My parents treated me like an inconvenient ghost in their house. Perhaps I reminded them of a happier time that they had both managed to ruin, or perhaps they simply forgot about me in their shared quest to erase the past from their lives. My father took his meals in his library and my mother would take hers in front of the TV. Sometimes I would join her in front of the news or Warship, a sort of claustrophobic series that documented the lives of Royal Navy officers. My mother watched her series, rapt. Like my father with his books, my mother dug herself as deep as she could into fictions far removed from her own life. Usually I ate my dinner alone in the kitchen, going over my lessons and listening to the radio. I became a very good student and joined every club I could think of at secondary school so that I could be at home as little as possible. My mother came to my graduation, and when it was time for me to leave for UEA, I awoke to find two neatly packed suitcases leaning against the couch and a bagged lunch. My mother and Mrs. Crawford took me to the train station, where my mother handed me an envelope of money and didn’t bother to get out of the car.
My marks on the A levels had earned me a small scholarship, which must have been a quiet relief to everyone because I wouldn’t even need to be in touch over expenses. I would return to Eriswell for Christmas each year but quickly learned to find work over the summers so I could remain in Norwich. The school was rather ugly and new, built in the 1960s, and I think I rather liked its lack of history and the traditions that go with it. I convinced myself that the university was forward looking, since it had no past, and that it would encourage me to start looking forward and away. I built myself a new identity in Norwich; there were no secrets to keep and no house to hide from my schoolmates. I could say that my parents traveled a lot, so that it was difficult to arrange trips home. Once or twice I actually told a friend that my parents had moved abroad, and the kind soul invited me home to Lowestoft for the Easter recess. It was a lovely feeling, to be in another family’s home, everyone sharing their meals together, going to the cinema, talking to one another. There were snapshots all over my friend’s house, awkward family photos framed proudly and unembarrassedly on the walls alongside the staircase. The parlor sofa was worn but welcoming. We sat there in the evenings, playing cribbage, and I laughed often and kept my head down so that I wouldn’t be asked too many questions.
I think I always wanted a house like my school friend’s, filled with memories and worn things that embraced you. Rachel’s house was like that. Her parents had filled it with their lives; it was big and inviting and just cluttered enough that it felt quite lived in. She brought me there when her parents were still alive, during our first year of graduate school. Her mother kissed my cheek when I first walked in the door, and she smelled of cooking, and I truly wanted to stay there forever. I didn’t know what it meant to feel homesick, but I understood how one could forever miss a place like this, once one had experienced it. Rachel was embarrassed by her parents, as I suppose most children are, but I think I would have been quick to love them. Her father actually offered me a pipe after dinner, and we sat on the back porch, quiet, listening to the rustling of fall. Perhaps I should have felt nervous; I was dating this man’s daughter, after all. But he never interrogated me beyond an easy interest in my coursework, my articles, how I was settling into Boston life. I remember thinking then how many forms of quietness there could be. I was used to my own parents’ version, and this was nothing like it.
I had several meals there, including some Sunday brunches; at one of these, I met Claire, who had obviously been there several times as well. When I came in that late morning, Claire was in the kitchen with Rachel’s mom, whisking some eggs and calling out to Rachel to bring her some basil and the cherry tomatoes. “Hi, Charlie!” she called to me from the kitchen. We had never met, so it was strange to hear my name come out of her mouth, but I was slowly getting used to the particular brand of American friendliness that had greeted me in Boston. Everyone seemed bemused by my Englishness, my accent, my tidy shirts and tennis shoes. Nothing about any of these things had ever seemed remarkable to me, but I had suddenly become more noticeable in my new surroundings.
Rachel’s father and I sat on barstools, looking into the kitchen while we sipped our coffee. Claire teased us for being men who sat on our asses while the women slaved away in the kitchen, and she handed me two baguettes and a knife. “Why don’t you at least slice these and put some butter and jam out on the table?” I remember that Rachel’s father raised his eyes at me and shrugged. “I’ll get the table set,” he said. “You deal with the bread.”
