1987

In the remaining time she spent in high school, there were more boys. Each time the story followed the familiar plot: Alison wasn’t interested; Alison found herself compelled to comply. During these years, she swam through familiar, murky waters: her teenage self, crying the same agony as the infant, both of them passed hand to hand to hand, taken, voiceless, both of them wishing to be held close to a heart that beat in some sort of rhythm they recognized as home. Each boy affirmed that there was something about her that rendered her not worthy. She was worth having, but not keeping. She was stuck in the swirl of the start of her story, of what came before the Happily Ever After, every time wishing for a different ending, for someone to rescue her and carry her home. To try to earn this, she was driven to work harder, to prove her goodness. On the outside, she made good grades, graduated high school, started college. On the inside, she pushed down the part of herself that she believed demonstrated the filth of where she was from. For months at a time, she smoked and drank and fed herself whatever she wanted. Dad finally mentioned her weight. She kept the cigarettes, the beer, ditched the food: one salad every two days until she garnered his praise again. Back and forth, like a tide, between the fat girl and the thin, the good one and the bad.

~

She still fought to drown this awful part of herself throughout her freshman year in college, at a small, private university half an hour from their house. Dad had refused her requests to return to Scotland, refused to pay for her to go further afield. She did as she was told.

In May, she returned for the summer to the brick ranch and to Mum and Dad, outwardly slim and perfect. Soon after, Dad returned from somewhere. A kiss on the cheek as he held the mail in his hand. Bills first, then the handwritten one: an invitation to a law-school graduation party for the son of one of his bosses.

“We’ll all go,” he waved the invitation at her.

“Dad, that’s weird. You and Mum go. I don’t know anyone.”

“You’ll meet people. Networking. It won’t be long before you’ll be looking for a real job. Never too early to make contacts.”

~

The house and the people and the day were a twin of a party they’d all gone to that first summer. Alison had felt out of place, awkward, her accent too pronounced, her clothing wrong. Though her accent had softened and her clothes came from American stores, she still felt not worthy of these shimmering people who lived behind the gates of their community on the lake as she smiled and shook hands and sipped. An hour passed. She headed inside, seeking the refuge of the bathroom.

When she came out, a tall, slim, tanned man stood by the window in the living room. Wade Earley—she’d met him at that first party. Then, she’d been a child and he a young adult.

“Alison, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Wade,” he said.

“I remember.” Now, he seemed somehow closer to her age. So much had happened to her, she had aged faster than he.

She couldn’t believe Wade remembered her. Wade, who belonged in that perfect house with its white columns on the front porch and the sloping lawn that led to the lapping waters of the lake. His gray-green eyes caught the sunlight. His slender fingers, the color of honey, in hers as they shook hands. She felt comfortable, safe, almost the way she’d once felt with her hand in Vic’s. She wanted to hold on.

High ceilings. The fan turning slowly. The gaping maw of the fireplace, and above it, a cracked oil painting of a two-story brick house, long columns from porch to roof.

“Mama’s family’s house. What she left in Louisiana.” He smiled. “They came over at the start of it all, she reminds us.”

Alison thought of the long line of them marching through history. Wade’s father, a judge. Alison felt tiny there in front of the fireplace: a wee bastard who’d let herself be taken by just about anyone who tried, a bedraggled mongrel who should have been waiting at the back door. Her chin tucked itself down; her eyes lowered.

“Sit,” he said. It seemed like a gracious invitation. He did not tell her that he’d recently broken up with the woman he’d dated through college, law school, and his first two years as a lawyer, and whom everyone thought he’d marry. His mother, Isadora, had been furious. It was this woman’s younger brother they celebrated that afternoon. Isadora had finagled having the party at her house to try to orchestrate a reconciliation.

On the table, a neat stack of books: Louisiana in pictures, a Photographic History of New Orleans.

“It’s like she never left,” Wade joked. “She’s always talking about going back. About how sophisticated New Orleans is. Enough about her, though. What about you? You’re in college?”

“Yes.”

“Studying what?”

“Studio art.” She glanced down. She hadn’t told Dad yet. He wanted her to study law or business or engineering.

