grabs my hand. “Let’s get out of here.”
Her car idles at the curb. Giggling, our ankles wobbling on our spiky heels, my silicone boobs bouncing like her real ones, we run across the dark lawn toward it.
CHAPTER 3
From The Desk of
Belle Lamont
Dear Harry,
Last night was my first at home with Cecilia and Erin. With remnants of our life together packed away in boxes around me, I dreamed of your roses. The dream was so vivid that, as I woke, their cloying scent filled the room and I felt the velvet petals brush my cheek.
I miss you so. Now, more than ever, I need your strong arms around me, your whisper of reassurance, your rational advice.
Just moments ago, I looked out my bedroom window and saw Erin sneaking out her window. She and another girl were dressed to kill—an appropriate cliché in this case since I know it would kill her mother to see her in a skirt so short and heels so high. Her father, too, if Bert even cares anymore. Sometimes I wonder.
The two girls made a beeline across the yard, climbed into a car and sped off, leaving me here wondering about my role in all this. My duty. Do I go to Cecilia and tell her? Or do I bite my tongue? Wait up for Erin, listen to what she has to say, then try to talk some sense into her? I’m leaning toward the latter. I have Erin’s cell phone number, and I can always call her if she’s not in by midnight. Besides, Cecilia’s too strict with the girl. In this day and age, an eleven o’clock curfew on a Saturday night for a young woman of almost eighteen is going overboard if you ask me. Of course, Cecilia didn’t.
I think our daughter lives in deadly fear that if Erin’s allowed to be a normal teenager, the girl will put her through the same grief Cecilia put us through at that age. Which would serve CiCi right; I’m sure you’ll agree. I say that with a smile on my face!
I don’t think poor Erin has ever had a date. How could she when she’s stuck beneath the weight of CiCi’s expectations that she act like a middle-aged adult when it comes to everything except boys? With the opposite sex, she’s supposed to stay ten years old and uninterested.
Being a man who raised a daughter, you’d probably be tempted to agree with Cecilia on that. But I’d have to remind you that at eighteen, I’d already received a marriage proposal. From you. You smooth-talked me into tying the knot, and I had already dated enough young men to know that you were the one for me.
So, there you have it. Only one day living under our daughter’s roof and already I worry about overstepping my bounds. Though, to do whatever’s best for Erin, I’ll gladly suffer the wrath of both her and her mother. I only wish you were here to help me decide what is the best thing to do. Was this a mistake? My moving in with the two of them? Maybe I’m being selfish, but I need them. And they need me, though they don’t know it. They need me, Harry. CiCi lives life in a blur. Because of it, she’s missing out on so much, and so is Erin. Which is why it’s a good thing I’m here.
But do they want me here? They act as if they do, but I’m not certain that isn’t pretense to spare my feelings. Is their love for me sturdy enough to weather so much togetherness?
I realize something now that I didn’t last week, or even yesterday. This won’t be simple. For them or me. Maybe it goes against nature for parents and their adult children to live in the same house. Maybe Cecilia and I, maybe all mothers and daughters, are only meant to know one another as parent and child, not as grown women with more shared fears and desires than we care to admit. Which brings to mind a certain bread beater incident.
That blasted nasty Jane Binkley and her silly birthday gag gift! I swear, I thought I’d thrown the thing away, but CiCi found it in my things. I’ll spare you the embarrassing details. Suffice it to say, I had to think fast to come up with a story. And even then, I didn’t fool Cecilia.
Back to the subject at hand. After you left, I thought Parkview Manor was a good solution for me, the answer to CiCi’s worries about me living alone and so far from her. I didn’t mind moving there, really. Like I’ve said before, Parkview isn’t a nursing home; good heavens, I’m not ready for that. It’s simply a community of retirees, but they do have a nursing staff on the premises in case they’re needed. Still, it wasn’t what I’d hoped.
One day I may have to accept moving back to Parkview Manor or someplace like it. But for now, while I’m still able to care for myself and able to help CiCi with Erin, I couldn’t bear to spend another day in the place. Gather that many old men and women together in one building and what do you get? A big ol’ bunch of busybodies with too much time on their hands, that’s what. Why, just last week, Ellen Miles tried to pry gossip out of me about Jane Binkley. I didn’t waste a minute before setting her straight. I told her I don’t make a habit of talking about other people’s business. “Just because my apartment is next door to Jane’s and I’m privy to most of the woman’s coming and goings,” I said, “doesn’t mean I’ll tell you or anybody else about the late hours men spend over there, or about all the giggling I often hear on the other side of my wall.”
I swear, Harry, you should have seen Ellen’s face! Her eyes bulged and she slapped a hand over her mouth like I had offended her, instead of the other way around.
Busybodies aside, Parkview just isn’t for me. It doesn’t seem natural to see only old, wrinkled faces day by day, to go out into the courtyard and never hear children laughing, to never see or speak to young families playing together or taking bike rides or walks around the neighborhood. A happy, healthy life requires a certain mix of ingredients. Babies and children. Teenagers. Middle-aged people and old folks. Most of those ingredients are missing at Parkview, and what remains is a very stale cake.
The only things I liked about the Village are a few dear friends I met and the reading group, which I formed and CiCi led. She’s promised we can go on with it, that we’ll keep meeting each week and she’ll still read aloud for those of us with eyes too weak.
Speaking of my eyes, Cecilia would probably tell you a different story about my ability to take care of myself. Because my sight’s getting worse, she’s hired a baby-sitter to stay with me during the day. She won’t listen when I tell her that, other than driving and reading and the like, I’m as self-sufficient today as I was five years ago and the five before that. My new glasses help with my vision. My only complaint is that the magnification is so strong my eyeballs look as if they might pop out of their sockets. I’m trying not to be vain, but sometimes I’m glad you can’t see me like this.
I’ll be thinking of you every moment next Saturday, the anniversary of our last day together. The truth is, I still think of you almost all the time on every day. I try to concentrate only on the good times, but often my mind drifts to the difficult times, too. Oh, how I wish we had had more patience with one another. Why did we spend even one precious moment on pettiness, jealousy or pointless blame? Because of your stubbornness and the resentments I collected like rare coins, we wasted minutes that could’ve been spent making joyful memories. If only we had it to do over.
That said, I must admit that sometimes I even miss our arguments. I miss your hard head, our standoffs. Without them, there’d have been no making up. And making up was the sweetest thing, wasn’t it?
I’m asking Cecilia to drive me to Cleburne and by our old house next Saturday to check on your prize roses. If the weather held, they always lasted at least through mid-November. I hope that’s true this year. I missed having you give me the first bloom this season. It was always my favorite