It was a shock to all of us when they died. I think both Claire and I had been using them as surrogate parents in our own ways, and I certainly didn’t have the words for the kind of loss Rachel was experiencing. For Claire, I think their death must have brought up too many memories of her own. Once Claire had gotten Rachel out of her room, I held Rachel’s hands and took her for long walks in the cold fall air and waited for her to say something. I made her hot chocolate and rented her stupid comedy films to take her mind off things. I am sure I was clumsy and rather useless at helping her navigate those early days of grief. Claire was the one who eventually helped Rachel with all the practical things and told her that it was fine if she didn’t want to go through a formal kind of funeral. We would just have people over to the house for an evening, her parents’ closest friends, some nearby relatives. Claire arranged everything, occasionally sending me off to a florist or to the catering place around the corner to order more pasta salad or to change the cake order to a collection of pies and tarts. She took Rachel out to find a new dress and encouraged her to get her hair cut. I was relieved. It was easy to let Claire be in charge.
After the dinner gathering, after the guests had finally left and Claire had sent Rachel off to bed with some kind of sleeping pill and a glass of milk, we set about cleaning up. We stuffed garbage bags full of wine-stained plastic cups, crumpled napkins, the remains of all those pretty pies. Claire wanted nothing of the dinner gathering to remain the next day, so we threw out all the extra food and sparkling water and paper plates. It was when I was emptying the last boxes of tarts that I saw Claire crumpled against the wall, her head in her hands. Claire had put an extraordinary effort into the past week and a half. I hadn’t even thought about the strain on her because all my attention had been on Rachel and my own feelings of helplessness. I crouched down next to Claire and gently touched her shoulder. She grabbed my hand and used it to wipe away some of her tears. She smiled up at me. “I think I should move in, Charlie. I think it would be the right thing to do.”
And just like that, it had been decided. Claire broke her lease, and after only two months, I had broken mine too. Claire took Rachel’s parents’ bedroom and I eventually took the guest room and Rachel moved back down to the room she’d had as a child. Slowly, Rachel returned to us. We made ourselves into a new family. I couldn’t believe it—how quickly our lives had been transformed. We had let Claire be our guide through all of it, and for a very long time she navigated all of us successfully. She seemed incredible to me—her strength, her loyalty, her resilience.
Even when I am angry with her now or when I grow impatient, I am still in awe of Claire. She survived something none of the doctors expected her to survive. She takes risks that she shouldn’t because she doesn’t know how not to. Even if she doesn’t remember her willfulness, her confidence, her courage and sharpness, I absolutely do. I feel myself, and Rachel too, watching her, hopeful (and, yes, perhaps a little bit fearful too) that the old and new in Claire will merge, and she will find her way back.
Rachel
In Charlie and Claire’s guest room, I am surrounded by framed photographs of memories I have worked hard at forgetting. For some reason, this room seems to be a shrine to Charlie’s youth. On my nightstand is an image of a twenty-year-old Charlie who must be on vacation with a friend. They are framed by the edge of the North Sea and a quaint little seaside village that I recognize as
Lowestoft. Charlie and I first kissed in a rented boat in Great Yarmouth, a much less picturesque place alongside the same sea. Great Yarmouth was such an ugly town that Charlie had been embarrassed to bring me there. It was the kind of place where automated clowns threw up water into rusted garbage cans, where the fish-and-chips were too greasy even by East Anglian standards. You could tell that it had once been a beautiful place, with Victorian summer cottages lining the once quaint streets, bathing shacks along the coast painted in pretty pastels. Most of the cafés had black-and-white pictures framed on the walls, reminding everyone of more glamorous times—ladies holding parasols on sunny summer days, their men in high-waisted swim trunks skipping toward the sea. Those old pictures only made the town seem more ragged and neglected in its current state.
