Monday, Monday: A Novel (24 page)

“Yeah, this weekend.”

“Which day?”

“Saturday.”

“What time?”

“At one.”

She could see her mother calculating the hours for the drive. The water sputtered around in a small circle.

“I know it’s the day we’re supposed to go to Alpine,” Madeline said. “If you need to go without me, it’s okay.”

“Oh, I want to go to the play, Madeline. This is awful.”

She probably did want to, but she probably wanted to go to Alpine more, Madeline thought. “You should go. I can tell you want to.” She watched her mother standing in the bright sunshine in blue jeans and an old T-shirt, her hair tied back, her shoes sopping wet now. “I don’t want you to pretend you’d rather be here, when I know you want to be there. You’ve been helping Carlotta from the beginning. You should go.” It was more a brush-off than permission.

“Honey, let’s talk about this. I think you’re feeling—”

“She’s not your daughter, Mom. I’m your daughter. And I don’t think you should stay for the play when you’ve already seen it, but I just wish you wanted to. And obviously you don’t. So I’d really rather you go.”

Her mother spoke clearly and slowly. “I am not going to Alpine. I would rather be here. It’s a big day for you, and I’m proud of you.”

“You’re more proud of Carlotta.”

“Madeline, how could that be true? Listen to me—”

“I don’t want to listen. There’s something about you I don’t get, Mom. It’s like you’re not telling me something.” She paused after saying this, giving her mother time to agree that yes, there was something, or to assure her there was not. But her mother only stared at her with a look of astonishment. “Sometimes I feel like I don’t know you,” Madeline said. She could see her mother trying to collect herself.

“Honey, everyone at sixteen feels like they don’t know their mother. It’s normal … It’s … expected…” Madeline watched her fumble for words. “But I didn’t know you felt that way.”

“And that’s my point. You have no idea what I feel.”

“I guess maybe I don’t. I haven’t. Oh, honey. This is out of the blue.”

“For you it is. Not for me.”

It frightened her how lost her mother seemed for words. She went to her room and closed the door. Her mother knocked and pleaded with her to open it, but she didn’t.

Later, Madeline heard her father pull into the driveway, and went out and climbed into the passenger side of his Bronco. On the radio Tina Turner was singing “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” Her father turned the motor off. “What’s up?”

“I said a bunch of stuff to Mom.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“About Carlotta.”

“What about her?”

“I’m jealous. There, I’ve said it. It’s like sibling rivalry, only she’s not my sister. I feel stupid, telling you.”

He took the key from the ignition and settled back against the door. “You can’t possibly think your mother loves Carlotta more than you.”

“She spends more time with her. And they have more in common. I can’t say what, exactly, but they do. And there’s some mystique about Mom that I don’t get—that goes back to what happened to her. I can’t figure it out.”

“Madeline, your mother loves you more than she loves anybody else on earth, and that includes me, and it certainly includes Carlotta.”

“Well, we’ll see. She has to decide whether she’s going to Carlotta’s opening, or going to my play again. We’re doing it at the Paramount at one o’clock on Saturday. She says she’s going to stay and see it, but I don’t want her to unless she wants to.”

“And she says she wants to? After we’ve seen it three times already? There’s proof of how much she loves you.” He shook his head. “Does that mean I have to see it again, too?”

“I’m not joking, Daddy.”

“Okay. If you want my advice, I think you should give her permission to go. Take it out of her hands. Don’t make it a test. She’s already said she’ll stay. I’ll stay and see the play again, and I can even record it so your mom can watch it later. If it starts at one o’clock it should be over by three, and then you and I will leave for Alpine and maybe make it for the tail end of the party.”

“I already told Mom to go.”

“But you didn’t mean it. And she can read you.”

“How about if she goes, and we don’t try to make the tail end of the party?”

“That’s okay too. I don’t care either way. But Carlotta would probably like to have you there. And she came to your birthday campout at Enchanted Rock.”

“She didn’t have to drive twelve hours for that. And I wished I hadn’t invited her. Mom had more fun with her than she did with me.”

“You looked like you were having a good time. Remember, your mother forgot the candles, so we burned twigs?”

