CHAPTER THIRTY-6
It was the whitest room she had ever seen. Floors white, walls white, even the shadows were white. And Diana sat up in bed, waiting for her visitor to walk through the white door. There were no more voices, no more faces, no more eyes, and no more whispers. It was just her and the silence and the white, together and alone in the room with no color or view.
The door opened and Mrs. Christopher appeared, her face nearly as white as the room—except for the red nose and streaks of black mascara that revealed she had been crying. She remained frozen in the doorway until Diana's attempt to smile let her know that it was okay to enter. And once she did, she approached the bed slowly, as if fast footsteps would break the fragile woman on top of it. Sitting beside her daughter and taking her hand with gentle caution, Mrs. Christopher allowed her watery eyes to search Diana's face for answers. But Diana couldn't give her any, at least not yet, for she was fighting back tears of her own.
"I was out to dinner," Mrs. Christopher confessed, barely audible. "The one time I leave my cell phone at home . . ." Her voice drifted away for a moment. When it returned, it was louder, but faltering. "There was a message for me when I got back." Diana knew she would never be able to remember whose tears fell first but only that it was the first time that she and her mother had ever cried together. "Oh, Diana, why?" Mrs. Christopher begged, like something out of one of her bulimia fantasies. The only difference was that in the fantasies, Diana had never felt sorry for her. "Why?" her mother continued. "Why did you . . .do this?!" It was tremendously difficult for her to speak, and she had to hold on to her daughter's shoulders to keep from collapsing. Suddenly, Diana felt like the stronger one. She had never seen her mother go to pieces before and she wanted to take care of her.
"Mom, I didn't . . ." Diana began, wiping away her own tears. "The psychiatrist said I had a dissociative response to a tragedy . . ." Her voice was breaking up. She wanted to be clinical about this, to comfort her mother with the detached professional synopsis of what she had done, or more precisely, of what had happened to her—to slap any label on it that wasn't "attempted suicide"—but she couldn't. She couldn't de-personalize the incident by simply regurgitating the medical jargon the doctor had made her swallow. Not that she didn't believe it. It was just that the word tragedy was such an obvious euphemism for what had actually caused her response, and each time she heard it, she was reminded all too vividly of what it really meant—that Mrs. Bartle was dead.
"It's okay, Diana," her mother said, hugging her. "You don't have to talk about it."
"But I want to," Diana protested, clutching her tightly and finally knowing what it was like to be held by her mother. "Mom, I didn't try to kill myself." Mrs. Christopher pulled away slowly, staring into Diana's eyes as if she were bracing the both of them for the truth that had to be spoken. "Like I said, it was a dissociative response, which means I separated myself from myself, if that makes any sense."
"Not really," her mother whispered, smiling lightly, perhaps just realizing how lucky she was that Diana was even alive.
"It was like I was outside of myself, like I wasn't in control of my actions," Diana explained. "I don't remember a lot about it, really. Just a lot of fuzziness, like my eyesight was messed up. Well that, and some crazy stuff whizzing around in my brain."
"What crazy stuff?" Mrs. Christopher looked so amazingly compassionate and concerned that Diana couldn't believe she was the same woman whose very image had so often made her cringe. For the first time in her entire life, she felt like she could tell her mother anything and that she would understand. Not that she would give the best advice and know exactly how to make her feel better, like Mrs. Bartle had done for all of those years, but that she would understand. And if it weren't for the simple fact that Diana was too exhausted to explain to her mother whom all of the voices in her head had belonged to, she would have told her.
But instead, all she said was, "Memories."
"Memories?"
"Yeah. Just memories . . .from my life, you know?"
"Yeah," Mrs. Christopher said, stroking Diana's hair like she understood, like maybe she had crazy memories, too.
"Anyway, I ended up getting into my car, and things started coming back to me—just rushing in, all at once. I had a panic attack while I was driving . . .I passed out and that's when I crashed." The words made Diana feel helpless and she burst back into tears.
"Oh, baby girl," Mrs. Christopher said soothingly, lowering Diana's head onto her shoulder. She hadn't called her daughter "baby girl" since Diana really was a baby girl, and if Diana had taken the time to think about it, she might not have even remembered the term. But like a newborn basking in its mother's love, it seemed as if she'd never known from being called anything else.
"Mom," Diana continued, sobbing. "Mrs. Bartle is . . . dead!" The last word emerged hysterically as Diana tightened her shaking hands into little fists and covered her face, like the glass was going to shatter around her again. She couldn't stand to use that ugly word—a word so unmerciful, so final, cold and cruel—in relation to Mrs. Bartle.
