Broken Pieces: A Novel (13 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Not long after seven o’clock on Saturday morning, I heard movement in the house and pushed out of bed to investigate.

Sydney’s bedroom door sat tightly closed, and Albert had fallen asleep in his favorite chair downstairs, a half-full cup of coffee by his side and a crossword puzzle on his lap.

During the days since Sydney and Ella had moved in, he’d been cooking meals, helping with chores, and spending quality time with Ella. And yet I couldn’t bring myself to forgive him.

I studied him for a few moments, thinking of the handful of times he’d tried to bridge the gap between us. Perhaps I was being too stubborn. Perhaps I should at least agree to talk to him. But maybe some walls were too high to knock down.

A flash of color out the front window captured my attention.

Ella’s mop of dark hair was tousled, her natural waves having exploded overnight, and as I realized what she was doing I found myself mesmerized and more than a little amused.

One by one she gathered the large river rocks her grandfather had used to edge the restored flower bed. Picasso danced around her heels, stopping only to hike his leg on a brilliant yellow chrysanthemum. I bit back my laugh so as not to wake Albert and reignite the short-lived Albert-Picasso turf war.

When Ella’s arms were full and she visibly sagged beneath the weight of her haul, she disappeared around the fence, headed toward Marguerite’s house. Picasso followed close on her heels.

She worked intently and moved purposefully. As far as I was concerned, if the kid wanted to run an early morning rock raid, I wasn’t going to stop her.

I could, however, keep an eye on her.

I headed back through the house, carefully opening the kitchen door to avoid its customary squeak. The morning air hung crisp and cool, the sky barely light. Dew glistened on the lawn and patio, leaving the table and the violet bistro chairs visibly damp.

Voices sounded from Marguerite’s yard, and I realized Ella wasn’t alone.

“Did you get them?” Marguerite asked.

“As many as I could carry.”

I smiled at the excited tone of her voice. She’d come a long way from the cautious child who’d first studied me inside my workshop.

Marguerite, of course, still had a way of breaking down a child’s walls through her love of art and her warm, welcoming spirit.

I moved stealthily across the patio to steal a peek through the fence.

Marguerite helped Ella set the stones on her worktable; then she ruffled Ella’s dark hair. “I’ll get the hot chocolate.” She pointed to a line of colorful bottles. “You start picking paint.”

I sank lower and watched. Marguerite disappeared back into the house, and Ella carefully selected a small group of bottles. She squeezed globs of color onto some sort of palette and then began the task of choosing rocks. She lifted first one and then another, studying a third, turning a fourth, setting a fifth upside down, until she’d chosen what appeared to be the smallest of the bunch.

Marguerite reappeared, her fluffy lime-green robe billowing in the cool breeze that had picked up from the river. I realized my cover had been blown the moment I spotted three mugs on her serving tray.

“I already added cream to your coffee, Destiny,” she said, making no effort to conceal her grin.

I frowned and stood. “I just wanted to see what Ella was up to.”

“Well”—Marguerite shrugged—“you can’t squat there forever.”

To my relief, Ella giggled, then waved at me to come around the fence. For a moment I’d been afraid she’d resent my intrusion.

“What
are
you doing?” I asked a few moments later.

“Painting smiles,” Ella answered.

I pointed to a bare rock. “I hate to break it to you, but that’s a rock.”

“Ah,” Marguerite said. “But is it?”

As I sipped my coffee and watched, Ella methodically painted hearts on the surface of the rock until it was transformed from pale stone to an explosion of bright colors.

A blue heart nestled against a red heart. Two purple hearts framed a teal heart. A yellow heart topped them all, like a heart-shaped sun at the rock’s upper edge.

“A smile,” Ella said softly when she’d finished.

“I love it, but I’m still confused,” I said.

Ella looked to Marguerite, and Marguerite shook her head. “This is your project; you explain it to your aunt.”

