Page 35 of Dreams of Falling
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
Gabriel shrugged, his eyes meeting mine with frank directness. “Maybe because you never asked.”
I cringed inside, thinking about my new life in New York, how smart and professional and fit I’d become. How different I was from the girl I had once been—and yet, still completely self-centered. I turned back around to study the mural, waiting for my vision to clear. My breath left me again in a sigh.
It was a mural of an enormous live oak, with exaggerated sweeping branches, and two martin houses dangling from twine. But when I really looked at it this time, I recognized the Tree of Dreams—its heavy green foliage, its thick broad trunk with the opening like a mouth speaking to the viewer. The river ran behind it, and there, on the bank, were the backs of three girls sitting close together, their arms linked. One had hair that was neither light brown nor quite blond enough to be called blond, and one had short, burnished red hair. But the girl in the middle had gold hair that reflected the unseen sunlight, her head tilted back as if in laughter. It was hard to determine the ages of the women, but their dresses appeared to be from another time period—fifties or sixties; I wasn’t sure. There seemed to be filtered light around the central figure, making her appear to glow, the women on either side of her tilting their heads slightly toward her as if to acknowledge the golden-haired girl was the focus.
My eyes traveled up the branches of the tree, to where the limbs reached across the perimeter of the room, gourds dangling at sporadic intervals and seeming to project movement even on a static surface. I stepped closer, wondering if it was my imagination or if there seemed to be a brush of a lighter color inside the mouth of one of the gourds. A purple martin, or the fall of light from the painter’s perspective. Only the painter would know for sure. Or maybe she wanted ambiguity, wanted her viewers to think it was whatever they wanted.
I stepped back, bumping into Gabriel, who’d moved to stand behind me. “I need to get to the hospital and see Mama. I’ll give her your best when she wakes up.”
“You do that,” he said, walking me to the door.
“Thanks for the yogurt. How much do I owe you?”
“It’s on the house. For all the ice cream you didn’t get by not working here.”
I gave Gabriel a thumbs-up, realizing that if I pushed words past the ball in my throat, I might actually cry. As I walked away, Fats Domino singing “Ain’t That a Shame” from the store’s stereo followed me down the steps.
•••
?There had been something about the painting of three friends beside the Tree of Dreams that made me think of Mabry. We’d known each other since we were babies, sharing everything, including chicken pox when we were eight. There was nothing we’d ever kept from each other, mostly because it was impossible since our mothers were best friends and we went to the same school. Bennett, too, but since he was a boy, there were a few things I tried to keep from him such as when Ceecee had taken me shopping for my first bra, or when I’d finally gotten my period a whole year after Mabry.
I hadn’t pursued friendships with Josephine or any of my other coworkers at the ad agency. Friendship was such a complicated relationship, a perpetual give-and-take in which someone always ended up with a deficit. Growing up, I’d just never realized it, had never really thought about the nature of friendship. Until I had to.
I didn’t head straight to Ceecee’s house and my car to go to the hospital. Instead, my feet took me in the opposite direction toward Prince Street, where Mabry now lived with her husband and little boy. It was strange to think that the big, life-altering things had happened to her without my being a part of them. As little girls, we’d promised each other that we’d be each other’s maid or matron of honor, and Mabry had made me promise that I would sing at her wedding. I told her I would as long as I could pick the music. Since she was tone deaf, she’d readily agreed.
I wondered who she’d selected to sing and who’d been her maid of honor. And who she’d called first when she’d gotten engaged. It felt silly to be hurt by childhood promises that hadn’t come true. But itdid hurt. Because back when we made those promises, Mabry had been my best friend.
I wasn’t sure why I’d headed down her street, and I certainly hadn’t expected to see her, but after I’d gone two blocks, I spotted her in the front yard of a 1920s-style Craftsman cottage with a red minivan in the driveway—something else we’d promised each other that we’d never own, much less park in our driveways, showing our shame at becoming suburban stereotypes. She was pushing a little boy in a tire swing hung from the branch of an adolescent oak.
My first instinct was to back away and pretend I hadn’t seen her, but she spotted me before I could do an about-face. She straightened and looked right at me. “Larkin?”
I stood still, hoping she’d turn away and go back to pushing her son in the tire swing, but she didn’t. “Nice car,” I said, standing in the street with my arms crossed.
She ran over to me and gave me a giant hug just like she’d done before. “Larkin—so happy to see you!” Indicating the van, she said, “Hey, at least it’s red—it’s just not the sports car I always said I wanted. Does it count that my husband has a red Mustang?”
“If it makes you feel better, I don’t even own a car, red or otherwise.”
She laughed, then grabbed my hand and pulled me across the yard to the tree and the little boy in the swing. “I want you to meet my son.”
He looked up at me and smiled, and I found myself laughing. “Oh, my gosh—you’re right. He looks just like Bennett. I hope your husband doesn’t mind.”
“Actually, Jonathan encourages the similarity since Bennett is so tall and my husband stopped at five feet eleven.” She smiled as she scooped up the little boy and set him on the ground next to her before squatting to be face level with him. “Remember that picture on the refrigerator of Mommy and Uncle Bennett dressed up as the Scarecrow, and I was the Tin Man for Halloween? And between us is Dorothy with the sparkly red shoes? That’s Larkin—who’s come all the way from New York to visit. Isn’t that nice?”
The little boy looked up at me with Bennett’s eyes and smiled. “Hello,” he said, his voice light and sweet.
Mabry stood and put her hands on the boy’s shoulders. “And this is Ellis,” she said proudly. “He just turned four.”
He reached out a hand to shake, and I almost missed it because I was still hearing the name. “Ellis?” I asked.
“E-l-l-i-s,” the little boy said proudly. “I can spell it.”
“He’s named after my uncle. He died before I was born, but I always liked the name. Mama thought it would be a nice way to honor her brother, so it’s a good thing Jonathan and I both liked it.”
I looked down at the little boy, thinking of the ribbon my mother had put in the tree all those years ago.Come home to me, Ellis. I’ll love you always.I cleared my throat. “My mother knew an Ellis. I wonder if it’s the same one.”
“It most definitely is. When I was pregnant, Mama told me about Ellis marrying Ivy. Just think—we could have been cousins.” Without even looking, she removed Ellis’s thumb from his mouth. “She got your mama’s permission because she wasn’t sure if she could tell me. From what she told me, it near broke your mama in half when he died. That’s why she never talked about him. It made her real happy when we told her we were going to name the baby after Ellis. She even threw the biggest baby shower for me.”
