Ch. 8: Only by Love
When our deepest secrets are brought to light, will we burn--or begin to heal?
This is chapter 8 of 8, that I published one chapter at a time every Friday. I wrote this first draft of my novel in 2022, and I’m sharing it here along with new artwork exploring what it could be like if I turned it into a graphic novel.
PREVIOUSLY: June and Gemma unravel more of Imogen and Fay’s past in order to find a missing Imogen. Gemma distracts Mrs. Stanford while June (and Fay, carried in the Moxie tin) rush up the mountain to find Imogen first.
You can also listen to me read this chapter—just hit play above.
CW: brief mentions of suicide, domestic abuse, and miscarriage, and a gun present.
Grandma’s eyes are filled with tears and confusion.
The barrel of the gun pointed at me lowers.
“That…That can’t be true, June,” she says shakily, and I see her struggling to find her way back from a distance. The gun drops to her side and dangles in her reddened hands. She searches my eyes, and then, trembling, whispers, “Fay?”
Can they see her? Is she hiding, somehow, inside me? I feel her with me, helping my voice escape. The scent of licorice–of Moxie candy– is hers. And the scent of Mom’s lavender shampoo feels like Mom–like she’s standing here with me, too.
Like she’s proud of me–not angry, or ashamed, like I thought she would be.
The words just keep pouring out of me, now–they won’t stop, the flood of them. Fay’s guilt and mine mix together, and we’re tired–so tired– of carrying it all alone.
“She asked me. She asked me, Grandma. She asked me to leave him with her, and I didn’t. I wouldn’t. She didn’t have any other choice, because of ME.
I killed her, Grandma. I killed her.”
I remember running back that day from a few streets down, coming back for the tin I had forgotten. My feet pounding on the sidewalk, excited. I was supposed to be at a neighbor friend’s house for the day–Mom had just dropped me off. I wasn’t supposed to come back, but I wanted to show my friend the locks of hair–to show her the love Mom had left under my pillow the night before.
To show her I belonged somewhere, between licorice and lavender.
I remember the way I paused at the foot of the stairs, tin in hand, to look for Mom in the kitchen before I went back. How she didn’t see me–didn’t even know I was in the house.
I saw it in her hand.
Then the sound of the gun.
My last scream.
And my fear, chasing me outside. My guilt, shaking my whole body as the officers found me, staring at my hands on the swings in the yard. My shame, keeping me from telling them–from letting her down. From admitting what I did–and what she did to herself.
That was the day I started seeing blood everywhere.
“Mom pulled the trigger–I saw her. But I killed her. It’s my fault. I’m so sorry.”
We say it together, Fay and I–her from the smoke and the flames, and I from the swings in my old backyard–both of us knowing we might have saved her, if we’d made different choices.
If Fay had left sooner.
If she hadn’t lied about who Daisy was.
If I had said yes.
Or come home sooner.
Or yelled out to her in the kitchen.
Grandma’s searching my face–she’s crying, but clear. She’s here with us now.
“No, no, June, love,” Grandma begins, but it’s Dad who puts his hand on my shoulder.
“June.” His voice sounds older. Sadder. I turn and see his face, and it’s a graying mosaic of all the things he is: funny and kind and cruel and afraid. Chocolate chip cookies and broken glass on the floor and swings in the park and kisses in the kitchen and bruises on her skin.
He searches my eyes with his. Maybe he’s seeing a mosaic of all I am, too.
“Do you really think that, chick? That it’s your fault?” He looks broken by the question, and I’ve never seen him break. Pieces of him crumble into my fingers as he reaches for them slowly. He holds my frozen, bleeding hands in his–carefully, like he might break them.
“I’m sorry, sorry, so sorry I didn’t tell them it wasn’t you,” I cry, in a rush, “I couldn’t… didn't…”
“No, no. Oh, June. It’s…It’s not your fault, June,” he says, and his voice breaks, “Mom’s death was not your fault. You don’t have to carry that.”
I’m confused–so confused–by the mix of love and relief and regret and fear that I feel all at once, holding his hands. So much of this pain is his fault, still. So much of it is mine. So much more, maybe, is deeper than all of us.
Fay and I speak together again, of lost chances to love and to hate, and the overwhelm of not knowing which we should have felt, and it’s all I have left:
“But I didn’t leave when I should have!”
Here in the snow, I feel everything about that day I’ve tried not to– about how I hadn’t wanted to leave Dad. How I wished, later, that I had done it anyway. How glad I was, years after, that I had still felt, sitting on those swings, that he loved us. How horrified I was that I had ever believed his version of love, with all its empty promises, was enough. I’m every scenario of damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t and I can’t sort it out anymore.
I collapse onto my knees on the frozen ground, and suddenly Grandma’s in front of me, kneeling with me, looking into my eyes, holding my face. And I know she feels us both here, somehow. That she can hear Fay’s voice in mine, see the lines of her features on my face, maybe. I don’t know how. But the way she looks at me, I know she knows Fay is here.
