She takes another spoonful and thinks about all the people partying in ’Sconset months before the weather has welcomed them to celebrate the daffodils. What’s the big deal? She finishes her chowder and drinks her latte. She continues to sit on her porch, facing the flowers and the sun, feeling the warmth on her face through the frigid air. She closes her eyes, soaking in this small pleasure.
Maybe it’s the promise of summer. After a long and bleak winter that often extends straight through spring, maybe the daffodil is a sign that summer will come again. The earth will spin and turn around the sun, and the clocks will tick even if Olivia doesn’t reset hers, and time will move along. Winter will end. This, too, shall pass. There’s the promise of a new beginning. The daffodils will bloom by the million, and life will return to the island.
And whether Olivia wants it to or not, life will return to her as well. She sits on her porch, tailgating before her daffodils, and notices that the sun has moved across the sky past her bedroom windows. It must be nearing midafternoon. Time passing.
Time heals, they say.
She reads the back cover of her library book. She’s definitely ready to read about autism again. She feels ready to face what happened, to remember it all, to try to understand Anthony’s life and why he’s no longer here, to begin healing. But if she’s feeling brave enough to face autism again, it shouldn’t be through fiction. She carries her library book back into the house and returns to the porch a minute later with something else.
Rested and full and feeling like today, Daffodil Day, might just be as good a time as any, she opens one of her journals to the first page and reads.
March 19, 2001
We had Anthony’s one-year doctor appointment today. He’s 29 inches and 21 pounds, the 50th percentile for height and weight. He had a bunch of shots—my poor baby boy. I cried right along with him! I can’t stand to watch him in any kind of pain. I was so proud to show off that he’s already walking. Dr. Harvey says we can switch him over to whole milk now. It’s going to be SO nice to not have to deal with buying formula anymore.
I can’t believe he’s already one! He’s growing up so fast. He’s always on the move now. He only lets me hold him to give him his bottle, otherwise he wants to get down and explore. He’s not my snuggly little baby anymore. He’s officially a toddler!
This must be what happens. He’s already beginning the long process of growing up, pulling away, becoming an independent little person. It’s what he’s supposed to do, but I wish it didn’t have to happen so soon.
This is why mothers have more babies. We forget about the pain and discomfort and wild inconvenience of pregnancy and childbirth so we can feel that heavenly feeling of holding a warm baby snuggled and content against our chests again. It’s like nothing else in this world. Maybe David and I should start trying. We want a big family, and I’m not getting any younger.
I told Dr. Harvey that Anthony’s not talking yet and asked if we should be concerned. He said that not all babies talk at a year and that we should start to hear some words by around fifteen months. So not long now. But Maria’s kids all talked before one. I remember Bella saying “mama” and “dada” and “moon” and signing “more” and “all done” before her first birthday.
Dr. Harvey said girls usually talk a little sooner than boys. He said not to worry. But it’s there. The worry. I can’t help it. It’s like telling me not to have brown eyes. I have brown eyes. I’m worried. Why isn’t Anthony talking yet?
David’s not worried at all. He says I worry too much about everything. I know he’s right. I do worry a lot, but this feels different from my normal, everyday neuroses about switch-plate protectors and sterilizing his pacifiers and the possibility that his formula could be contaminated with bugs.
I wonder if his hearing is okay. Anthony doesn’t seem to hear me. When I call his name, he doesn’t look at me. In fact, he really almost never looks at me. The other day, I clapped my hands as loud as I could, and he didn’t even turn his head. He just kept sitting on the floor looking out the slider glass doors at the leaves blowing around on the deck. It was as if I didn’t exist.
Is he deaf? He’s not. I know he’s not, which is probably why I didn’t mention it to Dr. Harvey. I see him bounce to music when we have it on. He loves reggae. And the other day, I dropped a pan in the kitchen, and I saw him startle, and then he cried. So he’s definitely not deaf. So why does a part of me keep hoping that he is? What a crazy thing to think. God, what’s going on with Anthony? Please tell me everything’s okay with him.
