That Summer in Maine

by Brianna Wolfson

  Hazel picked up Griffin to undress him. First his little pants, and then his little shirt. His legs kicked and body squirmed in anticipation. A drool-laden smile spread across his face. The diaper always looked so big on that tiny body. Hazel smiled and then pressed her face into his soft, protruding belly. Griffin giggled, which made Trevor giggle, too.

  She carefully removed their diapers and placed Griffin, and then Trevor, into the water and scooped water over their fine whorls of hair as they wobbled in place. She plunged the duck-shaped sponge into the bath and watched it expand with warm soapy water before pulling it out from under the water. Griffin and Trevor smiled in anticipation of the dripping sponge meeting their bodies. Hazel supported Trevor’s chest with one hand and then pressed the saturated sponge into his back and rubbed it around. He giggled some more and waved his arms jerkily into the water. Griffin played along, slapping his palms onto the water’s surface. Hazel applied the soapy sponge to each fold in their soft, drooping skin. The creases of their wrists were her favorite—where arms met hands in a formless puff of delicate flesh.

  Then Hazel dumped a bucket of floating animal figurines into the tub. They bobbed awkwardly, some on their sides, some right side up, some with their feet peeking above the water. Griffin and Trevor splashed some more at the excitement. Hazel picked out the lion from the bunch and held it up.

  “What does a lion say, boys?”

  They looked at her inquisitively. Then Griffin opened his mouth to make a scratching, grumbling noise.

  “Yeah! Ro-ooaa-ar,” Hazel said playfully as she walked the lion shape along the ledge of the tub. “Ro-ooa-rr.”

  Griffin reached out for the figurine and Hazel placed it in his hand. Trevor picked out the hippopotamus shape out from the bunch and mimicked Griffin’s scratching, grumbling sound with his own screeching twist.

  “Sure, that works,” Hazel said and watched them enter their shared trance of play. It was so intimate the way their worlds became entangled in an imaginary space that was as real to them alone as it was invisible to everyone else. They played and chattered and traded snacks and toys together from the moment they opened their eyes in the morning until the moment they closed them together at night. The bath was always transformed into a magical realm that Hazel could merely observe. Her participation was nothing but superficial. She wondered what it would be like to feel siblinghood as deeply as this. For each item in this bath to become a shared and sacred prop in some sort of make-believe narrative. She wondered what it would be like to cross a threshold with another person that no one else could see into. It used to feel like that with her mother, but things were different now. Now her mother had Cam. The twins had each other. And Hazel was left with hollowness. A world she wanted to escape from but no world to escape into.

  Still, Hazel couldn’t help but feel a warmth inside her as she watched the twins enjoy each other so wholly. So gently. So effortlessly.

  They were so quick to enjoy their life together. So open to joy. It was refreshing to see the world through their eyes at times.

  Hazel bent over the edge of the tub and brought Trevor’s hand to her face. She pressed his palm to her lips for a long kiss and held it there. His fingers curled sweetly around her face. They were pruned and wrinkled from his time in the bath.

  Hazel pulled each small body from the bath and wrapped it in a towel before scooping each up once again into her arms. They smelled so sweet and pure and innocent. Then Hazel brought the twins to her mother, who was still in the same position on the couch. She nestled each one on either side of her body. Her mother pulled the boys in close and gently kissed each one on the forehead and inhaled.

  “It’s so sad to think that one day they’ll lose this smell,” Jane said.

  Hazel turned around without responding and walked back toward her room.

  She had certainly lost that freshly-bathed-baby smell a long, long time ago.

  2

  JANE

  Jane rocked her little boys, one in each arm, and inhaled. They smelled so sweet after their bath. One by one, as she rocked them, their eyelids fell heavy. She placed them in their single crib. She remembered that Cam was originally surprised when she returned home from the store with just one crib.

  “Saving the other crib for your next trip?” he asked genuinely.

