“I hadn’t thought of it again. Much. I don’t know. Next day Lou helped me get my own place. It was so cool of him because Beth and I had broke up so I didn’t come around much, and it was way before us. Then, I don’t know, I stuck around here and it just … the anger faded, I guess. Then we got married and I made this family my family and I’ve been happy ever since.”
Beau stretched off and away from my tight clutch, pulling his whole body taut with a shudder to the ceiling, a knife to my spoon.
“It wasn’t a big deal, you know, him hitting me all the time. Slapping the back of my head like he did. Flicking at my ears and shit. But that night, that felt like he wanted me dead.”
I watched my husband’s profile, tears glistening in the valley of his eyes. Little sniffles echoed back and forth in the canyon between our bodies. He put a heavy hand on my stacked knees and we fell into an untroubled sleep. In the morning, Jake lay between us like something perfect we had made in the night. For a few seconds we both watched him dream in the nest of us. I remember feeling that if this is all that marriage is, then this is more than enough for me. Where did that feeling go?
THAT LITTLE EMAIL exchange had given me the oddest kind of buzz, making it somehow easier to relax with the kids while waiting for Beth’s call. She would be arriving home early that morning, and I had hoped she’d sleep off the jet lag and airplane scotch before digging into her laptop. Imagining her scanning the completed profile, and my back and forth with Marcus, gave me a touch of nauseous jealousy.
“Mom!” Jake screamed, running to the other end of the slippy slide. I reaimed the hose in a high urinal arch. He tugged up his heavy bathing suit, his hair spidering across his forehead.
“What?”
“I just can’t believe how much fun I’m having!”
“Me too, bud,” I said, beginning to understand how affairs can sometimes spruce up a lusterless marriage. A little funnel of joy began turning in my center, all because a handsome man I had never met thought I looked like Julie Christie.
The slippy slide kept ripping Jake’s trunks off before he could come to a stop in the wet grass. It was like he was being spat out of a boy factory over and over again, the same model, while Sam stood on the end to catch him.
I heard the phone ring inside and let Beau answer it.
“Here. It’s your waaaa,” Beau whispered, easing open the screen door and handing me the receiver. “She says her life’s gaaaa.”
“Keep them well watered,” I said, trading the hose for the phone. The screen door wheezed shut behind me. I crossed the kitchen and the living room and moved out to the front porch, feeling Beau’s eyes following me.
“What was that screaming?” Beth asked.
“The boys,” I said. “I have two.”
“Peachy. I just read your email exchanges.”
“First off. Welcome back.”
“Thanks. I feel sick. It’s like Marcus is totally in love with you. And what’s with you being a hundred thirty-five pounds? Jesus, I shaved off twenty.”
“That would make me emaciated.”
“No. That would make you a New Yorker.”
“And you don’t mean me, you mean Georgia,” I said. My chest swelled with something—pride, fear.
“I know, I know. But are you in front of your computer? Did you read his latest?”
“No. Read it to me.”
“Listen. ‘Dear Georgia, thank you so much for your sweet, odd reply. I was looking at your picture while reading it and thinking, Yup she does look like this kind of person—playful, intelligent, and warm.’ Peachy! I’m jealous. Is that weird?”
“Yes. ’Cause it’s Georgia, remember. Make-believe Georgia. Go on.” My face was now shot with red. I was angry, actually angry that she read our exchange, that she had accessed his response before I was able to.
“So. Okay. He goes: ‘And I hear you on the strangeness of Internet dating. I’m thirty-four. We’d barely heard of computers until I was about thirteen. But I’m not sure how I feel about purging all my past relationship secrets though. Why exchange sad stories before we even meet? Okay, I’ll tell you this much. My last girlfriend, we’ll call her B. We met at work, like millions of other people, and we dated for about six months, until about three weeks ago. You may think I’m putting myself out there too quickly, but I had one foot out the door for the past three months. I just didn’t have the heart to tell her.’”
Beth’s voice cracked at these words.
