The Winters

by Lisa Gabriele

  I grabbed his arm. “Leave her, Max,” I said, with confidence I attributed to Louisa’s parting advice.

  “All she’s done is snark around you.”

  “It’s day two. Let her take her space.”

  “I also want to talk to her about Rebekah’s photos. She can put them in an album or something, but they have to go in storage.”

  “They don’t bother me. It’s her mother. She probably misses her even more now that I’m here.”

  He placed his hands on both of my cheeks and held my face, tilting my head slightly this way and that, examining my eyes, my angles. “Who are you, oh little wise one, and what have you done with that innocent young woman I met under the sun last month?”

  “I do want to talk to you about something.”

  “Uh-oh. What did I do—except ruin your entire life by bringing you here?”

  I grabbed his hand and led him back to the study, quietly shutting the door behind us.

  “What is on that mind of yours?”

  I inhaled deeply. “Max, why didn’t you tell me Dani was adopted?”

  “What are you talking about?” he asked. “I’m sure I mentioned it.”

  “I’d remember that.”

  He put his head down as though looking for something on the floor. Then he looked up. “Is this bothering you?”

  “No. I always assumed, with time, we’d fill in certain details about each other’s lives. But this feels like a big omission.”

  “You think I deliberately failed to mention my daughter was adopted? For what purpose would I hide this information from you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I thought I’d mentioned it. If I haven’t, maybe it’s because it rarely crosses my mind. I think of her as my own, so much so I sometimes forget she was once someone else’s.”

  “That’s what Louisa said.”

  “Well, she’s right. This isn’t a secret. I don’t know why I didn’t tell you. You can find it on Google if you search far back enough. But why is this troubling you? Is it a problem?”

  “My God, no,” I said, and sank into an armchair. I landed on what I always say when I feel more embarrassed than indignant. “I’m sorry, Max.”

  “There’s nothing to apologize for,” he said. He stepped over to one of the French windows as a vehicle pulled up in the drive. We watched Dani hop into a small truck, and the wheels crunched snow as they took off.

  “She treats Gus like her personal chauffeur. I don’t like it,” Max mumbled. He turned to face me. “I’m sorry. I’m sure there is a lot of stuff I’ve failed to mention.”

  He came over to where I was sitting and placed his hands on either arm of the chair. “What other questions do you have? I’d be happy to answer them.”

  “Max, if I offended you, I didn’t mean to,” I said, shrinking into the seat.

  He launched himself off the chair and stood upright, shoving his hands in his pockets. “You want to know why we adopted, I suppose.” He didn’t wait for me to reply. “We couldn’t get pregnant. We tried for years. Went through all the tests you go through, Rebekah more devastated than I when the answer remained elusive. A definitive it’s your fault, no, it’s her fault would have been better than the awful mystery of it all. Then, around the time the doctors threw up their hands, a baby became available through a private service. I needed some convincing, but once we held her, we never looked back.”

  Emboldened by his honesty I asked him what he knew about her birth parents, or at least her birth mother.

  “Enough to know that she was far better off with us,” he said.

  I realized my legs were shaking. I touched my face. It was clammy and hot.

  “Are you okay? What is it?”

  “I just feel terrible about all this,” I said, waving my hand vaguely.

  “About being here?”

  “No! No, I feel like I just smacked into a hornet’s nest. Max, are we having a fight?”

  He laughed loudly. “Believe me, you’ll know when we’re fighting. This is just us still getting to know each other. And in that vein I suppose we should talk about the conversation you and Louisa walked in on.”

  He told me he’d been ambivalent about reelection but now was leaning towards another run. He quite liked the work, more than he thought he would. It gave him purpose. Dani, too. She liked to be involved.

  “But it’s a big disruption, a campaign,” he said.

  “Do you want to do it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  He looked at me thoughtfully. “I guess I should say it’s because I’ve been blessed with so much, I feel the need to serve. That’s not untrue. But it’s got more to do with self-interest, I’m afraid. Asherley, the land around it, makes me a major stakeholder in Suffolk County. I want to do what I can to protect it.”

  “Is Asherley under threat?”

