The Children (15 page)

“That's the old carriage house, Laurel,” Spin said, moving on. He explained that Everett's parents had moved into it during the 1960s, that they retired to Florida a few years ago. “Everett stayed on here. It doesn't look like he's home now. We grew up with him; he's like the third brother.”

“I wouldn't go that far,” said Perry. “We hung out with him when we were kids because there was nobody else to hang out with.”

“He's the closest friend I have,” said Spin. His loyalty to Everett made me want to tackle him to the ground and smother him with kisses and tickles, just like we used to do to him when he was little.

Sally explained to Laurel that there had once been a stable attached to the carriage house and that was why it was a little distance from the main house and situated so much closer to the road. She then led the way down the sloping lawn behind the main house to the boathouse.

“Downstairs is mostly water. You can motor or paddle a boat right into the place and tie it up in the little bay down there,” Sally said.

“We used to have a great old motorboat—a Chris Craft—but the boat died sometime in the eighties,” Perry said. “It was a real classic, that boat. All wood.”

The boat was before our time. Sally and I smiled politely.

“It was named
Marissa,
” Perry explained. “After our mother.”

*   *   *

Perry and Catherine didn't stay long; they had plans that night in the Hamptons, so they just sat down for a quick iced tea and a chat on the porch once Joan arrived home. Spin and I played with Jake and Emma. Though we don't see them often, I always pay a lot of attention to Perry's kids. Jake was almost three at the time and Emma was six. My blog kids are about the same age, and I like to observe Jake's and Emma's behavior so that I can write more accurately about children that age. But also, I love children, and for all that we like to carry on about their fancy house and their hired help, Perry and Catherine must be good parents, because their kids are so smart and sweet.

Spin was helping Emma stand up on a paddleboard in the lake and I was chasing Jake around on the lawn next to the porch when I heard the conversation turn to the wedding plans.

“Have you and Spin set a date yet, dear?” Joan asked Laurel.

“Yes, August twenty-second. We're going to Paris for our honeymoon, and that way we'll have a couple of weeks before the school year starts,” said Laurel.

“We have friends who run a very boutique-y holiday villa and flat rental business in Europe and we've arranged for them to stay in the most charming apartment right in Montmartre,” said Catherine.

“I'm so excited,” said Laurel.

“Have you been to Paris before?” Joan asked.

“No, never. I've been to France, but I was in the Alps, skiing. I've always wanted to go. I can't wait.”

Perry was anxious to get on the road; the kids get cranky when they're stuck in traffic. We saw them off, and after Spin and Laurel unpacked their stuff in Spin's room, they came downstairs and joined Sally and me in the music room. Sally was working on her piece. I was listening to it and thinking about little Jake and Emma and things they had said that I could use in my blog.

“Oh good, Spin, I need your help,” Sally said when they walked in. “This is what I was telling you about, this is where I need you.”

“Okay. What is it?” he asked. “Let's hear what you have.”

Sally tucked her violin under her chin and played the basic melody. It really was such a pretty song, sort of haunting and sad, though. Spin was intrigued. He sat at the piano and played a few chords.

“Wait,” Sally said. “Go back, go back. What was that minor chord? That was it.”

Spin played the chord again. Sally wove a new line through the chord, and then Spin followed with another clever chord change. Now they were in it, playing the phrase over and over. Suddenly, Spin pulled his hands away from the keys and said, “This isn't fair to Laurel. It's so boring. We can do this later.”

“No, babe,” Laurel said. “You guys play. I want to check things out. I still feel like I could get lost in this place. Charlotte, can you show me around the house?”

“Sure,” I said. I followed her out of the room.

“I think you've seen most of the house—that was the music room we were just in. It used to be called the sunroom when Whit was little. His sister and cousins used to call it the conservatory. It was more of a greenhouse then, with lots more plants. Whit's grandmother was really into flowers.”

“I love all the windows, but it must get awfully hot in there in the summer.”

