Текст книги "Finding Me "

Автор книги: Mariah Dietz

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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

When she moves to hug Fitz, Grandma Alala begins lifting the hem of my shirt, and my hands fly to hold it down as she tsks and speaks in what sounds like a disapproval. Of what, I have no idea. Hosanna takes her hand and says something in just as harsh of a tone, and the two exchange several words and glares before Grandma Alala releases my shirt and throws her hands in the air before stalking back into the kitchen.

I raise my eyebrows at Fitz, still keeping a firm grip on the hem of my sweatshirt as my eyes beg for some clarification.

“She says you’re too thin. She’s going to go make some more food.”

We spend the next few hours together as Fitz or Hosanna act as an interpreter between Alala and me. I learn that Fitz is Greek, and that he’s actually first-generation American. Hosanna asks me questions while Grandma Alala shoves food toward me, beckoning me to eat with her hand gestures and Greek words I don’t understand, but clearly do the meaning.

Once again, I’m too slow to take a bit of the cheese-filled pastry that she’s placed before me, and she fires words off to Fitz.

“Eat.” He sounds reluctant, then turns to look at me, and I notice his forehead is creased and the corners of his lips are lifting forcibly with guilt.

“Eat, eat, eat!” Grandma Alala repeats, pushing the plate closer to me.

Dinner is delicious and completely untraditional. Rather than turkey and potatoes, Fitz’s mom and grandma make a traditional Greek feast, filling the small table with dishes I can hardly pronounce and can barely find room for after all of the food Grandma Alala shoved at me while it was being prepared. I think had I been notified that we weren’t going to have a traditional Thanksgiving meal, I would have in some ways been disappointed. However, sitting around the small, cozy table filled with the delicious dishes I’ve never tasted and surrounded by the foreign Greek language and bits of English, I feel relieved and happy to have this day be as equally special as past Thanksgivings, but completely different and unexpected.

“So, Harper, Maxwell mentioned you’re extremely smart,” Hosanna says as she cuts into the dessert: homemade baklava.

“Fitz is being generous. He’s the genius in there.” He is. Fitz is in fact six years older than me, though his appearance makes that deceiving. He graduated with his doctorate at the age of twenty-four.

“She’s being modest. She doesn’t even have her degree yet, and she could probably wipe the floor with most assistants.”

“Have you been doing this long?”

I shake my head and set my fork down, earning a scowl from Grandma Alala that forces me to lift it back up. “My father was in medicine, and science has always been an interest to me, but medical science is new experience.”

Hosanna nods patiently. “We all find our callings.”

“And the lab’s a better place to work than a lot of other college jobs, like retail or something,” Fitz adds, stirring his coffee. “God, I remember having to do inventory every quarter. We couldn’t start until the store closed and would have to be there all night and then go directly to class. Those days were the worst. Plus, Ben’s really cool.”

“Yeah,” I agree. “I mean I don’t really have another employer to compare him to, but he’s a really good guy and seems to genuinely care about not only the cause and the company, but the employees.”

Fitz’s head tilts back and his gaze slides to me. “Wait, you mean to tell me you’ve never had a job before the lab?”

I shrug. If this wasn’t Fitz, I’d probably be unjustly defensive, but he’s right. I’m twenty-one and have never had a real job before. “No. My parents always insisted that we focus on school and being kids because you have your whole life to be an adult.”

“That sounds scary as hell. You’re suddenly flung out of the nest with zero preparation or understanding of the real world,” he says. “Or maybe I’m just envious because I’ve worked since I was sixteen.”

Fitz is right. These past five months have taught me a lot about life and the real world.

By the end of our two-day trip, I have a clear understanding of one Greek word, and that is: wedding. Grandma Alala took to measuring me on several different instances between her attempts to shove more food in my mouth. Though I loved most of it, there was still a dish or two that I prefer not to think about what I ingested. Regardless of her insistence for me to eat and marry Fitz, I fall for her soft pats on my cheek and loud laughs that often arise through her conversations with Hosanna or Fitz. Hosanna is her polar opposite, quiet and sweet with one of the tenderest hearts I’ve ever experienced. Everything about her makes me want to lie with my head in her lap and listen to her tell me stories of when she was a girl growing up in Greece.

