i started this story with an idea in mind, in the middle of a time in my life much like cammies here. im still there. zachs in a place in his lifea widower with a young, ballet-loving girlthat my dad was in when he was about zachs age here. and now one of the women i love most in this world, one who has taught me what it is to be young, courageous, and light-filled in this dark world, is suddenly in the same position at only thirty years old, but without a child to hold onto the memory of the man she loved more than life itself. i dont understand why people have to die. i dont understand how the flu can take the life of a six and a half foot tall, perfectly healthy thirty four year old man, who always has a smile for everyone. i dont understand.
i dont have much else to say here, other than right now, after the past couple of weeks, this story is too close to home. ive had this written since new years, so i thought id give you what ive got. ill keep trying. in the meantime, call someone you dont call enough and tell them that you love them, and that they mean the world to you.
you all mean the world to me. much love, inez.
"we die to each other daily.
what we know of other people is only our memory of the moments during which we knew them.
and they have changed since then.
to pretend that they and we are the same is a useful and convenient social convention which must sometimes be broken.
We must also remember that at every meeting we are meeting a stranger.
- t.s. eliot
"the cocktail party"
She was right; her mom was glad to see her and was upset that she'd slept through the welcome. She was on edge, three cups of coffee into working herself up when Cammie found her, sitting at the breakfast nook table, staring at the half-finished crossword that Cammie'd given up on the night before like it was some kind of ghost—an apparition from years past, when Matthew and Cam would sit at that very table, and he would teach her words that were only useful in the realm of puzzles.
"Hi, Ma."
Rachel looked startled to actually see her daughter there, as if she was surprised and unconvinced that her daughter would really come back for the holiday, muchless days before it actually happened.
"Cam."
Cammie gestured at the crossword, at her mother's coffee. She shifted on her feet, wondering when her relationship with her mother had become so unhealthy and uncomfortable. They'd always been more like best friends than mother and daughter.
"You were exhausted last night. Abby, Joe, and I thought it was best to let you rest."
She turned, walked into the kitchen to pour her own cup of coffee taking the long moment of silence to let the warmth permeate her being, straight down to the bones that were still chilled from Grant's words, which she didn't dare analyze too closely. Not right now.
"It's been a long few days, yes," Rachel nodded somewhat mechanically. Then quietly, with a hint of betrayal, she pushed her cup across the tabletop. "You should have woken me."
"We saved you some soup."
It wasn't a good excuse, but it was something. She'd known that her mother would be upset with her, would be a shell of herself the day after. Some things weren't even solved by a new husband and by new happiness.
"Thanks."
It was hollow, and not really meant. They stared at each other for a long moment. Cammie hesitated, then pulled out a chair, joining her mother at the table.
"Do you… Do you want me to warm some for you? I made the rolls that we always—"
"No, not right now. It's too early. I had a bagel just a bit ago."
"Ah."
Rachel took a long, deep breath, looked as if she didn't know what to say and had way too much to say at the same time. She took another sip of her coffee, and when the cup came down and her face was unobscured, she was completely transformed—a mother glad to see her prodigal daughter home, not a shell of a woman who lost the love of her life at one time, years ago.
"Where've you been?"
"South Harlem, mainly. It's hard to want to go down to the Financial District this time of year. Too many tourists. Too much snow sludge. I did go by the Rockefeller, though, to see the tree once. They've started putting it up earlier and earlier, you know? I swear, it's because Hobby Lobby's started putting their Christmas decorations out in July. Soon, it's going to be the North Pole down here—Christmas, year-round. For godssakes, it's not even Thanksgiving ye—"
"Cammie."
Rachel's hands were warm closing over hers, which had been twisting her coffee cup, piddling with the pencil she'd left by the crossword. She'd been rambling.
"Yeah?"
"This morning. Where'd you go this morning?"
"Ah." This time, Cammie hesitated to answer. She took a drink of her coffee, glanced down at the crossword for a moment, debating how much she wanted to divulge.
"57-Down. "Turnstilescrooner." Joel. Billy Joel. Don't know how I didn't catch that last night."
"57-Across. "Springer with political agenda?" 'Jerrymandering.'"
"You're right," Cammie chuckled, pushing the paper across for her mother to fill in the blanks.
It was an unspoken rule amongst the Morgan-Solomon-Goode-Cameron-Townsend households. No one took writing credits for someone else's crossword solution. By the time one was finished, it'd usually be full of different fonts of handwriting. Cammie's loopy and light, her mom's organized and teacher-like, Joe and Townsend's both nearly indecipherable doctor-esque scribble, Abby's similar, with even sharper angles, and Zach's, the most distinctive of them all, small, deliberate, and exact. The writing of an architect, Joe'd always said.
Cammie rose, grabbing a bagel from the breadbox, popping it into the toaster, sliding the jar of apple butter across the counter and popping the canning seal expertly. Anything to keep her hands busy.
