Page 67 of Dreams of Falling
I put my phone on “silent,” then threw it in my purse before ringing the doorbell. I felt odd not walking right in, but it had been years since I’d lived there, and even more since I’d believed the house was my home.
My dad opened the door, and his face softened in relief. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come.” He stepped back, and I walked past him into the foyer, staying beyond arm’s reach. Not that I expected him to hug me, but just in case.
He shut the door and turned to me. “Did you have trouble finding the place?”
It took me a moment to realize he was making a joke. I gave him a reluctant grin. “No. I’m familiar with the neighborhood. Had dinner a couple of nights ago just a few blocks away.”
“I know. Carol Anne invited me, but I told her you’d be happier if I didn’t go. Did you dance?”
“No. It started to rain after dinner, so we all went inside.”
“That’s a shame. Those were good times, weren’t they? Dancing in their backyard on summer evenings, watching the fireflies... Your mama never wanted to leave, so they always played us one more song until our feet hurt too much to dance anymore.”
Then why did you ruin it?I wanted to ask, but I didn’t. That was an argument that had lasted almost a decade, and I didn’t have the time or energy to revisit old wounds.
“So, what is it that you wanted to show me?”
He nodded in understanding, matching my businesslike tone. “It’s upstairs. Follow me.” He led the way through the small entranceway, to the steps. As I made my way after him, I noticed a painted trellis climbing up the stairwell, bunches of bright yellow flowers hanging from it. The petals looked real enough that I paused to touch one, just to see what it would feel like.
“Your mama started it right after you left. She works on it every year, adding a little each time. It’s reached your bedroom now.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said, moving up the stairs. Then I stopped on the next step, staring at the wall. Painted in a yellow sundress, so that the figure blended into the flowers, was a tiny blond girl climbing the trellis beside the blossoms.
“Is that supposed to be me?” I asked, pointing toward the beginning of the trellis at the figure, which was wearing a mortarboard and standing in front of a tiny sketched skyline of New York City.
Daddy squinted, leaning in closely as if he’d never noticed it before. “Well, don’t that beat all,” he said, straightening, then moving up a step. “I guess it is—from when you graduated from college.”
“You didn’t know?” I asked.
He shook his head, his eyes troubled. “Your mother always did herown thing. I just came home from work one day, and she’d taken off the wallpaper and painted all these yellow flowers on the wall. I didn’t mind them, so I didn’t say anything.”
“And you never thought to ask her why she was painting the stairwell?”
He didn’t answer right away. “Do you think it would have made any difference?”
I continued to walk up the stairs, watching milestones in my adult life depicted in miniature: the Brooklyn Bridge, the prewar building on Madison Avenue where I worked, a tube of lipstick for a large ad campaign I’d worked on. Even the small figure of me wore bright red lipstick as a nod to the product.
It was as charming as it was humbling. How had Ivy known all these details about my life? The few times we spoke, it was always in generalities like the weather or popular songs on the radio, nothing too personal. I’d kept my simmering anger at her near the surface, not allowing her to get too close. She’d disappointed me once, and I clung to that, knowing it was one more reason why I could never go home again.
I stood back, blinking away the pinpricks of tears. A wave of emotion engulfed me, and I found myself again fervently hoping she’d wake up so I could ask her why, during all those years of my growing up, she had allowed me to believe she never noticed.
My dad had reached the top of the stairs, and I followed him across the short hallway into my childhood bedroom. It contained the same type of four-poster bed and dressing table I had at Ceecee’s, the same yellow ceramic lamps, except here I’d been allowed to express my various interests. There were all sorts of art projects hung on the walls, and my karaoke machine still stood in its place of honor in the corner along with my elaborate costume collection, including a fringed jumpsuit that would have made an ABBA fan drool.
Science projects hung on fishing line from the ceiling, and on the bookshelf between the windows, shoved between dog-eared copies ofGone with the Wind, the Harry Potter series, and the entire collection of Lurlene McDaniel and Sarah Dessen books, were the leather-covered notebooks I’d asked my mother to buy for me to contain my epic manuscripts.
It was so different from my bedroom at Ceecee’s, where, despite her encouragement, she always tucked my artwork in boxes to be stored under the bed, and claimed the karaoke machine gave her migraines. Staring at my participation trophies lined up on my dresser, I blinked hard, feeling as if I might cry. Despite all the verbal encouragement Ceecee had given me, it seemed to me now, looking at the detritus of my childhood, that it had been my mother who had allowed me the freedom to explore whatever passion struck me.
“I keep telling your mother that we can make this room into an art studio for her, but she won’t hear of it. She says you’ll need a place to come back to whenever you’re ready.”
I wiped at my eyes so he couldn’t see my tears. I was about to correct him, to remind him that I had a beautiful room always ready and waiting for me at Ceecee’s house, but I stopped. That was a room to sleep in, a comfortable guest room neatly curated for the casual visitor. This room was a slice of my childhood, an integral part of my growing up. Of beginning my journey to who I really was. How had I been so blind to the world around me that I had never recognized this? My equilibrium shifted, like I was staring in a fun-house mirror, seeing my past being turned on its head.
“Look over here.” My father was leaning against my childhood desk—white wood with yellow gingham-patterned knobs—pointing at an Apple desktop computer on the top. “I bought this computer for your mother a few birthdays ago, and put it in here so she could have a bit of office space.” He shrugged apologetically. “It’s the only desk we have. Anyway, she was just starting up her furniture-refinishing business, and I thought she could use this to make flyers, create a mailing list, prepare invoices—that kind of thing, or even design a Web site. To be honest, I don’t know if she ever did any of that.”
He looked away, embarrassed, and I wanted to reach out and tell him I understood what it was like to live with blinders on because that’s just the way you’ve always seen things.
“I helped her create a screen name on an e-mail program, and thenI put your e-mail address and a few others in her address book to get her started. But that’s the last time I saw her using it.” He wiggled the mouse, and the computer came to life, showing an e-mail screen. “Until this. Your mama was sending you an e-mail the day she had the accident. She either forgot to hit Send, or intentionally didn’t send it. I thought you might want to read it.”
“I...” I looked at the computer, the thought of my mother owning a computer and even having an e-mail address hard to comprehend. She’d always hated technology and been slow to give up her VCR and her cassettes. As far as I knew, she still used a first-generation flip phone. “She’s never sent an e-mail to me.”
