Dave greeted Leah at the front door with a long hug then took her bag and moved aside for her to step into the foyer. After he’d closed the door she asked in a low voice, “How’s she doing?” Before he could answer Brooke’s voice emerged from the den at the far end of the house and echoed down the hall. “Whatever she’s selling, tell her we don’t want any.”
Dave smiled and said, “I guess you know the way.”
Leah nodded.
“I’ll put your bag in the guestroom,” he said as he moved toward the stairs.
Leah took a deep breath then headed down the hall toward the den.
She found Brooke dressed in a designer jumpsuit propped against a mountain of pillows on the plush couch. One of Momma’s crocheted afghans covered her legs and feet. There was a stack of magazines and newspapers on the floor and a handful of video discs on the coffee table. The flat-screen TV mounted on the wall was on with the sound muted.
“Did you know that right here in our lovely city they are fining dogs owners who don’t clean up after their pets?” Brooke asked.
“Sounds fair,” Leah said.
“But did you know how they’re tracking them down?”
Leah shrugged. “Surveillance cameras?”
“No! Through the DNA in the poop!”
Leah laughed.
“There are children starving in Africa and they’re taking DNA samples from dog poop!”
“I’ll remember if I ever get a dog.”
“Ruined a pair of expensive jogging shoes last fall—didn’t even try to clean off the mess. I think they’re still in the boot bench. You think I can use the DNA to get a new pair of shoes?”
“Worth a try.”
“How long does DNA last, anyway?”
“I read about finding dinosaur DNA in mosquitoes preserved in amber.”
“Wasn’t that in Jurassic Park?”
“Based on fact.”
“That’s a long time.”
Leah crossed the room and knelt down next to the couch to give her sister a hug. Maybe it was her peculiar position or the mountain of pillows, but Brooke seemed especially small and slight. But her color was good and her arms and hands felt strong as they wouldn’t let Leah go for several seconds before finally releasing her.
Leah rose and backed up a few steps to sit in the couch’s matching plush armchair. “You look a lot better than when I last saw you.”
“Got to get back on my feet. Have a trip to Tahiti to prepare for.”
“What?”
“Didn’t Dave tell you? We’re going to Tahiti next month—got the plane tickets and our overwater bungalow reserved. All I need to do now is find a pretty bathing suit and some sexy lingerie and my wardrobe will be complete. Come to think of it, that will be my wardrobe, though I guess I need some real clothes to wear on the plane and get to the resort.”
“Are you serious?”
“Have I ever lied to you?”
Leah returned a patient stare.
“I mean about my plans.”
“Does your doctor know about this?”
“Doc Euphemism? Saw him yesterday. Says my counts are ‘improved.’ I could have told him that. Says the improvement may be ‘a short-term anomaly.’ Hell, being alive is a short-term anomaly. The question isn’t the condition but what you do with it.”
“What about the risks of such a long trip?”
“You sound like Doc Euphemism—did you go to med school? Everything is a risk, Leah! But the biggest risk is sitting around waiting to die. I’ve always wanted to go to Tahiti and my good husband has agreed to take me and we’re going, end of discussion.”
Leah nodded, silently amazed by the volcano of energy and will exploding from that mountain of throw pillows.
“I told Dave and now I’m telling you and I won’t say it again—if I die out there in the Pacific, he’s to bury me next to Fletcher Christian in the shade of one of those muffin-fruit trees.”
“Breadfruit,” Leah said.
“That’s what Dave said. I’m glad you both were listening and will fulfill my wishes in the event of that improbable development. Where’s Jodie?”
“And didn’t Fletcher Christian flee to some other island?”
“His ghost, then, looking like Marlon Brando in a tight T-shirt. Did you pack Jodie off to the west coast?”
Leah took a deep breath. “The opposite. She’s out on Shawnituck.”
Brooke frowned but said, “I guess I should be glad. I was trying to figure out how to tell him.”
“You hadn’t said anything?”