Your aunt.
My attention hung on my new reality, but I quickly shifted back to what Ella was saying.

“. . . then I’m going to put them places, like in someone’s garden, or down by the river, maybe outside a shop.” Her deep-brown eyes glimmered with pride. “When someone sees them, they’ll smile.”

“So, you’re painting these for strangers?”

Ella nodded. “I got to thinking that Momma and I probably aren’t the only people in town with problems. Maybe somebody else could use a smile.”

“Smile rocks,” I said, my heart expanding.

“Everyone deserves a smile.” Ella’s voice faltered as she chose her next rock.

And although I was filled with the sudden urge to pull her into a hug and never let her go, I resisted, instead drinking my coffee and watching, proud beyond words, while Ella painted smiles.

That afternoon, I headed to the opera house to work on additional design sketches.

Albert sat waiting across the street when I emerged. He stood as soon as he spotted me, waving as if I might not notice him there.

I thought about pretending I didn’t see him. I thought about running in the opposite direction. Instead, I crossed the street to where he stood.

“Do you remember standing here?” he asked. “Watching the last renovation?”

He kept his eyes on the opera house, and I couldn’t decide if he was avoiding meeting my gaze or if he was picturing our past.

Ella had given me one of her smaller smile rocks as a gift. One stone. Painted with a simple purple heart. I’d carried it in my pocket all day, and I reached for it now.

“I do,” I answered, wrapping my fingers around Ella’s smile even as I missed
that
Albert, the dad who would have never left my side.

“I should have known right then you’d work on this building one day.” He turned to look at me, and for a moment there was no filter. There was only
that
dad, and my traitorous heart cried out for more.

“I work on a lot of buildings.” I fought to keep the emotion I felt out of my voice as I looked away, pulling the rock from my pocket, fisting my fingers around the smooth surface.

He shook his head. “No. This building meant something to you back then.”

“It means something to me now. It’s the biggest job I’ve ever had.” I spoke the words too quickly, defensively.

When our eyes met again, his told me he knew this job was more than simply another project to be completed.

“I always loved it here,” he said.

I thought he might mention Mom, might reminisce about the last time we’d all been here together. I thought he might wish me well or ask me how my work was going. He did neither.

Instead he simply said, “My favorite memories are of you and me standing right here, staring over there.”

His words reached deep into my heart and squeezed, and in the moment when I shifted away from him to fight the tears that threatened, I dropped Ella’s rock.

He plucked it from the sidewalk, studying it in his palm. “What’s this?”

I reached for the stone with the painted purple heart, resisting the urge to snatch it out of his hand. “Ella painted it this morning.”

Albert stared without saying a word, by all appearances forgetting how children could turn just about anything into something magical.

“You were right when you accused me of coming back to Paris for Sydney and Ella and not for you.”

The words stung more deeply that I’d imagined they would, and I flinched inwardly.

“You deserve that truth,” he continued. “The thing is, the moment you opened your front door that first night, everything I lost hit me full in the face.”

“Mom?” I asked.

“No.” He folded my fingers over Ella’s rock, and then closed his hand over mine. “You,” he said. “I lost you.”

I swallowed against the tightness in my throat, but my tears beat wet paths down my cheeks.

He reached to dry my cheeks, but I dodged his touch.

“When you and I went back to the theater, and I stayed for rehearsal while you left to go back to Paris, I realized I’d stayed for enough rehearsals. I’ve done enough shows.”

I moved to free my hand from his, but he tightened his grip.

“I’m not going anywhere, Destiny.” He shrugged, the same shrug I’d been making all my life. “Whether you believe me or not.”

Then he released my hand.

I opened my fist, rolling Ella’s rock in my palm.

Was he telling the truth?

“What did she paint?” he asked. “A heart?”

I shook my head, feeling a chunk of my anger slide away.

“No,” I said. “It’s a smile.”

“A smile?”