“That was Carlotta’s idea.”

“Okay, Madeline. What do you want to do? I’m game for whatever. Go, or stay. I’m with you.”

“I don’t know.” She stared past him. The Bronco’s windows were splattered with dried mud from somewhere her father had worked earlier in the week, and it obscured her view of the neighborhood houses. “All right. I guess we should go.” She sighed aloud. “So what do I tell Mom?”

“Tell her you’ve decided you don’t want her to sit through the play another time when she has an obligation to be in Alpine. And that you and I will hit the road as soon as the play’s over. Go tell her now, while I hose down the car.”

“Are you sure you don’t mind seeing it again?”

“I love seeing bad plays four times in a row.”

She had to smile. “It is pretty bad, isn’t it?”

“The costumes and the props are worth it.”

Madeline sat in the Bronco for a minute while Dan uncoiled the water hose and started spraying the windows. Finally she went into the house to look for her mother. She found her staring at a row of soggy impatiens in the backyard, and spoke to her from the doorstep. “I talked to Dad, and I want you to go to Alpine.”

Her mother looked up. “No, honey. I’d rather see the play.”

“No, really.” She couldn’t bring herself to sound convincing.

Her father came up behind her and spoke over her shoulder. “Madeline and I agree you should go. You’ve been part of the planning. We’ll come late, after the play.”

Shelly shook her head. “I’ve made up my mind—”

“So has Madeline. And she’s as hardheaded as you are. Now, have either of you made any dinner, or am I on my own?”

Standing in her wet shoes, the sun hot on her face, Shelly met Dan’s eyes over Madeline’s shoulder. “There’s a pot of chili on the stove, but I haven’t made the corn bread yet,” she said.

“I’m not hungry,” Madeline said, and turned and went inside.

Dan and Shelly went into the bedroom and closed the door, then went into the bathroom to be certain Madeline couldn’t hear their voices.

“This is horrible,” Shelly whispered. “It’s my fault. I haven’t handled things right, or she wouldn’t feel this way.”

“I’m not sure there was a right way to handle them.”

“Have I poisoned things with Madeline?” It was such a painful thought. Could it be true that she favored Carlotta? She loved both girls so intensely her feelings for them could not be categorized or quantified or adequately compared. She had raised Madeline—she was closest to her, and knew her the best. If pressed to decide, she would probably say she loved her the best. And yet her longing for Carlotta had been deeply implanted during the early years of dreaming about her, and missing her, and rationing the visits with her—all long before Madeline was born. And now Carlotta, as an adult, loved Shelly’s company, while Madeline, as a teenager, was absorbed in her friends and herself. “Have I done it all wrong? I don’t know how to get back from this.”

“You haven’t done anything wrong,” Dan said. “Don’t do that to yourself, honey. We just have to decide where to go from here.”

“Well, not Alpine, for one thing.”

She expected him to agree with that, but instead he looked at her thoughtfully. “I’m not so sure. At this point, since she knows you wanted to go, it might just legitimize her concern if you don’t. Like you’re making a point that doesn’t have to be made.”

“But what can we do to reassure her?”

“I know what we can’t do. We can’t lie to her when she’s basically straight out asking about this. I almost lied to her in the car. That can’t happen.”

“Are you suggesting we should tell her about Carlotta?”

“I’m suggesting she’s bound to find out at some point, if she’s asking questions like this now.”

“What did she say to you in the car?”

“That she’s jealous of Carlotta. And she thinks you’re hiding something.”

“She’s not ready for the truth,” Shelly said. “If she’s jealous now, think how she would feel if she knew Carlotta really is my daughter.”

“Better than if she learned years from now that we’d lied to her when she was asking for the truth in every way she knew how. If she weren’t asking, that would be different.”

“But can you imagine how hard it would be for her to be around Carlotta and know the truth, when Carlotta doesn’t know it?”

“Maybe Carlotta should know it.”

She stared at him, uncertain if he was serious.

“Maybe it’s time to tell her.”

“She doesn’t want to know it. She has a lot of conflicted feelings. We’d be throwing information at her that she doesn’t want.”

