Читать книгу Stranger at the Door - Laura Abbot - Страница 10

I THOUGHT MARK TAYLOR would never leave. Now I’m pacing from room to room, disbelief lodged in my chest. Never once with Sam has there been a whisper of another woman. Yet in this young man’s tall, well-built frame, the way he tilts his head when listening and the matchless blue of his eyes, I see my husband. Everything in me screams denial, but the truth is hard to escape. Even if Sam was ignorant of the pregnancy, as Mark claims, did he think this chapter of his life could remain forever closed?

Oddly, despite my anger and hurt, I found it impossible to ignore the entreaty in Mark Taylor’s voice or to doubt his sincerity. But I know Sam. A sudden confrontation between the two of them would never have worked. Even so, I resent having to be the one to break the news when he returns from Boulder where he’s helping our younger daughter Lisa paint her living room.

I’ve taken Mark Taylor’s contact information and encouraged him to return to Savannah if Sam doesn’t phone him at his motel within a couple of days.

Numb, I wander to the picture window overlooking the tarn, now turning steely under gathering clouds. All my certainties are evaporating like a shifting mountain mist. In their place, questions and accusations swirl.

THE NEXT EVENING, I hardly let Sam hang up his jacket before turning on him. “You’ve been keeping quite the secret all these years. Did you ever plan to tell me or was I just supposed to drift along in ignorance?”

His eyes widen with incomprehension. “Tell you what?”

“About your fling during the Vietnam War. About the total stranger who appeared at the door yesterday announcing himself as your son.”

“What in blazes are you talking about?”

With barely controlled fury, I repeat Mark Taylor’s claim. About his mother Diane and her gallant sacrifice in not telling Sam she was pregnant. About Mark’s stateside birth and his mother’s marriage to Rolf Taylor, whose name is on the birth certificate. “He’s a grown man now. He wants to meet you.”

Sam turns to granite before my eyes. “I have no knowledge of any baby. I won’t see him. He’s nothing to me.”

I am speechless, appalled by his cold indifference to his son and to my feelings. Finally I choke out, “Was she also nothing to you?”

“For God’s sake, Isabel!”

“Answer the question.”

“Do you think I’d have spent over forty-five years of my life with you if she meant more to me?”

“Well, you certainly spent a bit of time with her. Enough to impregnate her.”

“Christ, Izzy, I was lonely and scared.”

“Welcome to the waiting wives’ club. Do you think it was any picnic being at home and imagining the worst?”

His shoulders slump. “I don’t know what to say to you, except I’m sorry. I never wanted you to find out.”

“I can believe that. But you should have told me. Then I wouldn’t have had to open the door yesterday and get blindsided by Mark Taylor. Who, by the way looks just like you. He wants to meet you. Whether I like it or not, you owe him something.”

“Not now.” The grandfather clock sounds like a ticking bomb. “I can’t deal with this just like that.” He snaps his fingers to emphasize the point. “I need time. I have to go away.”

“You have to go away? What about me? Am I just supposed to keep the home fires burning, carry on as if my whole life hasn’t been turned upside down?”

“Izzy, please understand. I have to think.”

“You know what? I don’t care what you need right now. This is always the way you handle trouble. You run, Sam, you run. Like a coward.”

He takes me by the arms. “Please, I need time.”

I hear the coldness in my voice. “And I need an explanation.”

He raises his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “I know you do. Believe me, I’ve regretted the incident ever since. It was nothing. It was wartime and—”

“Save your excuses for another time—after you’ve had your precious time to think. And whatever happens, Sam, a son is not nothing. Remember that.”

I leave the room seething. History repeats itself. Sam crawls into his cave, and all I can do is wait and wonder how I could have been married, happily for the most part, to a man with such a devastating secret.

SAM DEPARTS THE NEXT morning for Montana where his air force buddy Mike has offered his vacation cabin on the Yellowstone River. The fiction is that Sam is on a fishing trip. The truth? He’s escaping.

The day after he leaves, our older daughter Jenny comes up from Colorado Springs where she lives with her contractor husband Don. Usually I look forward to her visits. Today, though, the effort to mask my feelings is almost more than I can handle.

“Since Daddy’s in Montana, I thought you might like company,” Jenny says from the kitchen where she’s making our lunch—tuna salad. “Besides, I’m kind of lonely myself, now that both girls are off at Colorado State.”

