Inevitable and Only(74)

After I directed Elizabeth onto the highway, I sat back and listened to the radio without actually hearing the music. This was the first time I’d driven anywhere with Elizabeth. I glanced over at her, while she was focused on the road. My throat tightened: her profile was Dad’s. The headlights picked up a little misty rain, and the tires hummed on the damp highway. I switched the radio to a pop station and turned up the volume.

“Cadie,” Elizabeth said, raising her voice to be heard over the music, “when are you going to tell me where we’re going?”

“When we get there,” I said, firmly.

She didn’t look at me; she kept her eyes on the road. But she grinned.

Forty-five minutes later, we arrived at a huge purple house in a quiet neighborhood with large front yards and plenty of street parking. As Elizabeth pulled up to the curb, doubt settled into the pit of my stomach. The dashboard clock said 11:14. A few lights were still on in the downstairs windows of the house, but what if no one was awake? What if they called Mom and Dad, what if we got Renata and Ruby in trouble?

Well, we were here now. I nudged Elizabeth, who was peering out the windshield with wide eyes. “Hey, let’s go.”

Elizabeth jumped.

I didn’t have to explain where we were. I could tell she’d figured it out, even though she’d never been here. Never seen the place where her life had started, where everything that brought us together had been set in motion.

Where, right under Mom’s nose, her mother and Dad had—Don’t think about that now, I told myself, as she slid out of the car and stood there uncertainly.

Josh took a few steps toward the house and stared at it open-mouthed for a moment. “Wait, is this—”

I nodded.

“Wow,” he said softly. And then a huge grin spread across his face. “Wow!” He threw his arms around me, catching me completely off-guard. “Just. Wow. Can we go in?”

“Well, that’s why we’re here!” I said, trying to keep my voice light. “Get your cello and let’s go.”

I took a deep breath, then walked slowly up the steps to the front porch and rang the bell twice.

A stooped, gray-haired figure opened the door.

“Granny?” I said. “It’s me, Acadia.”

“Why, is that—Acadia Rose?” she cried. “Come in here and let me look at you. If you aren’t all grown up! Oh my, oh my, and this must be little Joshua Tree. Both our precious national park babies in one night!”

Then Granny saw Elizabeth on the steps behind us. “Oh my!” she said again. “More guests! Oh, what a delightful surprise.” She held the door open wide and made a wafting gesture with her arms, the wide sleeves of her enormous hand-knitted sweater flapping like wings. “Come in, friends, come in!”

Josh stepped inside, but Elizabeth hung back and I lingered next to her, suddenly unsure. What if this was a terrible idea?

“This is it,” I said. “Do you want to go in?”

“I don’t know …” she said. “I mean, are you sure we’re not imposing, or—”

Granny interrupted her. “Of course not, dear. And what’s your name?”

“Elizabeth,” she said, and cleared her throat. “Elizabeth Jennings. I’m—um, I’m Sunshine’s daughter.”

Granny’s jaw dropped. “Well, land sakes! Bless your heart, come in, come in.”

As we followed her down the hall, she called out, “Rotem! Come see who’s here. Little Acadia and Joshua Greenfield, and a surprise visitor!”

We were quickly surrounded by people, most of them in their pajamas. I remembered some of them. Ravi and Margo, a couple who’d moved in a few years before we left. An older man named Jerry, who’d been in charge of the vegetable garden and who’d built the composting toilet almost singlehandedly. A girl named Lia, who I remembered as a teenager but who was now a young woman holding a baby on her hip.

Rotem, one of the founding members of Ahimsa House and Mom’s college roommate, made her way across the living room to greet us with her arms spread wide. Her dark curly hair was still streaked with different colors—pink, blue, purple—just the way I remembered it. I’d modeled my own hair after Rotem’s.

“Acadia!” she cried. “What a lovely surprise! Look at you! It’s been way too long. How’s Ross, how’s Missy? How come you guys never visit us?”

I returned her hug, but I didn’t know what to say. Because our lives are totally different now? Because my mom is Dr. Laredo-Levy, not the Missy you remember?

“And you are … ?” Rotem asked, turning to Elizabeth.

“Can you believe it?” Granny said, squeezing Elizabeth’s shoulders. “This is Sunshine’s little girl.”

Rotem gasped.

Then I heard Josh tuning his cello.

He had slipped away from all the people and was sitting in the middle of the big yellow couch in the living room, cello between his knees, oblivious to everything else. He started playing Bach. The Prelude to the first suite, the most well-known of all the movements of the Bach suites: a crowd-pleaser. Josh was trying to please the crowd? It certainly seemed to be working. Three little kids—I didn’t recognize them—started dancing around on the living room rug. I couldn’t believe they were all still up so late at night, but then again, Ahimsa House had never been big on enforcing rules like reasonable bed-times. Six or seven adults gathered around, listening, nodding or swaying along to the music and smiling.