"Mrs. Bartle? That sweet old lady from upstairs?" Mrs. Christopher asked.
"It was DOWNSTAIRS!" Diana screamed, lifting her face to meet her mother's, suddenly infuriated for all the times she'd made that mistake or, worse yet, forgotten Mrs. Bartle's name entirely. "She was my best friend!"
"Diana, I'm sorry—"
"No, I'm sorry!" Her voice had risen to a shrill screech. "I'm sorry that my best friend is dead! I'm sorry that Daddy's dead! I'm sorry that I killed him! I'm sorry that—"The pain in her mother's eyes caused her to stop screaming. It was a familiar kind of pain, like the kind Diana could feel reflecting through her own eyes whenever she thought about her father, the kind that was probably there right now, mirroring her mother's. "I'm sorry that I embarrassed you," Diana continued softly, lowering her eyes to the bed, "when I cried for Bernie that one time."
"Bernie?"
"Yeah, remember Bernie with the drinking problem? How he died in the street and no one cared and I ran out there screaming in front of all the neighbors?"
"Diana," Mrs. Christopher said, smiling gently, as she smoothed some hair away from her daughter's face, "Bernie was an ex-con who had served three years in prison for beating his pregnant girlfriend so badly she miscarried. His poor, sick mother had taken him in when he was paroled because he couldn't afford a place of his own, and he thanked her by blowing her social security checks on bar tabs. Did you know that the neighbors used to take turns driving her to pick up her prescriptions because Bernie was always too hung over to do it himself?"
Diana shook her head. If she had known any of this, she never would have bothered waving to him on her walks home from school or getting out of bed every night to watch him stumble away from the cab.
"Of course you didn't know. You were just a little girl then, and you wouldn't have understood . . . The little girl with the strawberry curls," Mrs. Christopher said, twirling Diana's hair around on her finger with a sentimental smile. "I should've told you about Bernie when you got older. But I never knew you still carried it around. You never mentioned it, so I must have figured you'd forgotten. I had."
"There were a lot of things I never mentioned, Mom." Diana spoke softly. She wanted to be careful with the truth, to use it not as a weapon to create new wounds, but as a way to possibly heal some old ones. More than anything, she just wanted to keep talking honestly like this—with her mom. It was something they'd never really tried before.
"I know," Mrs. Christopher sighed, looking down as she took Diana's hand. "And that's my fault, too." She took a breath as if she were about to say something else, but then she paused, looking up, suddenly confused. "Diana, why did you say you killed your daddy? Your father died in a car accident. You know that."
"I know," Diana said. "But he died because . . ." She'd never said it out loud before, and her heart was pounding the same way it had when she was six and she thought her mother already knew. And although she'd never gotten over believing that, her fear of getting in trouble for it had decreased over the years. But now that she was about to admit it, she was frightened of the consequences. For her mother's wrathful reaction could only be worse now than it would have been when her daughter was six and she was still legally obligated to care for her. Perhaps more frightening than anything, however, was that slight chance that maybe her mother didn't know anything about it at all. Taking a deep breath, Diana forced herself to finish the confession. "Because I kept making him read me more stories even though I knew he was tired and had a really long drive ahead of him."
"Oh, Diana, honey, I knew that!" Mrs. Christopher exclaimed, waving her off without the slightest evidence of shock.
"You did?"
"Of course! You did stuff like that all the time."
"I did?"
"Sure," her mother said, shaking her head as if completely confounded by her daughter's failure to remember what appeared to have been a constant childhood habit. "You were wonderful at manipulating us. We'd come to expect it. Of course, I do remember one time when you really pulled a fast one on me."
"A fast one?"
"Oh, you were gooood," her mother joked, peering at Diana slyly from the corner of her eye. "You even got to me most of the time, and I was supposed to be the disciplinarian!" She laughed. "Your father, now, he was the old softie. He never said no to you." It felt strange to hear her mother admit to being the stricter parent, for although she obviously was, Diana had never imagined that she'd been that way because somebody needed to be. She'd always just assumed that Daddy was warm because he loved her a lot and that Mommy was cold because she loved her a lot less. "Anyway, this one time," Mrs. Christopher continued, "you made me so late for dinner at my aunt Laura's that she fell asleep waiting for me with her face flat on the dining room table and a piece of fettuccine stretching from her mouth all the way to the floor!" Her mother giggled at the image. "Oh, Diana, she was so mad at me—until I told her why I was late, and then she forgave me. 'Patty,' she said, 'don't you ever deny that little girl the joy of being read to by her mother. I don't care if you're two days late next time instead of just two hours. That little girl of yours is worth it.'"