“Empty nest?” I query from the breakfast room where I’m setting the table.

She grins wistfully. “I always thought I’d be immune.”

“Impossible,” I assure her. “Not if you love your children.”

After making small talk during our meal, we retire to the family room, where she settles on the sofa with a book, our tiger cat Orville curled in her lap. I sit in my chair, knitting. Fifteen minutes pass before she lays down her novel. “Have you thought any more about Lisa’s and my suggestion that you write your memoirs?”

“I don’t know how I could find the hours.”

“Mother, you’re running out of excuses. Now that Daddy’s off fishing, you’ll have plenty of time to give it a try.”

My forty-five-year-old firstborn is every bit as stubborn now as she was as a toddler when, arms folded defiantly, she would stomp her foot and tell me “no.” She wore me down then, and nothing seems to have changed because I’m actually considering doing what she asks.

“My life isn’t that exciting.”

“Nonsense. Your history is interesting to us. We really don’t know that much about what you were like as a girl or about your early married years. It’ll be a legacy for your grandchildren.”

“I wouldn’t know where to start.”

Jenny fixes me with her brown eyes, so like mine. “At the beginning, of course.”

How can I tell her it isn’t the beginning I’m worried about. That part I can handle. But the rest? How honest can I be? Particularly in light of recent events. Our daughters will expect portraits of the parents they think they know.

Jenny reaches into her tote bag. “Here.” She thrusts a thick journal into my hands, then pulls out a package of my favorite ballpoint pens and plops it on the table. “Now you have no excuse. What have you got to hide? Just pick up a pen and jump in.”

What have you got to hide? My thoughts leap to Mark Taylor. Oh, my darling girl, life isn’t always as it appears. Dreams become distorted, we do things we never thought we would, and in the twinkling of an eye everything changes.

Jenny arches an eyebrow and waits for my answer.

I sigh. “You’re not letting me wiggle out of this, are you?”

Her mouth twitches in a mischievous smile. “I of the iron will? Of course, not.” She sobers. “Please, Mom.”

Picking up the journal, I thumb through the blank pages, wondering how I can possibly fill them. Wondering how to keep the truth from shattering my daughters’ illusions.

“What if you learn some things you’d rather not know?”

“Ooh…” My daughter shivers with delight. “Family skeletons? I can’t wait.”

“Don’t be too sure.”

“Do it for us, please, Mom?”

In my head I fast-forward a film of memories, the laughter and tears of a lifetime welling within me. I nod. “I’ll try.”

After Jenny leaves, I move to the window with its view of the mountains, now in early autumn adorned with skirts of golden aspen. So many years. So many subjects I’d sooner avoid. But I cannot write a fairy tale, especially not now, when the happily-ever-after is in doubt. Sitting in the armchair that has been my refuge for years, I pick up a pen and open the journal. Where to start?

Glancing around the room, my focus settles first on the man-size sofa and recliner, then on the stone fireplace and finally on the floor-to-ceiling bookcase. As if drawn by a magnet, my eyes light on the small figurine peering at me from the fourth shelf. The Buddha-shaped body is both grotesque and comical, but it is the impish, all-knowing smile that pierces my heart. The billiken.

Now I know how to begin.

Springbranch, Louisiana

1945

THE PEALING CHURCH BELLS and deafening staccato of firecrackers mark the event forever in my memory. My scholarly father scooped me into his arms and danced me up and down the sidewalk among throngs of neighbors spilling from their houses. “The Japanese have surrendered,” he shouted. “Praise the Lord, the war is over!” Then cradling me close, he whispered for my ear alone. “Remember this day always, Isabel. Freedom has prevailed.”

I didn’t know what prevailed meant, but I understood something momentous had happened.

I can still picture the tear-stained face of Mrs. Ledoux, whose son was on a ship somewhere in the Pacific, and hear the pop of the champagne cork from Old Man Culpepper’s front porch. Small boys beat tattoos on improvised drums and grown men waved flags semaphore-style over their heads.

I was six and had no memory of a time before rationing, savings stamps and victory gardens. When the family gathered around the radio listening to news from the front, even though I couldn’t grasp much, I knew “our boys” were heroes. But the freedom my daddy talked about was a puzzling concept. Looking back, I realize how far from harm’s way we were in the small, backwater town in north central Louisiana.

