“Can Emma stay for a sleepover?” Holly pleaded when Laura said it was time to go.
“Fine with me!” Ginny said.
As Laura let herself out the front door, a fresh shock of laughter shook the house and broke like a wave, spilling out onto the porch, down the steps, and onto the grass, the foamy lick of its wake seeming to chase Laura’s feet as she headed up toward the road, back to her house, into the damp sheets of her bed, where the only sound was the occasional scuttling of squirrels within the walls.
* * *
WHILE THE OTHER MOTHERS WERE always complaining about how busy they were—the never-ending laundering of towels, the hosing down of sandy feet, the deticking of dogs—Laura found it a challenge to fill up her days on Ashaunt, especially now that Emma was five and no longer required constant supervision.
For kids, Ashaunt meant freedom. They roamed about in packs, barefoot, bug-bitten, and sunburned, scattering like rabbits upon spotting an approaching adult. As evening arrived, there was a gradual disbanding as the cousins returned to their respective houses for dinner. An older cousin would be charged with escorting Emma home. This reaffirmed her status as Ashaunt’s lone only child—of a single parent to boot—and was an abrupt and sobering conclusion to the excitement of the day. Fortunately, the action would resume in the morning.
Eager not to miss out, Emma took off each day after breakfast, returning only to dash upstairs to retrieve something from her bedroom, change into her bathing suit, or seek Laura’s permission to join another family’s picnic or boating expedition to the islands. On the occasions she reported home for lunch, Emma brought guests, sometimes as many as half a dozen second cousins, whom Laura—feeling guilty about all the lunches their parents had served Emma—was more than eager to accommodate.
When she wasn’t mass-producing tuna melts, Laura occupied herself with books and organization projects. Her mornings were industrious, but as the briny air had a way of eroding the houses, the sun-bleached hours of midday had a way of chipping away at Laura’s resolve to keep plugging away at whatever endeavor she’d undertaken that day, which suddenly seemed pointless.
Laura was determined to keep Ashaunt’s shoreline completely litter-free. Each tide deposited a fresh spattering of miscellaneous refuse—shards of glass, Styrofoam cups, buoys—so this was an ongoing project. As the summer progressed she expanded her sweeps to include the craggy tip of the point, where the rocks got bigger and bigger until they were more like boulders. It was difficult to navigate and the one area where children were forbidden to go. No one went there, in fact, and adding to the spooky feeling, the outer tip of the point had once been used as a military base during the Second World War, a lookout spot in case enemies invaded. During this time, the government had temporarily confiscated the area where her great-grandparents had built their original house, which had been torn down to make room for a makeshift command center, beneath which they’d constructed a series of underground tunnels where the soldiers had lived.
In Laura’s memory of sneaking out here as a child, the iron door that led to these tunnels had always been locked. She was relieved to discover this remained the case. At the base of the entrance was a smooth patch of asphalt, and the radiating heat sent a pleasant shiver up Laura’s legs. The sun felt good on her exposed skin, and she decided to lie down and get a little tan. She was completely secluded, so she took off her shorts and shirt. A few minutes later she removed her bra; when would she get the chance again? She kept her underpants on.
The boat didn’t make a sound, and Laura wondered how long it had been there. Sitting up, one arm covering her breasts, she groped for her shirt. She knew the man inside the boat had been watching because he abruptly turned around and cast his fishing rod on the other side, facing away from her.
Laura left in such a hurry she forgot her bag of trash. When she went back for it the next day, the boat was there again, closer to shore than she’d remembered it being before. Before turning up toward the asphalt, Laura looked at the fisherman, and he looked back at her, and then turned to an angle where he couldn’t see her.
Today Laura had worn a bikini beneath her clothes, and after stripping down to it, she sat on the asphalt, keeping tabs on the fisherman, making sure his back was to her, as she removed her top. She lay down so she couldn’t see him, but she could feel that he was now watching her.
Again, she forgot the bag of trash.
