Far From You Read online

  as he unlocked my car door,

  “like freshly baked cookies.

  Or spumoni ice cream.

  I want it to be special, Al.”

  And when he said that,

  for some reason,

  I thought of Mom

  and those cookies she’d made me

  on that miserable day.

  Suddenly,

  no matter how much love

  was in my heart

  for Blaze,

  I felt

  empty.

  As empty

  as the ice cream dish

  we had just

  left

  behind.

  mixed-up

  I should have felt

  good.

  Happy.

  Excited.

  I wanted to feel

  good.

  Happy.

  Excited.

  The look on Blaze’s face

  told me he felt

  good.

  Happy.

  Excited.

  But when we walked into

  the lobby of the hotel

  and I saw a happy family—

  a mom, a dad,

  and two girls—

  I felt scared.

  Sad.

  Confused.

  I watched

  as the girls each took

  their father’s hands in theirs,

  pulling on them,

  as they begged him

  to take them

  to the Space Needle.

  He laughed,

  then gathered them

  up and into his arms

  and told them

  he promised to take them

  in the morning.

  I thought of Blaze

  holding me

  and caressing me,

  and told myself

  it would make everything

  better.

  After all,

  the world outside

  the MarQueen Hotel

  would surely

  disappear

  while we lost ourselves

  in each other.

  But as I looked around

  the lovely lobby,

  I knew we would end up

  back there to check out

  and head home.

  And that’s when

  it hit me.

  No matter what changed

  in a hotel room

  between me and Blaze,

  everything else

  would stay

  exactly

  the

  same.

  I need to believe

  When I told him I wasn’t ready,

  and that I might have been doing it

  for all the wrong reasons,

  he told me he understood.

  He told me I needed to be 100 percent sure.

  He told me he would wait until I was 100 percent sure.

  “You’re really okay with it?” I asked him

  as we sat in the car before going home.

  He shrugged.

  “I love you.

  So I’m okay with it.

  As long as it’s you making the decision.

  Not your dad.

  Not your friends.

  And most of all,

  not the everyone’s-a-sinner preacher at your church.”

  “Come on.

  It’s not even like that at my church.

  How can you talk like that when you don’t know?

  You’ve never even been.”

  “I know I don’t need God, Ali.

  And I don’t need a bunch of people telling me I need

  God.”

  “You make it sound like God is a bad guy.

  He’s not bad.”

  Blaze sighed as he started the car. “Let’s get you home.”

  As we drove in silence,

  panic expanded

  in my chest

  until I almost

  couldn’t breathe.

  First Claire.

  Then Dad.

  Now Blaze.

  I reached over,

  took his hand,

  and placed it on my

  rapidly beating heart.

  “Please tell me we’re okay,” I whispered.

  He pulled the car over

  to the side of the road,

  reached over, and kissed me—

  a long,

  slow,

  wet,

  beautiful

  kiss.

  “We’re better than okay,” he told me.

  “Believe me?”

  And of course,

  I did.

  Because the other choice

  was pretty much

  unthinkable.

  trying to understand

  Blaze’s dad

  was a bad, bad

  beast

  of a man.

  Blaze hasn’t told

  me a lot.

  But enough

  for me to know

  he was hurt

  on a regular basis

  and has

  a few scars

  to show for it,

  though more inside

  than out.

  I think he

  blames

  God,

  because it’s hard

  to blame

  the one

  who really

  deserves it.

  What I believe

  is that life

  is music and fabulous fall foliage,

  but it’s also cancer and wars.

  That’s just how it is.

  Maybe God could do better.

  But shit, so could we.

  doesn’t fit

  The next morning

  when I woke up,

  I called Blaze

  to tell him how much

  I loved him

  and appreciated him.

  I told him

  a lot of guys

  wouldn’t have been

  as understanding

  as he was.

  He said

  that’s because

  a lot of guys

  are assholes

  and he swore to himself

  he’d never be

  like that.

  After we hung up,

  I found Dad

  on the couch,

  holding Ivy.

  Just him

  and her.

  I watched them

  from around the corner.

  He stroked her head.

  He played with her feet.

  He picked her up

  and held her tightly

  against him.

  Part of me

  wanted desperately

  to join them,

  while another part

  wanted to turn and run

  and never

  come

  back.

  When I was little,

  I loved doing puzzles.

  There was this

  ABC puzzle

  I played with

  all the time.

  I always got the

  M and the N mixed up.

  I’d try

  and try

  and try

  to get the

  M to fit in the N spot.

  I’d spin it

  this way

  and that way

  until I finally

  got up

  and walked away.

  Right then,

  in that moment,

  watching them together,

  I felt like the M

  trying to fit

  in the N spot.

  And once again,

  I walked away.

  broken

  I was in the kitchen

  getting cereal

  when Victoria came in.

  She held

  a little frilly

  yellow dress.

  “Isn’t this the cutest, Ali?

  We
’re going to dress her up and go to the store.”

  I listened to them

  giggle and squeal

  as they got Ivy ready

  for her first trip

  to the grocery store.

  You’d have thought

  they were flying to

  Ireland

  to meet Bono.

  After they left,

  I felt so alone,

  and all I wanted

  was to talk

  to my best friend

  about everything

  that had happened.