"Didn't Aunt Laura die?"
"Yes, Diana, but not because you were a little girl who liked bedtime stories," Mrs. Christopher reassured her, taking Diana's face in her hands like she was once again a little girl who needed Mommy to tell her that things would be okay. "And that's not why your daddy died either."
"But if I hadn't—"
"Diana, there's something I never told you about your father's death," her mother interrupted. Diana's eyes grew wide with curiosity, the kind that makes one both crave and dread the truth. "Your father . . ." Mrs. Christopher took a deep breath. "About three months before he died, your daddy got sick. So we took him to a doctor—a psychiatrist—and, uh . . ." Diana watched as her mother struggled to compose herself. She was trembling, and for the first time ever, Diana felt closer to her than she did to the father she missed every day of her life. Perhaps it was because she and her mother were still here, discovering that they had more in common—more pain, more memories, more love and more fear—than either of them had ever taken the time to realize.
"Mom, it's okay."
"I know, honey," her mother said, grabbing her daughter's hand tightly and with a courageous smile, as if Diana's hand were all she needed to go on. "Diana, your father suffered from severe anxiety. And I don't mean the kind that makes you have trouble sleeping and gives you that feeling of panic in social situations—although he suffered from both of those things. But it was far worse than that."
"Well, how bad was it?"
"He would, um . . .sometimes, he would start to hallucinate." The tears began to spill again from Mrs. Christopher's eyes. "He'd see things that weren't there and flip out about stuff that had never really happened."
Diana shook her head from side to side, fighting a memory she'd always dismissed as a bad dream. "That time . . ." she began, "that time when I came home from kindergarten and all the lights were out and the curtains completely drawn . . . and we found Daddy in the basement . . .hiding in the storage closet . . ." Mrs. Christopher nodded slowly, closing her eyes over her tears. "He was whispering," Diana continued. "Something about . . .some people . . .the . . ."Diana struggled to remember the name.
"The Linderbachs are coming," her mother said softly, looking over Diana's shoulder, as if into another time.
"Who were the Linderbachs?"
"I never found out . . . Most likely nobody, just people that his mind made up for him to be scared of." Her mother looked back into her eyes apologetically. "I told you it was a bad dream. I just didn't want you to look at your daddy the way I was starting to."
"Mom, it's all right," Diana consoled her. "I forgive you."
"You do?" Mrs. Christopher looked stunned.
"Of course, I do. I'm glad I didn't know. I mean, you could have told me before now, but I'm glad I didn't know then."
"He wanted help, Diana, he really did," her mother continued, straightening herself up and wiping her eyes. "He didn't want to lose his family—that was the one fear that didn't come from his head. It came from his heart. You—and me, too, but especially you—you meant everything to him. Anyway, um—" her voice began to waver "—the night your father left you at Mrs. Kingsly's to come spend the weekend down the shore with me for our anniversary . . . well . . . I never knew anything about that . . .I was driving home from work when I saw the flames." Mrs. Christopher covered her mouth and tried desperately to catch her breath. It was like she could see the fire in front of her again, like she was seeing it for the first time. "There were sirens all over the place—police, ambulance, fire trucks. And although I couldn't even make out what kind of car it was, I just got this terrible feeling. There was a cop conducting traffic, but he wouldn't answer anyone's questions. I watched him shrug his shoulders at the driver in front of me, and all he said was, 'They haven't identified the body yet.'"
"Oh, God!" Diana cried out, raising her hands to her own mouth in horror. Although she had envisioned it so many times, the image she'd created of her father's accident now seemed like a cartoon compared to these brutal details she'd never heard before—like all of those terrifying sirens and her father being the unidentified "body" engulfed in a traffic-blocking sea of flames.
"I came home to a note," her mother continued softly, looking down at the bed. "It said that you were around the corner at Mrs. Kingsly's and that he'd told you he was leaving to meet me for an anniversary weekend down the shore, that he'd tried calling me at work but must have just missed me, and that I should go to the second floor, west wing waiting room of St. Peter's Hospital so that we could discuss some possible excuses for where he'd be for the next few weeks, or months, or however long it was going to take." Mrs. Christopher looked up and into her daughter's eyes. "He ended by saying 'I love you' and 'Please don't tell Diana where I am, just that Daddy loves her very much and will miss her every day that he's gone.'"
"So the day he left me with Mrs. Kingsly . . ." Diana began slowly, trying to piece together twenty-six years of darkness with the single light of truth she'd just been given.
