Into the Woods Page 8

  I didn't know what to say. I wasn't happy or sad about it. I just nodded and let it go like something that just wasn't meant to remain with me.

  There was much for Mommy to do before we left. and I did have to concentrate and do as well on my exams as I could. A few days later I returned to school. I hated it because I could see the pity and even the fear in the faces of many of the other students. Wendi and Penny did their best to be civil to me. but I wouldn't let them feel satisfied. I wanted it to lie heavily on their consciences, if they had any consciences.

  Of course. Trent was as loving as he could be. I saw the deep disappointment in his face when I told him Mommy and I were leaving Norfolk and going to live in West Palm Beach.

  "I know of a two-week baseball camp held in Florida during the winter. Maybe I can get my parents to send me there," he said. He didn't know what else to say. We promised to write and call and e-mail each other as much as possible when I did get a computer, but these were promises that came from us like jet-propelled ideas. We knew they would lose their fizz and fall to earth like exhausted rockets.

  Remarkably I did well on my tests. Trent said he did better than ever and again thanked me. I knew I hadn't helped him all that much, especially with the other subjects, but he was determined to make it seem as though I had been the reason for his improvement in everything. The day we were leaving, he came over to our house to help us pack the car. He was doing much better with his ankle now and just limping a bit, not using a crutch. Some of the other officers' wives came by. too. There was a lot of hugging and kissing and wishing of good luck.

  Trent and I stood on the sidelines watching it all as if we were in a movie theater and it was happening to fictional characters. How I wished that were so. The minutes that ticked by were so heavy I could almost feel the movement of the clock's hands inside me. When we looked at each other. the truth was so evident in our faces we could have had it printed on our foreheads: We'll never see each other again. We'll never really know each other, and maybe after a phone call or two, a letter or an e-mail, we'll fall away from each other, drift off and find someone else.

  Trent, I thought, you will be forever my first love. All men I meet I will measure against you, even though I don't really know all about you, I'll invent the rest. You will be my perfect beau.

  I imagined he thought the same about me. At least we had given each other that much.

  We went off to kiss goodbye, to hold each other and make the suitable promises.

  Then we walked hand in hand to the car where Mommy was talking with Vice Admiral Martin's wife, who was so nice I wondered how she could have a daughter like Penny.

  "You'll always be a Navy wife," she told Mommy. It gets into your blood."

  "I know," Mommy said. but I could see she didn't believe that or want to believe it. "Well." she said, turning to us. "Time to get on the road. Grace, Trent, I'm sorry we didn't get to know you more."

  She held out her hand to him, but when he reached for it she gave him a hug instead,

  "Me, too." he said practically in tears. "But I'll stay in touch. Mrs.... Jackie Lee."

  She smiled, "I hope so." She looked around as if she wanted to cement everything in her memory forever, and then she slipped into the car and started the engine.

  I'm leaving I thought. I'm really leaving, and I'm leaving Daddy behind.

  Trent looked at me so sadly it broke my heart. We kissed again, and then I got into the car.

  He stood there as we pulled away. I turned around to look back at him. He lifted his hand, and then. because I had told him about it, saluted the way Daddy and I saluted each other. It made me smile and froze a tear under my eye. I didn't want to cry, not now. I didn't want to do anything to make it harder for Mommy.

  In a moment we turned a corner, and Trent was gone. I turned around and looked forward.

  Our future was all on the road ahead now.

  And anyone looking at both of us would see we were of one face: full of fear, full of hope, full of sadness. Both suddenly little girls again.

  5

  Two Girls Together

  .

  Mommy tried to keep me busy and keep my

  mind off sad things by making me our flight navigator for the trip south. Captain Morgan, the naval officer who had lived next door to us, was from Florida and had written out directions for the fastest route that would bring us to I-95 South. Many of the turns were only half a mile or so apart, so I did have to keep alert. although I had a suspicion Mommy had already committed the itinerary to memory. I know that during some of our other trips together without Daddy she gave me a similar responsibility just to keep me from becoming bored.

  We had same kind of music playing almost all the time, whether it was a CD or the radio. Whenever we were quiet for long periods of time, I would see Mommy quickly flicking a fugitive tear from just under one of her eyelids. I pretended I didn't notice, because if I didn't pretend, my tears would soon be following hers. Mommy tried to fill the gaps of silence by pointing out different sights along the way, whether it was a beautiful or interesting house or just a patch of trees whose leaves had captured the sun, making them look as if they grew gems on their branches.

  Before we reached 1-95. Mommy decided we would stop to have some lunch. Once we were on the highway she wanted to make as much time as she could before we stopped for the night. She estimated we had about eight hundred miles to go, which she thought we could easily do in two days.

  The roadside diner was called Mother Dotty's Kitchen. It looked like an old-fashioned diner with its booths in imitation red leather and a counter with lots of chrome that ran almost the entire length. A Shania Twain song was playing over the sound system, and its upbeat tempo helped lift our spirits. Everyone was very friendly, and with the aroma of different meats and potatoes being made our appetites were stimulated. Neither of us had eaten very much during the last few weeks. Each night, especially when we ate alone, we pecked at our food like finicky chickens. When she told me to eat. I told her to do the same, and we both stopped trying to push food down each other's throat.

