Maine: A Novel Part 8

aA bit crabby. She said she doesnat need any help, and I shouldnat bother troubling myself to come out there in the middle of June after Maggie leaves. I didnat have the energy to fight her on it. Iam still going to go, though.a aYouare an angel,a he said.

aYou know you have your doctoras appointment tomorrow, right?a aYes, maaam,a Pat said.

He was so cheerful this morning that she felt sorry for what she was about to say.

aHoney, we need to send Little Danielas check before I leave,a she said gently.

Usually they sent it by the last of the month, like clockwork. But somehow, in the whirlwind of her June plans changing, she had forgotten to remind Pat. He was a disciplined man, with a memory so sharp he could tell you what he had for breakfast on his first day of kindergarten. But he never seemed to remember this. She imagined that he put it from his head quite consciously, allowing himself to think about it for only that one minute a month when he signed the check and handed it over to her to be addressed and mailed.

Pat was disappointed, she understood that. Ann Marie told him to pray on it, to have faith that it would all work out. He was angry that head spent more than two hundred grand for their sonas education, and still, they were sending him money. Ann Marie didnat see what was so wrong with ita"she knew women at the club who had bought houses for their kids. Pat said no one had paid his way. He had figured it out, and he expected his children to do the same.

She had to bite her tongue on that one. Ann Marie had spent every weekend and summer of her teenage years bagging groceries at Angeloas. Had any of the Kellehers ever had so much as an after-school job? How many times had she heard Kathleen complain that Pat was the only one whose education was taken seriously by their parents, meaning that Alice and Daniel paid for it in full? Yet it had never dawned on Kathleen that some people, including Ann Marie, paid their own tuition, waitressing all the way through college.

She had always warned Pat to be more conservative when it came to giving the kids money, but he had lavished gifts and cash upon them anyway. It seemed that now, right when Little Daniel really needed them, was not the time to draw the line in the sand.

Despite Patas protestations, they had been mailing the checks for five months, ever since Little Daniel lost his most recent job. It wasnat the first time they had helped him out, but it was the first time head been let go for such a shameful reason. When Ann Marie thought about it, and about what might come next, she felt tired.

It hadnat helped that it happened only a couple of weeks after Fiona told them her news. Why did bad things always occur in multiples like that? The combination made Ann Marie question what she had always known about herselfa"that she was a good mother, that theirs was a traditional family.

Little Daniel had graduated top of his cla.s.s from business school; he was terribly bright, and charming. But head had lousy luck when it came to work. His first boss, at a boutique investment firm, just plain had it out for the kid: he had dared to call Daniel arrogant, saying he wasnat deferential enough, when the boss himself was Danielas exact age.

At the next place, a huge company in downtown Boston, they didnat challenge him. They gave Daniel paper to push around, anda"no wondera"he got bored. So he started taking long lunches (he said all the executives did the same). He came in late. At his one-year evaluation, they told him it wasnat working out.

aWhatas wrong with him?a Pat had said that time, too testily for Ann Marieas liking.

aNothing! Heas off the charts smart, Patrick, like you. He was too good for that job.a Pat pulled some strings with Ronald Allan at the club and found their son a good, high-paying position at another big firm. It seemed like he was really working hard this time, but then, without warning, they laid him off and told him to be out in two weeks.

aThis is outrageous!a Pat had fumed, uncharacteristically worked up. aIam calling Ron and Iall give him a piece of my mind. And possibly a lawsuit.a He went into his home office and slammed the door. When he came out twenty minutes later, his face looked pale.

aWell?a Ann Marie said.

aApparently they did him a favor, laying him off like that.a aWhat do you mean?a aThere were complaints from some of the secretaries about certain behaviors.a Ann Marie pictured a gaggle of lazy girls in tweed, refusing to fetch coffee or answer the telephone, citing womenas lib.

