Learning to Hula

“Hypocrite,” she says again.

“You have a rather limited vocabulary for a woman your age,” I remark, knowing how much those nine years she has on me bother her. I’ve been teasing Pam longer than Rob did, even though he was more inventive, but she’s always been more amused than annoyed by me.

She’s smiling against the mug as she takes a sip; I can tell by the widening of the lipstick marks she leaves on the rim. Pam goes nowhere without her makeup. I expect today she needs the armor more than any other.

I want to ask how she enjoyed her first night sleeping alone. But that question brings up painful memories. I didn’t sleep in our bed for weeks after Rob died. It was just too big and lonely without him.

“Hey, you tattled on me,” she reminds me.

Although a couple of weeks have passed since I told Mom about Pam’s plans, I feel enough guilt to squirm against the leather stool.

Mom’s restaurant looks more Irish pub than English tearoom with its rich brown leather stools and chairs, gleaming oak trim and floors and shiny brass fixtures. She did a lot of refurbishing down here, probably working out her anger over Dad’s death as I’d worked out mine in Smiley’s yesterday. But she’d done nothing with the upstairs, leaving the items the previous owners had stored up there.

“Mom needed to know why we were cleaning out the apartment,” I say in my defense.

“And the plan was to tell her that you were going to use it as an office for your bookkeeping since you sold Rob’s business,” Pam reminds me.

I shake my head. Although I often tease Pam about her age, she hasn’t been acting it lately. “I was not going to lie to Mom and sneak around behind her back.”

“Not perfect little Holly,” she agrees, transporting me back to my childhood.

She and Emma had been the ones to lie and sneak around, and because I was younger, they’d excluded me. Or maybe they’d excluded me because I had tattled back then, likely only out of revenge. It hadn’t mattered if I’d tattled or not, they always got caught and suffered the consequences.

Like Rob had. I shake off the maudlin thought; I’ve done enough wallowing. It’s time to move on. Maybe Pam has the right idea.

“Did you really think you could move in without her knowing?” I ask.

Pam shrugs, trying for nonchalance even as her face flushes with color. “I just wasn’t ready to tell her yet about leaving Keith.”

“You worried for nothing. Mom is okay with you staying here. She knows it’s just a separation.” A very temporary one, I suspect. Pam’s been married too long—she doesn’t remember how lonely being single is.

She shrugs again.

“Pam? You are going to try to save your marriage, aren’t you?”

“I worked on it for twenty-five years, Holly.”

Work? Was that what marriage was supposed to be, like a job you labored at twenty-four—seven? Mine hadn’t been like that, if you exclude the times I tried to get Rob to eat right. The rest of it had pretty much been a party, full of fun and games and lots of laughter.

Pam expels a weary breath, then adds, “I need a break.” From the exasperated look she shoots me, I suspect she doesn’t want a break just from her marriage but from her family’s questions about it, too. Not that Emma, Mom or I have asked her much about their problems. We hadn’t thought they had any, so we’ve been too shocked by the news to ask.

“Why are you here?” she asks me. “Books to do? Don’t let me keep you.”

I smile at the eagerness in her voice. She obviously wants to get rid of me. “I came to talk to Mom,” I say, but don’t tell her it’s because I need to see if there’s a chapter in the widow guidebook about how to deal with resentful children. If I admitted that, Pam might offer advice, or at least an opinion, since she has one about everything. But she really can’t understand. She has only one daughter, who was always sweet and loving. Of course Rachael doesn’t know her mom left her dad yet. After Rachael married, a little less than a year ago, she moved to the other side of the state, to Detroit, for her husband’s job.

“You wanted to warn her about your meltdown in Smiley’s,” Pam guesses.

“But someone already told her about that,” I say, glaring at my oldest sister.

“This is Stanville. You expected to keep a secret here?” she asks.

I don’t point out that she expected to do the same, and just continue to glare suspiciously at her.

“It wasn’t me. I haven’t even seen her yet.” She turns on her stool and waves at Mom across the room, where she’s leaning over a table. All the men over fifty, and some under, are staring at her behind. “Until just now.”

