Being Mrs. Alcott

by Nancy Geary

  “You shouldn’t have called,” she murmured.

  “How the hell was I to know the woman would leave Sarah alone in the bathtub? What kind of an idiot would consider doing such a thing? She should be locked up.” He paused and drained his glass. When he spoke again, his words were slightly slurred. “And where the hell were you, Mrs. Alcott? Oh yes,” he said, mockingly. “Getting your hair done.”

  She’d never forgive herself for that. “I . . . I . . . I just needed to know when you’d be arriving, that’s all. It was a mistake. A horrible mistake.”

  He leaned toward her, and the lines around his mouth looked hard and menacing. “Is that your view of our children? Of the sanctity of our family? Because I’ll tell you something, and I’ll tell you something right now. My family is not expendable. My children are precious and should be treated that way. I don’t work as hard as I do—”

  “Please, Bain,” she interrupted, although her voice was timid.

  I have you. He’d seemed relieved by that fact just hours before. Now she was his albatross. Having her was his view of punishment. “Please don’t say that,” she pleaded, although a part of her agreed with everything he said. It was her fault. She’d been so relieved that Mrs. O’Connor had taken charge, taken over the care of Sarah, their darling. She’d relished the freedom. But she loved Sarah. And she’d been a good mother. He couldn’t take that away from her. “It was an accident. Even the police said—”

  “Goddammit!” He hurled his tumbler across the room and it shattered against the bookcase.

  Grace didn’t intend to move, but she couldn’t stop herself from shaking.

  Bain slouched back into the armchair. “What have I done?” He put his head in his hands. His shoulders shook ever so slightly, but he made no discernible sound.

  Grace didn’t answer. She didn’t know how, didn’t know whether his question referred to his harsh treatment of her and was actually some sort of an apology, or whether he was asking himself why he’d ever gotten involved with her to begin with. At least with silence he couldn’t get any angrier.

  But this night, too, would pass. Bain couldn’t be responsible for what he said. Neither could she. They were both in terrible pain.

  Grace got up and went to bed. She knew she wouldn’t sleep, but she couldn’t bear silence and dreaded further conversation. She was about to shut off the hall light and then—from instinct more than from compassion—refrained. Bain might come upstairs. And she didn’t want him to trip in the dark.

  The clock showed a few minutes after three. Outside the night was black, and Grace could hear the wind through the partially opened window. She stood gazing out, but there were no stars and the moon was only a dim crescent millions of miles away. In the distance, she heard the rumble of a truck as it left the fish pier with its load.

  Grace made her way down the hall. The door to Sarah’s room was ajar, and, from the threshold, she stared at the white crib with its pink bumpers, the Beatrix Potter mobile dangling over one end, the diapers stacked in neat piles on the changing table, the Owl and the Pussycat music box on the edge of the dresser. Everything was neat and ordered. There was only one problem.

  She leaned against the threshold and stared again at the perfect nursery, the painted bureau and canopied bed. They’d bought the bed shortly after Sarah’s birth. With its pink ruffle and frills, thick mattress and spindled posters, it had seemed to be out of a fairy tale, the kind of bed where little girls would have only sweet dreams.

  It took Grace several moments to notice that Bain was asleep on it.

  The pile rug was soft on her bare feet as she crossed the floor. He lay on one side on top of the quilt with his mouth open and his knees curled up. He hugged a boudoir pillow embroidered with Sarah’s date of birth.

  Gingerly, Grace lay beside him and draped her arm over his chest. She could feel his side rise and fall with each breath. She pulled herself closer to him and pressed her legs up against the backs of his. He didn’t stir.

  She lay still, listening to his breathing. Maybe she, like Sarah, had become a spirit with no physical presence. Perhaps that was why he couldn’t feel her touch. Perhaps she, too, had vanished.

  Then, after what seemed like hours, she heard his voice. It sounded scratchy, disoriented, and far away. “Grace, is that you?”

  “Yes,” she replied, softly, and rubbed his cheek. The skin felt prickly. “Yes Bain, I’m here.”