It’s the first time I’ve experienced a family environment in months. Though there are few similarities to my own, there are far more differences and I focus on them, finding comfort.

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

–Winston Churchill

It’s been a week since we returned from New York and Fitz is whistling along to a Christmas song, much to my dismay. I still hate whistling. I grind my teeth to prevent myself from snapping at him because I’ve already pleaded with him to stop a dozen times this morning, and yet he seems completely lost in another world today. Evidently, one that requires a lot of whistling.

I look down at the notes I’ve been working on, trying to distract myself enough to drown out the sound, and see my phone alight in my purse. The lab doesn’t really have a policy regarding phones. As long as you’re not in the middle of a lab, no one seems to mind what you do. After spending an extensive amount of time and money attending school to earn a doctorate, most people seem pretty driven and don’t require many rules.

I smile as Kendall’s face appears and slide my thumb across the screen to answer. “Hey.”

“Hey!” She sounds surprised. Honestly, I feel a little surprised. Generally Kendall and I communicate through texts. I assume because she ended up moving in with Max, Landon, and Jameson shortly after I left. “Sorry, I was expecting to get your voicemail. I can’t ever keep track of your schedule with the lab and classes and everything.”

“Oh, I’m at the lab now. Just wrapping up some notes. What’s up?”

A brief pause has me straightening in my seat, waiting for something I can tell I won’t want to hear based upon our strange interaction thus far. “I want to talk Christmas with you.”

I don’t reply, waiting to see if she suggests her and Jameson coming out to visit.

“It would mean a lot to all of us if you came home, even if it’s only for a few days.”

If only it were that easy.

Her question doesn’t necessarily catch me off guard. My mom has recently been reaching out to me with the same request, but it always comes via email and voicemail since she has the uncanny ability to call whenever I’m in class. It has me thinking about home so much lately, I feel like I’m lapsing back into my old behaviors of when I first arrived in Delaware—when I spent too much of my days sleeping and avoiding people, food, and the outside world. I was glad we spent the Saturday after Thanksgiving still at Fitz’s mom’s, because Grandma Alala was relentless about teaching me how to make baklava so I could carry on the family tradition. It served to help distract my thoughts of Max and how he was celebrating his birthday this year. However, once I was back in my empty apartment, trying to get back into my routine, the thoughts and memories start nagging at me without prevail. “I’ll think about it,” I answer quietly.

“Just come home, Ace,” she pleads.

“Really, I’ll talk to Ben and see if it’s even possible.”

“Ace, I need my sister. I miss you.”

Tears well in my eyes and I silently count backwards from ten before releasing a shaky breath. “I’ll look into it.”

“You seriously need to get a couch, H.” Fitz’s complaint is delivered as he drops a pile of folded laundry on my dresser so he has room on the air mattress.

“I know, I just…”

“Don’t know if you want to stay?”

“No, I’ll be around for a while.”

“Your apartment says otherwise,” he says, looking around at my bare walls.

I shrug and grab my laptop to set up National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.

“Seriously. Why aren’t we watching this at my place?”

“Because Li Dragon doesn’t deliver where you live,” I answer from the kitchen where I’m pouring two shots of whiskey into water glasses since I don’t have tumblers or shot glasses.

“I know, but your apartment is seriously depressing. Are you ever going to unpack the boxes in your living room?”

“Maybe it should be my New Year’s resolution,” I tease, handing Fitz a glass before moving around to the other side of my bed. There isn’t a lot that I brought with me. Other than clothes and some shoes, it’s mostly memories. Packing them had been a disaster. Each item seemed to make me cry harder than the last, and several hold no monetary value, like an old napkin stained with ice cream from the first time Max took me to Maggie Lou’s, or an old note my dad had written to me on a coffee filter that I had found in the pocket of a pair of shorts. I hadn’t known what to do with them. I didn’t want to chance leaving them behind and having someone throw them out, thinking they weren’t important, but there’s no way I can unpack them and look at them every day.

“Who called you this morning?” I bring my glass to my lips and look over at Fitz for a long second. “At the lab, you told someone you’d ask Ben if something was possible. If what was possible?”

I don’t understand why he’s digging. Fitz can be on the cusp of mean with some of his tactless questions and responses, but apart from the morning he forced me to reveal that my dad passed away, he is never this way with me.