That night Grandmama Phillips, my mother’s mother, led me into her upstairs bedroom. After Grandpapa died, she came to live with us and brought an astonishing array of antique furniture, including a china closet, a Victrola, two rockers and a canopy bed. Her room was an exotic sanctuary for me, smelling of Evening in Paris cologne, peppermint drops and patchouli incense.

Sleepy after the V-J Day celebration, I crawled onto my grandmother’s lap and nestled against her bosom. “Ma petite Isabel, this is a joyous end to long, troubling years. I have something special to give you to remember this day. A token to remind you how every once in a while, things turn out exactly as they should.”

Reaching into the pocket of her flowered smock, she brought forth the odd-looking figurine that I’d seen sitting in the china cabinet among her collection of delicate teacups and saucers. Smiling beatifically, as if giving me a gift of great worth, Grandmama placed the grayish statuette in my small, cupped hands. The contours of the Buddha-esque body felt cool and soothing, and I giggled when I gazed at the face, bearing an elfin grin as if he and I shared a delicious secret. “What is it, Grandmama?”

“A billiken. My father brought this to me in 1909 after a trip to Missouri.” She ran a finger over the billiken’s head. “He’s an extraordinary little god.” Then, taking him from me, she upended him. On the bottom was a circular brass plaque with an inscription around the circumference. “Can you read this, Bel?”

I screwed up my face and studied the words. She took over for me. “‘The god of things as they ought to be.’” She chuckled. “No wonder he’s smiling, ma chère. Today is one of those rare times when things are, indeed, exactly as they ought to be.”

I fell asleep clutching the billiken, secure in the knowledge that I was safe, the world was at peace and things truly were as God intended.

LET ME TELL YOU more about my family. I was an only child, doted upon by the three adults in the home. Sometimes I wonder if their attention to me wasn’t, in part, a means of buffering themselves from one another.

Daddy was a short, chubby man who wore thick glasses and taught English literature at the local college. In a household of females, his study was his haven, and he retreated there most evenings to prepare lessons or grade papers. My mother deferred to him, but with ill-concealed martyrdom, as if she were silently screaming, “I made my bed, and now I will lie in it.”

Grandmama, ever the romantic, amused herself by listening to radio soap operas. When I stayed home from school sick, she would bring me into her bedroom where we would snuggle under her comforter, breathless for the latest adventures of Helen Trent or “Our Gal Sunday.” My grandmother admired swashbuckling rogues of the Rhett Butler mold. Occasionally she would mutter things like, “Your daddy just needs to stand his ground with Renie” or, referring to one of the soap opera idols, “Now, there’s a man for you—he’s out in the world doing something.” Young as I was, I knew what had been left unsaid. “Unlike your father.”

In retrospect, I see she was preparing me for my own Clark Gable, spinning romantic notions of the day my personal knight in shining armor would appear.

I loved Grandmama dearly, but I wished she saw in Daddy what I did—a courtly and gentle man who made me his intellectual companion and in whose eyes I could do no wrong. And what of his interior life? Did he regret marrying my mother, or, in his own way, did he care for her? Had he ever harbored other—different—aspirations? Amazingly, I never heard him utter regrets or say an unkind word about either Mother or Grandmama.

Irene Phillips Ashmore. My mother. It’s hard, even now, to imagine she was Grandmama’s daughter. There wasn’t a romantic bone in her body. Businesslike, practical and fixated on propriety, she was the engine that kept the household machine running smoothly.

She found fulfillment in the Women’s Club of Springbranch. No one ever worked harder to be accepted in society, or what passed for it in our community, than my mother.

And who was expected to be the living embodiment of her social ambitions? Her daughter. Me. Isabel Irene Ashmore.

Springbranch, Louisiana

Early 1950s

POSTWAR SPRINGBRANCH WAS a place of promise. A development of starter ranch homes sprouted in the field beyond the water tower, new model automobiles replaced prewar coupes and sedans, and enrollment at the college reflected the popularity of the G.I. Bill.

My mother’s postwar efforts were directed toward transforming her gangly adolescent daughter into a lady. Not just any lady, mind you, but a genteel Southern lady. Posture: “Isabel Irene Ashmore, stand up straight.” Etiquette: “I didn’t hear you say ma’am.” Table manners: “My dear, a lady never talks with her mouth full.”

I dreaded most her advice concerning boys, whom she referred to as beaux. “Flirt, Isabel. Bat those pretty brown eyes.” I had little interest in the pimply-faced males in my class at Springbranch Elementary School. The idea of flirting with them was humiliating.