  With a bit of an effort, he rolled over to face her. He pushed one hand underneath her, so that the weight of her back rested on his arm, and pulled her toward him. She smelled alcohol and the faint hint of cologne. “Forgive me,” he whispered. After a few moments, he began to shake slightly, and she heard only his sobs.

  “Forgive me, too.”

  Chapter Eight

  Bain left for Boston that Saturday. He’d been away from work since Sarah’s death, and throwing himself back into his business at the bank was the distraction he needed. He claimed he was leaving early on Labor Day weekend to avoid traffic, but Grace knew he was tired of the Cape, of its sadness and pain. The house on Sears Point seemed haunted by Sarah. Everywhere there were reminders of her life: a spittle stain on the library carpet, a plastic rattle mixed in with the scissors, Scotch tape, and letter openers in the desk drawer, a collection of rubber-coated spoons and plastic-handled cups in the kitchen cupboard, photographs of her smiling face and blond curls on every tabletop.

  And Bain was no doubt exhausted by Ferris’s presence, too.

  Ferris had arrived the day before Sarah’s funeral with a suitcase large enough to indicate that he was not an overnight guest. After a few days, Grace realized that he intended to see the summer close from a well-situated chair on the Alcotts’ terrace overlooking the harbor. As a freelance journalist, he had plenty of time and no particular need to stay sober. Horizons, the house on the bluff, was the perfect resting spot. “I’m in between stories at the moment,” he explained. “But put me to use.”

  In between seemed to be the operative term for his life, but Grace refused to dwell on that. That he was handsome and had plenty of female attention but never married, that he was intelligent but didn’t focus on a career, these were his choices. Although she’d worried periodically about him ever since their mother’s death, there wasn’t much she could do, and she knew better than to offer advice. As a brother, he’d always been devoted, and his support at this extremely difficult time truly helped her fragile emotional state.

  He listened patiently as she regaled him with stories of the smallest details of Sarah’s short life: her discovery of a ladybug, the first time she’d rolled over, the pale pink color of her tiny toenails, the way she had sucked on Grace’s finger as if it were a pacifier. He sat with her again and again turning the pages of the albums she’d made, talking about photograph after photograph. He understood she couldn’t accept the abrupt end, the picture one day with none to follow. Ferris knew without her having to explain that these memories were all she had left. By his conduct, by his responses, he indicated that he knew that they were her last treasures.

  And it was Ferris who helped her pack up Sarah’s room and move the carefully labeled boxes of toys, clothes, bedding, and furniture outside to await the Goodwill van.

  Sunday evening after Bain had left, Grace had decided to prepare dinner. She hadn’t cooked since Sarah’s death—not even to boil an egg—and experimenting on her brother seemed a safe option. At the last moment, she’d invited Prissy, too, to ensure that she wouldn’t back out and order pizza. “Feel free to bring your husband,” she’d offered.

  “Thanks,” Prissy had replied. “But he’s not the dinner-party type.”

  “This is hardly a dinner party.”

  “Anything more than him and me sitting around in our underwear makes it formal to him. But I’ll be there.”

  Now the three of them sat on the terrace. She’d set straw place mats on the glass table, arranged over-opened roses and greens for a centerp
iece, and made a potato salad with plenty of chopped onion and egg. They’d given up on the grill—the air was moist, and the charcoal didn’t want to light—and cooked the hamburgers in a frying pan instead. Ferris mixed a large striped pitcher of Southsides.

  The sun was setting. The sky was bright pink.

  Grace had no appetite. After pushing her food around with a fork, she abandoned even the idea of eating and leaned back in her chair to admire the view. Ferris, too, seemed disinterested in food, but he continued to drink liberally. Only Prissy enjoyed the meal.

  They had been sitting in silence for several moments when Ferris asked abruptly, “So Grace tells me you’re married, but that your husband is a bit of a mystery.”

  “Ferris,” Grace reprimanded. He’d asked her about Prissy twice in the last several days, and she’d been candid in her responses, but she’d expected him to be discreet.

