The day couldn’t have been a better example of why they should keep the place. It’s so nice, she might say—a misstep, since her mother would know she was leading her somewhere.
I wish it was always like this.
This is what I love about Chautauqua.
In her book, Kinsey was driving around in her little red Bug, tailing someone, breaking down the case in her head. Meg needed to think like that, analyze the situation and get ahead of it, know what buttons to push. Good luck, she thought. She’d never had that ability, not with anyone, let alone her mother. All she could do was tell her how she felt and hope she would be merciful, a tactic that worked in group but nowhere else.
She closed her book and set it on the table, an opening move her mother noted. The light through the trees was turning golden, honeyed like a beer commercial. The water near shore had gone glassy. Her mother looked up from her book to see what she was doing, and Meg was waiting for her.
“Do you think we could talk about the cottage?”
Her mother paused to see if she was serious, giving her a chance to retreat.
“Why not?” she said, and stuck a bookmark between the pages, shifted so they were facing each other. “Kenneth said you’d want to.”
“Did he tell you what I was going to say?”
“The gist of it.”
She waited, and Meg could see she wasn’t going to make this easy. She would have to state her case plainly, cleanly, without making her feel guilty or ganged up on.
“We’d like to try to keep the place. We all would—Ken, Arlene and myself. We’re all willing to do whatever we can to help.”
She thought her mother would interrupt and crush her argument before she started, but she sat there, expectant, as if she needed more reasons, more information, proof they’d thought it through. This was somehow worse. “We don’t have money, I know that’s a problem. And I know you don’t have a lot of money either.”
“True enough.”
“What we’re proposing is that we take care of the place. We open it and close it and take care of the repairs.”
“And emergencies like the pipes breaking last winter?”
“And emergencies like that. And if and when we’re in a position to do it, to help with the taxes.” Her mother didn’t scoff at this, a good sign. She had more, but most of it was emotional, how much they loved the place, how her father would want them to keep it, and she thought that would be a mistake. “Basically that’s it,” she said. “We all love coming up here, we’re all going to be here next year, and this way would be cheaper than having to rent a place.”
“It sounds fine,” her mother said. “I can’t tell you how happy it would make me to have you kids take it over. But I needed to know this six months ago. Telling me now doesn’t do me any good. I’ve already signed the papers.”
“You can back out of the deal, it happens all the time.”
“That may be the way you operate, but that’s not how I was brought up to act.”
The tone was familiar, a note from her childhood. The danger was striking back at her mother in the same vein, or attacking her moral high horse.
“I know it’s late,” Meg said. “I wish I was in better shape six months ago or I would have told you I’d take it over myself.”
“It’s not realistic. I don’t mean to sound unfeeling, but you have enough on your plate right now. You said you were worried about losing the house. If you had to make a choice, I think you’d have to choose the house over this place, for the children’s sake, if nothing else.”
“Of course,” Meg said, “but that’s not—”
“Then here, this is what I’m proposing. With the money from this place, I give you enough to keep you where you are until the kids are done with school. It’s only seven more years, that’s not a long time. In the meantime, we find a nice place to rent, somewhere close. It may be more expensive, but it doesn’t make sense to pay taxes when we’re only up here one week out of the year now. I’m not going to come up any more than that, my life’s in the city.”
The offer stopped her, emptied her head.
“What about Arlene?”
And Ken, because to take the deal would mean she’d betrayed them, and the idea of being able to stay in Silver Hills was more than tempting. She’d agreed to it immediately, her problems solved. She would put away her paychecks and build her savings.
“Arlene is tougher than you think. This is going to sound awful, but Arlene’s had her life, so have I. You and Kenneth are going to end up with everything sooner or later and it’s entirely up to you what you do with it, no strings. I would hope you’d want to take care of your family first. One reason I decided to sell the place, and I don’t want you repeating this, is because I want to be able to control what happens to me ten or fifteen years from now when I can’t take care of myself. I don’t expect you or Kenneth to take me in, I wouldn’t do that to you, but it’s expensive, whichever way you choose. I’d like to have some say in the decision, and the only way to do that is to have some money in the bank. So yes, I admit it, it’s selfish on my part.”
“I never said it was.”
“What did you think I’d do with the money?”
“I didn’t think about it like that.” She said it without thinking, a reflex, but it wasn’t true. Being broke, she’d been jealous.
“You didn’t wonder?” her mother pressed.
“I did.”
“I had my reasons for doing this. It wasn’t easy, believe me. I tried to involve you all in the decision.”
“I know.”
“Then why didn’t any of you speak up when you had the chance?”
“I don’t know,” Meg said, but she did. Ken wouldn’t have wanted to upset their mother, and from experience Arlene knew that she wouldn’t have listened. They hadn’t wanted to think of it, hadn’t wanted to deal with her, and so she had done it alone, just as she’d done everything else. That was true as far back as Meg could remember. Her mother had been the driving force in the family. Her father was either getting ready for work or recovering from it, too tired to do anything but give in to her demands or hide from her in the basement.
“Well I wish you’d have said something. It’s hard enough being here without everyone being on my case.”