“It’s not your fault, June. No. Never, chick. And Fay, love–it’s not your fault.” She says it sincerely, deeply, and I know she means it, for both of us.
Dad kneels beside me, and meets us all on the ground.
“Nothing you said, June–to Mom, or anyone–would have changed what happened,” Dad says, and he’s crying like I’ve never seen him cry–real and honest in ways all his well-intended promises never were before, no matter how much we all wanted them to be. His soul is streaming down his cheeks, and I see him, perhaps more than I ever have—afraid and guilty and cowering in the snow and the mud.
“I…I’m still the one…who made her desperate.” He cries, and it starts as a broken whisper, and ends in a voice that knows its own truth, “I did so much wrong, June. I’m so sorry.”
Does Fay hear Alfred in Dad’s voice, too? Would Alfred ever have said anything like this, if he had gotten another chance?
“I feel…” Dad looks away, searching for the words, “swallowed, sometimes.”
He looks back into my eyes, and sees the love and pity there as I recognize the shadow he feels, too. The little boy cowering in the corner. But he shakes his head before I can say anything–I’m not sure I could, anyway.
“But no. No!” His eyes are red, but he says it forcefully, determined, “That’s not your fault, or your Mom’s. I know that now. I have to face it myself. To face… what I’ve been. That’s on me–just me.”
Tears slide down my cheeks as my father does something that maybe Alfred couldn’t–or wouldn’t have done.
I feel Fay, somehow, crying, too, and Grandma grabs me–grabs Fay and I– and wraps us in her arms in the falling snow.
We’re a frozen, sobbing, mess at the top of a waterfall.
And the shadow retreats.
But even Dad’s honesty can’t stop it completely. Maybe for himself, eventually–but not for me, or for Mom.
It is far too late for her.
The shadow swallowed her whole. I know it did.
I’ve felt it now, more than ever, myself–how strong it is, how deep.
And I think I know–I think I believe them–that I couldn’t have made it any different.
Not alone.
That Mom was carrying too much, and it wasn’t right for me to try to carry it, too.
“I wish I would have known, too, love,” Grandma says, still holding me close, “that I had done things differently, too. It’s hard not to think that maybe then…” She trails off, and it catches in her throat for a moment, but she takes a breath, and steadies.
“But we don’t know everything she felt. We can’t know that, chick.” She continues, stroking my hair, “We do know she was in so much pain. We know some of that pain, too, don’t we, love?” She sits back to see my face, and tucks my hair behind my ears as I sniffle and nod.
“We can only try to help each other through our pain, now, too, and keep ourselves from being… swallowed. For each other, as well as ourselves.” Grandma nods at my dad, quick and tough, but not without love–the kind that’s honest about the hurt, even as it holds out its hand. “To make whatever we can right, and keep going, and love each other while we can...”
And I know she’s talking about more than Mom, now. She cups my face with her hand, again, and kisses my forehead, and I feel her grief for Fay, and Grandpa, and her stillborn son. And I remember, from a long, long way away, that they’ll be looking for us.
They’ll be looking for a woman whose mind is struggling, and a girl who has nowhere deemed safe to live.
Grandma reaches for the tin, laying open in the snow behind me, and then for my hand. She squeezes it, and smiles a sad smile.
“...And help each other say goodbye when we can’t anymore.” She nods at me–at Fay, I think–and I feel Fay flicker. I close my eyes, and when I open them a second later, Grandma’s closed the tin, and holds it out to me.
“I think I know what she needs now, love. And maybe what I need, too.”
I hold the little tin of Moxie in my hand, still smelling the faint scent of licorice and lavender.
THANK YOU, JUNE
FOR LETTING ME SPEAK
Fay’s voice comes in metallic taps again, from the tin, and I see Dad’s confusion out of the corner of my eye. Grandma seems to be taking it all in stride–of course she is. When she’s here, she is magic.
But there’s magic in her always.
Thank you, too, Fay, I tap back.
I can’t speak any more, I can tell. Fay’s help wasn’t magic–at least not in the way it might have seemed–and neither was my confession. But I feel lighter, now, than I did. Lighter than I have for a long, long time, even as the pain of everything we’ve been through lingers. Even as I watch Grandma’s face and she meets my eyes. Even as we know we can’t continue as we were. She reaches for my hand again, and squeezes it before getting to her feet. And in our special way, we both know, without having to speak.
We’ll be alright, somehow.
Dad stands, too, and hesitantly offers me a hand. I take it, and he pulls me up.
“The police will be here soon,” He says, looking apologetically at Grandma, who’s already dusted herself off, and looks every bit in charge again–every bit herself. “I knew, from the old days, where you might be, when they called me. I didn’t know if I should come, but–”
Grandma bends to pick up her shotgun, and I see Dad flinch a bit, pausing warily as she turns to look back at him again.
She stares at him for a full three seconds, like steel, before she clicks the safety back into place.
He nods, understanding.
No trust is earned back easily.
She keeps the shotgun pointed down at the ground and does several things that make clicking sounds, and pulls her hand away holding three shells.
