Black & White

by Dani Shapiro

  She leans against his chest. She can’t tell him what she’s thinking—even if she had the words, she doesn’t have the heart to tell him that happiness is more than she expects. Contentment, perhaps. A semblance of peace. Fleeting moments of joy such as this one. What she longs for: the absence of pain.

  “I will be happy here—I know it.”

  A white lie, one of thousands of white lies she has already woven so thickly around herself that she sees the world this way: shining, blinding, blanched.

  I don’t miss New York.

  I never think about my mother.

  All that is behind me now.

  Does she think she’s fooling Jonathan? Does she think she’s fooling herself? This much she knows is true: She loves her husband. She trusts him as much as she can trust anyone. Look at him! His eyes gazing down at her, seeing her. Taking her in. Has anyone ever done that before? Certainly not Ruth. Ruth’s attention was predatory, stalking Clara from the other side of a lens. Even now—even as Clara stands at the threshold of her new life—she is being consumed by her mother. You’re mine! Laying claim to her. Mine! Drowning out all that is good.

  Jonathan is saying something—he sounds so far away. She struggles mightily to push back into the present.

  “What?” She turns to him. Foggy, lost.

  “Come. Let me show you our bedroom.”

  Jonathan holds her hand, leading her down the hall.

  THE MOMS ARE SITTING in a wooden booth at Tapley’s, killing time, waiting for the five o’clock jujitsu class to let out. Killing time is something the moms have turned into an art form over the years. Crocheting, needlepointing, the lugging around of quality paperbacks—sneaking in a few quick pages here and there—they have learned that a lot can be accomplished in the hours of waiting. Even the dozens of daily miles they clock in their pickup trucks and Jeeps are not wasted. They have discovered motivational tapes and the educational value of radio. And then—on afternoons like this—there’s always a quick coffee with the girls.

  If only Clara felt like one of the girls. She has never—not from the very first day of Sammy’s preschool—felt like she belonged in this group. Before Sammy started school, Clara existed in her own little universe. Taking care of a toddler, helping Jonathan as he started his jewelry shop. But then school opened up a whole world of play dates—and play dates meant hanging out with the moms on carpeted playroom floors while the kids built towers out of blocks or engaged in imaginative dialogue with their Barbies. Good sharing, honey! they’d call encouragingly from the sidelines. Nice work!

  And Clara—Clara always felt she was posing. Did these mothers come from childhoods that had prepared them for this? They were nice enough—Susanna Haber, Tess Martin, Ali Mulvey, the whole gang. But invariably Clara walked away from them feeling that there was a secret club of motherhood, complete with a password no one had ever given her. Why did this all seem so satisfying to them—the cupcake baking, the constant scheduling, the endless games of Candy Land? And what was wrong with Clara, what psychic disease caused her constant yearning for something more? It wasn’t that she didn’t adore Sammy. She did—with all her heart.

  “So what do you gals think,” Mary Ann Rowe is saying, “about this new sailing camp opening up? It’s supposed to be—”

  “Expensive,” says Susanna Haber.

  “You said it,” says Laurel. “Going after the summer people.”

  “You bet they are.”

  “Have you heard anything about it?”

  It takes a moment for Clara to realize this question is being directed at her. She’s distracted, off floating. Usually this is fine. She has existed for so many years among these women, they have stopped expecting her full participation.

  “Sorry?”

  “The sailing camp. Has Jonathan heard anything about it—maybe from some of his customers?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  She’s trying to stay focused. Sammy’s going to be here any minute, with the rest of the girls from the orange-belt class. Some of them are going out to dinner after—but Clara has declined. She needs to focus. All her energy has been spent on figuring out the next right step in a series of impossibly wrong ones.

  “Hey, guys!”

  The girls troop in, made smaller by their stiff white uniforms, bright orange belts wound two or three times around their tiny waists.

  Clara steels herself. She has been home three days—three days, and Sammy has pulled even farther away from her. Sad, anxious, withdrawn. And so terribly thin. Clara has chosen not to talk to Sammy about the lies, even now that she knows their full extent. A weak heart! Requiring open-heart surgery! Where had Sammy even come up with such a thing? Clara is treading carefully, afraid of anything that will upset Sam more than she already is. Each day, Clara has left messages for the local child psychiatrist—a woman in Bar Harbor—but apparently there’s a waiting list.