What am I worried about? Dr. Harvey says he’s fine. David thinks he’s fine. I’m sure he’s fine.
I’m such a liar.
CHAPTER 7
Beth has been staring vaguely into her bedroom closet for twenty minutes, about nineteen and a half minutes longer than she typically spends in this position. Her closet is a modest, rectangular pocket in the wall, enclosed by two doors that slide past each other. A single rod runs the length of it, and a single shelf sits above the rod. Nothing fancy. Beth’s side is on the left, and Jimmy’s is on the right. Or rather, it was.
She slides the doors to reveal the other side—the bare rod, the empty shelf, those nasty dust bunnies on the floor she needs to vacuum. She complained about their lack of closet space to Jimmy for years. She practically drooled over the walk-in that Mickey built for Jill (there’s even an ottoman in the middle of it for sitting—for sitting!). Now Beth has what she wished for, twice as much space, but she can’t bring herself to spread her hangers out onto his side of the bar or to walk her shoes over to his side of the floor. She can’t.
She slides the doors again and returns to the problem at hand. What to wear. Like everything else in the house, Beth’s side of the closet is tidy and organized. All of the hangers are the same—white, plastic, and facing the same direction. Hanging from left to right are tank tops, then short-sleeve shirts, long-sleeve shirts, dresses, and skirts. A short stack of sweatshirts and sweaters are folded on the shelf above the rod, and two rows of shoes are lined up along the floor. One pair of each—sneakers, snow boots, leather boots, clogs, low heels, sandals, flip-flops. With the exception of the sneakers, which used to be white but are now many-years-old gray, all of her footwear is black.
Most everything in her closet is black. Not edgy black. Not New York City, metropolitan-chic black. Not even Gothic black. Everything is blah black. Safe and boring, nothing-interesting-to-see-here black. Invisible black. What isn’t black is gray or white.
She thumbs through her shirts, cotton and boxy crewnecks and turtlenecks. The sweaters are shapeless and long. They all cover her butt. She holds an androgynous, black T-shirt up to her neck that might look okay with jeans. But her jeans aren’t dressy enough for Salt. Her jeans are baggy, practical, and comfortable, good for driving the kids in the minivan or cleaning the house or sitting on the couch or gardening, but not good for going out to Salt. Not good at all.
She pulls out her only two dresses and lays them side by side on the bed. They’re both black, but neither can be described as a “little black dress.” The first is the dress she wears to wakes and funerals—high neck, long sleeves, no waist, hem at her ankles. She originally bought it for Jimmy’s dad’s funeral because it looked respectful and nondescript, and she liked that it didn’t call attention to her in any way, but as she’s inspecting it now, she’s embarrassed by it. It looks like a costume for a school play, and the play is about a seventeenth-century Quaker spinster.
She turns her attention to the other dress, hoping it might be her savior. It’s a scoop neck, short sleeve, Empire waist, with a flowing skirt hitting just below the knee. It’s not bad. It could work. It’s actually kind of cute. She holds it up and studies herself in the full-length mirror on the back of the bedroom door, trying to figure out if she looks cute, but suddenly she remembers the last time she wore it, and any possibility of pulling off cute flies right out the window. She checks the tag. Mimi Maternity. Sh
e was nine months pregnant with Gracie the last time she wore this dress. She can’t wear a maternity dress to Salt, even if it is the sexiest thing she owns, and no one will see the tag.
She chews her nails as she scrutinizes her only two dresses, hating them. She returns them to their spot on the rod on her side of the closet and searches through her black clothes. Her old, dowdy, stupid black clothes. She can’t do this. She can’t go. She can’t.
She grabs the phone from her bedside table and dials.
“I can’t go,” she says to Petra.
“Why not?”
“I have nothing to wear.”
“What are you, sixteen? Wear a black top and a skirt.”
“I need to go shopping first. Let’s go next weekend.”