“June, love,” Grandma calls me over, and holds the shells out to me. I hesitate, putting the tin back in my coat pocket. “It’s alright, chick, it’s not loaded anymore.”
I come toward her, and she drops the shells into my hand. She winks at me, sadly. “Since you’re the most responsible one here.”
I start to raise my free hand to object, but she shakes her head.
“We both know now–I don’t always know what’s happening these days. I thought it was just little things, but…” She looks around at the waterfall, and the shotgun, and shakes her head. “It won’t be your job to take care of me much longer.”
She sees the look on my face and smiles sadly, and ruffles my hair. “Ah, love, that’s a good thing. You shouldn’t have to carry that, too. You’ve been carrying far too much already.”
I nod, and she wipes away my tears with care, and then straightens up, and sighs.
“Well,” She says, and motions toward the path, “We might as well meet them on the way. Don’t need them to know all our secrets, now do we?”
I glance toward the little group of trees, where Grandma’s special spot is, on the giant rock with the little mossy cairn.
Grandma guesses my question.
“The cave’s just beyond there, where we gathered everything for Fay…” She trails off, and smiles, “...but you probably already know all about that?”
D-O-N-T-Y-O-U?
Grandma taps it out with her finger on the shotgun at her side.
YES
Fay answers from my pocket.
Grandma and I smile at each other, and I feel the strength of us–of the love we have–and I know that’s not going anywhere. Not any time soon.
Grandma, I sign, suddenly realizing how stiff my fingers are from the cold, You’re… not really my Grandma, are you?
She sighs, and shakes her head.
“Only by love, chick. Not by blood.”
I don’t think blood matters as much, I sign.
I look over at Dad, who’s standing awkwardly, hands in his pockets, keeping his distance.
I’m not used to seeing him like this–but I haven’t seen him since before Mom died. When I was younger, he was confident–too confident. And stubborn. Something is different, and now I’m not sure what’s left, if all the anger and fear are fading, now that they’re known. He feels like he’s on the precipice of something that I’m not sure any of us know the lay of. He’s familiar and strange all at once.
“I…I’m sorry if I shouldn’t have come.” Dad apologizes, “I was worried about you–both of you–and thought…I might get here faster than the police, since I knew where to look.”
He looks at me, and smiles, and there’s an old twinkle there, in his eye, that I remember from years and years ago, Before, when he and Mom would dance in the kitchen, and he’d dip her and kiss her and she’d laugh.
Sometimes I don’t understand how love can hurt so much.
“Your Mom and I used to come here as teenagers, you know,” He says, remembering, and laughs sadly, before his smile fades.
“I know it’s not enough. It will never be enough. But…I’m so sorry, June, for how I hurt both of you,” he glances at Grandma, “All of you.”
Grandma nods at him again, close-lipped, but wipes at her cheek. She sees him, too.
Thank you, I sign to Dad, before I think about the fact he won’t understand sign language.
He smiles weakly, but surprises me by signing back: I love you, chick.
How did I forget that he picked the pet name up from Mom? That he called me that, too?
You learned sign language! I exclaim.
I wanted to surprise you, he signs awkwardly, and smiles back.
I feel it bubble up–feel the relief of not trying to stop it, for once.
Awkwardly, gingerly, I lean into him, and–just as uncertain–he wraps his arms around me in a hug I’d also forgotten. I breathe in, and smell cedarwood, and hope.
He lets go, and holds me at arm’s length again. His eyes are sad.
“But I’m not good yet, June. I need… to become better. I’ve done horrible things. Been things I don’t want to be anymore. And I need to learn how to be different. And I don’t know how long, but… that will take time.”
I nod.
I know, I sign.
He sighs. “You made the right call, about me.”
That I didn’t want to see him.
I hesitate, and look at Grandma. She knows I need a moment to think of how to respond, and she tips her head toward the path.
It’s time to go.
I lead the way, and they follow behind me as I consider.
Everything is upside down, and I know he hurt us all. I know how much–I’ve seen the cost of it.
It’s all so complicated–the love and the anger, all twisted up together, and neither are really wrong. I feel so much anger toward him, for all the times he hurt Mom, even as I love him. And both make sense. And no matter what people say, it doesn’t matter, so much, that he’s my dad. Being related—having the same blood—isn’t what makes people matter. Our DNA doesn’t mean we have to be friends, or that we should be in each others’ lives now, no matter what—not like people say.
It would be just as right, I think, if I wanted never to see him again.
But…
…it’s the love.
It’s the love, that I want. That I can feel. That I know is still there, under it all, despite it all. That he showed, by crying with me, for me. By owning up. By apologizing. By wanting different things now. Even by learning sign language.
It would be different if I could tell the love still left was smaller than the hurt he caused.
Or if he kept the hurt coming, like before.
It wouldn’t stop before. Not for anything–not even Mom.
And that will never disappear. We will never forget it–I will never forget it. It will never not be a part of us.
The hurt is big. So big sometimes it breaks us–and keeps on breaking us.
But today, I know–the love is bigger.
