“Lite-Brite, get your keys, we’re taking a trip,” Dolores says.
Bess giggles. “New nickname, I can dig it. Your wish is my command.”
“You’re not even going to ask where we’re going?” I ask Bess. “For all we know she might have some wild idea about going to Vegas.”
Dolores snorts. “Vegas? You have quite the imagination, dearie. You’ve lost yourself, haven’t you?”
My eyes swell with tears, and I nod. The lump in my throat won’t let me so much as squeak.
“Well, you know how to find what you’ve lost, right?” she asks.
I shake my head. I mean, of course, I know how to find something I’ve lost. Every mom becomes an expert in finding lost things, but in this context, I have no idea what she’s talking about.
“It’s simple, you retrace your steps. We’d better move quickly, though, before my nemesis comes back around,” she says.
“The nurse isn’t your nemesis,” I mumble.
“She’s just jealous she doesn’t have her own nemesis. She wouldn’t understand,” Bess placates her.
I roll my eyes and head toward Bess’s SUV. At least they’ll be entertaining. That’s better than how I thought I’d be spending the day.
“Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,”by Cyndi Lauper blasts from the stereo in Bess’s SUV. The windows are down, and Bess and Dolores are singing all the lyrics at the top of their lungs. You’d think we were on some kind of girls’ trip the way they’re partying it up in the front seats.
I appreciate that they both want to be with me today, but a big part of me just wants to be alone. It’s hard to sulk with company. I think that’s the point, though. I’ve had plenty of days spent feeling sorry for myself. It never changes anything.
Bess and Dolores spent some time with their heads together before we got in the car. I just know they conspired as to what the itinerary for today is. It would be nice if either of them would share it with me.
I start to get an inkling when they turn down a street I’d know like the back of my hand. There are different cars in the driveways. Some of the houses have new paint, while others look like they’ve been neglected for years. But I can still see it as it was when I was seventeen. This has been my vision of what home and happiness are.
Bess pulls in front of my old house and puts the car in park. It’s been so long since I’ve been down here. After I had to sell the house, because as a high school senior I couldn’t afford the bills it took to run it, I couldn’t face coming back down here. I lived in this town for seven more years before Griffin and I moved to Centralia. Not once did I come down this road.
There’s nothing out here except houses. Audrey didn’t live in this neighborhood, so I didn’t have to come down here to see her. There was no reason for me to come here, and I couldn’tface the memories, even though most of them were good, so I didn’t come.
My eyes sting as they fill with tears. I can feel my face twist in that way you do when you’re trying not to cry. It never works, though, not for me at least.
A hot tear slides down my face, and I wipe it away with the back of my hand. The mind is a weird organ. We talk about the heart when we describe love, but that organ is muscles, vessels, and blood. Nothing in it contains the ability to love. It doesn’t hold on to the images of the people after they’re gone. It’s only fitting that the place where my parents live in my mind is also where my capacity to love them resides.
In front of me is just a house. Nothing but wood, nails, and glass. It’s not alive, and certainly can’t give me the thing that I want more than my next breath at this moment.
Another tear escapes, but I don’t even bother getting rid of it. It won’t be the last one. Through a watery vision, I can almost see them. In the driveway, there’s a tan truck. The hood is open, and my father is bent over, tweaking things in the engine. Charlie moves behind him and fixes whatever he messed up. My dad really, really wanted to be a car guy, but bless him, he did not have the skills.
I close my eyes, and more tears squeeze out. At this point, I should just admit I’m crying. It’s not an errant tear here and there. My face is blotchy, and I’m one memory away from snotty crying.
The wind blows across my face from the open windows up front. It’s warm, and somewhere down the block, someone is barbecuing. In my mind, I’m six, playing tag with other kids from the neighborhood in my backyard while my dad mans the grill. My mom flits around talking to the wives and girlfriends of my dad’s teammates from his community softball league.
Charlie is there; he was always there back then. Hattie lived with us at that time. I thought she was the coolest person alive, because she was always disappearing with her friends.
I groan and drop my head back against the headrest.
“What’s wrong?” Bess asks.
“I feel like an idiot. Being here, all these memories are coming back to me. I can’t believe I forgot that Donovan and Hattie were best friends back when she was a teenager. I can’t remember the name of her other best friend. I think they lost touch over the years. And Charlie, I should have seen it. I mean, not when Hattie was sixteen, although I think I knew that she had a crush on him. Don’t tell Griffin I said this, but so did I.”
Bess’s mouth falls open. “Shut up. Was he really hot?”
“Both of those boys were lookers. So was your dad,” Dolores says with a smile on her face. “Martin Parker was one of the purest souls I ever met. I was friends with your grandmother, Rebecca, so I watched Elisa grow up. Then I watched her fall in love with Martin. When Rebecca got sick, way too young, she was comforted knowing her girls would be taken care of by such a good man.”
My lip starts to quiver. One after another, memories rush at me. I press my hands against the window, trying to get a better look, but also knowing that this isn’t my house anymore. We had our time here, and it was beautiful. There should have been many more years, but no one is promised tomorrow. That’s a lesson I’ve tried to remember so I never take for granted that the people I love will be there forever.