  “Hi.” Sam sidles up to her.

  Clara’s heart leaps. Pathetic—that she is hungry for a simple hello from her daughter. Sam has grown mute these past days. Fading into a mere shadow of herself.

  “Hi, sweetie.”

  “Mom, can I have dinner with—”

  Oh, so that’s it.

  “No, Sammy, we’re actually going to—”

  “Please?”

  “Not tonight.”

  “Okay.” Sam’s eyes fill with tears. She crosses her arms and looks away from Clara.

  The other moms are pretending not to listen. They have that half glazed-over, sweetly smiling look of Thank God that’s not me.

  Clara hustles her out. She has a plan—and Jonathan has agreed. They can’t just do nothing and wait for the child psychiatrist to call them back.

  “Where are we going?” Sam is strapped in next to Clara. Her voice barely rises above a whisper. “Why can’t I go out with my friends? That’s so mean.”

  Clara grips the steering wheel so hard that her wedding ring digs into her finger. It’s not her fault, it’s mine. She’s had to remind herself of that a hundred times a day. Sam hasn’t suddenly started acting like this out of thin air. And just in case Clara forgets, Jonathan is always there to remind her. Even if he doesn’t say anything, she can see it all over his face.

  “We’re meeting your father,” Clara says. Maybe this will cheer Sam up for now. It’s always a special treat, going to Jonathan’s shop.

  “At home?”

  “In town.”

  This seems to appease Sammy. They drive in silence, the roads narrowed by piles of dirty snow—remnants of what everyone hopes has been the last storm of the season. Clara steals a quick glance at her daughter. Hunched down in the passenger seat, a dark blue fleece unzipped over her jujitsu uniform, her hair stringy and covering part of her face as she stares out the window. The bones of her clavicle jut out, a reminder of just how skinny she’s become.

  “Did you eat your lunch today, Sam?” Clara tries to keep her voice light.

  “Sure.”

  “Really? Because—”

  “I already said I did.” Sam gets teary again.

  “Okay,” Clara says softly. “Sorry.”

  The drive—usually twenty minutes that zip by—seems to take forever. The easy chatter is gone. She can hear herself breathe. Sammy shifts in her seat, then starts fiddling with the cover of the ashtray.

  “Sam, listen. You’ve got to understand that”—Clara begins the sentence with no idea where its going to end; what exactly does Sam have to understand?—“sometimes there are things that grownups have to do.”

  Sam shifts farther away from Clara in her seat. She’s practically pressed up against the passenger door.

  “Don’t do that, honey. The door could pop open.”

  Sam acts as if she doesn’t hear her. Her small jaw clenched.

  Clara rounds the corner onto Main Street. The streetlights are glowing. There isn’t a soul in sight. The center of town looks deserted; most of the converted houses and old wooden b
uildings are closed up until May.

  In summertime, there is often no parking to be found on Main Street. But tonight Clara pulls just in front of Jonathan Brodeur Jewelry; only Jonathan’s shop and the Pine Tree Market are still open. The sign needs repainting. The B in Brodeur has faded, and the wood is chipped. Instead of appearing elegantly distressed, the sign just looks old and tired, sadly second-rate.

  Clara watches as Sam climbs out of the car and over a snowbank. The bottoms of her white jujitsu pants are dragging on the muddy, salted snow. All these years, Clara has willed herself into believing that Sam has the best childhood possible: pure, simple, all the things that matter. The New York of Clara’s own childhood—the fancy schools, the kids sophisticated beyond their years—who needs it? But the last few weeks in New York have seeped into her blood, poisoning her, forcing her to question everything. She thinks about Robin’s kids, politely asking for more risotto at the dinner table. Sammy wouldn’t even know what the hell risotto is. Tucker is a violin prodigy. Harrison plays chess in the nationals. And Elliot is at Brearley, where she has already tested in the ninety-ninth percentile of those girls who test in the ninety-ninth percentile just to get into the school to begin with.

  What if? It’s the kind of question she rarely allows herself.