  He smiled. “Depends on your definition of threat. For instance, that causeway? It means we might technically no longer live on an island, which might affect how we’re taxed. To me, that’s a threat. And I’m in a position to do something about it.”

  A small knock on the door interrupted us. It was Katya.

  “Sorry to bother you, Mr. Winter. Who’s staying for lunch?”

  “It’s just going to be us, Katya. And I think we’ll take it upstairs, if you don’t mind.”

  “I’ll take it up now, then,” she said, and ducked out.

  “After a big fight like that, I like to make up,” he said.

  My eyes lingered on the door. It felt strange for things to be reversed so suddenly, for me to live someplace where others worked for me, came and went in hushed rooms, brought me food, washed my delicates, changed my sheets. I didn’t want to become imperious, accustomed to a widening gap between me and the people who worked here. I might be marrying a wealthy man, insulated from the messier bits of life, but that’s not who I was raised to be. I needed to participate in my own care, our care. I would talk to Katya later, find a way to help that wouldn’t impinge on her duties and income. That’s how I would grow more comfortable here, earning a little of what was being given to me so freely.

  * * *

  • • •

  We ate our lunch on the four-poster bed—whole garlicky leaves of romaine lettuce, fried sardines, chunks of buttered sourdough—until I was full, and then napped again at dusk. When I woke, Max was gone from the room, though he’d left a fire going. I grabbed my phone off the nightstand to check the time, embarrassed by my indolence. Soon it would be supper and what had I accomplished that day? Walk, eat, make love, and nap. Off to a purposeful start. No wonder Dani wanted nothing to do with me. I could imagine what she was telling her friend Claire. She’s lazy, plain, such a mouse. I have no idea what my father sees in her. She just follows him around hiding behind him like an idiot. When she’s not eating, she’s sleeping, when she’s not sleeping, she’s running around after him. God, it’s so embarrassing.

  I had resisted checking Dani’s Instagram account since we’d arrived at Asherley. But lying there, I was overcome with the impulse, if only to confirm my paranoia that she’d made some mention of me.

  I was not wrong. There were three new posts. One was from yesterday, a looped slice of video, presumably taken in the back of the cab from the airport. It was a grainy close-up of her face quickly morphing from serene beauty to cross-eyed goof, over and over, the caption reading, “On my way to meet my future stepmonster.” The comments were mostly chiding: “Man, she’s gonna love you! Hahahaha,” and several cartoon faces exhibiting mania and disgust and some thumbs-down signs as well. Her last two posts, both from a few hours ago, featured her and a much prettier dark-haired girl, presumably Claire. The picture was treated with filters that removed imperfections, brightened eyes, and gave their already smooth skin a doll-like sheen. In
both shots they were squeezed into the frame, their breasts pressed together. In one, they had cartoon dog ears and noses. In the second, both wore tight tank tops, while Dani, side-eyeing the camera provocatively, licked the side of her friend’s face. The caption read, “Yum. Missed my Claire Bear.”

  Though the pictures unnerved me, this could well be perfectly normal behavior for fifteen-year-old girls. There must be a way to ask if Max monitored her social media accounts without admitting to my own prying. I didn’t want to be a stepmonster, an interloper nosing around in places I didn’t belong. What would Rebekah have done? Would she have set limits, threatened to take away Dani’s phone, or would she have complimented her, celebrated her bold displays of unabashed intimacy? Maybe she’d join her in the frame sometimes.

  I tossed my phone aside and stared into the waning embers, pulling my sweater tighter around me.

  TWELVE

  I did one thing well during those early weeks at Asherley: I stayed away from Dani as much as possible. She had her own routine. Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday a sweet-faced tutor named Adele, not much older than me, would arrive promptly at eight thirty, Dani meeting her sometime after nine, her hair drying down her back. They would work in the study, freshly abandoned by Max, who by then would have left for his constituency office in East Hampton, when he wasn’t away for two or three days in Albany. At first I assumed I’d go with him on those trips, but spouses didn’t do that, he said, and besides, I’d be at loose ends wandering the streets of another unfamiliar city all day, entirely bored at night. He worked through dinner, he said, sometimes with other colleagues who also liked to maximize their time in the legislature so they could be with their families more often. So far, there hadn’t been any events worth bringing me to, he said, opting to invite only Dani to a small zoning meeting at the library one night, because it was “her thing” and she knew how to live-stream it on his social media feed. He said I’d be uninterested, that it was nothing special, and that I’d be on his arm during the big events in the summer. But the truth was, Dani didn’t want me there. Of course I said it was no big deal, that he definitely should take Dani, because it afforded them much-needed time together, and that it was, after all, her thing, not mine.