"He was going to check himself in for treatment," her mother finished for her. "I got the call that he was dead about fifteen minutes after I read the note."
"Well, what did you do in those fifteen minutes before you knew?" Diana asked.
"I cried," her mother said, "because I already knew. You had to drive over those train tracks in order to get to St. Peter's. I just knew after I read the note that the car was his. And I didn't want to leave the house because I didn't want to miss the call."
"Mom, I'm so sorry. If I had known . . ." Diana didn't know what to say. She didn't know what she would have done had she known the whole truth before now.
Mrs. Christopher smiled sadly. "If you had known, then I wouldn't have honored what I believed to have been your father's last wish."
"Then thanks for not telling me," Diana said. And she meant it. But after a few moments of silence, a terrible thought crossed her mind. "So, do you think that Daddy meant to—"
"Sometimes," her mother interrupted, saving Diana from having to finish the awful sentence herself. "But other times I think that maybe he had another hallucination and lost control of the car. The truth is that I don't know." Mrs. Christopher looked exhausted and, for the first time ever, she looked old, or at least as old as any woman who'd carried around such a heartwrenching secret for over a quarter of a century would look. "The newspapers said it was an accident, that it seemed he had fallen asleep driving," she continued. "And since your father had never been formally diagnosed with anything more than an anxiety problem, I never told anyone about the hallucinations he was on his way to get help for. And I never showed anyone the note. Diana, there's probably a very good chance that your father was schizophrenic. But if we never knew that for sure, why should other people have had the chance to speculate about it after he was gone? He was a wonderful man, Diana. He really was. And sick or not at the very end, his memory deserved the same dignity as any other good man."
"Well, you gave that to him," Diana said, looking her mother straight in the eye to let her know how much she meant it.
"Thank you," Mrs. Christopher whispered, holding her hand to her heart. "You know, you remind me a lot of him—the good parts, I mean, before he got sick."
"I do?"
"Oh, so much." Her mother smiled. "The way you tell a story, the way you laugh, the way you show it, but think you hide it, when you want the whole world to go to hell." Diana laughed. "Your wit," her mother continued, "your loyalty, your ability to find that one true friend and really treasure her, like you did with Mrs. Bartle. But what's really worried me over the years has been your dark side, your brooding side, the one that makes you withdraw from the world. Your father had that, too. And on one hand, it was wonderful. It meant that he was sensitive and thoughtful and deeply unique—all of the things that you are, all of the things that made me love both of you. But that dark side can betray you. It can make you hurt yourself. And I guess that's why, since I missed the chance to save your daddy from his, I was always trying so hard to save you from yours. Although, I'm sure I went about it the wrong way," Mrs. Christopher said, laughing lightly.
"You drove me nuts," Diana admitted.
"And when you're a mother, you'll do that to your kids. I just wanted you to be happy. So I started with the outside, with the most obvious problem that I thought I could help you fix, which was your—"
"Weight," Diana interjected, at the exact moment that her mother was concluding with the very same sentiment. They smiled at each other—a warm, genuine, and incredibly refreshing smile that Diana never imagined they would share over the subject of her weight. "I'm sorry I pushed you away."
"It's okay. I'd have pushed me away, too," her mother said with a laugh.
"I guess after Daddy died, I never really wanted to get too close. I think I was worried I might lose you, too."
"It's okay, honey," Mrs. Christopher said, reaching out gently to tuck a strand of hair behind Diana's ear. "I think that in my own way, I did the same thing."
"I love you, Mom," Diana said. She knew the words should have felt strange, but for some reason they didn't—they were the only words that seemed right.
"Oh, I love you too, baby," her mother said, pulling her close for a hug and exhaling a deep sigh of relief. "I'm just so glad you're okay . . . with everything."
"I am," Diana said softly, resting her head on her mother's shoulder and feeling more relaxed than she had in a long time.
"Good. Because there's something else I haven't told you yet."
"What?" Diana asked, lifting herself up suddenly. "What is it?"
"You're getting skinny" Mrs. Christopher said, poking her daughter's shoulder playfully.
Diana had waited most of her life to hear these words, but somehow, although they were a pleasant runner-up, they still didn't mean as much as I love you. She leaned back against her pillow. Her eyelids felt heavy, but she had one more question to ask, one more answer she needed to find before she could rest.
"Mom?" she asked, struggling to keep her eyes open. "Who's going to take care of me now that Mrs. Bartle is gone?"
