Font Size:  

Chapter Six

It was a funny thing, waking up to the hazy light of a gorgeous October California morning. Elise turned fluidly beneath those thousand-count sheets and huddled up against the broad naked, hairy chest of one Wayne Tanton, Midwestern-man and stranger to the California shore. Although he was still somewhere between sleep and not, he placed his lips against her forehead and murmured, “Good morning.”

Elise’s heart swelled three times its normal size.

The previous night, she had stayed up till well past midnight with Brad. She’d poured them hearty glasses of merlot and watched as his face changed, wrinkled up, grew rosy and strange as she explained to him the dramatic tale of his grandmother, his grandmother’s lost love, the life they might have had.

“So, you found your real father?” Bradley had breathed, perplexed. “And that’s where you’ve been all this time?”

Elise’s eyes prickled. “I’ve wanted to tell you this whole time. But now, if you’re up for it, you can come with me. You can meet your cousins, your aunts and your uncle and your grandfather. You can see this island where Grandma’s life changed forever.”

Brad had contemplated this for what seemed like forever before he said, “Your life changed there, too, didn’t it? I mean, you brought a guy home. That’s huge.”

Now, as Wayne slowly eased out of his sleep, he grinned groggily at Elise and said, “How did the talk with Brad go?”

“I think he needs a little bit of time to come to terms with it,” Elise said. “But overall? It went okay. Better than okay. He seemed to get that I needed a change. He said if there’s anything he’s learned recently as he’d gotten older, it’s that we’re constantly evolving. I’ve never heard my kid say anything that grown-up before.”

“It’s crazy how it happens just like that,” Wayne said.

They drove up to Berkley that morning, a glorious drive on the coastline that took a good seven hours. Wayne, Elise, and Brad alternated driving rounds in Elise’s BMW. As she clutched the steering wheel, she was reminded of all the long-lost hours she’d spent driving, stuck in traffic, commuting from one writing room to the next, or from Bradley’s soccer games to Penny’s piano rehearsals. On and on, back and forth, until she’d grown tired, weak.

“What are you going to do with the car, Mom?” Brad asked from the back seat. “You said Mackinac Island doesn’t have any cars on it, right?”

“That’s right,” Elise said. “If I spend part of the time out in California, I guess I could keep it around or in storage. But that also seems like a waste.”

Brad’s ears perked up. “You know, I could watch over it for a while.”

“What about your little red car?”

“Come on, Mom. You saw it. It’s on its last legs.”

Elise chuckled. “I’ll think about it. No promises.”

Elise thought back to when she and Sean had first dropped Penny off at Berkley; at the time, Elise had sobbed against Sean’s chest. Her shoulders had jumped around and her cheeks had grown blotchy and she hadn’t been able to articulate her true feelings, not to Sean, not to Haley or Mia, not to anyone. With her daughter seven hours away, her heart had been ripped in two.

But it was funny how accustomed one could get to anything. In time, Penny’s absence had been commonplace. They had spoken on the phone; they’d made trips to see one another. When Elise’s mother had died, Penny had been around for a good deal of the trauma—at the funeral, as Elise had made the first efforts to dig through her mother’s things, always there to force Elise to have a sandwich or a glass of water. She had mothered her in the way Elise had needed to be mothered, in the wake of Allison Darby’s death.

Elise hadn’t managed the same kind of sadness when Brad had moved to UCLA. In her mind, he’d always been just down the road.

She’d never imagined in a million years that she’d be the one to leave.

**

THE PERFORMANCE BEGANthat evening at seven-thirty. Elise, Wayne, and Bradley sat left of the stage in the middle-section: close enough to feel the soft warmth of the stage lights, yet far enough away to allow the splendor of the play to feel like something separate. Penny appeared on the stage first-thing, dressed in an elaborate outfit, complete with a corset and a broad skirt. Her voice rang out across the auditorium. Already, it was clear that she was the star of the show, the woman who would show the audience the way through the story. When Penny ducked off the stage after that first scene, the crowd roared with applause.

They trusted her. They loved her. They needed her.

Elise grew lost in her daughter’s performance. At times, she found herself forgetting completely that Penny was her relation at all. At other times, she saw a much younger Allison Darby up there, acting her heart out in a way that demanded attention and fame. At other times, she saw Penny as a little girl, making up little stories in her bedroom and laughing herself silly when Elise had forced herself into the story, making up voices and characters alongside her.

How Elise missed those days.

Why did they seem so far from reach?

How cruel time was. All she wanted was her mother back. All she wanted was little-girl Penny to hold her hand and demand a bedtime story.

At intermission, Wayne placed his hand over hers, beamed, and said, “Your daughter is really something. And she looks so much like you. It’s crazy.”

“She’s killing it,” Bradley agreed. “I don’t think we’ll ever hear the end of it. Her arrogance is going to be through the roof.”

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
Articles you may like