by Megan Hart
“What do you mean, you didn’t? You married him.”
She sounded so astonished, I had to look at her. “I knew I loved him, Mary, but I didn’t know that it would be the rest of my life. I hoped it would be, but I wasn’t convinced it would last.”
“Why not?”
It was my turn to fuss with the plates, though there was nothing wrong with the way they’d been arranged. “Because good things don’t last, do they?”
“Gosh,” she said quietly. “I hope you’re not right about that.”
I shrugged.
“Anne?”
I looked up. “Mare, I want to tell you that you’ll know love when it hits you, and it will all be great and you’ll find that one person who makes your heart sing, the end, happily ever after. I want to do that for you, I really do. But I’m just not that person. I’m sorry.”
She blinked and cleared her throat, looking chagrined. “I thought you and James had a perfect thing going on.”
“Yeah. Well. Like I said, things don’t last. Good things don’t last.”
“I’m sorry.”
She looked sorry, and I felt bad for putting the damper on her enthusiasm. “It’s not your fault. And it could be different for you, Mare. It really could.”
“Are you guys having problems?” She shook her head. “I mean…obviously, I guess you’re having trouble, but…bad trouble? Divorce trouble?”
I searched the yard for James and found him down by the water. He was doing something with a beach umbrella. I wanted to holler at him to forget the stupid, single umbrella—what could it do for a hundred people? But he was trying to help, and no matter what had happened between us, I didn’t need to be unkind.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. We haven’t really talked about it.”
“Wow. I just had no idea. I’m sorry, Anne.”
I smiled at her. “I think you’ve been a little tied up with things of your own, haven’t you?”
She laughed. “Yes. I guess so.”
We looked the most alike, Mary and I. The same curly auburn hair, though she wore hers longer. Our mother’s blue-gray eyes. We were about the same height, too. We looked a lot alike, but I’d never felt we were much alike.
“Listen, Mare. Don’t let what I said keep you from trying to find something that will make you happy, okay?”
“Is this going to be a ‘make your own kind of music’ lecture?” She shot me a grin.
“What the heck’s a ‘make your own kind of music’ lecture?”
“You know. Sing your own special song, blah blah blah, find your own shiny star, be your own person. You know what I mean. That feel-good sort of thing.”
I snorted. “Okay, so I’ll pass on the lecture.”
I did wish I had better advice for her. According to Patricia, I was supposed to be good at fixing things. Mary didn’t seem concerned, though, as she came around the table to sling an arm over my shoulder.
“It’ll all work out,” she said confidently. “I know it will.”
“How do you know this, oh wise one?”
She looked out across the lawn, where James was now talking with the pit beef crew. “Because you love each other.”
Tears are such unfortunate things. They never quite make everything all right. Sometimes they make everything worse.
I had no time for self-indulgent weepiness, not even with a shoulder all ready to cry on. There was a party to put on, families to deal with. My marriage to save. I didn’t have time for sorrow. I took it anyway.
Mary, even if she didn’t understand all the reasons I was crying, was a good enough sister to hand me a napkin and say nothing while I sobbed into it. I’m sure I got a few odd looks from the caterer, but I kept my face hidden so I didn’t have to see them.
“Maybe you should go lie down for a while,” Mary said after a few minutes. “Patricia and I can handle things from here. Maybe you need a break.”
I wiped my face. “No, no. That wouldn’t be fair to you guys. I’ll be fine, really. I’m okay.”
She shook her head. “Anne—”
“I said I was fine, Mare.” My voice brooked no argument. I was fine. I would be fine. I would put on the smile, and I’d make it all shiny, because goddammit, it was what I did. I was a good daughter. I was not going to let my personal fuckups ruin this party. It had too many chances at ruination already; it didn’t need my having a breakdown, too.
A car pulled into the drive. We both turned, Mary’s face first lighting then getting dark when she saw it was the Kinneys. I’m sure mine didn’t look much better.
“Why does your mother-in-law always look like she just stepped in dog poo?”