“Why won’t you tell me?” His brown eyes round with anger and accusation.

“It was just my sister Kendall,” I reply, shrinking back.

“What are you supposed to be looking into?”

“Why does it matter?”

“Because you’re supposed to be my friend, Harper, and I can’t be your friend when you have all of these giant invisible barriers!” Fitz stands, looking too agitated to remain sitting.

“She wants me to come home for Christmas,” I explain quietly.

“Are you going?” he demands, angrier now that I’ve told him.

I shrug in response, not certain how to reply.

“You’re going home, Harper. Pack your fucking bags, talk to Ben, and go see your fucking family!” Fitz climbs off the bed and I remain seated, watching as he takes the few steps into my kitchen. His untouched glass slams against the laminate kitchen countertop and he grumbles incoherent words as he pulls on his coat. I question if I should stop him or just allow him to go. I know from my own experiences that sometimes there isn’t a right answer. However, Fitz, like me, seems to like space when he’s upset. It just sucks that it’s space from me that he needs when I already feel like I’m back on my downward spiral and he’s the only thing that’s been keeping my head above water lately.

My apartment door slams, making tears scratch my eyes. I snake my hand between my air mattress and the wall until I feel the cool, soft cotton. I wad the familiar T-shirt into a ball and bury my face into it. I’ve had this shirt since I went on my cruise last spring break. Max’s comforting scent had been my lifeline while we bobbed out at sea, yet now, as I press my face into the fibers trying to force it to provide me with familiarity, it gives me nothing. His scent has been gone for a while now, and as hard as I work to try and recall the exact way he smelled, I can’t. Even with draining my glass, I can’t recall it. Max is starting to finally fade like a shadow when the sun sets, really slowly stretched and then quickly disappearing.

I’m filled with unease and jitters the moment our plane touches the tarmac. As the others around me begin shuffling to gather their belongings, I power on my phone to verify that it really is only three in the afternoon. I’ll be in California for less than a hundred hours. I can manage this. I shoot off a quick text to Fitz to verify I have arrived and receive a text from him nearly instantly, wishing me luck and love. I know he’s still feeling guilty for his outburst a couple of weeks ago, and although I’ve told him that I’ve forgiven him, he still doesn’t seem able to forgive himself.

There is a small welcoming committee at the airport baggage claim. My mom, Jenny, and Kendall are all here to anxiously greet me. I smile at Jenny and Kendall, but refuse to make eye contact with my mom. Since July, when I moved to Delaware, I’ve only spoken to her a handful of times, and each of them has been shorter than the last. I’m pretty sure her uncanny ability to call while I’m in class isn’t coincidental.

The ride home is full of chatter between my sisters. They artfully ensure to fill every moment so as to not allow any awkward tension to settle. They comment on all sorts of surface topics like the weather and how they are always checking the forecast in Delaware. Jenny fills me in on Lilly, and although several of her updates are things she’s already shared with me during previous conversations, I pretend as though they’re not. Periodically, the conversation requires me to provide a brief answer, but other than the occasional yes and nod, little is required from me.

Pulling onto our street makes every nerve cell in my body come alive. My eyes rake the streets, looking for signs that the past six months have all been a strange dream and that we’ll pull into the driveway and Dad and Max will be there, along with the rest of my family, and things will all go back to being the way they were. The way they are supposed to be. Back to reality.

“He’s gone all week,” Kendall whispers so quietly it takes me a moment for her words to make sense.

My mom parks in the driveway, and my fist clenches around the handle of my purse. My eyes cloud with tears as I try to avert my attention from our house and Max’s and the memories that slip free from the jar I’ve only ever managed to have a weak seal on.

Kendall and Jameson had spent a weekend at the house in San Diego last Christmas for some time together, which after Max and I experienced the luxury, I was both envious and understanding of. Max and I had spent the weekend home with our families. My mom, Savannah, Mindi, Jenny, and all of my nieces spent most of our time in the kitchen, baking cookies for the entire neighborhood while Max and my dad adorned the outside of our houses and the Janes’ with miles of Christmas lights.

They came inside as we were finishing filling tins to be dispersed, both wearing a giant grin.

“We’re all done!” my dad announced proudly.

We stopped in the midst of the packaging and slid on shoes and coats, and followed them outside where dusk was settling in.

