Good for You: A Novel (75)

Cindy looked down at her coffee mug. “You know I don’t have money for that.”

“No, but I do,” said Aly.

“You don’t have to help me. I don’t deserve it.”

“That’s not the point, Mom,” said Aly. “I’m offering because I can. And because it’s what Luke would have wanted.”

“That means more to me than you can know.” Cindy blinked hard a few times. “I didn’t think the other day was the time to go into this, but I’d like for us to try to have a relationship. A different one than we had before. If you’d be willing.”

Aly wasn’t so sure she was willing. Her mother did seem different, but who was to say it would last?

“I want you to know that . . . I did love you, Aly,” said Cindy quietly. “I do now, course, but I did then, too. I’m sorry I didn’t know how to show it. I want a happy family again, more than anything in the world.”

It was impossible for Aly to hide her astonishment. “No offense, Mom, but we were never a happy family.”

Cindy stared back at Aly like she’d just sprouted antlers. “Well, sure you were. I wasn’t a part of it, and neither was your dad. But you and Luke were as happy a family as I’ve ever seen. I don’t know any younger sister whose brother wanted to hang out with her, even when they were kids—do you? And you worshipped the ground he walked on, which only made him try to be even better for you. Neither one of you would’ve come out the way you did without the other one.”

Aly turned away. She’d already cried in front of her mother, but at that point she really did need to be alone.

Cindy seemed to understand this because she excused herself to the bathroom. When she returned several minutes later, Aly asked, “Why are you telling me all this now?”

“Making amends is part of my program,” said Cindy, wringing her hands. “But . . . I guess what happened the other day got me thinking. I want you to forgive me.”

“I forgive you,” said Aly.

“Thank you,” said Cindy, sniffing.

“It might take some time for us to . . . figure out how to make this work,” Aly said. “I’m going to be honest with you, Mom—I don’t know if I can just pretend the past didn’t happen, and sometimes being around you triggers me. But I’m willing to try.”

“That’s all I ask,” she said, and the next thing Aly knew Cindy was hugging her. Her face was still wet on Aly’s shoulder when she added, “Listen—don’t you let this house go. Okay?”

Aly pulled back. “What? Why?”

“Well, I’m thinking about your brother. Remember that time your dad broke our television when he was mad?”

Aly shook her head; she didn’t remember that. In fact, she couldn’t recall a lot of incidents with her father—because as she knew now, her brain shut down, trying to protect her.

“Your brother was so upset that the two of you weren’t going to be able to watch Saturday morning cartoons that he traded our tablecloth for a glazed ham, and then traded the ham for a boom box, and then found someone to swap the boom box for a small TV. I think the whole ordeal took him less than three days,” said Cindy, grinning.

“I do remember that,” said Aly, smiling at the memory of Luke hauling the TV home in a borrowed wagon.

“And of course, you were too young to remember this, but this one time when you were maybe a year, eighteen months at most, we had this crazy overnight storm that dropped a boatload of snow. Your dad and I were asleep, but Luke got up early, just like he always did, and bundled you up in your snowsuit, put you on the sled, and pulled you around the neighborhood like a beauty queen on a parade float. When I spotted him out front, I was mad as a hive full of hornets and told your brother to use his head. You know what he did?”

“What?”

“He looked at me with those clear eyes of his and said, ‘I did use my head. I knew you and Dad weren’t going to take Aly out today and that she’d want to see the snow. So I changed her diaper and made sure she was warm and got out before the snow got too deep.’ I was so dumbfounded I had to laugh.”

Through her tears, Aly laughed, too.

“Point being, your brother never did anything he didn’t think through, even when it didn’t make sense to everyone else. He was just like you that way: always had a plan. I’m not saying that it worked out every time—otherwise he’d be here right now.”

“True,” said Aly, who couldn’t help but wonder if Cindy suspected what she now knew about her brother’s last trip.

“Now, don’t you think Luke left this house to you and Wyatt for a reason?” Cindy smiled at Aly. “I bet he knew all along that you two were good for each other—and that it was just a matter of time before you figured it out yourselves.”





FORTY


Crying was exhausting. Really, sometimes life was exhausting, even when you weren’t trying to convince everyone that there was nothing wrong with you. After Cindy left, Aly lay down on the sofa, intending to rest her eyes for a few minutes. When she woke, the sun was low in the sky.

She rose and washed her face, then dabbed on some concealer and a little blush. That mostly mitigated her skin’s splotchiness, but there was nothing she could do about the light that had left her eyes. Just as she began to turn away from the mirror, though, she caught a glint of something in her reflection. It was a tiny spark, yet it ignited a realization—