Then Molly was through town, the road narrow and steely blue with pine shadow, the houses set back from stone walls. She had only twenty more minutes alone, driving past the Bookmill in Montague. Should she just stop for a coffee, look for a book to give Tessa? No way. Too easy for any book to be misinterpreted. Then past the house where she and Helen had lived a million years ago, when all they had to worry about was keeping warm in a drafty house.
When she arrives at Anna’s, she’ll undo her lie. She needs to talk. Tell her friends about the school meeting. The weed. And the tattoo. She needs help. This was where Anna was always perfect. The best of all the friends at balancing what was actually worrisome in parenting and what was Molly’s anxiety confusing the situation. Anna always cut through Molly’s perfectionism and insecurity, discarded the extraneous in a flash, always supporting Molly’s solid judgment.
“Go easy,” Anna had said at so many crucial moments, and it released something in Molly.
Molly needed the afternoon alone to take a long walk with Anna. I get it. It’s a little worrisome, she imagined Anna saying. But I swear it is eighty-five percent just stupid teenage shit, Moll. Like blue hair back in the nineties. Or pierced eyebrows. It’s honestly not a whole lot different from you and me and all the messing around we did with drugs and boys. They’ve got to push against us. It’s their job.
But Helen told her not to expect much on the visit. Anna was sleeping most of the time. Often not responsive. Molly didn’t entirely trust Helen. She might not have that long walk, but they’d talk.
The car phone buzzed again.
She was not going to be able to avoid Serena.
“Hey, honey.” Molly heard Serena sobbing. Serena never cried. Not her MO. Serena was cool in the face of problems. She had a surgeon’s calm. Molly knew when Serena panicked, because the more she panicked, the steelier she became.
“What? What’s happening?” The sound of Serena crying was tinny through the car speakers. “Do you need me to come home? Where’s Tessa?”
Molly slowed the car. Too many disaster thoughts all at once. All of them outdisastering the tattoo.
“You’ve got to talk to me, honey.” Molly sharpened her voice. “Is Tessa okay?”
“You tell me.” Serena’s voice was taut, almost accusing. “You’re the shrink.”
“I think she is.”
Molly turned in to a random driveway, a ranch house in the middle of renovation, a man up on the scaffold, two trucks in the driveway, a log swing set and slide in the side yard.
“We’re the parents. We have to believe in Tess so she can believe in herself.” Molly heard the steadiness of her own voice and all the right things she told Serena, things she might tell a client during a session. Still, it felt far away. She wished that as a parent she felt even half the clarity she felt as a therapist. Looking out at the man up the scaffold, the way he torqued his whole body to one side, leaned out bracing himself against the post, Molly thought, He’s an idiot trusting that flimsy structure.
“Thanks, honey. I love you.” Serena sounded calmed, even a little embarrassed. “Say hey to the gang. Give Anna a big kiss.”
Molly made a smooch sound and pressed DISCONNECT.
She put the car in reverse, then slammed her foot on the brake. She was dreaming even to hope she’d take a walk alone with Anna. Not today. Not ever again. She had to trust her instincts. Molly rooted her cell phone out of her bag. Texted, Tess, we need to talk. It’s your body. But. No. More. Tattoos. I don’t care if I sound like a hypocrite. I love you. Call. And she pressed SEND.
Caroline, Getting There
Throughout the week Caroline had been calmed—it worked as an instant chill pill—by imagining just how she’d set up the story. She imagined her friends’ stunned, openmouthed gasps as she recounted how this time Elise had flown down to St. Martin and checked in at La Samanna under the name of Jacqueline Bouvier.
Honestly, their gaped mouths might almost make it worth the whole insanity. And it was truly nonstop insanity between convincing the concierge not to throw Elise out of the hotel until Caroline could get a flight to the island; paying barrels of gold for Elise’s oceanfront suite, the room service, and all the unbelievable room damage; then the return flight where Elise, in full-blown psychosis, unclipped her seat belt and paced the aisles ranting Kennedy conspiracy theories, from the obvious “There was a shooter on the grassy knoll” to the more obscure “It was a joint endeavor of the Russians and LBJ.”