Mother meant well, but I always believed I fell short of her expectations. Even though she is long dead, I don’t remember ever experiencing unconditional love from her. Maybe she had to be the way she was. Daddy was lost in his books and Grandmama filled my head with fairy tales. Somebody had to take me in hand.

Throughout my girlhood, I did my best to please her. Every Sunday I wore a hat and gloves to St. John’s Episcopal Church. I didn’t use slang expressions, and I always changed out of my school dress before going outside to play. I even practiced the piano the requisite half hour a day.

Not surprisingly, I liked school—the wooden desks lined up in neat rows, the dulcet tones of teachers’ voices, the sense of accomplishment in winning a spelling bee. I tried very hard to be what others referred to as “a good girl.”

In sixth grade Twink came into my life. School started right after Labor Day and standing just inside Miss Vinnie’s classroom was a strange girl, covered with freckles and sporting a wild mop of carrot-colored curls. Never had I seen such green eyes. She was a leprechaun come to life, and I loved her from that first moment.

“Hi.” She took a step forward. “This is my first day.”

“I know,” I said. “What’s your name?”

“Twink Montgomery.”

“Twink?”

She scowled, daring me to laugh. “Aurelia Mae Starr Montgomery. How would you like it if people called you Aurelia Mae?” She strung out each syllable in challenge.

“I wouldn’t, I guess.” In fact, I wasn’t crazy about my mother calling me Isabel Irene. From that first meeting with Twink, I longed for a nickname. “I’m Isabel Ashmore.”

“Isabel.” She rolled the name around on her tongue. “That’s not as bad as Aurelia. Close, though.”

We burst into a fit of giggles, the first of many.

When I told Mother about my new friend, she was horrified. “Twink? What kind of name is that? What are her people thinking? Why, why—” she sputtered “—it’s almost as bad as someone referring to you as Izzy!”

Izzy. Now there was a nickname! From the beginning, I liked it, but I knew Mother would swoon if she ever heard anybody call me that. Twink often used it when we were alone, but was careful not to slip in front of Mother.

Something weird happened the next year. Boys started paying attention to Twink and me. Not in a smooth-talking, Tab Hunter manner, but awkwardly, fumblingly.

Then, over the summer, to my horror, my breasts started budding. Mother and Grandmama simpered about how wonderful it was that I was “developing.” I hated that word. It conjured images of being sent, like a roll of film, to the Kodak camera shop for some mysterious metamorphosis.

Those times seem pretty tame now. As a naive thirteen-year-old I had never heard of condoms, wet dreams or oral sex. My goodness, finding out about menstruation had about done me in.

Oh, I started to write about Twink and me. She was still straight as a stick, but didn’t have any qualms when it came to talking to boys, whereas I became virtually tongue-tied.

This brings me to the Springbranch Cotillion—a tradition as established as sweetened ice tea. Held in the parish hall of the Episcopal church and sponsored by the Springbranch Women’s Club, the Cotillion was a series of ballroom dancing classes for eighth graders from the “best” families.

Every other Tuesday evening, dressed in our taffeta dresses and black ballet slippers, we girls were dropped off at the church where we suffered under the tutelage of Mrs. Collins Wentworth, self-proclaimed grande dame of local society.

Our very first night, Twink sailed toward the boys, dragging me reluctantly in her wake. Dressed in ill-fitting suits, shirts and even bow ties, they looked nothing like they did at school. When the boys averted their eyes and shuffled their feet, I realized they were no more enthusiastic than I was about the upcoming ordeal.

Mrs. Wentworth, clapping her hands over her head, sashayed to the center of the floor. “Please number off for partners.” My eleven was matched by Laidslaw Grosbeak’s. Yes, that was actually his name, and it suited him, because his thin, sallow face was overwhelmed by a long, aquiline nose. I towered over him. In memory, I can still smell the combination of his Juicy Fruit gum and Brylcreem hair tonic.

Twink shot a triumphant smile over Jimmy Comstock’s back. With the luck of the Irish, she had snagged the man of our dreams. After the briefest instruction, they were actually waltzing, while Laidslaw and I were still stumping in one place, eyes fixed on our uncooperative feet.

The Grand March mercifully brought an end to the evening. Two by two and then four by four, we circled the room and then were dismissed into the humid Louisiana night.