She didnat ask her husband to elaborate, might have preferred it if he did not, but Pat went on, aThey found some very disturbing p.o.r.nography on his computer. Bondage stuff, I guess.a Ann Marie was aghast. aThese secretaries just claim he was the one who put it on the computer? It could have been anyone who did that.a aThey found out because they do his expenses.a aAnd?a aHe charged it all to his corporate credit card. Two thousand dollarsa worth.a aOh my G.o.d.a She wondered if this had happened in other offices. She thought of poor Regina, who was so proud of the diamond on her finger, and cringed at the thought of her sona"that all-American boy!a"asking to tie her to the bedpost. And she thought of Fiona, too, the two affronts wrapped around each other. Her son was a pervert and her daughter was a lesbian.

Itas no oneas fault. It was in vogue these days to say that whenever something terrible happened. But everything unpleasant was someoneas fault. What had she done to them?

aHeas made a G.o.dd.a.m.n fool out of me,a Pat said. aIall probably be the laughingstock of the club now.a At that moment, a rush of estrogen, or maternal instinct, or who knew what, flooded her head and her heart, and all she wanted to do was protect that boy as best she could. Her only son.

aOh, honestly, who cares,a she said. aRon Allan has worse skeletons in his closet than some dirty movies.a She called Little Daniel and told him to come over. He cried on the living room sofa and apologized for embarra.s.sing them. He said he hadnat realized that head used his corporate card until it was too late. (That made sense to her, though she had hoped he would deny the entire thing.) He went to sleep in his childhood bedroom, her strong, tall, handsome son, who everyone still called Little Daniel, though he had towered over Big Daniel by the end.

In bed that night, Ann Marie ran her fingers over the carved wood of the headboard they had found in a shop in Killarney. They had had it shipped all the way from Ireland. Pat was in bed with her since Daniel was home, and he was snoring. She didnat know how her husband could sleep at a time like this.

Eventually, she went downstairs to her crafts room and stared at her dollhouse for a long while, deciding that the armoire in the living room would look better in the entryway. She picked it up and moved it, then carefully wiped down the sides with a Kleenex to get rid of any fingerprints. She thought of Fiona as a child. She had never liked dresses, not the way Patty did. Was that a sign? In high school, she hung around with a boy, David Martin. She always said they were only friends, and raised h.e.l.l when Ann Marie wouldnat allow them in her room together with the door closed. Their senior year, when she asked to go camping with David alone and Ann Marie said it was inappropriate, Fiona had said, aJesus, Mom, heas clearly gay.a It had never once dawned on her that Fiona might be too.

And what about her son? Ann Marie recalled a time when he was in high school, and she was in his room changing the sheets. Under the pillowcase, she found a copy of Penthouse magazine. Her eyes filled up with tears as she flipped through the pagesa"all those young, empty-eyed women with their legs spread, their mouths hanging open. He had walked in on her, catching her off guard, and she had shoved the magazine back under the pillow, as if he were the parent and she the guilty child. Ann Marie turned red and asked him how school was. Was that the moment? Could she have said or done something then? She should have told Pat, but even that seemed mortifying, and she reasoned that all teenage boys did a bit of exploring, probably.

At least she still had Patty. Suddenly, she hoped her older daughter might announce soon that she was pregnant again, even though she knew Patty and Josh planned to stop at three.

The following morning, she made Little Daniel pancakes stuffed with walnuts and chocolate chips.

aIam not helping him,a Pat said after he left.

She didnat have to speak; she just stared at him in disbelief.

Finally, Pat said, aFine. But this is the last time.a That afternoon, she bought a two-foot-tall antique carriage house on eBay for five hundred dollars. It was covered in silk roses and vines and matched the color of her dollhouse perfectly. She imagined escaping there, pressing her face up against the real gla.s.s windows and looking out on a rainstorm, safe inside.

At Ann Marieas urging, her son had softened the story when he told his fiance what happened. As far as Regina knew, he had lost his job because the company was downsizing and had to cut the staff by a third, that was all.