  She smiled at the thought as she watched the boys lying peacefully. She had read that one twin could disturb the other’s sleep if they were in the same space, but she’d willfully neglected it. And, as usual for Jane, her intuition was right. The boys had always been able to soothe each other, at times even more than she could. When she woke up in the middle of the night to feed them as infants, they would have already hooked their tiny little fingers into each other’s. Even as she watched them falling into their slumber before her, they were naturally wiggling their little bodies over toward each other until they felt the comfort of their brother alongside them.

  Jane traced Trevor’s tender, wrinkled feet gently with her finger. He flinched and Jane pulled her finger away quickly, as if it had never risked waking him. But he swiftly went back to sleep. When she was sure he was still, Jane brought her same finger along the wisps of Griffin’s hair where they met the soft nape of his neck. Griffin, too, flinched and then returned to slumber without any more stirring. It was a mother’s right to enjoy the smooth, buttery yet vulnerable skin of her children whenever she so pleased.

  Griffin and Trevor were everything anyone would want babies to be—soft and cherubic, petal-soft hair smelling of something sweet and powdery. They absorbed love without the slightest hesitation. They smiled when you tickled their belly. They laughed when you stuck your tongue out during a game of peekaboo. They stared into your eyes curiously and unwaveringly. They reached their arms out longingly for you. They had even slept soundly from the beginning. And with Hazel old enough to help, Jane could put aside many of the empirical realities that typically accompanied the birth of a child, or two. Hazel was so supportive and helpful with the care and maintenance of the babies—bath time, night feedings, sodden diapers, spilled milk, unexpected tears and soiled clothes. Jane was left with the spiritual bliss of her still-new-feeling babies and her still-new-feeling marriage.

  As the baby brothers lay next to each other, silent, Jane crept out of their room and closed the door quietly behind her. She pressed her ear against the other side of the wall to listen for any signs of stirring but heard nothing. Just the peaceful and heartwarming scenario of two freshly bathed little boys asleep.

  Jane felt a warm smile spread across her lips and a light flutter in her heart. She was so lucky. It was almost as if all the pain in her past life didn’t exist anymore.

  Before joining Cam in the bedroom, she made her way into the kitchen and filled two big bowls with two heaping scoops of ice cream. She dashed back down the hallway, past the twins’ room, past Hazel’s room, into her own. They were always retiring to their bedroom as early as possible to get their alone time. Cam was already under the covers with his glasses on, reading a magazine. He lifted his head and smiled at Jane. She made her way toward the bed, with her hands and bowls of ice cream behind her back. She kissed him on the forehead, leaving her lips there for an extra moment, and then whipped the bowls out from behind her back.

  “This one’s for you,” Jane declared and then joined her husband under the covers. “It has more cookie dough pieces.”

  Cam deliberately spooned a chunk of his ice cream from the bowl. Jane could see on the spoon that there was a large piece of cookie dough embedded in the vanilla ice cream. She looked down at the spoon and raised one eyebrow. And then Cam brought the spoon to her lips.

  “Open wide.”

  Jane ate the cookie dough–filled spoonful in one quick bite.

  3

  HAZEL

  After bringing her brothers to her mother, Hazel returned to her bedroom and crack
ed the door just slightly ajar. She couldn’t help but remain acutely aware of the sounds of her home, even though they pained her. Aware of the ways in which everyone puttered around the house. The way they moved from one space to the next. It was comforting to know where everyone was, even if out of sight. She had come to familiarize herself with the delicate sweep of her mother’s steps, the heavy shuffle of Cam’s, or the fumbling patter of Griffin or Trevor.

  She could tell by the vacant crackle of the baby monitor that the twins were asleep now. She heard her mother rummaging around the kitchen. She heard the strained whoosh of the freezer opening. Then, the slight clanking of silverware rustling as a drawer opened, and then the click of it shutting.

  Hazel knew it was ice cream time. Hazel’s mom said Hazel couldn’t call it a tradition, because she never knew when it would come.

