The Bluestockings: Chapter Eleven
"Which was worse? A kidnapped mother, a dead mother, or a mother who had once loved her daughter deeply, just not enough to keep showing up through her grief?"
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Catch Up On Previous Chapters: Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
Eleanor
When Eleanor spotted Maggie through the glass front door, Marianne close behind, she could immediately see that something was wrong. Maggie’s face was pinched and sour, Marianne’s concerned.
The blast of cold air when they entered made Eleanor shiver. “Hey!” she exclaimed with a broad smile, rushing over to greet them. “I’ve got something cool to show you.”
Maggie lifted one corner of her mouth and met Eleanor’s gaze with red-rimmed eyes. Marianne squeezed Maggie’s shoulders. “Call me when you’re ready to come home,” she said and waved goodbye to Eleanor.
When she was gone, Maggie threw her backpack on the floor and slumped into a nearby chair. “Aunt Ruby is such a jerk,” she said with such vehemence that Eleanor blinked.
“What did she do now?” Eleanor asked, taking a seat across from Maggie, who sat up and started talking a hundred miles an hour.
“She’s just a grouchy old lady who never wants to do anything for anyone else even though she’s got more money than God. I mean, would it kill her to come out of her monster cave and show her face here once in a while? Nobody cares about what happened when Aunt Ruby was a little girl anymore. What is she so afraid of, huh? Lots of people’s mothers die. It’s not like she’s the only one. They just want to see that she exists. Is that really too much to ask?”
So Maggie had told Ruby about the store. Obviously, it hadn’t gone well. Eleanor’s heart sank to her toes, and she looked down at her hands, twisting the handmade bracelet she’d made for herself last summer.
“What?” Maggie asked, eyeing Eleanor’s fidgety hands. “What’s wrong?”
Eleanor released a long, shaky breath. Then she looked up at her friend, chin lifted despite the hard knot in her throat. “My mom went missing six years ago. We’ve never found out what happened to her.”
Maggie’s mouth fell open, her eyes fixed on Eleanor’s face. “What?” she exclaimed. “Oh, Eleanor, I’m so sorry. I’m such a jerk!” Maggie pressed her face into her hands. “I shouldn’t have said that about Ruby’s mom. Ugh. I’m really, really sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Eleanor replied. “You didn’t know.”
“Still,” Maggie said. “Ugh, why am I like this?”
Eleanor shrugged. “Really. It’s okay. I wanted to tell you. I just didn’t know how.” Maggie walked over to Eleanor and pulled her up into a hug so tight she thought a rib might crack. “Okay, okay,” Eleanor croaked, tapping Maggie’s back. “Uncle!” Maggie laughed and let go.
“I guess I can see now why Aunt Ruby might not want to come here,” she said, crossing her arms. “And I don’t mean to be insensitive when I say this, but—well, it’s just that it’s been so long.”
Eleanor looked down at her feet. “Maybe it seems that way to you,” she replied. “But it will never go away. It doesn’t matter how much time passes. I will never stop missing my mom or wishing she would come back.”
“How do you do it?” Maggie asked softly.
Eleanor had asked herself that question so many times. That was the thing about grief. She had thought it would kill her, but no. It was the slow, steady trickle of life that dripped from her heart when she realized her mother would never come home that threatened to steal her life. It was the lack of inertia. Grief didn’t pull you back in time so much as it froze you, stunned, in the present. It could rot you where you stood.
When Eleanor was ten, her sadness over Vera’s disappearance became accompanied by an intense need to understand her mom’s motivations. The police and James had zeroed in on the belief that Vera had been kidnapped, or worse, but no clue ever actually pointed them in that direction. Eventually, the case had gone cold. That was when Eleanor had collected a pile of medical books from their shop and scoured them with her mother in mind, sure that if she could just understand the source of Vera’s internal anguish, then maybe she could survive this pain. Maybe she could finally understand the grief that had made her mother leave.
One morning, a few months before Vera disappeared, Eleanor had woken in the middle of the night to the sound of her mother’s sobs. Frightened, she hurried down the hall to her parents’ bedroom and came up short when James opened the door. His eyes were wide with panic while he corralled Eleanor back to her bed with whispered assurances. But she had seen her mother sitting on a towel at the end of the bed, a bundle of bloody sheets on the floor by her feet. She hadn’t understood then.
But she understood now.
Eleanor’s dad would never agree that Vera had chosen to leave. He believed the best of his wife, and why shouldn’t he? Why shouldn’t Eleanor? There was no evidence to the contrary, nothing other than the visceral truth that tightened in her gut each time she imagined her mom trapped somewhere, captive. Or buried in the ground.
No, her body told her. Not that.
Perhaps Eleanor’s body was simply protecting her from a horrific reality she couldn’t bear to contemplate. Or maybe Eleanor’s theory was correct. Which was worse? A kidnapped mother, a dead mother, or a mother who had once loved her daughter deeply, just not enough to keep showing up through her grief?
Eleanor didn’t know how she survived. She just did.
“It’s hard,” she replied to Maggie, picking at the fuzz on her cardigan. “Especially right now.”
Maggie nodded. “Because of the holidays,” she said, matter-of-fact.
“Yeah, but—“ Eleanor began but stopped short. A customer had just entered the shop behind them, and she didn’t want another soul to hear what was about to come out of her mouth. Eleanor pulled Maggie towards the back of the store, near the storage room. “I started my period.”
“For the first time?” Maggie whisper-shouted. Eleanor glanced around and then nodded.
“Yesterday, at your aunt’s house.”
“I knew it!” Maggie declared, and Eleanor shushed her. Maggie continued in a softer voice. “I thought I saw blood on your pants when you were packing up your stuff. Is that why you left early?”
“Yeah,” Eleanor replied, her cheeks flushed “Marianne caught me crying in the bathroom when you were still sleeping. I was so embarrassed.”
“Why? I got my period last year. It’s no big deal.”
Eleanor cocked her head to the side and pierced her friend with a moody stare. “It is when your mother isn’t around to tell about it.”
Maggie reached for Eleanor’s hand. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Do you have tampons and stuff?”
“I got some pads,” Eleanor replied, shifting her feet. “They feel like diapers, though. It’s honestly ridiculous. You’d think we’d have better options by now.”
“You’ll get used to it. I’ll help you find some good brands. Or you could try a menstrual cup.”
Eleanor blanched. “That sounds even worse.”
Maggie giggled, then looked over her shoulder towards James’ office and lowered her voice again. “Does your dad know?”
Eleanor shook her head, brown curls whipping back and forth. “No way.”
“You’re going to have to tell him eventually,” Maggie said. “I doubt you’ll be able to sneak out to the store on your own every month.”
“I know,” Eleanor admitted. “But I’ll worry about that later.”
With that, she opened the door to the storage room and beckoned for Maggie to follow. Inside, Eleanor bent down beside the antique desk while Maggie pulled the string to illuminate the space with hazy orange light.
With a flourish of her hand, Eleanor gestured to the hidden compartment and said, “There’s something else I want to show you.”
