The morning after the blizzard, Bethie awoke to a world all in white. In Judy Pressman’s harvest-gold kitchen, she made herself a cup of tea and watched out the window, sitting in the stillness, until the plows came to clear the roads and Dave made it back over the mountain, coming through the door like he was Alexander who’d made it across the Alps. Jo and Bethie and Dave and the girls spent the day shoveling out the driveway and digging a path from the driveway to the front door. Kim and Missy worked alongside their mother and father with kid-sized shovels, and Bethie enjoyed the cold, the wind’s bite on her cheeks, the snowflakes sparkling in the sunshine. In the backyard, she and the girls built an igloo, tall enough for Kim to stand up in. Jo had helped for a while, before drifting back into the house to start dinner. The girls had set the table, Kim folding each napkin precisely, Missy flinging silverware in the general direction of the plates. Dave sat at the head of the table and made a production of tucking his napkin under his chin to protect his shirt. His nails were buffed, maybe even polished, Bethie saw, and his hair was suspiciously poufy, like he’d sprayed it with something before coming to the table.
“For what we are about to eat, may the Lord make us thankful,” the girls warbled. When Bethie caught her sister’s eye, Jo shrugged. “We do the blessings over the candles on Friday nights, and they’re learning the prayer for after meals in Hebrew school, but they’re not there yet.”
“Godless heathens,” Dave said, scooping a dollop of steaming noodles onto his plate, then serving the girls smaller portions before finally serving Jo. “I’m raising a pack of godless heathens.”
“Daddy!” Kim giggled, as Melissa surreptitiously used her fingers to maneuver food onto her fork.
“What are we enjoying?” Bethie asked, helping herself.
“Turkey tetrazzini,” Jo said.
“Ah. So Mom’s noodle surprise is traveling under an alias.”
“It isn’t noodle surprise!” Jo said, affronted, as Kim giggled, and Missy asked, “What’s an alias?”
“This has fresh basil.”
“That’s the green stuff,” Missy muttered darkly. “It’s yuck.”
“Vegetables are good for you,” said Kim, as she primly smoothed her own napkin on her lap. The dynamic between the sisters was the opposite of what it had been for her and Jo growing up. Kim was mature, a little mother, a perfectionist. Melissa was the troublemaker. Not that she went out of her way to cause trouble, she just went barreling through life, noisy and exuberant and full speed ahead. Just like her mother. Or, at least, just like her mother used to be.
Bethie watched as Melissa tweezed a bit of basil between her fingers and then, after making sure her parents weren’t watching, rolled it into a ball and flicked it onto the floor. She saw the way the girls took their cues from Jo, the way Jo kept them quiet while Dave described his night in the back room of RePlay Sports and his perilous journey back home over Avon Mountain. She wondered if Jo had any idea about how much more relaxed, how much more herself she seemed when her husband wasn’t around. Alone with her girls, Jo was cheerful and easygoing, always up for an adventure, whether that was a bike ride, or a picnic, or letting the girls sleep in the pillow fort they’d built. When Dave was home, Jo got quiet, and instead of asking the girls what they wanted, it was Whatever Daddy says. Bethie felt like the only time she really saw her sister, the Jo she’d grown up with, was when Jo and the girls visited her in Georgia in the summer. They’d pick raspberries and blueberries and help make jam in the steamy, sugary-smelling kitchen, and sit around the firepit out back at night, roasting hot dogs (or tofu pups, in the case of some of Bethie’s compatriots) and making s’mores. At the end of every visit, they’d go tubing on the Chattahoochee. Jo would wear a faded black one-piece bathing suit that she’d had since college. She’d hold one daughter on her lap, and Bethie would take the other, and they’d drift with the current, hands and feet and bottoms in the cool water, faces warmed by the sun.
Every time Bethie visited her sister, she would hope that things had changed. She knew that Jo’s unhappiness was at least partially her fault, and she worried that, in some mystical, scale-balancing way, Jo’s misery was tied to her own contentment. Maybe neither of them could be happy at the same time; maybe one had to be down for the other to be up . . . and, of course, Jo could never be happy as long as she was married to Dave Braverman.