  Maybe the change that came over us now was a result of simply getting off the base, leaving what for us had become a world of sorrow with days that were forever overcast. I could see the differences in Mommy's face. Her former brightness and glitter hadn't returned, but she looked less weighed down by the pain. Her forehead was smooth again, and there was more energy in her voice and movements. I wondered if, not when, that would be true for me.

  "You never talked much about Dallas Tremont before. Mommy," I said after we had ordered.

  "It's always been one of those friendships you don't lose but don't nurture much. We were inseparable in high school, but after I married your father and joined the Navy, so to speak. Dallas and I lost touch. We tried to maintain a close relationship, but with our moving around and all, it became impossible. Our phone calls were soon fewer and farther between. Our letter writing stopped almost entirely. Still, we never forgot each other's birthday, and we always managed to send each other something at Christmas, some small but intimate thing. I'd always let her know where we were, of course.

  "I did attend her wedding. You wouldn't remember because you were only a year and a few months old, but I left you with my mother and returned to Raleigh where Dallas and I had grown up. Daddy was on sea duty. She was married in the church her family attended, and then she and Warren moved to Florida. He was always in the restaurant business and had an opportunity in West Palm Beach.

  "Warren had been married before and had a little girl, who is now seventeen. His first wife was killed in a motorcycle accident. According to Dallas, she was like oil to Warren's water. They married mostly because she was pregnant with Phoebe." Mommy smirked. "According to Dallas, she named her daughter Phoebe because of the phoebe bird outside the window of the maternity ward. Lucky it wasn't a crow." she added. and I laughed,

  It was the first time I had laughed since Daddy's death.
I thought, and it felt as if I had taken off a jacket made of lead.

  Mommy smiled. "I've always loved your laugh. Grace. No matter how old you will be, when you laugh it will always sound innocent and true and make other people feel good about themselves."

  I stared at her, at the warmth in her eyes, the love in her face. Would anyone ever see as much good in me and love me as much as she did?

  "Anyway," she continued. "while Warren became involved in business and began to develop a nice little fortune for them. Petula, better known as Pet, continued her self-centered ways, leaving the baby with a sitter far hours and hours while she associated with her unmarried friends, a group of whom were into motorcycles. Warren refused to buy her one, so she went out and bought it herself. A year later she lost control going, they say, about eighty, and broke almost every major bone in her body. It was one of those accidents where you hope the victim died instantly. And she did.

  "There he was, left with an infant. Dallas was working for an associate of his, and they began to see each other. She never said so. but I had the sense that they were seeing each other romantically before Pet's inevitable date with death.

  "She gave me details slowly over the years. We had a few hours together four years ago when I was connecting flights. I had met your father for that weekend in San Juan. He had some shore leave, and we thought it was a good opportunity for a little holiday. Remember?"

  "Yes"

  Every time Mommy mentioned Daddy in a passing reference, her smile deepened and warmed. I was jealous of her cherished memories, even though I had so many of my own.

  "Dallas met me at the airport in West Palm Beach, and we had a nice time reminiscing, looking at each other's family photographs."

  She paused when our food was served. She stared at her plate for a moment and then shook her head.

  "Fate. I read once that we're all crossing paths, intersecting in ways we don't even realize. Here I am coming full circle and meeting up with Dallas again, something neither of us thought would ever be." She smiled quickly. "But you'll love her. honey. She's dawn-to-earth and always lots of fun."

  I nodded. If Mommy said so, I was sure it would be.

  "Eat up, and let's get on our way," she said with more enthusiasm. It was infectious. I felt a surge of interest and expectation. We were like two swimmers, pushed under the sea and held down in the dark cold until we almost drowned, and then permitted to come up for air, finding ourselves in an entirely new world.

  I think Mommy and I were closer to each other than other mothers and daughters because Daddy had been gone so often and for such long periods, especially during the earlier years. However, even she and I. a mother and a daughter who couldn't be much closer, had much yet to learn about each other, mainly me learning about her. The reason became clearer to me as we traveled and she talked more and more about her own youth, her first boyfriend, her youthful adventures.

  Mothers have to wait until their daughters are mature enough to appreciate and understand what they will tell them about themselves. She could have told me all she did now years ago, but I wouldn't have valued her revelations as much or understood as much. We really become different people, changing as we grow older, I thought. Mommy's confessions and descriptions of herself were far more frank and detailed than they would have been if she had told them to me even a year earlier.

  Daddy's death had somehow plunged me into a stage of maturity perhaps years ahead of my time. It had certainly washed away much of my innocence. The world could be a very cruel and hard place, and the more you came to realize that, the more you cherished a true friend. What better or truer friend would I have than she was, I thought, and hoped she now felt the same about me. I was old enough now to hear her fears and concerns. She no longer had to be worried that I would suffer childish nightmares. I would address each problem alongside her, and together we would go on.