“It’s not like she’d be finding out her parents were criminals, Shelly. And I assume Jack and Delia haven’t planned to lie to her if she were to start asking. I know it could be a problem for Wyatt if she finds out, but I’m not worried about Wyatt. He did what he did, and he might have to end up answering for it. Most of us do.”

Shelly sat down on the edge of the tub and tried to think. When she finally lifted her face to Dan, she whispered, “Maybe we should talk to Jack and Delia on Sunday and see what they think.”

“We should plan to do that.”

“And I guess Jack could talk to Wyatt. And maybe at some point this summer we could sit the girls down—either together, or apart—and … maybe…” She couldn’t imagine saying the words to either of them.

“And talk to them,” Dan said.

“Yes. But do you see all the ways this could unravel?”

“Quite clearly, honey.”

28

THE DEVIL’S SINKHOLE

On Saturday morning, before she left for Alpine, Shelly went to Madeline’s room and asked if she needed clothes washed, or last-minute errands run, and if she wanted eggs and toast for breakfast.

Madeline shrugged at the offers. She stayed in her room afterward and didn’t do anything to make her mother feel better about leaving. She was at the mirror in her bathroom, brushing mascara onto her lashes, when her mother came and told her goodbye. “I love you, honey. I’ll see you tonight.”

“Okay.”

“Your dad said he’d record the show so I can watch it later.”

“That’s nice.” She barely glanced at Shelly’s reflection.

“Honey, obviously you’re upset. I don’t want to go if it’s going to make you unhappy.”

Madeline knew she had taken the grudge too far. “I want you to go.” But she wasn’t reassuring, and didn’t intend to be.

When Shelly had finally kissed them both and started for Alpine, Dan and Madeline drove to the high school and loaded a Styrofoam cow, a harp, a painted wooden chicken, and six small wooden birds on marionette strings, along with dozens of other props, into the Bronco and the teacher’s van. They met the teacher at the back entrance of the Paramount and hauled the props inside. Madeline thought she should be happy to work in an actual theater instead of the school auditorium, but her mother’s absence ruined her mood and spoiled the day.

They had planned to leave as soon as the play was over, but the students assigned to help the teacher transport props and costumes back to the school skipped out on the job, so Dan stepped in. “No problem,” he told the teacher. “It won’t take long.”

After they had gone to the school and unloaded everything, the girl who had played the baker’s wife discovered she needed a ride home, and since no one else offered to take her, Dan said he could do it.

It was nearly five by the time they left town, stopping at McDonald’s on the way out and then heading west into the hill country. The land was rocky here, covered with cedar and live oak, the hills folding into one another like kneaded dough. The bluebonnets had disappeared in the heat, but the roadside was still colorful with red and yellow summer flowers. The relentless sun was in front of them, so Madeline climbed into the backseat to escape the glare. After a while she dozed off, and when she woke, she asked groggily, “Where are we?”

Dan said they were past Fredericksburg and almost to Interstate 10. “And we have a decision to make. We’re not going to be there in time for the party, so we can get there when we get there, or”—he glanced at her over the seat—“we can do something special and go see bats.”

“Bats? That doesn’t thrill me.”

“Flying out of a cave,” he said. “A sinkhole, to be exact. It’s state property, but I have permission. I’ve worked there.”

“Is this your attempt to cheer me up about Alpine?”

“It’s my best offer.”

“Bats.”

“Thousands of them. Flying up out of a huge hole in the ground.”

“How far out of the way?” she asked.

“An hour.”

“You always mean two hours when you say one.”

“What’s the hurry?”

She thought about that. She didn’t care if they got there at all. “True. Okay. Should we stop and call Mom?” She climbed into the front seat.

“We’ll call her afterward. The bats come out at dusk, so we’re going to have to hurry.”

They drove in silence for a few miles before Madeline summoned the courage to ask what she wanted to. “Daddy? About our conversation the other day. When I told you I felt like there were things about Mom that she wasn’t telling me. Are there?”

“I think you know your mom pretty well.”

“There’s not something?”

“I’m sure there are things about all of us that would surprise the rest of us. I’m also pretty sure your mom could tell you anything about herself, and you would find her to be the same mom who loves you more than her own life and would do anything for you.”