Mrs. Christopher stroked her daughter's hair as she watched her fall fast asleep without even waiting for an answer. Perhaps she already knew it. But just in case there was some tiny part of consciousness still listening, a part that might filter through to Diana's dreams and make them sweeter, Mrs. Christopher, in the process of leaning over to kiss her daughter's forehead, first stopped to whisper in her ear the words, "I will." And being able to say them was her pleasant runner-up to I love you.
The warm, shadowy streaks that stretched across Diana's eyelids made her curious enough to open them. It was the sun. They'd moved her to another room, one that had a window.
"I guess I'm no longer crazy," she mumbled to herself, her throat dry from sleep.
"Well, that depends on who you ask," said a voice to her right. Diana turned around. It was Barry, sitting by her bed.
"Hi," she said shyly, wondering if it would be okay to show that never in her life had she been this grateful to see anyone else. There was just something in his voice, something in those deep brown eyes and that incredibly warm smile that said he understood her and liked her anyway.
"Hi . . . Rough night?"
Diana smiled. "How did you know I was here?"
"Well, after I got the news about, you know, Aunt Rose . . ." Barry cleared his throat, swallowing hard. "I uh . . . well, I tried to find you at your place, but you weren't there. So, I looked your mother up in the phone book. She wasn't home, but I got her cell phone number from the answering machine, and when I called her, she was here."
Diana couldn't believe he'd gone to all the trouble. If only the news that had driven him to it hadn't been so awful, then maybe she'd be able to consider the possibilities of what his going to all that trouble actually meant. But it was awful news that had brought them together.
"Barry, I'm so sorry about Mrs . . . . your aunt."
"You know, she always thought it was cute that you called her Mrs. Bartle."
"She did?"
"Yeah. But she liked it. I think it made her feel like Mrs. Garrett in 'The Facts of Life,' or maybe Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid—like she was wise and somebody's mentor. I mean, she would've been fine with you just calling her Rose, but there was still that small part of her that was probably glad you didn't. Maybe because Bartle was the name my great-uncle, Henry, gave to her. She probably liked hearing it repeated . . ." Barry paused. It was as if he wished he had more to say, like maybe if he kept talking, neither of them would have to acknowledge the wealth of emptiness that was about to become a permanent part of their lives now that Mrs. Bartle no longer was. But he didn't have more to say. All he could do was look away from her in silence, his eyes shining with unshed tears.
"Oh, Barry. I'm sorry," Diana said. "I really am sorry."
"Why didn't she tell me?" he asked. His tone was both desperate and pleading—as if the answer to his question could change fate—but still, he looked away, toward some place across the room where miracles might grow.
"Tell you what?" Diana asked gently.
Barry turned suddenly to face her. His stare was incredulous and haunted by heartache. "About the air conditioner," he said, his voice breaking. "I could have flown back early. It's only fucking business! She . . .she . . ." He ran his hands through his hair in anguished frustration, catching his breath.
"Barry, she knew that," Diana said, hoping her words would comfort him. "She told me you were coming in at the end of the week and would fix it for her. I wanted to go buy her one, even, but she said no. She said she only—"
"I know," he said, relaxing a little. "She only put the air on for company." They smiled at each other sadly, remembering her quirky charm. "She still should have told me. I spoke to her twice this week and she never even mentioned it."
"She probably just didn't want to worry you. Barry, she probably didn't even think it was anything worth worrying over. I don't think Mrs. Bartle would have purposely risked not being around for us."
Relief washed briefly over Barry's face, as if he'd just been pardoned from a guilt he'd have never known how to break free from on his own. He'd found truth in Diana's consolation, and for a moment it was enough to comfort him. But then he seemed to remember his grief, and his demeanor changed again—to one of great sorrow. He looked at Diana as if there was still something missing—a question that had to be asked.
"What is it?" she wanted to know.
"She was my best friend," Barry said. And to him, it was a question. He'd wanted to ask how life could go on without her, but hadn't been able to form the words. This was as close as he could get, but Diana understood the language of loss and knew exactly what he meant, though she couldn't answer him—his questions were the same as hers.
"I know," she said softly. "Mine, too."
Barry laid his head down on her hand, allowing his tears to fall through her fingers onto the blanket. With her free hand, Diana smoothed his hair and felt what it was like to take care of somebody else. Suddenly she had the impulse to scoop up all of his pain and make it her own. She knew, of course, that this wasn't possible. But if it were, she would do it, which was a totally unfamiliar inclination considering that she usually believed she possessed enough pain to distribute evenly amongst all non-suffering citizens of the western world, with still enough left over to keep herself more than humble. Still, here she was, wishing she could completely take away someone else's and yet knowing all the while that she was still irreversibly bound to her own.