I nodded. “She calls them smile rocks.” I laughed softly. “Imagine that.”

When I looked from Ella’s smile to my father, his focus sat not on the rock, but on me. He smiled the wide, welcoming smile I remembered from my childhood.

And he repeated simply, “Imagine that.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I had never had the slightest urge to salute the sun, but since Sydney had learned to pin trim for the opera house stage panels, when she asked me to try yoga early the following week, I said yes.

Now that we stood inside a dimly lit studio, candles burning, surrounded by obviously well-practiced yoga enthusiasts waiting for the class to begin, I started to question my decision.

I had never considered myself either coordinated or graceful, and I was feeling nervous.

“You need to relax,” Sydney said, and then she giggled, a sound I hadn’t heard before. “But then, I suppose that’s why I brought you here.”

“You’re right,” I said. “And you should laugh more.”

Her expression grew defensive. “I laugh.”

The instructor entered the room and started the session before we had a chance to say anything more to each other.

“Let’s warm up. Focus your breathing,” she said.

Focus your breathing? I was a person who pounded nails and ran lengths of wood through monster saws for a living. I wasn’t someone who focused her breathing.

“Sun salutation,” the instructor called out, and everybody reached their arms overhead, appearing to have been preprogrammed for the class.

“I can’t do this,” I whispered to Sydney.

“Yes,” she said between breaths, “you can. Just follow along.”

When we bent at the waist, I tried to press my palms to the mat, like Sydney did. When we raised up to a flat back, I seized the opportunity to twist around to see what the instructor and everyone else was doing. I succeeded in losing my balance just as they all shot their feet backward into a lunge, and by the time they’d lowered themselves into the plank position, I was flat-out on my belly.

“Nicely done,” Sydney whispered.

“You have got to be kidding.”

“Ladies,” the instructor said in our direction. “More breathing, less speaking.”

Sydney giggled again, and I smiled. Twisting my body into impossible poses was a small price to pay to see her this relaxed.

Five minutes later I’d completely rethought my position. We’d moved through the sun salutation into something called a chair pose, and my thighs and butt shook as if I’d never used a muscle in my life. When we broadened our stance into something called a crescent pose, I wobbled, staggered, then fell over, picking myself up as quickly as I could. Mortified.

“Use a modification if necessary,” the instructor called out. “Lovely work, everyone.”

“What the hell is a modification?” I asked Sydney, wobbling off my mat for a second time.

The instructor moved the class into balance pose, then tree pose, which Sydney navigated beautifully, tucking the sole of one foot up along the inside of her opposite thigh, standing tall, balancing like a majestic tree.

“Put your foot down by your ankle,” she whispered. “Or keep your toe touching.”

“Touching what?”

“Ladies,” the instructor gently called out again. “More breathing, less speaking.”

This time I wobbled off my mat just as she spoke, and Sydney’s laugh burst from between her lips.

I shot her a glare, twisting my features into my best terrifying face. She responded in kind, adding a snarl.

After that, class went more smoothly. Oh sure, I fell three more times, but for every impossible pose, I had Sydney beside me, her subtle laughter and not-so-subtle faces urging me on.

Somewhere between warrior one and warrior two, a flash of color from Sydney’s toes captured my attention, and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed the brilliant polish when we’d first slipped off our shoes.

“Your toes are teal,” I said.

Sydney smiled as she flawlessly followed the yoga instructor into an angle pose. “Teal warrior,” she answered.

I shot her a quizzical look as I desperately tried to hold my balance.

“You know how the ribbon color for breast cancer awareness is pink?” Sydney whispered.

I nodded, panting.

“Everyone does,” she said. “But not many people know teal is the color for ovarian cancer awareness.”

“More breathing, less speaking,” the instructor repeated. Then she said, “One more sun salutation, everyone.”

Sydney wiggled her brows, and I grinned.