“I always wanted—” he began. The opening of the door, a slight twist of Wade’s head, the waft of Isadora’s sweet scent ahead of her.

“Wade.” Isadora’s voice was low and smooth. “Are you forgetting our guests?”

“This is one of our guests.”

Isadora turned to Alison, offered a closed-lip smile. “Are you one of the graduates?”

“No.” She was supposed to say ‘ma’am’, but it still felt foreign. The best she could do was heed Dad’s admonishment to make eye contact. Isadora’s eyes, the same as Wade’s, and the perfectly straight nose, her face a feminized version of her son’s: regal. “I’m at Holette.”

“Isn’t that nice? Can I get you a refreshment?” She took Alison by the elbow, steered her away. “Do attend to our other guests, Wade.” A simple request, to be polite. She and Wade knew it meant more.

~

At home, after Mum and Dad went to bed, Alison snuck a cigarette on the deck. She inhaled, looked to the sky, thought of Vic, who had written only twice this past year. She seemed to have been drifting into her own universe since she’d finished school. As always, Vic knew what she wanted and seemed to be getting it, playing bass and singing in a band, steady gigs in Glasgow. Her last letter mentioned a tour further afield. She was busy. Too busy, Alison was sure, for a girl she’d once shared a single bed with in a tiny room in a tenement flat.

In the morning, the phone rang. Mum, sunning herself on the deck, and Alison, hiding in her room, ignored it.

“For God’s sake answer that,” Mum shouted.

Alison sighed, lifted the receiver.

“Hey. Alison? It’s Wade Earley.”

Silence. Why would he call? Had she left something at the party?

“From the party?” he said.

“Yes. Of course. Hi. Sorry.”

“How’s your summer going?”

“Good?” A fizz of anxiety started in her stomach.

“You don’t sound sure.”

“No. Yes. It’s good.”

She will not recall what else he said, only that there were a few minutes during which she held the phone anxiously, waiting for him to say what it was that she’d left behind. He had to ask her twice if she wanted to go out. She thought she’d misunderstood the first time.

~

An art opening: quirky, mixed media installations. The press of the crowd. Wade’s long fingers reaching for hers.

“Did I guess well?” He asked.

“Yes.” Alison’s cheeks heated.

“I was hoping,” he squeezed her hand, like a father might squeeze his daughter’s on the way into the circus. Alison felt only the sureness of it. “I didn’t get to ask you about what kind of art you like.”

“I like this.” They stood in front of a sculpture: a woman emerging from a mountain as though she was part of it, hair like rivers, reaching skyward. Stone and fabric and feathers, earth and water and sky at the same time.

“I always wanted to be part of the art crowd in undergrad,” he said. “Grew my hair out, bought different clothes.”

Alison took him in, with his closely cropped hair, neatly pressed khaki trousers.

“Didn’t you want to be a lawyer?”

“I wanted both. I wanted it all,” he turned to her. “Maybe I still do.” He did not say that he’d gone to the shows, the galleries, hadn’t wanted to be just another face in the crowd. The political science events were less colorful, but he held the audience there.

Out into the evening air, the sun lowering. Just their footsteps on the street. She’d hardly said a word. The familiar paralysis gripping her, only this time, she wasn’t sure if it was from fear or awe.

Street-side café. One of the first at the beginning of the town’s rebirth. Dessert and coffee. Not the drink she’d expected, but then, she wasn’t yet old enough to drink legally and he was a lawyer.

Under the porch light, a gentle, hesitant, kiss.

~

He almost didn’t bother with the kiss. She’d said so little the whole evening that he thought she didn’t like him. His light had been dimmed again, overpowered by the pull of the art. Why had she even gone out with him in the first place? He was equal parts angered and intrigued as he drove away.

He was also the youngest of four boys who had to fight for everything he wanted as a child. His brothers had nicknamed him the Little General, this boy who had learned to pick himself up and get what he wanted, one way or another. Although he didn’t consciously recognize it, he’d called the Little General forward when he kissed her, and again the next day when he called and asked her out again. One way or another, he would have her.

She managed to make a few sentences that time, to smile; he noted a hint of admiration in those dark eyes of hers.

Two weeks later, on a camping trip with ‘the boys’, he hiked out to call her.

