11:30 A.M.
In my mother’s family, divorce is just a seven-letter word. Letters that could easily be replaced with I’m bored or bad luck. Both of her parents married three times. My grandfather Amory, who built the Paper Palace, lived in his house on the pond until the day he died, chopping wood in his hiking boots, fishing, canoeing, watching the changing ecosystem of the pond. He tracked the water lilies, the great blue herons, counted painted turtles basking on the tree trunks that rotted and grayed in the shallows. Wives moved in and out, but the pond remained his. He had found it, stumbled out of the deep woods with his hunting rifle at the age of eighteen, found the pure fresh water, its white sandy bottom, and drunk from it. When he died, Grandfather Amory left his house to Pamela, his third and final wife. She alone had proved herself worthy of it, understood its powerful hold, its soul—the religion of the Pond. The Paper Palace he left to Mum. Her brother Austin, who had never left Guatemala, wanted nothing to do with it. But to Mum, it was everything.
On the wall of my office at NYU there’s a black-and-white photograph of my mother as a young girl in Guatemala. My office is a hoarder’s paradise—books falling off the shelves, desk piled high with graduate theses, pencil stubs, Comp Lit papers to be graded, a depressing, old-womanish avocado plant I am forced to keep because Maddy “made” it for my birthday when she was six. The only clean spaces are the white walls, entirely bare except for that single photograph. In the photo, my mother is sitting astride a palomino horse. She has long braids and wears an embroidered peasant blouse, blue jeans rolled up at the cuff, leather huaraches. She is fifteen. Behind her, a young boy dressed in white walks down the dusty road pushing a wooden wheelbarrow; open fields stretch toward lava cliffs in the rugged foothills of a shrouded volcano. In one hand, my mother holds the burnished horn of her Western saddle. In the other, a single ear of corn. She is smiling at the camera, relaxed, happy—a looseness and freedom I have never seen on her face. Her teeth are white and straight.
She told me the photo was taken by the handsome gardener, that the little boy was his son; that seconds after the picture was taken, the boy nicked the horse with his cart and the horse bolted, galloped across the field and threw her, breaking her arm and two ribs. She never got back on a horse. The following fall, my mother left Guatemala for a posh New England boarding school, where she played in tennis whites and had chapel every morning. She never looked back.
I have always loved that photo. It reminds me of Michelangelo’s David: a split second carved in eternal time, the instant before the throw—right before everything changes; the randomness of the things that lead us to turn left, or right, or simply sit down on a dusty road and never move forward again. That boy, that cart, that horse, that fall, my mother’s choice to leave Guatemala, come back to the woods—gave me the pond.
From the porch, I watch Finn and Maddy flopping about in the shallows. Maddy points to something moving near the lily pads. Finn takes a step backward, but Maddy takes his hand, maternal. “It’s okay. Water snakes are harmless,” I hear her say. They watch its little black head making its ticktack S curves through the reeds. “Look! Minnows,” Finn says, and they disappear under the water together. The bright yellow tips of their snorkels plow figure eights on the surface.
“Has anyone seen my dark glasses?” My mother wanders out to the porch from the kitchen. “I know I left them on the bookshelf. Someone must have moved them.”
“They’re right here. On the table,” I say. “Exactly where you left them.”
“I’m going next door. I promised Pamela I’d bring over a jar of milk and two eggs.”
“You should have asked Peter to pick up groceries for her.”
“Hardly. Anyone with sense knows to avoid your husband like the plague when smoke starts coming out of his ears. But you, Eleanor, insist on wading in with a match and setting everyone’s hair on fire. I am removing myself, with my jar of milk and my parcel of eggs. I’ll be back when you and your husband have stopped acting like infants in front of your children. You should try not to be so impossible, dear. He’s a good man. A reasonable man. You’re lucky to have him.”
“I know.”
“And take something for that hangover,” Mum says. “You’re positively green around the gills. There’s ginger ale in the icebox.”
My mother has always had a mini-crush on Peter. She’s not wrong. He’s a wonderful man. A towering hickory. Gentle but never weak. The strength of rivers. Opinionated, thoughtful, thought-provoking. A sexy English accent. He makes us laugh. He adores me. He adores his children. And I adore him right back, with a love as deep and strong as tree roots. There are times when I want to tear him limb from limb, but that’s probably the definition of marriage. Toilet paper can lead to World War III.
