“The girls have clothes,” he said irritably.
“The right kind of clothes. I know how to buy my daughters’ clothes. I’m not taking them back to Minnesota dressed like a couple of punk rockers. I have to get a few simple, inexpensive things for myself and I’m going to need some travel money. Also, I’ve just put some work into the house... It was quite falling down around me. I’d happily pay for all this if I had any money, but unfortunately on my limited income...”
“Hope, I give you two thousand dollars a month and pay all your bills, including gas for your car. You have only to buy food and clothes. You have a college degree. Have you ever thought of going to work?”
“Can’t we call it a loan, then? You could simply advance me a few months of that allowance you give me...” She could not call it alimony. No matter how hard she tried.
“And add it to what you already owe me? No, I’m afraid not. Sooner or later you’re going to have to be accountable.”
“At least May and June, then! At least send those checks early! For God’s sake, Franklin, would you like to see me beg? Am I not quite humiliated enough for you?”
“Overdrawn again, Hope?”
She was silent for a moment. “Does this young girl you’re living with know what a cruel bastard you can be?”
“Do you mean Pam? My wife? Who is only eleven months younger than you?”
“Please, Franklin,” she whimpered, but it was more a plea for him to stop throwing that truth in her face than a plea for money.
“I’ll send May’s check now,” he relented. “And I’ll talk with the girls and call you next week to let you know what time they’re willing to compromise from their summer plans. And...if you decide to drive to Minnesota, you can use the gas card as usual, but I’m unable to fund plane tickets.”
“Drive? You expect me to drive?”
“Actually, Bobbi would probably be thrilled to do the driving. I don’t know if your nerves can take it, but she’s coming along with experience.”
“Ohhh, Franklin...”
“Is that it? Money and vacation plans?”
“Yes,” she said, suddenly very tired.
“I’ll be in touch, then. And, Hope? I want to remind you that the insurance coverage you have will pay for counseling...if you’re interested.”
She stiffened. She had told him many times before that she would indeed consider counseling—marriage counseling. She was about to remind him of that when she remembered she needed that check right away—to cover the carpet cleaning, window washing and beauty shop expenses. Where did her money go? She couldn’t eat that much every month. And there were only those few little COD catalog purchases... “Thank you, Franklin,” she said as sweetly as she could. “Please convince the girls to extend their vacation time with me. Please. It’s very important to me...and I ask for so little.”
“I’ll speak to them,” he said.
She was so tired. All that cleaning and primping. All that stress and worry. She would have to rest now and wait. It was going to be all right. Once she saw Grandma Berkey again everything would be fine.
She didn’t think about Megan’s four-year battle with cancer. Her oblivion was so complete that if someone asked her, right now, how the family fared health-wise, she would say, “Very well, thank you!”
* * *
In 1989, the year the Berlin Wall came down and the Game Boy was introduced, right before Hope was due to become a junior in high school, she took her last realistic look at her family. Her cousin Bunny was dead. Her parents had had a very troubled marriage and her father, Roy, had run off, couldn’t be found and didn’t send money. Her mother was sick—depressed and emotionally unavailable. Her mother had no job, no husband and no money. Her sister Krista couldn’t stand to be at home anymore and was running with a bad crowd, skipping school and getting into serious trouble. Twice the police brought her home in the middle of the night. Her youngest sister, Beverly, had been Bunny’s best friend and was broken by her loss. She was in even worse shape than Jo. Her cousin Charley had been exiled to Florida to have and give up her illegitimate baby. Charley’s last letter to Hope said, simply, “I’m going to run away the second I get back to Saint Paul so don’t expect any help from me...unless you want to come with me.”
“Mama,” Hope entreated. “You have to ask Grandma and the judge for help!”
“The judge can’t help us,” Jo said.
Hope later learned that the judge had offered help with the condition that Jo agreed to divorce Roy and live by Berkey standards. Jo refused.
The family was in utter chaos after Bunny’s death. And that was when Hope started looking for a better life.
As a little girl Hope had spent hours looking through the photo albums at pictures of her mother and Aunt Lou dressed for their formal dances at the club and pictures of their incredible coming-out parties and unbelievable weddings. Aunt Lou had twelve bridesmaids—like Grandma Berkey before her—and so did Hope’s mom. There were trips to Europe and carriage rides through the streets and ice-skating at the winter carnival. What the hell had happened to them all? How could this be? Falling apart was one thing but this whole family was ready to be shot and buried—they were that humiliating.
Grandpa Berkey was still on the bench and she went to him. “Please,” she begged. “I’ll do anything you want, act any way you please, just let me live with you and go to a decent high school and maybe get into college somewhere. Please, I’m begging you. I want to have the kind of life you planned for your daughters.”
Charmed, her grandparents took her in. They dressed her, showed her off, sent her to a private school. And she did as she had promised. She followed their every wish from crossing her legs at the ankle to getting home before ten every night. She went with them to the club for dinner every weekend, danced with all the old codgers, learned to play bridge and wore long, lacy dresses when torn jeans, bra tops and exposed garter belts were all the rage.
