Mrs. Baird invites me in and offers me some tea, even though we both know I have to be at chapel in ten minutes. Her voice is even as she gives me the update. Hannah’s body temperature is rising slowly. She’s still unconscious. She’s on a respirator and they have drilled a small hole into her brain and installed a monitor in there so they can keep the pressure perfect. The next thing to do is just to wait for her to wake up.
I nod, trying not to picture that probe thing, and get up to go.
In music, I have to will myself back to class, to the drafty room with its whitewashed pegboard walls. Normally this is the easiest place—aside from the riding ring—for me to keep my mind where it’s supposed to be, but today I can’t. Gigi looks around the room, eyes flashing, challenging us.
Next to me, Chazzy is fighting laughter. His body shakes as he looks at the ground, trying to contain it. He’s laughing at me, and it is seriously irritating.
I elbow him, so Gigi doesn’t notice. “Shut up,” I whisper.
He bites his lip and shakes his head. I don’t know what he finds so funny. Besides, I’m not the only one who doesn’t bring original songs into class on a regular basis, but almost.
Even shy little Gretchen, aka Alice in Wonderland, has gotten up there. Most people, it seems to me, talented or not, are dashing off epic ballads about trimming their toenails or whatever else comes to mind. Which is fine. I admire them for being able to put it out there. I just feel like if I’m going to sing something, it needs to feel finished, and it needs to feel important, at least to me.
Gigi leans on the edge of a table, arms crossed, eyes intense. She has assigned us the task of writing a song to perform in class, whether completed or a work in progress. Before it was optional, but now it’s a requirement.
“I’m not going to tell you what to write about,” she says, “just like I would never tell you what to feel. But I will tell you that if you’re faking it, if you’re posing as someone else, if you’re not showing the class something authentic that really comes from you, I will know. And I will not be happy.”
“But no pressure,” whispers Chazzy to me.
Some of us—or specifically me, because it’s obvious she is talking about me—are relying on technique and vicarious emotion in our performance, she goes on, rather than letting the audience in.
Letting the audience in. Doesn’t that sound like it would hurt? I can’t help picturing a Night of the Living Dead scenario in which the zombie audience staggers onto the stage, rips open the guts of the last surviving singer-songwriter, and tries to climb inside. Eww.
“So I’ll look forward to hearing what you bring in next time. All of you. No excuses. Remember, it’s not a recital. I’m not expecting anyone to be perfect.”
Gigi turns and erases the blackboard. She does this at the end of every class, though I’ve never seen her write anything on it. I have no idea why. On the way out, she gives me a funny look, like she wants to say something, but doesn’t. Maybe she’s heard about Hannah and can’t figure out what to say.
“You’re scared,” Chazzy says as we walk back to Hale after class for another language lab session. “You should put all your freaking out to use. You may as well get something out of having to go through this. Look what it did for Neko Case on her last album. She was depressed as hell, and those are some of the best songs she ever wrote. Tu . . . as . . . peur.” He exaggerates the French translation, putting too much emphasis on and space between each word.
“I’m not scared. I just don’t need people to hear my songs.”
“Well, if you don’t care, then what’s the issue with people hearing them?”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it,” I say.
He starts making clucking sounds, like a chicken, and then like a chicken en français, and that pretty much wraps up the conversation. I’m not going to argue with a chicken in any language.
I do have one song. It’s about the letters I used to write to my dad as a child, complete with snapshots, now faded in a box. I’ve been looking through them lately—yes, pathetically, I did bring them to school—wondering what I was so dying to tell him about myself and why. And wondering what I would say now if I actually had the opportunity.
If I am going to let the audience in—“bring something personal to the performance”—this is the topic that’s on my mind these days. This, and unconscious Hannah. But I can’t write a song about that. Chazzy’s heard the one I’m working on, the one about the letters. Parts he thinks are good. Parts he thinks could be better. Anyway, it’s not finished.
