Cady remembered this well. Their mother had warned him it was a terrible idea, but he was stubborn.
“And he goes, ‘They’re hydrangeas! Blue hydrangeas. Or they should be. By mid-June, at least one of them will be the perfect color.’ I remember looking at his face all bright-eyed with excitement and then watching it slowly fall as he registered my less-than-ideal reaction. I was furious. What was I going to do with three huge potted plants? I practically threw his perfect red rose boutonnière at him. The entire vehicle smelled like peat moss, and we drove to the prom in silence.”
Jenny looked at Cady and smiled. “Regretfully, I didn’t realize at the time the effort and heartfelt intention behind Eric’s gesture. I found out later, through various unnamed sources, that Eric was hell-bent on getting me a blue corsage because blue is my favorite color. But true blue flowers are very hard to find, so Eric decided to make some. He learned that the color of a hydrangea is determined by the pH balance in the soil, and specifically that a high acid content yields blue blossoms. He bought three hydrangea plants, repotted them in peat moss and conifer needles, and watered them daily with a special solution of aluminum sulfate and iron sulfate. To make sure he got the balance right, he made three attempts, hence the three pots. He had to have been planning it for over a month.” Jenny took a long breath before continuing. She wiped her eyes and tucked her hair behind her ears. Her voice was trembling, but she was smiling. “So, I didn’t have any flowers on my prom night. But right now, on our back patio, I have three glorious hydrangea plants, and they flower every June. And Eric, I hope you can see that each one blooms the perfect blue. Thank you.”
Jenny stepped down from the lectern. As she passed their pew, Cady’s mother stood to hug her. When Jenny broke from the embrace, she surprised Cady by bending down and putting her arms around Cady’s neck. “I’m so sorry,” Jenny said, sniffling. Cady nodded and touched her back but couldn’t form the words to answer. All she could think of was how cool Jenny’s hair felt against her cheek, like water.
The sound of the organ burst out from the front of the church, and Cady closed her eyes. After the last key was released, the sound lingered before escaping into the air beyond. Cady opened her eyes upward to the vaulted roof of the church.
She remembered looking up at Eric as he stood tall at the garage roof’s peak, silhouetted against the moonlight like a wolf on a mountaintop. He motioned for her to climb up to the top with him, then reached out his arm to help her. Eric pointed out their parents’ bedroom windows toward the back of the house and his own bedroom window—the one from which he watched Jeremy sneak out to smoke on the roof. He said he saw Bootie sitting in his window, but Cady couldn’t, so he held her shoulders to position her in his perspective. Straining to see, she raised her heels from the roof. Suddenly, the light went on in their parents’ room. Eric dropped down to hide, tipping Cady off balance. Her feet slipped out from under her.
She slid down the roof face-first, moving too fast to feel the shingles push past her outstretched arms, scrape her cheek, snag her nightshirt, hit her knees. But just before she ran out of roof, a hand closed tight around her ankle and then another yanked on the back of her shirt; Eric was grabbing her wherever he could catch hold. His feet were scrambling to slow their slide until he shoved his heels into the rain gutter. The metal pipe bowed out under the force, but Cady could see that it would hold. He had saved her.
Who would save her now that he was gone? Cady looked at her parents, her inscrutable father, her trembling mother, but neither of them was able to feel her gaze. Eric had always been the center of the family; when he was healthy, they were loving, celebrating, and planning for him, and when he became mentally ill, they were treating, arguing, and worrying over him. She felt they were floating away from one another, clinging to their memories of Eric like pieces of a sunken ship. She wanted to reach out to them, but to let go would be to drown.
Eric always considered Mantis Mommy Revenge their greatest mission, because they got the pleasure of watching Jeremy pretend to get high on catnip for the rest of the summer. He had retold the story to friends many times over the years, but in every instance Cady had to add that Eric saved her life that night, and every time he shrugged it off. She could still hear him give his standard reply: “Would you have let me fall?”
But in the end, Cady hadn’t been there to stop him. She had let him fall. So had they all.
3
“I THINK WE’D better hit the road, Cady-Cake,” her father said, making her nostalgic for the nickname the instant he used it. They had unloaded all her stuff, reparked the car, and gone out for a nice lunch at a restaurant called Grafton Street across from Lamont Library. Now they were back at the room, and Cady had run out of reasons to keep them there.
“But first, are you sure you don’t need anything else?” Aunt Laura added.
Cady was reluctant to see them go, but she also didn’t want to hold her father hostage on this campus any longer. “No, thanks, I can take it from here. You guys have a long drive home.”
Her father and Laura gathered their things and the empty suitcases they were taking back, and Cady walked them to the elevator. She bent to give Aunt Laura a hug, thanking her for coming, and Laura gave her an extra squeeze to show she understood. When it was her father’s turn, Cady was surprised to see his face full of emotion for the first time that day.
“Now, listen to me,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders. “You’re going to be fine here. You earned this, and I’m proud of you, and, deep down, Mom is too.”
“Thanks.” Cady nodded. She didn’t believe him, but she wanted to.
He stroked her hair with one hand, his eyes glistening. “You’re gonna make some new memories for our family, right?”
The height of that challenge gave her vertigo. She threw her arms around him, as if she were holding on for dear life.
He hugged her back. “That’s my brave girl.”
Cady felt anything but.
She walked back, entered the empty common room, and exhaled. It was a relief to be unobserved. But that pleasure was short-lived and replaced with a question: Now what? She had plenty of unpacking to do, she supposed she should get started. Cady arranged, and rearranged, the furniture in the double bedroom, making sure there was parity, each desk facing a window, dressers side by side. She didn’t want her roommate to think she was selfish, although she did claim the bottom bunk; she wasn’t an idiot. She put away all her clothes, made her bed, and set up the mini-fridge, which consisted of plugging it in.
Cady wasn’t sure where to hang the cheap full-length mirror she had brought, or, more specifically, how, since the orientation pamphlet said they were prohibited from hammering nails into the walls. She propped the wobbly mirror against the back of the bedroom door and regarded her reflection. She didn’t like what she saw. She had gotten up so early to make the drive, she was wearing no makeup, and her skin looked pale and dull, with none of the toasty freckles that would’ve dotted her nose and cheeks at the end of a happier summer. She wore leggings and a Vampire Weekend T-shirt, she didn’t even like them that much anymore, and she wished she had dressed better for a first impression. She still could. Cady changed into better jeans and a blue Henley that she liked, and then her attention returned to the bottom drawer of her dresser.