Elise never entertained predictable delusions of the Jesus or aliens variety. It’s the fabulous she tended toward. And this one was the biggest doozy. Caroline couldn’t wait to make everyone guess just how much this St. Martin extravaganza of nuttiness has cost her and Danny.
Always classy when Elise went off her meds. You had to give her that.
Let’s not forget the two-hundred-dollar beach hair braiding with semiprecious beads.
But Jacqueline Bouvier!
Shouldn’t that have been a tip-off when Elise registered at the hotel that all was not exactly right? Could they really feign shock when she showed up for her dinner reservation wearing a strand of pearls, gloves, and high heels?
And, yes, ladies, that was all she wore.
If nothing else, at least it was a good story for her friends. Caroline would enjoy repeating, “Just the strand, the gloves, and the heels.”
Though there was nothing funny when she arrived in St. Martin and saw that familiar hypomanic arch of Elise’s face. Her tongue every few moments swiping at her chewed, chapped lips, like a cat. Her tweezed-to-pencil-stroke eyebrows twitching in some come-hither madness.
Definitely not a good story so much as a sad old story now.
But it will be worth it, back in Anna’s living room, Caroline playing all the parts—French concierge, fussy flight attendant, batshit admissions nurse—and watching the horrified delight on her friends’ faces. A desperate move using Elise’s insanity. But what was the point of years of her sister’s insanity if at the very least Caroline couldn’t get some bang for her buck?
Driving through Hartford, the city skyline on her left, Caroline decided she’d hold back and pay it out slowly—the blue organza silk drapes that Elise cut up for a matching bikini and beach robe, the words she finger-painted with ketchup and God knows what on the suite’s stucco walls. Elise so bonkers, so manic beyond pain, that when Caroline describes the vine of bruises and lacerations on her legs as she still begs to go out disco dancing, Anna will say, Carrie, you’ve got to admit, Elise always makes crazy seem fun. Come on, Jacqueline Bouvier!
Driving north, Caroline felt bouncy. She gauged the drive in twenty-minute bursts—Hartford to Springfield, Springfield to Northampton. Actually a little manic herself. But twenty minutes later, driving through Springfield, the Memorial Bridge spanning the Connecticut River on her left, she felt drained, numb, exhausted all down her limbs, only the loop in her brain a speedy, furious calculation of how many thousands and thousands of dollars she and Danny had spent on Elise’s medical care and maintenance. How many hours she’d spent trying to keep her sister safe.
It was the other part of why she needed to get to Anna’s and see her friends. She’s told Elise antics God knows how many times. And they always let her. Let Caroline be funny and compassionless and mean and angry and philosophical and hopeful and outraged and just plain sad. She’s so sad for the increasingly worn, chipped life that is the life her brilliant big sister has led. And Molly, Helen, Anna, and Ming allow her the whole complicated range of what it is to be Elise’s sister.
And then Caroline was hanging a sharp left onto Anna’s road and skidding down the muddy driveway to park next to Helen’s car.
“Hey, hey, ladies.” She called, propping open the kitchen’s metal door with her foot. She hefted her purse and three bottles of chardonnay onto the kitchen counter. There was no sign that anyone
was there. The house was weirdly silent. But all the cars were in the driveway. They’d gone somewhere? Without her? They knew she was running late.
Caroline jammed the wine into the fridge. She didn’t really believe they’d leave without her. No, actually, she did believe they’d leave her. And this was proof. That having pulled away sometime in high school, she’d never fully been allowed back in. As if the group had reconfigured and she’d never really be allowed into the core again.
She made it all the way into the living room before she noticed Ming and Helen bunched low on the couch, a braid of limbs among the pillows.
