Bec’s kitchen contains a utility closet, a place to hide the ironing board, brooms, and mops, and yesterday, inspired by the pristine quality of the season’s first snowfall, I found myself compelled to give the floors inside a good cleaning. To do that I opened the closet—for the first time ever. Quickly, though, I shut it. But a moment later I opened it again, more slowly, preparing myself as I did, for framed and hanging on the inside of the door was Davy’s picture, the one he’d drawn with Lucinda Rossetti that summer of 1948. The pair had almost managed to finish it: a crayon-based lineup of vases containing flowers. That so many years ago Bec had taken it from our home was a new fact, a new moment to consider, and the thought of her forcing herself to face the drawing and all its associated memories each time she swept her floors or ironed a shirt gave me a chill. Then a rush of admiration. Then a chill. Then a rush of love.
It was still the second week in August 1948—a week before the week we wished had never begun—when Davy understood at last what Lucinda Rossetti was getting at. The red on the bottom of the picture was a tabletop, or perhaps a counter, and the tubes emerging from it—one gray, one brown, and the other blue—were vases. Davy had finally grasped the idea when she began to draw stems and leaves where the vases would end, just about where Davy had colored the page a lighter sky blue. Holding the picture, he began a fit of ecstatic jumping.
“She had you worried there, huh?” Ada remarked, holding his chin in her palm as if this would calm him. It didn’t. He squirmed from her grip and began jumping again. All of us were in the kitchen, unable to eat lunch with this eruption beside us.
“Take it outside,” Ada warned, and when Davy only jumped more, she snapped, “Now!”
For a moment he looked stricken but then he dashed through the cottage and out the front door, where he took to prancing on the porch. “I get it!” he called over and over.
By this time Bec had planned the jacket she’d promised Davy and she’d made progress on dresses for the start of the school year for Nina and me. Long-sleeved and belted, mine was of checkered rayon and easily would be the best school dress I ever had. Nina liked hers, in a solid dusty rose, just as much. For Vivie and Ada—the two people Bec would miss the most—she’d embarked on more elaborate wear: the dresses they’d asked for were for the upcoming High Holidays. In recent days there were fittings, and after that seams were taken in and seams were ripped out. Half-made, one of the dresses hung over the body of the mannequin Eleanor Roosevelt, and the other hung from a hanger Bec had secured over the top of one of her porch’s glass doors. My mother’s dress was made of burgundy wool, the same color as the fancier dress Bec had made for Mrs. Coventry. The likeness pleased Ada no end. “I’m going to look fine,” she whispered to herself every time she passed by Bec’s sunporch. Vivie’s dress was the same light wool, in dark green. She didn’t say anything as she walked past the sunporch, but she often glanced at Eleanor, wearing that forest green, and then she’d purse her lips to form a silent, delighted “Oh!”
Because of rain and high winds, Howard and Mark Fishbaum sailed only once the second week of August, but by the third week—the week—they were back to their daily journeys. Out they’d go, in the direction of Long Island, or perhaps over toward West Haven, now a familiar run. And in they’d finally come again, a good hour and a half later, sometimes longer, pulling the Sailfish out of the shallow waters onto the shore, lowering its sail, lifting its mast, pulling free its rudder board and tiller, then finally lifting the naked hull of the boat and hauling it up the beach, well past where the waters rose at high tide. They’d often sit there in the hot sand beside the boat’s hull, their bottoms atop the orange life preservers they’d carried on board, and they wouldn’t talk so much as stare out at the waters they’d just navigated, as if that long ride hadn’t been quite extensive enough to ponder the world that was unfolding, so nicely, before them. Their tans were remarkable by this time. Perhaps it was their futures, free of war, as open as the sea before them, that gave them such an endless sense of wonder. Perhaps it was the social life sure to unfold those evenings. By this time Howard had persuaded Mark to be, if not altogether accepting, than at least kind toward Megan O’Donnell.
“There was a bit of me that was jealous of you,” Mark had even recently confessed.
“You were snubbing her and me because you were a jealous ass?”
“That’s only ten percent of it. The rest was about the mess between Jews and Catholics. Howard, think about it. You really want that mess?”