“I wear teal to raise awareness,” she whispered, even more softly. “If I can help just one person know more about recognizing the symptoms and getting treatment earlier than I did, then I’ll wear teal toes forever.”

A few minutes later, as the instructor led us through a final series of stretches, every muscle in my body screamed in protest.

“I’m going to hurt in places I never knew I had,” I said.

Sydney stretched and twisted, meeting my gaze, a measure of joy slipping from her expression. “I think that’s how you know you’re alive.”

Her words haunted me as we rolled our mats and headed for the car. “Think I could pull off teal toes?”

A smile pushed away the sadness that had edged into Sydney’s eyes. “Most definitely. And I’m just the girl to paint them.”

We took the long way home from the yoga studio, making most of the trip in silence, simply enjoying each other’s company and our—though I hated to admit it—relaxed states of mind.

“Ready to take on the world?” Sydney asked as we climbed the steps to the front door.

“Or take a nap.” I grinned.

“You secretly liked it.”

I shrugged. “I’ll never tell.”

“Let’s sit out back,” she said. “I’ll go grab my polish.”

Teal toes. So she’d taken me seriously.

Clearly sensing my thoughts, she hesitated, one foot on the center stairs. “You meant what you said, right?”

“Well”—I wrinkled my nose—“I was under the influence of that warrior pose, but yes. Go get your polish.”

A few minutes later we’d settled outside, basking in the mid-September warmth.

We’d passed Albert, working in the garden out front.

“How was yoga?” he’d asked, to which Sydney had said, “Wonderful,” while I’d merely groaned.

His latest project was replacing the river rocks Ella had borrowed, and I couldn’t help but notice he’d added an extra pile.

I pointed to them. “For?”

And he’d answered, “Future smiles.”

Now, as Sydney and I sat out back, I wriggled my toes self-consciously as she shook the polish bottle. While I was constantly barefoot unless I was working, I had never once in my life indulged in a pedicure.

“Relax,” Sydney said. “We’re painting your toes, not lopping them off.”

“Tell me more about the teal toes,” I said. “You really think this helps somehow?”

She nodded. “Half the battle”—she hesitated—“probably more than half the battle, is awareness. The thing about ovarian cancer is that everyone thinks it’s silent, but it’s really not. It whispers.”

She slicked polish onto my big toe, then sat back to study her work.

“Your job”—she looked up at me and smiled—“now that you’re going to have teal toes, is to know the symptoms so you can educate people.”

“And they are?”

“Bloating, abdominal pain, more indigestion than usual, feeling full quickly.”

“Those aren’t that abnormal,” I said, suddenly wondering what had led to Sydney’s diagnosis.

“They are if they last for more than two weeks,” she said, brushing polish on one, two, three more toes.

I studied my feet, amazed at how much difference a little polish made.

“Wonder if you would have done this if we’d been kids together?”

Silence beat between us, and I regretted ever uttering the words.

“I wonder,” she said softly.

And then I asked, “How did you find out?”

“About the cancer? I had the symptoms.” She capped the polish and gave it a quick shake before setting down my left foot and reaching for my right. “You have to remember, I’ve had patients with ovarian cancer; I’ve just never had any as young as me.

“My first surgery was my debulking, where they remove everything they can get their hands on. That left me with a colostomy. Then I got this.” She pulled aside her shirt to expose a small area of her chest where something had been set beneath the skin.

“What is it?”

“My very own port,” she explained. “For chemo, blood draws . . . It’s quite handy, actually.”

She smoothed her shirt back into place, hiding the port. “My chemo left me with no hair, no eyelashes, no nothing.”

She smiled, and I wondered how many times she’d forced the same smile during the past four years.

“Then I had a year off. My hair grew back. I had a few eyelashes. I even had some eyebrows, and they were able to reverse my colostomy.” She blew out a sigh. “Then I got headaches. I felt confused, and I backed my car into a wall.”

“Your brain?”