So began a new secret routine. The fisherman was handsome in a weathered, man-of-the-sea kind of way, but it wasn’t so much he who excited Laura as his lust for her, and the unspoken and illicit nature of their arrangement. My fisherman, she came to think of him.
* * *
THERE WAS A CONSTANT ANXIETY about time and the rapid passing of it on Ashaunt. “The crickets are getting louder as they are getting closer to death,” an aunt had once told Laura when she was a child—and there was rarely an evening on Ashaunt when she didn’t think of it. “The summer is almost over,” people started saying soon after the Fourth of July. As August rolled around, the dread of September took on an existential air, and each sunset had the sensation of being the last.
While Laura looked forward to returning to the routine of their lives in New York, the feeling still got to her, and it was especially acute when she arrived at her secret spot at the end of the point and discovered her fisherman wasn’t there. There had been a few days when he hadn’t shown up, but this was her final afternoon of the summer.
A few hours later, their car was loaded and ready to go. Disconsolate at the prospect of leaving, Emma climbed a tree and refused to come down. After a fifteen-minute standoff, she surrendered, under the condition that they stop for a final dip at the swimming dock. The water was cold and she lasted less than a minute. Weeping and shivering, Emma climbed back up the steps. Laura toweled her off, and they were about to leave when Maggie, one of her oldest and frailest great-aunts, arrived for a swim, and Laura thought they should linger to make sure she didn’t drown.
“You have a lot of freckles,” Emma said between sniffles, pointing to Maggie’s shins.
“Those are liver spots, dear,” Maggie told her, meticulously tucking every last rogue wisp of silver hair beneath the rubbery base of her mustard-yellow bathing cap. She stood up, unfastened the belt of her towel coat, and shed it with the comfort one did a winter jacket; skinny-dipping had once been the norm at Ashaunt, and for older generations it remained the preference.
Maggie’s knuckles flashed white as she gripped the railing that ran along the steps leading to the water. It was a long, slow, cautious descent, but eventually she reached the last step, arched her back, tossed up her arms, and dove in with a splash. Once she was in the water there was no trace of the prudence with which Maggie negotiated her movements on land; her body seemed transformed into a younger, stronger, more confident one. Even her breasts appeared miraculously restored to their former shape and buoyancy. As she flipped over they broke the surface of the water like pale blue moons, growing smaller and smaller as she backstroked toward the horizon.
Eventually Maggie reversed direction. As they waited, a boat appeared in the distance. Laura assumed it was Rick, who was known for driving his boat much too fast and close to the swimming dock. His proximity to Maggie made Laura nervous and she waved her hands in the air, trying to signal for him to slow down.
The boat did slow down, but Laura’s relief was fleeting as she realized it was not Rick.
“Who is that?” Emma asked, as the boat approached the dock.
“We don’t know him,” Laura said.
“Trespasser,” Emma muttered with a growl.
“The ocean doesn’t belong to us,” Laura said quietly.
Close to the steps, Laura’s fisherman put the boat in neutral. It bobbed menacingly as he stared at Laura, who wanted to turn away but was afraid to do so. She’d never seen him this close, for this long, and there was something in his face she’d never observed before, an uncouth, wanton
look in his eyes.
“What’s he doing here?” Emma whispered.
Laura squeezed her hand but didn’t speak. Her fear was laced with shame and remorse. Laura had been reckless; thinking of what she had done, she felt she didn’t know herself.
“Sir!” Maggie’s voice carried sharply over the water. “I would like to get out and I’m not wearing a suit. If you could please give me some privacy!”
And with that he took off, the wake of his boat unzipping the water like the back of a dress.
* * *
AS LAURA HAD ANTICIPATED, EMMA struggled with the Winthrop way. It was only November, and the fourth time she had done something that prompted a telephone call home about behavior that was “inappropriate,” a word with which she was now very familiar. Today’s incident was regarding a picture Emma had drawn featuring “inappropriate content” that had left her kindergarten teacher “a little concerned.”