They hadnat told the girls, or anyone, what really happened. (They hadnat told anyone about Fiona either, though she had said, aI would like to come out to the rest of the family in my own time.a Ann Marie hoped that meant never.) When Pat got on the phone with his mother or his sister Clare, he boasted like crazy, said Little Daniel was bringing in a salary in the high six figures and making them proud. She appreciated her husbandas desire to shield their son from the Kelleher gossip mill, and she went along with it, even when that meant she had to lie right to Aliceas face.

Pat reached into his wallet now and pulled out his checkbook. He made out a check for five thousand dollars and signed his name, ripping the page off with more intensity than seemed necessary. He handed it to her, and Ann Marie had the envelope waiting. She quickly placed the check inside and sealed it.

aNow,a she said. aLetas get you some breakfast.a aIall just have toast,a he said.

aI have some of that yummy Irish soda bread from my motheras friend Sharon,a she said. aWant that?a He shrugged. aSure.a aItas going to be a gorgeous day,a she said. aItas supposed to get up to seventy-seven degrees this afternoon.a aThatas good.a aYour mom said Maggieas heading north sometime in the next few days,a Ann Marie went on. aKathleen wouldnat tell Alice exactly when. Typical. Itas really a shame she doesnat go along too. But let us not forget how busy she is on the farm.a Pat chuckled. aYou canat expect her to leave Farmer Arlo alone with all those animals to take care of,a he said. aAnother Woodstock might pop up out there without my sensible big sister around to stop it.a Ann Marie rolled her eyes. aRight. A billion worms and a hippie drug addict win out over her own mother and daughter. That makes good sense.a aA friend of the devil is a friend of Kathas,a he said. She frowned. aWhat does that mean?a aItas from a song. Never mind.a Pat paused, and then he said, aPoor Maggie.a aI know! But whatas wrong with your sister? Doesnat she miss her kids, all the way out there in California? Honestly, Patrick, it hurts me to even think it, but I donat think she does.a Pat didnat have much of a relationship with his oldest sister, not anymore. When they were all young and Kathleen was still married, they were close. They spent almost every Sat.u.r.day together. Twenty years had gone by, and Kathleen still blamed Pat for covering for her cheating ex-husband, even though he had done it to protect her. If she only knew how many times Pat had sat that guy down and told him to end his relationship with the other woman, to think about his family. Pat had genuinely believed he could talk sense into Paul, and maybe he might have eventually. They hadnat known about Paulas money problems until it was too late, but it wasnat their fault that Kathleen had been clueless about her own bank account.

Ann Marie thought Pat had much stronger grounds on which to be furious. With their mother well into her seventies, Kathleen had squandered their fatheras hard-earned money and up and moved across the country, leaving Alice in their care. Even back when Kathleen was religious, she was nothing but a Cafeteria Catholic. Maybe this was why she felt no obligation to her family, not one shred of guilt.

Patas other sister, Clare, wasnat much better, and she lived only a few miles away in Jamaica Plain. Her husband, Joe, couldnat stand Alice, and Clare had sided with him. She visited her mother once a month or so, and then Ann Marie would have to listen to Alice gush about the fact that Clare had brought her the most beautiful roses, or a bottle of cabernet with the fifty-dollar price tag still on, as if these petty gestures made up for the past four weeks of neglect.

Clare was always telling Ann Marie that she wished she could do more. She was the sort of person who spent so much time telling you how busy she was that the complaint in itself seemed like a full-time job. Try having three children, Ann Marie wanted to say. Clare had a cleaning lady who came in once a week, and when Ryan was small she had employed a nanny. Ann Marie would never dream of paying someone else to do her job. Not because they couldnat afford it, but because no one could ever care for your children or your home as well as you could, she was certain of that.

