“That guy? Shit. I still think Mom and Dad loved each other,” said Gwen.
Could that love have been fake? I don’t buy it. She squeezed her hands between her knees. All that fire and heartache was love. Wasn’t it?
“They were kids when they were married; no one taught them how to have a healthy relationship. There was no Oprah,” said Gwen. She stood up and faced the cove, her hands on her hips leaving green fingerprints on the hem of her shirt.
“One dude, Tom, no matter how hot, does not a gay man make. They probably felt like they had to separate, to go to hell to see that they didn’t actually want to move there. They had to find other options, you know? Anything, because being apart must’ve just felt wrong. And then the baby brought them back to each other. Danny saved them. That’s still the bottom line, right?”
She folded her arms and paced between Tom and her drawing. Tom shook his head. He seemed to be growing smaller, his arms close to his body now, knees squeezing together.
She was reeling, defending a stance that didn’t quite make sense anymore. But they seemed happy, eventually. Was Scarlet just a beard? What a sad, pathetic thing for her to be. Were they happy just because he was off fucking college boys while she . . . What was she doing? What was her happiness? Danny? Keeping the family in some false state of togetherness? She’s always thought her mother was stronger than that, better than that. She didn’t want to believe it.
And yet, she could see it. She saw the two dinghies float one after the other, she saw it all in her sad and defeated brother. It was certainly true for him. She saw that.
She saw it all now. How he’d been carrying this house on his back for two decades; how it had made him tired and old even in his youth. The effort of it had taken him away from them.
She stood in front of him now. She wished she could take it all from him, to be the one sitting on the porch that day, to have beat him back from the quarry. She took a deep breath, tried to breathe in his pain and breathe out relief for him. Standing in front of him, she hugged him to her, and felt ashamed that she had somehow allowed him to be alone in this for so long. Tom leaned into her and hugged her, both arms around her waist.
When he let go, Gwen sat down next to him again, looked at her hands. “I wish you’d told me sooner.”
Tom nodded.
“I’m so sorry,” whispered Gwen.
Tom put his arm around her and kissed the top of her head.
She wished she had remembered to take off her rings; they were already coated with green wax. She tried to rub her knuckles clean on her shorts, but she knew the color would leach into the lines on her hands, aging her. They sat silently, Tom looked out at the cove as she assessed her drawing. Funny how it had stayed there, the same, even as the rest of her world changed. Even so, the lines kept going, kept calling her to continue where she’d left off.
She thought of the baby inside her. Not a baby, just a collection of genetics incubating. And yet it was her genetic collection, something she had made, her tiny but epic installation. Because now it was all different. Babies didn’t fix families or break them. They were just another piece of a long and intricate history, another tick on the timeline. Danny hadn’t saved her parents, or ruined them. Her mother could have had him alone, could have let her husband disappear across the sea with some frothy-headed coed. Would it have made a difference? Could they have been happier alone? Would it have made a difference to Tom? She picked up Tom’s hand and held it. Figured he could use a little color on his skin.
“We’re going to be forty soon,” said Gwen. “Funny, huh? That’s how old she was when she had Danny.”
“You’ve got four more years, Pipsqueak. But, I’ll keep it warm for you.” He squeezed her hand.
She saw him then, her big brother, curled beside her in her little bed in the nursery; saw him pulling her sister limp out of the sea; saw him flip a small switch on a machine in a hospital room. And she thought, This is what he has always done, and I didn’t see it. He’s always gone first, scouted ahead, cleared a path for the rest of us. All the errant branches whipped into his face first as he broke through them, keeping the rest of us safe, leading forth, and leaving clues for the journey home. Just like now. She was on the path to forty, and Tom would lead the way.
Gwen had always imagined that next decade as a heavy arched door with scrolled wrought-iron hinges that sat at the top of circuitous staircase. A dark mystery, that had to be answered, opened, revealed. The baby would not put it off, nor did she want it to. When she passed through that door she didn’t want to leave anything on the other side. Not brothers, not babies. There would be an exhaustive inventory, and each thing folded and wrapped in tissue and stacked in a steamer trunk for the journey, jars of shells, a velvet box holding a sand dollar, a black stone polished by the sea wrapped in silk. All vessels would be filled. She would start now with this baby, a perfect pebble turning softly in her belly.
Gwen and Tom both turned toward the meadow as they heard the pop and crunch of a car coming down the road. A shining, wide, black car not at all appropriate for their gullied dirt road pulled up beside the jeep. All the windows up, air-conditioning on, thought Gwen, must be lost. Tom stood up. A balding man stepped out of the car and gave them a wave. He headed across the meadow toward them.
“Tom?” he called.
Tom met him with an outstretched hand.
“Rafe Phillips. Is now a good time?”
Tom looked back at Gwen. She nodded.
TWENTY-SEVEN
OCTOBER
The four of them stand in the cockpit of the Misdemeanor as they motor from one town to another. They pass their house, which is not theirs any longer. Libby cuts the throttle, and they stall there in front of their sprawling memory.
The four of them have come up for the closing; since all of them are owners, they all must be present to sign away this place. They have given most of the land to the Maine Preservation Society, and the house, they have sold to a family who promises not to tear the whole thing down, though they know that is a lie.
The oak is yellow and peeks from behind the house. The glossy white windows of the great room look down upon them. It is cold and they all wear their foul-weather gear, bright-yellow slickers, except Gwen, in a red poncho to accommodate the swell of her belly.