A Long Time Gone (47 page)

“Chloe!” I half shouted, half sobbed. I ran to her and wrapped my arms tightly around her, not caring if she hugged me back. “How did you get here?”

“In a plane,” she muttered against my chest as I squeezed my arms around her. She was resistant at first, but I didn't let go, couldn't.

I was smiling through my tears, half-afraid that I was imagining her standing there in my garden. “I missed you so much, Chloe. Oh, sweetheart, I'm so glad you're here.”

I finally pulled back, but I kept my hands on her arms, frightened that she might disappear if I didn't touch her. “Do you have any idea how much I love you?”

Her lips trembled, and I could tell she was struggling to hold it together, and had even made half an eye roll before she finally gave in and threw her arms around me. “I love you, too, Vivien. I'm sorry I never told you.”

And then she was hugging me, too, and we were both laughing and crying and talking at the same time about everything and nothing at all, each of us clinging to the other as if we never wanted to let go.

My mother appeared in the kitchen door, peering out, no doubt attracted by the noise. “Hello?”

Chloe pulled away from me, then stepped through the gated fence so my mother could see her.

“JoEllen!” she shouted, spreading her arms wide, and I laughed and cried some more as Chloe ran into them and hugged my mother hard.

Carol Lynne held Chloe at arm's length. “Let's go inside and fix your hair.”

Chloe looked at me, her smile not completely eradicated by her practiced twelve-year-old nonchalance. “Wendy texted me and invited me to hang out with her at the festival. She said there's a hayride and there'll be some cute boys. I know it's lame and all, but it's too dark to work in my garden, so . . .” Her voice trailed off as she looked at me expectantly.

“Sure. I can drive you, but you'll have to hurry. And all your clothes are up in the closet if you want to change. Not that you have to,” I added quickly.

“Whatever,” she said with a heavy sigh, and all the months of missing her and worrying about her disappeared, making it seem as if she'd never left. Which was exactly how I'd wanted it to be when I'd allowed myself to dream.

She followed my mother into the kitchen, but paused to turn back and speak. “I got your voice messages. And I listened to every one.” A corner of her mouth quirked up. “Thanks.”

“You're welcome,” I said, wanting to do cartwheels across the lawn, but contenting myself with just smiling stupidly as the dog bounded into the kitchen past Chloe, and the door shut behind them.

I turned to Tripp, my arms held out from my sides in complete wonderment. “How?”

He wrapped his arms loosely around my hips. “I figured Mark kept telling you no not because he didn't want to say yes, but because he didn't want to tell
you
yes. So instead of going dove hunting like I told you a few weeks ago, I took a little trip out to the West Coast and made me a little appointment for some cosmetic surgery.”

I closed my eyes, trying to imagine what that meeting must have been like.

“I wish I could say that there was lots of arguing and tears, but there wasn't. He seemed almost relieved. I told him we wanted her every
summer and every other Christmas and Thanksgiving. He threw in birthdays, too.”

“Does Chloe know about that part?”

“No. All she knows is that you and her father came up with an arrangement, and he gave her a return ticket here for the weekend as an early birthday present.”

“She's only staying for the weekend?”

“She'll be back for a whole month at Christmas. And I told Mark I wanted it in writing, just to make sure.”

I kissed him gently. “What did I ever do to deserve you?”

He shook his head slowly, pretending to think. “I have no idea. But I expect you to spend the rest of your life trying to show me.”

“I don't know if that's going to be long enough.”

He kissed me back, and then arm in arm we walked toward the ancient yellow house, with its peculiar turret and the old black bed my mother had recently vacated, stating that it was mine now, and that it was time for me to start having babies. I hadn't shared that yet with Tripp, but I would. Soon.

A pair of crows flew to the new cypress sapling that I'd planted, which looked odd among its taller pine neighbors. I remembered what Mathilda had told me about how crows stay together for generations, all of the adults feeding the young, the wayward adults welcomed back to the nest whenever they returned. I hoped it was a mating pair, and that they would bring their children and their children's children back to see the tree grow. And to watch as I brought my children and grandchildren to sit beneath it.

I have decided that when I repaint the inside of the house, I will keep the watermark on the wall, a reminder of those who've gone before us who connect us to this house and the land. We are all separate boats on this river of years, never expecting to see the boat before or behind us except when the current of time unexpectedly pushes us together, touching but never altering our course. We are born to fight the bends and curves of our own rivers, pushing back that which will not give, understanding where we are meant to be only when we let go and let the river take us back to the place where we
began.

 

 

 

1. “Home means so many different things. . . . It's where your people are.” The author creates such a dynamic sense of place for the reader through sensory details and evocative objects such as the heirloom black bed, the watermark from the flood, and the lost diary. What things or memories evoke “home” for you?

2. Does Vivien get the closure she needs with her mother once she returns home? How do Bootsie's death, Carol Lynne's dementia, and Vivien's reliance on prescription drugs complicate things?

3. What is the effect of Carol Lynne's dementia on those around her? As a reader, what was it like to encounter Carol Lynne only through her diary?

4. In one of her diary entries, Carol Lynne notes, “There's something in the ways of mothers and daughters, I think, that makes us see all the bad parts of ourselves.” Do you think this is true? How does this apply to the Walker women? Does each woman grow emotionally from this realization?

5. “Because it was something I'd been born with, a poison in the blood I'd inherited from my mother and she from hers and way on back before anybody alive could still remember.” When they left
home, what ghosts was each Walker woman chasing? What made each woman return?

6. Carol Lynne's diary also reveals the following sentiment: “[Bootsie] just smiled and told me to wait until I become a mother, and then I will understand that my real destiny will be decided by those not yet born.” What does Bootsie mean by this? How do children shape the futures of the Walker women?

7. Did you suspect the identity of the body earlier in the novel? How does this “ghost” affect the lives of the Walker women?

8. How does the author use objects or heirlooms such as the watch and ring to unite the characters' stories across multiple generations? Is there an heirloom you've inherited that is loaded with meaning or inspires curiosity about the past?

9. Did you have any trouble shifting between time lines, which run from the 1920s to the present day? Which era or woman's story was your
favorite?