  Prissy coughed once either to clear her throat or cover her surprise. “My mysterious husband, is that what he is?” She looked at Grace. “I just never wanted to bore you.”

  “Well, if that’s the case, do tell,” Ferris prompted. “I can’t imagine he’s a total bore. What’s his name?”

  “Oscar, but he likes to be called Kody.”

  “Kody? There. That’s unusual right off the bat.”

  “It means ‘helpful,’ which he is. You know, the handy sort.”

  “That must be nice,” Grace mumbled. She envisioned Bain on the telephone to a contractor, carpenter, plumber, electrician, or landscaper virtually every weekend. What would it be like if he could actually deal with the problem himself?

  “I think you can tell a lot about a man by whether he can fix things or, better yet, make them from scratch. A combination of artistic vision and actual craft, skill, that’s what you want. To make a long story short, we’ve known each other forever and been through a lot of ups and downs. I can’t say everything’s perfect all the time but he’s my old sofa that I can’t part with. And if something breaks, well, I know where to turn.”

  Can the man fix a broken heart, too? Grace wondered. She closed her eyes, wanting to imagine that Sarah slept in her Moses basket beneath the table.

  “How did you meet?”

  Prissy smiled. “We’re your all-American story. We lived next door to each other in Hull—you know, just up the coast north of Boston—and our parents were friends. Our families had these awful cookouts. Our mothers both got all dressed up as though they were being presented to the president instead of standing around in the weedy grass of the backyard, and our fathers bought huge cigars that would take them all evening to smoke. There wasn’t much money so it was a lot of barbecue sauce to make the meat edible, and wine that came in a terra-cotta jug. Kody and I shared a mutual disdain for the event. But it was the catechism class that drove me into his arms. Who wouldn’t rather have fun in the janitor’s closet with your pants down than study the stations of the cross?”

  Ferris laughed. He, too, had never been one for organized religion, and Grace wondered what trouble he’d gotten into during Sunday services at Trinity Church. At least until he’d moved out, Eleanor and William had required attendance.

  “When Kody decided to drop out of high school at sixteen, he urged me to quit, too,” Prissy continued. “We ran off in his pickup truck. We got to somewhere in Nebraska before the cops stopped us for a broken taillight, figured out we were runaways, and called our parents. We went back reluctantly. My mother called me a slut to my face and told me I’d disgraced her—now, there was a joke, although you’d have to know my mother to understand the irony—and shortly after our return we left again. The Cape was a perfect destination: white sand beaches and privacy miles away from our parents. We’ve been here ever since.”

  “What about your parents?”

  “I guess they gave up. Kody went back when his father died, but I haven’t seen any of them since the day we left.”

  Grace was shocked. She couldn’t imagine any rift that would divide a family forever. “Do you miss them?”

  Prissy paused, and took a sip of her drink. “Yes and no,” she said after a while. “I miss the sense of family, of a broader community. But I was relieved not to have the expectations, the artificial pressure. I wanted my own life. My mother made choices about what she wanted, and so did my father. But I didn’t share those dreams. I didn’t want a forty-square-foot lot, a house with vinyl siding, three kids, and a Buick. I didn’t want to spend my free time sitting on the porch with rollers in my hair trying to figure out what everyone else on the block was up to. So in that sense, leaving was liberating.” Prissy turned to Grace, reached out, and rested a palm on her arm. “We should be focused on you. That’s what we’re here for, to help if we can. And here I am babbling. I’m sorry.”

  “No, not at all,” Grace replied. “It’s nice to hear.”

  The words came out wrong. The story of ne’er-do-well teenagers and a broken family could hardly be considered a fairy-tale romance, but she had to admit she’d been curious about Prissy’s past ever since they’d met. Although on more than one occasion their conversation revolved around Bain, her references to Kody had been sporadic at best. Most of all, though, the distraction was welcome. Even if the discussion ignored the horrendous loss that had brought all three of them to this place at this moment, anything to keep her mind off her gaping wounds was therapeutic.