He took her on a hike, offering her fresh terrain.

Another art show.

More hikes.

He seemed to understand everything that was dear to her, without her even saying. Daily calls. A hand-picked flower dropped off at her part-time job at the university gallery, waiting when she got there. He came to meet Mum and Dad. Mum’s hand lingered awkwardly long when he shook it; Dad beamed.

By October, Alison was staying at Wade’s place more often than her dorm. This continued through spring and into a summer class in metalwork that Alison hadn’t been able to fit into her regular schedule. After the last exam, Wade stood in the parking lot.

“I have a surprise for you,” he said. “At my place.”

A dusky-blue silk dress on the bed.

“Try it on,” he said. “I want to show you off downtown. Enjoy a last night with you before I give you back to your parents.” He grinned.

A fine dinner and a stroll on his arm. He whisked her home at dusk, unzipping her dress before the door was fully open. She moved with him, a kind of dance. She’d learned by then the moves that pleased him, and what to do to imply that he, too, pleased her.

In the dark after, she watched the outline of him beside her. She settled her head on his chest. In the morning, he shifted, turned to her, pulled her close, kissed her forehead. Safe, here. A Handsome Boy. He seemed to believe she was a Beautiful Girl.

~

The sun streaming through the kitchen windows. Dad in China. Mum’s note still on the kitchen table from last night. Alison had heard her stumble in just before dawn. Alison had been home for a week.

Eggs in the pan, fried, with a tomato, like Papa used to make. A seat at the table. Quiet.

The ring of the phone startled her. Broad Glaswegian down the line, still so familiar, she didn’t register that it was from three thousand miles away.

“Is your Mum in?”

“She’s indisposed at the minute. Can I take a message?”

“Indisposed? Could she possibly become disposed? It’s urgent.”

Down the hall, just one step into the darkened room. “A man is on the phone. He says it’s urgent.”

Mum sat up, her face lined by the pillow, hair rumpled, lipstick smeared. She lifted the phone; Alison headed for the kitchen to listen in. Halfway down the hall, she heard Mum let out a small cry, then mumble something. By the time Alison got to the kitchen, it was over.

Mum staggered through: a glass, a cube of ice, and so on, then back to the phone. Alison gathered that she was looking for Dad. She didn’t have a number for him. Apparently, his secretary wouldn’t give it.

Mum stalked back down the hall. “Passport,” she said. “Where the hell did he put them?”

“What’s happening?” Alison asked.

“I’m looking for my passport, obviously,” Mum said.

“Why?”

“To go home. Your father hides everything.”

“Mum?” Alison said, and then silenced herself as Mum upended files in the top of his closet, strode back down the hall and out to the garage. She returned with a hatchet. Alison pressed her back against the wall as Mum hacked at Dad’s locked rolltop desk. Alison remained frozen, afraid to say anything lest Mum might turn in her direction. Mum paused, lifted the passport, threw it on the bed, and then attacked the chest of drawers, her rage not yet spent.

The ring of the phone gave Alison reason to move.

“Mum,” Alison said. “Mum! It’s Dad’s secretary.”

Mum paused, hatchet in hand, red-faced and breathless. She took the phone, listened, then hung it up. “I have to take you as well.” Her face crumpled. She dropped the hatchet, sank to the floor. “My daddy’s dead.”

The air seemed to leave the room. Alison went to Mum, gathered her in her arms, helped her up, handed her the gin.

Dad’s secretary booked the flights. Alison packed, called Wade, pretended not to notice Mum whispering on a phone call of her own.

They left the hatchet and splintered roll-top desk and chest of drawers as they were. Alison drove to the airport, checked them in.

As they rose into the air, what had happened began to sink in. Eyes closed, the memories swirled: Papa at the beach explaining the tides, giving her the compass, the morning she thought he didn’t want her. His hands on the teapot that first night she and Vic stayed in Glasgow. And then to herself and Vic, in that twin bed, limbs entwined, lip to forbidden lip. She leaned her head against the window, left Mum to her gin and tonic, to flirting with the flight attendant. She recalled Vic’s voice like a patter of gentle, soothing rain. For the first time in a long while, she dared to allow herself to imagine being side by side with Vic again.