The Lucky List Read online

  I wonder what that must be like.

  If this were Tumblr, I’d reblog the crap out of that photo. It looks like it’s something out of a magazine.

  “That’s your mom?” I ask, seeing Blake in her eyes and the bridge of her nose and the curve of her smile.

  “Yep!” Blake says happily, nodding as she cranes her neck to look at the picture, an identical smile playing on her lips. She definitely isn’t a carbon copy like me, but you can still see their shared features.

  I’d never seen Blake’s mom before, but I knew the story. She’d died six hours after giving birth to Blake. A hemorrhage of some kind.

  I meet Blake’s eyes, wondering what that must be like. Never having known your mom. To only have that picture on your phone, or stories told over dinner about a person you know but never really knew.

  When my mom died, it felt like everyone I knew had a story about her. Every story was a different flavor of grief, a memory that would just pour out of people to absolve a wound far beneath the skin. To make sense of something that couldn’t make sense. As they talked, I would wonder if it was for me or for them, the stories slowly becoming empty words. Empty words passing over lips in an attempt to reconcile a loss that couldn’t be reconciled.

  Sometimes the things people told me didn’t even sound like her. Like the parts of my mom they were giving me were all wrong. Like they didn’t even add up to the person I knew.

  What would it be like to just have those stories? To maybe not even know what was real. Or… what was fake.

  “Well,” I say to her, not wanting to pick at either of our wounds, my eyes moving back to the yearbook picture of her gawky teen dad. “It’s good to know the whole crushing puberty thing is genetic for you Carters. All I got was boobs and a tick mark over five-three.”

  She pockets her phone, giving me a long look.

  “Fine. A tick mark over five-two.”

  She shakes her head and holds out the yearbook to me, but as she does a folded piece of paper falls out of the very back. I watch as it floats down to the worn wood of my parents’ bedroom floor, the faded page landing gently on the ground between us, with a whisper too quiet for me to hear.

  I can feel it in the air though, the hair on the back of my neck standing on end when I catch sight of my mom’s handwriting, bleeding through from the other side.

  I reach out to pick it up, carefully unfolding it to see JULIE MILLER’S SENIOR YEAR SUMMER in thick, bold letters. TWELVE ADVENTURES BEFORE TWELFTH GRADE is written just under it, slightly smaller.

  The paper is crisp but thin underneath my fingertips, holding all the years between the last time my mom touched it and right now.

  The handwriting is the same loopy cursive I remember. More legible, perhaps, with the forced neatness we all try for when something is important. Every line is written in a different color ink, still vibrant after all this time.

  Get a tattoo.

  Get over my fear of heights.

  Go on a picnic.

  Try a new food.

  Get out of Huckabee.

  Sleep under the stars.

  Go on the Huckabee Lake trip.

  Skinny-dip in Huckabee Pool after hours.

  Buy a book in another language.

  Steal an apple from the First Tree at Snyder’s Orchard.

  Find a four-leaf clover.

  Kiss J. C.

  “What is it?” Blake asks.

  “It’s like… a bucket list,” I say, holding it up for her to read. “From the summer before their senior year.”

  I watch her eyes move down the paper, quietly taking it all in.

  “How’s it going up there?” my dad’s voice calls up to us, the bottom step creaking under his weight as Blake and I jump.

  “Fine!” I call back, quickly folding the paper and shoving it into my pocket. I start to load the stuff back in the box, the yearbook, the stuffed moose, the varsity letters. “Just got done packing up the shoes!”

  I don’t look at Blake, but about halfway through my manic packing, she starts helping me, quickly stuffing the last few things in the box and standing up.

  “I’m taking a truckload of stuff over to Goodwill,” my dad calls, which has been his catchphrase for the past week and a half. “You guys want to bring your boxes down?”

  “Yeah, definitely!” I call as I slide the Huckabee Lake room-number plate inside and fold the cardboard corners of the box shut, over, under. “We’ll be right down!”

