Page 56 of Every Almost

"I'm just a phone call away, Kit-Kat. Always. You know that, right?"

"I know." Katie's voice was small.

"I mean it. Anytime. Middle of the night. At the pay phone across the road from church. Doesn't matter."

"I know, Charlie," she repeated in a whisper. A moment went by before she spoke again. "I'm just going to miss you so much..." And that's when the tears really came.

Charlie held her tight for a long while next to her car, her eyes finally relenting and letting her own tears fall.

The next morning,Katie helped Charlie pack the last remaining suitcase. The personal things. Everything she owned that mattered fit in one bag. She didn't take tools or socket wrenches because she knew she'd be using the best in Caltech's labs.

Well, maybe she could fit her wrench into the side pocket.

Katie sat cross-legged on Charlie's bed and handed her things Charlie didn't know if she'd need. Things like socks with Einstein's face on them and a flashlight that looked like a blaster fromStar Trek. Charlie made every attempt to fit in everything she could, the choices her sister was making mattering more than what she really needed in California.

When they finally walked outside, everything packed into the car, Katie grabbed Charlie's hand and pressed a cassette tape into it.

"This is for you." Charlie turned the tape over in her hands, seeing drawings of rainbows and stars, moons and spaceships, and all sorts of little doodles colored all over the cover.

"What's this, Kit?" Charlie asked.

"A mix tape. For you. For the long drive. I made it myself, recording songs off the stereo when Mom and Dad weren't home," she explained. "Well, Helen helped me a little." Katie grinned and Charlie laughed. "The track list is written on the insert card." She took the card out and showed it to Charlie.

Charlie looked at the songs scribbled on the paper in Katie's careful handwriting. Fleetwood Mac, David Bowie, Blondie, The Cars. All the songs they'd listened to in the garage, in the Cutlass, and in the dark when neither of them could sleep.

"It's to, you know, make sure you stay awake," Katie whispered. When Charlie looked at her, she was smiling and her eyes were bright. But Charlie saw what was underneath the smile.

With the tape in her hands and the insert between her fingers, Charlie reached out and pulled her sister in close for one last hug, wrapping her arms around her and kissing the side of her head.

"You take care, Kitty-Kat. Call me. Every day. I don't care."

"I know." A pause. "I will."

Ed and Diane stood by the front door. Ed shook Charlie's hand the way he shook the hands of men at the plant. Diane stepped forward, and Charlie expected the usual of the quick, performative embrace that checked the box of motherhood without actually entering it.

But Diane surprised her.

She wrapped both arms around Charlie and held on. She held on with a grip that felt, for the first time in Charlie's memory, like it came from something real underneath the surface Diane spent her life polishing. It wasn't for show; it wasn't brief.

Charlie stiffened, then softened, because the warmth in the hug was genuine, and it caught her so off guard that she didn't know what to do with it.

"You call when you get there," Diane said into Charlie's shoulder. And her voice, just for that moment, wasn't the voice she used for the neighbors or the PTA or the wives of Ed's colleagues. It was the voice of a mother watching her daughter leave and start her own life.

Charlie nodded. "I will, Mom."

Diane pulled back, smoothed the collar of Charlie's flannel, and the moment seemed to pass. But Charlie would remember it, carrying it alongside all the other complicated things her mother had given her.

Charlie walked over to her used Plymouth Horizon, the one Frank had helped her get at Mr. Jones's used car lot in town. He'd taken her just last weekend, making her check each and every engine on the cars she was interested in. Eventually she found one she liked, knew she could keep up with the maintenance easily, and would carry her through college and possibly beyond. When Frank looked over the car she'd decided on, he'd given her a big smile. "That's my girl."

"I love you," Charlie shouted at Katie over the engine's revving as she reversed down the driveway.

"I love you, too!" Katie called back from the edge of the grass, knowing it was for her even as their parents stood to the side waving.

As Charlie pulled away, she watched Katie through the rearview mirror. Katie ran from the grass to the end of the driveway and out into the street. She stood there, waving big and wide so Charlie could see her all the way until the end of the street. Charlie memorized her then, getting smaller and smaller as the road stretched between them.

When she turned the corner and made her way to the highway, she reached for Katie's tape. Her hands were shaking and her eyes were blurring, and she couldn't make herself press the accelerator past thirty. Then she put the tape in the deck and pressed play. Katie's voice, recorded over the intro of the first song whispering "This one's for you, Charlie." "Go Your Own Way" by Fleetwood Mac came through the speakers. Charlie laughed through her tears, took a deep breath, and Charlie's foot found the gas.

Frank's pin was in her pocket. Frank's copy ofRumourswas on the passenger seat. Katie's tape was in the deck. The people she loved were behind her, but so was the girl who kept quiet at the dinner table and smiled with her mouth closed. Charlie was done being quiet.