Page 85 of The Backtrack
Pearl didn’t look at Sam, though; she stared out at the ocean. “I was trying to protect you. And as time passed, you got better. You stopped crying. I thought you’d moved on.”
“Moved on?” Sam blurted out. “Moved on from losing my mother? No, I didn’t move on.”
“Well, how was I supposed to know? You keep everything so bottled up.” Pearl shifted in her chair, clearly uncomfortable with Sam’s tone, but probably knowing she deserved it. “What do you want me to say?”
“How about that you’re sorry for lying to me? Or you’re sorry for keeping me away from my own mother? Or you’re sorry for making me think she’d completely abandoned me?”
Sam waited. And waited. And finally, Pearl said, “I am sorry for all of those things. I’m sorry. What happened in the past is not great. WhatIdid was wrong. But that’s the truth about most things in the past that we don’t like to remember.”
“We can’t change what happened,” Bonnie offered. “Butwecan change how we approach the future. Your grandma and I want to move on, but you have to decide what’s best for you, too.”
Grandma Pearl and Bonnie were ready to move on. They had, apparently, worked through their issues. Bonnie was now truthful, and her grandma had lies to apologize for. What had happened to the women she’d known? Suddenly, these two who could barely be in a room together without yelling were holding hands and looking at Sam and askingherif she could move on.
“I don’t want to die with regrets.” A sigh escaped Pearl. “If I didn’t tell you the truth, that’s something I’d regret. If I didn’t make things right with Bonnie, that’s something I’d regret. You have to decide if you can live with regrets, or if you want to try to move on from them. That’s your choice. I can’t make it for you.”
Sam snuck a glance at Bonnie, who shifted in her seat. “It’s not up to you whether or not I move on,” Sam said.
“The hell it isn’t. You’re my granddaughter, and she’s my daughter. We’re family. We do dumb shit, we apologize and then we have family holidays where we rehash things after a few drinks.” As if to prove her point, Pearl downed the rest of her coffee.
“Mama,” Bonnie said. “If Sam doesn’t want to clear the air, then we have to respect that and give her the emotional space she needs.”
“I understand you’ve been to therapy, Bonnie. You don’t have to use fancy words to remind us all,” Pearl said.
Sam sucked her cheeks in and tried to pretend she was admiring the ocean waves.
But Pearl, of course, wasn’t about to let her get off scot-free. “And besides, if we give Sam the time she needs, she’ll disappear for another decade andI’llbe the one who’s dead. So, respectfully to both of you, you need to talk this out.”
“Look at you Letos!” Jessie’s singsong voice sailed over the sand as she walked toward them from her back patio. “Oh, how I wish I could paint this moment.” Jessie took a step back and bit her bottom lip as she admired the three of them. She then took out her phone and snapped a photo. “Well, now I can!”
“We’re kind of in the middle of something,” Pearl told her. “Can you come back later?”
“No, I can’t. Because now that I have all three of you here, I have a proposal.” Jessie rocked back on her heels. “I want Pearl to live with me. Permanently.”
Pearl waved her comment away. “I told you to stop asking me that. I don’t want a roommate.”
Jessie slid her sunglasses off. “I don’t want to visit you at some old-folks home. I want to wake up and see your Hawaiian print shirts all over the house. I need a roommate to help me cover the monthly costs, and you need a place to go. Come to my place. It’ll be likeGolden Girls, Tybee Island edition.”
Sam smiled. Nowthiswas an idea she could get behind. “We could still sell this place, Grandma, and you could use the money to cover the rent with Jessie.”
“We can’t even agree on which store has the best rotisserie chicken. Why do you insist on sharing a refrigerator with me?” Pearl sat forward.
“People can change! Sam’s near-death experience with the palm tree really hit it home for me,” Jessie explained. “Life is short. Yeah, sometimes we annoy the hell out of each other, and I trulyhatethat white noise machine, but I don’t want to lose my best friend. I want to watch her sleep, and then paint her while sleeping.”
“You know I love your quirky sensibilities, but if you hover over my bed you’ll give me a heart attack. And you know who died from that? Carol Gaines.”
“Oh, no, she was my art teacher,” Bonnie said.
“Yup.” Pearl looked triumphant. “And you know who else is dead?”
“Spoiler alert, it’s everyone,” Sam said. “Literally every day I’ve been here there’s a new dead person.”
“That’s because people die, Sam. That’s why you have to take your vitamins.” Pearl shook sand off her tropical shirt. “And forgive people before it’s too late.”
“See?” Jessie asked. “How could I possibly go every day without this in my life?”
“What do you think, Grandma?” Sam really hoped Pearl would at least consider the move. She’d feel a lot better about packing up the house if she knew the boxes were headed next door.
Pearl seemed to weigh her options as she sipped her coffee. “Let’s discuss,” she said to Jessie. “But I’d need to bring my beach signs.”