Bethie knew more than Jo thought she did. She’d seen Jo with Shelley in Ann Arbor, and had not failed to notice the way Jo had been when she’d come home from Turkey. Even in the depths of her own terror and misery, Bethie had noticed how quiet Jo was, how she’d jerk like she’d been electrocuted every time the phone rang, how she’d look like she wanted to cry when the Ronettes came on the radio. Jo told her that she and Shelley had had a falling-out, but Bethie figured that Shelley must have been the one who’d given Jo the name of the doctor, and she suspected, even though Jo refused to confirm it, that Jo’s attendance at Shelley’s wedding was the price Jo’s former best friend had exacted for that information. Jo had met Dave at Shelley’s wedding. And Dave was not a good guy, like their father had been. Once you got past his dark eyes and his glinting grin, once you’d heard all his big talk about his businesses and his plans, you saw that there was nothing there but hot air and hairspray. Dave might have had some of their father’s mannerisms, and maybe even some of Ken Kaufman’s kindness, but Dave was mostly superficial glitter. Bethie had tried to tell her sister these things, but Jo hadn’t wanted to hear them. Leave me alone, Bethie. This is what I want.
What happened to her sister? Jo had always been the brave one, the strong one, the one who stood up to wrongdoers and jerks. Bethie might never know who, or what, had broken Jo’s spirit, but she knew she would have to be strong for her sister. She’d have to do what it took to help Jo find that spark again.
The next morning, Dave went to work, and Jo and Bethie took the girls sledding. Together, they stood at the top of the hill on the town’s golf course, watching Kim and Missy zip down on their strips of brightly colored plastic, shrieking with glee as they flew into the air after bouncing over the lip of a sand trap. “Sleds sure have changed,” Bethie remarked. “Remember the one we had?”
Jo nodded. “Dave’s got a four-man toboggan for sale at one of the stores,” Jo said. “He keeps threatening to bring it home.”
“The family that sleighs together stays together?” Bethie couldn’t see much of her sister’s face, between her knitted hat and her sunglasses, but she thought she detected a wince, and decided that this was the best opening she’d get. “Hey, so, listen. How would you feel about coming back to Blue Hill with me?”
“Back—when, now?” Jo asked. A crease appeared between her eyebrows as she frowned.
“No time like the present.” Before her sister could give her excuses, Bethie said, “I could use your help. You know we’ve been talking about opening a shop, right?”
“I know, but . . .”
Bethie kept talking. “We found a place to rent on Peachtree Road. You can help us make labels for the jams and sachets and stuff. We’ve got the inventory, we just need a car big enough to move it all. And you’ve got a station wagon.”
Jo frowned. “There’s nobody in Atlanta with a station wagon?”
There was, of course, but Jo didn’t need to know that. “I need your car, and I need your help. We’ve got to come up with a name, and figure out what the signs and the ads and the flyers should say. You’re good at that stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“Words,” said Bethie. “Remember the stories you used to tell me?” A faint smile lifted the corners of Jo’s lips. “And I get the feeling that you could use a break,” Bethie continued.
The smile vanished. Jo pressed her lips together, then said, “Why would you think that?”
Because you find excuses to never be in the same room as your husband, Bethie thought. Because you had to ask permission to take the car this morning and to change the channe
l on the TV last night Because you’re going to be thirty-six soon, and then forty, and your life is running out, and you’ve already missed so much.
“Listening to your friends, it sounds like all of you guys could use a vacation.” Bethie kept her tone light.
“I can’t just leave.” Jo was chewing on her thumbnail, the way she did when she was thinking. “The girls need me.”
“Mommy, Mommy, watch us!” Kim called on cue, and Jo shouted back, “I’m watching!” Kim lay on her belly on her sled. She counted to three, and Missy flopped on top of her. Kim shoved off, pushing the toes of her boots against the snow, and the two of them went hurtling down the packed snow.
“What’s so hard?” asked Bethie.
“Well, Kim’s got school. And violin lessons.”
“Can’t Dave send her?”
“I’ll miss book club . . .”
“What are you reading?”
“The French Lieutenant’s Woman.”
“I’ll talk about any book you want with you,” Bethie promised.
“And Missy’s got tumbling class and indoor soccer. They’re after school.” Jo adjusted her hat. “But maybe I could ask Nonie to drive her.”
