“You can see it right there,” I told her, gesturing across the street and a few doors down. The El D sat lonely in the now-empty parking lot at Roy’s. “I’m not sure what’s wrong with it. Probably old age.”
“Watch the old age remarks,” Martha frowned. “Let’s see. What about my cousin near Glen Arbor? The one with all the junked cars in his field? He has a wrecker. He could pull your car back to his place take a look at it. He’s not a professional, but he won’t cheat you either.”
“Really? Martha, that would be amazing. It’s an arm and a leg to get the dumb thing towed to a repair place.”
“I’ll call him now. He’ll come by if I promise him some doughnuts, and he owes me a favor. If he can’t get it going, he’ll pay you for the scrap.” She frowned at me again. “You look tired, honey.”
Speaking of old age, I felt like I was a hundred years old myself. By the time my shift ended and Tara came to pick up me, Charlie, and his gigantic pile of new library books, I wanted to lay on the sidewalk and sleep. Tara insisted on walking over to Roy’s to see if she could do anything with the car, which was still as dead as a doornail. She drove us home, chatting to me about a new website she found that specialized in jobs in academia. “I’ll text it to you,” she said, and caught me shooting her the evil eye. “Just in case!”
We pulled up to Nana’s house, and I was in a much better mood than I had been leaving that morning, in spite of my exhaustion and Tara’s short harangue on “wasting my potential.” I felt so relieved by the idea that Martha’s cousin could fix the El D. And it was a much easier trip in the front seat of a car rather than pushing a kid and two bikes.
“How are you going to get to work on Monday? I’ll be at the hospital already.” I shrugged an answer, my good humor evaporating again. “Think of Neil and the Escalade,” Tara advised me as we thanked her for the ride and unloaded the bikes. “It runs great.”
Charlie ran in, but I stood on the porch for a minute. It had been a few days since I had gotten the mail and I could see the box was getting full. I gritted my teeth and grabbed the stack of envelopes to sort on the kitchen table.
When I had been a kid, I had both loved and hated getting the mail. I was constantly hopeful that there would be something for me—when I lived with my mom, I waited for a letter from my dad, saying he was coming back to us. And when I livedwith my dad, I waited for a note, a postcard—anything—from my mom. Just a word to say she was ok. Each trip to the mailbox had been full of dread and anticipation.
Now it was all dread. Bill, bill, bill with red writing on the envelope. Due, due, past due, past due, past due. Nothing from Mike. I was trying to convince Cassie that if she didn’t want to divorce him, at the very least she could file for separate maintenance—a Michigan legal separation. I tried to sell it as a “not really divorce.” Then we could start dinging him for some kind of support if he had a job.
I ordered the bills neatly by how long they were overdue, and put them into a pile on the table. I would deal with them later.
Charlie wandered in, looking bleary eyed. “Emmy, can I watch TV?”
I smiled a little at him. “Sure, pal. Relax for a bit.” It had been a long day.
I made Cassie a late lunch/dinner, and helped her take a bath. She seemed to weigh even less than she had the day before, and she snapped at me for getting soap in her eyes then snagging her hair when I combed it out. I hated combing it. I tried not to let her see how much of her beautiful chestnut hair was left in the comb after I ran it through. I gave her the library books I had checked out for her, and the books on CD she could listen to on the ancient Discman I had unearthed in my quest to find something to sell in the house.
Cassie still didn’t want to see Charlie, and wouldn’t talk about why she hadn’t helped him the night before. “Emmy, I have cancer,” she told me, as if I had been unaware.
“I understand that, Cass, but—”
“I’m tired,” she said, and closed her eyes, resting her head on the towel I had placed over her pillow for her wet hair.
I looked out the window. Her room faced the back of the house, and from the bed she could see straight down into Nana’s moon garden. Now, in early spring, the plants were just beginning to peek through, but pure white bleeding hearts, lily of the valley, white narcissus, and evening primrose would all bloom as the ground warmed up. I still had some moonflower seeds that Nana always saved to plant along the fence.
When I first moved up north in fifth grade, I had thought the moon garden was magical. It was hard to believe that there were flowers that bloomed only in the moonlight, then closed up and hid from the sun all day. And all the white flowers seemed to glow under the stars. As much as Cassie had let the house go (and there certainly was plenty of “deferred maintenance”), she had always kept up the moon garden.
It needed some weeding. I wanted it to be beautiful for Cassie when all the plants really started coming in. I had a few hours before I needed to get back to Roy’s so I went to the shed to find my gloves.
I was kneeling and digging around a stubborn tap root when I heard the gravel driveway crunch under car tires. Hoping against hope that somehow Martha’s cousin had already fixed my car, I froze when I came around the corner of the house and saw a black Tahoe.
Too late to hide; he had already seen me. Luke waved and walked toward me as I pulled off my gardening gloves and tried to pat my hair back into a semblance of a ponytail.
“Hi,” he said, as he reached me.
“Hi,” I said back, staring at him. “Hi,” I stupidly repeated. There was a pause.
“How is your nephew feeling?”
“Charlie’s good. Just tummy stuff.” I stared down at my dirty jeans, and old Docs.
Luke handed me the tissue wrapped flowers he had been carrying. “These are for Cassie. Maybe you could tell her I was hoping she’s doing…well.” It was hard for people to know what to say.
“Sure,” I said, taking the flowers. “Thank you. I should put them in a vase.” I started up the back steps then turned to him. “Would you like to come in?”
Luke had walked to the gate and was looking into the garden. “I remember this. Cassie loved it.”
“She still does,” I told him curtly.