It was a couple of minutes before Barry lifted his head and leaned back in his chair again. And then he scratched his face—not to satisfy an itch it seemed, but perhaps to create a transition gesture from which he could slip from the role of Man in Grief back into Witty, Wonderful, and Sincere Old Barry without actually having to acknowledge the breakdown. Diana understood. It was hard for men to cry. However, the fact that he had could never be forgotten, for it had brought to her attention a possibility she'd never allowed herself to recognize, not when she was seventeen, and certainly not when he resurfaced in Mrs. Bartle's living room: she might love him.
"So," Barry began, glancing over at her briefly and continuing to scratch his face, "I hear you gave the Baltimore police quite a run for their money last night."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean. . ." Barry had started to smile a little. "You're the only woman I've ever known—no, make that the only person I've ever known—that's been involved in a high-speed car chase with the police. Unless, of course, that was your stunt double in the car."
"What on earth are you talking about?"
"You really don't know?" Barry looked surprised. "Diana, the police were following you. One of the paramedics at Glen Vali put a call into the station when he saw you speed away. You had two squad cars trying to block you in when you gunned it past both of them and crashed into that café." Now that he mentioned it, she did remember hearing sirens. "We're lucky you weren't seriously hurt."
His words sent a panic through Diana, forcing her to worry about something that, astonishingly enough, hadn't occurred to her before now. "Was anyone else hurt? On the road? Or in the café?"
"Just you, my dear, with your scrapes and sore ribs," he said, running his finger lightly across the bandage on her right arm. "There was one minor fender bender reported—one car rear-ending another when their light turned green and you sped across the intersection on red, but all that came out of that was a loose license plate. Both drivers were fine."
"But what about Davey's? Was anyone in there when I—?"
"No." Barry rescued her. "I mean, yes, but . . .have you ever been inside the café?" Diana looked at him strangely. Barry smiled, embarrassed. "Sorry, bad choice of words. I mean, have you ever patronized the establishment . . . gone in for coffee or something?" Diana shook her head. "Okay, well your car entered through the front window," Barry explained. "That's where the cash register is, the coffee machines, the dessert case, maybe a tacky fake plant or two. But the tables are set up in a separate room entirely."
"And so there wasn't anybody up front when it happened?"
"No, not up front," Barry said, "but there was one boy—"
"Boy?" Diana was frightened. What boy? She thought Barry had said no one was hurt.
"Well, not exactly a boy," Barry said, squinting towards the ceiling as if deep in speculation, "but not really a man either . . . although I'm sure he'd beg to differ," he finished, looking Diana straight in the eye. She could see that he was joking.
"Barry," she pleaded.
"He was probably sixteen."
"Barry . . ."
"Or maybe seventeen. But, like, a young seventeen."
"Barry?"
"Yeah?" he asked, breaking away from his banter to assume a look of naiveté, like he hadn't a single clue as to why she'd be rushing him through his detailed physical description of the boy-man at the café.
"What about him?"
"Oh!. . . Well . . . he's fine." Diana raised her eyebrows, signaling that she was still waiting for a better answer. Barry smiled, giving in. "He was working alone and was supposed to be manning the register, but since he only had a few customers and they'd just been served, he figured there was time to go out and catch a smoke. He saw the whole thing happen through the back door."
"Oh, my God," Diana said, looking down as the chills raced through her. She couldn't believe she'd come that close to hurting someone. She couldn't believe how lucky she was that she hadn't. She looked back up at Barry, confused. "How do you know all of this?"
"I saw it on the news," he said matter-of-factly. "And I've been sitting in the waiting room with your mother since one o'clock this morning . . . She told me what the doctors said."
"Oh, my God!" Diana gasped, burying her face in her hands in a combined display of shock and embarrassment. "I don't know what's worse—the fact that I was on the news for all of Baltimore to know I'm a basket case or the fact that the man I'm interested in just spent God only knows how many hours talking to my mother." The words escaped her mouth before she had a chance to analyze them, and now that she'd spoken, she really wished she hadn't said anything at all. The man I'm interested in—the phrase echoed in her mind, over and over, filling her face with color. And she waited, for what seemed like another God-only-knows-how-many-hours, for Barry—the man she was interested in—to tease her or, worse yet, do nothing at all. But he only smiled—in a way that seemed to be neither of the two and, at the very same time, an even mixture of each. And then they locked eyes, and Barry ran his thumb over the knuckles on Diana's right hand. And despite the fact that she was wearing a faded hospital gown accented only by bruises and bandages, and that she and Barry were holding hands in the least romantic setting she could have ever imagined for such a magical moment to take place, his touch sent shivers to parts of her body that seemed to have been asleep since before she was born. And he didn't need to say anything at all—because this moment said everything. There was nothing to be embarrassed about.