I see the break in the line, where the hurt was flowing. I see us facing it head-on in a way we never have–in a way maybe most people don’t get the chance to.
And I feel the gut punch that Mom won’t get this chance like us. That she will never know what could have been, and won’t be here to see what comes next.
But this part, now, is new. I haven’t lived this part before–not in the way I’ve been re-living bits of my life over and over again this year. Not in the way I’ve been reliving bits of even other people’s lives in my own.
And it doesn’t mean I won’t still be on guard against the hurt–that will take a long, long time.
But…
I slow, and stop, and turn back to face Dad, and sign.
But maybe I can see you sometimes. When it feels right.
He looks at Grandma.
“She’s handing you her heart, Neil. Don’t crush it again,” She says, sternly, but I see her eyes smiling, “And only with supervision–that’s what Mrs. Stanford will say.”
That’s what you say, too, I sign.
“You’re damn right I do.” Grandma agrees, but throws Dad a softer glance. I know she can feel the love there, too, as she adds, “But you can come around to the diner to see her, sometimes, and get that pecan pie you used to love so much.”
Dad looks away for a moment, but I look back at Grandma.
The diner.
I don’t know if I’ll even be there.
I catch Grandma’s eye, trying to decide if I should mention it. Did she forget already? Does she understand?
But she winks at me and mouths, “It’ll be alright, chick. Trust me.”
Dad turns back, wiping at his eyes.
“I’d like that,” Dad smiles, and adds seriously, “but it’s up to you, every time, okay? Only if you’re ready. But I promise I’ll–”
DON’T promise me you’ll be different, I sign. You’ve done that before.
Grandma has to translate, but Dad nods.
“You’re right,” He says.
You’ll have to show me instead, I sign, and Grandma interprets.
I look at his face as he reacts. He’s sadder, and older. But stronger, too.
“I will,” He says, and I see the promise–a real one–in his eyes.
We help each other down the path, frozen and aching, and sometimes still crying. And we come to the final stretch different than we were when we started.
The snow keeps falling faster, but I can already see the red and blue lights in the distance.
Grandma sighs, and puts her arm around me.
“After all this,” she says, “I feel like chocolate chip pancakes. How about you?”
I smile.
Different, but still Grandma.
It was only much later, sitting in front of Mrs. Stanford in the police station, with my file open in front of her, that I remembered about Olive.
Perlman? My app asks for me.
“Yes. I know it’s a lot to take in.” Mrs. Stanford says, looking exhausted, “But she heard what happened, and what needs to happen, and she’s offered to become your legal guardian if you agree, June.”
I feel like I’m made of questions–and I must look it, because Mrs. Stanford sighs, and keeps talking, rubbing her eyes under her glasses. She must be having the worst day. Or the best? I’m not sure if excitement is really what you want in this line of work. But she’s been making phone calls for hours now, and her frown lines keep getting deeper.
“While I understand there have been some mitigating circumstances exacerbating this situation,” Mrs. Stanford glances out the window of the office we’re in at Dad sitting in a chair in the hallway outside, “It’s come very clearly to our attention that your current living situation is not, long term, safe for you, June–we’ve all agreed.” She looks over her glasses at Grandma, who nods.
“I’m not fighting you on it, Phyllis.” Grandma says. “I know what needs to be done.”
Mrs. Stanford nods, relieved.
“While Imogen will be getting 24/7 home care to support her for now, until further supports are necessary–”
“They won’t be.” Grandma interrupts confidently.
“But when they become necessary…” Mrs. Stanford raises her eyebrows, pointedly, and waits.
It’s Grandma’s turn to sigh.
“If, Phyllis, it becomes clear that I need to be moved into a home, I will go willingly. No handcuffs needed.”
“That’s all I needed to hear, thank you, Imogen.” Mrs. Stanford checks a box on a form in front of her and turns to me.
“So. June. If you accept Dr. Perlman’s offer–” Mrs. Stanford pauses to wave through the window at Phoebe, who’s just arrived, carrying her tote bag, which–as always–declares, “Take chances, make mistakes, get messy!” Mrs. Stanford holds up a finger for her to wait. Phoebe nods, sees me, and waves, and I can’t hear them, but I imagine the sound of her bracelets jangling.
“If you accept Dr. Perlman’s offer, June,” Mrs. Stanford continues, “it would allow you to stay in town, close to your grandmother, and continue at your current school.”
She looks up, waiting for me to say something.
But I’m still taking this all in.
“Which I would strongly advise, June, given your history, and other circumstances, and legally we would need to classify you as–well let me just read you the…let me see…”
Mrs. Stanford continues, flipping through the stack of paperwork in front of her, but I barely hear her as she goes on and on about legal processes and guardianship and paperwork.
I look at Grandma, who smiles and leans toward me to whisper, “I used my one phone call, and Phoebe and I had a talk.”
Does she know? I sign–small, and quiet, in my lap, behind the desk where Mrs. Stanford won’t see it–but she’s still lost in her monologue.
Grandma nods.
Everything?? I ask.