Wednesday evening of that third week in August, and just before supper Nina yelled for me from her parents’ bedroom. I was in the kitchen snapping beans, but dropped them in an instant to heed her call. Since Nina had finished Coming of Age in Samoa she’d resumed hanging around with me. The book had had a good effect, it seemed. On the heels of reading it she’d been more willing to do things: swim with Ada, Davy, and me, talk in the sun, and walk after dinner from our cottage to Anchor Beach to hang out there, chatting a bit with the other girls our ages.
When I reached her parents’ bedroom, Nina was standing beside her mother’s vanity, her back both twisted and arched as she struggled to zip the strapless sundress that Bec had sewn for her. That Nina had finally put the thing on surprised me. But here it was, that pale yellow cotton with a white floral print that so far that summer had caused such turmoil each time it had been pulled out of the closet. Even though she hadn’t yet gotten it fully on, I could already see how good it looked. The dress’s coloring contrasted beautifully with her newly bronzed skin. Though she wasn’t the kind to flaunt her figure, in fact it was a lovely one, lean and curvy.
“What took you so long?” she asked, giving up on the zipper, exasperated. Her hair, which was usually pulled back, was loose and flowing down her back in curly ringlets.
“Excuse me?” I said. I was as surprised by her rebuke as I was by the sight of the dress and her cascading curls. “I rushed, fast as I could.”
Laughter erupted then from next door—boy laughter: loud, sarcastic. Howard would be changing clothes after sailing and showering, and we could hear that Mark was there too, which meant he was staying for supper.
“Shut the door, Molly,” Nina, alarmed, commanded, and I lunged at the door just in case the boys should emerge in the next second and see Nina—perfectly covered but somehow more naked than ever in this new outfit, this sea change of style.
“Can you help me zip it?” Nina then asked, more relaxed. “I think it’s stuck.”
I stood behind her and gripped the tab of the zipper. “Hold your hair up,” I said, and Nina thrust a hand behind her head, lifting her mass of curls.
We were standing like that, my hands at the small of her back, her hand holding up her hair, the strapless sundress draped precariously over her body, soon to slip off as I jiggled the pull tab to get the zipper going, when we heard the bedroom door creaking open. I hadn’t shut it properly.
Howard and Mark stepped into the hallway. Howard didn’t notice us and simply walked to the stairs, away from us. Mark, though, lagging behind Howard, head bent toward his chest as he finished buttoning his shirt, turned our way.
“Zip it, Molly,” Nina whispered, her tone frantic. “Zip it now.” As I struggled to do so, Mark remained standing in the hallway before the open door, his head gradually raised until his eyes were fixed on Nina.
“You wearing that tonight?” he asked, breaking into a bit of a smile.
“Just trying it on,” Nina replied, her voice flat. But she wasn’t calm, I knew. My hands still on her back, I felt her body rapidly warming. The instant I pulled the zipper up and released her, she leaped forward to shut the door again.
Beyond the doorway Mark was still there, staring.
“Looks good!” we heard next through the newly shut door. Then we heard clomping down the stairs and then nothing except the bedroom door creaking open again.
“It doesn’t stay shut,” I noted.
“Apparently not,” Nina replied, slamming it this time, then latching it with a hook so it wouldn’t open again. When she turned from the door to me she softened. “Does it really look good?” she asked. “Did you hear him?”
In fact she looked stunning, transformed. I wondered why in all the times I’d seen Nina change clothes I’d never noticed her square shoulders or long neck. More than that, she had hips and breasts and a solid bump of a behind. Her loose hair looked dramatic rather than merely frizzy. She had come of age—clearly—and not in Samoa but right here, in Woodmont, in front of our very eyes. But when had this happened?
“Do I know you?” I asked, amazed.
Nina didn’t wear the dress out that night. Instead, she chose rolled dungarees. But the next night, just minutes before she and I were to head out for what had become our regular evening walk, Nina called to me. She was once again in her parents’ bedroom, once again slipping on the dress Bec had made. This time she’d had no problem with the zipper and by the time I arrived, she was already in the dress and had the matching jacket slung over one of her arms. Her hair wasn’t loose as it had been the night before but pulled back with her usual ribbon. Yet the simple hairdo suddenly looked as stylish as the dress. On her feet she wore sandals and she had even polished her toenails pink sometime during the day. I was in a favorite playsuit of lavender pedal pushers and a matching crop top.