“I’m sorry,” Meg said, though this seemed an overreaction on her mother’s part. No one had actually challenged her.
The phone rang from inside, loud through the open window.
Shit. Him. Whatever he had to say, she didn’t want to hear it.
“The machine’s not on,” her mother said.
“I’ll get it. It’s probably Jeff.”
“Say hello.”
“Right.”
The screen was surprisingly light. Inside, in the dim, humid room, she approached the phone with scorn and a new strength, as if the promise of money gave her a power over him. It did, strangely. The sudden reality of the change was palpable, hundreds of miles away—the lawn, the front door, the garage. They could stay. The kids wouldn’t hate her.
She thought of just letting the phone ring, but her mother was right outside, her mother, who had unexpectedly rescued her, guaranteed their future. Of all people.
She understood.
Ken and Arlene wouldn’t.
The phone rang, insistent. She picked it up before it could ring again, then hesitated, making him wait.
“Maxwells,” she said.
15
Justin had to wear a life jacket but Sam didn’t because he took lessons when he was little. He could almost dive as good as Ella now. He did a better straight dive and a perfect jackknife but she could do a back flip because she took gymnastics.
“Slow down, pal,” his father said as he was climbing the ladder, trying to catch up with Sarah and Ella, who were standing on the nose of the boat.
Ella stopped at the edge and turned around so only her toes were still on, then squatted and launched herself, turning
in midair, her hands feeling for the water. It was the flip part he couldn’t do, snapping his knees around so he’d go in clean. Plus he was afraid. Bobbing next to Justin, his mother clapped and held up both hands wide to show her fingers. “Ten!”
Show-off, he thought.
“Come on,” Ella called, daring Sarah to try it.
“I can’t,” she said, but turned backwards, laughing.
She was wearing her yellow suit that pushed her boobs together, drops of water trickling into the dark line between them. He looked at everyone else to see where they were looking. He looked at the castle in the woods, at the jet going over. The dark line curved where it disappeared, about to make a circle.
Sarah bent her knees and dove and he put his hands out for balance. She snaked her arms above her head the way Ella did, but instead of turning in the air, she went half over and landed on her side with a smack.
“Ouch,” his father said from the driver’s seat.
“Are you okay?” his mother asked.
She was, and now it was his turn. They all waited for him like this was the Olympics.
“Show us what you got, champ.”
“Be careful,” his mother said.
He didn’t have anything special, and he didn’t want to try the back flip because he knew he couldn’t do it, so he chose his best regular dive, took two steps and pushed off, his hands together in an arrow. The water took him in, filling his ears, then pushed him up into the sun again. He shook his head, wiped his hair out of his eyes, pinched his nose.
“Nice,” his mother said, holding up nine fingers. “You bent your legs a little, otherwise it’s a ten.”
Sarah and Ella were at the ladder. When Sarah climbed up, a line of water ran off the bottom of her suit. On the boat she seemed taller. She twisted her hair with both hands, squeezing it out like a towel. It was easier to watch in the water, harder for other people to see you.
“I’m going to swim all the way around,” Sam told his mother. She had to ask Justin if he wanted to go, but he said he was cold and wanted to get out.
“Come straight back,” she said.
The girls were still on the front. He was careful going around the motor and the rainbow the gas made on the water. It felt colder over here. You could see where the fence around the castle ended. It went right down into the water so no one could swim around it. He checked to make sure his father wasn’t looking, then turned away from the boat and reached into his pocket. The watch was there, solid against his fingers.
“You all right there?” his father called.
He didn’t turn, kept treading water. “I’m peeing.”
“Oops. Hope everything comes out all right!”
He tried to pull the watch out but it was caught in the mesh of his suit. He got it on a second try, felt the knob on the side and the plastic strap. For a second he thought it might float, a bubble of air trapped under the glass, but when he opened his hand and let go, it disappeared, tipped off the top of his foot and was gone.
Already he wanted it back, wished he’d never taken it. He was sorry—he liked the watch. He hoped it was still good. Maybe someone scuba diving would find it. It was supposed to be waterproof, and swimming around the front where Sarah was, he imagined it sitting on the bottom of the lake, faceup, ticking, still alive.
16
The phone wasn’t portable, so Emily could hear Margaret talking through the window right behind her. Out of delicacy, she walked Rufus down to the dock and sat there watching the traffic, rehashing her offer, convinced it was rash. A pair of fishermen drifted by on their swivel seats and tipped their caps, and Emily waved, neighborly, a flip of her wrist. Locals, she thought, or a good imitation. She didn’t say it was too late in the day to catch anything, though she could see Henry shaking his head at them.
What kind of money did Margaret need? And after taxes, wasn’t what Henry had left her enough? Their safe-deposit box was crammed with bonds and stock certificates Emily had never seen or had forgotten over the years. Heinz, PPG, Allegheny Ludlum. She’d received a proxy card from Alcoa and thought the number of shares had to be a typo, but no, he’d piled it up the way he collected those aluminum-colored pencils from work. The house was infested with them. She’d find one in her hand as she added to the grocery list or halved a recipe. The paper said the price was up to sixty-something, meaning their shares were worth well over a hundred thousand. She could talk to the accountant who did their taxes and see what her choices were. She should do that anyway.