Most of the time, the work of caring for Alice was left to Ann Marie, even though she had her own mother to think about. She had lost her father at twenty-seven and gotten none of the sympathy that the Kellehers seemed to want for their loss, even though they were all in their forties when Big Daniel died. Ann Marie herself was. .h.i.t hard by it. He was such a good man, so kind to her and to everyone. He had been the one who kept them all together. But it was clear that her in-laws expected her not to react, even as she made the arrangements for the funeral by herself.

What bothered Ann Marie most about the Kellehers was the way they all leaned on her, yet never quite let her in, or even said thank you. She was certain that her sisters-in-law, to whom she felt superior in many ways, to be honest, still thought of her as the poor white-trash girl who had conned their brother into marriage.

Pat sympathized, but really this was a woman thing. Though Alice was an ally, sort of, Clare and Kathleen were mostly unkind to her, as if Ann Marie were just a guilt-inducing reminder of how little they did for Alice, for the family overall. On holidays, Clare would bring one side disha"one!a"and spend the entire evening griping about how hard it had been to make it, until everyone at the table praised her bland sweet potatoes or her runny green bean ca.s.serole.

Kathleen came empty-handed. According to her, this was because she had to travel. (Did travel preclude a person from picking up a bottle of wine or a box of crackers and some cheese?) Before she moved to California, she would bring her two huge s...o...b..ring German shepherds along on Christmas. Ann Marie would be forced to let the dogs stay in her kitchen, where they had once been caught licking the leftover roast.

Those dogs were ancient now. Alice had told her that a year ago, Kathleen paid something like ten thousand dollars to give one of them chemotherapy. Ann Marie had never heard of such a waste of money in her life. She had cousins in Southie who would have been put to sleep for less.

Now when Kathleen came home for the holidays, she often tried to educate Ann Marieas children on the Gospel According to Her. A few months after Pattyas first baby was born, he cried at dinner, and she rose to take him into the bedroom and feed him, as Ann Marie had instructed.

aNurse Foster right here at the table,a Kathleen had said. aItas perfectly natural, honey. Donat go lurking in the shadows. Donat be one of those women pumping in the handicap stall at the Olive Garden.a Maggie nearly spat out her wine. aReally, Mom? The handicap stall at Olive Garden?a Ann Marie responded softly, mortified, aI think Patty feels, as I do, that some people are made uncomfortable when they see a womanas bare breast. And so itas really better for everyone, including the baby, to find a nice solitary spot.a aThatas bulls.h.i.t,a Kathleen said.

If this were her own sister, or if she were a different sort of woman, perhaps Ann Marie might have pointed out that Kathleen had bottle-fed both her kids from the time they were three months old. Instead, she swallowed her reply.

aI hardly think this is appropriate dinner conversation,a Alice had said, silencing them. Patty went into the bedroom and shut the door.

There was a long pause. A few years earlier, Daniel Senior would have been there to make a joke, lighten the mood. Ann Marie a.s.sumed they were all thinking as much.

Finally Clare said, aCould someone pa.s.s the milk?a and they laughed.

Three solid hours of storytelling followed, as if for Danielas sake.

The Kellehers allegedly hated one another, but when they got together and things were good, they stayed up all night, laughing and talking. More so when Daniel was alive, but still now from time to time.

Even after thirty-three years of marriage, Ann Marie sat at every family dinner and listened to them tell the same stories, over and over. She had never met a family so tied up in their own mythology.

What drove her around the bend most was when Alice would mention Sherry Burke, then put her hand on Ann Marieas and say proudly, by way of explanation, as if Ann Marie didnat know, aPatrick used to date her. She was the daughter of the mayor of Cambridge. A beautiful girl. Sheas a senator now!a aA state senator,a Ann Marie would correct her.

Her husband had dated Sherry Burke in high school, for goodnessa sake.

