“I’m sorry that I made you feel like you needed to run away to do that.”
“And I’m sorry,” I said, “that coming home disordered your life and put a strain on things around the farm. I was just trying to help.”
“I know that,” Joan admitted. “And it’s not like I really gave you a chance to discuss stuff with me. I should have told you that some of your ideas made more work for the rest of us instead of being bitter and angry about it.”
I nodded because that was true too. And then because it should be said, I added, “I’m sorry I threw all that shit at you this afternoon.”
Surprising me once more, Joan laughed, the sound a little foreign to my ears. “Actually, I was pretty impressed. You finally stepped up and defended yourself. Stopped acting like a kicked puppy while making me out to be the champion of the kickball league.”
I smiled and looked down. Ihadlet Joan walk all over me.
Now that the adrenaline and anxiety from this conversation had worn off, I was getting cold. I tucked the fleece blanket more securely around my thighs.
“Your accent is back,” Joan said.
“I know.” I chuckled. “I blame being around Mom. When I was in the city and we’d talk on the phone, I’d be droppingg’s off the ends of words for days after.”
My sister laughed again, still rusty but getting looser.
In the silence that followed, so many memories flashed through my mind. Joan in braces learning to drive the old pickup truck with single-minded focus. Sitting with my parents at Brady’s high school soccer games and hearing my mother gasp every time an opposing player challenged him for the ball. Helping my dad string Christmas lights on the front porch. Listening to my mother hum and roll out cookie dough.
Maybe Joan was remembering things, too, because after a moment she said, “I was hard on you, and I’m sorry for that. Despite what you may have once believed, I’m not perfect. But I sure am prideful. I’ll do better, I promise.”
It meant something that my sister was apologizing. Too often in families, folks just put the past behind them like it never happened. They ignored the hard parts and never talked them out. Never managed to say their sorries. They took for granted their bonds by blood and birth and assumed that connection wouldn’t weather away over time.
I didn’t want to wake up in twenty years resenting my sister because she couldn’t own up to her mistakes. And I didn’t want her to do the same with me.
“How about I’ll stop thinking of you as perfect, and you’ll stop thinking of me as that single-minded teenager who lit out of town on graduation day for greener pastures? It may have taken me some time, but I love my home, Joanie.” I took a deep breath for courage and added, “In fact, I want to stay.”
“Is this the first time you’ve said that out loud?”
“Yeah,” I admitted.
“I could tell.” She grinned. “You look like you’re going to barf.”
I laughed into the cold December night. “Yeah, well, admitting you’d rather go back to where you started feels like a waste of time and money and heartache. Mom and Dad sacrificed so much for my education. At first, I couldn’t believe I’d even gotten in to an Ivy League school. It had felt prestigious, like I wasn’t just some backwoods redneck from the middle of nowhere, not if theadmissions folks at Columbia University thought I was good enough. How lucky was I?”
Despite the distance from home, it seemed like looking a gift horse in the mouth if I’d turned down Columbia and went to a nearby state school. It was an opportunity. More importantly, it was in my plan.
“Luck didn’t have a single thing to do with it,” Joan argued. “You worked your ass off in school. You earned that admissions letter. And you went to college and learned and grew as a person. If you’d have turned down Columbia, stayed close and given it up, you would have always wondered. Now you know, right? You know what else is out there. And sometimes that’s what growing up is all about.”
My sister was right. Iwouldhave always wondered.
“If you want to stay. Stay,” Joan said simply.
I twisted my fingers nervously beneath the blanket, wishing it were that easy. “You wouldn’t hate having me here?”
“I would not hate having you here. And you know Mom and Dad would be thrilled. You have to remember, your idea of success is unique to you, and it’s even different now than it was when you were eighteen. Why would two small-town farmers who love their community and their family and their life ever think that a career in New York City is the only path to success? They wanted itforyou because they love you, and that was always your dream. They’d probably even be proud of you if you were something horrible like a congressman. You could run a pyramid scheme, and they’d say, ‘Look at our baby girl.’”
I’d started laughing atcongressmanand kept right on going, whacking my sister on the arm.
Joan was smiling too. “Their love is not tied to a college loan payment, Candy—Candace,” she corrected softly. “You’re minimizing a lifetime of love and pride.”
So many emotions battled for dominance: shame, guilt, love, affection, regret, heartache, disappointment. Coming home was complicated, and I’d known it all along, but staying...that might be the simplest thing of all.
My sister was right. I needed to give my parents more credit. And it was okay to change and adapt, remake myself over again. Who the hell knew what they were doing at eighteen, anyway? Holding on to something just for the sake of holdingon wouldn’t do anything but give you calluses. I didn’t want to hang on so tight to this one thing that I let everything else go.
I wanted to be in Kirby Falls with my family and my friends...and with Mark.