I could argue semantics with Pam, that she could have called instead of seeing her, but I know it’s not her way of doing things. And if it was, she might not have been the first and certainly wasn’t the last to share my Kitty Cupcake coup with Mom.

“I know it wasn’t you,” I admit, cutting Pam a break.

She’s going to need it. When she realizes she made a mistake, I hope Keith gives her one and takes her back. I’m almost relieved now knowing that the boxes and bags in the hall and the garage are full of my stuff, not hers.

The kids said the contents belonged to them, but when I checked, I found towels, blankets and pillows. Their “packing” had consisted of emptying the linen closet.

“It was probably Bulletin Bill,” she murmurs around her mug, shrugging a shoulder toward the end of the counter.

Bill Diller is the only man whose head doesn’t turn to watch my mother. We figured out when we were kids why that was, that he and our math teacher, Simon Van Otten, who is now the school principal, weren’t just fishing buddies. But since the locals keep electing Bill mayor, I doubt the rest of our little conservative town knows. They think he’s simply a confirmed bachelor. He and Simon are still fishing together exclusively.

As an old-timer gets up to leave, he stops by Bill, patting his shoulder. “Hey, Mayor, I’m going to see if anything’s biting since the rain stopped. You gonna let me in on the location of your secret fishing hole?”

Bill laughs and shakes his head, as it’s not a secret he’s willing to share. But that’s the only secret he’s ever kept. If I hadn’t told Mom about Pam walking out on her marriage, he would have.

“So how was it last night, by yourself?” I ask Pam despite myself.

She’s my sister. She was there for me. Even though I don’t agree with what she’s doing, I intend to support her.

“Quiet,” she says.

I remember those first nights after Rob died. The quiet had been deafening. Now I think back to how many times I jammed my elbow in his side and complained about his snoring until he rolled over, taking most of the blankets with him. What I wouldn’t give to lie shivering and wide-awake next to him. I’ve passed stage five and accepted that’s not going to happen. But Pam can still go home.

Before I can suggest it, she releases a deep breath. “It was heaven….”

“What?”

“The silence.”

“You liked it?”

“I loved it!”

So now is probably not a good time to mention going home to her. I’ll wait. She’ll get sick of the silence. I know. The kids gave me the silent treatment this morning, and I got sick of it in the amount of time it took them each to shovel down a bowl of cereal and rush out to catch the bus.

Pam jerks so suddenly that coffee sloshes over the rim of her mug. She lets out a soft whistle that only I can hear. When she’s with Emma and me, she’s not the banker’s wife, she’s the bossy older sister, but she can also be fun in her way.

My head swivels in the direction of her gaze. I hope it’s Keith, looking particularly handsome in one of his dark suits, that has her so interested. But this is a different man, one in uniform. He’s not a mailman or a meter reader but the officer the county sheriff assigned to serve and protect Stanville.

“He makes it tempting to break the law,” she murmurs.

Deputy Nathan Westmoreland is the man to whom I still owe an apology, and I’m not about to deliver it in front of the crowd in The Tearoom. Despite Mom’s damage control, I’ve already given them enough to talk about.

And talk they will.

If Smiley didn’t report me to the police, Bulletin Bill will. On spotting the deputy, who’s hard to miss with his wide shoulders and black hair, Bill jumps up from his stool and rushes over to him. The silver glitters around the huge stone of his turquoise ring as he pumps Westmoreland’s hand.

Pam and I look at each other and roll our eyes. She shrugs. “I can’t fault his taste.”

“I hope the principal doesn’t catch him,” I whisper. “I can’t stay,” I add, getting up from the stool. I need to do a little damage control of my own and have a few ideas on how to start. I’ll pick Mom’s brain another time.

As I slip out the door, I turn back and my gaze briefly meets the deputy’s. We nod at each other, and I feel my face flush. I really don’t care if everyone tells him what happened at Smiley’s. He’s seen me far more out of control than that.

Claire slams the door so hard that the Tahoe shakes. Then she settles into the back seat without as much as a hello. But at least she’s here. Her brother wasn’t when I stopped by the high school to pick him up first.

“Hi,” I say.