  Sam runs to the door of the shop and opens it. The wind chimes tinkle their tinny melody. Jonathan’s in back, working. How many times has Clara urged him to lock the front door when there’s no salesperson in the shop, when he’s way back there in his studio? Granted, there’s virtually no crime on the island. The newspaper’s police blotter always makes for entertaining reading: Shaye Rice’s bicycle was believed stolen from the playground but later was returned to his house by Jimmy from the pizzeria—that sort of thing.

  Laurel was right. Jonathan’s windows are particularly beautiful. Lit up and decorated in an early spring display of optimism: plaster made to resemble an underwater reef—Jonathan and Sam must have spent many hours getting it just right—on which a dozen coral pieces, earrings and necklaces, mostly, are scattered, as if lost in a shipwreck.

  “Look, Sammy, he hasn’t sold it yet!” Clara calls after Sam. A particular pendant—a delicate gold flower with a freshwater pearl at its center—Sam’s favorite of Jonathan’s current pieces.

  “Oh,” says Sammy. Like she doesn’t really care anymore.

  “Hey!” Jonathan crosses from the studio into the main shop in three large steps, his magnifying goggles pushed up on his forehead. He hugs Sammy hello, then kisses Clara, a stiff perfunctory kiss. He smells of metal and soap, a faint hint of cedar from his heavy wool sweater. His crazy gray hair is pulled into a ponytail. He hasn’t shaved in days, and his cheeks are covered with long stubble. His skin—ruddy to begin with—is chapped and red from his daily commute in his old lobster boat from their house in Southwest Harbor to the shop in Northeast. Jonathan has always loved it—the ten-minute daily ride from one point of the claw-shaped island to the other—but in wintertime it’s brutal. Most people think he’s crazy. The windchill out there on the water would be enough to keep any sane person in a heated car, driving the long way around the perimeter.

  He checks his watch. His fingernails are dirty, embedded with silver dust.

  “Shall we?” He glances at Clara. As if to ask, Do you mean it, this time?

  She nods.

  “Where are we going?” Sam asks.

  “Red Sky.”

  “I hate Red Sky.”

  Clara and Jonathan exchange a look. It had been Clara’s idea. Neutral ground. A place where they could sit and talk for as long as was necessary—and Sam couldn’t run off, escape to her room, and slam the door.

  “It isn’t McDonald’s, but I’m sure you’ll find something to eat,” says Jonathan.

  Of course they know everyone in the restaurant. Clara hadn’t exactly bargained for that tonight. As they settle into a corner booth, Clara spots Sam’s piano teacher, Nancy Tipton, on the other side of the restaurant. Then there’s Ginny and Dave she-can-never-remember-their-last-name, the couple who run the lobster shack during the summer months. Red Sky is only about half full, so it’s hard to ignore people.

  “Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Brodeur.” Their waitress is Kelly Benson, a high school senior who babysat for Sam last year. “Hey, Samantha, how’re you doing?”

  “Good.” Sam ducks her head.

  “Still swimming?”

  “Yeah.”

  Kelly looks confused by Sam’s sudden shyness. This isn’t the kid she’s used to.

  “Can I get you guys something to drink?”

  “A bottle of the Barolo,” Jonathan says. “And for Sam—”

  “Diet Coke,” Sam says, with a quick glance at her mother.

  And Clara doesn’t object. Not tonight. A few chemicals are the least of her concerns. Anyway, what about Robin’s pantry in New York? Those three kids eat nothing but sugar—all in the form of organic juice boxes, Fruit Roll-Ups, and chocolate-covered raisins. Christ. Why can’t she stop thinking about her mother and her sister? They’ve crept into her consciousness and seem to have taken up permanent residence there. She focuses on Jonathan, stretches her leg under the white linen tablecloth, and touches his foot.

  He looks at her, surprised.

  Please, she silently begs him. Give me a little help here.

  He returns the pressure.

  Kelly Benson deposits a steaming basket of French bread on their table. “Are you ready to order?” she asks.

  “We need a minute,” says Jonathan, opening his menu.

  “Sam,” Clara begins.

  She has to start somewhere. She has to—before she chickens out again. Sam is playing with the paper from her straw, shredding it into confetti-sized pieces.

  “Sam? Your mother’s speaking to you,” says Jonathan. Watching carefully.

  “Yeah?” Sam pushes her hair behind her ears.

  “I have something to tell you,” Clara says. “About why I was in New York.”