“Can you dress better than that?” she asked me. “I don’t want to stick out so much.”
But this outfit was about as good as it got for me. I told her as much.
“Please, Molly,” Nina implored, lifting one foot and almost stamping it down.
“All right already,” I said. “Don’t go crazy, Nina.”
After I’d slipped on a skirt, she gratefully nodded. Together we emerged from the back bedroom, and as we made our way down the hallway toward the stairs Nina pulled me into the bathroom. She walked straight to a row of shelves by the sink, where she grabbed a tube of lipstick. Even though we’d never done this before it seemed natural enough to round our lips in tomato red then press them together as we’d seen our mothers do.
Our mothers and Bec were in the kitchen having their after-dinner coffee. We could see them as we scrambled down the stairs, but instead of turning their way we turned in the other direction. As we did, Nina let them know that we were on our way out. We’d already stepped onto the porch and into the evening air when I heard my mother calling.
“Molly, let me see you,” she said, and I stopped, mid-porch, annoyed at the delay. Lately she’d been doing this every night: asking to see me before I headed out into the world without her. I didn’t understand what she was looking for. She knew I dressed well enough. And I always remembered to comb my hair. If I’d realized that by giving me a discerning once-over all she was really doing was claiming me as hers for a moment, that this tiresome ritual was actually a part of her love, I might not have minded as much. But I didn’t understand, and the new habit seemed intrusive, ridiculous.
“Here I am,” I said, dashing back, almost scolding her. But when I caught her eye I could see that she was already peering at Nina, standing off to the left, in the dining room, behind me.
“Nina?” Ada said. She shot a look at Vivie and Bec, who then leaned over the kitchen table to better see into the dining room. All three put down their coffee cups.
“Nina,” Vivie called, alarmed by Ada’s tone. “Nina, come here.”
When Nina entered the kitchen a surprised silence took hold. With all eyes on her, Nina stared at the floor as if entranced suddenly by the random flecks of color in the linoleum.
“Honey, look up,” Bec said, her voice calm, encouraging.
Nina slowly raised her head and looked at Bec, who I knew she felt was the least likely of the three to pick faults with her. As she waited for a reaction, she lifted her hand to her hair and needlessly smoothed it.
“That’s quite a fit. Turn, turn. Let me see,” Bec said, gesturing in a circling motion. She was beaming at Nina.
As Nina turned, the others joined in.
“Honestly, I never thought I’d see the day,” Ada said.
“You’re telling me,” Vivie answered, raising her hands and clapping.
“Why so surprised?” Bec asked.
“Why? Why?” said Vivie, turning from Nina to Bec in disbelief.
“The girl has spent the whole summer on the goddamned porch is why,” Ada answered, settling it. “I don’t know about you two,” she added, “but I was beginning to—” My mother paused, fishing for the right word. “Wonder,” she finally said, gravely. She raised her eyebrows and glanced at Vivie, then Bec. Though I had no idea what she’d begun to wonder about, I could see the matter was obvious to them. Catching Bec’s eye, Ada quickly lowered her own. She’d been wondering about Bec, too, the dubious eye movement indicated.
Its implication was not lost on Bec. “Oh, come on,” she snapped. “A girl can like to read and still be a girl. Ada, you just think everyone should be like you were, that’s all. Boy crazy, insane, baking cakes, trying on shoes, you.”
My mother shut up, crossing her arms defensively over her chest, but Vivie suddenly rose, the coffee cups on the table tottering as she did, her chair almost falling backward, and she rushed to the door just off the kitchen, pushing it open while she let loose a quiet but anguished cry. It seemed like a cry she’d held inside for a long time. I wondered if it was the past, referred to in Bec’s comment, or the present that she was wailing over. A minute later she returned, holding a tissue she’d pulled from the pocket of the apron she still wore. She dabbed at her eyes.
“I’m your mother,” she said to Nina, balling the tissue in her hand. “And the truth is, I have been a little worried. Not about, you know—” She glanced Ada’s way, then lowered her eyes just as my mother had before. “Just about you. You getting out a little. Not being, you know, always so inside a book, always so afraid.”
Nina nodded. The conversation had suddenly become an intimate one between just the two of them.
“So?” Nina asked.
