Page 50 of The Sandy Page Bookshop

Lucy

It wasn’t easy breaking your parents’ hearts.

But then, Lucy supposed, they’d already been broken that summer.

The night she told her parents the truth about the accident brought back all the hurt.

At first her father could not, would not, believe her.

Her mother tried in vain to make sense of it.

It wasn’t their fault. Lucy herself had struggled to believe what had revealed itself slowly to her, all summer long, like honey spilling out of a jar.

It took a visit to Spaulding the next day for the strange new information to make its way to reason.

Followed by another visit to the attorneys’ office.

And later, when Lucy thought her parents hadn’t an ounce left in them, a trip to the police station to speak with the investigating officer.

That was not the last visit they had to make, however.

The last visit came the following day when everyone had had a chance to sleep on the hard new truths that had found them.

Lucy’s father sat at the breakfast table looking resolved, if still weary.

He had a conversation ahead of him that he’d sworn he would never have.

Change is hard. Changing your mind about someone is even harder.

Lucy rode to Parsons’s Garage with her father.

They found Mr. Parsons in the small office ringing up a client at the register.

He didn’t see them, so they sat together on the old plastic chairs by the window where people waited for their cars to be serviced.

While they sat, Lucy stole a look at her father.

She did not know what it was like to be a parent, but looking at him now, there were signs.

Her father’s hands were clasped tightly, but that didn’t keep them still.

His jaw was set, something she and Ella had long attributed to sternness, but now there was the slightest tremble in it. Her father was afraid.

Until that summer Lucy had not considered how frightening it must be to be a parent.

Terrifying, even. Until then she’d thought a parent’s biggest job was to feed their kids, clothe them, love them.

Get them to school. Bake birthday cakes.

Teach them to drive. Send them away to college, if they could.

That was hard work, but it wasn’t terrifying.

What was terrifying, at times, was being a teenager.

Fitting in. Finding friends. Keeping friends.

Covering up pimples. Living in a body that is always morphing in ways you don’t fully understand.

Your first kiss. Your first failed test. Hiding under desks during active shooter drills.

Saying no to the pot someone offers you at a party.

Saying yes. Flying under the radar of bullies.

Getting on the radar of the popular crowd.

Every day there was something to manage, to avoid, to cultivate. All of it, terrifying.

As Mr. Parsons thanked his customer and said goodbye, Lucy’s father shifted uncomfortably in the seat beside her.

What he was about to do would not be easy.

He was there to introduce himself. To apologize.

To try to make sense of a senseless situation between two families in a small town one summer night.

She realized her father was terrified by the love he had for Ella and Lucy.

Because when you loved someone that much, there was so much to lose.

When her father rose from his seat, Lucy rose, too.

She walked with him, right up to Mr. Parsons at the counter.

And when her father introduced himself, his voice strong and clear, Lucy reached over and grabbed his hand.

She squeezed it, as hard as she could, willing him all the bravery she had in her young brave bones.

Later, as Lucy and her mother drove to Spaulding, they talked. Lucy felt the layers of the summer peeling away as they did, like the outer petals of a peony curled dry by the sun. With each word spoken, a sun-scarred petal fell away until what was left was still beautiful, if reduced.

They talked about easier things, like summer coming to a close and school starting again.

They talked about the harder things, too; the difficult phone call made to Tufts informing them of Ella’s DUI.

As a result, there were new uncertainties.

Ella’s academic scholarship would now go under review.

It turned out that Jep Parsons’s desire to protect her had not been wrong.

This fresh hurdle seemed too much. After all, how much could one person endure? “Can’t the lawyers do something? Can’t you and Dad write a letter?”

“We will help her however we can, but I don’t know that it will make a difference. We’ll have to wait and see.”

It didn’t sit right with Lucy. “It doesn’t seem fair.”

“Ella made a choice that night,” her mother said sadly. “Things could have been worse.”

“But she’s suffered so much already.” It was like that dark game they used to play on the playground when the teachers weren’t looking, when someone twisted your wrist until you called mercy. Yes, Ella had made a choice. But at what point would someone cry mercy?

Her mother glanced over at her in the passenger seat. In the golden light at that hour the tiredness about her eyes was softened, the worry lines blurred. “Your sister has fought hard to get to this point. Whatever happens, we will help her through the rest.”

That was one thing no one could take away. Ella was returning to them, bit by bit. She was speaking and walking, showering herself, able to take stairs. The smallest things that were no longer small at all, and that signaled big hope. Hope, Lucy realized, was everything.

On the way into the hospital, her mother stopped at the physiatrist’s office.

Lucy went ahead without her, unafraid as she had been when Ella first came here.

She said hello to Danny, who was walking another patient down the hall.

She waved to Dr. Forrester. Soon Ella would be coming home.

Lucy had never thought there would be so many wonderful people she hoped to never see again.

At Ella’s door, a familiar sound stopped her in her tracks. Lucy stopped on the threshold, listening. It was Ella speaking, her voice high and bright. She was talking animatedly like she used to on the phone with a friend or with Lucy when she had juicy news to share. Lucy peered inside.

Ella was not alone. Jep Parsons sat on the edge of her bed.

Behind them sunlight spilled through the hospital window like a glittering golden shroud.

Their heads were bowed together the way people do when sharing stories.

Or secrets. Or love. Between them, something rested on the blanket.

Lucy squinted, realizing it was their hands, clasped together.

As the late-day sun made its weary climb outside the sky shifted, casting the two of them in momentary shadow. Lovebird silhouettes, face to face, hand in hand. Lucy smiled to herself and walked back down the hallway, the way she’d come.