Surviving Valencia

The policemen found Valencia and Van’s car at the bottom of the river two days later with the big machine that drags the water, but they never did find my sister. So I guess she is still out there, alone in that black water, even now, tonight, after more than twenty years.

Chapter 27

Spring flew by in Savannah with no letters that I was aware of, and I began to forget to feel worried all the time. We bought hanging baskets of flowers for our porch and invited friends over to cook out on the grill. I took my old sewing machine down from the attic and began making sundresses for myself. As I got better, I decorated them with rickrack and added pockets, buttons, a sash.

“You look like 1972 invaded,” Adrian told me, reaching under the dress, grabbing my naked ass. He was pretty accurate, considering the patterns I had bought online were authentic 1970’s designs.

Adrian was busy with his art, and I traveled with him wherever he needed to go.

We spent a weekend in Atlanta in April and then a weekend in New York in May. He bought me bags of clothes in New York, so I would feel chicer on our next trip. Our life was sweet, filled with travel and socializing, creativity and constant, distracting new presents. “You’re my little Georgia Peach,” Adrian told me.

We were lazing in the backyard on Memorial Day, swinging in the hammock and drinking wine when Adrian brought up the subject of a baby.

“This seems like the right time, doesn’t it?” he asked, playing with my hair. I knew what he meant by the tone of his voice. For once I couldn’t argue. He was in his forties. What were we waiting for?

“We have the names picked out, and plenty of room,” he continued. “Let’s go for it.”

My head felt cloudy from the wine and I started to giggle. “We have names picked out?” We had never agreed on baby names. He was set on recycling some of his family’s ridiculous old names like Winston and Gladillia. “Your families’ names are over,” I teased him, “They are obsolete. So drop it.”

“Adrian Winston Junior, if it’s a boy, and Gladillia Cornelia if it’s a girl. You agreed to this two years ago, Mama.”

“Mama?” We were both laughing and in a heap in the middle of the hammock. What was left of the wine was spilling onto the ground.

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s what I call you now.”

“I never agreed to any of this! So if it’s a boy he’s being named after you, and if it’s a girl she’s being named after some dead aunt of yours? Where do I come in?”

“Stop calling our baby an it.”

“I’m serious, Adrian! Where do I fit in this equation?”

“You get to be pregnant, which I obviously don’t, and you get to make them little clothes that match all your little dresses.”

“You are on crack.”

“Your crack.”

“Stop, stop,” I wiped tears from my eyes, I was laughing so hard. “Winston sounds like a scrappy little dog.”

“Sure does.”

“Gladillia sounds like some kind of cleaning brush.”

“A spinning wand,” said Adrian.

“Something to clean a vagina.”

“You’d like that.”

“No I wouldn’t. It would hurt.”

“I think that’s actually where they first came up with it. There were some wooden gladillias in the 1833 Sears Roebuck catalog and my great-great-grandmother thought it was a nice name.”

“Okay, I will have your stupid baby.”

He moved in to kiss me and the hammock flipped us out onto the ground.

“Come on,” he said, when we finally stopped laughing, taking my hand and leading me inside.