Nancy

This year, Nancy’s the one who’s not sure she wants to go to Maine. More and more of her time has been taken up with the war effort: making socks for the boys, canning vegetables and preserves, and now, in the spring, she’s just gotten her Victory Garden going. If they leave for three months, her garden will be decimated. Sure, she could hire a local boy to come by and help out, but it won’t be the same. It all seems too much. To use up all that gas just to sit in the sun and spend the summer enjoying themselves—it doesn’t seem right.

I’m in awe of your mother, she says to Beatrix one afternoon in the kitchen as she’s making the biscuits for dinner. Bea is at the table, working on her French homework. Look at her, Nancy says. Working multiple jobs as well as driving the ambulance. Bea raises her eyebrows. I suppose, she says. But Mrs. G, she doesn’t have a house to run like you do. You do so much: cooking and cleaning for us all, giving parties for the faculty. Your ladies’ group. The war effort. You’re the center of almost everything.

Oh, nonsense, she says, but she’s pleased. She suspects the boys never notice how hard she works. We women are always the ones in the middle, the caretakers. She lowers her voice. Not where I thought I’d end up, I’ll just say that. Bea cocks her head in confusion. I grew up in quite a fancy house, with maids and butlers and all that, Nancy says. Well, you see it, don’t you, at Aunt Sarah’s in New York. Yes, Bea says, they live quite differently than we do. That’s how I was brought up, too, Nancy says. But when I married Father, well, that life was no longer possible. But this house, Bea says. This mess of a house? Nancy says, shaking her head. It’s practically falling down around us. It belongs to the school, my dear. When we’re all gone, some other faculty family will live here. We’re very lucky. We’re only living here because Father’s family lived here before us.

I had no idea, Bea says. Well, why should you have had any idea? Nancy replies. Now, Maine, that was built by my father. None of my siblings wanted it so I took it after he died. That was my entire inheritance, along with a bit of jewelry. But, the island, well. She combines the dry ingredients with the wet. Well, what, Bea asks. Nancy has said too much. Should she tell the child that she and Ethan have talked about selling it? It’s simply too much to maintain. She can’t bear the thought of it, of course, and she just wants to muddle through, to somehow get to the end of this blasted war and have William and Gerald grow up and get jobs and then they can take it over. It can be theirs. Every night she asks God to make that happen. But Ethan has been calling her into the study to show her pages of numbers that she can’t understand.

She knows that’s partly why she doesn’t want to go to Maine. It will break her heart to be there, to see the place she loves and may have to lose. All my memories are there, she said to Ethan one night. She was already in bed, and he was getting undressed. That’s my home. My true north. You’ll still have your memories, he replied. No one is taking those away. Oh, for heaven’s sake, she said, throwing her book down on the bed so hard that the dog ran out of the room, do you not have a heart? Do you not understand what the island means to me?

I understand, he said in that calm voice that makes her want to scream. But you need to understand that our expenses are taking over. And in a year, we’ll have William’s tuition for Harvard, on top of everything else. She stared down at the blanket, smoothing the folds, unable to look up at him. She hates his rationality.

She turns to Bea now. I’m just worrying about my poor island once William and Gerald take control. Can you imagine what that will be like? How will they possibly manage this together? You’ll need to help mediate. A pause hangs in the air. Bea looks down at her paper and finishes the sentence she was writing. That beautiful, assured handwriting. Will she receive letters from Bea after she goes home? Will they stay in touch? Or will Bea simply fade away? Nancy can’t bear that thought. Silly me, she finally says as Bea continues with her homework, her head down. Silly, silly me. Of course, you’ll be back in England by then. But you’ll come visit, won’t you, and Nancy turns back to her bowl, kneading the dough roughly, her head bent away from Bea. Then she reaches over, with her floured hand, turns up the radio, and begins singing along with the Andrews Sisters, as she rolls out the dough, as she uses a glass to cut the biscuits, as she washes out the bowl. When she turns back to the table, Bea is gone.