Sydney nodded. “Seven lesions.” She patted the base of her skull. “Most tiny. All in one area. I did what they called whole-brain radiation, and I spent almost three weeks in the hospital.”

“Ella?”

“My parents took good care of her, and they took good care of me. My hair fell out again, but my lesions died.”

“And now?”

“Now my parents are gone, and it’s trying to sneak back. One lesion started to grow a few months ago, and I had what they call gamma knife radiation.” She pointed her fingers like she was shooting. “Zap. Right to the tumor. Dead.”

“So that’s good.”

She nodded. “Better than the alternative, as my dad always said.”

Sydney concentrated then, carefully painting the toes on my other foot. I said nothing as I watched her work, thinking about all she’d been through, all I wished I could have helped her with, been there for.

She related her story casually, as if recounting the details didn’t affect her, but I suspected it did. How could it not? For each step of her journey, I imagined there had to be a million what-ifs. What if she’d done something differently? Found something sooner? Tried a different drug? What if?

Or maybe I was completely wrong. Maybe there weren’t a million what-ifs. Maybe there was only one.

What if she didn’t survive?

I watched her with different eyes. Eyes that appreciated all the moments I’d missed in not knowing her. All the moments she’d had with Ella. All the moments she still had, taking nothing for granted. Then I let my mind wander to all the moments she might never have.

I remembered my mother reading to me even as her energy and voice failed, and I realized I’d been too young to understand just how hard she’d fought to be with me, to stay with me.

“Why do you think it’ll come back again?”

“Because that’s what ovarian cancer does.”

She brushed on polish expertly, one toe at a time, and I savored the touch of her hand, the warmth of her thigh beneath my heel.

“The trial I just started is designed to kill any circulating cells. Some patients have seen success.”

“And you?”

“They’re worried about a new spot in my brain, and my tumor marker’s been climbing.” She shrugged, obviously trying to put me at ease.

I asked the question then that we’d not yet discussed, even though we’d danced around the topic.

“What about Ella?”

Sydney sat back, replaced the brush in the polish, and tightened the cap.

“Did you come here to ask Albert to raise her?” I asked.

She furrowed her brow. “You have to understand that I have no one in Ohio. No one at all.” Sadness seeped through her words.

“So, Albert,” I said flatly. “And Paris.”

Sydney nodded. “Paris, yes. Just being here for these past weeks gives me a sense of what a wonderful place this must have been to grow up.”

Yes,
I thought.
A family, where I had none.

Sydney continued. “I see how she looks at you, Destiny. She doesn’t let many people in. She’s a lot like me in that respect, but you and she . . .”

“Are alike,” I said, finishing her sentence.

“She misses her grandparents,” Sydney said, her voice going soft. “I’m not sure how she’ll survive when I’m gone.”

But I knew. She’d adjust to her new normal, her motherless world, compartmentalizing her grief until it was merely a part of her, to be carried forever.

“You’ve been there,” she said. “I see how you watch her.”

“That’s because she’s a great kid.”

“Thanks.”

Then I realized where Sydney was headed, and a shiver slid across the back of my neck.

The ramifications of her words were serious—more serious than anything I’d encountered in my adult life.

“Are you asking me to raise her? If something happens to you?”

Sydney nodded.

The shadows of my past rose before me—echoes of heartache and loss—but as we sat together, saying nothing, I measured the risk. I weighed the benefits.

Sydney had already found her way into my heart. If she lost her battle, no amount of protective walls would ease the pain of losing her. Not for me. Certainly not for Ella.

But I could be there.

I could be there for Ella, could help her pick up the pieces, navigate her new normal, and remind her of the good in life—the laughter, the adventure, the hope.

“I’d be honored,” I said, pushing the words past the knot in my throat.

She stared at me, her gaze crowded with gratitude, trust, and fear. Then she uncapped the polish and turned her attention back to my toes. “Thank you,” she said, brushing on one flawless stroke after another.