She had a coming-out party, got her college degree and met a man from a rich family. When she got married in Saint Paul, a simple but elegant affair held at Central Presbyterian Cathedral with dinner at the country club, she introduced Franklin’s wealthy family to Grandma Berkey and the judge as the people who’d raised her. She had whispered to the Griffins that her biological mother was emotionally unwell and Hope hadn’t lived with her since she was small. Jo didn’t argue with this story. Hope’s father, they said, was deceased. No one else from the family came to the wedding. No one seemed to think this odd. Nor did they ask any questions.
Chapter Five
By the middle of May both the house on Lake Waseka and Megan were looking much better. Even several visits from Louise couldn’t bring Megan’s spirits down as she anticipated the summer, and Louise definitely tried to put the kibosh on their plans. Louise steadfastly insisted she would not join them. If they wanted Grandma Berkey at the lake, they’d have to find someone other than Louise to deliver her.
There was very little left to do in the house and Charley went ahead of Meg to see it done. John had agreed to help Meg pack, make sure she had her medication and drive her and her luggage north to the lake. He wanted to be there on weekends whenever possible. There were just the finishing touches, things that Melissa had offered to take care of but Charley wanted to do herself. In fact, Melissa had come close to begging, but Charley insisted. Charley’s hands-on involvement in fixing up the place had been pretty limited and she looked forward to adding the accessories she’d shopped for in the city. She had fluffy towels, crisp sheets, thick rugs, soaps and creams, place mats and napkins, comforters and down pillows. She bought a set of eight wineglasses and as many tumblers and cocktail glasses.
After putting her new purchases in the house, Charley lit off for the nearest large grocery to stock up, looking forward with great longing to the sum
mer days when the farmers would begin to put their fresh vegetables out on roadside stands.
She settled in, smoothing sheets over the mattress in the master bedroom, shaking out and putting down fluffy rugs in bathrooms, in front of the door and kitchen sink, beside the beds. The new down pillows almost hugged her back when she squeezed them. Everything was in place before the sun lowered in the sky and she took a glass of wine onto the porch, sat in one of the chaises with her feet up and began to do what Megan had been doing—remembering the summers that were filled with laughter and fun.
It wasn’t hard when she focused. When it was just them—the girls—it was carefree and filled with pleasure. It wasn’t harmonious every second, of course. Six little girls could squabble and bicker, especially when the rain forced them inside, but their conflicts were short-lived. They just enjoyed the heaven that escape to the lake provided. They loved to spy on their mothers late at night. Getting caught was almost as much fun as the spying, which never turned up much besides gossip about their marriages. They had swimming races and diving contests. Since they spent so much time in the lake they hardly ever took baths. In fact, they washed their hair in the lake. Aunt Jo would give them a bottle of shampoo to take to the lake every few days. They had an old outdoor shower at the boathouse but they used it sparingly because the water was freezing.
Her cell phone rang and she held her breath when she saw it was Michael. She prayed they wouldn’t fight. “Hi,” she said. “I was just thinking about you. I just got here this afternoon. The place is all put together and I’m by myself.”
“Where’s Meg?” he asked.
“John’s bringing her in a few days. I wanted to come ahead, make sure it was clean and comfortable and stocked with healthy food.”
“John’s okay with her spending the whole summer at the lake?” he asked.
“He’s planning to come on the weekends. But how are you?”
“Ready for the semester to end,” he said. “Listen, I hope you’ll take this as good news. Eric was able to get a slot in an exchange program at Cambridge. He’s coming with me in September.”
“Oh, Michael,” she said. “Is he happy about that?”
“He’s ecstatic. Of course, all he can talk about is the fact that he won’t be staying with me. He’s planning on staying in a student flat. But we’ll be in the same city. And I’ll be able to check on him.”
I wonder where I’ll be, Charley thought. “Both of you gone? I don’t know if I can stand it.”
“Charley, you’re gone,” he reminded her. “You can come with us, you know.”
“You know that depends on a lot of things, mostly Meg.”
“And how is our Meg?” he asked.
“She’s looking so much better. And she’s stronger. I’m filled with hope. But she’s thin and still needs two naps a day, so...”
“I’ll bring Eric in the summer,” Michael said. “In fact, I can’t wait.”
At least he didn’t say he’d send Eric. “I wish you could see it right now,” she said. “School isn’t out yet so the lake is still quiet. You can hear a fish jump now and then. Someone will whistle for a dog or maybe shout the dog’s name. No speedboats but the occasional putter of a motor on a bass boat out in the big lake. It’s so peaceful. Restful. Good for thinking.”
“I’m sorry Meg’s illness was what took you away, but after the shitty way your year started out, this might be just what you need. Has Louise reared her ugly head?”
Charley laughed. “Oh, yes. She tried saying she wouldn’t allow us to come here, but when Meg said she’d have to call the police and arrest us, she tried other tactics. She won’t be joining us. We’re not at all sad about that. But guess who says she’s coming? Hope. She says so, anyway.”
“And Beverly?”
“She says she’s not sure if she’s ready for that much reality.”
“It might be just the two of you all summer,” Michael said.
“I’m perfectly all right with that idea,” Charley said. “Being here alone I tried to remember all the good things that happened when we were children. That’s what Meg’s been doing. It turns out it’s not that hard to do. I’m remembering so much.”