I get nothing but a huffy breath in reply. I’m not sure if that’s about last night and she’s holding a grudge or if it’s just her usual attitude. Since she hit puberty, she lets out more hot air than a ballooning contest.

I understand hormones. I can remember letting out a few of those huffy breaths myself, and I’d been a relatively perfect child, at least compared to my older sisters. But I’m in no mood for her attitude after waiting for Robbie.

“So you heard me this morning when I said I’d pick you up from school.”

This time she answers me although her tone is not to my liking. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Oh, yeah, but your brother wasn’t.”

“I have piano.”

That’s why I always pick her up on Thursdays. Robbie and I usually hang out at the office or The Tearoom until Claire’s done with her lesson with the mayor’s mother. Mrs. Diller used to be the music teacher at the elementary school when my sisters and I went there.

“Didn’t Rob know I was picking him up, too?”

“I guess he didn’t feel like waiting.”

It’s odd that she’s defending him. Usually she’s tattling on him the way I used to tattle on Pam and Emma.

“So he took the bus home.”

No big deal, unless he gets into the special gordita dinner before Claire and I get home. I chopped up all the peppers, tomatoes and onions before I left. Even though I washed my hands, I can smell the onions yet. The leather steering wheel will probably smell like them for some time to come.

I’m not so worried about Robbie eating the healthy things. But if he eats all the strawberry shortcake, his favorite food, before we get home, he’ll be in trouble.

“Maybe that’s what he did,” Claire says, in that I-know-a-secret tone every sister learns. Usually she uses it on him, though, not me.

I should be happy that they’re getting along, for that hasn’t been the case since Claire learned to talk. Like sisters everywhere, she knows which buttons to push for the biggest reaction, and pesters and teases Robbie incessantly. Robbie is typically quiet and mild-mannered; she’s always been the only one who can set off his temper…until now.

Now everything’s changed. The only reason they seem to be getting along is that they have something in common—being mad at me. I know they’re not automatically going to forgive me just because I made their favorite dinner, but it’s a start.

Besides, I owe them some homemade dinners. I’ve been so busy lately with trying to get everything ready for the closing with the business, training Steve’s mom, going over records while we waited for all the paperwork to be processed regarding Rob’s estate.

It got so bad that Claire and Robbie started complaining about eating pizza too much. Maybe Pam’s right—I am a hypocrite. Just because my children are both probably underweight doesn’t mean that now is not the time to instill healthy eating habits in them. I used to, back when I’d had Rob on that diet.

I remember the days they used to beg for Rob to pick up a pizza on his way home from work. He’d had one with him that night….

“Mom!”

I step on the brakes. “What?”

“You almost passed Mrs. Diller’s.”

I glance around and see that I am just past the short picket fence that marks her property line. Behind it stands a little white bungalow, its yard aglow with the riotous colors of all the mums she’s planted.

Despite her age, Mrs. Diller rises agilely from her knees and peels off her gardening gloves and floppy straw hat. As Claire hops out to join her without so much as a goodbye, Mrs. Diller waves her hat at me.

I hesitate before pulling away. Robbie’s not with me and I’m not sure what to do, so I watch Claire for a moment. I watch the sulkiness leave her face as a smile spreads across it. I watch her snuggle into Mrs. Diller’s quick embrace before walking with her into the house. The storm door bounces twice against the frame before closing behind them and shutting me out.

My chest hurts. I want to see that smile on Claire’s face again. For me.

“Everyone grieves in his or her own way,” the grief counselor had informed me. That was about all she could offer regarding the kids’ feelings, since they wouldn’t share any of them with her.

Until last night they hadn’t shared that much with me, either. The tears in the early days. The shock. The denial. Last night was the first that I’ve felt their anger. Ironically, the same day I really gave in to mine. Maybe everyone in my house grieves in the same way.

“Give them time,” my mother said the day of the funeral and several times since. With the business sold, I can give them all my time now. Tonight’s dinner is just the beginning.

Since I’ve waited at the curb so long, I don’t have time to drive home and back. I’ll let Robbie wait at home—if that’s where he is—for a while longer so he can cool off.

Instead I run into town to check on Pam. The outside door for the stairwell to her apartment is locked. She’s probably at her yoga class in Grand Rapids, which is about a forty-five-minute drive away from Stanville.