  “A sweet surprise for my sweet,” she would say as she revealed two bowls of ice cream from behind her back and then sat down on the bed.

  Each bowl would contain two scoops of vanilla and nothing else. “I’m a vanilla purist,” her mother would say as she scooped spoonful after spoonful into her mouth. “None of that chocolate chip, cookie dough, brownie bite, peanut butter swirl, caramel, nut nonsense.”

  They would tuck themselves under the sheets and eat until their bellies were full. And then they would put the empty bowls on the bedside table and lie there quietly, usually until they fell asleep.

  Hazel heard the click of one spoon, and then another, hit the edge of the bowl. Yes, she knew it. Hazel’s spine uncurled itself from its hunched position over the puzzle and zipped straight up, ready for her sweet surprise. She heard the weightless sweep of her mother’s feet moving across the floor of the kitchen, and then onto the carpet of the hallway. Hazel could already feel the coldness in her cheeks and the sweetness on her tongue.

  Out of the crack in her door, she saw her mother appear one moment, and then move swiftly out of sight the next moment. The sounds of her mother’s feet continued to move gingerly down the hallway.

  Hazel tiptoed toward her door and peeked her head out into the hallway. Her mother stood in front of her own bedroom at the end of the hall, two bowls of ice cream behind her back. The top of a scoop of ice cream poked out over the edge of the bowl. She could see the brown globs of cookie dough mixed into the creamy white vanilla. And then she felt the familiar tingle in her fingertips and toes. She accepted that this was her life now. That this would always be her life.

  She scooted back across the carpet. The tingling had now spread up through her cheeks and to the top of her head. She closed her eyes and pressed her palms into the carpet, reminding herself that gravity was still available to her. But then she let her palms float right back up. If this was what her life would be like here, perhaps she could go somewhere else. Anywhere else. Anywhere else out of Verona, New York, out of this house, with these people. She was invigorated anew at the idea of floating away to that anywhere place.

  It wasn’t that Hazel was longing for a more magnificent, more spectacular life. It wasn’t that she needed ice cream in bed or to fall asleep next to her mother. It was just that she wanted to feel a connection. To anything. Anywhere.

  Hazel looked over at the photo of her and her mother tacked up on the wall. She yanked it off and held it up close, looking into the eyes of her younger self and then her mother’s younger self. She remembered this day well. It was the first chilly day of the year and they had bundled up in big puffy jackets and scarves. In the photo, both of their noses were pink from a day at the carnival. They’d played games and eaten cotton candy and fried dough and laughed and shouted on the rides until their bellies ached. Hazel looked down at the corner of the photo and observed how her mother’s hand was wrapped tightly around her waist, squeezing the down jacket tight. Her eyes welled up a little bit. It was a different time. A time they would never get back.

  Hazel threw the picture on the floor. It fell facedown on her carpet, revealing an inscription on the back of the photo that she never knew was there, and read it to herself.

  Sleep little baby, clean as a nut,

  Your fingers uncurl and your eyes are shut.

  Your life was ours, which is with you.

  Go on your journey. We go too.

  The bat is flying round the house

  Like an umbrella turned into a mouse.

  The moon is astonished and so are the sheep:

  Their bells have come to send you to sleep.

  Oh be our rest, our hopeful start.

  Turn your head to my beating heart.

  Sleep little baby, clean as a nut,

  Your fingers uncurl and your eyes are shut.

  It was the poem her mother used to read to her before bed each night. “Lullaby” by John Fuller. Hazel could nearly recite the words from memory as she read them. She liked that it wasn’t a simple nursery rhyme. She had never thought to contemplate the meaning before, but for some reason it seemed important now.

  Hazel had the paradoxical sense that she was in the center of her story and yet entirely left out of it.

  She was lonely. There was no other word for it. And she remembered the moment when that feeling had become a permanent fixture in her gut. The shift in feeling itself was sharp and harsh and solidified her position as an outsider in her own home. An outsider in her own family.

