Ann buried herself in work to avoid her trip to the Cape—or, really, to avoid Poppy. The house. Her grief. Everything.
But she really was busy, and Ann was terrified by the talk of layoffs. Evaluations were coming up in a week, and her assistant, Mindy, had sent her yet another screwed-up spreadsheet, but the mistake landed on Ann’s shoulders.
As she tried to make sense of Mindy’s work, her phone buzzed. Poppy again. She let her sister’s call roll into voice mail. She’d check it later. The last time they’d spoken, Poppy told her that Brad was buying the Milwaukee house. Brad—of course! Why hadn’t Ann thought to ask him if he wanted to buy it?
Now Poppy was headed for the Cape, and Ann had given her a list of to-dos that had to be taken care of before the house could go on the market: leaky gutters; a well test for arsenic, radon, and bacteria; and questions about the plat map that needed to be resolved with the town. Apparently, the shed encroached on the neighbor’s lot and needed an easement. Ann didn’t want to talk to Poppy about the house, didn’t want to think about it. However, she wasn’t sure whether they could act like sisters again.
Later, she thought. Maybe later. Had her dad ever told Poppy about Anthony and Michael? She doubted it. Ed and Connie had only learned about it themselves shortly before they’d died.
One night last summer, when Noah was away at camp, Ann decided to drive to Wellfleet to see how her mom was doing, and also to see how her dad was holding up. The constant care she required wore on him. Ann entered the house without so much as a knock, startling her parents. Her dad was laid out on the floor stretching his back, and her mom sat in her usual chair, a book on her lap, her readers balanced so low on her nose they might have slipped off. “Annie?”
The house smelled reassuringly familiar, like old wood and sea salt, although it seemed so empty with just the two of them in it. They looked old; how did that happen? Her dad stood up and gave her a hug. His hair was fully gray, and so thin that he’d cut it, because it no longer fit in the usual low sprig of a ponytail. Her mom, in her sleeveless nightdress, seemed soft. She’d gained weight. Her biceps showed no sign of muscle or bone. “What brings you out here?” Her voice was sweet and warm as always. “Where’s Michael?”
That was a question her mother asked with heartbreaking regularity as her dementia grew worse. This time, the question almost broke Ann. She dropped her overnight bag and slumped against her father’s chest. “Oh, Daddy.” She hadn’t called him “Daddy” since she was a little girl. “I wish Mom could come back to us.” She cried softly, allowing herself the rare luxury of weakness, of being parented, of letting go.
“It’s better now that she’s not as aware of what’s happening to her. It made her so frightened. Now here she is.”
Her mother’s pale skin was translucent, her blue eyes glassy. Her memory slipped away like a pulled thread from a sweater, unraveling backward, leaving her in the past, when their family was still together. The doctor had described it as a cassette tape being erased from the end to the beginning. As far as she was concerned, Ann, Poppy, and Michael were still young, still at home. She was happy in those memories—why upset her? Ann let her mother fuss over her, making her a bowl of macaroni and cheese (powdery, because she forgot to add milk), freshening the linens on her bed. Her mother went to sleep, and her father checked on her a few times. “You look tired, Dad.”
“I’m OK,” he said. “But I sleep with one eye open now. She’s taken to wandering, and, well, you know. We’ve got a state highway on one side and a tidal marsh on the other. This would be the last place you’d build an old folks’ home.”
Ann held his hand and ran her fingertip along the thick network of veins.
“Want to go for a walk?”
“What about Mom?”
“This is the time of night she sleeps best. She’s out, and we won’t go far. Tell you, I sure could use some fresh air.”
It was a warm night, and the moon was full and bright. The tide was coming in, and the surface of the cove glimmered in the blue-white light.
“So, what’s on your mind?”
Ann hesitated. Her father had so much to deal with, did she really want to burden him?
“Anna Banana, talk to me.”
Ann smiled. She’d always hated it when he called her that, only now it sounded sweet. She began haltingly, nervous. “It’s about Noah. Dad, there are things I should have told you.”
“I know,” he said. “I knew you’d tell me in your own time. It’s OK. Speak your truth.”
“Michael isn’t Noah’s dad,” she said.
He didn’t say anything, although she could see relief wash over him, the same relief she’d felt saying those words out loud. Soon, the rest of the details of that sordid summer came out like a blast of water from a fire hose: Anthony, the pond. When she finished he didn’t speak for a long time, and she was grateful. The moonlight lit a streak in the cove like a searchlight.
Finally, he said, “I always knew something was off.” Her father was thoughtful, concerned, sad. He wrapped an arm over her shoulder. “I wish you’d told me. I don’t know why you didn’t.”