  She had no hesitation about answering any question I asked about her younger days.

  "Did you love anyone as much as you loved Daddy?" I wondered.

  "Oh. I had some terrible crushes on boys and had my heart shattered like an eggshell when I learned they didn't feel anywhere near as much toward me as I did toward them. No." she concluded after a little more thought. "I know it's assumed or accepted that we all fall in love early and then try to find it again in someone who might resemble or remind us of that first love, but I can honestly say your father was very, very special."

  She smiled that soft, deep smile to herself again as we drove on monotonously dawn the

  superhighway, cars whizzing by with other people mesmerized by their own speed and thoughts, all of them looking to me like entrapped creatures in moving metal cages.

  "Your father had so many wonderful qualities, but what was truly wonderful was how balanced they were. He had a great sense of humor, but boy he could turn serious on a dime. He was strong but so romantic and gentle. You know what most women suffer when they many?" she said suddenly, turning to me.

  I shook my head, having no idea but fascinated with the topic.

  "They suffer from gross expectation. They either don't want to face their husbands' limitations and admit them to themselves, or they honestly don't see them and so they are continually frustrated and disappointed. They marry and suddenly discover the men they have married are not the men they thought they had married. Sometimes it's not their fault, of course. They are deceived by promises. But I think most of the time they deceive themselves.

  'Your father and I never lied to each other. Grace. That was the secret. No matter what the consequences, we told each other the truth, and that became the glue that cemented us forever."

  She swallowed hard. "Forever," she muttered. "That was the only deception we permitted."

  I turned and glared at the highway, which seemed liquefied now, a flow of macadam, lines going on and on. When will the ache stop? Will it ever stop?

  "We'll be all right." Mommy chanted. She nodded at the windshield as if we had an audience along the way. "We'll be all right."

  She dropped her right hand and reached for mine. We held hands for miles and miles, and then we talked about where we would stop and what we would have for dinner. Thinking about tomorrow was the only escape from today.

  Finally we decided to pull in for the night. We always tried to find a motel that looked well maintained. Mommy believed that usually if the owner cared about how his property appeared to people passing by, he cared about how it appeared inside as well.

  We had been in motels many times before, and when I was very young we would treat each like another magical adventure. One of our favorite games was trying to imagine who had been in our room before us.

  We would lie awake for a while and make up stories about our room's invented former inhabitants. Almost by instinct, perhaps to protect ourselves from the darkness and the troubled thoughts it would bring, we did it this night.

  "Two young women were just here. They're on an adventure before starting college," Mommy began.

  "They want to see as much of America as they can and hope to have many interesting experiences."

  We had two double beds with a small television mounted on the wall in front of us, but we didn't bother turning it on. We created our own pictures, our own stories, after we were snug in our beds. We were able to leave the screened windows open to get some fresh air. It wasn't home, but it wasn't unpleasant.

  "One of them is coming off a bad love affair. She's trying to cheer herself up," I said.

  "No. It wasn't a bad love affair. It was a good love affair. but she and her boyfriend decided to break up and go out with other people."

  "Just to see if they really loved each other?" "Yes. Her friend had no boyfriend, and she..."

  "Hates men."

  "And tries to get her girlfriend to stop calling her old boyfriend all the time."

  "But she went out and called him anyway."

  "And they said they missed each other and they thought the w
hole thing was a bad idea."

  "So she decided to turn around and forget about having adventures on the road. She doesn't want to waste another day without seeing the man she loves."

  "But she doesn't reveal it until the morning, at breakfast."

  "And her friend is so angry, but after a while..."

  "After a while she confesses she was just jealous, and she wishes her good luck."

  "And it all happened here," I concluded, and we both laughed. It was just like old times.

  Only we weren't rushing to meet Daddy. We were rushing to get to sleep and forget. More exhausted emotionally as well as physically than we thought, we were both soon asleep.

  We were up early in the morning and back on the highway. Neither of us said it, but the miles we put between us and the naval base had the effect of a double-edged sword on our hearts and nerves. On one hand we were leaving everything we had loved behind, but on the other we were dreaming about what awaited us over the next horizon. When we crossed into Florida late in the day, we looked at each other. We didn't have to speak. It was as if we had crossed more than just the border of another state. We had crossed the border between the past and the future.

  "We'll get into West Palm too late if we keep going. Grace."' Mommy decided. "Let's just have a nice dinner somewhere and a good sleep and be fresh in the morning. The world is a different place when you're rested."

  Of course, that sounded goad to me. I was very nervous about meeting new people and leaving "the life." It would be the first time I would feel like a civilian, and I wasn't sure I would like it at all.

  Somehow, even with all our moves and traveling. I had never been to Florida, so I was looking forward to that. The plush greenery, the palm trees, the sight of the ocean from time to time, made it all interesting the next day. We had an early breakfast again and started immediately. We took a more scenic route because Mommy said we had made good time. Neither of us was very interested in stopping to see any sights along the way. We had no appetite for it. We just wanted to get to where we would be and close the door behind us.