  She couldn’t help but replay the moment in her mind.

  It was about a month before the twins were born and Hazel was coming back from school. She had just stepped off the pavement of the walkway into the front door and opened her mouth to shout “Hello,” as she always had. But before she could get the word out, she heard her mother say something. She couldn’t quite make out the words of what she had said, but she could clearly make out Cam’s hearty laughter in response. Thinking the exchange was finished, Hazel closed the door behind her, and shouted, “Hello.” There was no response.

  She walked into the kitchen, thirsting to be noticed, but her mother and Cam were keeled over in laughter. She felt truly alone in their presence. Hazel understood that her mother now belonged to Cam and he belonged to her. When her mother was getting to know Cam, the three of them had spent time together and it had felt back then like that was how things would always be. But Hazel now knew that it had been an act. The twins were just another thing binding them together and leaving her out. This loneliness was her life now, until she could find a way out. She was sure of it. And the sight of her mother’s large, extended belly bouncing up and down only reinforced her deep, incisive sadness. She knew her mother would soon belong to those boys growing inside of her, too. That she would be outnumbered by others. That the size of their family would be much greater than the size of her and her mother. That she had lost the battle. That she was nearly no longer a member of the family.

  A sense of dislocation came over her and Hazel brought her hand to the doorframe to brace herself. The feeling of dizziness passed, but the loneliness did not. The next morning, and the next morning after that, and the next morning after that, it was still there. It only deepened and twisted even tighter when the twins came into the picture.

  And now she was left with the feeling that she was watching her life, her family, her home from the outside, instead of participating in it. Some days, there seemed to be a promise of a resolution, but it never came. Some days she wanted desperately to get back on the inside of things. To join, really join, the dinners and conversations and happiness, but she couldn’t. She just couldn’t.

  The permutations of loneliness were an endless development with each passing day. And the more intricate and specific Hazel’s interpretation of her loneliness became, the bigger and more real those feelings grew. Hazel sometimes considered that her mother possessed an inkling of awareness, albeit never expressed in words, that things had changed between them. She would interpret a reach of her arms out across the dinne
r table to touch hands or the pulling of Hazel in unusually tight for a hug or kiss as an attempt to make it better. But right afterward, she would just flit away back into her other life centered around Cam or the twins. It solidified for Hazel the reality that there was no longer a shared understanding of what it meant to be mother and daughter. They would often end up in a room together, with little to say to one another. It would have been better if that silence between them was thick and heavy with sadness or regret, but it had become light and comfortable now.

  Hazel and her mother were now connected by only the loosest stitch.

  As these thoughts began to swirl into a vortex, Hazel sought the distraction of logging on to Wassup?, a social platform for tracking what your friends were up to. Joanna Jackson’s photos were the first to appear in Hazel’s feed; she had a party over the weekend that Hazel had uncharacteristically attended. Hazel was surprised when she received the invitation on Wassup?, but upon clicking around the page further, realized that Joanne had invited nearly the entire grade. It also could have been that Hazel’s mother and Joanna’s mother took the same pottery class. Hazel wasn’t certain what compelled her to go, but she had.

  She clicked into the photo album to see what had been captured from the evening. A small flutter emerged in her belly. She was excited to see herself in the middle of something. Excited to see herself connected and present. Perhaps someone would have captured her in the background. Or in line for the bathroom. She remembered feeling prettier than usual that day. Her mother had let her borrow one of her shirts and then, with a smile, applied blush to her cheeks and mascara to her lashes. Perhaps someone had captured a picture of her feeling that feeling, of being that person that she wanted to be far more often than she could ever be that person. She clicked from one photo to the next, but there wasn’t a single trace of her. There were pictures from the kitchen and the living room and the yard. There were pictures of friends and decorations and even the Jackson family dog. But Hazel was nowhere to be found. Once again, she was a ghost.