She wrapped her arms around me, and I rested my head on her shoulder.
“I’ve got this divorce hell going on, and my sister is a total wacko, and… I just don’t even know who I am anymore.”
She stroked my hair. “Honey, I’ve felt lost a lot of times in my life, but do you know what I’ve learned?”
I sat up and wiped my eyes.
“You are always who you are. No matter what is going on around you. Your sister is crazy, and your mom is gone, and Greg is a nightmare, but you are still you, Gray. I swear that you are.”
I wanted to feel as sure as she did, but I just didn’t know. I was too sad and too overwhelmed to acknowledge her advice. “I’ve already lost my mom. Now I’ve lost my sister too.”
“I wasn’t anybody’s momma,” Diana said, “but I am somebody’s sister. And I have a feeling that when your blood and your love run thick and deep, you can’t ever really lose them. It sucks that she isn’t here for you when you need her. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t still be there for her when this all blows up.”
“You would have been such a good mom,” I said. “The way you love on everybody, and all your good advice. And you make the best lemonade pie in the world.”
I looked up to see a strange kind of sadness in her eyes, but she just kept stroking my hair. And it occurred to me that, as was abundantly clear from the woman sitting beside me, you didn’t need to have a baby to be a mother.
diana: the one who got away
“You did it! I can tell!” Cheyenne was hollering, all of us sitting around the dining table in the guesthouse I’d finally gotten around to telling the girls about.
Robin nodded, her motorcycle jacket hanging over the back of the chair. “I knew it. I knew the minute I saw him that you was getting back together.”
Cheyenne paused. “But don’t let this get you off track from our boat restaurant.”
I smiled just thinking about it. I had saved up enough money already for the first three months of slip rent. I needed enough for a used commercial stove and refrigerator and starting supplies, but if I didn’t spend hardly a cent between now and Labor Day when Gray went back to Raleigh, I could probably swing it. Just barely. September wouldn’t be the best time to open a restaurant at the beach, but it would give me a few months to get my feet wet before May rolled around and things got busy. “Don’t you worry about that, Chey. I’ve been dreaming about my restaurant even longer than I’ve been dreaming about Frank.”
Janet was leaned back in her chair, arms crossed over themuffin top rolling over the band of her jeans. I’d told her a hundred times if she would just wear jeans one size bigger, she wouldn’t have all that mess hanging out. But did she listen? Nope.
She scowled. And I guessed she had every right to.
I was trying to pry the smile off my face. The Frank-induced, bathing-in-love-and-relief-and-memories smile. But, oh, hard as I tried, I just couldn’t. Every time I got it off, it popped right on back up. But the absolute, pure joy alternated with hot, raging panic. I wasn’t the kind of girl who got happy endings. Was it even possible that this could all work out for me now?
“What’s up your craw?” Robin asked Janet.
She shook her head, that mean look still on her face. “Ain’t nothing up mycraw, Robin. I just don’t know why we gotta be all excited and in love with Frank again.Frank. Am I the only one who remembers? I don’t remember Frank being there. I don’t remember him getting you hot water bottles or holding your hand or sleeping with you so you didn’t wake up scared in the night.” She shifted in her chair like she was done talking. But then she kept right on. “Was Frank there when you got that fever and was talking outta your head not making a lick o’ sense? Was Frank there in the emergency room with all those tubes and IVs and antibiotics? ’Cause it seems to me like he wasn’t around for none o’ that. Seems like it was me. And Robin. And Cheyenne. So I’m sorry,Robin. Maybethat’swhat’s up my craw.”
We were all kind of stunned, but I don’t know why. Janetalways said whatever she thought right out. She just laid it out on the table, and if you didn’t pick it up, then that was your own damn problem.
And I hated that she was right. I thought of Frank’s face in the morning light, the way he whispered in my ear, the way he held me all night long, the way he took his time, memorizing every inch of me. I wanted it to be enough, but Janet wasn’t wrong. Frank hadn’t been there. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to change that.
“Now look what you done,” Cheyenne said. “I hadn’t seen a smile like that on that girl’s face in twenty-two years, and you wiped it right off.”
Janet shook her head. “Fine. She can do whatever the hell she wants. I’m just reminding her how it all went down. That’s all. And if she wants to do it anyway, then fine.” Janet’s scowl finally broke as she said, “I’ll even wear one-a them hideous green bridesmaids’ dresses with the puffy sleeves.”
We all got a good laugh for a minute. When we stopped, I went to the fridge to get us a round of Mike’s Hard Lemonade. People can say what they want. They can make jokes and make fun. But, hear this: there’s nothing like a hard lemonade to quench your thirst on a hot day. Nothing.
I was handing them out when I heard footsteps and, “Hey, Lady Di, I’m going to—”
Gray stopped right in her tracks when she saw the girls sitting around the table.
“I am so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know you had company. I’ll just be…” She pointed toward the door.
“Don’t be crazy,” Cheyenne said in that high, peppy voice of hers. “You come sit that bony fanny down right now and have a lemonade with us.”
Gray looked at me, and I smiled. “Oh yeah. These girls won’t bite.” Then I eyed Janet and pointed my bottle toward Cheyenne and Robin and said, “Well, these two won’t.”
Gray made a face like she was scared and sat down snuggling up close to me, far away from Janet.