“Oh, sweetie,” I said. “This is insane.” And it was. I felt like a cheater already. “Why don’t you just erase this message and kill the file? And I can’t see anything good coming from this.”
“Oh. So you don’t want me to finish reading what Marcus wrote to you?”
Yes.
“No.”
Yes, I thought, more please.
“No? Well here goes anyway: ‘That said, B was a remarkable woman. Fun, funny, and accomplished. But her problems are legion. And her ego large. You seem different, like you’re not looking for anything. Like if anything happens it’s a bonus in an already full life. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part. But that’s what I’m looking for in a friend or companion.’”
Beth went quiet. Save for the sniffling, I would have thought she’d hung up on me.
“There you go. Your answer. We can close the file on this case now, right?”
“No way,” she said. “I want specifics. I want to know what I did wrong. I want to know what moment, three months ago, did he know I was not the girl for him. And I want to know why he strung me along.”
“Then talk to him, Beth. Call him in person.”
But she wasn’t listening to me. She was crying the same way she did when stuff was yanked from her hands as a kid. We are a family of criers. We cry to stave off death. We despair because we don’t want to store, shelve, hoard that kind of stuff inside of us.
“Call him? Oh, that’s funny. Yeah. I’ll call Marcus and let him know just how pathetic I really am. Here’s what I’ll say. I’ll call and I’ll say, Hey Marcus, a little bird told me you wanted me out on my ass three months ago, but you felt sorry for me so you stuck around a little longer … aaaaaaaaaaah! Peachy!”
“No. I’m done.”
“Please? Peachy!—just write him just one more note. Gently pry him one more time. I want to find out why he stuck around for three more months. And then maybe prod him about his commitment phobia.”
“But I don’t think he has commitment phobia, Beth. I think he could commit, wants to commit—but just to someone he’s probably a little more compatible with.”
“I can’t believe you’re defending him, Peachy. You don’t even know him. And you don’t know how close we were. We practically lived together.”
“Jesus Christ, he took care of your fish.”
“What are you saying?”
“Nothing. I’m sorry. I know you’re heartbroken, Beth. And you must be tired from the flight.”
We were both quiet for a few seconds, like a couple of boxers tired of circling each other, though not quite ready to land a punch.
“I am tired.”
“Then sleep on it a little, okay? But I think we should stop this altogether, really. We’re too old for this kind of stupidity.”
I could hear the boys yelping out back, calling me to them.
“Fine. If you don’t write him back, Peach, I will. And I’ll tell him right off. How dare he tell a perfect stranger that I’m full of problems.”
“Beth, you’re insane. He was telling me.”
“He doesn’t know it’s you.”
“True. But he’s gonna know it’s you if you write him and tell him off. And then he’ll think you’re totally crazy. You can’t tell him, Beth.”
“I can.”
“Then do it,” I said.
Truthfully, I didn’t want her to kill Almost Me, not yet. And I felt terrifically, embarrassingly territorial about my burgeoning corresponden
ce with Marcus. I wanted Almost Me to live a little longer, maybe because I liked the feeling of someone preferring me to Beth. I knew Beau loved me, but I had never lost that sense of being his consolation prize.
“I will. I will shut this down, Peachy. But after one more letter to him. I want to know.”
Beth threw down gauntlets so often it was a wonder she didn’t have carpal tunnel syndrome. Fine, I’d always reply, go ahead. That’s how she put her car in a ditch, driving it home drunk instead of leaving it at Kaponi’s party where I waited for Lou to pick me up. That’s how I got the scar under my chin, after Beth dared me to jump off the roof of the farmhouse into the above-ground pool we once had. I said, “No way.” Beth said, “Step aside, chicken.” And that’s when I said, “Fine, I’ll jump.” And it was in the spirit of those ridiculous dares that I, instead of Beth, had been the one to find our mother that day.
“I don’t want to play this game anymore.”
“I’ve never asked you to help me before, Peachy.”
“Bullshit. You’re forgetting one or two very key moments from our childhood. But just this once, Beth, can you leave something alone? Just once can you not take something that’s already a bad idea and shove it over a fucking cliff?”