Laughter, too, can be an unfortunate thing.
“Hello, girls,” Evelyn said. “What’s so funny?”
“I’m going to go see Pats about the…stuff…with that…thing….”
Mary abandoned me. Evelyn smiled. I smiled back. She waited, but I had nothing to say to her. She was early, like she often was. Frank had already disappeared into the house. I wondered if she was waiting for me to greet her with a hug. She’d be waiting a damn long time, I thought. Still smiling.
“I came early to see if you needed any help,” she said.
“Nope.” Cheer came out of me like blood from an artery, great spurts of it. “Everything’s all taken care of.”
She looked around, eyes scanning the tent, the yard, the tables. “Everything looks nice.”
She was, I think, trying to be nice. I think she meant to be. At least, I wanted to give her credit for the effort, because assuming she was really just trying to make me feel inadequate on purpose would have made me a nasty person.
“Thanks. James is in the house.”
“So. It’s thirty years for your parents?”
I nodded, still smiling brightly. My face ached. “Yep.”
She might not have been calculating my age, twenty-nine, with a birthday coming up in April. She might not. She really did look like she’d stepped in poo.
“That’s a nice accomplishment,” she said, like they should get a gold star. “Frank and I will have been married for forty-five years in December.”
She looked around again at the yard and toward the house. “A party is such a nice way to honor your parents, Anne.”
No way was I planning an anniversary party for Frank and Evelyn Kinney. No way. She had a son and two daughters, all fully capable of taking the matter into their own hands, if they thought of it. Which they probably wouldn’t. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
“James is in the house,” I said again. Still smiling.
She gave me an odd look. “Yes, you told me that.”
“Don’t you want to go see him?”
Something in my gaze must have seemed sour, because she frowned a little. “Anne, are you feeling all right?”
“Yep, yep, dandy. Just fine. Just have a lot to do, that’s all, why don’t you go ahead inside and I’ll just talk to the caterer over there.” More smiling. Fierce. I was getting a headache.
I smiled.
Fortunately, she backed off. Maybe I scared her. Maybe I wanted to.
Guests began arriving, filling my driveway and parking along the somewhat narrow street. We’d invited the neighbors—the ones we liked and the ones we didn’t—so there’d be no problems about the extra vehicles. The sun came out, hot as could be expected on a late August afternoon. A breeze came up every so often from the lake, though, and the tent and our scraggly trees provided shade. Some people waded down in the water, splashing and laughing.
There was plenty of food, despite Patricia’s worries. Cascades of carved beef slathered in tangy horseradish and barbecue sauce. Mountains of crusty rolls. Buckets of potato and macaroni salads. Coleslaw. Desserts by the dozen. People ate and talked and mingled. They drank.
My father held court on the lawn, a plastic lawn chair his throne and a bottle of beer his scepter. My mother ran back and forth to serve him, bringing him platters of fo
od and cans of cola he didn’t drink. He started off with beer but soon had switched back to his favorite: tall glasses of iced tea that gradually contained less and less tea and more and more whiskey.
Mary spent most of her time with Betts, discreetly. Patricia buzzed between the house and the catering tent, supervising the food. Children played under Claire’s watchful eye. She was an unexpected babysitter, but the kids loved her because she played games with them like Simon Says and Red Light, Green Light. Today she wore a clingy summer skirt and shirt that were perfectly modest yet managed to show off the newly sprouted bulge of her tummy, leaving no question as to her pregnancy.
The party was an absolute success. Friends and family had gathered to celebrate what would have been a happy occasion for any couple; for my parents it seemed equally as remarkable as it did joyful. I mingled with people I hadn’t seen in years. Family friends complimented me on my house and the party. Most commented on how much I’d grown up, how they’d remembered me as that “quiet little girl with the book in her hand.”
