43
I move through Sunday like I’m moving through Vaseline, slow and murky. There’s a heaviness to every step I take; I am the opposite of carbonated. Flat.
We go to my dad and Libby’s for lunch, and he knows the minute he sees me. I go in for the long hug and wish I knew him well enough that I could cry. This is a whole new kind of grief, something beautiful that had to be killed.
“Just the four of you?” Linda asks when we get to the boathouse for our canoe trip. I’m not sure what she sees on my face, but she backpedals. “Well, great! Let’s get you guys out there!”
Greer steps forward and takes her paddle and mine.
“Come on, Mom, it’ll be fun,” says Iris.
“Of course!” I say. “Let’s go!” Exclamation points are false enthusiasm, but I’m taking my cue from Linda. Today they’re the only enthusiasm I have. We paddle out, and I am on autopilot. I say all the things I always say. I comment about the light breeze. I smile at Iris when she makes a joke about Cliffy’s flip-flops, even though I’m not sure it was nice.
“Mom, you look like you’ve gotten a little tan,” Iris says.
“Yeah, looks good,” agrees Greer.
“Thank you,” I say, and keep rowing. I’m trying not to look at the inn as we go. I don’t want to look up at the widow’s walk where I might as well be confined to pacing for the rest of my life, a newly tragic figure gazing at the horizon. All the times I looked up there and felt my own longing, I really had no idea what love could be. And now I can never unknow the truest true thing—the intensity of the love you feel will match the intensity of its loss. This is practically physics.
“Mom,” Cliffy’s saying. “Want to do Fancy’s crazy dinner tonight? What’s the game called?”
“Mystery Dinner,” says Greer. “No. Let’s barbecue a pizza. I saw it on YouTube.”
“It’s too late to make a crust,” I say, watching Pelican Island appear behind her head.
“I’ll ride my bike to get one when we get home,” says Iris. All of my alarm bells go off. My children are complimenting me and offering to do errands. My poor kids.
“That sounds great,” I say. “Let’s eat it down by the creek! Cliffy, we need to work on your footbridge.”
Camp’s over so the girls sleep late on Monday. I leave them a note and take Cliffy to the diner for pancakes before I do the books. Marco walks out from the kitchen with Theo on his hip.
“How are you cooking back there with a baby in your arms?” I ask.
“It’s not easy and probably not entirely safe,” he says. “I have the playpen, but he lost his mind when Frannie left.”
“Where’d she go?” I ask.
“She had to go to the inn. Again. Harold forgot to schedule the laundry service, so there are no clean towels.”
I reach my arms out and he hands Theo to me. I balance him on my lap and he grabs Cliffy’s nose. The laundry service is on the checklist I sent him. “Frannie thinks they should sell,” he says. “The Beekman offer is still good.”
“No.” It comes out of my mouth so fast and so emphatically that I feel my face go hot. I don’t want someone to buy it and change it or, God forbid, tear it down. But more than that, it’s an open door for Ethan to walk through, a reason for him to come back here. I try to change course. “Sounds like a mess.”
“Speaking of a mess,” he says, “I talked to Scooter this morning.” My stomach clenches. I want to hear every word that’s about to come out of his mouth. And also I don’t. I’m not sure I can temper my reaction in front of Cliffy.
I nod my head toward Cliffy to caution Marco against saying too much. “Oh?”
“Is he coming back?” asks Cliffy. “I still have his skateboard and we were going to do pirate things.”
“Yes,” Marco says. “And he says he’s called you a few times?”
“I’ve been busy,” I say.
“Doing what?” Cliffy asks.
“I don’t know,” I say. I’ve been trying to refocus on the reality I had before I met him. My kids, my dog, and Phyllis. I’ve been compulsively deadheading the geraniums in my backyard to summon my mother’s comfort. “The usual stuff.”