“No. I want to know.”
I exhaled.
“Okay. But let me write it. That way it won’t seem like two different insane people writing him. This is so fucked up. Are we really this fucked up?”
“What can I say? We had a rough childhood,” she said.
“You’re still having it,” I said, hanging up the phone. I listened to the gleeful shrieks coming from the back of the house. In the side yard, hearty reeds shot out of the willow stump and I thought about Nell, as I did every time I stared at that goddamn willow stump, its roots we kept meaning to yank up for good.
chapter six
BETH ONCE TOLD me she knew our mother was going to kill herself. She said it was a fact to her long before it happened, something she was merely waiting to see with her own eyes. We all knew Nell was depressed, but her depression wasn’t just a part of her, inside of her. It hovered like a fifth family member, greedily taking up space, stealing oxygen from the rooms, occupying furniture, hoarding food.
The day she killed herself, I had been feeling sick, but I preferred to stay on the office cot until the lunch bell. Later, I learned that kids with mothers like ours, kids whose survival mechanisms were still intact, instinctively knew how to seek care elsewhere. I liked how the nurse touched my forehead with her cool, concerned hand. How she smelled mothery, like bread and coffee. At lunch Miss Brant told Beth to fetch me at the nurse’s station, where I sat wilted over like a top-heavy flower, and take me home so I didn’t spread my virus. They had tried to call Nell, but there was no answer. Beth convinced them that she was probably just outside, so she half-carried me back to the farm, taking the shortcut along the tracks. We stopped at the Starlite Variety, but the idea of anything sweet made me reel. I waited for Beth outside while she took her good old time picking out penny candy.
“If I get sick on the way home, it’s your fault,” I said when she finally sauntered out. She just shrugged, then dug deeper into her little paper bag, dramatically popping candy into her mouth.
At the house I couldn’t wait to get away from her. I took the steps in twos, while Beth shuffled off her shoes in silence, enjoying the last of her marshmallow bananas. Nell’s car was in the driveway, but we didn’t hear her in the house. That was not surprising. We often found her napping instead of cooking or cleaning or buzzing around the house the way that other mothers did. But this time the rooms felt cryptic, tomby. Beth stood in the bathroom archway, unsure about Nell’s whereabouts, while I sat on the toilet, completing a bit more relief. It seemed neither one of us wanted to be alone. Then we spotted the envelope on the console in the hall with “Lou” neatly written on the front. Beth opened it and read it aloud.
Dear Lou,
I am sorry for everything. I know you will be home before the girls. You can tell them I had a heart attack, which wouldn’t be a total lie. You will find me in the tree house. The girls don’t play up there now that the willow’s rotted. You should have it removed right away. It’s a terrible hazard. I figured it would be okay there, as I didn’t want to spook up the house. I would like to be cremated in what I am wearing, please and the blanket. My mom can take the ashes back to Florida if she makes a stink. Some of them.
Lou, the girls are young, and they will come to understand in time, but I do believe they will be better off without me. How can I describe how hard it is to stay really focused on living, all day, every day, every minute? It has taken everything out of me. Recently, it went from difficult to impossible. I can’t live here. Like this. Not feeling anything. Dying is the only way I can think of keeping the kids alive.
Strangely, I am not sad while I write this. In fact, I am looking forward to the kind of life you will have without me. I will be happy when you find happiness. Tell the girls to be good. Tell them I love them. Tell Beth everything she needs to know, especially that it wasn’t her fault. Remember she’s just as much yours as Georgia. Maybe more so. And never let her feel unwanted.
Love for always, Nell.
My blood felt bubbly, like hot Pepsi had entered my veins. I soundlessly followed Beth to the side yard, where the willow loomed like a fat, strung-out ghoul, hair full of dreads and bugs.
“Don’t go up there,” I said, looking up the ladder.
“She could still be alive,” Beth said.
I started to cry as a reply.
“Go see,” she said.
“No. Dad says it’s dangerous. We can’t play up there. You go,” I whimpered.
She looked up at the tree house. Her eyes were dry.