  He kissed me and said, “Thank God you don’t care about these things. I know Dani will come around soon. How did I ever get so lucky?”

  Of course I felt lucky, too, my alternative life playing out in my mind whenever I’d stare out over the black bay. While I missed the sun, and the color blue, I did not miss Laureen, or my shabby room, or anything to do with the charters. I did not miss leaving work smelling like fish and arriving there smelling like cigarette smoke. When I did think of the Caymans, it was not so much with longing but with regret that I hadn’t appreciated the heat until I came to a place where I was almost always cold. I meant to ask Max if we’d go back there next winter, when he usually set aside time to spend at the club. I wondered if Dani and I would be friends by then, and how Laureen would greet me, and why I cared.

  Still, when Max was away it felt imperative he not know how lonely I felt. So I feigned stoicism, waving him out the door with a brave smile. Then I’d turn to face the empty house, moving like a listless pinball from room to room, regarding this painting, moving that vase, opening this drawer, closing that curtain, eventually ending up in the dark pocket of our bedroom at the end of the day, either waiting for Max to join me or to call me or neither, often unsure which to expect.

  One morning, I went to say goodbye to him in the foyer, this time for two nights, and he told me Louisa had booked us a table for lunch that day.

  “You mean you’ve asked her to babysit me while you’re away.”

  “I asked her to take advantage of my absence in order to spend more time with my lovely fiancée, which she is thrilled to do anyway. You shouldn’t find it hard to believe that she likes you.”

  “Well, it’s good to know I’m not universally loathed here.”

  He pulled me into an embrace. “Your suggestion to give Dani space was a good one. She’s eating dinner with us now. That’s a good sign.”

  True. After sulking in her room for a week or so, she was technically taking meals with us when Max was home. But Max’s inquiries about her day were often met with single-syllable words and sounds.

  How was Adele today?

  Good.

  What are you reading right now for English Lit?

  Books.

  How’s Claire?

  Fine.

  Delicious chicken, isn’t it? (I’d usually comment on the food.)

  Shrug (indecipherable).

  Care to enlighten us with anything else going on in your life?

  Nope.

  After eating a runway model’s portion, she’d excuse herself and go upstairs for the rest of the evening, where she enjoyed her own TV and laptop. What did she need with the rest of Asherley? What did she need of me?

  * * *

  • • •

  With Max gone it meant another few days alone with Dani in the house. Before Katya arrived, I made myself an egg sandwich and a thermos of coffee. Since the horses frightened me almost as much as Gus did, I gravitated to the boathouse, the quietest place on the property and where I felt most myself. The door was locked, so I ate my breakfast on the woodpile, in full view of the house, taking in the smell of musk rising from the bog as it thawed. Swamp maple saplings poked at me, one lodging a sticky bud in my hair that coated my fingers in sap when I pinched it out. I oriented myself by noting Shelter Island on my left, Gardiners Island on the right, and Plum Island straight ahead. On a rare clear day, you could see all three islands from a second-floor window, probably farther still from the turret, but I hadn’t been up there since that first night, when I mistook Dani for Rebekah.

  Cawing ospreys circled overhead, smelling my sandwich. I tossed some of the crusts into the switchgrass, even though I knew they’d be too cautious to land. I could see their fat nests pocking the still-barren parts of forest. There’d be eggs soon. When the birds were strong enough to leave the nests they’d make their way back down to the Caribbean for the winter. But not me. I live here now, I thought, finishing my sandwich. This is my home and this is the land I’d come to know, and these are the birds I’d recognize and the trees I’d learn to identify.

