She waited. She let the word land. Now he knew who she was.
“You are a weak, impotent man.”
Denise continued to shove his chest, but Jack was no longer moving backward. Instead, he stood still as she threw curse after curse at him, his dress shoes cemented into the sand.
“You’re a pervert,” she spat, “a sick, fucking pervert.”
Rachel and Fiona remained where they stood and watched silently, shocked and exhilarated by the extraordinary amount of power and adrenaline that seemed to be coming from Denise. Rachel didn’t think she had ever seen her mother so strong and so sure. Fiona did not dare to look at Rachel.
And then something happened that the girls would forever after know as one of the strangest, most memorable moments of their young lives. As Denise pushed and cursed at Jack and pushed him some more, seemingly exhausting herself but not slowing down, and as the entire crowd of mourners watched it, Amy Larkin—grieving Amy Larkin, who had just lost her young daughter, who had been bedridden and unable to walk unaided for the past month, who had never before had anything of consequence to say to Denise—standing as tall as she ever had, strode over to Rachel’s mother and took the woman by the arm.
At the touch, Denise turned to Amy and immediately stopped pushing. She looked at the woman, bewildered. Amy nodded and took Denise into her arms. Denise accepted the embrace and, in one single moment, fell into it with a low, mournful groan.
Rachel was sure it was the ugliest sound that had ever come from her mother’s mouth. “I’m so sorry,” they heard Denise saying between sobs. “I’m so, so sorry.”
Amy stroked Denise’s hair. “I know,” she said. Jack stood over the women, perplexed by the scene in front of him. Powerless as he waited for it to be over.
Then Amy looked up at Jack as if she had forgotten, until then, that he was there. She said to him very clearly and very calmly, “I think you should go now.”
Who would say no to a mourning mother? Amy seemed to understand this, that all the power in the world suddenly belonged to her. The two women walked away from the shore, away from Jack, and toward the back of the crowd. Once they had settled there, and Denise’s sobs had slowed, they watched as Jack ambled onto the trail leading away from the lake and disappeared. The memorial-goers were still standing there, looking around, speaking in low tones to one another, waiting for some sort of order to resume, waiting for someone new to take charge. Jack was supposed to make the opening remarks.
Fiona looked at Rachel and Rachel at Fiona. “I didn’t—” Fiona started to say.
Rachel shook her head and took Fiona’s hand. Emboldened by their mothers, perhaps, or by what one might call a ghostly atmosphere down at the lake that day, with Helen’s memory hovering so close, each girl saw the other fully in that moment.
—
Later they planted a garden for Helen near the stables at Camp Marigold. The Larkins donated her horse, Dandelion, to the camp, less out of benevolence and more because of the grief that would have come with having to care for her, day after day. And once they decided to donate Dandelion, Fiona wanted Josie to go too; she couldn’t bear to separate them.
Helen would never have to realize, years later, what Sarah had had to endure, that clenching her teeth and waiting for the sex with Danny Sheppard to be over wasn’t normal or okay. She wouldn’t live with a scar from that glimpse of Yonatan in the shed that night, wouldn’t ever know why Rachel left camp.
All the girls Helen loved and hated would not be formative in the development of her adult self, would not be discussed in therapy nor play major roles in her future relationships with her roommates, her bosses, her mother-in-law. She would not be threatened by women or seek to defy them.
In her adult siblings’ homes, and those of her aging, divorced parents, Helen would remain suspended in the same picture: Camp Marigold, July 2006, half-smiling at the camera, as though taken aback by it, her blond curls fading at the edges into a sun-softened day. Hipless, flat chested, some time before she would have gotten her first period. Downy tanned legs in kid-sized medium shorts. She was perfect. She had left perfect. Though no one admitted it, or outwardly wished it upon themselves, when it came to Helen, they silently agreed: They all thanked God she was a late bloomer.
—
But in that moment at the beach, when Denise had lashed out at Jack, and everyone was standing silent and confused about what was supposed to happen next, Rachel said to Fiona, “Maybe you should go up there.” There was no one else equipped to speak. Fiona knew this too. She nodded, let go of her friend’s hand, and made her way to the front of the crowd.
For my parents
And for Eleanor: May you hold on to
your girlhood as long as you can
Acknowledgments
Meredith Kaffel Simonoff, my agent, took this project on in its nascent stages and helped me to shape it into something more like a book. Her savvy, generosity, and dedication have been career-making and life-changing.
Andrea Walker is a dream editor: whip smart, incisive, and most of all, kind. I don’t know how I lucked into getting to work with her, but I’m so glad I did.
Kaela Myers, my sister in ampersand, has been incredibly helpful throughout this entire process. Janet Wygal’s copyediting skills are out of this world. Lucy Silag, Andrea DeWerd, and the rest of the lovely folks in the publicity and marketing departments at Random House have shown nothing but excitement and dedication for Perennials, and I am so grateful to them.
Susan Kamil and Andy Ward: Thank you for believing in this book.
To the many more working hard behind the scenes, both at Random House and DeFiore and Company: Thank you.
Kelly Farber is my unofficial guide through this wild world of publishing, and I couldn’t get by without her honesty, intel, and humor.
I’m extremely grateful to the Columbia University Writing Program for providing me with two years to write and, consequently, a second home. My teachers, particularly Elissa Schappell and Rebecca Godfrey, helped me to spring Perennials into being when it was just a bud. Victor LaValle helped me turn it into a novel. Corinna Barsan’s input was instrumental to the revision process. I’m thankful to all of my peers and professors, too many to name here, who read drafts and pushed me to do better.
Katie Abbondanza, Julia Bosson, Kea Krause, and Soon Wiley are brilliant readers, writers, and people. Dr. Matt Cummings called me on his overnight shifts and patiently explained heart conditions and concussions to me. Ellie Hunzinger, my English rose, was my British vernacular adviser. Elise Brandenburg taught me about horses.