We had taken the train out there from Norwich, had skipped out on our modernist poets class, looking at the sky, hoping the sun would last. It was spring and still cold, but it was bright and we were eager to have an adventure. Charlie had taken my hand on the train; his was softer than I was expecting it to be. Neither of us was any good at flirting, and it had taken me a long while even to imagine that Charlie might be interested in me. He had organized study sessions for our cohort three times a week, and we had packed into a back corner of a nondescript pub. Charlie and I often stayed late, after the others had left. He had started inviting me to his flat for tea and a chat, but our conversations always drifted back to our studies, how he’d like to visit Worcester because that’s where Elizabeth Bishop had lived for a time and because it would give him a chance to leave England. I told him that it would be nice to have him in Boston, that maybe he could try applying to postgraduate programs there, and he seemed happy with the suggestion. I was trying to tell him more than that, of course. I was trying to tell him that I would miss him, that I liked him, that I wanted to have him in my life after this spring semester ended. But I could never be sure if he was trying to tell me the same thing, so I would get shy and pack up my things and give him a kiss on the cheek.
When we got to Great Yarmouth, Charlie hooked his arm in mine and took me toward the water. He bought us a Dixie cup each of cockles drenched in vinegar as we walked past the busy arcades and the ice cream vendors and chip shops. The cockles were chewy little blobs and the vinegar made my mouth feel sour. I had eaten them because I wanted to be polite and because Charlie was putting forth a real effort as tour guide, but I’m sure I was worrying that my breath was growing hostile, and really, more than anything, I was hoping Charlie might kiss me as the afternoon wore on.
“I never come here,” Charlie admitted as we neared the gray and churning sea. There was nothing welcoming about this ocean; it was hard to imagine anyone, ever, being able to swim here. “My parents always found it charmless, so we’d take our weeklong seaside vacations up north in Cromer or down in Southwold. But we could never afford to stay close to the water, where the posh B and Bs were, so we’d end up packing these overflowing bags and walking several blocks to claim our space in the sand.”
I nodded, having no idea where or what he was describing. “I suppose it’s a bit like vacationing at the Cape if you’re from Boston. All the fancy people get to be close to the sea, and all the other folks have to make due with overpriced motels while they fight off horseflies.”
“And which type was your family?” Charlie brought me in close to his chest as he pointed out the Ferris wheel in the distance.
I hoped that Charlie couldn’t tell that my neck was growing blotchy—I always got a rash when I was nervous, meaning it was close to impossible for me to keep a secret. “We vacationed in the mountains; my father didn’t like going to the beach.”
“I think I might prefer the mountains too. We don’t have many of them here. At least we have some hills in Norwich.”
This is how I remember our conversations going. Polite and timid, we’d talked about the different geographies of our childhoods, waiting for the other person to give some sign of interest. In the end I had suggested that we walk away from the town center and toward the Broads. We found an old dock and persuaded the owner of a rowboat to let us borrow it for a while. Charlie took the wooden oars and coaxed them through their rusty oarlocks, and the boat groaned with every pull. Charlie wasn’t much of a rower, and we zigzagged that poor boat through the narrow passages, so intent on the effort that we hardly spoke to one another. I remember thinking that this was, or at least should be, one of the most romantic moments of my life. I was twenty-one years old and a nervous English boy was rowing me through the Broads on an early-spring day. He loved poetry and wanted to be a writer and told me that he liked my American accent and called me Rach from almost our first introduction. But he wasn’t going to kiss me on his own—even I could tell that—so I grabbed the edges of the boat and shifted my weight toward Charlie. I balanced myself in front of him, letting my hair slap him in the breeze. Still, I wasn’t going to do everything. I needed to know that he wanted to kiss me too, so I crouched there, suspended, half standing in that small boat, and waited for him to make a decision. It took three long breaths before I felt the press of his lips against mine. And then he kissed my forehead and my nose and said, “Rach, come sit here beside me for a while.” And the boat rocked and got tangled in the weeds as we stretched out under the sky and I finally knew that Charlie liked me.