“Too much?” he asked. Because of course Michael knew about that summer romance that went awry, leaving her an unwed mother.
“Actually, I’m remembering that last summer more kindly now. Do you know what never occurred to me at the time? In fact, it didn’t occur to me until very recently. My summer love who ran for his life when he found out my grandfather was a judge—he might’ve been afraid of a statutory rape charge. I was sixteen. He was nineteen. We both lied about our ages. And he said he was from the city, but I heard from one of the other waiters that he wasn’t—he was a local kid. If I’d been near here when I found out I was pregnant I could’ve tracked him down, but I wasn’t, and then they sent me away. When I made contact with Andrea seven years ago, all I could tell her about her father was that he was nineteen and he’d said he was Mack but that wasn’t his real name.”
“You could ask around now,” Michael said.
“You think he could still be around after twenty-seven years?” she said. “Maybe after I’m here a little while.” But what she didn’t want to say, what she couldn’t quite say, was how she still found it so embarrassing. She was made to feel humiliated by the way she was sent away. Thinking about facing the locals to say there was a man out there who should know he has a child who was now twenty-seven, married, with children of her own, was intimidating. Yes, the sophisticated talk show host might be able to spit out something like that in the big city, but out here in the small farm towns, facing old-fashioned Methodists who went to church every Sunday was different. Feeling like a fool had always been her weak spot.
But she vowed she would try. After she got used to the idea.
* * *
The next day Charley put her iPod in the speaker bay she’d brought along and, to the comforting strings of Vivaldi, she folded freshly laundered towels and put them in the linen closet. She hung two fluffy yellow towels in the bathroom. It had been such a relief to sleep amid smells of lemon oil and pine needles rather than the motel’s economy disinfectant that bore a ghastly resemblance to cheap talc.
She went to make a pot of coffee. Just as she turned on the machine she caught sight of something out of the corner of her eye. She was drawn to the kitchen window for a closer look. There was a young girl sitting across the lawn in one of the freshly painted chairs that Melissa had put out in the yard. She had a small suitcase on each side of the chair. For a second Charley almost felt like she was looking at a memory; the girl’s hair was stringy, her jeans ratty, her T-shirt ragged and grayish, her jacket a cheap, dated corduroy. With a closer look, she realized it was not a girl, but a woman. A small, familiar woman.
“Krista,” she whispered. “What the hell?”
When they were little girls, aged one through six, they looked like towheaded clones, but as they grew older they each took on more individual characteristics. Charley was tall, her face angular, her hair a dark auburn, while Megan was only five-three and when she’d had hair their mother had called it dishwater blond. She hadn’t seen Krista in a long time, a couple of years since she’d visited her in prison. In fact, Charley had only visited her a handful of times the whole twenty-three years. But from the distance of one hundred yards she looked the same as she had the last time she’d seen her, her brows thick and straight, her hair that nondescript and shapeless brown, her mouth harshly set. She was Megan’s height and probably didn’t weigh a whole hundred and fifteen pounds.
Charley wondered, not for the first time, what kind of baggage prison would leave Krista with. She could have visited her more often. But she hadn’t. The whole experience of visiting Chowchilla had been so horrid.
It was odd the way she sat out
there, watching the house. What was she doing here? Meg had sent her a note telling her the lake house would be open from June through August but it wasn’t yet June. And Krista was supposed to be in prison, for God’s sake. Last Charley had heard, she wasn’t even eligible for parole.
It was sunny but chilly outside. Charley shivered and found her heaviest sweater. She turned on the oven to begin to warm up the place, then on the spur of the moment opened a can of biscuits, tucked them into a pan, covered them with butter, sugar and cinnamon and popped them in the oven. But the cold air, smell of coffee and hot cinnamon biscuits and sounds of music hadn’t drawn Krista to the porch.
Well, Charley decided, she’s having trouble with this. So I’ll have to bring her in and get her story, find out what she expects of me. I’ve done that for a living for years.
Charley tucked a woven lap blanket under her arm, poured two steaming cups of coffee and went out into the yard. Krista watched her cautiously as she approached but she didn’t move. She neither rose to greet her cousin, nor did she bolt.
Charley knelt before her, placing both coffees on the ground. She unfurled the blanket and wrapped it like a shawl around Krista’s shoulders. Then she placed a warm mug in Krista’s hands. “Krista, why are you sitting out here? Did you escape?” she asked.
Krista shrugged.
“Really?” Charley said with a sarcastic laugh.
Krista’s lips moved into a smirk. “Once I got here, I realized you might not be happy to see me. I was giving you a chance to send me away.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because I’m a convicted murderer, maybe?” Krista replied with sarcasm of her own.
Charley put on her impatient interviewer face. “I know you didn’t murder anyone, Krista. How’d you get out?”
“A miracle. Some big-shot lady lawyer got me out. I stopped believing something like that was possible a long time ago.”
“That’s a relief. I’m glad I don’t have to harbor a fugitive.” Krista made a face and Charley smiled. “Wanna come in? Or you wanna sit out here by yourself?”