The Art of Saying Goodbye - Ellyn Bache [110]
At dinner she said, “You know what your fruit salad tastes like, Mom?”
“Like bananas and apples,” Max answered for her.
Rachel glared at him. “You’re so clever, Max.” To Ginger she said, “It tastes like love.”
“Well, thank you, Rachel.” Rachel hadn’t made this assertion for years, not since she was a babbling child. She would have died from embarrassment. And what an odd thing to say in front of the whole extended family, though most of them were too busy with their own small conversations to hear.
A fruit salad that tastes like love? What kind of love? The love of a family that still has a mother? She isn’t sure what effect Paisley’s death has had on Rachel. All she knows is, whenever Ginger is home, Rachel hangs around. It’s not normal.
Ginger worries because she’s seen events like Paisley’s passing, and even some of her friends’ divorces, pull their adolescent children back into childhood in the most annoying way, making them hold on to whatever adult is available the way a toddler clutches its mother’s legs so she can’t leave for work. She doesn’t want to be held on to. She doesn’t want Rachel to want it. When you’re twelve or fourteen or eighteen, you’re supposed to be the one who leaves. Not your parent. Ginger has seen children who never grow out of that regressive phase, even ten or twelve years later. Children who at thirty still demand their mother’s fruit salad at every meal.
Or—and this makes Ginger more uncomfortable yet—was Rachel referring to a fruit salad made by a mother contentedly married to a father, going about her business as usual? Ever since the funeral she and Eddie have thought they were quite clever, the way they’ve carried on so normally. Well, maybe not. What, actually, does Rachel know?
That was in another country, she thinks. Nearly nine years ago; it might as well have been a century. And besides, the wench is dead.
She’s aware, then, of the tears in her eyes as she stares unseeing at the Christmas tree. Of the sting of humiliation because once, however far in the past, someone who had promised to desire only her—someone she believed desired only her—had not only wanted someone else instead, but taken action on it. Taken action. There’s the crime.
She feels foolish, now, for finding Eddie’s fascination with Paisley so titillating, so thrilling. For being so proud that she, Ginger, would be going home with Eddie that night, making love to him, asserting her pride of ownership. By morning, she was always sure, he had forgotten Paisley. Too satisfied. Too tired. Too content.
Has anything really changed? Did Eddie and Paisley run off together? Of course not. Has anything been hurt but Ginger’s pride? She even has the luxury of not knowing for sure, because Eddie is never going to tell her the facts of what really happened back then. Whatever the facts are, she’ll never be able to confirm them.
She remembers once again how Paisley suggested she take over the store, making it somehow all right to live what has been, ever since, such a satisfactory life. She has been drifting through so much ephemeral happiness she’s barely been aware of it until now.
And less than a month ago, when she had stood in Paisley’s yard, watching the strong jets of the hot tub send waves of water and comfort and solace onto Paisley’s aching skin, she had thought, I have done what I set out to do. I have done something good for her. And that, too, had made her happy.
Looking at the room it has taken her so long to see, she is aware of the tears on her cheeks—part anger, part humiliation—but part, after all, tears for a lost friend.
It is too much to hold on to. What she wants, after all, is not this truth—if it is a truth—but the life she had before.