“Oh, sweetheart, but it’s good!” Vivie answered, pronouncing the last word just the way her mother, Risel, always had.
Nina broke into a relieved, delighted smile, and she spun around, her arms out wide, her hair lifting off her bare back.
“Now get the hell out of here,” Ada said, yelping as she did and laughing, and pretty soon Vivie and Bec yelped and laughed as well, forming that particular high-spirited chorus of three that I’d heard a million times at least, and it was to this familiar clamor that we took off, out the back this time, past Davy playing jacks by himself on the steps.
Nina and I were still on Merwin Avenue, having only just left the cottage minutes before, when a car, passing us, honked. Then another did. Each of the cars was driven by a teenage boy, someone Howard’s age or close to it. With both honks Nina and I turned to each other, surprised.
We were just rounding the corner to Beach Avenue and nearing Anchor Beach when we were not only honked at but also approached. The car slowed, swerved toward us, and the front-seat passenger leaned his head out the window. “Hey, gorgeous. What’s up?” he called to Nina. This time Nina didn’t turn to me but simply walked on, her head held high. I reached out, instinctively, for Nina’s hand, alarmed by the car’s proximity and by the man—so much older than Howard—leering from the open window. But to my consternation Nina wanted nothing to do with me. She shook herself free of my grip, then put distance between us, at least two strides. “Wait up!” I wailed, and because of my dismay Nina finally stopped and glared at the man in the car, and strangely enough that was all it took to get the driver to gun the engine and drive off.
“Come on, Molly,” she said, laughing and motioning for me to catch up.
As we approached the crowd at Anchor Beach, Nina uncharacteristically strode forward, right into the thick of it. She homed in on Sal’s Good Humor truck, which was drawing its usual profitable after-dinner business. The evening temperature was comfortable, almost cool. The sea breezes, common enough, were noteworthy only for the strange smell they carried, a combination of the salty sea scent and the sweetness of any number of perfumes rising from the bodies of so many girls and young women. When we stopped several yards from Sal’s truck, Nina began scanning the crowd, searching.
“Look!” she said after a moment, pointing to a foursome in the distance that included Howard and Mark Fishbaum. They were standing some distance from us, on the rock outcropping there. Two girls were with them: Megan O’Donnell and another I couldn’t identify.
“So?” I couldn’t see what was so remarkable. Of course Howard would be talking to a girl. And we’d already seen him kiss Megan O’Donnell.
“Oh, nothing,” Nina said. “Just thought you might want to know where Howard was.” But she wasn’t looking at Howard, I saw; she was obviously more interested in Mark.
When my friends Melissa Bornstein and Anna Weiss approached us, we chatted with them until Sal, calling from several yards away, interrupted.
“Jiminy Cricket. Nina Cohen. Is that really you?”
Nina darted toward Sal. Craving an ice cream, I left Melissa and Anna behind too.
“Sweethearts,” Sal said to us, though in fact he pointed only at Nina, who already stood directly in front of him, first in line, aggressively beating out the Weinstein twins. “Hey, hey,” Sal said to calm us all, and then he winked at Nina. She doubled over at the waist, collapsing in an embarrassed but happy fit of laughter. Amused, Sal asked, “What’ll it be tonight, sweet potato?” He puffed his cigar while looking at Nina with a kind of fatherly approval, and it wasn’t lost on me that this far into summer he knew us better than our fathers, in a way that was more like our mothers and Bec. Soon he began to beam, much like Bec had earlier. Finally he said proudly, “You’re some lady, Nina Cohen. I always knew it. Yes, I did.” She collapsed a second time. Once upright, she spun around.
“What’ll it be? Something special? Strawberry?” Sal said this because he knew she always ordered chocolate.
But Nina shook her head; she wasn’t going to eat tonight, she explained, not when the ice cream could melt and drip onto her dress.
I, on the other hand, was eating, and I practically threw my change at Sal.
“Here you go, sweet potato,” he sang, handing me my usual toasted almond. Then he warned, “Don’t drip on her. She’s a real beauty tonight. Molly Leibritsky, you keep your ice cream to yourself.”
From behind us, the Weinstein twins were pushing forward. “Bye-bye, apple pie,” Sal said, winking once more as he waved us off to keep the line moving.
“Bye-bye, apple pie,” we called back, and I added, laughing, “Sal Baby.”
