Ann Marie suddenly felt deflated. It was only a dumb contest. It couldn’t fix the fact that Fiona was gay, that Little Daniel’s life was a mess, that everyone expected her to do everything at all times. And she’d never have enough hours to make her dollhouse perfect. She needed a break.
After Pat left for work, she cried. She sat at the kitchen table with her head in her hands and just let it out. Sometimes that could be good for a person. She allowed the pity party to continue for a few minutes, and then walked into the front hall. She looked at herself in the mirror on the wall and laughed. What was she crying for anyway? Maybe the news had been too good. Her kids always bawled at their own birthday parties when they were young, overwhelmed by the attention.
“Ann Marie Clancy, you need to get a grip,” she said out loud. (Sometimes she still thought of herself by her maiden name, even though she had changed it to Kelleher nearly thirty-five years earlier.) “You’re a finalist. A finalist!”
She felt a bit better. She went and looked at the dollhouse again. Then she called Patty at work. She dialed the office number, and Patty’s cheerful secretary, Amy, picked up.
“Patricia Weinstein’s office,” she said.
Each time Ann Marie heard this name spoken aloud it was unrecognizable for a moment, even eight years after Patty had gotten married. She had to dig for it—My daughter Patty Kelleher is now someone named Patricia Weinstein.
“It’s her mother,” Ann Marie said. “Is she in?”
“Hold on, please.”
Patty picked up, sounding frazzled.
“How’s Foster feeling?” Ann Marie asked, before even saying hello. He had had a bad cold all weekend, a sore throat and a terrible cough. Patty had called her, worried as could be, on Friday night, and Ann Marie had told her calmly to make him a hot toddy with lemon and honey and a dash of whiskey, like her own mother used to make.
“He’s okay,” Patty said now. “He’s on the mend.”
“Are you making sure he gets plenty of fluids?”
“Yup.”
“Good girl. And he’s at school now?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Hmm.” Ann Marie probably would have kept him home for one more day to let him rest.
“I’ve got some big news,” she said.
“Oh?”
“Remember I told you I entered my dollhouse in that prestigious competition?”
“Um, sort of.”
“I’m a finalist! Daddy and I get to go to England for the judging in September. Which means I have to build an entire house by then, which is daunting, if you ask me.”
“You do realize the house you have to build is only three feet tall?”
“What do you mean?”
“Just teasing. That’s really cool, Mom. Congrats.”
Ann Marie might have liked to talk about it a while longer, but Patty changed the subject. Josh’s mother would be looking after the kids on Tuesdays and Thursdays while Ann Marie was in Maine. Patty was trying to find a polite way to ask her not to swear around the children.
“Josh says she was always this way. The woman talks like a truck driver. I really don’t want to have to explain to Maisy what ‘shit’ means and why she can’t say it at preschool.”
“Patty!” Ann Marie exclaimed on instinct. She had rarely heard any of her children use profanity.
“What? I wasn’t actually saying it.”
A short while later, Ann Marie pulled her car keys off the hook beside the back door and hurried out to start her errands. The spring in her step was back, and it lasted all day—through traffic jams and department store lines and listening to some woman ahead of her at the deli yammering into a cell phone about her next-door neighbor’s alopecia.
It lasted through an afternoon at her mother’s apartment, where the dark carpets and thick old wallpaper made the rooms feel physically heavy, and the framed photographs everywhere were caked with dust: here were Ann Marie and her sisters at their First Communions and on the beach, always with their little brother, Brendan, in the background, haunting them like a ghost. He was now fifty years old, if he was even alive. Ann Marie often wondered about that.
Her father had been born in that apartment, back when the rent was only thirty dollars a month. He had never lived anywhere else in his life.
After she left, the drive through the old neighborhood warmed her with its familiarity, but it embarrassed her too. The three-story wood houses looked as worn as they had during her youth. She had often brought her children here, and they had loved being so close to the beach, even though some of the rougher types made them nervous. They weren’t built for this environment. Out in front of the L Street Bathhouse, a group of old Irishmen in their scally caps stood around talking and laughing. Each year on New Year’s Day, they plunged into the frigid harbor, and everyone in the neighborhood came down to cheer them on. Ann Marie gave them a wave now, happy to be heading home.
All day she had been designing the new house—the grand prize winner—in her head. She thought it ought to be brick. She had seen some beautiful brick houses at the fair, though they were rare. She’d wire it for electricity herself, as she had learned. She would make sheets and facecloths from the best she had in the hall closet, the high-thread-count linens she reserved for guests. The kitchen should be all white. In the living room, she envisioned a stately family portrait over a fireplace, with maybe a couple of hunting dogs in the foreground. What if she commissioned a local Boston artist to paint it? That had to be worth a few extra points.
She felt so energized that she decided to launder all the bath towels in the house while she made Pat two chicken and broccoli casseroles, a roast beef, mac and cheese, and a ziti bake.
Late that afternoon, she showered for dinner. Afterward, wearing just her terry-cloth robe, Ann Marie decided to have a celebratory glass of wine. She poured until the golden liquid was almost at the rim of the glass. She took a big sip.