Lights have always been my favorite part of Christmas. The shimmer and glow they produce seems to always make everything brighter and prettier. Looking at the three houses made my face feel as bright as the lights before me. All of us girls cheered as my nieces ran around in circles, chasing each other and singing “Jingle Bells.”

“I think this might be my favorite part of Christmas too,” Max whispered, wrapping his arms around my shoulders and pulling my back against his chest.

Over the next week of winter break, it seemed every day my dad returned home with a new lawn ornament or light fixture to add.

This year, all three houses look naked in comparison. Mom has hung a wreath on our front door, but that’s the extent for the outside. The other two have a few more decorations, but nothing like last year.

“Ace!” I’ve never hated the sound of my own name more. “It’s nice to have you home! Let me get your bag!” Steven says, opening the back of my mom’s SUV.

As we climb the driveway, so do my nerves. Stepping inside of what’s been my home for the last twenty-one years of my life makes every muscle in my body constrict. So many things are the same, and yet nothing is the same.

Details are gone. Our house has always been really clean, but it now looks almost clinical, unlived in, cold. I force my lungs to release the breath I’ve been holding for too long and pat my thigh when Zeus doesn’t appear from the den.

“Zeus isn’t here.” My mom’s words make my head whip around, and my eyes to grow wide with accusation and pain.

“He’s okay!” Kendall cries instantly, catching my reaction. She takes a few steps closer to me and places a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “Zeus is okay,” she repeats.

“Where is he, then?”

“He lives with Max now, honey,” my mom assures me.

The fact bounces around in my head, threatening to crack my carefully constructed wall that’s falling too quickly. I avoid asking why Max and go straight to “Why?”

“Steven’s allergic.” I have to clench my teeth to not respond to this news because all of the words racing through my mind right now are hateful and mean, and I’m not sure if it will help or hinder me in rebuilding my defenses. My mother’s tense stance tells me she knows this is dangerous territory. Her words come much calmer than her reflective body language, ushering us to the kitchen.

Stiff conversation follows suit, making me grateful for my sisters, because they not only allow me to try to gather myself and my bearings, they also keep conversation pointed toward topics that keep our mother busy. Their familiar voices are a soft comfort as I work to focus my thoughts and energy, reminding myself I will only be here for three and a half more days.

The rest of my family arrives with the late afternoon. There’s an awkward trepidation surrounding each of them before they approach me, and although it makes me feel slightly guilty, I’m a little grateful for it as well. It allows me to soak into a familiar level of numbness that only seems to briefly break when Jameson arrives. His familiar smile falters when he sees me, but he replaces it quickly and pulls me into a hug.

Chicken pot pie is our family’s traditional Christmas Eve dinner, and although I was glad to not have a traditional meal on Thanksgiving with Fitz’s family, I’m even more glad to have the comforting aroma and taste of my mom’s chicken pot pie.

“Ace, do you want some more bread?” Savannah asks, lifting the bread basket and tilting it in my direction. I think I’ve already had this same question posed to me nine other times.

“I’m good thanks.”

“How about some more fried apples?” my mom asks, doing as Savannah had and reaching for the bowl in front of her.

I try to think of a polite way to tell them all to stop bothering me about eating when a glint catches my eye with my mom’s movement. My hand snatches hers and before I realize what I’m doing, I’m gripping her hand too tightly. Bile rises in my throat, forcing me to swallow painfully.

“We were going to tell you all tonight,” she begins. Her hand grows rigid and she attempts to slip her fingers from my hold. I squeeze tighter. “We wanted you to all find out together.”

“What in the hell is wrong with you?” I shout, dropping her hand and retracting mine because I don’t want to touch her. I don’t even want to look at her. I shove my chair back and stand up, not caring what the others are doing in reaction.

“Harper Jo, sit down,” my mom orders, her voice louder than I’ve heard it in years, possibly ever.

I keep walking.

Her quick footsteps follow me. I know that it’s her because of the sound of her heels. My mom has always worn shoes to dinner, and ninety percent of her shoe closet consists of high heels, and right now this fact annoys the hell out of me.