After we’d parted from Sal, Nina was the one to note that Howard and Mark were still talking to Megan and the other girl. From the look on Nina’s face I could see that she was trying to figure how to work her way over toward them. Her arms were crossed, like those of the girl beside Megan, who, even from this distance, looked angry, her arms twisted over her chest, her head turned not toward Howard or Mark but resolutely toward the horizon line. It wasn’t often that someone Irish like Megan spent time at Anchor Beach with someone Jewish like Howard, and I wondered if the girl beside Megan was also Irish.
But my thoughts were interrupted when I suddenly jerked forward, losing the grip on my ice cream. When I spun around to see who had bumped me—it felt deliberate—there was Arthur Weinstein, smirking.
“Hey, sorry,” he said. He glanced from me to my ice cream, melting on the sidewalk.
“Look where you’re going,” I complained.
“Hey, sorry,” he repeated, growing irritated.
“And I said look where you’re going.”
“Well, who are you?” he asked, nearly as hostile now as I was. As he began a mocking imitation of me, empty-handed and upset, his brother Jimmy tried to pull him away.
But Nina stepped in first. “Who the hell are you?” she said, her voice a bark.
Shocked by the sharpness, the twins took off.
Watching them, Nina muttered a contemptuous “Idiots,” then wrapped an arm around my shoulder. But a moment later, her mood brightening, she said, “I know! Let’s go tell Howard.”
It seemed a risky strategy, telling Howard something he was likely to care little about—something about me—but I nevertheless followed Nina. As we approached the foursome I could see that the angry girl, in dungarees and a loose blouse, had unfolded her arms, but her face was still stern. Megan, wearing a floral print skirt, was dressed more specially, almost as nicely as Nina. She wasn’t angry in the least but laughed as she pointed to a majestic sailboat skimming along the horizon.
“Like that?” she was asking as we approached.
“A little smaller,” Howard answered. “Our boat’s a touch smaller.”
The Sailfish was in fact puny.
“Come on,” the girl in pants said to Megan. “We should go home.”
“Already?” Howard asked, his voice anxious.
Nina and I had fully approached them and now stood just outside their circle.
Spotting us, Howard looked surprisingly relieved. “This is my little sister,” he told the girls, pointing at me, grinning. For once my presence was useful to Howard; he could delay Megan’s departure by introducing me. “This is Molly. And this—” He looked at Nina. For a moment he almost lost his footing. “This is my cousin Nina.”
Nina forced a smile, said hello, and glanced at each of the girls. Her gaze, so confident just minutes before, had become more or less focused on the ground, then Mark Fishbaum’s knees, and then his face. “Hi, Mark,” she added coolly, though I knew she felt anything but cool.
“Hey, Nina. Watcha reading?” Mark answered, and both he and Howard chuckled at that.
When Nina dropped her head again, Mark said gently, “Only kidding. Nice dress. Really.”
I could see Nina’s relief. The evening still held promise. She raised her head and gave Mark a flash of a smile. Howard then introduced Megan to us, formally, as if we’d never seen her before, and then he introduced her sister Sheila, the angry one beside her. “This one,” Howard noted, nodding toward Megan, “works with me at Treat’s. She’s the checkout girl.”
Nina and I glanced at each other, clearly wondering why Howard couldn’t remember that we’d all met before.
“We know,” Nina said. She turned to Megan briefly.
“How soon he forgets,” Megan remarked, grinning back at Nina.
“I remember,” Howard snapped, glancing Megan’s way, reddening.
“Did you see what happened to Molly?” The question asked, Nina glanced again at Mark, then at no one in particular.
“What happened?” Howard said, clearly annoyed. He’d never meant for us to actually get involved in the conversation.
Nina caught Howard’s eye and they shared a short, hostile stare-down, the kind they were so prone to at the cottage.
“You didn’t see Arthur Weinstein knock Molly?” Nina finally added.
Before anyone answered, Sheila suddenly turned to Megan, glaring at her. “We should go. Megan, I feel weird,” she said, imploring her sister.
“You go,” Megan said.
“I am,” Sheila answered. She took a few steps but then turned back to say “Bye,” raising her hand in an impulse of manners she apparently couldn’t resist.
