Her chin lifts, and a red stain flushes her tan cheeks. When she looks up at me, I see a side of her that almost never shows, furious and wounded. “Thanks for your faith, Meadow.” She shakes her head. “You need to go.”
“Wait.” I close my eyes, reaching for a sense of calm, something blue to draw through the red fire burning through me. I draw in a breath, see it cooling my fury. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I was just freaked out by Norah calling me in the first place, and then your sister called and she told the girls about Augustus, and she’s upset, and then I saw that guy here, and—”
“You can’t stay here,” she says. “I want to be by myself.”
“But Norah can stay?”
“It’s not the same, Mother,” she says with emphasis, a word she only ever uses when she’s annoyed with me. “You have your own shit to deal with, and I don’t have any bandwidth left for you. Norah’s easy. She was good to have around when I felt like shit.”
I sink onto the other lawn chair. “She was raised in foster homes, did you know that?”
Maya shakes her head, exasperated. “What difference does that make?”
“Your dad always wanted to rescue people. Women.” I look toward the gleaming blue pool, framed with hand-painted tiles. “Me, your mom, Christy. Norah, too, I guess.”
For a moment, she focuses on the horizon, her lips pressed together. “That’s rich, since he did the opposite of rescuing me.”
The truth of that thuds through the air. I nod, looking at my hands. I was, at the very least, complicit.
“Norah doesn’t really seem like a lost soul, honestly.”
I think of her gleaming hair, the sharpness in her eyes. “Maybe not.” The handwritten notes on the pages of Norah’s copy of my memoir float back to me. A warning squeezes my belly. The last thing I need right this minute is someone digging through my childhood. “Where is she?”
“At work, I guess.”
“Hello!” Rory comes around the corner carrying a jug of limeade and a box of doughnuts. “I thought it might be nice to have something junky.” She deposits the box on the table and kisses Maya’s head. “How are you, sis?”
“Okay. Just bummed, really. I really like the job.”
“You won’t have to quit. It’ll be okay. Trust me. Nathan said they were thrilled with how quickly you’ve picked up the bean science.”
Maya shrugs, insulated in her mood. “Will you get me some more ice?”
“Of course. Mom, why don’t you come help?”
I know I’m probably going to be the bad guy, but I stand up and follow her into the house anyway. May as well get it over with.
But Rory doesn’t yell at me for meddling. She drops everything on the counter and turns to me, bending down to fling her arms around my shoulders, and bursts into tears. “I can’t stand this! I miss him so much!”
I hold her, wishing for the clear, uncomplicated grief she feels for a man who loved her solidly, always, and never left her until he died.
She’s the only one he never left. How have I not noticed this before?
Chapter Thirty
Maya
My entire body vibrates with emotion as I sit in the chair beneath the pergola. Clematis vines climb the posts, offering shade and food for the bees swirling from flower to flower, and I almost wish one of them would sting me so I’d have a reason to explode. My heart is racing, and sweat edges my hairline, and I’m not even sure what the emotions are, only that I don’t like how congested my lungs feel, how upset my stomach is.
I jump to my feet, cradling my aching wrist close to my body so my movements won’t jar it, and pace toward the boxwood at the back of the pool, along the roses planted, then down the south end of the garden, up the long end of the pool. I wish I could jump into the cool water, but of course, that would ruin the cast. Instead, I step onto the stairs at one end, up to my knees. The water is cool, and the clear turquoise color eases me. For a moment I can breathe.
What am I so mad about? Meadow being so bossy, but that’s nothing new. Bossy about my love life is infuriating, but nothing to the level I’m feeling.
What else? asks the voice of my therapist. I see her in front of me, that perfectly smooth white pageboy, her bright blue eyes.
My father. Even the words bring up a sense of incandescent rage, choking off my throat to the point that I have to reach down with my left hand and bring up water to splash on myself.
He rescued everyone. All his little lovers and wives and girlfriends. Even Rory. He rescued her from a lifetime without a father, and now she’s in the kitchen crying her eyes out over him, and justifiably so. She loved him. He was good to her.