A couple of days later, though I sense Mrs. Baird has put it off for as long as possible, I do have to go see Nina Taubin. She is quite honestly the last person I feel like seeing. I would rather have a meeting scheduled with Honor.
At the appointed time, I pull my coat on, trot down the path toward the woods and knock on the little cottage with the smoke coming out of the chimney. Ms. Taubin looks surprised. Her mouth purses. This time she has lipstick on.
“Oh, hello,” she says.
She looks around, like someone else might be there, but then she opens the door wider and nods toward the living room. I take off my coat, because whatever it is she’s about to say, I have the feeling it’s going to be a fairly long conversation.
“Wren, I’ll get right to the point. It’s unfortunate timing, but I need to inform you that your enrollment contract has not been signed for next year, and your tuition for the second half of this year has not been paid. Do you know your mother’s intentions in regards to next year?”
“No,” I say truthfully, because Hannah and I were just focused on getting through this year. We hadn’t talked about next year.
“Normally under circumstances like these, it would be possible to make some efforts toward emergency aid for next semester, but without a signed contract and deposit toward next year, it’s impossible for the school to extend any financial assistance. Which I’m sure you can understand.”
I just blink at her. I’m sure you can understand is a phrase reserved for use only in the case of the not understandable. If Hannah has not said I will come back next year, no one can or will help me this year.
“I know it’s a tough situation,” she continues. “If there was another responsible party? A relative?”
I realize I don’t even know if Hannah has ever chosen an official guardian in case of a catastrophe. Like being in a coma, for example. There are no relatives she keeps in touch with. So who does that leave? Jonesy? Her yoga teacher? Friends from the paper? There’s no one.
“I have a great-aunt,” I hear myself say as if listening to someone else, a stranger. “Helen Chisholm. Hannah’s—my mother’s aunt. But they’re not really in touch.”
Ms. Taubin nods. “We can look into that. Wren, I really am very sorry about your mother. She’s been on my mind so often lately, and then this . . .”
I think about my mother in limbo, oblivious to all that’s going on around her. I have to stay, I think. This is where she wants me, where she thinks I’m safe. I have to stay, at least long enough for her to wake up and be herself and decide what to do next.
“Now what are your plans for Thanksgiving?” Ms. Taubin asks brightly.
“I don’t know yet,” I say. “I might go to Mrs. Baird’s house.”
“What about your roommates? Couldn’t you visit one of them? What are their plans?”
I find myself staring at my shoes. “India’s family is going to the Bahamas. And Eloise is going to New York with Honor.” My face is hot. I don’t want to go to Honor’s, of course, and I wouldn’t expect to, but it still feels awful to say it out loud.
Ms. Taubin stiffens. “Huh. And Hannah and Honor’s father were so close. I would have thought—Well, never mind.”
I glance up with a start. She puts the brakes on just as she seems to realize she’s maki
ng it worse. “They were?” I ask.
“We three were in the same class,” she says. “Of course. Didn’t you know that? Hannah’s never talked about Gibby? Or me?” She laughs, and her laugh sounds bitter. Meaning Taubin and Edward Gibson weren’t so close? Meaning Taubin had a thing for Honor’s dad?
I can’t help smiling, imagining how much that would bug Honor. Ms. Taubin is not smiling. I suddenly have the impression she’s mad at my mother. Or that my mother hurt her feelings somehow. It has never occurred to me before now that a grown-up could feel left out or injured by a friend, especially by a friend from high school, just like she is a girl my age. But I can see on her face it’s true.
“Well, it was funny that she ended up . . . in that whole group. Because that really went against all her ideals. They were so different.” Popular is what she means. Ms. Taubin hesitates, as if she’s said way more than she intended. “Anyway, that’s eons ago, worlds away. Well, figuratively worlds away. Let me look into the matter of getting in touch with your aunt, and we’ll hope for Hannah’s rapid recovery.”
I move toward the door, but she’s not finished with me.