“Good riddance,” I heard Megan mutter. To Howard she said, “Sorry about that. I know you worked hard to bring us all together.”
Nina then told them about my ice cream.
“So?” Howard asked. He couldn’t have sounded more indifferent.
But Megan was sympathetic. “That’s a letdown,” she said to me. “Nice dress,” she then told Nina, turning her way.
Nina smiled and Megan smiled back. In a shy voice Nina said, “My aunt made it for me. Can you believe it?”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Howard mumbled, but Nina ignored him.
“She’s a dressmaker,” Nina determinedly explained to Megan. “A very good one. She probably made this in about three days.”
“I made my skirt,” Megan responded. “But it took three weeks, not three days.”
“Nice,” Nina said, more relaxed, even animated. “Hey, you should come over and meet my aunt Bec. She’s working on dresses now. One for my mother, the other for Molly’s.”
“That would be my mother too,” Howard noted with impatience. “And I’ll be the one inviting Megan over.” He looked at her then quickly away. “When the time is right,” he added quietly.
Nina reached out and put a hand on Megan’s arm. “I can be her buddy too,” she said, staring at Howard.
“Are you kidding me?” Howard’s eyes narrowed.
“Girlfriends!” Megan said, willing enough to tease Howard further.
“Exactly,” Nina agreed. “Girlfriends!” With that she took a step closer toward Megan then carefully placed her arm over Megan’s shoulder.
Scowling, Howard looked from Megan to Mark to me and then to Nina.
“Dyke,” he finally muttered her way.
The word was spoken quietly, but we all heard it clearly enough.
Nina froze. As she lifted her arm off Megan, so much faster than she’d placed it there, she turned pink, first in the face, then along her neck and exposed chest.
“Howard,” Megan said. “That’s disgusting!”
“Yeah, Howard. Low blow,” Mark added.
I remained quiet, uncertain what the word meant.
When Nina spoke, her voice was tense and shrill. “You don’t deserve her. What you deserve, Howard, is a paper doll!” Her voice cracked on “doll” and her eyes began to tear.
“Oh, come on,” Howard said, still annoyed but trying, too, to calm her. He approached Nina, touching her flaming cheeks, and said sweetly, “Laugh, Nina, laugh. I know you want to.” He repeated into her ear, “Laugh, Nina, laugh,” many times over until she was both crying and hiccupping with unwanted laughter. This was one of Howard’s tricks: he could make you crack up just when you wanted to kill him. Obviously if you laughed you weren’t feeling bad anymore, he seemed to figure. But what he didn’t grasp, I knew from my own experience, was that the forced and unwanted laughter made you feel completely out of control.
I stepped toward Nina and touched her arm to comfort her. Unlike earlier in the evening, she didn’t mind my touch this time; she even stepped toward me.
She was laughing and crying, though she didn’t want to be doing either. All she wanted, I thought, was a response from Mark like she’d gotten from everyone else that night: Sal, the men who’d passed us by as we walked to Anchor Beach, our mothers and Bec.
But then, as if they had a will of their own, Nina’s eyes turned curiously away from Mark and toward Megan.
“Come on!” she called, her face burning even more intensely. Whatever her eyes were seeking, she clearly wasn’t ready for it. She grabbed my arm as she turned herself around.
I followed her as she walked, slowly at first, as controlled as she could be, away from Mark, Howard, and Megan, and then, picking up the pace, toward home. When Nina finally caught sight of our cottage, she broke into a full-fledged bawl and began to run.
“Nina!” I called, chasing her. “Nina!”
But she didn’t turn and wait. Rather, she ran full speed, past and around a series of neighbors’ cottages, up our front steps, and, just as she was about to open the screen door, she ran right into it when my mother happened to open it a second before. In the time we’d been away the three women had moved from the kitchen table to the front porch, and Ada was bringing her sisters a freshly made pot of coffee.
When Nina hit the door, her forehead banging into it right along its edge, her dark hair rising from the back of her head, my mother let loose the pot of coffee, which landed just off the porch in the bushes. Her hands free, my mother caught in them a spiraling, screaming Nina.
By the time I caught up and climbed the stairs, the others were on their feet, all of them surrounding Nina, holding her up, lifting her chin in their hands.
“Dear God,” Ada said. “Dear God.”