Helen’s eyes were closed.
Ming nodded at Caroline. “You’re here.” Ming’s voice was so quiet and flat that Caroline thought Helen must have one of her migraines.
“Where’s Anna?”
Caroline saw Molly outside on the porch, talking on her phone, her free hand gesticulating in wide slicing arcs of emphasis.
“Is everything okay? Where’s Anna?”
Was she too late? Was it possible?
“Go in, Caroline.” Ming nodded in the direction of the bedroom. The words, the nod, seemed to take reserves of energy Ming didn’t have. “When the nurse is finished rolling her, Anna will be awake. She’s in and out. That’s what it is now.”
“No worries, ladies. I’ll get her up.” Caroline had no room for Ming’s negativity.
“She hasn’t been out here in the living room since last week when we were here.”
“I’ve got the you-can’t-top-this story of the week.” She had been to the Caribbean and back. She’d saved Elise, and she could save Anna. Anna will giggle, Jacqueline Bouvier. Caroline will show all of them how essential she is.
“Go in. She likes hearing our voices.”
Helen’s eyes fluttered open, then slipped back closed. “At least we like thinking that.”
3
Beautiful Certainty
At 9 times 8, she drifted and woke at 14 times 7.
“She said ninety-eight.” Someone hovered. “Anna, did you say ninety-eight?”
Ming. Behind her, Helen. “It’s me, honey. I told you we’d be back.”
Such comfort still in the tables. The beautiful certainty in numbers. She wants to tell them this, but she is drifting again and here, now, 16 times 9.
Wonder Women
Have no fear! The Old Friends have special powers. A wonder gang. Middle-age action-figure ladies, with hormonal floods and touched-up roots.
They take turns on the bed, smoothing Anna’s hair, her neck, her arms, and not so much speaking to her as she drifts but including her on these first mini-forays into—the slog the crazy the scary the unbelievable—each of their weeks, none of them quite prepared to step into full spotlight.
When they start a second loop, Helen saying, “Just now, as I pulled in to the driveway, Lucinda called. She’s been offered a huge new job, and—drumroll, please—it’s in London,” Anna shifts a little, not with that horrifying spasming they’d witnessed when they first came into her room but a feline stretch, languidly twisting her arms into the air, circling kinks out of her wrists and rolling her shoulders, then asking Ming to prop pillows as Helen helps her upright.
“Lucinda said it was me. My faith in her,” Helen manages to choke out before she breaks down in tears.
Anna nods, her eyes still shut.
“Okay, ladies, I’m only sending out this teaser.” Caroline poses, voguing her arms dramatically. “Yesterday morning I was on a Caribbean beach, and Elise had Bo Derek cornrows.”
Anna winches open an eye. Then, cartoon style, pops the other eye. She rubs flakes of crust caught under the lashes. Caroline hands her a warm washcloth. Anna spreads the terry-cloth square on her flattened palm, moving it slowly across her face.
Anna looks over at the open window, the cloth balled against her cheek. “We should go outside.”
“That’s just what Ming thought,” Helen says, as if this were the simplest idea. “It’s gorgeous outside. You up for it?”
“What’s the worst that can happen?” Anna laughs.
Maybe Paris
Molly drove through the winding back roads of North Amherst. It was like high school. Afternoons they’d done exactly this. Molly driving, the rest of them scrunched together, sometimes even two squished in the passenger seat, no set direction or plan, maybe winding up at the Farm, where they’d hang for a couple hours before piling back into the car, and Molly would drop them off one by one at their homes.
She veered to avoid potholes, but the dirt road, gouged from a harsh winter, was pocked with deep cavities and troughs. She slowed, taking the road at five miles an hour; still the car bumped heavily, like a horse-drawn wagon on wooden wheels and not a fancy German import with hydraulic struts. With every rut Molly glanced into the rearview mirror. Anna’s head bobbling even when they were on steady ground. She was like a child buckled into the backseat, her eyes barely clearing the bottom of the window as she peered out. Helen scooted close, wrapping an arm around Anna to keep her from slipping down or hitting her forehead with each jostle. It seemed downright crazy that they’d taken her out of the safety of the bedroom.