That Imogen’s not really my grandma. That Phoebe and I are related–that her mother was my great aunt, from the maternity home, who unintentionally let it slip to my abusive grandfather that Grandma and Fay swapped babies. That Fay came back as a ghost.
She can’t have told her all that, can she?
Grandma nods again.
“So! June.” Mrs. Stanford has finished her dissertation on my legal guardianship process and looks back up at me. “What do you think?”
I look at Grandma again, in awe.
She winks at me, and I hear it: I’ve got your back, kid.
I almost laugh, the relief is so strange and sudden.
“Yes!” I type into my app, “Let’s do it!”
I’m not sure whether Mrs. Stanford looks relieved or destroyed.
“Very well. I’ll get started on… this,” she looks down at the pile of paperwork, “And make some more calls. Wait here, I’ll send in Dr. Perlman.” She blusters off, already punching a number into her phone, rubbing her eyes again.
The second the door closes behind her, I turn back to Grandma.
What about Alfred? I sign. I’ve been worried about this–that it would make keeping secrets even more complicated for Grandma now that people are asking questions while they figure out what to do with me–with us.
It’s a bit hard not to feel like criminals in the police station like this.
I suppose one of us is.
Both, if you count taking letters not addressed to me from Grandma’s mailbox.
Grandma nods again. “I told Phoebe everything, June. I trust her, and it’s a clean start.”
What about them? I sign, glancing out the office window at the multiple police officers in the station. Do they know about Alfred? About how he died?
Grandma shrugs. “The fire is common knowledge, June.” But I catch a tiny wink from her before Phoebe walks in and we begin our new lives.
We start with the dead.
It’s quiet in the cemetery as we proceed in, early in the morning. It’s Saturday, so Tracy and Hank are opening the diner, and Grandma, Gemma, Phoebe, Fay, and I gather here before the rest of the town is up and about.
Grandma leads, with Gemma and I behind. Phoebe hangs back, hesitant, but I slow down to walk beside her and smile reassuringly as we make our way down the path. She smiles back.
She knows everything now, like Grandma said.
Our story gave her answers she’s always wanted, too–she knows more now about her own mother, Olive, and the weight of the promise she broke. Pieces of all our pasts have come together, finally making some sense of the pain we’ve felt buried, some of us for decades. Phoebe came today with flowers, and I think she’s relieved knowing she can do something to mend a piece of the past—and banish a part of her own shadow, lingering and chasing her, too, long after her mother died.
Our footsteps break the silence in the early light, and I remember the morning Grandma disappeared—only a few days ago—and how different things feel now.
Her aide, Mina, who lives with her now, waits at the gate, respectfully. Grandma hasn’t had any more memory lapses–at least nothing major–and she makes a fuss about how much of a fuss Mina makes over her, but I’m glad to know she’s not alone. And we’re all glad she can stay in her own home for now, and even still work in the diner–with lessened hours.
Once we’re out of Mina’s view, I reach into my pocket for the Moxie tin with Fay inside, and together we all proceed like a strange, sad parade, toward the middle of the cemetery, and the sugar maple tree where Gemma pointed out Alfred’s grave a few days ago. But we’re not here for him.
First up is Mom. She’s across the way from the Petersens, and I feel the familiar sinking in my stomach as we approach, but I remind myself things are different now.
“Almost there!” Gemma whispers to Fay in the tin in my palm, and there’s a warmth in my heart to know my friends are friends (and some are even family, too–although I still think that blood matters less than the love). After it was all over, I was nervous to see Gemma again, in case she’d decided it was all too much for her.
But of course it wasn’t.
“It was honestly too crazy to be made up.” She said, hugging me before demanding to know every single detail–everything that happened after I snuck out the back door, and the weeks leading up to it.
Fay, in the tin, flutters with a mix of joy and sadness as we stop in front of Mom’s grave.
Gemma’s carrying a large bouquet of daisies, but it’s not from her. She lays the bouquet at Mom’s stone, and turns the note so it faces up:
“WITH LOVE, FROM MOM”
I’ve brought my own gift, too–from Grandma and I. I reach back into my pocket and pull out a napkin-wrapped chocolate chip cookie–one of a batch Grandma and I made together. It feels silly, maybe, but I need this. We all do.
In each of our own ways, we need to say goodbye properly.
I place the cookie by the bouquet of daisies, and sign I love you, Mom.
There is so much–too much–I could say, but I know this is enough for now. It's a start.
Grandma kneels down by Mom’s grave and whispers something I can’t make out–but I don’t try. This is their moment.
Phoebe is last, and gently puts down her bouquet. I know it’s for both of them– for Fay, and Mom. It’s a small gesture, but I think she’s pouring into it all the sorrow her mother felt about what happened. She lets go, and I see the fear slip through her fingers with the blooms, and I know that Phoebe, too, has always been trying to do what her mother couldn’t.
I think we’re all just trying to live longer than the shadows that stretch over us.
When Phoebe’s done, we stand in silence for a moment, and the trees rustle their sorrow.