The shadow of the Lerners’ oak covered the dock now, the far shore softened by the mild light. Creamy thunderheads were building to the north, blown off Ontario. Kenneth and the children would be back soon, hungry from swimming.
She tried not to imagine what Margaret and Jeff were saying to each other. When she and Henry fought, they stayed out of each other’s way, a hardened silence their weapon of choice. Margaret had a mouth on her she hadn’t gotten from either of them, and Emily inwardly cringed whenever she heard it, followed its explosions, knowing it was just a precursor. One night at a barbecue she’d seen Margaret, drunk, punch Jeff in the neck and mean it. She’d been holding a cigarette, and the end burst over him like fireworks. Emily had never seen her hit anyone else, but had feared for the children ever since, checking their limbs when they visited. Thank God that was done with.
When she thought she’d waited long enough, she stood and walked back to the porch. Before she could open the door, she saw Margaret by the garage, smoking, one arm across her body as if she were holding herself. Closer, Emily could see she’d been crying, her eyes puffy.
“I’m okay,” she said, almost casually, as if Emily shouldn’t bother herself worrying. As if this happened all the time.
Perhaps it did, Emily wouldn’t know.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Short of just killing me, no.” She gave her a mocking smile, false and dismissive.
“I’m only trying to help.”
“I appreciate it,” Margaret said. “Right now I’d rather not get into it, if that’s all right with you.”
“Should I just go away and leave you alone, is that what you want?”
“Don’t take everything so personally.”
“I only asked because I’m worried about you.” Emily felt herself rising to the fight and had to rein herself in, take a breath. “I’ll leave you alone,” she said, and left, calling Rufus.
She went straight into the house to her suffocating room and closed the door and sat on the bed like a scolded child, rubbing the nubbly chenille spread with her hands, thinking of what she should have said. She could say whatever she wanted and Margaret would still behave the same way. She had no influence over her, or perhaps a negative one, the two of them repelling each other like magnets, made of the same volatile stuff.
With a crunching and a hydraulic squall of protest, Arlene’s car turned in the drive and floated by the window. She understood that Margaret would tolerate Arlene’s intervention, that she felt if not on the same level with her aunt then at least a sympathy that joined them against her. Emily wasn’t so much jealous of the bond as resentful, left out. She’d had Henry as a sounding board for so long, as emotional ballast. Now, with no one, she felt outnumbered and alone, wildly unreliable. Her offer to Margaret seemed imprudent, could easily be misconstrued as a crude stab at reconciliation.
Margaret hadn’t said that she’d accept it. She might not, out of pride. That would be truly foolish, Emily thought, but not at all surprising.
Well, she’d tried.
She heard Arlene’s voice and stood up and went to the dresser, ignoring the gray face that loomed in the shadow-box mirror. The tiled tray Kenneth had made at camp one summer was full of junk they’d accumulated—bent nails and brass picture hangers, dark pennies and a pair of rusty nail clippers, a black electrical adapter, a cat’s-eye marble and a squash-colored one from the Chinese checkers, dusty movie stubs (ONE ADMISSION $3.50), a
battery crusted with some chemical. She picked up a curled golf pass from the club, like a price tag for an appliance, the string still knotted. Why Henry had saved it she couldn’t say, but it had his initials penciled in, and the date indelibly punched in the tiny, precise numbers of a time clock, five years ago next week. She couldn’t remember the day, and that was a failure. Herb Wiseman probably played with them. She would keep it and throw the rest away.
She suddenly wanted to keep everything—the mirror, the dresser, the house itself. She had enough money, she could figure out a way. That would make everybody happy.
She opened the top drawer. Inside, among her underthings, was a travel alarm clock of his, fake alligator, an old windup job with radium-painted hands. When he first started working, he’d taken it around the world with him, flying BOAC to Europe to help rebuild their plants.
She closed the drawer. She had too much to do to be moping around like this. The bathrooms had to be cleaned, the closets and cupboards emptied, the fridge defrosted, the oven scrubbed. Kenneth had barely started on the garage.
What she really wanted was to take a nap, let the heat of the day lull her to sleep.
She went into the kitchen, saw on the way that Margaret and Arlene were out on the dock, Rufus with them. It was almost five, and she fancied a gin and tonic, but didn’t want to start before everyone else. She poured herself a glass of water and emptied the dishwasher while the ice cracked and chimed against the side.
In the middle of the top rack she stopped to admire one of the tumblers Margaret had asked for, the cheap silk-screened design of the car on the side, the glass itself darker by the thin rim and the thick, slanted bottom. She wondered if she saw them at a flea market if she would give them a second thought. Strange what could take ahold of you. Maybe that was why so many women her age surrounded themselves with knickknacks, their shelves and mantels ranked with pleasant memories. That was what she was doing now, wasn’t it, gathering keepsakes. Again, she was surprised that she’d come to that part of her life so soon, where everything was remembered, as if she’d skipped ahead, her sixties missing.
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