There was blood trickling down Nina’s forehead, then down her face, and finally splattering on the collar of the jacket and the front of her dress.
“Let me see,” Vivie called. Then she too said, “Dear God.”
Bec was the one to suggest they go immediately to the house four doors away where a doctor was renting for the week with his family.
One of them could have run and gotten the doctor to come to us, but in their haste and confusion they simply began to drag Nina along with them, Ada repeating, “Dear God,” and Vivie whispering in Nina’s ear, “Hold on, sweetheart. You’re going to be just fine. Just fine.” Bec raced ahead to tell the doctor they were coming.
As they helped Nina down the steps, my mother called to me, standing in shock on the porch, “Molly, watch your little brother.”
I nodded. I was sure she’d turn around as she headed off just to note my presence, as always. For once I wanted her to give me that stare. But she didn’t turn. She didn’t even call back to see if I’d heard. Instead, she held Nina by one arm while Vivie held her by the other, and they proceeded to guide her toward the doctor’s cottage.
Soon they were out of sight. Even so, I could still hear Nina’s horrifying scream, as if it hadn’t stopped yet, and I could still see her head smacking against the door’s edge, and the bruise on her forehead that had formed almost instantly, a large bump, and most of all the spill of blood trickling down her face, soiling the delicate flowers and pale yellow of her dress.
Though queasy, I managed to open the door, which had long since slammed shut, and stumbled into the living room. Something had happened to me too, it seemed: my head was spinning, my legs buckling.
I lay on the sofa a long time, alternating between closing my eyes and keeping them open. Either way, though, I kept seeing the blood, and the sickening spinning in my head and the roiling in my stomach didn’t cease.
It seemed like ages had passed when Davy wandered into the living room. He found me lying there and wormed his way onto the couch by lifting my feet and sliding under them.
“Hey,” I said weakly. My feet were in his lap and I tried to kick him, a friendly hello, but didn’t have the strength. “Where you been?”
“Out back,” he said, too calm to have been aware of what had happened. He was speaking in puppet talk, in the voice of Samson Bagel, whom he was wearing on one hand. “What’s wrong?” he asked when, after he jiggled my legs, I only lay there, unmoving.
“Nina got hurt,” I answered and then began to cry.
When I’d recovered some, Davy asked, still through the persona of Samson Bagel, “Is she dead?”
“Maybe.” At that my eyes welled again. “Maybe not,” I finally added. “I think she’s not, but maybe she is. She got really, really hurt.”
Davy didn’t say anything for a moment. “What do we do now?” he asked. This time he used his real voice.
“We’re supposed to stay here and wait,” I told him, and that’s what we did. For two hours, Davy and I stayed on the couch. The waning evening light grew gradually dimmer and finally we waited in silence and in the dark. I lay there the whole time, my head slowly regaining its equilibrium, my feet nicely raised by Davy when he’d slid under them. Davy sat patiently, moving only occasionally to lift his left hand and glance at Samson Bagel. Even when we sat in complete darkness, just the moonlight through the windows lending a touch of illumination, he didn’t squirm or ask me for anything.
At long last Nina returned, her head successfully stitched and bandaged. Vivie and Bec helped her out of her bloodstained dress and into her summer nightgown while Ada warmed a glass of milk, which Nina was urged to drink while lying in bed. All three of them sat on the edges of our sofa bed as Nina and I settled under the blanket. Both of us, but especially Nina, were blanketed as well by consoling touches from everyone surrounding us.
That’s when I sensed something I hadn’t before: that I needed them, that I couldn’t be me, the person only I spoke to, a quiet patter in my head, a near vision when in the dry upstairs tub—I couldn’t be me, her, without them. Just then, as I stared at all of them and then at Nina, that steady sense I had of myself disappeared, the voice I knew so well quieted, and I didn’t know anymore where I began or ended. For the moment it seemed I’d lost my boundaries, that I extended all the way into each of them, that Nina’s felling had been my felling and that Ada, Vivie, and Bec’s words and soothing pats were my words and pats.
Even Davy’s gestures seemed as much my own as his. With Samson Bagel raised high on his hand he had him doing a kind of dance, waving him back and forth, like a hypnotist’s pendulum, in front of Nina’s face. “All better now,” a comforting Samson Bagel chanted with each move. “All better now, you sleepyhead.”