Finally, Fay’s metallic taps break through the stillness.
IT’S TIME
We all hesitate. We’ve known it was coming, known this was the plan. But there have been so many goodbyes.
Phoebe approaches, hesitantly. She speaks to Fay in the tin, and seeing her embrace it all so willingly, so honestly, and kindly, I feel a new kind of love for her. She didn’t have to believe any of this–let alone come today, to say what she does:
“I’m so sorry, Fay, for how hard life was for you. For everything you lost. And for the mistakes my mother made, and what they meant for your life.” Phoebe’s eyes fill with the sadness of a lifetime of not knowing why, and the clarity of having the answer, now. “And I know she would say the same.”
I KNOW
THANK YOU
AND YOU DON’T HAVE TO CARRY IT ANYMORE. IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT.
Fay replies, and Phoebe, eyes welling with tears, touches the tin lightly and whispers, “Thank you, Fay.”
Phoebe steps back, and Gemma moves closer.
“Goodbye, Fay!” Gemma says, leaning in, “Thank you for helping us!” I can feel something like a warm smile, or a laugh from Fay as she replies:
GOODBYE, GEMMA
THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING.
And now I can’t put it off any longer.
I take a breath and wipe at my teary eyes with my free hand.
I’ll miss you, Fay, I tap.
I’LL MISS YOU, TOO, JUNE.
There’s a swell of emotion from both of us, and I’m not sure whether to hug the tin, or cry, or laugh at how strange it all is. We all know it’s time–that she’s done what she needed to. But Fay is my friend–and more than that now. And it’s odd to say goodbye, in a way, to two grandmas in the same week.
I turn to Grandma, who has tears in her eyes, too.
I know they’ve already said everything they need to say–Grandma kept the tin, and Fay, with her since that day in the woods, and I picture them talking like they used to, in Grandma’s house–maybe even in the pantry, still, to hide it from Mina. An old lady and a ghost, tapping and whispering away like the little girls they used to be, giggling and crying over their stories, their pasts–the way they’ve intertwined. And separated.
I hand the tin to Grandma, who holds it close and whispers to Fay, and though I don’t know what she says, I know it’s full of everything they’ve shared.
Grandma straightens up again, and takes a deep breath.
“Ready, Old Gal?” Grandma asks Fay, and I realize it didn’t start with the diner–that it was always, ever, for Fay. I wonder how many times Grandma asked it of Fay when she was alive, and how many times she’s asked it at the diner, wondering how Fay would answer if she were there–was she ready to leave? Ready to see Daisy grow up? Ready to meet me? Ready to go, now that she’s done what she needed to? I wait for the answer I know Grandma received every day in the Cozy Spoon, in her mind. The one she hoped into existence in her memory, for Fay, who didn’t have the time she needed.
READY, OLD GAL.
Fay answers.
And just like that, it’s time.
Gemma, Phoebe, and I close our eyes, per Fay’s request, and Grandma opens the tin. We wait a few moments, in the licorice and lavender, and I imagine Fay bending to smell the flowers she chose for her daughter.
The way she touches Mom’s headstone softly, in a way only a mother could. I imagine her whispering silently to the ground, and to the daughter beneath it, who she is to Mom, and the love she’ll always carry–that she has carried all this time.
A moment later, the light is gone, and so is Fay.
Grandma picks up the tin, gently, and turns to give it to me, fishing something out of her pocket. She puts the tin in my open palms, and places another lock of silver hair–hers–into it, next to Fay’s and Mom’s.
“We all belong to you, chick,” She says, stroking my cheek, “blood or not. And you belong to us, too.”
She hugs me, and I try not to spill the tin full of tokens of people I’ve loved. When we’ve had our moment, Grandma gives Phoebe a hug, too.
“Your mom was a good woman, Phoebe.” Grandma says, stroking Phoebe’s red hair like she’s a child, and I see Phoebe lean into her, “And so are you.”
Gemma elbows me, leaning in to look at Grandma’s lock of hair in the tin, and asks, jokingly, “What does it smell like?”
She knows everything now–I’ve even told her all about the odd licorice and lavender smell, and what it means to me.
Feeling silly, I lean in to take a whiff.
There’s the licorice and lavender, as always, and under it, something sweeter.
Pancakes? I sign, laughing, and we all crack up through our tears.
Next, is Grandma’s son. He’s waited in this cemetery for far too long with the wrong name.
Not everyone can know (not without asking too many of the wrong questions) but some do–the ones that matter.
And we can surround Grandma, now, in the knowledge of it, the way she always needed to be.
We’re all carrying so much meaning and sadness today, in little objects that would mean nothing to others, and I turn to get one more out of my backpack.
Carefully, I unwrap the newspaper surrounding it, and hand Grandma the little mossy stack of rocks we retrieved from the waterfall.
All these years, it was the only monument she had to him–to her real son. She stacked these stones soon after she lost him, running away to the woods to grieve for a child everyone thought she still held in her arms, locking the sadness away there just to keep going.