“You always had a book. What were you reading, anyway?” said Bud Nelson. I remembered him as a hefty, red-faced man with a boisterous laugh who always had a quarter in his pocket for a girl who’d run and fetch him “another cold one.” He’d gotten sickly thin, with scrawny arms and legs poking out beneath his too-large Bermuda shorts. His skin drooped on him like it had melted. His eyes and teeth were yellowed.
“Nancy Drew, probably.” I smiled. Always smiled.
“Girl detective,” Bud scoffed. “That Nancy got herself into some trouble, didn’t she? Always had to have her dad bail her out.”
That wasn’t the way I recalled the stories, but I wasn’t going to debate it. “They were only stories.”
Bud laughed and dug in his pocket. “Hey, Annie. How about a quarter for you if you fetch me—”
“Another cold one?” I said before he could finish.
He nodded and settled back in his chair like it had been an effort just to dig for the money. The quarter gleamed in his palm. I closed his fingers over it.
“You don’t need to give me a quarter, Bud.”
“You’re a good girl, Annie. Always were.”
“So I’ve been told.”
He was being kind, and he wasn’t the only one. I heard it over and over again that day. Annie, you were always such a good girl. A quiet girl. Annie, fetch me another cold one. Annie. Annie. Annie.
I hadn’t been Annie to anyone but my dad for years, and suddenly I was that girl again. Fetching cold ones. Smiling. They only figuratively patted my head now instead of literally, but it was the same feeling.
The party was in full swing, with people beginning to dance on the deck and the lawn. The food had been decimated, like a plague of locusts had marched through. The day had turned sweltering, with the unrelenting pressure of humidity added to the heat. Clouds had started drifting in from across the water. Still white for now, but hinting at darkness.
I went into the house to find some cold air and a glass of ice water and maybe just a few moments to myself. Patricia, who’d been on the verge of a breakdown for weeks over this event, had spent the day beaming from ear to ear and laughing. I, on the other hand, was slowly becoming a wreck.
It wasn’t the party, really, but the entire summer that had weighed me down. It was Evelyn. It was Alex and James. It was fixing things that had caught up with me all at once. I sought the quiet of my bedroom, looking for just a few minutes’ peace. Time to catch my breath and not have to talk or smile. All I wanted was a minute. Just one.
The house was as full as the yard. The noise level, higher. I wove my way through the kitchen and down the hall, hoping at least that nobody had migrated into my room. I’d closed the door before the party started but left all the others open. Most people would have understood what that meant. A closed door meant privacy. Keep out. Most people, when they enter someone else’s home, understand boundaries.
This part of the house was marginally quieter. Most of the guests had gathered in the living room, den and kitchen. One of my cousins sat in the quiet and clean guest bedroom, nursing her baby. We smiled at each other but didn’t say anything, and I pulled the door most of the way closed to give her some privacy. The bathroom door was closed but opened as I passed. Laughing, I danced for a minute with the person who came out until we moved in opposite directions.
At the end of the hall, my door was no longer closed. It was cracked open an inch or so. I put my hand on the knob, but paused at the sound of voices inside.
“…well, no wonder,” said a familiar voice. “And that sister of hers is pregnant, it’s so obvious. I didn’t see a ring on her finger, either. And the father! I knew he had some…issues…but I had no idea he was a drunkard.”
God. Did people really use that word, anymore? Apparently Evelyn Kinney did.
For about ten seconds I almost turned around. Let it go. Ten seconds in which I contemplated just being the good and quiet girl with a smile on her face and walking away. On the eleventh second, my hand pushed the door all the way open.
Things got worse. Much worse. Extravagantly, extraordinarily, infuriatingly worse.
Evelyn stood next to the small writing desk beneath the window. It had once belonged to James’s grandmother, and though I didn’t often sit at it to write, I did keep my private correspondence in its drawers. Sentimental cards from James, certain photos, my calendar. Not the one I hung on the wall in the kitchen to chronicle things like doctor’s appointments and when it was time to rotate the tires. It was a small journal-style calendar with a small block for each day. In it I wrote brief notes or summaries of what had happened that day, just a few lines to remind me what I’d done or felt. It was the best I could do at keeping a diary.
