Page 11 of Nothing Less than Magic
“Hello.”
There’s no response, but I know she’s there. I can hear her breathing.
“Cut the shit, Lolly.”
“What are you doing?” she finally says.
“What do you think I’m doing? I was sleeping.”
“You know what day it is, right?”
The day was yesterday, but I don’t correct her. Who am I to quibble over a few hours. “I do.”
“I went to the cemetery.”
I take a moment to absorb that, surprised. Then I wonder whether I’m a bad daughter . . . a bad sister . . . because I didn’t go, too. But even twenty-four years later, I’m angry. I’m still so damn angry.
“Did Uncle Sylvester go?” I assume he’s the one who suggested it.
“No, just me.”
“Why?” I ask. “You’ve never gone before.”
“I don’t know.” Her voice is quiet, almost contemplative, if Lolly can ever be contemplative. “I guess I just thought it was time to let it go, to let them go.”
“Did it work?”
“I don’t know.” She lets out a sigh.
She was only nine when it happened. I don’t think it scarred her as much as it did me. But it’s wrong of me to compare. Everyone experiences pain differently. At the time, the deaths of our parents traumatized both of us. How could it not?
“What was it like?” I ask.
“What do you mean what was it like? It was Forest Lawn, two headstones in a sea of graves. I stood there for forty minutes like an idiot not knowing what to say, trying to feel something other than contempt.”
It’s more than I could ever do, and I’m supposed to be the evolved one. “It’s good that you did it, Lolly. I’m proud of you.”
“Save me the psycho mumbo jumbo, Chelsea. I pay a king’s ransom for that. It would’ve been nice if you’d come with me. They were your parents, too.”
“You didn’t ask me,” I say, knowing full well that even if she had, I wouldn’t have gone.
“You’re always too busy to take my calls.”
That isn’t true, but arguing the issue is fruitless. Lolly believes what she wants to believe. “I’m taking your call now, aren’t I?”
Lolly lets out a not-so-nice laugh. “Why do you think I called at this god-awful hour? I knew you’d have no choice but to pick up the phone.”
I squeeze the bridge of my nose, tired of this. Tired of the animosity between us. We used to be so close; then sometime after college, Lolly started running hot and cold where I was concerned, but mostly cold. First, she thought I was being a bitch because I didn’t approve of her marriage to Daddy Warbucks. Then it was because I didn’t spend enough time with her kids. Her biggest complaint, though, is that I’d become too big for my britches (my father’s favorite phrase) and had left her behind, which simply isn’t true.
“For once, can we not fight?” I say. “I’ve had a bad week.”
I wait for her to tell me her week was worse, because that’s how it usually goes with Lolly. But instead, I get a long pause, then, “What happened?”
“I got run over by a cable car.”
She laughs, as if it’s a joke.
“I’m not kidding,” I say. “I literally got mowed down by a cable car.” I tell her about my meeting with Austin and how he’s engaged to someone else now and how I walked in front of the streetcar before it had time to stop.