Grandma holds the stones, fragile and connected together by fine green strands, like they’re the most precious thing–like the child she lost.
Then she places them on the ground, where his little head must be, next to his false headstone. Her hands linger on the bottom stone, where she told me she etched his real name as best she could all those years ago with a sharp rock:
Peter
The moss has covered it entirely, but she knows it’s there.
And so do we, now.
We stand and wonder, all of us, at what could have been. I wonder what he would have been like, if he were still around. What he would have loved. What his pet peeves would be. How he might have been like an uncle to me. What his usual at the diner would have been.
I know it’s silly. I know.
But I also know it’s not–grief is a mixture of many things.
We lay more flowers–irises for Peter, and marigolds for Grandpa, and peonies for Olive, who would have wanted to know–and we cry for the stories that could have been, and weren’t. For the pain that was, and that we still feel.
And we hold each other, and keep space for the tears.
And when we’re ready–and only then–we clean ourselves up, and smile for what is now.
……………..
Most days, I’m at the diner still, more than I am at home.
Really, the diner itself is home, as it always was.
Phoebe only lives a few streets down from Grandma, so if I get up early enough, I can still walk in and open with her on school days, when she’s working. She works fewer hours now, but she manages better for it. We can still hum to Billie Holiday together in the mornings, and slowly turn the lights on, waking the old gal up in song before Hank arrives and throws his flipper in the air and winks, and the day begins.
Phoebe is kind, as always, and is always there for both Grandma and me. We’re getting to know each other more, and grieve the mothers we don’t have in different ways. We do the things we both miss, that might have happened with Daisy, and Olive, if things had been different. We cook new recipes (Phoebe’s a horrible cook, but she throws herself into it), and go to see movies, and she helps me with my homework. We make trips to the library with Gemma and talk about dreams and plan weekend road trips for the times I’m not needed at the diner. We stumble a lot, figuring out how to be the makeshift mother and daughter we are. It’s messy. But we’re learning together.
Tracy is around more, and smiles more, too. Grandma’s been training her to take over, in case she still wants to when it’s time, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen Tracy happier. Like she’s found where she belongs, even if it’s not what she was looking for in the first place–even if it’s still in the in-between of her life. They laugh and share ideas over coffee at the counter, and Tracy has started bringing in plates she finds at the thrift store for the blue plate specials. There’s a new one she found that someone’s kid must have painted some year for Christmas, with Santa Claus and a giraffe on it, for some reason, and if you get it when you order, Grandma and Tracy will come sing you a Christmas carol together if you add more than $10 to the tip jar.
I still see all of it from my corner booth—my safe spot. Gemma joins me, sometimes, to do homework over some hot cocoa or pancakes, and she even helps out in the kitchen with me when things get busy. We do a lot together these days, and we don’t have to keep any secrets anymore. But we still use morse code, and think of Fay every time.
Dad sometimes sits in the front corner, near the sign in the window, when we’re both ready for it. He drinks black coffee and asks about me and my life, and what I’ve drawn lately, and what Gemma’s been up to, and eats his pecan pie and Grandma gives him extra whipped cream on top. I ask him about his new job and his hopes for the future and we awkwardly navigate how to move forward with so much behind us. Some days we cry, and others we laugh, and some days I need him to leave not long after he comes, and he does.
He’s stopped making promises, but he’s keeping them anyway.
And we’re both healing, slowly.
Grandma still always puts her apron on first. She laughs and twirls across the checkerboard floor and doles out smiles and coffee like neither will ever run out. She can still talk to anyone, and see what they need from the second they walk in the door. She brings Marge new napkins without asking and bakes her famous pumpkin pie and knows exactly when someone needs something—anything— a la mode. But some days, her pencil collection overflows, and she actually uses her notepad because she needs it. Sometimes Mina tells her she can’t come in to the diner that day. Occasionally, I’ll need to walk her home early, and we’ll go through the cemetery to say hello to Peter, and Mom, and we’ll pass her mailbox and check for letters from Fay, and I’ll tell her that it’s okay–that I’ve got her back.
I still can’t speak. Not always.
But sometimes, with Grandma, or even with Phoebe or Gemma, I’m starting to get out a few words out here and there.
Like everything, it will take time.
The customers keep coming, at the same time they always do. Ordering the usual. Looking for consistency in their lives. Asking for love in the form of eggs benedict or never-ending coffee, or the same hamburger they’ve had every Thursday since they lost someone, or the same kind of soup they always have, here, in this mustard-stained spot, with a friend.
And Grandma and I see them all, together.
We know how hard life can be–how hard it is, still, sometimes.
We see people in the way only we cozy spoons can, and feed them good food as they cry, and laugh with them when things are good, and remember their usual when they need to feel seen.
We know what it is to be afraid. Alone. Angry. That we’re all bleeding invisible trails with us wherever we go. That we all need to feel our pain, and hold each other with love in the midst of it, and wait for the hope that can come after.
I would say we got lucky, but I can’t, quite. I know what we went through to get here.