Molly turned the car onto paved road. When they gained speed, Anna pressed the button, and her window slid open. A sudden lash of wind like an alarm.
“This feels wonderful.” She tipped her face, gathering her hair from where it whipped and caught between her lips.
“Not too much?” Helen held Anna tighter. She seemed breakable. This wind alone could snap her. “It’s cold, isn’t it?”
“Open all of them.”
“Where are we going?” Molly shouted over the thrum of air.
“Let’s just bomb around.” Anna looked delighted, impish, chin lifted, angling to take all the wind and sun across her face.
When she pressed to slide up her window, the others quickly copycatted. Then a silence as sudden and contained as the wind had been unruly. They passed the middle school where Anna had taught and, farther on, the horse farm where her younger son, Andy, had learned to jump, taking home a wallful of dressage ribbons, breaking his collarbone and an arm and getting a couple concussions along the way. Then Puffer’s Pond, where for years they’d sprawled on the raked sand beach watching all their kids cannonball off the float.
Ming pointed to an unmarked turnoff, and Molly swung into the lot, parking to face the pond.
“I brought a picnic,” Ming announced. “Sebastian says it’s his way, Anna, of coming to visit.”
Helen suggested a fire in one of the cooking pits. But nobody moved. Wind ruffled the pond. Even the blue of the sky seemed a chilly blue.
“Maybe let’s eat in here?” Ming said.
“Let’s take a vacation.” Anna looked out her side window toward the boarded-up changing rooms. “Can we?”
“Of course, Anna.” Ming hadn’t even begun her argument. Maybe she wouldn’t need to. What a relief to hear Anna speak of a future. She gave Helen a light shove on the shoulder, and Helen shrugged a hopeful, Maybe you’re right.
“We always said we would,” Helen said. It was true. They always planned to go away together. Women, not nearly as close as they were, celebrated birthdays in Paris. Come on, stupid book groups went on reading retreats in Turks and Caicos.
“Let’s not bother with why we didn’t get it together,” Ming said. “Let’s plan.”
They went giddy with options.
Yoga in Tulum.
Skip the warrior poses, just margaritas, please.
Ski Park City.
Think Easter in Rome.
Sail the Greek islands.
“No,” Anna said. “I mean right now. Let’s just get out of this stupid town.”
Chant
Layla let herself in through the kitchen door, the wood and metal chimes clanging. She heard
Zeus yapping up a storm in the back of the house. Probably Anna’s room. She’d be quick. She knew how jumpy these friends got about their sacred time. She didn’t blame them. But she had to talk with Helen.
“What does Anna want after?” the Valley women asked Layla two nights ago when they’d gathered in the living room for a prayer circle. Anna had refused both the offer to carry her out or for them to circle the bed. When Layla admitted she didn’t know what Anna wanted, they acted like she was a delinquent friend. Connie didn’t know either. Right then Layla broke out of the circle and went to the bedroom.
“What do you want?” Layla hated that she couldn’t stop crying while she asked. She wasn’t sure how much Anna still understood.
“Everyone asks me this,” Anna moaned. “Helen’ll take care of it. She won’t let it get boring. I don’t want to bore everyone to death.”
Layla held off discussing the service on her now-daily check-in call with Helen. She had her marching orders from the Friday Craft and Wine group. But Layla knew that the word “chant” wasn’t going to go over well with Helen. All those childhood friends seemed seriously uptight against anything they’d determined was Pioneer Valley New Agey. She’d say, “We want to sing one song.” When they spoke last night, Helen said, “Please, stop by. I’d like to see you.” It felt close between them. Most nights the calls ended with both of them in tears as Layla charted Anna’s decline.
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