“How was the dance?” Grandmama asked later, her eyes sparkling in giddy anticipation. I stood in the living room doorway, mute with embarrassment.

Mother looked up from her darning. “I’m sure she enjoyed it, Mama.” She turned to me. “Didn’t you, Isabel?”

“It was all right.” I started toward my bedroom, eager to strip off the scratchy dress and remove the glittery rhinestone barrettes from my hair.

“Tell us more. Who did you dance with?” Hearing my grandmother’s plaintive tone, I knew a debriefing was unavoidable. Surrendering, I sat beside her and did my inventive best to paint a glowing picture of the debacle.

When I finished, Mother, a triumphant gleam in her eye, said, “See, Mama, I told you Isabel would do us proud.”

That night as I lay in my bed watching the moon rise over the treetops and feeling the restless breeze cool my body, I had the strongest premonition that something important was expected of me. Something involving boys.

Shortly before I closed my eyes, a shaft of moonlight settled on the billiken sitting on my curio shelf. For the fraction of a second, he seemed to wink at me.

EVEN THOUGH TWINK’S parents had bought an antebellum Southern mansion and drove the latest model cars, they were carpetbaggers in Springbranchian eyes. Mr. Montgomery had made his money in stocks, a specious enterprise in our part of the agricultural South. Mrs. Montgomery, called “Honey,” defied convention by hosting cocktail brunches on Sunday and driving to Shreveport to have her hair done.

I reveled in the sense of the forbidden whenever I was in their home, where full liquor decanters and a silver cigarette box sat on a table right in the living room. If my mother had known, she might have forbidden me to be friends with Twink.

Best of all was the gazebo at the back of the Montgomerys’ deep yard. Shaded from view by hundred-year-old oaks, it was our secret hideaway. One hot July afternoon following our eighth grade year, we took lemonades and a Monopoly set out there. But before we set up the board, Twink looked around, making sure she wasn’t being observed, and then pulled a soft-covered book from beneath her sleeveless camp shirt. “Want to see what I found?” In her expression excitement mingled with disgust.

Prickles traveled down my spine. “What?” I pulled my legs under me and waited.

“This was in my mother’s dresser drawer, way in the back underneath her nightgowns.” As if it were a hot potato, she handed me the slim volume.

I had intended to ask why she’d been snooping in her mother’s bedroom, but I couldn’t. Not after reading the shocking title. Sexual Secrets of Happy Marriages.

“Open it.” Twink’s voice sounded tinny.

I gripped the book between my fingers, sensing I was on the brink of a fateful decision.

“Go ahead, Izzy.”

Twink’s use of the special nickname committed me in a way nothing else could have. “Okay.” I turned to the middle of the book, then blinked, certain I could not be seeing what was there on the page in black and white. “Twink?” Light-headed, I held out the book for her inspection. “Are they doing what I think they are?”

“Yes.”

Incredulous, I studied the photograph of the naked couple. I knew vaguely about sperm and eggs and ovulation, but no one, not my mother and not the health teacher, had ever explained in detail about the sex act.

“See—” Twink pointed to the picture “—the man puts his thing in her. Listen here.” Turning the page, she read me a graphic account of the mechanics, then flipped to photos of other contorted positions.

“Twink, this is revolting.”

“It’s icky to think about our parents doing this, isn’t it?” she said in a hushed voice.

“My parents!” It’s a wonder the neighbors didn’t hear my shriek of outrage, but the mental image of Irene and Robert Ashmore coupling was utterly incomprehensible.

Twink and I never opened the Monopoly set. Instead we spent the afternoon devouring every lurid detail, alternately horrified and titillated.

Only later, walking home, did the full import hit me. Husbands and wives did this. That’s how babies were made. I would someday have to do that thing myself. I remember leaning against the trunk of a tree, on the verge of being sick, trying to catch my breath.

Then another thought came. Grandmama and Mother kept asking me whether I had any beaux. But if they knew what men and women did…

In bed that night, I thought about Laidslaw Grosbeak and Jimmy Comstock. Even Tab Hunter. Then I made a solemn promise to myself. I would die an old maid before I would ever do that.

One afternoon with “the book” had shattered the idealized image of Southern womanhood for me. However, all that knowledge couldn’t prepare me for what was to come, and before too long, I discovered life always has the capacity to blindside us.

