Page 3 of Below the Far Horizon
“I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve missed you so much. I’ve only seen you a couple of times in the last decade.”
That was a little bit of an underrepresentation of the truth. Grace had been here at least three times in the last ten years. And her mother had visited a handful of times in Indianapolis, where they’d settled.
Still, it hadn’t been nearly enough. And Grace could honestly say, “I’m glad to be home.”
She didn’t think now was the time to tell her mother that she was broke, didn’t have a job, and was hoping to move in with her. That would come later, after her sisters had left.
“I’m only able to stay until tomorrow. So you’re going to have to learn everything that you need to do pretty quickly,” Stacy said. Always the one in charge. She was the perfect daughter. She lived just down the beach in Strawberry Sands, and she had the perfect family, a son and a daughter, a husband whose employer was in Chicago, although he worked from home three days a week.
Her life couldn’t be any more perfect. She intimidated Grace, and perhaps Grace had spent so much time trying to be perfect, just so she could keep up with her sister.
“I have to leave tomorrow too. So it’s going to be all on you after that, Grace.” Jill echoed her older sister’s words.
Jill also had a perfect life, although she and her husband were childless. Still, they lived close, although further west and not right along the lake. But she was a nurse at a local hospital, and her husband was a doctor.
“You girls worry too much. Grace is perfectly capable of taking care of me, and she’s completely cleared her calendar for the next six weeks, which is so generous and sweet of her.” Her mother looked at her with so much admiration and love Grace could hardly stand it.
“You’re worth it, Mom,” she said and tried to put some genuine feeling behind it, because she did believe it. But she felt so guilty because the words her mom said weren’t even close to being true. She had nowhere else to go. That’s why she was here. Although, she would certainly help take care of her mom as she recovered. It would have just been a little bit more difficult to juggle her schedule.
“I’m going to show you a few things, and then Jill and I are going to go out for lunch. We’ve been here twenty-four/seven since we got here, and we deserve a little time off.” Stacy spoke like it was a given, although somehow her words made Grace feel like she was being left out. Of course, she could have come two weeks ago, but the idea of being with her mom in the hospital, under all that pressure, and scared to death as to whether or not she would make it, and then all of the pain and suffering after she got out. She just couldn’t stand the idea. And then the papers had arrived, needing her signature.
That threw her for another loop and kept her away another week. The idea of confronting her sisters and admitting what her life was like was the reason she had delayed one more day.
She didn’t want to delay anymore.
That wasn’t true. She wanted to, but she wasn’t going to allow herself to. Digging deep, she took a breath and then met her older and most intimidating sister right in the eye. “Stacy, if you wouldn’t mind, I have something I need to tell all of you, and since we’re all here, this is a good time.”
Stacy blinked, like she couldn’t believe that there was something in her sister’s life that she didn’t know about. Still, her sister’s usually busyhands were quiet in front of her, and she waited, as though this were going to be a one-sentence explanation and then she could get on with her life.
“I think you probably should sit down.” Grace realized her voice sounded very timid. She tried to infuse confidence in it. “And, Mom, I’m sorry to do this to you when you’re not feeling the best?—”
Her mom waved a hand. “I feel fine. A little bit of pain occasionally, but the girls have been great at keeping up with the pill schedule, and I’ve been able to do all of my physical therapy, and I’m well ahead of the norm, which is what my therapist said.”
She probably should ask after her mother’s health and how the surgery went and all that. They’d been in touch via text and phone calls, but not nearly as much as her mother would have preferred.
“That’s good. It sounds like you’re going to be up and about in no time.”
“I hope so. My craft supply is getting rather low. The girls have been great at mailing the things out, but you are the only one who was ever able to make anything even remotely similar to what I can.”
Grace nodded, knowing what her mom said was true. She was the only one that had inherited their mom’s artistic flair. The other two girls were way too serious and analytical to be able to do anything even remotely artistic. Still, they could package up the crafts as they were ordered online and ship them out, as their mom had just said. That didn’t take any kind of artistic flair at all, except perhaps wrapping them.
“I’m feeling so well that I probably could start making things again, and I’ve had so much time to just sit and scroll through different social media and websites that my ideas are practically overflowing in my brain.”
For the first time since she’d come, Grace felt a little trickle of excitement. She could help her mom out. She would be good at that. But is that really what she wanted out of her life? To sit at home and make crafts and sell them online? Where was the prestige in that? She had wanted more out of her life, and people had expected more out of her.
She didn’t want to let them down, but that was ironic, considering that she already had.
“Well?” Jill asked, perched on the edge of the imitation leather recliner that sat next to the couch.
Two
Stacy had gracefully folded herself into a chair right beside her mother’s feet, with a hand, gentle and comforting, on Gita’s ankle.
“Well, I figured you guys were going to hear this eventually, probably sooner than later considering how small towns are.” She hadn’t had to worry about how small towns were for a really long time. That had been one of her considerations whenever she had decided to come. Her whole family was going to know exactly what happened.
She tried not to think about anything other than her story, not the nervousness that spun like sticky spiderwebs in her stomach, or the disappointment that was sure to be on her mother’s face, and perhaps the gloating and I-told-you-so look that her sisters would have.
“I was fired from my job two months ago.”
