The Girls of Tonsil Lake (19 page)

And one more perfect moment was given.

Suzanne

What am I supposed to say when people ask me how many children I have? Two? One? I had two but now I have one?

I doubt that anyone’s asked me that question ten times in the last two years, but now it’s asked every time I turn around. The mothers at the daycare center all asked. Now that they know, they give me these soft-eyed looks that mean, “God, I’m sorry for you, but I’m glad it’s you instead of me.”

I know that look because I used to wear it myself. When I couldn’t anymore, when I knew the agony that is the deepest of all agonies, I became someone else. I always said I was afraid there would be nothing left of me if I lost my looks, but now I’ve lost my child. When I catch myself even thinking about my looks, it makes me sick.

I don’t mean to say I have nothing to live for, because I have Sarah and I have friends and I have a new job I like, but the person I was died the day Tommy did. And I don’t know what is left.

Trent and I cleaned Tommy’s things out of the apartment he’d kept in Indianapolis. It is nice being with Trent right now because he shares my need to talk about Tommy. Nearly everyone else avoids the subject, as though that will make the pain go away. Even Sarah doesn’t want to talk about him. I suppose everyone copes in their own way, but coping’s never been my strong suit.

We gave most of our son’s clothes to the neighborhood thrift store, threw away things like razors and half-used bottles of shampoo, and donated his books and linens to a shelter. Except for Jean’s books, all autographed and in a neat row on a shelf over his bed. Trent packed them away carefully and labeled the box for Sarah while I stripped the sheets from the bed.

“I’ll wash these before we donate them,” I said, but the cotton went right past my nose as I folded them and I stopped moving altogether. It had been so long since I’d smelled the scent that was Tommy’s alone, and it nearly brought me to my knees. “Oh, Trent,” I said.

He knew. He’d spent a lot of time with grieving parents during his years as an emergency room doctor. “Don’t wash them yet,” he said huskily. “Wait till you’re ready, and if you never are, that’s okay, too.”

I pushed the folded sheets inside a pillowcase and set them aside along with photographs we’d found and put into a manila envelope to be gone through when we could bear to look at them.

When we found the bag of pot in his bottom drawer, neither of us commented. Trent flushed the weed down the toilet along with an assortment of pills and a vial of suspicious-looking white powder.

“I keep asking myself where we went wrong,” he said, watching the water taking the drugs away. “I was an asshole of a husband, but not a bad father. You were a good mother. Even Phil Lindsey tried. But nothing ever worked, did it?”

“No,” I admitted. “Tom always knew he was loved, which I thought would carry him through because it would have me, you know? But it wasn’t enough for him.”

“Nothing was,” said Trent. “Nothing was ever enough for him.”

I knew anger was a part of the grieving process, and even though I hadn’t gotten there yet, it was obvious that Tom’s father had. I went to him and put my arms around him.

“Funny, isn’t it?” he said, rubbing his cheek on the top of my head. “We’ve held each other more in the past month than we did when we were married.”

I smiled up at him. “We’re grownups now.”

When the apartment was clean and empty, we turned the key over to the building superintendent and started toward Lewis Point. It was Friday night and the traffic was terrible. It took us forty-five minutes to reach the outskirts of Indianapolis, normally a twenty-minute drive.

“Did I ever say I was sorry?” asked Trent, when we were sandwiched between two eighteen-wheelers and moving at the approximate rate of a sedated snail.

“Sorry?” I looked over at him, noting how he’d aged in the past weeks. He still looked boyish, but no longer immature, never again carefree. He’d lost his only child.

The tenderness caught me unawares, and I reached to touch his face. “Sorry for what?”

“Wrecking our marriage.” The car moved forward another six feet. He took my hand and kissed my fingers. “For letting you go.”

“Well, no,” I said, a little breathless. “Most of the time, we hardly spoke at all. But we were kids, Trent. Maybe not chronologically, but in every other way we were. The time for blaming is long past. Like I said, we’re grownups now.”

“Yes.” He released my hand and eased into the left lane. “We are.”