Sitting there on those nights as they drank countless beers and bottles of wine (the next morning she would be the one to pick up all the gla.s.ses and load the dishwasher and wipe down the surfaces), she sometimes dreamed of screaming at them: aIf you tell that G.o.dd.a.m.n story one more time, I will tie up the lot of you and duct tape your big mouths shut.a She meant the kids alsoa"the nieces and nephews and even her own three, who were true Kellehers in their way. After letting the thought linger in her head a moment, shead be overcome with guilt and do something ridiculous, like decide that she should go into the kitchen and whip up some brownies from scratch, then serve them warm with ice cream on top.

On the way to the dollhouse show, she called Patty from the car. There was no answer on the cell or at home, so she tried the office number.

aWhatas up, Mom?a Patty answered, sounding fl.u.s.tered.

aItas a Sunday. What are you doing there?a Ann Marie asked.

aIam swamped.a aWhere are the kids?a aI think they went to a sports bar to watch the Sox game.a aWhat?a aTheyare home with Josh.a aOh. Are they doing okay?a aYou saw them two days ago,a Patty said with a laugh.

aI know,a Ann Marie said. aMaisyas coming over after school tomorrow for our special tea party, right? The teacher knows Iam picking her up?a aYes. Hey, Mom, Iave got a brief I need to file first thing tomorrow, and Iave barely made a dent. Can I call you later?a aSure, honey,a Ann Marie said.

They hung up. Ann Marie felt a bit sad, but couldnat say why.

Turning onto Sycamore behind two twenty-somethings in a yellow convertible, she wondered whether Patty knew about Fiona. They had never been particularly close. Patty had always liked her cousin Maggie better. Ann Marie had once washed her mouth out with soap when she came across the child taunting her younger sister: aYouare not really my sister, Maggie is.a Fiona was crying her eyes out, but Patty kept on going.

Recently, Patty had remarked that she was shocked by how cruel her children could be.

aSometimes theyare like animals,a she had said. aI want to lock myself in the bathroom and hide. How did you survive?a Ann Marie waited in a short line of cars to turn onto the expressway. She glanced at the clock, even though she knew she was right on time.

Patty and Fiona seemed to start talking more after they moved out of the house, just as Ann Marie and her own sisters had. At Ann Marieas urging, her daughters began writing letters to each other from college. (She had sent them the cutest stationery sets and plenty of stamps.) They chatted easily and went out for lunch when they were home for the summer. But then Fiona left for Namibia. Had she been running away? Was that what it was all about? Ann Marie didnat know anyone with a gay child. Who could she ask?

She hadnat spoken to Fiona about it since that first night at dinner. When she wrote to her daughter, she reported on the latest family gossip and the weather and her dollhouse. She could feel herself almost begging Fiona not to bring it up. Fiona, in turn, wrote about her work with children, the beautiful sunset over her village. Ann Marie felt relieved. She had long wanted Fiona to come home, but now, to her great shame, she almost wished she could freeze time: Fiona, caring, generous, far away, like she had always been. Not here, bringing a girlfriend over for Sunday dinner, adopting an African baby and carrying him around Newton in a sling while everyone whispered and stared.

Pat had said that it felt almost like a death: He was mourning the fact that Fiona would never have a wedding, never meet that charming do-gooder husband they had imagined for her, never have kids. Most painful of all, she could not possibly be a true, accepted Catholic now. If such places did exist, she would not go to Heaven with the rest of them.

Somehow Ann Marie had managed to raise three children who turned their backs on Catholicism in all sorts of ways. She had taught their CCD cla.s.ses and taken them to church every Sunday. Pat was a eucharistic minister. She had forced Little Daniel to be an altar boy, and enrolled the girls in the choir. She had done all she could, and for what?

Patty had married a Jewish man, which was fine. Times had changed; Ann Marie still had to remind herself of that once in a while. She had held out hope for some time that Josh would convert. When he didnat, she dealt with it. But the fact that they had chosen not to baptize the grandchildren was like a slap in the face.