“There’s something about friendships in First Year, Wren, before everyone settles in and decides who to be. I understood Hannah like a lot of people didn’t. We shared a lot of the same ideals: wanting to lead independent lives, wanting to get out of the shadow of our families’ expectations. She wasn’t really part of that preppy set deep down. That’s not what she wanted. And she proved that. She didn’t stay on the East Coast. She didn’t let other people choose her career or lifestyle for her. Right?”
The way she says “right,” it’s like a wish.
“Right,” I say. “She thinks it’s great you’re still here.” I’m making this up, of course. Hannah’s never mentioned Ms. Taubin or any of her roommates.
“She does?” Ms. Taubin looks startled.
“Yes.” I flounder. For some reason I want to make her feel better. “Because you are—you can help students find their independence and—she says it’s a real sacrifice. Because of what you wanted to do.” I have no idea what she wanted to do.
Ms. Taubin nods, retreating inside herself for a moment. I need to get out of here before I dig myself a hole I can’t get out of.
“I know at boarding school, social life can take on a disproportionate relevance,” she continues. “Always remember though, what’s important is your education. Once you leave here, that’s the only thing that will matter. Don’t get caught up in the superficial details. Come and talk to me again if you need anything. We’ll keep working on the tuition problem. Perhaps we’ll hear something from your mother soon, and we can resolve it.”
“Thanks,” I say.
I walk back to Selby in the cold, feeling like I know a lot more about Ms. Taubin now than I want to. As I reach the top of the stairs on the floor below ours, I pass the room that was my mother’s her first year. Two Lowers, Betsy McBride and Sabrina Cantwell, live there now. I picture Hannah and Nina Taubin in that room, sharing notes for history class, gossiping about the boys in their class—does Ms. Taubin know how to gossip, even if she wanted to?—or maybe not sharing, not talking, having nothing in common. Ms. Taubin, hoping for a smile or an invitation. My mother, the Honor of her Selby days. Could that have been the way it was?
I have an art history paper to write. I should focus on that. Although who knows whether I will be here to hand it in.
Chapter thirteen
Stone Cove Island
When Mrs. Baird comes to get me from dinner and tells me I have a long-distance call on the house phone, I have this wild hope that it’s Hannah—awake, alive, intact—but it is not. Unbeknownst to me, I do have an official guardian, the same person whose name popped out of my mouth to Ms. Taubin. If this weren’t my actual life, it might be funny.
This guardian comes in the form of my ancient, icy great-aunt, Helen Chisholm. The one my mother never talks to. Great-Aunt Helen has always disapproved of Hannah’s “inappropriate life choices.” Those are her words, at least her words according to Hannah. Hannah has a special squinched face and Yankee accent she does when she imitates Great-Aunt Helen. It goes without saying that Hannah has always despised her aunt’s puritanical, closed-minded, miserly ways. Yet this is the woman she has chosen to take care of me in case something happens to her.
As it turns out, Great-Aunt Helen really does talk that way, with the Yankee accent and, I will see later, the squinched face. Charles Dickens apparently drafted her character while on some New England vacation, because they just do not make them like this anymore. Great-Aunt Helen is no more delighted with her fate than I am. The duty only falls to her as my closest living relative. Her voice on the phone is stony, as though I have interrupted her at the most inconvenient moment possible, when really she is the one who called me. Maybe it is the fact of my existence that is the real inconvenience.
“I have been apprised of the situation,” she says after a negligible hello and zero beating around the bush. “And I believe the best course of action is for you to come here so we can discuss matters. My groundskeeper Bernard will call for you in my car and bring you to me.” Great-Aunt Helen does not ask how Hannah is or how I am. I don’t think I say a single word after, “Hi, Aunt Helen.” Then she spends a minute or two on the phone with Mrs. Baird, who hangs up with a sympathetic shrug for me.
“It will be okay,” says Mrs. Baird. “Your mother will get better, and it will all get sorted out.”