  Blake stands and grabs the first box of shoes from the closet, heading toward the bedroom door.

  But then I see the black cardigan peeking out through a small hole in the side.

  “Wait!” I exclaim, jumping up. Before I can process what I’m doing, my emotions get the better of me.

  She stops dead and looks back, our eyes meeting as I run over to her, pushing aside the mound of shoes to dig the black cardigan out of the box. The second my fingertips touch the soft fabric, a feeling of relief pours over me.

  “All good?” she asks.

  I nod. “Yeah, I just… couldn’t let this go yet.”

  She nods, like she gets it.

  As she heads out of the room, I shuffle off down the hall, hiding the box of high school memories and the cardigan underneath my bed before booking it back to my dad’s room. I grab the second box of shoes and assorted top-shelf items, almost buckling under the weight as I stumble down the glossy wooden steps, trying my very best not to trip over my own two feet and face-plant.

  I’m relieved when my foot hits solid ground, and I stop to adjust the box, my arms burning. The black front door is thrown wide open, and I can feel the afternoon heat radiating slowly into the house.

  I lug the box the rest of the way to my dad’s beat-up pickup truck, where Johnny swoops in to take it from me. A pained expression appears on his face as he pretends it weighs a million pounds, staggering his way over to the truck bed.

  “Phew, Em. You got some muscles!” he says, and my dad lets out a booming laugh, the likes of which I haven’t heard in… forever.

  I watch as he slides the box of shoes onto the back of the truck, and it becomes just another box in a sea of boxes. I try not to look too hard at the items peeking out of corners and edges, knowing I’ll probably see something else that will make me sad.

  “We’ll be back in a bit,” my dad says as he pushes up the tailgate. He gives me a hug, his strong arms wrapping around me, his shirt smelling of dust and sweat. Normally, I’d grumble about it, chide him to take a shower in a voice I know is as similar to my mom’s as my face, but this time I don’t try to resist.

  They hop in the truck, turning the radio up and rolling down the windows like they’re back in high school. It’s wild how things can change so much and still be exactly the same.

  I wave as they pull off, driving down Green Street and out of view.

  “This is a pretty house,” Blake says from somewhere behind me. I start at the sound of her voice, realizing we’re going to be completely alone now. No packing left to do today now that my dad’s been appeased by a donation run and we’re out of boxes. Just me… trying not to be awkward.

  I turn to look at the house, taking in the familiar crisp-white exterior and the sash windows and the front porch with a swing. The afternoon sunlight trickles softly through the large trees around our house, and I can’t help but smile at the deep green of the grass and the bright yellow sunflowers in the garden that my dad and I carefully tamed in the spring.

  It hits me that that was it. The last spring sunflower bloom, already over.

  We definitely don’t have the same green thumb my mom did, but we’ve worked tirelessly the past three years to keep the garden looking as good as she left it, from testing the pH of the soil to pest-control stakeouts on the front porch. I saw my dad get into it with a squirrel just last week after it tried to get some sunflower seeds.

  “It was pretty perfect.” I spy the red and white for-sale sign smack in the middle of th
e lawn, the flaw in it all. “Someone’s sure going to love it.”

  I head up the front path and the steps and across the porch, Blake following just behind me.

  “You want some water?” I call behind me as we round the corner into the living room.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  We head into the kitchen, and I swing open the fridge door, grabbing the water pitcher off the top shelf, the cool air feeling nice after being outside.

  “So,” she says, sliding onto the marble kitchen counter as I take two cups out of the cabinet and start pouring out the Brita. “Why don’t you want to move?”

  I’m so surprised, I nearly dump all the water onto the counter.

  “Who said I don’t want to move?” I ask, quickly pulling myself together and handing her one of the cups.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe just the look of disgust you gave the for-sale sign five minutes ago,” she says, pausing, the glass halfway to her mouth. “Or maybe it was the look you gave the pile of boxes in the back of the truck.”

  She raises her dark eyebrows at me and takes a long, slow, calculating sip.

