The Art of Saying Goodbye - Ellyn Bache [73]
A year later Paisley confided to Andrea that Melody had made her understand the meaning of grace. The child was a gift. Paisley certainly didn’t deserve her. Yet there she was.
Over time, the seriousness of the situation receded so much that Andrea and Paisley made the improbable meeting with Eddie into a joke. “You can’t call it a one-night stand, considering that it had happened closer to noon,” Paisley pointed out. “It was more an afternoon delight.”
“Sounds like a trip to the Dairy Queen.”
“One-day stand?”
“It only lasted an hour.”
“Lunch stand, then.”
“Well, we did have sandwiches.”
They referred to it as the lunch stand from that point on, though the subject came up ever more rarely.
Years later, after a Lindenwood Court block party, Andrea watched Eddie go back into his house, his arm slung casually around Ginger’s shoulder, the epitome of a pleasant neighbor, a good husband, a nice guy. Tossing a stack of used paper plates into a trash bag, she asked Paisley idly, “How do you live right across the street from him? How can you stand it?”
Paisley grew thoughtful, treating this as a serious question. “After a while you forget about it, don’t you? Well, not really forget—I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel an occasional twinge. But life catches up with you, you’re busy, you go about your business. And pretty soon it seems natural to wave when you see each other on the street. It’s old history. It’s not part of your life anymore. Maybe it’s that simple. People are pretty adaptable.”
Andrea nodded but felt vaguely disturbed. Paisley was once again her playful self. The women in the neighborhood loved her but were jealous. Paisley charmed them back into her good graces. That’s how Paisley was. That’s how they all were.
Adaptable.
Yet every once in a while, Paisley would make some comment, not quite a joke, to suggest she still feared Melody’s paternity was in question. “I’ll have to make sure Max never romances her once they grow up,” she’d say, “just in case it’s incest.” She punished herself with the possibility.
Trying to keep the mood light, Andrea would answer, “Well, he’d only be her half brother. Their kids might have six fingers, but probably not two heads.” If Paisley didn’t laugh, Andrea would add, “You’re forgetting the Mark of Mason. The cleft chin. The dark eyes.” Almost always, that would chase the haunted look away.
Now, listening to Paisley’s even breathing, Andrea isn’t sure why guilt has consumed her friend again when there is so much else to deal with, in this difficult task of letting go. Paisley means for Andrea to keep tabs on Max from California or anywhere else she goes. “Through your many reliable contacts,” she says. She expects it. She trusts Andrea to do it. To keep Melody from having a romantic liaison years from now with a boy who might turn out to be her half brother. And though Andrea doesn’t believe for a minute that Max and Melody are related, Andrea will do exactly what Paisley asked.
Courtney still isn’t home when Andrea walks into her house just before nine. She’s put off her homecoming as long as possible. After she left Paisley’s, she went to Barnes & Noble to pick up some of the empty boxes the staff aren’t supposed to give away but do, to longtime customers like Andrea. She lingered there, not anxious to face her daughter, her torn-up house, John’s absence at a meeting that always runs late. A pan of chicken enchiladas, Courtney’s favorite, are still warming in the oven, untouched. Although covered with foil to keep them soft, after all these hours they’re hard and unappetizing, the tortillas like charred poster paper folded over dried-out