I'll Be You(5)

She gazed gravely up at me, tiny tears still clinging to her flushed cheeks. I could still see the confusion in her face, that two things could look so alike and familiar and yet also be so completely different. I understood how she felt. I often felt the same way myself when I looked at my sister.

“We bewy it,” she repeated. Her voice was tentative and reedy. It made me think of bunny rabbits and warm beaches, of the sunny days of my own childhood. A strange wave of nostalgia hit me, a residual memory of a time long ago when my mother used to carry Elli and me on her hips, like bookends. How safe that felt.

I stood and hoisted Charlotte up onto my own hip, which was harder than it looked. “I’m your aunt Samantha. You can call me Sam, or Sammy.”

“Mimi?” She looked confused.

“Sure, if that’s easier. I know I’m not your mom, but I’m going to try my best to take care of you while she’s gone. OK?”

“?’Kay,” she whispered. And even though she still wasn’t smiling, I could feel her body go slack, releasing itself to this new, semi-familiar adult.

“We’re going to be just fine,” I murmured into her hair.

I wasn’t sure if I was talking to the kid or to myself.





4




WE BURIED THE SOBRIETY badge in my parents’ backyard, along with a pocketful of baubles that I fished out of my mother’s costume jewelry box. I gave Charlotte a trowel that I found in the gardening shed and then followed her around the garden as she dug holes. While she carefully placed each rhinestone earring in its own little grave and covered it with dirt, I dutifully marked its location on a map that I’d sketched on the back of an old health food flyer I’d found in the kitchen.

After we’d finished burying everything, I gave Charlotte a hibiscus Popsicle from my parents’ freezer and we sat side by side on the porch looking out at the garden. My mother had planted Mexican sage, lavender, and bougainvillea, and in the full bloom of summer the yard was a sea of purple. After our acting careers imploded and our mother’s career as our manager fizzled, she had started a little business in landscape design; so most of the homes on the street now featured “Linda Logan yards,” with burbling fountains and thickets of drought-tolerant flowers. As a result, their neighborhood seemed to have an unusually high per capita number of hummingbirds, butterflies, and bumblebees. I had to give my mother credit for that.

I smiled at Charlotte. “How is your mama?” I asked her softly. “I miss her.”

Charlotte was busy chasing a melting slab of Popsicle with a neon pink tongue. She cocked her head and slurped. “Why?”

“Why? Because I screwed up a while back, and now she’s mad at me.”

“Why?”

I didn’t know how to answer this. The child stared gravely back at me, unable to compute. I supposed this wasn’t an appropriate conversation to have with someone who didn’t even know the alphabet yet, but how was I to know how to speak to a toddler? Charlotte seemed unperturbed. She ate the last melting bit of pink sludge and let the naked stick drop to the porch. Then she grabbed the trowel and the map and scampered back off into the garden to dig her treasure back up.

My father came out to join me on the deck, his joints popping as he sat next to me on the bench. He still wore the coat and tie that he’d worn to work—he had been an accountant at a paper supply company for the last three decades—and they tugged at the buttons where his body now sagged in the middle. He looked tired, I thought, and a little diminished, as if someone had put a giant thumb on his head and pushed him right back down into himself. It was five-thirty, time for his nightly G&T, but he was drinking a can of lime sparkling water, because of me, surely. I couldn’t decide if I was touched by this gesture or insulted by his lack of faith in my self-control.

He lit up when he saw Charlotte out digging under the giant oak that enveloped the back of the yard. He waved, and she waved back at him. “Tweasure!” she called, jewels sparkling in her fist.

“Is that your mother’s earring she’s holding?” he asked me. “For God’s sake, don’t let Linda see that. She’ll lose her mind.”

But my mother was already standing there behind him, drinking a glass of chardonnay. (Apparently she was unconcerned about testing my sobriety.) “It’s fine,” she said. “They’re paste.” She dimpled at the little girl in the garden. She’d really lowered her standards for this kid.

I turned to face them. “So, let’s talk. What’s the story with Elli? What’s going on? Where is she?”

My mother stuffed her nose into the mouth of her wineglass. “I think single motherhood was turning out to be a bit much for her, that’s all,” she said breezily. “It’s a lot to have a small child all by yourself, you know? When I had you two there were certainly months when I just wanted to disappear and leave your father to take care of things for a while.” She gulped some wine, licked her teeth. “Plus with the whole divorce debacle…She just wanted some downtime and she went to a spa. She said it was in Ojai.”

“What’s the name of the spa? Is it that fancy golf place? Ojai Valley Inn?” I imagined my sister swaddled in terry cloth, mud cracking on her face, the cucumber slices on her eyes conveniently blinding her to any memory of her responsibilities back home. A vision that was hard to reconcile with the sister I knew. And yet who knew what I’d missed over the last year? Apparently, quite a lot.