  “Jeez, Blake,” I say with a laugh. “You didn’t have to call me out like that.”

  I’m surprised to find, though, that I like the honesty. It’s refreshing. It’s been three years and I still find people tiptoeing around me, bullshitting.

  It makes me want to be honest too. To not tiptoe around the things my dad wouldn’t want to hear.

  “Because,” I say, taking a deep breath, “all of this just feels like I’m getting farther and farther away from my mom. The move. Cleaning out her closet. All of it.”

  Blake is quiet for a moment. Thoughtful. She pulls her hair slowly into a bun, and I try to focus on the cup of water I’m drinking from instead of the way her face looks when her hair is pulled back. It’s not fair for anyone to be that pretty.

  Finally, once her hair is tucked away, she starts talking again. “Back in Hawaii, I used to go rock climbing at my mom’s favorite spot. When my dad first showed it to me, he told me she liked it the most because when you get to the very top, everything else looks small. The people down at the beach. The cars. The trees, even.” She puts her cup down on the counter. “She used to say that when you’re that high up, even your problems can look smaller.”

  I nod. I like the idea of that. Though I’d probably need to be on the moon to make all my problems look small.

  “You know I never met my mom, but whenever I wanted to feel close to her, I would go rock climbing at that spot because it made me feel like she wasn’t that far away,” she says, pausing for a moment to tuck a stray hair behind her ear. “Anyway…” She shifts her position, her eyes meeting mine, like she can sense I’m wondering where she’s going with this beyond commiserating about our joint membership in the Dead Moms Club. “What I’m trying to say here is that you should do something to feel close to her. In a new way. New memories to substitute for that house-shaped void you’re feeling.”

  She grins and points at my pocket, the outline of the folded list pressing through the fabric. “Actually, you could even do that bucket list. I mean, what’ve you got to lose?”

  I laugh at that, but her words stick with me. Through our conversation about our shared love of Schitt’s Creek, through our dads coming back from Goodwill, through the Carters leaving to go walk their golden retriever named Winston, through a quiet dinner of spaghetti and meatballs with my dad.

  Not just something to feel close to her. Twelve somethings I never even knew she did before.

  Could I do them too?

  5

  The next morning I lumber down the steps, my phone in one hand and my mom’s list in the other. I make a beeline for the living room couch, plopping down on it and swiping up to unlock the phone screen.

  No new notifications.

  This shouldn’t surprise me. Why would Matt wake up and send me a text on this random Sunday after nothing but weeks of radio silence?

  I spend hours every day trying to find the right words to say, staring at the keyboard on my phone, but I can never find them. I want to explain to him why I did what I did, but I just… can’t. How can I give him an explanation when I can’t even give myself one?

  This is one breakup I don’t know how to fix. Especially because he was always the one who found a way to fix things before, whether it was showing up at my doorstep with flowers or pulling me aside to talk in between classes.

  I don’t know how to fix this on my own. And, maybe, there’s some small part of me that doesn’t want to.

  I burrow down into the couch as the guilt swims over me, washing that thought away, the move making this additional betrayal of my mom’s wishes feel just that much worse.

  “Hey!” my dad’s voice thunders unexpectedly from the kitchen, nearly giving me a heart attack.

  He is usually working overtime by the time I get up on Sunday. I wasn’t expecting to see him until our weekly Hank’s date, gorging ourselves on their Sunday Special.

  And… I definitely wasn’t expecting to see him in this.

  It takes me a second to fully process what I’m seeing.

  “Where’d you get the new outfit?” I ask, and he cranes his neck to look down at himself, a smirk playing on his lips.

  My dad, the six-three, pickup-truck-driving, thick-beard, arm-full-of-tattoos guy, is standing in the kitchen wearing an ancient pink flowery apron. An ancient, pink, flowery apron I remember my grandma wearing. But never quite like… this.

