloodline that first rolled their eyes. She orchestrated the move so perfectly, I had to believe the skill was innate rather than learned.

“He’s awesome, Auntie D.”

She reached for my hand and placed the rock squarely in my palm, folding my fingers over its edges, as though my pathetic smiley face were precious treasure.

“Go.” She nodded excitedly, then burst into giggles. “Pick any spot you like.”

So I did.

I headed for the center flower beds, intending to set the rock deep inside the plants, where my less than stellar work of art could hide, but Ella was onto me.

“Not there,” she said, just as I reached my arm behind the mums and beneath a bed of daisies.

I grinned. “I thought you said I could pick any spot I liked?”

Another eye roll. “You can’t
hide
him.”

“I thought that was the point.”

She pressed her lips together and shook her head, clearly dismayed she had to explain this to me
again
.

“You hide him in plain sight,” she explained.

I wasn’t through giving her a hard time. “Did you ever wonder who came up with that saying? Hide in plain sight. I mean, seriously. It makes no sense. Right?”

Ella planted one hand on her hip, still holding the pillowcase in the other. “
Auntie D.
”

Just then laughter sounded from down near the river, where Ella had left her first batch of stones.

Two small children squatted beneath the trees, pointing to each rock, chattering excitedly as their mother looked on, her face lit by her smile.

“See?” Ella said. “Smiles.”

“Hidden in plain sight,” I added.

I plucked the smiley-face rock from where I’d stashed it and brought it to the front of the garden, leaving it tucked behind the garden edge, yet in an open space between plants.

Ella nodded approvingly.

I looked over to where the two children were still admiring Ella’s rocks. “Are you going to tell them you put them there?”

“Not the point.” Ella shook her head. “Come on,” she said, headed off in the opposite direction. “Let’s find places for these.”

I studied her as she walked away, humbled by the kid’s wisdom.

“What’s the hurry?” I asked.

Then she looked back over her shoulder, grinning hard, dimples peeking from both cheeks. Alive. Happy. “I want to get home to paint more rocks.” And then she added, “Next time we hide smiles, let’s bring Momma and Grandpa Albert.”

And I thought,
Let’s.