Mother and Irene were changing by now, too. I could smell all the wonderful foods they had prepared and glanced into the oven to see how the turkey was coming along. In the refrigerator, I saw the homemade cranberry sauce. Mother had worked so hard on this dinner. It was as if she believed one meal could work miracles.
Irene was the next to appear. She complimented me on how nice I looked. With both Mother and Haylee still getting ready, I had a chance to talk more frankly to Mother’s caretaker.
“Do you really think she’s ready to live on her own? I won’t be here, and my guess is neither will Haylee for a while,” I said.
“The last few weeks, I’ve deliberately faded into the background to see how she would do. She keeps busy. She has plans to do much more redecorating. I think she believes that if she changes the physical surroundings, she will wash away the bad memories. It’s not unusual. The other day, she met one of her friends, Melissa Clark, in the supermarket, and they talked for quite a while. I heard them make
plans to get together in the near future. She’s learned how to handle the questions and the sympathy well. There’s a point where if you don’t get her away from being dependent, she never will be independent. Everyone will check on her. She’ll be fine.”
Her words cheered me. Maybe we could have something close to a nice Thanksgiving after all, I thought. When Mother appeared, she did look beautiful. She wore diamond-studded earrings with her diamond necklace, something my father had given her on their tenth anniversary. It was a good sign that she could handle those memories and not cast out the evidence of what had once been a happier time. Her turquoise pleated A-line dress brought out her healthier complexion. She was always good at being subtle with her makeup.
“You look beautiful, Mother,” I said.
“Thank you, dear. So do you. Where’s Haylee?”
“Coming,” I said. “What can I do to help?”
“Irene and I decided you’d both be our guests today. Just enjoy,” she told me.
“Ta-da!” we heard Haylee sing and looked at the stairway as she descended.
We couldn’t have been more different. She wore a short, silky black dress sprinkled with blue, peach, and red dots over a white turtleneck and a pair of black tights. And of course, her black booties. Her makeup was a little heavy, but she wasn’t unattractive. She paused halfway down and pointed at me.
“Surprised?”
“No,” I said. “You look very nice, Haylee,” I added quickly.
“Very nice,” Mother said. “Both of you. Go wait in the living room,” she ordered. “We’ll ring the dinner bell.”
“I just had to wear this,” she said, hurrying to join me when I turned toward the living room. “I wish there was a way to sneak it back. Cedar would love me in this. You don’t have to wear a school uniform or anything at that place, do you?”
“No, but there are strict rules about what you can and can’t wear.”
“Won’t it be nice when we’re both somewhere where there are no rules?” she asked.
I sat on the settee. She walked around the living room, gazing at everything as if it were the first time she was here.
“There’s no such place,” I said.
“We can hope, can’t we?” She smiled and ran her hand over her piano and then tapped on a few keys. “Seems so long ago,” she said.
“It’s not the time that’s passed; it’s what happens in the time that’s passed. That’s why some days seem longer than others.”
“Who taught you that?”
“My therapist,” I said.
I watched her standing there and thinking. If there was ever a pregnant pause, this was it. She snapped around, and with a grin unlike any I had seen on her face or my own, she asked, “Do you think you’ll ever stop hating me?”
“Do you think you’ll ever truly be sorry?”
“I said I was.”
I saw no point in telling her that what she had said was more rationalization than apology. “I stopped hating you a while back,” I said. “The bigger question is, will you stop hating yourself?”
She laughed. “Don’t you remember what Mother taught us? If we hate each other, we hate ourselves. If you don’t hate me, I won’t hate myself.”
Irene appeared in the doorway. “Your mother says she’s ringing the dinner bell,” she announced.