We picked up Chinese on the way to my condo and sat on the floor and ate out of little white buckets while we watched
The Quiet Man
for the hundredth time. Watching the sensual interplay between Maureen O’Hara and John Wayne, I was suddenly conscious that my hair was in dire need of cutting and coloring and that my makeup had worn off hours ago. I was glad for the darkness in the room.

Was this the beginning of healing? Instead of making me sick with self-hatred, thinking of my appearance gave me a thread of hope. I considered what Andie’s response would be to that and almost laughed aloud.

“I wonder...” I mumbled.

Trent turned a sleepy-eyed glance my way. “What?”

“How I’d look as a redhead.”

Vin

“What in the hell is this?” I waved the single piece of paper around as though that would make it visible to the lawyer on the other end of the line.

“I’d say that was obvious, Mrs. Stillson. Mr. Stillson’s daughters, Marie Stillson-Lance and Joanna Stillson-Martin, would like your permission to make use of the Palm Beach house during the month of October. They plan to do some entertaining while there and will of course pay their own expenses.”

Randall Naismith talked, as Andie might say, as though he had a corncob up his ass. If the man ever sneezed, I’m sure the top of his head would blow off. He had been Mark’s lawyer and probably his closest friend, but, like Marie and Joanna, he still considered me an interloper.

“They’ve used the house every October that I can remember, Randall. Why did they feel the need to put it in writing?”

“They didn’t use it last year.”

“They didn’t?” I didn’t remember. I had still been in a fog of grief over Mark’s death and consumed with worry over Andie. “Why not?”

“Out of respect for your bereavement, I’m sure.”

I almost snickered. “I’m sure. Well, tell them...” I stopped. “No, wait a minute. Tell them I’ll discuss it with them over lunch on Friday. One o’clock. Here.”

“Mrs. Stillson, I hardly think that’s appropriate given the circumstances. You can just sign the letter where indicated and return it in the envelope included. There’s no necessity for difficulty.”

“No.”

“Pardon me?”

“No. Lunch. Friday. Here.”

I hung up and went into the kitchen, where Archie was putting the finishing touches on dinner. “Arch, was I what you’d call a wicked stepmother?”

She set a platter with four grilled pork chops on the counter between the two place settings she’d laid, complete with linen napkins, Mark’s mother’s china, and the crystal we’d bought on our honeymoon. It had taken me the entire month of July to convince her that we could eat together, in the kitchen, and remain civilized.

“No.” She still had to bite off the “ma’am,” but she was getting better at it, and I grinned at her. “But I believe anyone Mr. Stillson married would not have met with his daughters’ approval.”

“Really? Even if it had been one of their mother’s friends, you don’t think they’d have liked her?”

Archie shook her head and set a small serving bowl of vegetables on the counter. “Wine?” she asked.

I nodded and went to the cellar in the pantry to choose a bottle. “Did they think, seriously, that I was going to displace them in their father’s affections, or what?”

“Their mother was an unforgiving woman,” said Archie carefully. “Even though you didn’t even meet Mr. Stillson till long after they were divorced, I’m sure she portrayed you to their daughters as
the other woman
. There you were: pretty and smart and scarcely any older than they were. You would most certainly be considered a threat.”

“Oh.” I poured the wine and we took our places. “They’re coming for lunch Friday.”

“Here?” She looked horrified, but her voice was sturdy and calm. “What would you like to have?”

I shrugged. “Something easy, maybe something a little bit Hoosier so they won’t be disappointed in their worst expectations. Think we should eat in here?”

“No!”

I grinned at her again, and this time she grinned back.

“Here, look at this. I want to talk to you about something.” I handed her the letter from Randall.

She reached for the reading glasses we kept on the counter for whichever of us needed them and read in silence, then looked expectantly at me.

I plunged in. “I’m thinking of giving the houses—this one and the one in Palm Beach—to Marie and Joanna.”

She looked shocked. “Giving?”

“Yes.”

“But they’re yours.”

“No, the house in Maine is mine. Property in Indiana is mine. But these houses, even though Mark left them to me, should go to his daughters. Should have been theirs all the time.”

“They’ll evict us.”

I laughed. “No, the giving will have some strings attached. One of those strings is that you go with this house if you so choose.”