Thinking I might collect some paperwork, I use my key to let myself into The Tearoom. It closes at three-thirty every day. It’s only four now, so the air is still rich with the mingled aromas of coffee, herbal teas and cinnamon. I breathe deeply, appreciating now why this place means so much to my mother.

Even empty, it’s still abuzz with the chatter from the day, the gossip, which was probably mostly about me. Really, Pam owes me. If not for my incident at Smiley’s, folks would have all been talking about her separation.

I wonder how long it took Bulletin Bill to spill the news about me to the deputy. Not long, I’m sure. But I bet Westmoreland wasn’t surprised. What does surprise him? He was solemn but not upset the night he brought me the news about Rob.

Westmoreland’s not from here, but he’s lived in Stanville long enough to be accepted. A few years? I can’t remember when he came or where he’s from, probably a big city where he’s seen far more than a heart-attack-induced traffic accident.

For him that was routine.

For me, it was the end of every routine I’ve ever known.

I glance at my watch, then lock the door as I leave to pick up Claire. She grunts when I ask her how her lesson went. That’s still better than the silent treatment from the morning. Not much, but better.

The house is quiet when we step inside. Some of the bags by the back door are missing. That’s good. Robbie’s already begun to put some of it away, tantrum over as quickly as mine had passed in Smiley’s. Robbie’s still my mild-mannered boy.

“Call your brother for dinner,” I tell Claire, as I open the fridge and bring out the seasoned strips of steak and chicken, which I’ve already sautéed. They just need to be popped into the microwave for a quick reheat. I reach for a plate on the counter when my sleeve brushes against something that rustles. A folded piece of paper with “Mom” scrawled across it.

I pick up the note and unfold it.

“Since you’re getting rid of everything that reminds you of Dad, I figure you’re going to get rid of me next. So I’m saving you the trouble.”

STAGE 4

I am not stupid, nor did I raise stupid children. I don’t really believe that Robbie has run away.

Despite living in a small town, he is aware of the dangers that might befall a teenager traveling on his own, and because of our small town, traveling would not be easy. The closest bus terminal is a forty-five-minute drive away, the same for the train station and airport.

How would he get to Grand Rapids? Once again, I am glad that I loaned out Rob’s Beetle. And because of the asthma that has excused him from every Phys Ed class, I know that Robbie did not run away.

If he were truly like his father, this would be one of those pranks he’s been pulling lately, and I would open his bedroom door and he’d be standing there with a big grin on his face, thinking he is so funny even though he’s not.

But his room is empty.

I know this without even stepping inside because the door is open. His bedroom door is never open.

Neither is Claire’s. Hers is shut now, with signs posted all over that No Trespassers Are Allowed. Those used to be meant for Robbie. Now I’m not so sure to whom she is referring, but I don’t care what she thinks. I am not a trespasser in my own home.

I open her door without knocking. She whirls away from her bed, where she is pulling stuff from her backpack. I step close enough that I can see a couple of wadded-up T-shirts and some CDs. Packing or unpacking? Is she intending to leave me a note, too?

“I told you to call Robbie for dinner,” I remind her, watching her face.

Her mouth twists into the familiar sulky pout. “I didn’t hear you,” she claims. The pout becomes a sneer. “I didn’t hear you knock, either.”

I swallow the words threatening to erupt. This is my house. I don’t knock on doors in my own house. Those were my mother’s words whenever Pam or Emma protested her “invading” their privacy. She’d never had to invade mine. I’d never kept any secrets from her. And Claire never used to keep any secrets from me.

She and I had been close…until a few months ago. So much has changed since then. She is no longer my little girl. She’s as tall as I am and poised on the brink of adolescence. Even her room reflects this. Not much of the soft yellow walls can be seen through the odd mixture of rock posters and pictures of kitties curled in baskets or hanging from tree limbs. Although she wants to, she’s not quite sure how to grow up. So she’s pushing me, testing her limits.

And mine.

Back when she used to share stuff with me, she’d told me about a friend of hers who purposely makes her mother mad because she thinks it’s funny to watch her turn red, and hear her swear. I suspect that is what she and Robbie have been trying with me, not because they think it’s funny, but because they’re stuck in stage two: anger. They’re lashing out like I did in Smiley’s.