I’ll say, instead, that we’re grateful. For the chance to still be together. For chocolate chip pancakes, and pecan pie, and Mr. Laurent saying “Hiya, Cozy Spoons!”
For mornings together, asking the old gal if she’s ready, and thinking of Fay. For nights together, listening to the old songs we all like–Grandma, the diner, and I. For knowing looks and a squeeze of the hand, and an extra pair of shoulders to carry your grief and pain with you, because we both know it all, now.
And on days when I see Grandma’s eyes cloud, and she feels far away, I’m there. And so is Hank, and Phoebe, and Tracy, and Gemma, and Mina. And I’m grateful for all the other days, where she can remember every word of Autumn in New York and beat me at chess, and race me up the mountain.
We know it can’t be like this forever–but it’s what we have.
And we love it while it lasts.
And at closing, when everyone else has gone, and all the lights are dimmed, we dance. We clean out the coffee filters, and empty the dishwasher, and waltz our way around the kitchen in the quiet and the soft blinking lights of the neon signs, and we’re together.
I feel the twinkle in my own eye as I put a mug away on the shelf, and turn to sign to Grandma, who’s dipping the broom as she dances and sweeps out on the floor:
Is this your first Mediterranean cruise?
And Grandma laughs–a big, full, Imogen laugh, that could fill the world– and puts on her best Katharine Hepburn voice, gesturing with the broom like she belongs on broadway.
And it doesn't matter that we’re doing the wrong parts, or that I don’t remember it all perfectly.
Neither does she.
“Yes, but don’t tell anyone.” She says, conspiratorially.
Why? I ask.
“‘Cause I’m the captain!” She laughs, arms roller-coaster high.
Oh, well. I sign, smiling.
I’ll help you steer.
The End.
Thank you so much for reading, friend. It means the world to me that you’d invest your time in this story and in that way support the telling of it.
Thank you.
Graphic Novel Development:
MY OWN PERSONAL OLYMPICS
I always record the audio for each chapter every week before doing any artwork. It gets me into the moment, the emotion, of everything going on in the story right now, and usually gives me a big feeling for what to draw when it’s done.
This week, honestly, the relief of the ending, and the emotional payoff of it after pouring everything into this for the past eight weeks is overwhelming, and mostly I just feel so grateful—for this story, for the chance to share it again, for all of you reading it, and for the chance to heal along with June and Imogen and Fay.
(Possibly) embarrassing confession: as soon as I typed “The End” above and the audio was uploaded, all I could hear in my head was Edith Piaf’s “Hymne a l’amour” from the opening ceremonies of the Olympics—you know, that Celine Dion sang? Did that hit anyone else really hard?? I don’t even know much about Celine Dion, or listen to her music, but I know she’s been through a lot health-wise, and worked really hard to get on that stage, and it was an incredibly powerful performance of a beautiful song. You can just feel the struggle, and the triumph in it.. …I guess what I’m trying to say is that sharing this story and coming to the finish line of this part of it felt a bit like the energy of that performance—at least in some tiny way. Not because Things Not Said is stadium-worthy (or even finished)—I just mean that I’ve been through a lot and worked really hard to get here, on this side of things, where I can say along with June that I’m grateful to be here. And writing this story was no small part of that.
I believe wholeheartedly in the power of story, and I know firsthand the power of externalizing the internal experience. June’s story is different than mine, but I poured a lot of myself and my own experiences into telling hers, and it ripped me open in the best possible way.
So I guess I feel like I’ve been up here on stage, belting my heart out and thinking of everything I’ve done to get here, and it’s hitting me again just how important and powerful this work is.
Thank you, so much, for being a part of it. For letting me share it with you.
And for reminding me that telling our stories is how we heal.
And do you want to know something exciting slash absolutely terrifying?
Of the stories I have bubbling away on my creative stove right now, this isn’t even the one that digs the deepest emotionally for me.
Stay tuned for more about that story later.
SIGN LANGUAGE IN A GRAPHIC NOVEL?
In this spread I finally got the opportunity to experiment with showing June using American Sign Language to communicate while still using speech bubbles for easy reading. (Fun fact: I studied ASL for several years, and almost became an interpreter. I’m a bit rusty, but I use it sometimes when I have verbal shutdowns.) Anyway. For now, I settled on posing June doing one of the main signs (except for that last panel), and using sketches of hand shapes from the rest of the sentence scattered around the speech bubble. Does this read for you? I need to look into other graphic novels that use sign language—I haven’t stumbled across any at the library so far, but I know there are some out there!
It’s still a bit rough, but it’s not over yet. Because of this project, and all of you reading along and supporting me as I go, this is just the beginning for Things Not Said.
Thank you for coming along for the journey this far.
If you’ve enjoyed Things Not Said, leave me a comment— even if it’s just a 🥞 emoji!
I know the pressure to formulate a comment can be stressful, but a simple digital stack of pancakes is all it takes to let me know you’re out there—and it all helps on this long journey to bring this story to life!
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Thank you so much for writing this and for sharing it. I loved it and found it so powerful 🥞 xx