"Ah."
It was as much an answer to Rachel's previous question as an actual statement would have been.
"You've seen him, then."
Cammie shrugged, refilling her coffee, already wary of a migraine, and shooting her mother a 'you're cut off' look when she held her own cup out in a silent request for more. Instead, Cammie filled up the tea kettle and put it on to boil.
Tea would be good. It would calm them both.
"Twice, yeah. Last night with his mother and his wife. This morning, when your dear sister tricked me into running errands for her." Cammie shuddering involuntarily, and judged the look on her mother's face quickly—very quickly—and decided that no, she would definitely not be mentioning what happened after seeing Zach. Her conversation with Grant would be hers, and hers alone.
Rachel looked stricken.
"His mother and his…"
"Wife, I'm assuming? I'm not entirely sure, given that I never was invited to the wedding and all," she smirked, a bitter, unsettling look that probably revealed more about her mental state than she wanted to admit to her mother in that moment. Then, under her breath, she added a quiet, "not that I blamed him," because she couldn't do that to him—pretend to place the blame for everything that happened on him.
It was quiet for a long bit while Cammie prepared her bagel and ate it slowly, savoring the perfectly seasoned taste of home that came with Blackthorne Farms Apple Butter.
"I don't know who it was, but it wasn't his wife," Rachel stood, moving the kettle off the burner right before the steam made it whistle. "Are you sure it wasn't Catherine?"
"Catherine doesn't have black hair and a perfect figure. He wouldn't have his hand on Catherine's back."
Rachel raised a brow at the evident jealousy in her daughter's tone, and rather than point how uncalled for it was—how unreasonable, and unfair—she merely shook her head.
"Definitely not Macey. Macey had light brown hair. Curly, like yours in summer when you don't straighten it."
"Maybe she dyed it."
"She didn't."
"How do you know—"
"Cameron." Rachel was sharp, sharper than she'd been toward Cammie in years. She knew her daughter well—knew what she was doing, with that expression of hatred, of self-pity. She was digging. And, if Cammie admitted it, she knew better than to look to her mother for gossip.
"There are some things that you don't know, but you'll have to figure out for yourself."
Cammie understood the unspoken end of that statement, even if her mother was too kind to say it outloud. If you bother sticking around for long enough to trudge through everything youve missed.'
Cammie finished her bagel in silence, wondering how she'd managed to royally screw up everything already, when she'd only been in town for twelve hours.
"I didn't mean to be pushy, Mom. I'm sorry. It just hurts."
Rachel's expression softened, and she reached up, tucking a piece of loose hair behind her daughter's ear. "I know that, Cam. But sometimes we make decisions that we regret, even if we refuse to admit it. And sometimes those decisions stare us in the face for the rest of our lives."
Cammie knew her mother well enough to understand that this was no longer just about Zach and Cammie's hurt. This was about Rachel, letting her husband go out in their boat in a storm to save Joe. This was about the pain that she faced every day after losing the love of her life, only to find happiness again with the very man who'd taken him from her.
Again, Cammie felt shame wash over her face. She was twenty-six, and was acting like a fifteen-year-old. Something about Roseville did that to her—pulled her back into a time warp and made her feel like she was forever stuck in her teen years
It was time to step out of that. To step up and face her ghosts head-on.
"Abby said she needs help with the Thanksgiving parade tonight."
"Yeah, mainly just helping with the cider stand. It's always insane."
"Does Zach not do that?"
Rachel chuckled, shaking her head. "It's hard to be a fireman and have…other vested interests in the parade, and run a cider stand all at the same time. He just donates the goods."
"He always said he'd never be caught dead selling cider," Cammie chuckled.
"Well, he sells enough of it to keep the farm afloat, at least," Rachel joined in on her humor,"That, or he's got way more architecture gigs on the side than he's letting on."
"Still drawing buildings, eh?"
"Well, Cam… Yeah. But that's not really my story to tell."
With that, Rachel dunked her teabag one last time, and headed off upstairs. "It's good to have you back, Cam," she called over her shoulder. "Abby says it may be for good this time. Just be careful who you let fall back in love with you."
Her daughter stood, aimless, restless, in the kitchen, staring at the last place she'd seen her mother before she'd disappeared up the stairs.
No, there definitely wasn't danger of falling back in love—she wasn't at all sure of what her mother meant.
Cavan trotted into the kitchen, startling her out of her stupor. The big sixty-pound dog was still a new sight in an old place. Sometimes it was hard to reconcile the past to the present. He nudged her hand for a moment, and then after a pat on the head, nosed open the back door like a pro, escaping out into the cold morning.
"Well at least shut it behind yourself," Cammie muttered with a small smile, carrying her own tea back to the table.
"Let's see… 15 Across. 'Could have beens?'" She laughed a humorless laugh. "Regrets."