I turn to face her when I reach the kitchen. My mouth opens, preparing to let loose on the anger fueling me, but she beats me to it. “You get back in there this instant! You do not get to judge me, young lady. This is my house, and in my house you respect me. Now get back in there and eat something. You look horrible.” Her tone inflicts a pain that I want to return.

“It hasn’t even been a year!” The volume of my accusation hurts my own ears. “Did you ever even love him?”

Her face contorts, changing from shock to anger to something that looks nearly wicked. “That’s quite the question coming from you, when you packed your bags and left everyone without looking over your shoulder.”

“I hate you right now.” My voice comes out balanced and heat races through me. I was never the rebellious teenager. In all of my life, I never did scream these same words at my mom like I’d heard Mindi, Jenny, Kendall, and even Savannah do on different occasions. But right now, all I feel toward her is hatred that blinds me from any other emotion.

“I’m not so fond of you lately either, kiddo.”

“Then why in the hell did you make such a big deal about me coming home?”

“It was a mistake.” Her light blue eyes look glacial as she stares directly into mine without a hint of regret or remorse.

“I guess you can add it to your list, behind getting engaged within seven months of your husband dying.” My words are far quieter this time. I don’t have the energy to scream them at her like I want to. I use the small amount of what is left to turn before she can respond and head out to the backyard.

My pain feels like a living, breathing thing, consuming me inch by inch as her words play over in my head. My mom’s getting married. The heat that had filled me seconds ago fades, replaced by an icy chill. As I look into the pool that once only held fun and an escape, my body begins to sway. I want to escape again. I want to escape from everything.

Not even the familiar pool holds a warm embrace for me. The water is far cooler than what it has always been kept at, making my skin prickle as I sink further into the abyss. I open my eyes as I go, looking out into a never ending sea of blue.

Arms grab me before I can fully appreciate the beauty of the water and the bubbles floating from my throat to the surface where blurred lights dance. They pull me against a large body that feels sharp in contrast to the open water. As we plunge through the surface, into the night air, I hear him take in a deep breath. He is still anchoring me against him, pulling me toward the shallow end.

I don’t resist. I don’t know what I was doing coming in here. I’m sure Kyle’s thinking I’m insane, or trying to kill myself. I’m not. I wasn’t. I just needed to feel something that didn’t hurt.

Kyle doesn’t stop until we hit the three-feet marker and then we stop. His hands move from my waist to firmly grip my shoulders. The thin burgundy sweater he wore to dinner, something that I’m sure Mindi had chosen to match her emerald green dress, is plastered to his chest and water’s dripping from his hair, face, and clothes as he stares at me, waiting for an explanation. What were you thinking? What were you doing? His eyes plead to know.

My mouth opens to apologize, to explain that I would have come back up. Instead, I begin to cry.

He pulls me against him, allowing my body to be completely reliant on his as I go weak with sobs. A few moments later, another pair of arms wrap around both of us.

“We love you, Ace,” Jenny whispers softly, her voice filled with tears.

A chorus of soft splashes fills the silence of the night, and one by one my family converges in the pool, weaving their arms around us.

“Dad would have loved this. He probably would have tried to require that it be a tradition,” Mindi says, followed by a loud sniffling from behind me.

“Yeah he would,” Savannah adds, her voice remorseful.

“Let’s get out of here,” Kendall’s voice lacks the nostalgia that our older sisters’ both hold. Hers is filled with intent and purpose. “Min, since your house is closest, do you mind if we move everything there?”

“Yeah, we’ve got everything. Let’s go,” Kyle answers in agreement, bypassing my oldest sister’s response.

“Kyle, take her to the front. I’ll go grab some towels,” Mindi instructs, pulling herself loose from the web we’ve become.

It continues to slowly unfold with her absence, and I look around, watching each of my sisters and their husbands or boyfriends huddle in on themselves as we wade to the steps to climb out.

I insist that I’ll be fine, that we can all stay and I won’t bring things up again, or at least get my own things if they insist on leaving, but Kendall nor Kyle consider my words.

“We’re done here,” is Kyle’s response when I begin to protest again. His arm feels heavier than I remember it being as it wraps around my shoulders. We go around the back to the side gate and wait by Jameson’s car, each of us creating a dark puddle on the driveway as we shiver.

For some reason Steven’s welcome rings in my ears again. It never dawned on me that when he’d said “welcome home,” he’d meant his home, not mine.