Diana spoke first. "Does my mother know that you're the same Barry that took my virginity at the Suttons' New Year's Eve party?"
"Is that why she asked for my phone number?" Barry joked. Diana laughed, wondering how it was possible that someone so funny, successful and sincere could also be so handsome—and so interested in her. "Actually, I think she does know," he continued seriously. "But I don't think it bothers her."
"How come?"
"Because you're not seventeen anymore, and this isn't 1988. . . and I don't think it hurts that she knows how much I care about you."
"And how does she know that?" Diana asked, her heart tingling from his words.
"I told you, I was in the waiting room with her since one o'clock in the morning. Do you think we only talked about the accident?" Diana didn't know what to think. And for perhaps the first time in her life, she thought maybe it was okay to just be—without all the self-analysis and dissection of everyone else's actions. Maybe for once she wouldn't have to translate what another person's words were secretly or subconsciously saying about her. Maybe for once she trusted that she was worthy of being cared for without wondering about hidden motives or candid cameras. She was finally accepting herself without any strings. And she felt free. "By the way," Barry said, "Davey's won't be pressing any charges."
"Did my mother tell you that?"
"No, my lawyer did. I called him and asked if he'd represent you in the event that they did want to make a case out of it," Barry explained. "But as it turns out, we won't be needing his services. Mr. 'Davey' will make enough money from the insurance settlement and, apparently, whoever he is, he has a conscience and doesn't feel the need to go after your pockets—that is, the pockets of a woman with a medical excuse for what happened, a medical excuse that my attorney reminded his attorney came straight from the diagnosis of one of this city's leading psychiatrists, and not only that, but also from within the well-respected walls of one of this fair state's top five hospitals."
"Barry," Diana whispered, shaking her head in amazement over the great lengths he'd traveled amidst a family tragedy just to spare her further pain.
"I hope you don't mind I let the word out that those pockets probably weren't very deep, anyway," Barry said, wincing playfully as if she might punch him for it.
But Diana was far from angry. "How can I thank you?" she asked.
"Come to work for me," Barry said quickly, as if he'd been holding in the request for months, just waiting for her to ask a question like that.
"What?"
"How are you with typing and filing and answering phones?"
"No experience whatsoever," Diana said, wondering how in the world Barry had come up with this idea and where the catch was.
"Perfect." He smiled. "I was actually about to place an ad in the paper for someone with no experience whatsoever. You've saved me a lot of trouble."
"Barry, what is this about?"
"Honestly?" he asked, becoming serious. Diana nodded. "My aunt, Rose."
"I don't understand," Diana said softly. It hurt to hear Mrs. Bartle's name. But Barry's being there made it a lot easier.
"She made me promise to ask you to work for me when my Baltimore shop opens. Kind of as my secretary-slash-office manager-slash . . . whatever," Barry said, shrugging his shoulders. Diana was speechless. Even though her best friend was no longer there, it was as if she was—still looking out for her like she always had. "Now, she also made me promise not to pressure you," Barry continued, "because you just got this great new job working with kids, which is something you're really excited about." Diana didn't know why, but at this least appropriate moment in time, she was suddenly overcome by an all-consuming urge to burst out laughing. Maybe it was because in light of all the truly tragic things that had transpired or revealed themselves in the last twenty-four hours, her spazzing out on the penis-butt child suddenly seemed like comic relief, a memory that, if recalled in the proper style, could even make a funny story someday. "Anyway," Barry kept going, "she thought that if the nursery school thing didn't work out for the fall, you might like to come work for me when camp was over." Diana couldn't contain herself any longer. Gasping to catch her breath, she finally broke free, exploding with laughter—and it felt terrific. "So, here I am . . ." Barry said slowly, staring at her with a bulgy-eyed kind of pretend paranoia that only made Diana laugh harder ". . .asking, but not pressuring," he continued, feigning caution, as if Diana were something to both study and fear.
"Oh, Barry, I got fired!" she managed to yell out, as she wiped the tears of laughter from the corners of her eyes.
"Great!" he exclaimed, exaggeratedly happy, throwing his hands in the air to match her mood.
"You don't understand," Diana said breathlessly, waving him off, too exhausted to explain. Barry caught her hand before it retreated, kissing it gently and once again sending shivers to previously unalive areas of her anatomy, areas that hadn't even been kindled the first time they touched hands a couple minutes earlier. It made her wonder what parts of her body would wake up next.