She went into the office and sat at the computer. At last. Pat wouldn’t be home for a couple more hours. It was finally her time. She began making her purchases, AmEx in hand. Pat might moan a bit about the bill, but she would simply remind him that they were getting a free trip out of this, so really they were saving money in the long run.
A free trip. She felt terribly proud.
Ann Marie would have to have all the items express mailed to Briarwood Road, since that’s where she would be for the next month. It wasn’t ideal. She’d either have to finish building the house there and have it shipped from Cape Neddick (did she trust the sleepy little UPS Store in York, a few miles from the cottage?) or transport everything back home to Newton in the middle of July. All her tools were here. But there was always a silver lining.
Ann Marie pictured herself on the screen porch of the cottage alone, opening each box, pulling out her treasures. She’d have hours to work in peace these next ten days before Pat and the Brewers arrived in Maine. That was something.
She focused on her shopping.
The house she had had her eye on forever was a three-story Newport brick, with shingles and white trim and a widow’s walk. It had eleven rooms, a floor-to-ceiling height of ten inches, sixteen windows (two of them working bay windows complete with window seats), and a detailed staircase with a molded banister.
The house cost more than a thousand dollars. She thought it was worth it.
She bought gray shingle dye and a little doghouse and border plants for the yard, and then she added an old-fashioned push mower and a rake. She bought a Victorian hat vanity for a hundred dollars. (She had never even heard of a hat vanity before, but now she realized she most definitely needed one.) She bought a love seat and a dining table and a tiny iron and even an electric mixer, no bigger than a silver dollar.
When she looked at the clock on her computer screen, she was shocked to see that an hour had passed. She went to the kitchen for more wine, then came right back into the office.
She chose fabric for the window trea
tments, but decided to go down to the store in the morning and pick it up in person, rather than buy it online. That way she could make sure it was high enough in quality before she paid.
She went to a site that sold heirloom collectibles and bought a hand-carved desk and two newspapers to place on top. She added an antique umbrella stand.
Ann Marie imagined the father in this brick house coming in from a long day of work. Perhaps he was named Reginald, an Englishman. He might have a thin mustache. His wife (Evelyn?) greeted him at the front door each night in a pink gown, her cheeks rosy, her smile a bit mischievous. The children were already bathed and asleep. Dinner was on the table.
She watched the page load for Puck’s Teeny Tinies, where she bought a little tin of coronation biscuits, a glass milk bottle, a dozen eggs the size of baby aspirin, a burlap sack of flour, a basket of ceramic vegetables, and a miniature box of chocolates, the top slid halfway open, a green ribbon cascading downward. Reginald would bring them home to Evelyn for their anniversary.
A thrilling wave washed over Ann Marie as she imagined how beautiful the house would be. It was silly, but she somehow felt more beautiful because of it. She wanted to share this with someone, someone who would understand. She sat back in her chair and got butterflies in her stomach, knowing what she was about to do. She typed in the familiar address for the Weiss, Black, and Abrams website, and as she so often did, she clicked on Steve Brewer’s name. Then she did something she had never done before. She clicked on the E-mail Stephen Brewer link.
A message window popped up, and she wrote:
Hi there! Had to let you know … I think the Life magazine you sent was a good luck charm. I’ve just found out that I won the most important dollhouse competition there is. There are over 5,000 competitors, and I won it! So thanks, old chum. xo
Pat walked in at six thirty. It had been an hour since she had hit SEND and Steve Brewer still hadn’t replied.
Ann Marie was frantic. Had she seemed like a braggart? He could simply be busy. In a meeting, maybe. But why did she have to go and exaggerate like that? And, oh Jesus, that xo? What was she thinking? She blamed the xo on the chardonnay. She blamed the whole thing on the chardonnay.
They drove to dinner and Pat said she wasn’t very talkative, and then he said he had run into Ralph Quinn, the father of one of Fiona’s childhood friends, Melody Quinn, at the post office. Ralph had told Pat that Melody was engaged, and now Pat told Ann Marie as much. Her mood grew even more sour, but she tried to smile and act pleasant throughout the meal. It was sweet of her husband to take her to dinner.
She drank more wine, ordered a steak. While Pat talked about his business, she said a hundred silent Hail Marys, praying that Steve Brewer would have written her back by the time she got home.
He hadn’t.
Ann Marie couldn’t think straight. The wine made her a bit dizzy. She imagined his wife, Linda, reading the e-mail, figuring it all out. Linda might call Pat—or she might act like nothing had happened and then slap Ann Marie silly in front of the entire neighborhood at their next book club meeting. They’d have to move.
She thought of sending another e-mail to explain the first, but what could she say? I was drinking at five o’clock in the afternoon and thought I ought to contact you? Oh yes, that would make her look much better.
What on earth was happening to her lately?
She had trouble sleeping that night. Through the walls, she could make out the sound of Pat snoring down the hall, and she almost wanted to go to him for comfort. Instead, she decided to put her nerves to good use. There was no sense just lying there. She went to her craft room and switched on the light. Quietly, she began to pack what she’d need for Maine, transporting everything out to the trunk of her car: she carried towels and sheets and ribbons and stuffing in two giant beach bags. Silly, considering that she’d need only a tiny piece of each, but better to be safe than sorry.