Archie nodded, though she didn’t look relieved. “What will you do?” she asked, then immediately retracted. “I’m sorry. That’s not my business.”

“I don’t know,” I admitted, “but I’m not going to stay in New York.”

It was the first time I’d said those words aloud. Even though I’d been thinking them ever since I returned from Hope Island two months ago, I’d been reluctant to commit the decision to voice. I looked across the counter at the woman who had, against all odds, become my friend. I would miss her.

“I’ll go to Hope Island or Indiana,” I said. “Or both.”

Archie was silent a moment, cutting her pork chop into neat bite-size pieces. Then she said, “Ma’am?”

I sighed. “Yes?”

“Will you be needing a housekeeper?”

Part Four

“Not only is life a bitch, but it is always having puppies.”

Adrienne Gusoff

Chapter Thirteen

Andie

I cleaned house all morning long. I did windows, mirrors, and windowsills. I went down to the supermarket and rented a machine and came back and began to shampoo carpets. I took down curtains and tossed them into the washing machine.

Suzanne came in at noon, took one look at my house, and began stripping the beds even though no one had slept in the guest room since Vin came back for Tommy’s funeral.

“Don’t you have to go back to the daycare center?” I asked at twelve-thirty, looking down the length of a long curtain rod at her.

“No. I’ve cut back to three days a week. I spent the morning packing stuff up at the condo till I couldn’t stand my own company anymore. I can’t believe David hasn’t called. He knows we’re worried to death.”

“He’ll call,” I said. “She’s probably not even out of surgery yet.”

“It’s been four hours.”

“I know.”

Without discussion, we prepared the guest room and bath for Jake’s imminent arrival, cleaning out the dresser drawers and the closet, replacing daisy-laden sheets with soft white ones. I hung new black and white towels in the bathroom and placed a new, guaranteed-not-to-slip mat in the bottom of the shower.

“I should probably see about renting a hospital bed,” I said finally.

“Do you think?” said Suzanne.

Then we left the room quickly, closing the door behind us.

We ate ham sandwiches sitting at the table and tried not to look at the silent telephone.

“Jean and I did this the day you had surgery,” said Suzanne, picking the crust off her bread in little pinched pieces.

“What did you talk about?”

“Tonsil Lake.” She looked startled. “We never went back this year, did we?”

“The year’s not over yet,” I said, keeping my voice light.
But, God, I wish it was. How much more of this year can we take? Will it just go on till we’ve lost more children, more ex-husbands, each other?

“God,” said Suzanne, “I wish it was.”

I blinked. “Me, too.”

“I don’t know whether I’m more afraid of one of us dying,” she said, “or that we’ll continue to live and it won’t get any better.”

I wanted to shout at her that living was better; I’d come close enough to dying to know that.

But I hadn’t buried a child. I thought of Lo and Miranda. Of my son-in-law Ben whose endless patience never ceased to amaze me. Of my three little stair-step grandchildren who could undo my spate of housecleaning in six minutes flat. Of Jake.

How much poorer our lives are when we lose those we love; how much richer because we knew them at all, because we loved them in spite of everything.

This Jean-like thought coming from my mind startled me so much I said it aloud, then immediately apologized. “I’m sorry. That was rather pompous, wasn’t it?”

Suzanne reached across the table to squeeze my hands. “No, I don’t think it was. I think you’re right. The worst thing in my life was Tommy dying, but I wouldn’t go back and wish I’d never had him.”

Into the silence that followed, she said, “She did this when we had measles, too, remember? Just went on till she dropped. Bringing us stuff and—”

“I remember.”

We’d yelled at her for her stubbornness against giving in to the blisters.
Little brave heart showing off for the preacher. Do you think it’ll get you into heaven or something?
But we’d read her stories voraciously, been glad for the conversations whispered through the jalousie windows.

By the time Suzanne’s bread was a bunch of doughy little pills on her plate and the melting ice had faded my iced tea to the color of beer, I was ready to pick the phone up to make sure it was working.

But then it rang, and we sat there and looked at each other. Neither of us wanted to answer it, but since it was my phone, I drew the short straw.