Page 67 of The Night the Lights Went Out
Merilee seemed surprised by the question, as if she’d never thought about it before. “Yes. Of course.” She waited a moment, but Sugar didn’t interrupt. “Everything changed. And not just in the obvious ways. We were all so sad; we all grieved in our own ways. We were the family who’d lost a child, and you could see it in the eyes of our neighbors and my teachers. I was the girl who’d lost a brother. But my mother had lost her son, and she stopped noticing that she had another child. That’s what changed, really. Because after that I became the girl desperate for her mother’s attention and approval. That pretty much defined me for a long time.”
Merilee had been wearing red knit gloves with little bows at the wrists—very impractical for keeping hands warm, but nobody had asked Sugar, who’d prefer warm fingers to silly embellishments—and she pulled them off a finger at a time, wadding them angrily in her hand. “According to a shrink I saw when I was in my twenties, I was so desperate for my mother’s approval and affection that I did things I’m not proud of. Things that still haunt me.”
She leaned against the back of the bench, the gloves held tightly in her fists. “There was a girl I remember from summer camp. She had the misfortune of being overweight with bad skin, and her only offense was sitting next to me on the bus and then being assigned to be my bunkmate. I made her life hell. And it got worse when she moved to our school and I recognized her. I don’t even remember her real name—my friends and I all called her Daisy, because of those dairy commercials about Daisy the cow. The name stuck because we were relentless, and pretty soon the entire school called her Daisy.”
“Was she really so awful that you couldn’t see anything good about her?” Sugar asked, trying to understand this part of Merilee and finding it difficult.
“That’s the really awful part. Because Daisy was funny. And really smart. I actually invited her to my house a few times to study for exams—I just made sure that none of my friends knew. In return I’d give her advice on how to dress, and the best hairstyle for her face—stupid stuff like that, but she was so grateful. She always seemed... eager to be my friend. Not that I’d treat her any differently when we were back at school, but she seemed to accept it.
“I still feel physically ill when I remember her, and the way I treated her. I’ve tried to analyze my dislike of her, and in some part of my psyche I think it’s because I saw me when I thought of her. I saw the girl my mother saw every time she looked at me. And I wanted to punish myself for being so unlovable.”
“So you became a ‘mean girl’?”
Merilee frowned. “How did you ever hear that term?”
“They were playing that movie with that young actress who’s since lost her mind—Lindsay somebody—at the little movie theater at the place where Willa Faye lives, so we watched it. Showed me how much things have changed since I was a girl. And how little.”
Merilee slowly unfurled her fists and watched as the gloves regained their shape. “Our junior year Daisy and I were in the same English lit class and I intercepted a note she passed to a friend. It was all about how in love she was with the football quarterback, and how she dreamed he’d ask her to our junior prom. I might not have even paid attention to the stupid note except I’d been dating the quarterback since freshman year, and I’d already bought my dress for the prom—a dress I didn’t particularly like but one my mother had picked out for me. It made me... unreasonably angry.”
“Was this the boy John from your yearbook?” Sugar asked.
Merilee looked startled. “How do you know about that?”
“Lily told me she had your permission—I’m assuming that she didn’t?”
“No. There are... things I’m not ready for her to ask me about.” She closed her eyes. “Like why I allowed my friends to write the word ‘moo’ on Daisy’s senior page. But yes, it was the same John. He’d stood up for her in the lunch room once when a bunch of the jocks were tormenting her, and he became her hero. And, in my stupid teenaged brain, it made me mad and so I was even more despicable in my behavior toward Daisy.”
Sugar felt her lips pressing together. “You were horrid. I’m disappointed in you, Merilee. Somebody should have taken a switch to you—of course, they would have been thrown in jail, but it would have been the right thing to do.”
“I wish someone had. But, according to that same shrink, teasing Daisy fed my popularity. And my popularity in turn increased my mother’s interest in me. When I remember Daisy now in the middle of the night, I can’t go back to sleep because of the shame I still feel. In some ways I’m glad. At least that way she can wreak a little deserved revenge.”
Sugar squeezed the handle of her pocketbook, which was sitting in her lap, wishing Merilee hadn’t told her all this. It was a secret shared, and Sugar felt beholden to Merilee again, as if it meant she’d be expected to share her own.
Sugar sniffed, the first warning of her fall allergies. “That’s the problem with people today. They think professionals know all the answers. They make everyone believe that every bad deed is forgiven if you have a good enough reason.”
“You don’t think that’s true?”
Sugar closed her eyes, remembering a moon-filled night saturated with the sound of running feet. “No. Because then we wouldn’t have anything to keep us up when we awaken in the middle of the night.”
Merilee’s fists tightened over the crumpled gloves, and Sugar could tell she wanted to argue with her, but someone at some point had told her it was rude to argue with the elderly. “I sometimes wonder if I should try to find Daisy, apologize to her. I doubt it would make her feel better about the years she suffered through, but maybe then I’d stop having nightmares.”
Sugar wanted to snort but wasn’t sure how. “Maybe an apology might helpDaisynot have so many nightmares.” She sniffed again. “Lily didn’t see the photo of Daisy. But we did see the picture of someone named John with the heart around his face and him asking you to marry him. What happened to him?”
Merilee’s cheeks, which had been pink from the chilly wind, suddenly turned the shade of wet flour. “He died.”
Sugar nodded, afraid to say something that might make a connection to Merilee’s loss. She’d learned that shared losses didn’t divide them, but added to one’s own pile.
“Wade tells me that the two of you have a date and that Heather’s behind it.”
“It’s not a date,” Merilee protested. “It’s for the gala, and Heather needed an even number for her table.”
Sugar blew air from her nose, hoping it sounded like a snort. “Heather has never done anything without a reason, and needing an even number doesn’t sound like a good one. I wouldn’t go, if I were you.”
Merilee turned on the bench to face her, trying very hard to keep her anger in check. “Your experiences with Heather aren’t mine. She’s my friend. She reached out when I was at my loneliest, has introduced me to lots of new people, and has been nothing but warm and kind to me and to my children. There’s nothing that she could possibly want from me in exchange for being so nice except my friendship, so I wouldn’t worry.”
“It’s not you I’m worried about. Heather carved her initials on Wade and it took a long time for him to heal. I’m just afraid somebody’s going to get hurt.”
Traffic whizzed by on nearby Main Street, reminding Sugar that she had things to do—bills to pay. Letters to write. But her memories seemed to weigh her down, press her into the bench. She thought of Tom and the porch swing, and how she’d made the mistake of believing she could ever be done with losses.