  Now she has Sam’s full attention. Now Sam’s eyes are trained on her, and there’s no going back. Clara remembers—it floats into her head like one of hundreds of fragments that might, if assembled, make a whole picture—the long steep slope behind the house in Hillsdale. As a kid, she and Robin would climb on their sled, holding each other for dear life as they pushed off. Gathering speed—steering to avoid the tree stumps, the stone wall—the world going by in an unstoppable blur.

  “I was visiting—” she begins haltingly.

  She turns to Jonathan, who is nodding slightly, almost as if he’s praying. But he can’t do this for her. They’ve both always known that.

  “I went to New York to see—” Clara reaches for her wineglass, but her hands are shaking too badly.

  Just say it. You have a grandmother.

  “A woman named Ruth Dunne,” she finishes. She keeps her eyes on Sam. “She’s my mother.”

  Jonathan presses his foot into hers. He reaches across the table and grabs her shaking hand. Sam’s eyes, huge to begin with, seem to fill up her whole face.

  “What do you mean?” she asks. Her voice, clear as a bell. Nothing stuck in her throat, no words to choke on.

  “My mother,” Clara says. She fights back tears with her whole being. She isn’t allowed to cry, no way; this isn’t about her.

  “Your grandmother,” she manages to get out.

  “I thought she was dead,” Sam says. A slow, almost transparent veil lowering over those earnest eyes. She’s been lied to. How could her mother have lied to her?

  “I’m going to try to explain this to you, Sam,” Clara begins. “I hadn’t seen my mother for many, many years, not since before you were born.”

  “What do you mean?” Sam practically wails. The piano teacher glances over to their table from across the restaurant, then looks discreetly back at her dinner companion.

  “We didn’t speak,” Clara says. An unfamiliar feeling is washing over her. As if she’s speeding down that hill
in the sled, Robin’s arms around her, but there’s suddenly nothing to fear. No tree stumps, no stone walls. Nothing to fight against. No choice in the matter—not anymore.

  “Why?” Now Sam is crying. Jonathan has been right all these years. And Clara—Clara has been woefully, terribly wrong. A secret can never justify itself.

  “It’s a long story.”

  Jonathan shoots her a warning look. She can’t get away with It’s a long story any more than she can get away with Not now, or Maybe someday. She has exhausted the limits of evasion.

  “She hurt me, Sammy.” Her eyes sting.

  “Why did you go see her now?” Sammy swipes at her cheeks with a napkin.

  “She’s very sick,” Clara says softly.

  “Is she going to die?” Sam asks. What does she know of death? A frozen bird, roadkill, a deer, bloody and stiff, on the side of the highway.

  Clara tries to swallow. Her mouth is cracked and dry.

  “Yes,” she says. “She’s going to die.”

  SOMETIMES, during those early years in Southwest Harbor, Clara felt the story of her life gathering inside her, brewing like a storm. First she would feel it somewhere deep in her stomach, a torrent of words all knotted up; then it would slowly make its way up her throat and finally into her mouth. Bitter, explosive. What’s the big deal? she would argue with herself, during those rare times she was sitting across the table from another mom, a woman who might be divulging some secrets of her own. It was all so long ago. Wouldn’t it be a relief just to let the words spill out?

  The problem was Sammy. At least that’s what Clara told herself. Sammy—her spitting image—whom Clara could protect, at least for now. She shuddered to think of Sammy seeing The Accident. Or Clara with the Lizard. She wondered if she should go talk to someone—Jonathan had often urged her to get professional help—but what could anyone tell her that would change things?

  “Who are you protecting?” Jonathan asks her.

  They are sitting on the front porch. Sammy is swinging on the brand-new tire swing Jonathan has tied to the low branch of the oak. Sammy: age four. Her dark hair glinting gold in the sunlight. Her tanned legs pumping, arms holding the thick rope. Was this what Ruth had first seen, this simple beauty—this heartbreaking innocence? The long line of her neck, the flawlessness of her skin? Clara knows the feeling—now, as a mother, she knows. The desire to devour, the almost physical need to envelop and keep safe. Was this—was this how Ruth had looked at her in the bathtub that day? The mother and the artist so completely inseparable that Ruth was driven to capture the moment, to control it—to compose it—and by doing so, freeze it forever in time?