“Or maybe she could skip. Just have her do some somersaults on the floor.”
“Kids need routines.” That, Bethie knew, had to be wisdom culled from one of Jo’s parenting books. Her sister had a whole shelf full, Dr. Spock and Dr. Brazelton and even Dr. Dobson’s Dare to Discipline She doesn’t want to be Sarah, Bethie would think, when she’d see her sister consult this book or that one, or when she’d overheard Jo ask Why are you curious about that? when Kim wanted to know if they were rich, instead of saying It’s none of your business, the way their own mother surely would have. Jo’s girls didn’t get spanked or screamed at. They got time-outs, where they were sent to sit down and think about what they’d done. When Missy didn’t want Jo combing her hair, Jo sat down and talked to her, explaining why she needed to look neat, promising to be as gentle as possible, offering to let Missy get a short haircut, if that’s what she preferred. When Kim snuck a flashlight under her pillow, Jo gave Kim a speech on the importance of sleep for growing bodies. Jo told her girls that she loved them every night, at bedtime, and every morning, before they left the house for school. She was always touching them, stroking their hair, pulling them close for hugs and kisses. She loved them. But Bethie knew that Jo loved adventure, too. She had to regret having had so few of her own.
“You guys didn’t go on vacation this year, did you?” Bethie already knew the answer, but she wanted Jo to hear herself saying it out loud.
“Nooo . . .” Jo admitted. “We were thinking about Disney World, but then, with the third store opening, it was just going to stretch us too thin.”
Disney World, Bethie thought, and struggled not to roll her eyes. “So let’s go now! You’ll get a break! A little warm weather! It’ll be an adventure!” Bethie braced herself for further arguments, but Jo surprised her.
“If it’s okay with Dave.” Shading her eyes with one gloved hand, she called, “Hey, Kim! Let me borrow your sled!” Kim handed it over and both girls watched, wide-eyed and impressed, as Jo lay flat on her belly and went zipping down the hill, faster than any of the kids.
Dave complained, but not as much as Bethie thought he would, which made her wonder if he had some chickie on the side, if the annoyance of having to care for the kids for a few nights was outweighed by the novelty of being able to bang his side piece on the marital bed. He actually helped them pack, and shooed Jo out the door. “Take good care of my lambie,” he said, escorting the girls to the driveway so that they could wave goodbye. Bethie found herself almost liking him in that moment. Dave loved his daughters. It was possible, she acknowledged, that he loved her sister, too. Which was nice, but it didn’t make him what Jo wanted. Maybe he’d never intended to become her sister’s chains, but that didn’t change the truth of what he was.
* * *
The road trip from Connecticut to Atlanta was as much fun as Bethie had had with her sister in years. Jo drove, and Bethie managed the snacks and the map, and took charge of what little navigation there was. They ate pretzels and drank Tab and sang along to James Taylor and the Eagles, and talked about people they’d known. One of the Stein boys was selling Toyotas, which made him the scourge of the old neighborhood, whose residents only drove American-made cars, and Barbara Simoneaux, Bethie’s best friend, had become an EST instructor, which made both of them laugh.
The first night they stopped in Philadelphia, at a commune started by a former Blue Hill Farm member. Bethie directed Jo to Spruce Street, and she and her sister tromped along the snowy sidewalk and up three marble steps to the townhouse’s door. The place had four stories and six fireplaces, and all of them were lit when they arrived. Bethie introduced Jo to Margot, her former Blue Hill Farm compatriot, who hugged Bethie warmly before taking Jo’s hand in both of hers and intoning the word “Welcome” while looking deeply into Jo’s eyes. They ate fresh-baked wheat bread and stuffed squash for dinner in a kitchen crowded with houseplants that grew in terra-cotta pots or dangled from macramé hangers. After dinner, Jo helped with the dishes, standing elbow to elbow with Margot, who was short and round and merry, and who looked a little bit like Lynnette Bobeck and a little like Nonie, Jo’s Connecticut friend. When the cleaning-up was done, Bethie and Jo went to the living room and lay in front of the fire as a man named Derek sat on a goldenrod-velvet armchair, picking out “Smoke on the Water” on a guitar.
