When Never Comes(20)

Still fuming, she turned her attention to the stacks of paperwork on the bed. She was looking for the name of Stephen’s broker when she spotted the letter-size envelope tucked between her birth certificate and marriage license. It was dog-eared and yellow with age, but there was no mistaking it. She hadn’t thought about it in years, and now, like a bad penny, it had turned up again. She picked it up, turning it over slowly. It felt almost weightless and yet substantial somehow; a twenty-year-old promise—broken. She wasn’t sure why she’d kept it all these years, a reminder perhaps, about the dangers of placing your faith in another person. She wasn’t prepared for the sting behind her lids as she peeled back the flap and spilled the contents into her lap.

It wasn’t much, a few souvenirs from a day at the fair: a plastic wristband, a handful of faded paper tickets, an old black-and-white photo. She reached for the photo first. It was one of those cheesy sepia shots where you dressed up in period costumes and posed in front of a makeshift backdrop. She traced a thumb over Charlene Parker’s image.

She was sporting a feather boa and a tatty hat plumed with ostrich feathers, her head tipped at a saucy angle. Beside her, a young Christy-Lynn grinned gleefully, her front teeth too big for her twelve-year-old face. She had chosen a sequined headband from the musty box of props because it made her look like a flapper from the roaring twenties, and because it matched her mother’s costume. But it was the necklace glinting at the base of her mother’s throat that held her attention—a mirror image of the one she herself had been wearing when the photo was taken.

There was a fresh ache in Christy-Lynn’s throat as she shook the necklace from the envelope and into her palm, recalling the night she had thrown it into the trash and then later retrieved it. Years of being shut up had caused it to tarnish—appropriate, she supposed, given the way things had turned out. She brushed impatiently at the tears suddenly smearing her vision, reminding herself that they were a little girl’s tears, and that she wasn’t that girl anymore. That girl was gone and had been for a long time.





TEN

Ladson, South Carolina

October 27, 1995

The fair is in town—or over in Ladson, which is as good as the same thing. The kids at school can’t stop talking about it. How much of their allowance they’ve saved up. Which rides they’ll go on. Which gloriously greasy foods they’ll scarf down—and likely throw up later.

It all sounds wonderful.

But Christy-Lynn knows better than to entertain any hope of going herself. It costs money to get in, money to ride the rides, money to buy corn dogs and funnel cakes. And there simply isn’t any money to spare. Which is why she’s surprised when her mother comes into her room on Saturday morning wearing jeans and a sweatshirt instead of her Piggly Wiggly uniform.

“Get dressed. We’re going for a ride.”

Something about her mother’s smile makes Christy-Lynn nervous. “A ride where?”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” she says with a wink before disappearing down the hall.

Christy-Lynn stifles a squeal as her mother pulls through the fairground gates. The lot is packed, and they have to park out where the pavement ends and the muddy rows are marked with bright-orange cones. It makes the walk to the admittance gate almost interminable, but she doesn’t care. They’re at the fair!

There’s a moment of shock when they finally arrive at the gate, and her mother reaches into her back pocket to produce a thick wad of bills. It’s more money than she’s ever seen at one time—certainly more than she’s ever seen in her mother’s hand. Her eyes go wide as Charlene Parker peels off several bills and hands them to the bored-looking man behind the ticket window.

“Where did you get all that?” Christy-Lynn asks when the man finishes attaching their plastic armbands.

Her mother looks away, stuffing the remaining bills back into her pocket. “Work. Where do you think?”

“But I thought . . .”

“Hush!” her mother hisses, giving her arm a quick jerk. “You want to go in or not?”

Christy-Lynn swallows the rest of her question and nods. She definitely wants to go in.

They hit the Ferris wheel first, to get warmed up, then move on to the Tilt-o-Whirl, the Starship 3000, and the Rock-n-Roller-Coaster. By the time they step off the last ride, the world is a wobbly, queasy blur, and Christy-Lynn is giddy with the sights and sounds all around her. They eat barbecue and cheese fries, funnel cakes dripping with butter and powdered sugar, then wash it all down with frozen lemonade.

After lunch, her mother finds a stand where they sell beer in plastic cups. They sit under a big white tent filled with picnic tables while she drinks her beer, then orders another and drinks that too. When she finishes her third, they head for the exhibit tents: dressage, rodeo, and bull riding, cook-offs and bake-offs, contests for the biggest tomato. None of these interests her mother. But when they approach a local arts-and-crafts tent, she quickly ducks inside.

She hovers before a narrow stall filled with tables of cheap jewelry, fingering a wide bangle set with bits of what’s meant to pass for turquoise but is probably just plastic. Next, she picks up an engraved silver band and briefly slips it onto her thumb before sliding it off again and returning it to its black velvet tray.

There’s something wistful in her face, a kind of longing Christy-Lynn has never seen before, as if she’s thinking of all the things she can’t have. Christy-Lynn looks away, not wanting her mother to know she has seen her sadness, then turns back when she feels her mother’s hand on her arm.