“No need to mince your words,” Laura told Miss Cole. “Let me know what it was and I’ll talk to her.”
“She drew a man who was—in his birthday suit.”
“Oh, dear.” Laura sighed. “I can explain. Last weekend, we were about to cross the street, when all of a sudden a man in a proverbial trench coat appeared out of nowhere and did his thing.”
Miss Cole did not say anything.
“Life on Ninety-sixth Street!” Laura mustered a chuckle. “Anyway, thanks for letting me know, I appreciate the call, here she comes now, I’ll have to have a chat with her, goodbye, Miss Cole, see you tomorrow!”
Laura hung up the phone and looked at Emma, who stood in the doorway clutching a stack of freshly dog-eared catalogs. (That Laura never processed Emma’s orders didn’t stop the catalogs from piling up.) At five, Emma remained in the upper percentiles for height and weight. Though her body had lengthened, she still had the distended paunch of a toddler, the bulk of which was further exaggerated by the pleated skirt of her Winthrop tunic billowing out like a tent. This belly was her center of gravity, and she carried it with a regal immodesty, letting it announce her as she entered spaces.
“Guess who that was?”
“Miss Cole?” Emma said in a baby voice.
Laura nodded. “Why do you think she was calling?”
“How am I opposed to know?” Emma’s shoulders rose in a phony way.
“The word is supposed. And I think you do know.”
“Because my weekend update was inappropriate?” Emma timidly placed the catalogs on Laura’s desk.
“Bingo.”
“Bingo?”
“Yes. You’re correct. That’s why Miss Cole was calling.”
Laura searched Emma’s face for signs of remorse.
“They’re called ‘private parts’ for a reason,” Emma said, clearly repeating what Miss Cole had said to her.
“If you knew it was inappropriate, why did you draw it?”
Emma shrugged again.
“You’re not a little kid anymore, I know that you understand these things. The question is, what inspires you to pretend not to know any better? Do you think it’s funny? Do you think it’s cute?”
Emma chewed the inside of her lip and looked at the floor.
“Do you know how embarrassing it is for me, as your mother, to get these phone calls?”
Emma nodded. The expression on her face was sober, if not wholly contrite.
“You don’t draw pictures of penises in school,” Laura said.
“You don’t draw pictures of penises in school,” Emma repeated.
“Or what we have,” Laura added as Emma turned to go back to her room.
“Va-gi-nas!” Emma shouted as she skipped down the hall.
ON THE THIRD SUNDAY OF every month, Laura helped make dinner for the residents of a local women’s shelter. Emma typically stayed home, but one evening the babysitter canceled and Laura took her along. It was here, in the kitchen, that Emma met Sylvia.
She had never met anyone named Sylvia before; it was the most beautiful name she’d ever heard. And with her pretty red hair and pink lipstick, Sylvia was the most beautiful homeless person Emma had ever seen.
Sylvia was other things Emma had never encountered before, including the only adult who hadn’t been amused or flustered by the question, “Do you think God is real?” Sylvia didn’t think God was real; she knew He was. She had seen Him and He had spoken to her.
Emma was equally awed by Sylvia’s thoughts on Jesus: “He is the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Him.”
As they were saying goodbye, Sylvia told Emma that she used to wear glasses, but after praying for God to fix her vision, one day she’d woken up to discover God had fixed her vision. Now that she no longer needed glasses, she could see everything, including things other people couldn’t. Emma wanted to know what these things that Sylvia could see and normal people couldn’t were, and when she asked, Sylvia said she could see that Emma wasn’t like other children—that she was special.
On their way home Emma asked if Sylvia could be her babysitter the next time Laura had to go out.
“But what about Daisy?” Laura responded. “You love Daisy.”
Emma shook her head. “She’s doesn’t pay me any attention. She’s always talking on the phone.”
“I’ll think about it,” Laura said.
* * *
“BEAUTIFUL CHILD!” SYLVIA GASPED AS Emma entered the living room in the new, floor-grazing dirndl her grandparents had brought back from the previous summer’s trip to Europe.