Next, she brought out a stack of dollhouse magazines for inspiration.
She made three more trips. She hoped none of the neighbors could see her there, wearing her nightgown, lugging her sewing machine and glue gun and scrap basket and tiny cans of paint and brushes across the lawn, bathed in moonlight, the dewy grass cool beneath her feet.
By the time she woke the next morning, Steve had written back: Hey, congrats! You’re a wonder. This calls for a celebratory drink. Say, July 1?
Ten days from now. The day he was coming to Maine with his wife. It wasn’t the most romantic thing he could have said, but then she had written him on his work account. And now a conversation had begun.
You’re a wonder. That was something.
She told herself not to respond, then immediately did so anyway: Really looking forward to it! Heading up to Maine today to help my mother-in-law for the next couple of weeks.
Though she had a lot to do before she left, Ann Marie sat in front of the computer for a long while to see if he might volley a short response her way. She cursed herself for not asking him a question. She had made it seem like there was no need to write back and so he didn’t.
Now she’d just have to be patient, and focus on entertaining Alice, tidying up the cottage, and building her dollhouse. That was all the next two weeks required.
On the drive to Maine, she listened to the oldies station with the windows rolled down. Occasionally, she stretched her left hand out the window, feeling the air fly through her fingers. It was hard for her to let go—to leave her mother and husband and grandkids behind. But Alice was the one who needed her most right now. Alice didn’t have anyone else.
The thought of ending up like Alice or like her own mother, or most old women, terrified Ann Marie. They lived for years after their husbands died. Decades in some cases. She could not imagine living on after Pat. She had never been good at being alone.
So many years spent in the company of children made silence seem unnatural, and when she was driving, Ann Marie always imagined what they might say were they there. (Little Daniel: “Change the station!” Fiona: “Turn around! I think I saw a kitten back there!” Inevitably, it would be a squirrel.)
As she drove along 95, the seat belt digging into her stomach, Ann Marie told herself not to look down. This was one of her rules for self-preservation. She still looked okay in a tennis dress. But the sight of her belly in a seated position, highlighted by a taut piece of fabric, could only cause her pain.
She had last seen her trainer on Saturday evening. When Raul got her on those filthy Nautilus machines three times a week, she’d sweat and huff and puff, and swear that her body was transforming. But then she’d catch a glimpse of her belly and wonder if the workouts even mattered.
Ann Marie straightened up in her seat.
Until three years ago, she had been lucky with her figure. It always bounced back after a pregnancy, and she hadn’t inherited her mother’s tendency to pack on the pounds as she aged. But then came menopause. She and her sister Tricia were two years apart, but they started at the same time. It was nice to have someone to compare notes with, though Ann Marie thought Tricia treated the whole experience in a rather unseemly way. She went on an online message board full of menopausal women and chatted about symptoms and hormones and home remedies all day. She bought the two of them tickets to something called Menopause the Musical. Ann Marie had gone along to be a good sport. The show was funny enough, but she felt as though she ought to be wearing a sign around her neck that said I’M DRIED UP!
Then again, her body had done a good enough job of announcing that to the world already. A few times a week that year, Ann Marie had hot flashes. She might be standing at the register in the drugstore, or kneeling in a church pew beside her husband, and all of a sudden her upper body would feel flushed with intense heat and her face would start to sweat. It was mortifying. Her hair thinned slightly. She found clumps of it in the car and on the bathroom floor. Her body was betraying her in a million ways, none more awful than the fact that her belly swelled up and her brea
sts seemed to shrivel.
For Mother’s Day that year, Pat gave her the sessions with Raul, and for a moment she had wanted to cry or stamp her feet—what kind of gift was this? A reminder of how horrid she looked was supposed to make her smile? But then she did smile. Because she knew Pat’s intentions were good. And those sessions with Raul, which Pat had renewed every Mother’s Day since, were a godsend, really. Who could say how lousy she’d look without them?
The hardest part of menopause for Ann Marie was knowing that she’d never have another child. She attempted to explain this to Tricia, but her sister just laughed and said, “I didn’t realize you were trying.”
She knew it was irrational. She was a grandmother, for goodness’ sake. But it seemed so final.
Every day since Little Daniel had been born, the first thing she thought of when she woke up was her children, and they were still the last thing she thought about before she fell asleep at night. Parenthood by its very nature was the only job she knew of in which being successful meant rendering yourself useless. Who was she, if not the mother of Daniel, Patty, and Fiona Kelleher? That was something she thought about a lot lately.
She drove the speed limit, taking note of the staties parked on the shoulder, just chomping at the bit to catch some sucker with out-of-state plates going eighty. Her cousins were always willing to help get her out of parking tickets, but Ann Marie thought speeding was a different issue. She didn’t want to set a bad example for the kids.
While she sat in traffic at the New Hampshire tolls, she called Little Daniel at home.
“How you doing, honey?” she said cheerfully.
“Okay,” he said.
“Applied for any jobs this week?”
“Nope.”
“Well, it’s only Tuesday, right?”
“Yup.”
“How’s Regina, good?”
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