She needs time for a trip to the Hyannis mall, an involved and expensive excursion requiring ferry tickets and bus schedules. Even if she could afford to shop downtown, which she most certainly cannot—hell, even if they were giving the clothes away for free—she wouldn’t be caught dead wearing ninety-nine percent of it. She’ll never understand why women who can afford anything and everything would choose to wear pineapple-print dresses, Pepto-Bismol-pink tops sporting sequins and embroidered dogs, skirts patterned with starfish and whales.
“Next weekend is Figawi, we’ll never get in. Come on, you’ve been putting this off all month. Put on some jewelry and some makeup, you’ll look great.”
She’s right. Next weekend is Memorial Day weekend and Figawi, an internationally celebrated sailboat race from Hyannis across the sound to Nantucket harbor. It’s also the grand, official kickoff to Nantucket’s summer season. There are clambakes, fancy fund-raisers, award ceremonies, and parties all over the island. And all the restaurants will be jammed.
“I don’t know.”
“You want to check this woman out or not?”
“I think so, but—”
“Then let’s go check her out.”
“What does she look like?”
In the infinite pause that follows, Beth presses her fingers to her lips and holds her breath. Her heart pulses in her temples. She’s wanted to ask Petra this question so many times since book club last month, but her fear of every conceivable answer has always shoved it down, silencing her. If Angela is beautiful, then Beth must be ugly. And ugly is being kind. Hideous is the word Beth has been trying on for size, feeling as if it might fit her perfectly, better than any black thing hanging in her closet. And if Angela’s not beautiful, then she must be sweet or funny or attractive in some other compelling way that Beth is not, else Jimmy wouldn’t have to stray to find it. So if Angela is beautiful, Beth is ugly, and if Angela is ugly, then Beth is a bitch, either way redefined by whatever Jimmy sees in this other woman.
“That’s what we’re going to find out tonight.”
“Yeah, but you’ve seen her. What do you think?”
“I think she doesn’t hold a candle to you.”
Beth smiles, but then her eyes return to her closet. “How about after Figawi?”
“How about tonight?”
“Petra, I don’t have to go at all.”
“True.”
“But I can’t stand not knowing who she is.”
“Well then.”
Beth chews her thumbnail. “Can I borrow your turquoise necklace?”
“You got it. I’ll be over a little before seven. You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s not even noon. You should get out of the house. Step away from the closet.”
“I will. Once I figure out what I’m wearing.”
“Black top, skirt, turquoise necklace. You’ll look great. See you tonight.”
Black top and a skirt. She pulls out her white peasant skirt and considers it. She walks into the hallway and stops in front of their most recent family photo hung on the wall, the one taken last summer on Miacomet Beach. She wore this skirt. She, Sophie, and Gracie wore white skirts and black tops; Jimmy and Jessica, who won’t wear anything but pants, wore white shorts and black tops. It’s a beautiful photograph. They’re all sitting in the sand, beach grass, wispy white clouds, and soft-blue sky behind them. Jimmy has his hand on her knee, touching her skirt, this skirt now in her hands, touching her so easily, so naturally.
She remembers those days early on, when they were dating and first married, when he touched her, even in passing, and she felt it. Really felt it. That magnetic, electric heat of his hand on her. That invisible, magical, chemical connection. Where did that go?
He was cheating on her when this picture was taken. Beth pinches her eyes shut and swallows, trying to keep it together. What does Jimmy feel when he touches Angela? Does he feel an invisible, magical, chemical connection? What doesn’t he feel when he touches Beth? When he used to touch her. She opens her eyes and steps back, taking in the whole wall—seven years of family portraits and a black-and-white photo of her and Jimmy from their wedding day. She looks at everyone’s smiles, her happy family. Her life. She clenches her teeth and blinks back tears. Her life is a fraud.
She straightens two of the frames that were tipped just slightly to the right of level, returns to her bedroom, and crawls back into bed. The bed feels good. The bed feels safe.
And she knows how to dress for bed. She’s wearing her old, pink flannel pajamas, covered in nubs, the most colorful things she owns. She should go to Salt in her pajamas. Then she’d really make an impression. Not the kind of impression she wants to make though.
