“From me,” Ada said coolly. “And it’s poor manners to refuse a gift.”
He started to sputter, but my mother put a hand on his arm, murmuring something that quieted him. “Into the car,” he said finally. “We have a long drive ahead of us.”
Lillian was next to Ada, Sally in her arms, Frannie behind them. I set the bags down and went first to Frannie, embracing her. She squeezed me back, tears in her eyes. We nodded at each other before I moved on to Lillian. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t kinder when you first arrived,” I said.
“I never even noticed,” she lied. “Dear, sweet girl. Please write to us.”
“I will,” I promised, hugging her tightly. She pressed a warm kiss to my cheek before releasing me. I took a minute to pet Sally, who nuzzled into my hand. I felt my breath hitch, but remembered Ada’s admonition and took a deep breath to steady myself.
Then only Ada remained. “Thank you,” I said. “For everything.”
“Don’t you make a fuss,” she warned. “This isn’t goodbye.”
I didn’t believe her. If the last time she had been to New York was my brother’s bar mitzvah twelve years earlier, I didn’t see her making the journey now. And there was no chance my parents would let me visit her in Philadelphia again. But it was a choice—believe her and be able to leave, or not and stay rooted to the spot, tearing my family apart. So I chose to believe her, if only because it was what she wanted.
She pulled me in for a brief but tight hug, and I wondered if she was telling me not to make a fuss so that she didn’t cry in front of my parents either.
“I’ll see you again soon,” I whispered.
“You’d better.”
My father cleared his throat and Ada released me. I looked back at her one last time over my shoulder before descending the porch steps.
My parents loved me because I was their child. But there was a lot they would change in me if they could. Ada was under no such obligation to love me. And, no matter how many critiques she had of my behavior and manners, she wouldn’t change a thing. Leaving her felt like I was leaving a piece of myself behind. But I was stronger for having known her. And even if I never did see her again, that part of her would always be with me.
Squaring my shoulders, I blew her a kiss, then followed my parents down the steps and settled into the backseat of my father’s black sedan for the long ride home.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
My childhood bedroom seemed smaller. Which was ridiculous because it was bigger than my room at either of Ada’s houses. But the walls were closer. The windows smaller. And everything in it a reminder of what I didn’t want.
It was better than the rest of the house though. In my room, I could sit at the desk where I’d done my homework in high school, my typewriter in front of me—my old one discarded to the back of my closet. It would never produce a novel. It was a relic of the girl I used to be. And, for those hours while I wrote, the room receded. My character wasn’t me, but she lived in the now-familiar spaces of the world I had just left. And Ada was right—I did know how it ended.
I appeared for meals only because my father told my mother, which I heard through the vent in the floor, that if I didn’t join them, she wasn’t to bring me food. And as romantic as the idea was of wasting away in my tower to punish the dragon downstairs who kept me hostage, this wasn’t what broke me. Because it wouldn’t have broken Ada.
I wrote to her Thursday night and Friday morning. But Friday afternoon, a telegram arrived from Lillian, telling me to write to them at the Philadelphia house. They had ended their summer early, for the first time ever.
That revelation left me pacing my room and chewing my cuticles to shreds. There was a week and a half left before Labor Day. Going back to Philadelphia meant losing nearly two weeks of matchmaking. What were they thinking?
But Ada said she still had tricks up her sleeve. That my father wouldn’t get the best of her. My hopes rose for the first time since returning home—if she went back to Philadelphia, she had to be planning something.
If they were back, it meant she wouldn’t see my first two letters. I sat down at the typewriter, pulled a fresh sheet of paper through the roller, and began to write to her, combining what I had said into one new missive.
My mother came to the door, wanting to talk about my summer. Thursday night, I had turned her away. But now that I knew gears were in motion in Oxford Circle, I let her come in.
She sat on the bed. I was still at my desk, the letter finished, chapter 30 of my book in front of me.
“Is that the book you said you were writing?” I nodded. “Ada said it’s wonderful so far.”
At that, I turned to face her. “How often do you write to her?”
She looked surprised. “Why, every week.”
“Why didn’t you ever visit her?” The guilty look on her face told me the answer. “I found the picture of you and her on the boardwalk in Atlantic City. She would have liked it if you went to see her, other than to retrieve me.”
“I know,” she said quietly. “I regret that.”
“You don’t have to do what he tells you.”
My mother shook her head. “It wasn’t your father.” I made a disbelieving face. “I doubt he would have been thrilled, knowing what he knows, but he never would have stopped me. I didn’t want to go.”
I thought of her face in that picture. “Why?”
She sighed. “There are so many things you can’t possibly understand.”
“Try me.” She didn’t reply. “I know why your parents sent you to her.”
Mama looked up in alarm. “Ada shouldn’t—”
“You’re right. She shouldn’t have. You should have.”
For a long moment, she said nothing. “May you have your own daughter someday and have to account for every mistake you made.”
“No,” I said. “It’s not a mistake if you learn from it. But that doesn’t explain why you never went back.”
She was quiet again, studying her hands in her lap. “After . . . after. I made the decision to put that behind me. To live my life as if it hadn’t happened. I missed Ada, but I couldn’t go back there. It would be too painful.”
“So you sent me instead.”
She reached for my hand, and I moved it away. “It wasn’t a punishment—or at least, I didn’t mean it as one. Ada—Ada was the best thing that ever happened to me. I regret what led me to her, but she gave me my life back. She’s the reason I married your father and the reason you’re here. If she hadn’t taken me in that summer . . .” She trailed off, unable to finish the thought. She shook her head sadly. “I hoped she would have the same effect on you. But I guess a lot can change in twenty-eight years.”
I stared at her. “Mama, she did do that for me. But I want a different life than you do. That doesn’t make it wrong.”
She didn’t understand. And she never really would. She looked at the world through her own lens and didn’t know how to see it through mine. And I supposed I couldn’t see her life through hers either. Ada had said she was happy in her choice. I didn’t understand how, and she would never understand how I could be happy with a different one. Which made me sad, knowing even if she accepted me for who I was, there would always be a judgmental rift born of a lack of comprehension.