“I dare you,” she said.
I took the dare because I wanted my mother, and part of me thought that, indeed, she could be still alive and this could all be written off as a big misunderstanding, a joke even.
I moved as slow as a bear. At the top I stuck my head inside the tree house, but my hands wouldn’t let go of the rung. From the dark doorway I could only make out Nell’s slippered feet, the rest of her body covered with her army blanket. I could see the dust floating in the slices of sun poking through the wooden slats of the tree house. I knew she was dead.
“Mum?” I whispered. I wanted to touch her foot; I wanted to reach out and pull her down with me. I stared at her foot, willing it to move. I had never been in so still a place. “Mum?”
“What can you see?” Beth yelled.
I don’t remember the climb down, or walking past Beth and into the house. I don’t remember pulling down a towel in the bathroom and draping it across my knees. And I don’t remember how much time had passed before I heard Lou’s truck pull up along the shoulder of the road. He’d been gone for two days on a run to Sault Ste. Marie, and was supposed to have picked us up after school and taken us to dinner, to give Nell a bit of a break. Instead he found me fitfully churning with a sweaty fever near the toilet.
“Teacher said she sent you home. Jesus. Are you alone, goddammit? Nell! Where’s your sister, Peach? Where in the hell’s your ma? Nell!”
I said nothing as he bobbed his head in and out of all the rooms, checking the closets, the carport, the old barn. I followed him into the side yard, where we came upon Beth crouched under the rotting willow. When Beth saw him, she didn’t run to him as always. She just lifted up her face and then the letter she’d been clutching in her fist. Her features seemed shrunken inside a big skull.
“We went to the store. I made us late,” she cried. She was eight years old. I was almost six.
I watched Lou bend down in front of her and take the note from her hands. He read it and looked up into the tree house and said, “You weren’t late, Beth Ann. This is not your fault.” And with that he lifted her into his arms and carried her into the house.
When the firemen took Nell’s body down, they kept it drap
ed in the army blanket she slept with, laid under, napped on, clutched hard, absently smelled, never washed. There was no blood. She had taken pills.
Years later Lou admitted that he too knew that Nell had killed herself when he walked into the house that day. Though he eventually forgave her for doing it, he never forgave the fact that I had found her first. We kept her suicide note and read and reread the thing as though its letters would somehow miraculously reassemble themselves into much better news. Then it took the consistency of inky feathers, then damp toilet paper, then around the time Beth moved to New York, it just kind of disappeared.
I WAS DEEMED too young to go to the funeral, a relief, frankly, but it was after Nell died that things got complicated for Beth. She said she’d always vaguely known that she wasn’t Lou’s biological kid, but she had no idea that she wasn’t his legal kid either. Beth didn’t even have a formal birth certificate, which was why Lou had never gotten around to fully adopting her when he married Nell. Beth had always had questions, but by the time she became old enough to ask them, Nell’s depression obscured her desire to know. Then her death brought up the necessity to settle all of them.
During a long series of interviews conducted by well-meaning social workers, and at least one lawyer, all eager people who pulled up to our acreage to make better sense of a family whose precariousness was unknown to even us, Lou carefully meted out some of the details. Beth and I sat like two still owls, bookending Nana Beecher, who’d driven up from Florida with five suitcases, one filled with paperbacks, another with clips and bows to accessorize her stupendously long hair. Every morning she’d separate her hair into two pale rivers, braid each, then roll them into buns next to her ears. She reminded me of Princess Leia from Star Wars, only old, blond, and wrinkly.
She was my mother’s mother, though having never seen them in the same room, it was a fact that never seemed quite true to me. But she knew the farm. She’d walk about the place like a bored mistress, demonstrating to Lou how toaster ovens and mixers work, what tampons and pimple cream were for, even though we were years from those dilemmas. She was efficient and severe, with the terrifying habit of filing her nails while driving, polishing them at red lights, and drying them on the dash. Still, I clutched at her with such embarrassing ferocity I accidentally turned myself into her favorite.
The Almost Archer Sisters Page 8