But what kind of impression does she want to make? She wishes she didn’t have to make one at all, that she could go in disguise, sporting a wig and dark glasses, so she could see and not be seen. But she also fantasizes about going and being noticed by everyone. She’d strut into Salt, looking confident and sexy (tastefully sexy, not trashy sexy), and shy of that, at least better than Angela, a difficult goal to set since she has no idea what Angela looks like. She’s terrified of giving this woman any reason to feel any more superior to Beth than she probably already feels. Unfortunately, realistically, there’s an awful good chance of this. Beth’s not feeling confident or sexy. And she never struts. She looks into her pathetic closet, rolls over, closes her eyes, and tucks the blankets up to her chin.
Behind her closed lids, she envisions Jimmy shaking a martini, then stopping midpour, struck by the sight of her as she struts into the restaurant with her friends. She imagines him pulling her aside, telling her that he feels like an idiot for leaving her. She imagines him begging her to take him back right there at the bar, right in front of Angela.
She directs the entire Salt scene, smiling as it plays out in her head. She’s even cast a fictitious Angela, devastated and defeated, with sleek black hair, thick eyebrows, severe makeup, and a spandex dress (trashy sexy). The only person she can’t see in this little fantasy is herself.
Damn it, what am I going to wear?
It occurs to her that she’s on the other end of this ridiculous question at least once a week with Sophie, her thirteen-going-on-eighteen-year-old. The other two girls will be dressed and ready and waiting at the front door, and Sophie will still be in her room, half-dressed, crazed and crying, clothes tossed everywhere. I can’t go to school! I have nothing to wear!
Worried more about the girls’ being late for school than Sophie’s fashion crisis, Beth typically offers something quick and admittedly too glib.
You look beautiful. Just be yourself and it won’t matter what you wear. C’mon, let’s go!
Now Beth gets why Sophie rolls her eyes and cries harder. She owes her daughter an apology and a trip to the Hyannis mall.
She tries for a moment to take her own advice. Be yourself. But who is she? She’s Jimmy’s wife, and she’s a mother. And if she gets divorced, if she’s no longer Mrs. James Ellis, and she’s only a mother, then is there less of her? She fears this and feels it already, physically, as if a surgeon has taken a scalpel to her abdomen and removed a whole and necessary part of her. Without Jimmy, she doesn’t re
cognize herself. How can that be? Who has she become?
She rolls over and looks into her closet. It’s organized. That’s her. But otherwise, she’s not in there. She sits up and looks at herself in the mirror on the back of the bedroom door, her blond, chin-length hair a matted mess, her blue eyes deeply set and dull, her pajamas pink and nubby. That’s not who I am.
She gets out of bed and returns to face the pictures on the wall in the hallway. The most recent portraits offer her nothing more than wife and mother. She’d always approved of how she looks in these pictures, her hair not too frizzy from the humidity, her makeup subtle, her nails polished, her clothes pressed. But as she studies herself now, her smile appears forced, unnatural, her posture stiff, like she’s a cardboard cutout of herself. Like she’s posing. She moves back in time and visits the oldest family photo and the portrait from her wedding. Here she sees more of the woman she thinks of as herself. Her smile contains an unself-conscious abandon, her eyes are bright and happy. Where did that woman go?
For some reason, she looks up at the ceiling, and there it is, as if the answer were delivered to her from above. The attic!
She stands on her tiptoes, pulls the dangling white string, unfolds the wooden stairs, and climbs up. A wall of dense, stagnant heat greets her in a hurry at the top. Nearing the end of May, the days have been sunny, but it’s remained cool, only in the sixties, yet the trapped heat up here feels like summer against her skin.
She pauses before fully committing to going in. The roof is pitched and low, and the wooden ceiling is riddled with protruding nails, making it both impossible and dangerous to stand up straight. And the floor is unfinished, with only a few planks of wood running the length through the center, like a bridge crossing a sea of pink insulation.