For a long time, Ann Marie thought her younger daughter was the one true Catholic among them. Fiona was p.r.o.ne to strep as a child, and once, after several rounds of antibiotics failed to keep it away for long, they took her to get the blessing of Saint Blase, patron saint of throat ailments, as a last resort. The blessing seemed to cure her, which generated Fionaas lifelong fascination with the saints. She had always been such a good girl. She worked in the service of the poor. But somewhere along the way Ann Marie must have failed her. She didnat understand how it could have happened.

She was terrified at the thought of her mother or Alice finding out about Fiona. Or even Kathleena"wouldnat this development just make her year?

Women like Kathleen who focused so much on what motherhood had cost them rubbed her entirely the wrong way. She had always thought the whole movement toward ame timea and all that was a bunch of selfish garbage. But now she wondered what exactly she had gained by being selfless. She had gladly been everyoneas chauffeur and cook and maid and advisor. Her children were a mess, even so. But each time she decided that she was done, that from now on shead be carving out time for herself, something always came up: Alice wanted a ride to the eye doctor, or Patty desperately needed a sitter so she could stay late at the office. Was Ann Marie going to refuse them?

She turned off the highway at exit 10 and pulled onto a smaller road. After a few minutes she saw the yellow banner hanging on a plain building up ahead: Wellbright Miniatures Fair. She looked down at the seat beside her, where her photos sat in a plain white envelope: the dollhouse from the front, side, and back to show off the Victorian trim, and a shot of each room close up, which looked quite a lot like pages from Better Homes and Gardens.

Might she actually win? Shead never say as much to anyone, but she thought she had a chance.

Ann Marie got so excited that she rolled her eyes at herself. She pushed all the nonsense out of her head and pulled into the parking lot.

Alice.

Alice put her paper plate in the trash and the tuna bowl in the sink. She filled the bowl with soap and hot water, letting it sit a minute before rinsing it out.

She and Patrick and Ann Marie had driven up to Maine four weeks earlier, at the beginning of May. Pat pulled the boards off the windows and mowed the lawn and fixed the smoke detectors, which were beeping from the far corners of the house in a whiny little chorus. Alice and Ann Marie moved efficiently through first the cottage and then the house, removing the sheets that covered the couches and chairs; unrolling the carpets; plugging the lamps back in; washing down every dusty surface; and vacuuming up the countless dead flies and yellow jackets that somehow managed to find their way inside but could never seem to get out.

There had been an elaborate spiderweb in the cottage shower. It stretched from wall to wall, probably three feet across. As she sliced through it with the broom and then turned the water on full blast, Alice had felt almost bad for the creatures that had spun it. They had had this tiny kingdom all to themselves for months, and then poof, it was gone.

She spent the rest of May alone, except for Ann Marie and Patas weekend visits. She continued preparing the house and the cottage for the kids, but also clearing things away. As soon as she had signed the papers to give over the property when she died, she realized that it might not be so long. She threw out bags of old sheets and bathing suits and tattered flip-flops that had somehow ended up in the loft. She pulled blankets and clothes from the bedroom dresser drawers and closet. She gathered what seemed like hundreds of sh.e.l.ls and pieces of sea gla.s.s and the odd sand dollar or starfish, and put them all back on the beach one night at dusk. She gave Danielas collection of thrillers and political biographies to the Ogunquit library, their spines stained white by the sun that streamed through the bedroom window. She boxed up gla.s.ses and plates from the big house, but she had to be careful not to remove too much from the cottage too soon. She didnat want the children asking questions.

Kathleenas daughter, Maggie, would be the first family member of the season to arrive, with her photographer boyfriend, Gabe.

Maggie was the artist of the family. Sometimes Alice thought Maggie was what she herself might have become if only she had been born a generation or two later. Timing was everything when it came to being a womana"the moment you entered the world could seal your fate. Maggie got straight Aas at Kenyon College. At thirty, she had published a book of short stories about love gone awry.

aWasnat it marvelous?a Kathleen kept saying.