  I try to shake my head at him, but I am laughing so hard, I can barely breathe. Before he can protest, I hold up my phone and snap a picture, wiping away the laugh-tears with the back of my hand. “I can see the caption now. ‘Who wore it best?’ ”

  “I spent my morning slaving away making pancakes, and you’re going to fart around on your phone instead of eating them with me?” He points a butter knife at the stack already sitting on the kitchen table with a defensively dignified look.

  He’s got a point.

  I push myself off the couch and pocket my phone, the smell of the pancakes pulling me across the room and into the kitchen. “I thought you’d already left for work!”

  “Sitting there texting… didn’t even compliment my new apron…,” he grumbles as I slide into one of the kitchen chairs, an empty white plate resting in front of me. When his back is turned, I pull the list out of my pocket and unfold it, putting it carefully on the table next to me, hoping either he sees it and says something, or that I’m bold enough to just ask about it.

  I feel my heart hammering in my chest. I know it’s hard for him to talk about her. I know it’s hard for us to talk about her.

  But if he can move out of this house and get rid of her stuff, and pretend going to bingo night isn’t a big deal, then he should be able to at least do this.

  I force a huge grin as he spins back around, syrup and butter clutched in his hands. I use my fork to get a pancake from the top of the mound as he sits, scooting his chair into the table. “You’re killing it, Dad. The apron really brings out your eyes.”

  “I thought the exact same thing!” he says, laughing.

  “You staying late tonight?” I ask as I cover my pancakes in a layer of syrup before handing the bottle over to him.

  “Yeah,” he confirms as he takes it from me, slowly swirling the syrup onto his plate. “You know how it is with weekends… fewer guys… double the pay.”

  “So, no Hank’s?” I ask, even though I already know the answer.

  He nods, looking sorry. “No Hank’s.”

  “But we’ve got pancakes!” I say quickly. I hate making him feel guilty.

  He smiles and holds up a forkful. “We do have pancakes.”

  Then… his eyes follow mine down to the table where the crinkled piece of paper sits. Am I going to pass out? Maybe.

  He raises his thick eyebrows as he points in its direction. “What’ve you got there?”

  I swallow my mouthful of panca
kes and cautiously pick it up. “I found this yesterday. When I was cleaning out the closet.”

  I hold it out to him, and he reaches for it, nodding as his eyes run down the piece of paper, his expression unreadable. I stay silent, waiting for him to talk. “Yeah. I remember this.”

  “You do?” I ask, trying not to appear too excited. I know by now that I’m definitely walking on eggshells. He’d do anything to get out of a conversation about Mom, and I usually would too. But I can’t now. Not this time. “Did you, uh…?” My voice trails off, and I have to force the words out. “Did you help her with it?”

  He smiles faintly. “Yeah. Me and Johnny both did. Nina for one or two, but she was away at that camp for most of the summer. I even came up with a couple of them. We went on a day trip to the beach and rode on roller coasters until she wasn’t afraid of the drop. A whole bunch of stuff.”

  My eyes land on number twelve: “Kiss J. C.,” and I give my dad a big grin. “Plus, number twelve certainly worked out well for you. Did you come up with that one?”

  He snorts, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, right.”

  I see his face change the longer he looks at it, his eyebrows furrowing, his jaw locking. I can tell he’s closing off, a door slamming shut.

  I claw my way into the tiny space, wrapping my fingers around the doorframe before it can close completely. “Why did she do it? Do you know?”

  He takes a bite of his pancakes, chewing slowly, swallowing deliberately. “Your mom spent most of her life doing what people expected of her. She was the president of all the clubs at school. She was always on honor roll. She was always doing what her parents wanted her to do.” He reaches out, taking a sip of his coffee. “But then she bombed her SATs.”

  My head snaps up as I remember the taped piece of paper I found yesterday.

  “Didn’t get a lick of sleep the night before and ended up passed out over her reading section. She’d completely worn herself out. Me and Johnny found her crying in the parking lot afterward. But it wasn’t hard to see it wasn’t really the test that was weighing on her.” He stares at his plate, his face thoughtful.