My mother remains in the same medically induced coma, carefully thawing. Or at least I hope that’s what’s happening. I haven’t been able to talk to the doctors in Greenland myself, so I am going by Mrs. Baird’s reports. I hope they are not sugarcoated. According to her, the doctors say that Hannah will eventually be fine. But how can they know that for sure? And how long can a body be held like that in limbo, not dead and not living?
Back in the suite, I fill Eloise and India in on what’s happening. Honor is there too, but I don’t count her as present. She’s clearly not interested. I try to describe Great-Aunt Helen, but really I don’t have much to go on. I stick to the facts: she used to live in Boston, but about fifteen years ago she moved full-time to the family beach house on Stone Cove Island, an island off the northern coast of Massachusetts and the place my mother spent every summer growing up. It’s where my grandfather tried to teach me too many sailing knots in the cold, the time my mom got so mad.
“We used to have a place there when I was little,” says Honor from her bed. She’s on her cell phone, reading something. She doesn’t look up.
“Really?” I ask, mostly shocked that she’s decided to join the conversation.
“Before we got our place in Amagansett. We sold it when I was a baby, though. My father never really liked it. Plus it’s way too hard to get there from New York.” She finally looks at me. “Nobody goes there in the winter, you know.”
I stare back. “My aunt does, apparently. She lives there year-round.”
Honor turns back to her phone. “You’ll see.”
India and Eloise look at each other but say nothing.
It’s a very long drive, with the silent Bernard—another character from Dickens. He and Great-Aunt Helen are perfect for each other—in my great-aunt’s huge, unstylish Lincoln. Lucky for me, I have a good book (The Secret History) and can read in the car without getting sick.
About three and a half hours later, we arrive in the small port town of Gloucester and load ourselves onto the car ferry. It takes another forty minutes from here to Stone Cove Island.
The island is clearly a place for people who like their privacy. The ferry docks in the harbor of what seems like the downtown. A row of neatly painted Victorian storefronts sits hibernating, their perfect facades closed up, awaiting summer’s throngs. I see no one. The sun is setting, and the wind kicks up icy spray off the water.
Bernard swings left onto the main street and then along a winding road that hugs the bluffs. Dark shingled houses nestle into the cliff side, surrounded by evergreen hedges and windblown pines. It’s already snowed here at least once. A few of the houses have lights on, but most sit dark, shut up tight for the season.
Great-Aunt Helen’s house is a pristine Victorian, at the top of the hill near the end of the road. It’s tall and angular and seems prim compared to its beachy shingled neighbors. White clapboard. Black shutters. From a distance, the house is pretty. Close up, it is austere. Maybe in the summer there are some flowers to cheer things up. Bernard stops the Lincoln in front of the house and nods to indicate this is it. I can count on one hand the number of words he’s spoken on the way here.
Great-Aunt Helen greets me at the door without a smile, looking exactly the way I expected. Her white hair is pulled into a low, neat bun. She is wearing a gray wool dress and a darker gray cardigan: monochromatic hostess wear. Her eyes are blue ice cubes. Immediately, it seems, we are sitting in what she calls the drawing room, what I would call her den. She is drinking tea, and I am perched with my hands folded in my lap, drinking nothing. She doesn’t offer me a cup of tea or even a glass of water. So maybe not that much of a hostess. Really, more all business. She launches straight into the topic at hand. The school has called and asked her about my plans for next year and my tuition for this year.
“I find it rather offensive,” she says. She squints at me distrustfully, as though I am trying to work some scam.
Here’s what I know from Hannah: Great-Aunt Helen had two sons, both of whom went to Hardwick Hall. One left college early to come back and now lives as a “gentleman farmer” in New Hampshire. (Again, Hannah quoting Great-Aunt Helen.) The other was killed in an embassy bombing in Kenya in the late 1990s. This personal history—combined with the fact that when Great-Aunt Helen was a girl, her father thought it was pointless to educate girls seriously and would never have let her attend a coed school—meant Hardwick was not an option. That probably contributes to her point of view that Hardwick is a waste of both time and money for me and possibly for anyone.
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