  I got up the nerve to call,

  but her cell phone

  went right to voice mail.

  When I called her house,

  her mom said

  she wasn’t there.

  The way she said it,

  I knew

  it wasn’t

  the truth.

  The anger

  and the sadness

  and the hurt

  came out

  like a bullet

  as I flung

  my cell

  across the room,

  where it hit the wall

  with a

  loud

  BANG.

  Pieces

  on

  the

  floor.

  How

  appropriate.

  imagine

  But what if her mom

  wasn’t lying?

  Maybe Claire was

  coming to see me.

  Maybe I would

  skip outside

  to greet her.

  Maybe we’d

  go out

  for coffee and doughnuts.

  Best friends,

  like before,

  making music,

  not war.

  And then I remembered,

  she’d rather make

  bowling shirts

  than make music

  with me.

  desolate

  The driveway

  stayed as empty

  as my heart

  felt.

  a tangled web indeed

  I had a sudden urge

  to see pictures

  of my family

  together.

  The happy family

  I knew we were

  years ago.

  I searched

  everywhere

  for the photo albums.

  In closets,

  in cupboards,

  in drawers.

  The longer I looked,

  the more frantic I got.

  When I didn’t think

  there was anywhere else

  to look,

  I thought of

  the attic.

  I went up

  and pulled on the string,

  lighting up the rafters

  and the cobwebs.

  Way back in the corner,

  partly covered with an old,

  paint-spattered sheet,

  was her stuff.

  How sad that her

  most-beloved possessions

  were stuck in the corner

  with the spiders,

  like they were

  creepy and unwanted.

  Well, I love spiders,

  thank you very much.

  I threw the sheet back,

  ran my hand across the desk,

  and pulled on the top drawer handle.

  Locked.

  Drawer

  after drawer

  pulled open.

  The photo albums

  were in the bottom drawer.

  After I took the albums out,

  something shiny

  caught my eye.

  A tiny silver key for the top drawer,

  carefully taped for safekeeping.

  Carefully put there

  for me.

  ahoy, matey

  I felt

  like a pirate

  discovering

  secret

  buried treasure.

  Better than diamonds

  or gold coins

  or silver trinkets,

  I found

  sketches.

  Mom’s sketches.

  My sketches.

  Mine.

  motherly love

  In my room

  I carefully

  unrolled them.

  My hand

  oh-so-gently

  caressed

  each one as I

  imagined

  her hand there,

  creating the images

  she held

  in her head

  and her heart.

  And in fact,

  the first sketch

  was a huge heart,

  with a woman

  holding a baby

  drawn inside

  of the heart.

  The second sketch

  was of a young girl

  sitting in a chair

  reading a book.

  The third sketch

  was the one

  that brought tears to my eyes.

  A sketch

  of my face

  and her face

  side by side.

  Together.

  I wasn’t sure

  what they all meant

  exactly,

  but what I felt

  and knew with my

  whole being

  was that she

  loved being my mother.

  And even if

  she’s gone,

  that knowledge

  can stay with me

  forever.

  a lover of news, I am not

  I didn’t notice

  how quickly time

  passed.

  Suddenly

  Victoria was there,

  standing beside my bed,

  looking at the sketches

  I didn’t want anyone

  to see.

  “Don’t you knock?” I asked.

  “Sorry.

  Wow.

  Are those—”

  In one quick swoop,

  I rolled them up

  so they were

  safe in my arms.

  Safe from her.

  “They’re nothing.

  Just a project I’m working on.

  For school.”

  “Ah. Okay.”

  Dad came in.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “I was just coming in to tell Ali the news.”

  I don’t like

  news.

  I’m not a news

  person.

  News

  is rarely good.

  When do you

  watch the news?

  When something

  horrible is happening,

  like a tornado

  or a blizzard

  or a terrorist attack.

  It’s usually something bad

  that makes you turn on

  the news.

  She told me, “We’ve decided we’re going on a trip.

  To visit my parents, in Chico.

  Over Thanksgiving break.”

  “‘We’ as in ‘you three,’ right?”

  Dad said, “No, Ali. All of us.

  We’re a family.”

  Yep.

  I knew it.

  Something bad.

  Very, very bad.

  one strange plot twist

  I started an e-mail to Claire

  ten different ways

  and nothing seemed

  right.

  If I said,

  “I’m sorry,”

  it felt like I was saying

  I needed to change

  who I am

  as a person and

  as a songwriter,

  and I didn’t believe that.

  If I said,

  “Let’s go to the church

  and tell them

  we want
to keep playing,”

  I was setting myself up

  for a big fight

  all over again.

  It was like

  I’d turned the page

  in a book I’d loved

  since the beginning,

  and suddenly

  it had turned into

  a horror novel.

  I wanted to slam the book closed

  and run away.

  Except

  I’d grown to love

  the main character’s

  best friend

  so much,

  of course I couldn’t really

  do that.

  I had to keep reading

  and find out what happened.

  I just had to.

  suffocating in silence

  I skipped church

  Sunday morning

  because I didn’t want to see her there

  without fixing things first.

  I stayed home,

  writing a song,

  wishing her to appear

  with every

  other

  note.

  The happy family below

  carried on like it was only them,

  just as it

  should

  be.

  I skipped meals,

  and they didn’t

  even