Happy Place(108)

Really? I say.

Well, she never acknowledged it outright, Eloise replies, but she DID stop looking at my stomach and sighing. This will go better than that. I’ve got UR back.

I lean back against the counter as that washes over me. Thanks, I tell her. I’m sorry I didn’t have yours more. I wish I had.

Don’t worry about it, she says. U were just a kid. Neither of us had much say over our lives but now we do. UR doing what’s right for U. That’s all U can do.

I’ve never cried over a message with so many abbreviations in it, but I’m considering printing this text out and sticking it on the Connor family refrigerator for safekeeping. We may not have pictures of us in matching sisters’ Halloween costumes, but we love each other. There’s hope. If I want to be close to her, I can work at it.



* * *



? ? ?

DAD COMES AROUND first. He starts sending me articles about the mental benefits of making pottery, and texts about a new TV competition between ceramists.

Mom is a harder sell.

When she and Dad finally fly out to visit us in Montana, she’s virtually silent the whole first day.

I take them antiquing, and on a beginner horseback ride. We hit up happy hour at a bar whose theme seems to be Hunting But Fancy, one of those new spots catering to the summer crowd by pretending to be folksy.

“Hank hated this place!” Gloria says happily as the server leaves with our order. “Wouldn’t ever come with me, so I’d have to bring our neighbor Beth Anne.”

Mom and Dad tag along to the beginner classes I’ve started helping with at Gallatin Clay Co. Dad does his best to seem interested, while Mom settles for simply “not crying.”

Afterward, I show them my last few projects. Mom holds a bowl glazed in every shade of blue, scrutinizing it for a long time before saying, “This one’s nice.”

“Thanks,” I say. “I made that for Sabrina and Parth.”

“Your friends who just got married?” Dad says.

“Right,” Mom tells him, “the lawyers.”

Again, I wonder if my friends weren’t the only ones I pushed away. If every time I turned the focus back to the thing about me I knew my parents loved, I missed the chance for them to know the rest.

We have fun at times. It’s incredibly awkward at others. Then it’s over, and a yellow cab is pulling up the Connors’ driveway, and Wyn excuses himself so Mom, Dad, and I can say our goodbyes in private.

I go in for hugs before it even occurs to me that my family’s never done much hugging. It’s too awkward to take back, so Dad and I stiffly hold on to each other for a beat. Then Mom and I do the same.

Dad gets in the car, and Mom starts to follow, then turns back, crunching across the gravel. “It’s never been about the Christmas card, Harriet,” she says. “You have to understand.”

The back of my nose stings. Some latent instinct in me believes this surge of emotion represents danger. My nervous system tells my glottis to stay open to let more oxygen in so I can sprint away. But I don’t.

“I gave everything up,” she says weakly.

“I know,” I say. “You gave everything up for us, and I understand what that cost you, and I’m sorry—”

“Harriet. No.” She grabs my elbow. “That’s not what I mean. I gave up everything for your father. He wanted to keep working. He wanted to move to Indiana. And I thought if he was happy, that would be enough. It’s not that I’m not proud of you. I’m terrified for you, honey. That you’re going to wake up one day and realize you built your life around someone else and there’s no room for you. It was never about the Christmas card. I want you to be happy.”

“I am happy,” I promise her. “I didn’t come here for Wyn. I came here for me. And I don’t know how this will all end up, but I know what I want.”

Tears rush her eyes. She forces a smile as she pushes my hair behind my ear. “I’m never not going to worry about you.”

“Maybe you could limit it,” I say. “Like twenty minutes a day of worrying. Because I’m okay. And if I’m not, I’ll tell you.”

She touches my hair. “Will you?”

“If you want me to,” I say.

She nods. “I love you.”

“I know,” I say. “I love you too.”

She nods once more, then joins my dad in the cab’s back seat.

As I wave them off, the screen door creaks open. Wyn’s piney scent wraps around me before his arms do, and I sink back into him. He’s cut his hair short and shaved his beard, and his five-o’clock shadow scratches against my temple, followed by the softness of his mouth.

We stand, listening to the hoot of some distant owl, watching the taillights shrink.

“Hungry?” he says finally.

“Voracious,” I say.





40





HAPPY PLACE

REAL LIFE


OUR HOME. A wooden table, a vase overflowing with wildflowers, a golden-green field. Long walks with Wyn, and shorter ones with Gloria.

Sitting on the back porch, smoking a joint with the love of my life and his mom. Getting giggly and munchy, and making brownies from scratch in a too-hot kitchen. Sleeping over in a room full of Wyn’s high school soccer trophies so we don’t have to drive back to our new apartment over the overpriced stationery store downtown.