“Oh, it does,” I said. “We rarely go in during the summer—at least not in the daytime. But it's really beautiful in the winter. You'll see. Spin spends Christmas Eve here with us. He always has, so I hope you'll both keep doing that. We put the Christmas tree in the music room, and it's beautiful with all the windows. You can see the snow falling all around you. It feels like you're outside, but you're nice and warm. And the frozen lake, well, you'll see, it's nice. This is the living room; we don't spend a lot of time in here.”

We paused for a moment and she looked at the enormous fireplace and all the old overstuffed upholstered furniture. I motioned for her to follow me.

“So here, we're back in the main hallway.”

We walked through the wide hall and into the family room on the other side.

“The TV's in here,” I said, pointing to the small TV that sat on an old wooden trunk. “We only have basic cable; I hope you're not into any regular series on HBO or anything like that. Joan will only pay for basic. I watch everything on my computer.”

“I do, too. I don't really watch much TV,” said Laurel.

She wandered over to the bookshelves that run from floor to ceiling on the long interior wall. The shelves hold hundreds of books, many of which are rare first-edition volumes of great classics. Joan's uncle Hunt, Hunter Garrison, once owned one of the largest collections of rare books in the United States. Joan had been his favorite among his nieces and nephews. He was gay, childless, and had left her a large part of his collection in his will. The rest are at the Smithsonian Institution. The books should be in a climate-controlled vault someplace, but instead, they sit on our shelves, and each year the humid summers and dry, heated winters take their toll.

“These are Joan's books. I'm not sure if Spin's mentioned them,” I said to Laurel, giving her the quick history of the collection, but she was looking at the framed photographs that sat on a table next to the shelves.

“Is this Spin and Perry?” she asked. She had picked up a photo of Spin, Perry, and Everett when they were all boys. Everett and Perry were teenagers, and Spin was about six or seven. They all were in a midair leap from the dock. It's a great shot. Freckles, grins, messy boy hair, and everywhere, long, exuberant arms and legs. Whit always loved taking photos of us jumping from the rope swing or the dock. “Who's the third kid?”

“That's Everett,” I said.

She moved on to another photo, a beautiful black-and-white picture of my mother. Joan was wearing a sleeveless summer dress. She was out on the lawn and she was bent over, helping baby Spin try to walk. He was wearing nothing but a diaper and he was between her bare legs, holding onto her fingers for support. They were both barefoot in the long grass, both laughing up at the camera.

“Oh, look how pretty your mom was. Is that when you were a baby?” Laurel asked.

“No, that's Spin.”

“It must have been strange for your mom to have a stepson who was born, well, so close to when she married his dad,” Laurel mused.

“I guess it was, I don't really remember. They used to come up here with a nanny, I do remember that. Marissa wanted the nanny to take care of Spin when he was here with us. I guess she didn't really trust my mom and Whit to take care of him. But my mom loved Spin like her own baby. She just doted on him.”

“Why does everybody call him Spin?” Laurel asked.

“Perry says he was the one who first called him that. Sally says it was me and her. We were small. It's hard to remember.”

Laurel was really studying the picture. She turned it a little, as if she were trying to catch my mother's expression from another angle. I saw the corners of her lips turn up ever so slightly. It was almost as if she were looking in a mirror, trying to match my mother's smile.

“Apparently, everybody just called him ‘the baby' for almost his entire first year. The name Philip was a touchy subject between his parents,” I said.

I found a framed photo of Spin as an infant, smiling toothlessly at the camera. “He was so cute.… Sally and I treated him like a little doll. Like a pet, really. When he started walking, he loved us to spin him around and then we'd crack up when he staggered away from us like a little drunk. He'd always want to do it again. ‘Spin,' he'd say. ‘Spin.' So we started calling him that—at least that's how we remember it.”

“That's sweet,” said Laurel, but she was still staring at the photograph of my mom and Spin. I got the feeling that she hadn't been listening that closely.