“It was a lot. And I didn’t know what you’d do to Anthony, or what he’d do to you, or what he’d do to me, and you’d taken in Michael because I asked you, and—it’s so stupid. I mean, I tell you all this now and I could have handled it better, but at the time I was doing what I thought I had to do. The story was out. It was easier to just go with it, I guess.”
Her father looked out at the tufts of beach grass sticking out of the small islands in the water. “I understand, I do.”
“I felt so … responsible.”
“No more blaming yourself. I know this isn’t your way, but you need to learn to lean into people.” He wiped a tear from his eye.
“That’s what I’m doing now. It’s just taken me about sixteen years.” Ann laughed, and so did her father. She loved his gravelly laugh.
“And now we have Noah.” Her father smiled at the thought of him. “That kid, he’s exactly right.”
A baby red fox rustled in the bushes along the bluff. The stars twinkled the way they always had. It was so nice here, so peaceful. Why had Ann felt she needed to run from the bad memories when the good ones were here, too? They walked a long time without speaking, their feet crunching along the path. They could have walked all night, walked all the way up to Provincetown. “We need to find Michael,” he said.
Ann stopped in her tracks. “No!”
“But he—I just don’t get it. It’s not like him. Any of this.”
“He took money, Dad. Anthony gave him money to send to me. Michael set up the account. The checks were in his name. When they stopped I couldn’t go after Anthony, because he said he’d sue for custody. And I didn’t know how to reach Michael, and frankly, I couldn’t stand the idea of even talking to him after what he’d done.”
“He was a son to us, Ann.” Her father’s voice broke. “Losing him was so painful. I felt I’d failed. Your mother and I both did. I feel we ought to at least have a conversation.”
“No!” Ann wanted to leave Michael behind the locked door of her past. “He exploited my situation. I loved him, I did. He knew it. And he took advantage. Promise me.”
Her father didn’t promise. He just put his arm around her and nodded.
She returned to Boston feeling wonderfully unburdened, happier than she’d been in a long time, determined to finally confront Anthony. Little did she know that would be the last time she’d see her parents alive. They’d stopped in Boston just before their fateful trip, but only Noah saw them, because she was at a furniture conference in Chapel Hill. She figured there’d be another time. Christmas, the next summer, whenever.
Now she was haunted by her father’s silence when she’d asked him to promise not to reach out to Michael. Only once in all these years had she tried to find him herself. Once, during her last job search, she typed his name into LinkedIn on impulse. Who knew there were over two thousand Michael Gordons? She didn’t even allow herself to scroll, and cleared her browser history as if she’d been searching for porn, scolding herself. Now this search gave her comfort. Suppose her father had tried to reach him? Wouldn’t he also have hit the wall of Michael Gordons, and even more Michael Davises?
Was it possible that Michael knew her parents had died? He’d already profited from her. Surely he wouldn’t try to get a piece of the pie?
The will, the will! She’d looked everywhere for it, in both Milwaukee and Wellfleet—between her parents’ mattress and box spring, in the secret hiding space next to the fireplace, in every drawer, cupboard, and filing cabinet, even folded between the pages of books. She just needed to sell the houses quickly and get it over with so he couldn’t come out of the woodwork. She had absolutely no intention of sharing the proceeds of the estate with him. When she filled out the forms the lawyer gave her, she didn’t include his name, didn’t signal that anyone else might have a claim.
Ann looked up at the potted plant on her shelf, and at the padded cubicles in the now-empty office. A cleaning person was emptying the garbage. Just beyond her window she saw the sun setting over the Prudential Tower. Somewhere out there was Cape Cod—and Poppy. All these years of not knowing or even being able to imagine where her sister was, and now she was home. Once the houses were sold, what would happen to her family? Would they become just a memory with no physical ties to place, no history? Is that what houses really were, containers for families? And once the containers were gone, the people inside were just set loose in the world, particles.
She saw people walking down Commonwealth and Newbury. Wouldn’t it be nice to be carefree, to meet up with friends, go on a date? She imagined herself sidling up to the bar with a guy she was excited to be with. She’d catch the bartender’s attention. “I’ll have a martini,” she’d say, and a warm hand would rub her back. This nameless, perfect man always appeared in her fantasies as Michael, but why? Perhaps because he’d once been her best companion before she pushed him away. A companion, that’s what she wanted. She wished she could tell him about her day, about Mindy’s spreadsheet, about Noah’s latest exploit, about Anthony, about selling the house in Wellfleet, about how nervous she was to see Poppy again. “Can you imagine?” she’d say. “I’m nervous to see my own sister!” And, familiar with the contours of her life, he’d nod in understanding.
She shut down her computer. She couldn’t stand the idea of being alone like this forever.