My mother disappears into the trees at the far end of our beach, egg basket in one hand, jar of milk in the other. Three minutes later, I can hear her calling “Yoo-hoo!” as she emerges from the woods onto my grandfather’s property. He has been dead for many years, but it will always be his house. A screen door opens, shuts, a garbled laugh, Pamela saying, “Oh my!” Although Pamela is a decade older, she and my mother are close friends. “She’s practically the only person I can bear in these woods anymore,” Mum says. “Though it would be restful if she ever wore a color other than purple. And you’d think she invented botulism, the way she cooks. I found a piece of blue cheese in her icebox that turned out to be butter. Everyone says Daddy died from old age, but I suspect she may have poisoned him by mistake.”
There’s the sound of gravel and sand, Peter’s car pulling in. I brace myself for whatever is coming. Everything? Nothing? Something in between? This powerless moment. Not knowing what to expect. I hear him walking down the path toward me and my stomach does a slight free fall. I turn my back to the screen door, settle my body into a neutral position on the sofa, and pick up my book so he won’t be able to read me, either. It’s all judo. But he heads past the porch and walks down toward the cabins.
“Jack, open up!” He bangs on the cabin door. “Out. Now.”
I turn around and try to read Peter’s face from where I’m sitting. Jack emerges and sits down beside his father on the steps. I can’t hear them, but I see Peter talking emphatically, Jack listening with a sullen glare, then bursting into laughter. My entire body unclenches in relief. My husband and my tall, lanky son get up and walk toward me. They are both smiling.
“Have you calmed down a bit, missus?” Peter reaches into his pocket for his cigarettes, pats down his pockets for a lighter. “I’ve brought you your sheepish son. He understands that he behaved like a little shit and must never, ever speak to his mother that way again. Apologize to your mother.” He ruffles Jack’s hair.
“Sorry, Mom.”
“And . . .” Peter prompts.
“And I will never, ever speak to you like that again,” Jack says.
Peter takes me by both hands and pulls me up off the sofa. “Cheer up, grumpy. See? Your son loves you. Now—beach-ward?” He goes to the porch door and yells to Maddy and Finn. “Oi! Out of the pond. We’re leaving in five minutes.”
They splash each other and duck under the water, ignoring him.
“So, can I take the car?” Jack asks.
“In your dreams, mate.”
“Then can you at least drop me off at Sam’s house?”
Two seconds, and already Jack has reverted to entitled teenager being unfairly denied his rights. It should rile me. But in this moment, when my heart is spinning off its axis, his utter predictability is a life preserver. I turn my cheek toward him. “Kiss, please, you pill.”
He gives me a reluctant peck, but I know he loves me.
Peter looks at his watch. “Crap. We’re incredibly late. Round up your kittens, Elle. I’ll load the car. Jack, call Sam and tell him to pick you up at the end of the road in ten minutes.”
I yell to Finn and Maddy and head down the path to the bathroom. The gummed-up ziplock bag with all our sun block in it has mysteriously vanished. I know I left it in the pantry yesterday. I yank open the wide bottom drawer of the built-in linen closet where my mother shoves anything she finds lying around the house that she deems unsightly. It is there, of course, along with a pair of Maddy’s flip-flops I’ve been looking for and a damp bathing suit of Peter’s that now has that forgotten-in-the-washing-machine-for-three-days stench of mildew. Buried at the bottom of the drawer is a large red-plaid thermos my mother has had since I was younger than Maddy. Once upon a time, it had a chic, beige plastic coffee cup that fit snugly onto the top. I unscrew the stopper and give the thermos a sniff. It has probably been twenty years since my mother used it, yet the faintest smell of stale coffee still lingers in its hard-plastic walls. I rinse it out, fill it from the bathtub tap, take a sip. The water has the slightly metallic taste of pipes. I need ice.
At the end of the path I stop for a moment, watching my lovely husband rounding the corner with three boogie boards on his head, a pile of towels under his arm, the children nipping at his heels. I do not deserve him.
“Peter,” I call out.
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
“Of course you do, you silly git.”