Evelyn put it down when I walked into the room. Margaret, who was eating a brownie without a plate beneath to catch the crumbs now scattering my floor, had the grace to look guilty.
“Anne. Hello.”
For an instant I saw nothing but white, like a flash of lightning that faded and left a burning blue afterimage. And I stopped being a good girl.
“What are you doing in my room?”
“Oh.” She tittered. “Well, your sister Patricia told us there was a scrapbook of your parents for the party that we had to sign.”
“It’s in the living room, on the table.”
“Well, she didn’t tell us that.” Mrs. Kinney’s nostrils, at odds with her sugary smile, flared.
“So you came looking in my bedroom for it?”
“I wanted to show Margaret the desk. She might want some of these pieces. James said to go ahead.”
I didn’t even attempt to believe her. Margaret swallowed the brownie and wiped her fingers on the napkin. With flushed cheeks she edged toward the door, but she had to get by me to escape, and I wasn’t moving. She turned sideways and fled.
Coward.
“So you came into my bedroom and helped yourself?”
She wasn’t expecting confrontation, and I understood that. After all, I’d kept my mouth nice and shut for a long time. She hadn’t expected to be caught, either.
“I was looking for the scrapbook.” She drew herself up.
“And you thought it might be inside my desk? Does that seem a likely place to put it?” Each word came out clipped and sharp, but I didn’t raise my voice.
Inside I was shaking, but I kept my back straight. My hands loose at my sides. It took every effort I had not to clench them.
“Anne, really, this isn’t necessary.”
She recoiled when I laughed. “Oh, I think it is. Tell me something, Evelyn. Does that look like a scrapbook to you?”
She made a break for it. I expected as much. Nobody likes their misdeeds flung in their face. I’d have respected her more if she’d flat-out admitted she was a snoop. I’d probably even have stepped aside to let her pass if she’d just said she was sorry, she’d made a mistake. But my mother-in-law didn’t admit to mistakes,
a nifty little trait she’d handed down to her son.
She didn’t go so far as to shove me, and we stood at an impasse. I was taller than she was, though she was broader.
“Does it look like a scrapbook to you?”
She shook her head. Stubborn. “I don’t have to listen to a lecture from you.”
“Why not just answer the question?”
Hot color had spread up her throat and cheeks. I was glad to see her that way, squirming like a worm on a hook. I was glad to see her made to feel uncomfortable for once.
“Does it look like a scrapbook?”
“No!”
“Then why would you have picked it up?”
Her mouth worked, but heaven help her, she wasn’t going to admit to wrongdoing. “Are you accusing me of snooping?”
“I don’t think it’s an accusation. I think it’s true.”
She sneered. I’m sure she felt righteous in her indignation. Most people who know they’ve fucked up manage to find a way to justify themselves.
“You are a disrespectful—”
I lost it. All of it. The final, shredded threads of my control. If my hair had turned to snakes, writhing and hissing and dripping venom, I wouldn’t have been shocked.
“Don’t you dare talk to me about being disrespectful. You came into my house, during my party, and you helped yourself to my room and violated my privacy. Don’t you dare talk to me about respect, because you don’t have a clue.”
My wrath must have been horrific to behold. I know it sent Evelyn reeling. She must have thought I meant to strike her, though I still hadn’t raised my voice.
“You’re trying to paint me out as some evil person, and I won’t stand for it!” she cried, indignant, crocodile tears glimmering.
“I don’t think you’re evil,” I said in a voice thick with ice. “I think you are incredibly arrogant and self-absorbed, and if you really think that you are not in the wrong, then I guess you must be stupid, too.”
She opened her mouth. Nothing came out. I had done what I’d have said was impossible, rendered Evelyn speechless. It only lasted a moment, but it was immeasurably sweet.
“I would say I can’t believe you’d say something like that to me,” she said in the tone of a woman soaked in gasoline who’s just lit the match. A martyr.