“I haven’t spoken to Onion in years. His new wife called last fall asking for Jodie’s LA address so she could send a Christmas card. I politely suggested she call Jodie directly. She said ‘I don’t want to bother her.’ I swear to God! So I said ‘But it’s all right to bother me?’ and hung up. Can you believe that?”
“And nothing since?”
“Not even a Christmas card. Maybe Jodie got ours.”
“But you aren’t glad.”
“Of no Christmas card?”
Leah laughed. “Of Jodie being out there.”
“He deserves to know, in case something happens. And Jodie is the one to tell him. But I’ve always been jealous of how much slack she cuts him while resenting me for every little thing and a bunch she makes up just for good measure.”
Leah silently weighed whether she wanted to wade into this morass and concluded she had to—for Brooke’s sake, for Jodie’s sake, and maybe for her sake most of all. “You’re her mom. She’s supposed to resent you.”
“Since when? The other kids don’t resent me. Jasper doesn’t resent you. We don’t resent Momma.”
“And she sees her father as the victim.”
“Of what?”
“Of you leaving him.”
“I did it for her.”
Leah stared at her sister.
“Don’t give me that look. Everyone thinks I left Onion and Shawnituck for myself, to chase some glamorous life. But that’s bullshit. I would’ve been happy to wait my tables at The Lighthouse and lounge on the beach on my days off and smoke dope every night and fuck Onion’s brains out after dark. It was my dream, remember? I was living it!”
“So what happened?”
“I woke up hung over one morning in the dead of winter, one of those cold foggy mornings that seemed all there was that winter, and looked at that bright-eyed little girl standing up in her crib that was so close in that small room I could reach out and touch it from where I lay and thought to myself—This is no way for a little girl to grow up.”
“You could’ve changed the rules and still stayed married.”
“No, Leah, I couldn’t. That was the revelation—that Shawnituck was making me into its image, not vice versa. And while it’s one thing for me to live with that legacy, it’s quite another to impose it on your daughter.”
“So instead you turned her early childhood into a period of transition and upheaval.”
“Better to wait till she’s older? Try dragging a kid away then.”
“Did you ever tell this to Jodie?”
“Every day back then—‘Don’t worry, Precious; Momma’s going to find us a better life.’ And she seemed excited by the change and all the attention she got from you and Momma and Father. It was an adventure for her.”
“Till you went back to school and started dating.”
“I told you, Leah—I was trying to make a better life for her, one with opportunities. It wasn’t going to happen living out of my old room in my parents’ house.”
“You understand she might not see it exactly that way?”
“I understand that I found the man of my dreams that could give us the life I’d been looking for—one of opportunity and flexibility and freedom.” She paused to look around the room and to the house beyond, as if it affirmed her search and her choice made so long ago. “I’d done what I’d set out to do.”
“For Jodie?”
&
nbsp; “Yes, for Jodie. And for me too, as it turned out. Did Jodie want a mother that was stifled, numbing her frustrations with vodka? What kind of life would that have been?”
“For you or for her?”
“For both of us, Leah! You can’t separate the two!”
“But somehow you did.” The words just spilled out; but after she’d spoken them, Leah instantly realized it was the harshest thing she’d ever said to her sister.
“No, Leah—somehow she did. She never gave Dave a chance. She never accepted our new life.”
“She was five years old when you remarried.”
“Old enough to love her new father.”
“She could only see your love being transferred to him, then to her new brothers and sister.”
“It was for her sake!”
“She was five years old!”
“Not her whole life, Leah!”
“In that way, maybe.”
“Then maybe it’s time for her to grow up!”
Leah fell silent as Dave rounded the corner and entered the den carrying a silver tray with a bone china teapot and two cups and some crumpets, butter, and jam on a platter.
“Perfect timing, dear,” Brooke said. “We were just finishing our girl talk.”
“Need some refreshment after your exertions?”
“I do, actually. How about you, Leah?”
Leah nodded. She was wondering how much Dave had heard then realized it didn’t matter. He had as much right to know as anyone, whatever it was they’d said or meant.