“What do you all do?” Jo asked. Margot was a teacher in an experimental free school and Robert was a public defender. Derek worked for an environmental group, Judy was in grad school at the University of Pennsylvania, and Sally stayed home with the four children who lived in the house. Bethie watched Jo’s expression sharpen as she listened. She noticed the way Jo leaned forward when she asked questions, and wondered if she was imagining the way Jo’s gaze followed the sway of Margot’s hips as Margot moved through the leafy-green kitchen to get them all more tea.
They left early the next morning. By midnight, they were back at Blue Hill Farm. Jo and Bethie tiptoed into the house, where the porch light had been left on and the kitchen smelled of pumpkin bread and sourdough starter. In Bethie’s bedroom on the second floor, they slept the way they had when they were girls, side by side in narrow twin beds, each one covered with a patchwork quilt that Rose of Sharon had sewn.
The next three days were busy. Jo worked with all the members of the collective: Ronnie and Rose of Sharon, Danielle and Wren and Talia and her husband Philip, the commune’s only man. Jo helped them write the copy for the newspaper ad for their new store, and affix labels to the Mason jars filled with Blue Hill Farm’s peach preserves and blackberry jam and jalapeño jelly and honey; helped them load up the station wagon and drive the goods to the shop on Peachtree Street. At dinnertime, Jo and Bethie mashed peas and potatoes together to fill vegetarian samosas, and at night, when the community members gathered, to read or knit or crochet or fold laundry, Jo would read Free to Be . . . You and Me to Blue Hill Farm’s three children, Indigo, Marigold, and Sasha. Her sister was especially fond of the story of Atalanta, the princess who was bright and clever and fast and strong, who outraced all of her suitors and, instead of marrying the young man who came closest to winning, parted from him after they’d agreed to be friends and went off to see the world. “Perhaps someday they’ll be married, and perhaps they will not. In any case, it is certain they are both living happily ever after,” Jo read, and the kids applauded together as Jo closed the book.
On Saturday night, Philip made his famous seitan and peanut–sauced rice noodles. Jo had seconds, and thirds, and then pushed back her chair and gave a contented sigh. “This has been wonderful,” she said, and looked at Bethie. “Have you seen my purple scarf? I need to start packing.”
“What’s the rush?” Bethie kept her voice casual.
“My kids?” Jo said. “Kim and Mis
sy? Remember them?”
“I bet they’d love it here.” Bethie turned, indicatively, toward the fireplace, where Indigo and Marigold were working on a puzzle and Sasha was sprawled on her belly, reading a book. The room was warm with the glow of the fire and the lamps, and it smelled like sage and smoke and peaches.
“You know they love their visits.” Jo stretched her arms over her head, yawning.
“You’re always welcome,” Bethie said. “Like, if you and the girls wanted to come for an extended stay. You’d be a great part of the community.”
Jo gave her sister a look of fond exasperation. “Come on.”
“You could do it,” Bethie said. “You and the girls. For a week, or a month, or as long as you liked.”
Jo’s expression was changing from fondly exasperated to just exasperated. “Bethie,” she said, “I have a life.”
“But does it make you happy? Is it the life you want? Because I don’t think . . .”
Bethie paused. Jo raised her eyebrows. “You don’t think what?”
“I don’t think that you’re happy,” Bethie said. She imagined a needle lancing a blister, a finger pressing down, expelling all the fluid. “I don’t think you’re happy being Suzy Homemaker in Connecticut with Dave Braverman.”
“Well, thank you for your insight,” said Jo, in a tone that didn’t contain even a hint of actual gratitude. “But I’m fine.”
“Jo.” Bethie reached out to touch her sister’s shoulder, but Jo stepped backward, putting herself out of reach. “I’m trying to help you here.”
“I don’t need any help.”
“I think you do.”
Jo turned toward Bethie, squaring her shoulders, planting her hands on her hips as Wren and Philip, who’d been finishing the cleanup, quietly edged out of the kitchen. Jo wore jeans, a striped turtleneck, boat shoes, the kind of loose-fitting, comfortable stuff that she liked best. Her hair was unsprayed, her face was scrubbed clean. Even in her anger, she looked relaxed, at ease in this place and in her skin, the way she never looked in Connecticut.
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