Page 63 of The End of Summer

“Jesus.”

“Yeah, and Arrow’s mom was in the passenger seat. The car flipped over and the first responders couldn’t get her out in time.”

“What about her dad?”

“He went through the windshield. Wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.”

I exhale, thinking about my own parents and what something like that would do to me. There would be no coming back from it. I’d be devastated. “That’s unthinkable.”

“That’s why she runs tow lot.”

I connect the dots as she says the words. It’s not just a good business practice. Tow lot is a life or death situation to Arrow. All of a sudden, it means everything that I’m responsible for it. “I don’t know what to say.”

“I know. It’s a lot.”

“What does this have to do with Arizona, though?”

“Well. I’m sure you can imagine that Joyce had some survivor’s guilt, but there was also a part of her that was so grateful she got to see them one last time. Meanwhile, Jenny fell apart, only we didn’t know it at first because she was heavily medicated at the funeral, and as soon as it was over, she went back to Boston. She still had two years left of dental school, and she’d made a life for herself with her college friends and whatnot. Joyce was heartbroken. She felt like Jenny was the only family she had left, and she was choosing not to deal with any of the aftermath of it. Joyce had to handle everything. Big things, like funeral arrangements, but also the small things that nobody thinks about, like cutting off her parents’ cell phone service and managing their home in Plymouth. Cleaning out their closets. Donating their clothes to Goodwill. All that stuff.”

“By herself?” I ask.

“Well, she had me. But Jenny wanted nothing to do with any of it.”

“That’s so sad.”

“I know. It really hardened Joyce. She got her first tattoo then – the one with the shattered heart pierced by an arrow. We were worried about Jenny but Joyce was also really mad at her. At the time, we didn’t realize that Jenny was going through her own guilt about not having come to the graduation, not being able to have that one last dinner with them as a family. She was beating herself up about it pretty bad.”

“I get that. I’m sure I’d feel the same if it were me.”

“Me too,” Cherry agrees. “It got worse, though. She got into prescription drugs. I don’t even know the names of all the shit she was taking. She was getting it from the dental office where she was interning. But when her internship ended, she needed a new supplier. That’s when she met Ricky.” She clears her throat. “He was bad news. She met him on the internet. But not, like, on Hinge or Tinder or somenormalplace.Craigslist. Can you believe that? And then, she went allthe way out to Arizona to meet him during winter break.”

“Craigslist? Is that even a thing anymore?”

“Maybe for apartment rentals, but it wasnevera thing for dating! I don’t know why she thought she should look there. Sadly, like I said, Jenny never really had much in the way of street smarts. That was more Joyce’s department.”

“That makes no sense, then. Why would Arrow – uh, Joyce – let her go?”

“Jenny lied. Said the trip had something to do with school. She never told any of us she had met someone. And she came back – well, not home, but to school – and continued behaving normally. So, you can imagine Joyce’s surprise when out of nowhere, a few months later she dropped out and told us she was moving to Arizona permanently. She only had a few credits left, so it was crazy, right? Like, why would you do that? Nobody understood what the hell she was thinking. Turned out she was pregnant.”

“Oh. Shit.”

“Yup. I guess she decided she wanted to start a life with him out there. I think she was scared to come home, to live here without her parents. But Ricky was a disaster, and me and Joyce felt some sort of way about the two of them together. We tried to get Jenny to come back home. Joyce majored in business at 4Cs and wanted to start her own company on the Cape. She told Jenny if we all worked together, we could open up a dental practice. Joyce could manage the business end of things, I could do all the marketing and social media, and Jenny could be the dentist, if she’d finish up her degree and get her license. But Jenny was hell-bent on staying put, and we couldn’t understand it. Jenny didn’t tell us that she was pregnant until the third trimester. She didn’t want anyone to try and talk her out of keeping the baby.”

“Wow,” I say. “That’s a whole lot of family drama.”

“I’m not done,” Cherry says. “So, Jenny goes out there. And she and Ricky were living together, right? Well, one day, like literallya weekbefore the baby was born, the cops issued a warrant for Ricky’s arrest and he skipped town on her.”

“Seriously? Arrest for what?”

“Identity theft. Apparently, he stole dozens of social security numbers during the pandemic to collect unemployment benefits. He opened up PO Boxes in several different locations and had the checks sent to them. And then, when the cops came after him, he took off. They caught him at the border of Nogales, Mexico, and he was sentenced to two years in prison. So Jenny had the baby all by herself out there, and of course she called Joyce for help, because – well, who else was she going to call? Joyce was royally pissed at her for being so stupid, but still, she begged her to come home. Like, now you’re going to stay in Arizona for somecriminal? And put the baby in potential danger once he gets out of jail?”

“Shit.”

“Jenny was a total wreck. She suffered from post-partum depression on top of still having residual feelings about what had happened with their parents, and she desperately wanted to stay where she was. She had a little girl, Katherine. We call her Kit. Joyce went out there to be with them and to help raise Kit for the first few months. She fell in love with the baby– like, real deal love at first sight. I always thought Kit was the biggest blessing in disguise that ever happened to the two of them. She gives them both something to live for, you know? Like, something positive to negate the sadness of what happened to their parents. Anyway, by the time Kit was four or five months old, Jenny’s post-partum faded, which was good, but she still didn’t want to come back here.”

“Was she still taking meds?”

“Yeah. She did a brief stint in rehab at that same place, Desert Breeze. That’s how I know the name. But it seemed like that helped her. At least, it did at the time. She got herself some job in retail. Not exactly living the dream, but at least she was able to take care of her daughter.” Cherry clucks her tongue. “Comparatively speaking, of course.”

---