  “So now I see why you and my sister are such dear friends,” Ferris said, sitting back and folding his hands in his lap. “You both chose the familiar over the mysterious. No doubt a wise decision. What our parents would call prudent.”

  She wouldn’t have thought that Bain, a well-educated, highly successful man, and Kody, the fisherman, were comparable selections, but she did understand his point. The relationships, the backgrounds, the values were comparable. Neither she nor Prissy had married someone completely different. However, she resented the implication that the choice had been cautious, or boring. It wasn’t how Grace would characterize her life. Perhaps Ferris couldn’t imagine anyone settling down, being content with a routine and a community, having life revolve around a spouse, but that was what she’d wanted and that’s what Bain had delivered. Apparently Kody had, too.

  Prissy stared at Ferris for what seemed like minutes. Her expression was difficult to read. Was she sizing him up, evaluating his remarks, or shocked by his rudeness? Finally she asked, “Well, then, what about you? Aside from being Grace’s dear older brother, what’s your story?”

  “That’s a rather provocative question.”

  Grace thought she saw Ferris wink.

  “You don’t have to answer. But since you appear to be such a master of the mysterious, I thought you might be able to teach me something—impart a life lesson or something of that sort.”

  Grace had the odd feeling that she’d landed in the middle of a conversation that had been under way for hours. She’d never seen Ferris like this—inquisitive, flirtatious—or Prissy, either. They seemed so familiar. Perhaps they’d had too much to drink.

  “My story . . . dear Gracie, help me out here,” Ferris said, jokingly. “Let’s just say Grace is the good girl in the family. She found Bain and they’ve made this lovely home, made a lovely—” He paused, letting his sentence hang. Nobody wanted to finish the thought. “I on the other hand just managed to get through Harvard several years back, a feat I still wonder about, but it’s been rather a downhill slide since then. I write for National Geographic when they’ll have me, and I rely rather heavily on my father’s largesse. So far he hasn’t let me down, but you never know when the well will dry up.”

  Grace felt uncomfortable. Talking about money, or the lack of it, was a sign of poor breeding, and his candor embarrassed her.

  “What about a wife? A girlfriend? Or do you limit yourself to brief affairs in exotic countries?” Prissy leaned forward. “Do tell. Who’s the woman of your dreams?”

  Ferris laughed. He reached for the pitcher and refilled his
glass and hers. Grace wanted to excuse herself, but couldn’t think of a diplomatic way to exit.

  “They’ve come, they’ve gone,” Ferris sang. “There was one girl from Miami who stole my heart for a moment, but I got it back eventually.”

  Grace remembered meeting Selena once at the Montgomerys’ house. Her appearance was striking. Part Cuban, she had long black hair, black eyes, and wore a salmon-colored nail polish that matched her ruffled blouse. Her family was some sort of nobility, and they’d moved to the United States when Castro came to power. Grace had admired her tremendous confidence as she spoke openly with William about politics. But after that evening, she’d never seen the woman again, and hadn’t realized Ferris was so smitten.

  “At the moment, you might say I’m in between passions.”

  “Ah . . . the gentler sex had better watch out.”

  Grace passed the potato salad to Prissy, who helped herself to a second generous serving.

  They sat in silence as Prissy ate. Grace was about to get up to clear the plates when Ferris asked, “Does your Kody work?”

  Prissy laughed, as if the question was unusual. “He’s part owner of a commercial fishing boat, and his crew goes out to the shoals or Georges Bank. But often the destination is much farther—the Grand Banks off Newfoundland or even the Flemish Cap. He used to be gone for long spells at a time.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest. “We’re pretty used to living separate lives.”

  “What’s the catch? Of his crew, I mean.”

  “This year it’s been mainly swordfish, but he was into tuna for years before that.”

  “Hard duty,” Ferris mumbled.

  Grace couldn’t imagine her brother stuck on a boat with a crew of other fishermen for weeks on end. He didn’t have the emotional makeup or the physical tolerance. Bain didn’t, either. Did that make them weaker or just different? Could Kody have begun to get through a day at the bank?