The Secrets on Chicory Lane: A Novel(16)

Eddie continued to visit Gordon Alpine. He tried to talk me into going to Mr. Alpine’s house with him, and I did, once. Mr. Alpine gave us both ice cream and showed us his collection of board games. After hearing about his past from my parents, I looked around his living room for evidence that he’d been married. There were no family photos that I could see, except for one of him standing with his brother, the mayor of Limite. There was definitely nothing displayed to commemorate the memory of a deceased child. Maybe he had something hidden away in another part of the house, I thought. At any rate, I never detected a problem with our peculiar neighbor. To us, he was as nice as a neighbor could be.



I can pinpoint when the trouble started—on a day approaching the Fourth of July. Eddie was over to visit. He talked about getting hold of fireworks and shooting them in the park. In those days, there were no laws against fireworks in Limite, and people went all-out on the Fourth. Fireworks vendors set up their stands on the outskirts of town and made a killing. I was looking forward to spending time with Eddie on the holiday, too.

While we were watching TV, Michael started crying. My mother was in the laundry room, or, as she called it, the “utility room,” which was just off to the side from the kitchen. I got up and went to the nursery to see what I could do, as Eddie tailed along. He watched as I did the walk-around-the-room-and-bounce maneuver. All three of us—Mom, Dad, and I—had found that this method sometimes worked in quieting Michael, and we called it “the bounce.” It was a fast but gentle up-and-down motion that simulated a vibrator. The bounce was successful after a few minutes, so I put the baby back in his crib. We returned to the living room, only to hear my mother calling me to help her with something in the garage. I left Eddie in front of the TV. “Listen for Michael, will you?” I said. I went out the kitchen door into our attached garage, where we kept the family car and other stuff like my bicycle, camping equipment, and miscellaneous junk. In the middle of our work, we heard Michael screaming. We rushed through the living room—Eddie wasn’t there—and into the nursery.

Eddie stood in the middle of the room holding Michael, attempting to do the bounce. He was performing the maneuver way too hard. Mom freaked out. “Stop it!” she yelled and snatched Michael from Eddie’s arms. “What were you doing?”

“Nothing! He started crying, and Shelby was in the garage. I thought I’d do what Shelby did to try and stop it.”

“You could have hurt him!”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“Eddie, I think you should go on home. I need Shelby to do some chores. Go on. We’ll see you another time.”

He looked at me, hoping, I think, that I would protest. I didn’t. The sight of Eddie with Michael had surprised me, too. “I’ll see you later, Eddie,” I said.

After he’d left, Mom turned to me. “I don’t want you playing with him anymore. He’s not welcome in this house again. I don’t like him.”

“Mom!” I protested, trying to convince her that Eddie hadn’t meant any harm. She wouldn’t budge.

“And you’re going to start locking that front door whether you’re inside or out. I’ll get you a key tomorrow.”

She snapped at me again, and I started crying. I spent the rest of the day very upset. She never got me a key, and I continued to leave the door unlocked. My mother seemed to be going through something; in retrospect, I think her hormones had gone haywire from having a child at a later age. In general, I’m made to believe that relationships between mothers and daughters can often be stormy. Ours was particularly so. At the time Michael was born, I was getting to be the age in which I couldn’t help challenging my mother. She was the parent I was around the most, so it seemed that I received the brunt of anything that displeased her. It got worse as the years went on, and I’m afraid that I’m guilty of not doing more to repair what came between us.

I told Eddie that my mother wouldn’t let me see him anymore when we met the next day at the park—at least like how we’d been doing. I cried, and he got angry. He said that my mother had no business keeping us apart. He claimed he hated her, and I didn’t like that. I told him I was just as mad and heartbroken about the ultimatum as he was, but I didn’t hate my mom. “Maybe we are too young to be boyfriend and girlfriend,” I said, “but we can still be friends.” That made him go berserk. I’d never seen him get so agitated before. He complained that nothing good ever happened to him, and finally he said goodbye.

“I’m going to Mr. Alpine’s house,” he said. “He appreciates me!” He left me inside the hull of the old yacht feeling wretched. I thought I was going to die. The pain in my chest was unbearable. First heartbreak—it’s a killer. There was also the self-reproach for having to hurt Eddie, who obviously took it even harder than me. Mr. Alpine would be a comfort to Eddie, I thought to myself. Visiting him would get my former boyfriend’s mind off of me. How do you like that? I was more concerned with how badly Eddie had taken our “breakup” than how I personally felt about it. Still, it was painful. I tried to tell myself that we’d still see each other. We went to the same school and he lived right across the street! And there was always the park. It was impossible to avoid each other. Wasn’t that a good thing?

As the Fourth of July approached, I didn’t see Eddie at the park or on the block. I ventured outside once to look for him, but one of the kids said he had seen Eddie going into Mr. Alpine’s house. Fine, I thought, if he’s going to hide, then so be it. He would get over it eventually. By July 3, though, I was beginning to get a little anxious. I figured it wouldn’t hurt just to see him and find out how he was doing. Show that we were still friends.