At last, Plum had become the daughter her parents wanted her to be—responsible, settled, successful in her own way, a model her parents could even hold up to wayward cousins and neighbors’ children. She had gone on to become a specialist in blood banking, and worked now in a university lab alongside a team of researchers studying cancers of the blood. Plum had done better than her parents ever imagined and her success had earned her a belated gift: a family trip at her parents’ expense to Disney World.
The congress of six—Plum’s parents, Nia and Vivian, Plum and Alan—sat now in the resort’s lounge area, three of the four adults cooling coffee, Plum sipping tea and the six-year-old girls, who were too anxious to eat or drink, bouncing from chair to chair. Plum and the girls wore Minnie Mouse ears, and the girls had matching tutus. To see Plum then, relaxed, teasing her daughters, it was hard to imagine that she had fought vociferously against the trip, against her parents’ gift, against the premise of princesses and unrelenting beauty and magic and fairy dust that turned evil into good. Underneath it all, Plum was against pushing on the girls the idea of a happily ever after and setting them up for the ultimate heartbreak.
Plum would have preferred a Caribbean vacation, a week on either her island or Alan’s—Barbados—or even another place altogether that was wholly new to them. She would have preferred a few days on a rustic family farm, a hike up a riverside to the place where the water emerged from the ground. Ultimately, Plum wanted her girls to learn early on that life sometimes disappointed. And she wanted the girls to have the tools to deal with their disappointments, whether the loss of a playground game or an early love or failure to achieve a dream.
But now Plum smiled and pretended that she hadn’t objected at all, pretended that the magic of Alice’s Wonderland or Cinderella’s Castle was true to their lives. To soften it, they planned the trip around a fiftieth anniversary celebration in nearby Kissimmee for Alan’s grandparents.
In truth what Plum’s objection hid was the stark reality that her life revolved around three distinct buckets: the twin girls, Alan, and her work. She had come back from her last trip to Jamaica, the disappointment of Anchovy, with a keen focus on mattering, on not being a person so easily discarded and left behind. Plum hadn’t let up at all. She became the perfect wife, mother, daughter, and employee, anticipating everyone’s needs and meeting them, and setting aside her own.
Outside the peach walls, the heat was like a thermal blanket they couldn’t remove. Plum scrunched her face against the sun and sought a bit of shade. But the girls would have none of it. They ran to the car, spreading their enthusiasm like pixie dust on the adults, an enthusiasm that didn’t let up throughout the entire afternoon in the park.
Later, when the girls were sufficiently tired and morphing into alternate versions of themselves, fiends really, Alan and Plum slipped out of the rented townhouse for the anniversary party in a beachfront mansion.
“I have a surprise,” he said.
“I’m too tired for surprises.” Plum flipped the passenger mirror and looked at the made-up alternate version of herself.
“You’ll love this one.”
“What is it?”
“I got us a hotel room. It will be just you and me without the girls.”
“No, no, no, no, no. No. Cancel it.”
“You need it. We need it.”
“Cancel it,” she said again.
“One night, Plum. You think the girls can’t live without you for one night? You think your parents will run off with them?”
One, two. One, two. Plum concentrated on breathing, stemming the panic rising in her. “You’ll never understand.”
“They’re not babies anymore. You have to let them grow.”
Words mixed up and tumbled around her mind. Plum was quiet for much too long, picturing the sleeping girls in one room and her parents in another, also asleep. The moment lengthened and Plum missed yet another opportunity to tell Alan about how she lost the other baby and why even now after six years she hadn’t left the girls alone for even a single night.
“The girls will be all right.” Alan stopped the car, and held her chin. “You decide. We’re going in or going back to the house?”
“Let’s go in. We’ve come this far.”
Plum’s legs trembled, and outside the car, she reached for Alan’s arm to steady her gait. The din of laughter and voices carried through the beachfront mansion. In one corner was a caricature artist, and in another was a jazz pianist whose music rose and fell like waves in the background, a splash of sound and a shush repeating. The long room dripped with red and gold highlights.
Plum stood on an upper landing, looking down on the vibrant party, at the beaded cocktail dresses shimmering under the light, organza and silk fluttering without a breeze, and at the costumed mime artists serving hors d’oeuvres and teasing the guests. Everywhere there was something red: neck ties, roses, napkins, drapes. The party was perfect, more extravagant than she would have imagined.
Alan came up beside her, resting his arms on the banister and leaning forward. “Imagine us,” he whispered.
Plum smiled. “When I think of myself, the picture in my head is me at twenty. So I can’t even picture myself that old.”
“I know.” He paused. “Let’s dance.”
Plum caught his hand and moved down the stairs, slowly, cautiously, allowing her body to move to the beat. She hadn’t danced in public in years, not since her wedding nearly eight years earlier.
“Relax,” Alan whispered in her ear. “The girls are all right.”
“I should call,” she said.
“No. They’re all right. After today, they’re fast asleep.”
“Yes,” Plum said. Silently she repeated his words, “The girls are all right. Nia and Vivian are all right.” She closed her eyes and willed it to be true and to remain true. She imagined them in the morning running back to her, throwing their arms and legs around her, branding her as theirs and she doing the same. There was a way to truly live without her. Plum simply had to embrace what she had, Alan and Nia and Vivian, and believe that the way her life had turned out was exactly the way it was meant to be. It would have to be sufficient.