ARMED WITH THE back-to-school issue of Seventeen, Twink and I assembled our wardrobe for the most momentous step in our lives—high school. The three-story brick building, two blocks off the town square, had not yet been remodeled. Tall, heavy-sash windows opened to whatever breeze might come, desks rested on polished wooden floors and freshly cleaned blackboards bordered the rooms. But to Twink and me it was Valhalla—the place where the gods and goddesses of our adolescence resided.

On that first day, although I had mastered my locker combination, I was fearful about getting lost. What if I was late for a class? To add to my insecurities, I caught sight of the head cheerleader, the varsity quarterback and the senior class president, whose green eyes and dimples made me weak in the knees. I had never felt so out of place or awkward.

But that changed when I walked into algebra and saw Taylor Jennings. He had the dark good looks of a Creole grandee and a sultry voice that transported me to moonlit bayous. Sitting at my desk, feeling his gaze on me, the hairs on the nape of my neck stirred. In the pit of my stomach were funny, unfamiliar sensations. Unbidden, the photos in “the book” rose in my memory, and I felt myself blush.

Walking home with Twink, I mentioned Taylor.

“He’s handsome, all right,” she agreed. “If you like freshmen.” She smirked, then did a jig step. “I’m setting my sights on Jay Owensby.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. “He’s a junior.”

She giggled. “So? I’ve always adored older men.”

“Aurelia Mae Starr Montgomery, are you keeping secrets?”

“I was going to tell you. Dad hired Jay two weeks ago to mow our lawn. You should see him without a shirt.” She made a play of fanning herself. “Anyway, we’ve been talking, and last night he came over to pick up his check. One thing led to another and…”

I wanted to shake her. “What do you mean?”

“He asked me to go for a walk and we ended up in the park.” Her eyes twinkled mischievously. “Oh, Izzy, it was di-vine!”

“What was?”

“The kiss.”

She said it so matter-of-factly, I wasn’t sure I’d heard correctly. “The kiss?”

“Believe me, it was nothing like those stupid games of post office.” She shivered with delight. “I can’t wait for the next one.”

I wanted details, but at the same time I felt like a novice in the presence of the initiated. “Are you two, like, dating?”

“He’s taking me to the football game this weekend. He has a car. Who knows? We may end up at the lake for a smooch.”

“A smooch?”

She put an arm around my shoulder and leaned closer. “And maybe more.”

“More?” In my bewilderment, I couldn’t stop parroting her.

“Oh, Isabel, it’s all starting—just like in the movies. I’m so glad we’re growing up.”

By the time we reached the corner where we parted ways, we had changed the subject, yet all I could think of was the change in Twink.

DESPITE TYPICAL TEENAGE trials, high school was an idyllic interlude. I enjoyed my classes and, committed as I was to pleasing my parents, Daddy in particular, I excelled. That achievement was not without its price, however. I soon discovered that boys were not interested in the quality of my mind.

I dated some, but usually other serious students, whose claim to fame lay not on the football field but in labs and at debate tournaments. Like most teens, I fantasized about being the homecoming queen, escorted to the prom by a handsome, champion athlete. Instead, my date was the aforementioned Laidslaw Grosbeak, who, at least, had grown ten inches and adopted his middle name, Barton. And yes, Twink was the queen.

As far as what passed for romance was concerned, I lived vicariously through Twink, who knew how to flirt, lead a boy just to the point of no return, cast him aside and mysteriously remain on good terms with him. She also gave me my first view of the world beyond Springbranch. At least twice a year her family vacationed in exotic spots like New York City, London and Honolulu, scenes I could only imagine from magazines or television. Much as I wanted to see such places for myself, I was intimidated by the unfamiliar. I couldn’t envision a future that didn’t include Springbranch, a provincial outlook that hardly prepared me for what happened later.

One snapshot from those years summarizes the two of us. We stand in caps and gowns, arms entwined. Mortarboard at a rakish angle, Twink grins triumphantly at the camera, while I face straight ahead, my mortarboard aligned in a scholarly manner, clutching my diploma protectively. “Graduation is only the beginning,” she appears to announce, whereas my demeanor screams a need to remain eternally at Springbranch High School.

How often I have appreciated Twink’s adventurous spirit. Even considering her two divorces and years of caring for her ailing mother, she has rarely lost her optimism. I, on the other hand, am full of reservations and second thoughts, which makes this trip down memory lane both necessary and bittersweet.