I am the cupcake now.

“So where is Robbie?” I ask her, ignoring the odd little flutter in my chest. I refuse to panic. There’s no reason for it. Robbie has not run away, he’s just trying to make a point.

Claire shrugs and looks down at the T-shirts on the unmade bed. “I don’t know. Probably downstairs.”

In his father’s den. He still spends all his time there, playing on the computer. He’s not going to be pleased when I take over the room for my office, but Robbie has a laptop he can use anywhere. I need the space for files.

“I don’t think he’s there,” I say, knowing I will check anyway.

“Whatever…”

That is another chorus she sings, like the “it’s not fair” one.

“What’s with the stuff in your backpack?” I ask her, wanting to know if she thinks she’s leaving, too. Is this something they planned together, like the packed bags and boxes and the For Sale sign on the front lawn?

“I got it back from Heather.”

She and her friends share clothes and CDs so this is not unusual. But I detect that surly note in her voice, not directed at me for once. “Are you and Heather fighting?”

It would not surprise or disappoint me if Claire said yes. This is the girl who purposely makes her mother mad.

She nods. “Yeah, she’s a lying bitch!”

“Claire!” Despite our house rule against swearing, she’s called her brother names many times, but never a friend, even a friend like Heather.

“I don’t need her.” Her dark eyes tell me more, that she doesn’t think she needs anyone.

I’ve wondered why the phone, which used to ring incessantly, has been so quiet. I want to talk to her about this, about her isolation from her friends, because I understand. My friends have stopped calling, too. They expressed their sympathy at the funeral, but now they don’t know what to say to me. And if adults can’t figure it out, I doubt young girls can.

I want to explain this to her, but don’t believe she’ll listen to me now. I need to find Robbie and treat them both to their favorite dinner first. I hand her the note.

“What’s this?” she asks.

“You tell me.” They are too close now for her not to know.

She reads it through narrowed eyes. “He ran away?”

“You tell me,” I say again. “Earlier, when I asked you about his not riding the bus, you acted like you knew something. Did you know about this?”

“No!” she cries, tossing the note back at me. Her hands are shaking. She’s madder now, at him, than at Heather or me. I don’t think it’s because he ran away but because he ran away without her. “All he told me was that he wasn’t waiting for you to pick him up. He didn’t say anything else. He’s a liar!”

She may think she doesn’t need anyone, but she’s come to depend on her brother. Regardless of their past relationship as pest-pestee, they are the only ones who truly understand what each other is going through, more so than I do. With Rob’s passing, I lost my husband; they lost their father.

“I doubt he’s really run away,” I assure her, as she’s blinking back tears. “We’ll find him.”

I reach to put my arm around her, but she pulls away from me.

“Whatever…”

I am mad now, not worried. I still believe he is too smart to have run away. I’m mad because he’s so smart that he has hidden well. He’s not with his friends. I have called their houses, had their mothers search their rooms, as I have searched every room of my house.

And the garage.

And the shed in the back.

And now, as I stand at the kitchen window of Emma’s farmhouse, I watch flashlight beams bounce around in the woods like huge fireflies. Others are searching for him now.

But he isn’t out there.

Autumn, even this early, and his asthma are a bad combination. If he’s out among the rotting leaves, he’ll be breathing so hard that they’ll hear him, the flashlights unnecessary. But it’s important to them that they search. Keith is looking, with Emma’s husband, Troy, and her oldest son, Dylan. It’s how men react; they have to fix things. That was how Rob got into computer repair in the first place. He was a fixer, too.

But his expression would not be as grim as theirs had been when they learned Robbie was missing. He’d be smiling, cracking jokes or sleeping. I remember how he used to play hide-n-go-seek with the kids when they were little. He’d created his own version: hide-n-go-sleep.

While Robbie and Claire hid away, being absolutely quiet so he wouldn’t hear them, Rob would lie down on the couch where he’d been counting, and fall asleep. His snoring would eventually draw them from their hiding places, and he’d catch them when he awoke, without ever leaving the couch.