As Emma walked across the room toward the sofa, where Sylvia sat waiting for her, she took small, delicate steps, making sure her toes didn’t poke out from beneath her skirt, so as to create the impression that she wasn’t walking, but floating—like the sugarplum fairies in the opening scene of the second half of The Nutcracker.
Sylvia was supposed to be the babysitter, but Laura stayed in the apartment the whole time. Emma escorted Sylvia to her bedroom and shut the door. She handed Sylvia a brush and requested that she do her hair to look like Marta’s in The Sound of Music: two braids twisted and pinned above her ears. After this, Sylvia taught Emma the proper way to pray: knees on the floor, head bowed, hands clasped, lips moving but no sound coming out.
Emma prayed for, among other things, sisters and brothers, glasses, braces, a dog, a pet rabbit, a Polly Pocket, for the ozone layer to grow back, to be in the next Olympics, for Nickelodeon to come take over her school, for it to be the olden days, for Sylvia to be her governess, and for God not to punish her mom even though she didn’t believe in Him.
This last wish Emma verbalized to Sylvia, who agreed it was a concern. When Laura poked her head in the door to check on them, Sylvia said, “If serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourself, but remember in whose land you are living.”
Laura smiled and said that it was probably getting time for Sylvia to go home.
As Sylvia and Emma stood in the hall waiting for the elevator, Emma had a sinking, panicky feeling. She had an idea. She ran back inside and returned with a slim glass vial that had once held Indian beads. Removing its cork stopper, she handed the vial to Sylvia and asked her to breathe inside it. She did, Emma corked the bottle, and the elevator door opened and Sylvia stepped in.
Holding Sylvia’s breath to her chest, Emma stood and watched the panel above the elevator illuminate the number of the floor she was on, 17-16-15-14-12-11-10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2—until it stopped at L.
“Goodbye, Sylvia,” Emma said, and kissed the bottle.
* * *
GETTING OUT THE DOOR EACH morning was a production, and Emma’s first report card noted that she had been delivered late to school on thirteen separate occasions. There was no mention of Laura’s tardiness at afternoon pickup (she had been a bit relaxed about these), but beneath the attendance record, Miss Cole had added a personal note: “Let’s see if we can all do better in the winter term.”
Laura made a concerted effo
rt to be more punctual, and she made it through January without an issue. Such was shaping up to be the case with February when tragic circumstances intervened.
She didn’t know of anyone this had happened to, although most people she knew didn’t ride the subway. When acquaintances learned that Laura—petite, demure Laura—braved the dangerous and chaotic New York City underground twice a day by herself, they were flabbergasted. But it was a point of pride for her, a method of transportation that was cheaper, generally quicker, and certainly more environmentally friendly than taking a cab. And there was invariably a character or two in your car. The people who didn’t use it were missing out on a quintessential New York experience, never venturing out of their safe little bubble.
She was on her way to pick up Emma; as her train approached the Ninety-sixth Street station, Laura stood up to wait by the door, gripping the overhead bar to steady herself. After pulling abreast of the platform, the train stopped with a violent jerk—but the doors did not open. Five minutes passed, and the doors remained closed and there were no announcements explaining why. Subway officials were out on the track with flashlights, looking beneath the train. A few of the passengers in Laura’s car tried to communicate with them via hand gestures and exasperated expressions but were ignored. Finally the conductor’s voice came on over the radio and said that due to a police investigation the train was no longer in service and everyone needed to disembark.
Police had congregated on the platform. Farther down the platform, passengers who’d emerged from another car peered over the ledge at something on the track. From the expressions on their faces Laura knew what it was.
Laura felt quivery, like her knees might buckle. The poor conductor, she considered, how traumatic for him. As for the person, she couldn’t bear to think of it. Had they been pushed? Jumped? Perhaps they’d been standing too close to the yellow line when a rat had come along and scurried between their feet and, being skittish, they’d accidentally leapt forward—that had long been a fear of hers.
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