“I think Spin was the son my mom always wanted,” I said, removing a pile of old newspapers that had been stacked next to the fireplace last winter. The pages were yellow now. “Joan grew up with boys. She had two brothers and she lived on the Holden campus, which was all boys at the time. I think she really didn't know how to deal with Sally and me. She would have been more comfortable with sons.”

“Well, I think she did okay,” said Laurel, and just when I was about to thank her for the compliment, she said, “I mean, it's not like you and Sally are the girliest girls, anyway. Is this Spin's dad? I've only seen pictures of him when he was older.”

She was holding my favorite photo of Whit. Sally took it with a Polaroid sometime in the early nineties, so it's not a very large print, but my mom set it into a larger frame. He's standing in the door of his banjo shed, a coffee cup in hand. He's winking into the camera, winking at Sally with that great smile.

“Here's another one of Spin,” I said. I wanted her to put down the photo of Whit. I didn't like her touching it. “This is great, Laurel; my mom was teaching Spin how to do a back dive off the dock.”

She was still staring at the picture of Whit.

“It's really hard to do a back dive without a diving board,” I continued, moving the picture closer to Laurel, “but Joan taught Spin to do it. You have to really spring off your feet, see? Sally and I always landed flat on our backs.”

Laurel placed Whit's photo back on the shelf, but she kept staring at it. Finally, she turned her attention to the diving photo. It was such a lucky shot. Whit had managed to catch Joan and Spin at just the right moment, when they were both in mid-arc, my mom in her Speedo one-piece, her sleek athlete's torso just a few inches higher than Spin's. Their arms were stretched over their heads, their fingertips about to hit the lake. My mom still looked like a girl in that shot. Spin was just starting to show the muscles of a man. I handed the photo to Laurel and she glanced at it, smiled, and then turned her attention back to the small photo of Whit.

“Through here is a little pantry and then we're back in the kitchen,” I said. I walked out of the room and she followed behind me.

In the kitchen, Joan was bustling about, making dinner preparations. She had made a bunch of hamburger patties, which were piled onto a plate on the counter.

“Lottie, I went out to start the grill and couldn't find it. Laurel, we grill here almost every night in the summer, but we haven't used that grill once this year. I have no idea where Everett put it last fall. Lottie, go ask him where it is.”

“He's not home,” I replied.

“Well, it has to be someplace. Look behind Whit's shed,” she said.

I was happy to leave Laurel. I'm not used to small talk, not used to having to entertain others. It's exhausting. I was walking across the lawn to look in Whit's shed when Everett pulled up in front of his house. He gave a little honk, but I didn't wave, I just went into the shed. A moment later, Everett followed me inside.

“How's Sally?” he asked.

“She's better. Joan drugged her and she slept from yesterday morning until today, almost straight through.”

“Joan drugged her? What do you mean?”

“She shot her with a tranquilizer gun. What do you think?” I said. I started to walk away, but Everett grabbed my arm.

“What're you so pissy about?”

“Nothing,” I said.

Everett had left the night before and stayed out all night. I kept waking up, listening for Sally, so I noticed that his truck wasn't in the driveway. I don't mention stuff like this anymore. Everett once talked about moving somewhere else because he wants to be able to have a life without my knowing everything he does. I don't want him to move. But last night I heard him drive off. I knew he was at the Pale Horse, and I thought I'd wander over when he got home.

“Laurel and Spin are staying here for two weeks,” I said. “Joan invited them without telling us, so I'm, you know, not that pleased.”

“Oh,” Everett said.

“Yeah, I have to go inside. Can you get the grill?” I tried to push past him, but he grabbed my hand.

“Babe, what's wrong?” he said. “Look at me. What's the matter?”

I was tearing up. I had turned my face away, but he wouldn't let go.

“What is it?” he asked again.

“I'm just not used to having company in the house. I don't know Laurel. And I'm worried about Sally.…”

Everett pulled me close and gave me a hug. I pressed my face against his chest and put my arms around him for a moment, held him so tight, just for a moment, then I pulled away and walked out of the shed and toward the house.