Alice did think the writing was quite polished. She even bragged about it to the librarians at her local branch. But how could she read a work of fiction by her own granddaughter without hunting for glimpses of herself, of Kathleen, and their marriages? Kathleen said Maggie was now at work on a novel. Would she come this summer, wanting to collect stories like a vulture? It always felt that way when she asked questions, as if Alice should be chronicled, each heartache and human connection and childhood memory an artifact in a museum exhibit, to be tagged and displayed, a life lived and finished, ready to be studied.

Then again, Gabe, the boyfriend, was one of the few summer guests Alice was actually looking forward to hosting. She was even willing to overlook the fact that he and Maggie shared a bed in the cottage. (Ann Marieas kids had the manners and good sense to sleep in separate rooms if they werenat married yet, but she knew she couldnat expect that from Kathleenas.) In the past, when Maggie brought her pampered college friends to Maine, they acted as though Alice were running a bed-and-breakfast, the innkeeper next door. They didnat bother to invite her to join them, and when Maggie stopped by in the mornings, presumably to do her familial duty, Alice would quickly create a story about all she had to do that day, to keep from looking pathetic.

But Gabe! Last summer, he told jokes and thanked her again and again for inviting him, and sang old songs with her late into the night. He reminded her of different times, when her brothers and Danielas would come up to the cottage for long weekends, singing and drinking, everyone merry.

And if she was really being honest, she liked him most of all because one night after dinner, while Maggie was in the bathroom and the two of thema"Alice and Gabea"had each had about a bottle of cabernet, Gabe took Aliceas hand and said, aYouare beautiful, you know that? I mean, one of the most stunning women Iave ever seen. I want to photograph you.a He was flirting with her! No one had flirted with her in years. Her pulse sped up, and she felt a certain degree of regret when she heard the toilet flushing in the other room. She let him take her picture the next afternoon while Maggie was on the beach. He sent her the finished copy, and Alice cried to see how wrinkly she looked, how G.o.dd.a.m.n old. When he had snapped her in the bright sun, she had felt eighteen again.

Life had been so dreary the past several months. She hoped Gabe might put a spring in her step.

He was a charmer, but still Alice had her doubts about the relationship: generally speaking, Maggie had her motheras bad taste in men. Kathleen had said once that Maggie was intent on settling down, but Gabe certainly didnat seem like the marrying type. Kathleen had told Alice that he drank too much, though Kathleen thought everyone drank too much. She had also reported that he and Maggie fought all the time. aHe reminds me a lot of Paul,a Kathleen had said, her ex-husbandas name a kind of shorthand for everything that was wrong with men.

Maggie and Gabe would be here any day now, Kathleen said.

aWell, when exactly will they turn up?a Alice had asked her daughter over the phone a few days earlier.

aI think it depends on Gabeas work schedule. Donat sweat it, Mom,a Kathleen said, in that faux-calm tone that could make Aliceas blood pressure soar twenty points. aTheyall get there when they get there.a aIad like some advance warning so I can get the cottage ready is all,a Alice said.

aThen call Maggieas cell and tell her that,a Kathleen said.

aSheas your daughter,a Alice said.

aYeah, well, sheas your granddaughter.a aOh Jesus, Kathleen, forget it,a Alice said.

aItas forgotten,a Kathleen replied tersely.

And that was that. Typical.

The previous winter, after one of her many therapeutic retreats, Kathleen had returned home to Ma.s.sachusetts for Christmas to tell Alice that she had tried hypnosis and had recalled painful memories from her childhood: Alice making her stay inside the cottage while the other kids played on the beach, because she had been sneaking cookies and had gotten too fat for her bathing suit. Alice leaving her behind at a carnival when she was eight to teach her a lesson after she had thrown a tantrum, coming back to get her hours later, her face streaked with dirt and tears.

aYou were emotionally and verbally abusive to me,a Kathleen had said.