  Gus, up early, too, spotted me from the barn. I waved only to be polite, something he interpreted as a summons. As he walked towards me, I felt dread. What would I talk to him about? I hopped off the woodpile to greet him. He glanced nervously over at Asherley. I followed his gaze to the top of the turret, where a shade dropped like an eyelid shutting. I wondered if she’d been sleeping in Rebekah’s room regularly, against Max’s wishes. I turned back to Gus, determined not to let her ruin my day.

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt you,” I said. “I was only waving good morning.”

  “I thought maybe you wanted to get into the boathouse. I have the key.”

  “Oh yes, I do, as a matter of fact,” I said, eager to get out from beneath Dani’s spying eyes.

  I followed him inside and he felt along the wall for the light switch. I wandered over to the boats, and it occurred to me what I could do to occupy my time.

  I pointed to the Aquarama. “Can that boat be propped up?”

  “The slip has a cover. I can just lower it down onto some blocks. But that’s an antique. It was Mr. Winter’s father’s.”

  “Yes, and the hull hasn’t been refinished since the middle of the century. Can there be heat in here, too?”

  “Mrs. Winter just used the fireplace if it was chilly. She didn’t come down here much in the winter.”

  “I see,” I said, bristling. He must have sensed I’d never started a proper fire before, because he promptly disappeared upstairs and returned carrying an electric heater.

  “Perfect. Thank you,” I said. “Also, do you k
now if Max—if Mr. Winter—has any reefing tools?”

  Gus disappeared again, this time through a door behind the bar, and bumped around in a storage area. I removed my ring and placed it on a shelf beside the boat, the one with no name. My father once told me it was bad luck for a boat to remain nameless. A boat, like a person, needed a name, he said, or else it was cursed to drift forever.

  Gus returned carrying a dusty briefcase, lifting its lid as if he were a game-show model, showing off an array of shipwright tools that would look, to someone unschooled in basic boat refurbishment, like a finicky set of weapons. I picked up the reefing hook, used to pull old caulking out from between planks. Its C-blade was still sharp, its handle worn and burnished. There were elegant bits and smaller blades, too, that, because they’d been stored properly, glinted in the light.

  “They’re very well taken care of,” I said.

  “These were Mr. Winter’s grandfather’s tools,” he said, with a note of pride.

  “Well, I think it’s time they were used again. Thank you, Gus. You’ve been very helpful,” I said, giving him a prompt to go back to what he was doing. But he hovered still.

  “Do you want me to start today?”

  “No! No. I’m going to do it. I will refinish the boat. I just need to go into town for some supplies.”

  He looked perplexed.

  “I know how to strip a boat. It used to be part of my job.” I asked if there was a vehicle I could take into town. He pulled keys from his pocket, describing the truck I had seen him use to take Dani to Claire’s. He offered to take me, but I was desperate to do something purposeful, even if it was just to drive twenty minutes to the hardware store in East Hampton.

  I left him to the task of grounding the boat and made my way directly to the garage. As I passed by the side of the house, Asherley maintained its gravitational pull on my body, the turret like a heavy eye that followed me as I walked. I succeeded in not looking up, exhaling when I entered the garage and was again out of view of Dani and the house. Strange that I didn’t feel as menaced inside the house as I did when I was outside looking at it, walking around it, regarding it. Perhaps it was the gray sky against the gray stones and the dirty glass of the greenhouse, but the nip in the air sent a chill to my marrow. Things would be different in the full flush of spring, I told myself, when it got warmer and greener. It’s hard to feel lonely or frightened in the summer, when I would get back out on the water, and in my element. I was determined that by then Dani and I would have become better friends. We could take the big sailboat out. I could be her crew. She would show me her favorite nooks along the banks. We’d putter up secret inlets, looking for robins’ nests and beaver dams. She’d tell me stories about Rebekah that I’d welcome without feeling threatened or jealous. Eventually they’d be replaced with our own stories, the things we did together as a family. If Max and I had children, Dani would take them under her wing, snapping pictures of them sleeping or running, teaching them how to sail, too, and posting pictures to show her friends what a perfect big sister she was. I had to believe these things were possible. I had to be able to envision this kind of future for us.