Then Came You - Jennifer Weiner [120]
“I don’t want to do this,” Yaya said, wincing as she spoke and pressing her hand against her taped-up ribs. “But I have no choice.” She put the house up for sale, moved the two of them into an assisted-living complex where no one under fifty-five was allowed, and gave me the last address she had for my mother, on Alden Lane in New London, Connecticut. Sure, Raine had said, when Yaya had called her. Sure, Sammie can come. Absolutely. It’s time we were together. But I’d been listening on the extension, and my mother had not sounded enthusiastic. I could hear noises in the background—kids fighting, a television blaring, a man yelling something I couldn’t make out. She’d gotten married years ago, to a man named Phil, and they had two daughters, ages seven and five. She had never ended up in California—New London was about as far away from there as you could get.
I left Toledo in October with five hundred dollars, a suitcase full of clothes, a pair of boots and a pair of sneakers, and a winter coat that I’d outgrown (I hadn’t wanted to bother Yaya and ask for another one). In spite of all the indications, I was hopeful. I hadn’t seen my mother in years, but I remembered her as young and beautiful, always laughing, with a light in her eyes, so different from my dour, exhausted grandmother.
But the woman who opened the door after my ten-hour bus ride was different. I blinked, thinking maybe I’d gotten the address wrong, looking at the woman’s hard-worn face and faded eyes, her hair dyed a brassy, straw-like blonde, and her body still thin, but soft as overripe fruit.
“Sammie?” Her voice was hoarse. There was a cigarette burning between her fingers, and I could see that her teeth were stained. I wondered if she still had the unicorn tattooed on her hip, if she remembered telling me she’d take me to California, and if she ever felt bad that she hadn’t.
Her husband wasn’t there. Phil was, I learned, a long-distance trucker who made cross-country runs that kept him on the road ten days out of every two weeks. Raine worked, part-time, as a cashier at a supermarket. “This is going to be just fine,” she said, ushering me into the house, which smelled like bacon grease and cigarette smoke, showing me the pullout couch where I’d sleep and the closet where I could keep my things. It probably did seem like a good deal to her: a built-in, live-in babysitter for her daughters from the moment I came home from school. Usually, she’d barely bother to say hello to me as I got off the bus before racing out the door, into her car, and, I eventually learned, off to one of the Indian casinos just a few miles up the highway.
The girls—Emmie and Sophie—were sweet enough, with big brown eyes and curly brown hair. I’d babysat some, back in Toledo, and I liked kids all right. I’d walk them home from their elementary school, help them hang up their backpacks, and fix them a snack. We’d play games: Veterinarian, where we’d treat Sophie’s ailing teddy bears; Doctor, where I’d pretend that my leg hurt and the girls, giggling, would decide that the only remedy was an immediate amputation. We’d play Sorry and Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders, and then, at five o’clock, watch Sesame Street. At six, I’d fix them dinners of macaroni and cheese or hot dogs and sweet pickles. I’d give them their baths and put them to bed before starting on my own homework. It wasn’t perfect, and Raine was not what I’d expected