Perhaps because I am masochistic or because I continue to be overwhelmed with missing them, my house is filled with pictures of Charlie and Claire. Of course there are photos of my parents—their wedding day, and a trip we all took to Quebec, and one of my mom holding me when I was probably only three days old. But other than that, there is only Charlie and Claire. No cousins or aunts and uncles. No other friends or their babies. On my fridge I have Claire’s postcards from Quito and Rio and Pondicherry and Mysore. And front and center, there is a picture of the three of us, sitting on the front stoop, Claire in the middle, her legs thrown out straight into the sidewalk. We are twenty-three years old, and Charlie has moved in with us, and my parents have been dead for two months. I am trying to smile, my chin resting on Claire’s shoulder, but it is hard to read the expression on my face. It was a sunny day, and I am squinting in the glare.
It is difficult for me to remember the person I was in this picture. Too many things had happened all at once, and I know that I was desperate for some kind of tethering. Claire gave me advice and I listened to everything she told me. She had been through this before. She kept me distracted and my days full. She got me through our graduate courses and edited my articles and pretended she needed help from me too. She brought home cookbooks from the Brattle Book Shop by the Common and we learned how to debone fish and how to make our own curry paste and a perfect pie crust and baked stuffed cabbage because Claire insisted I embrace some of my “culture’s cooking.” “If I had any cultural history, you know I’d be digging into it, so let’s use yours.”
“But my parents didn’t even cook this food, and cabbage makes the house smell awful,” I remember saying to her. But Claire wasn’t going to accept that. By the end of our first two months of cooking adventures, we had learned to make kugel and brisket and blintzes. Poor Charlie was forced to eat all our experiments. Once, when he finally found something to praise in the apple blintzes we presented him with on Sunday morning, Claire warned, “Don’t think you’re getting off easy, Charlie. You’re up next—shepherd’s pie, pasties, Yorkshire pudding.”
“Holy Christ, Claire, you mustn’t joke about these things. There was a reason I left England for America.”
But Claire was relentless. She made a ritual out of our dinner preparations. She did finally back off the English cuisine when we all began complaining that our clothes were no longer fitting. I know there were other friends who came by during these months, people we knew from grad school, a couple of British expats Charlie had met at the Gardner Museum one day, some of Claire’s old acquaintances from childhood who had left western Mass for the city too. But the memo
ries of these guests feel like flashes to me; they were brief companions who never stayed long, who shared some wine with us and told me how lucky we were to have this big, fancy house to ourselves. We loved to share our annoyance at these interlopers, Charlie, Claire, and me. After they left, we’d trade observations and criticisms and feel closer because of it. There are moments when I like to convince myself that it was all Claire’s doing—that she would do the inviting and then the dismissing. That she trained us somehow to ward off the threat of other friendships. But it is too easy to put all the blame entirely on her shoulders. If people are wary of my friendship now, it is my own doing. I could have invited people back into our house for a second or third visit, could have made them feel more welcomed than judged, could have invited a man to stay in my room for more than a night or two. But I loved us too much, and I didn’t want there to be more than the three of us, who seemed to occupy this house so perfectly. Claire upstairs, Charlie sleeping in the converted study downstairs, me in the attic. Our books and notes and mail spread throughout the house in overlapping piles. Charlie’s tea and Claire’s coffee and my hot chocolate in the cupboards.
It was perfect until it wasn’t anymore, when I came to realize, far too late, that I was suddenly the outsider looking in on a relationship that had changed. Claire and Charlie lingered late on the couch downstairs, the stereo turned low, telling me that they’d get off to bed soon enough, that I should go on ahead. And then there were evenings when they wouldn’t be home for dinner and I would make up a quick salad or some pasta before drifting upstairs, waiting for the sounds of their return as the night wore on. But there we’d be in the morning again, the sounds of all our chatter filling the kitchen. Charlie would often walk me to the T stop before continuing on to his internship. Claire and I would sit over glasses of wine after class, ogling the South End waiters, as we anticipated Charlie’s arrival, followed by a shared stroll home. Claire introduced me to a part-time professor in the Communications Department—Linus was his name—who I later found out had hit on her at the gym, and for several weeks he joined us for dinner or for our wine hours or for Sunday journeys up to the North Shore. He would stay late at our house, and because Charlie and Claire seemed to so want me to have company, to restore some balance to the evenings in our house, I would ask him to stay some nights.
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