"You're hired," he said, rising. "Mind if I open the curtains a little wider to get some more light in here?"
"Go ahead," Diana said, turning her head as her eyes followed him to the window. "You know, you could just turn on the light—" Her words got caught in her throat when she beheld the crystal vase on the windowsill. It was full of azaleas.
"I got them this morning," Barry said shyly. "Do you like them?"
"I had a dream," Diana whispered, staring fixedly at the flowers with a faraway look in her eyes, entranced. "It must have been just after I crashed . . . My father—" She paused suddenly, remembering what she'd learned from her mother. This was the first time she would ever look at the Daddy that lived in her dreams—superhero, angel, answer-to-her-prayers Daddy—not through the starry eyes of a six-year-old girl but through the unshielded eyes of a grown woman who knew the truth. The realization drew the corners of her mouth up into a bittersweet smile. She smiled sadly because she now knew how much he had suffered, but with extra love for the flaws that had made him human. "My father . . .he was standing there in a circle of light, beautiful light, pointing at something I couldn't see and waving me backward . . . It was kind of like the dream I had with the garden, except that time I could see what he was pointing to—I knew what he wanted. This time I was so confused. I wondered if he still loved me . . . Last time, he was welcoming me in with open arms, and now he was telling me I shouldn't have come. But then I saw his lips moving and I knew he was trying to tell me something. So I stopped wondering what was happening, and I strained to listen . . . And what he said made me realize I wasn't supposed to die yet."
"What did he say?"
"He said, 'Azaleas grow in heaven, too,' " Diana whispered, still captivated by the flowers on the sill. "He didn't need me to bring him any this time."
Barry watched her for a while in silence until a question occurred to him. "What do you think he was pointing to when he was waving you back?"
"Honestly?" Diana asked, turning her attention away from the window. Barry nodded. "You." The idea hadn't occurred to her until now, but it made logical sense—her father was pointing to a reason for her to stick around. And it was a wonderful reason.
"Are you sure it was a dream?"
"No," Diana answered truthfully. And the two of them remained still and quiet, allowing the magnitude of all that had happened—in their lives and in this very moment—to touch them and fly away . . . because this was about new beginnings.
It was a little while before Barry moved to return to his seat. And as he lowered his body to the chair, he paused suddenly to throw his arms around Diana. They held each other tightly, so tightly that breathing was almost out of the question, but neither of them seemed any the worse for it. When Barry did sit back down, he reached underneath his chair and retrieved a small blanket.
"She was holding this when they found her," he said, handing it to Diana. It was the baby blanket she'd started making the night Mrs. Bartle had tried to teach her how to knit—the one her friend had said would be her greatest pleasure to finish so that she could give it to Diana as a present. Diana's hands trembled as she laid the blanket across her lap to look at it, and her eyes filled with tears at what she saw. It was a memento of their last week together, the one they'd spent working to keep Diana's mind off TJ—the last week they would ever share:
In one corner was a picture of two playing cards from the first night when they'd rediscovered the fun of simple games like War and Go Fish. In another corner was the prince from Cinderella, and at the bottom was an ice-cream sundae. And knitted in beautiful pink script across the center were the words: Through Princes and War and Sundae Night Thursdays, I love you!—Mrs. B.
Diana held the blanket to her chest and closed her eyes, allowing the week Mrs. Bartle had so eloquently captured in yarn to unravel itself like a montage in her mind.
"There's something on the other side," Barry said once she opened her eyes again.
Diana turned the blanket over to see that knitted on the back were a pair of silvery-blue, high-heeled shoes and the inscription: P.S.—You can't run away in glass slippers! Remembering what she'd told Mrs. Bartle after they'd watched Cinderella—that if she had a pair of glass slippers and a prince to put them on her feet, she'd never want to run away from herself again—she handed the blanket back to Barry.
"Will you lay this across my feet and not ask why?"
Barry smiled adoringly, like maybe he already knew why, like maybe he even thought it was a little silly, but he honored Diana's wish without a single word, proving with his silence how much he really cared.
"Thank you," she whispered, smiling gratefully.
Barry took her hand. "You know, I should probably go get your mom and tell her you're awake," he said. "She's gonna want to see you."
"Just stay with me for a few more minutes," Diana pleaded gently, squeezing his hand as she turned to face the azaleas on the windowsill. And as the two of them sat there, gazing at the brilliant sea of color that streamed through the crystal vase and hugged the pink flowers with light, Diana realized that, with a little help from Mrs. Bartle, she had just found her prince.