WE SPENT ALLof yesterday, Sunday, in the house, trapped indoors by the gushing rain. By noon, my hands were fraught with worry from endlessly checking my cell to see if Margot had responded (she hadn’t), so I went into the mudroom and dragged down Jack’s art bins.
Crafting with Jack always soothes me. Probably because as a child, it’s the activity I most craved to do with Nikki but it was the kind of request she generally swatted away, preferring instead to lounge in her bedroom with a suitor, her too-loud laugh bouncing down the hall, her face only poking out of her room when she’d ask me to fetch her another peach wine cooler.
We worked on projects throughout the afternoon—gluing bits of pastel-colored construction paper onto poster board, cutting shapes out of felt with Jack’s tiny plastic scissors, finger painting a mural to display in the hallway—and for a few hours, my mind drifted away from Margot and eased into the comfortable absorption of working side by side with Jack: his fingers sticky with glue and latching onto mine when he wanted help with something, his warm head slumping on my chest toward the end of our projects when he was ready for a nap.
Graham busied himself at the kitchen table, drafting plans for a new bid, and as dusk approached, I clicked on the gas stove and set a kettle of water to boil for our evening tea. As we sipped mugs of brisk Earl Grey, lightly creamed with milk, Graham resumed his sketching, and Jack, fresh up from his nap, abandoned me for the television andDaniel Tiger’s Neighborhood.
My thoughts returned to Margot. Was she mad at me for some reason? Should I have stayed at the bar later? I swiped the screen of my cell, unlocked it. Checked Facebook. No updates or posts from her at all. I reread my text to her, inwardly scolding myself for not being wittier, punchier. And newly wired by the caffeine from the tea, I stepped out back as the rain continued to throb against the metal roof of the covered patio, and paced.
For some reason, a poem from college English lit came flooding back. Tennyson’s “Mariana,” about a woman waiting for her lover who never arrives. As I paced the pavers, it played over and over in my mind as if on a loop:
Upon her bed, across her brow.
She only said, “The night is dreary,
He cometh not,” she said;
She said “I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!”
18
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
IT’S MORNING. GRAHAMhas just taken Jack to school and I’m parked at the kitchen table, uploading photos of the garden to Instagram, hashtagging them: #amgardening #gardenlife #sloweddownlife #herbsforthesoul.
The rain broke in the middle of the night, and the morning sun twinkles in giant puddles on our back lawn.
Sipping my second latte, I’m trying to throw my concentration into something productive. Something other than incessant thoughts of Margot: my Instagram feed, my blog. I even circle the pages of a seed catalog, marking selections for the next row of vegetables I’ll plant in the garden.
I get a flurry of likes on my Insta posts, some new followers and a few comments, and a smile steals across my face. I down the rest of the latte, stand up and stretch, and head outside to snap a few pics of the water-soaked backyard. The air is warm and close, the birds are belting out a frenzied song, and rainwater spurts and trickles from the gutters.
I step back inside, and despite my efforts to distract myself, Margot slides back into my brain.Not now, I say out loud, grabbing the keys and banging out the door.
—
I HAVE TOfind something to do outside of the house today or else I’ll go mad, so I head downtown to Gerald’s, a quaint corner market, to stock up on wine and nibbles.
I’m drifting down the aisles, tossing items in my basket for a meat and cheese platter for tonight’s dinner—I’m not in the mood to cook—when I hear the chime of the door and see Jill walk in with a tall young man who must be her son.
He’s over six feet and hobbles on crutches as he and Jill approach me.
“Well, hey!” Jill says brightly. She leans in and gives me a quick peck on the cheek. “This is Brad. My teenager.” She beams.
Brad is wearing a grass-stained, white-and-green football uniform. His thick, dark hair juts up at odd angles and is slick with sweat. He’s gorgeous. His lips are full and his blue eyes are piercing like Jill’s and fringed with long, dark lashes.
For a second, I imagine him with Margot in the lake house, Margot pinned to the wall as he kisses her neck. My face grows pink at the thought.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Sophie.”
Jill is running her fingers over the assortment of olive oils, intently studying what she’s going to select.
Brad dips his head in deference. “Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” he says, his voice deep, his handshake strong.
Jill snaps out of her olive oil trance and looks at me as if she’s forgotten I’m here. “Brad twisted an ankle today at practice. He says he’s fine but they’re making him walk with crutches just in case.” Her eyes flutter up to her son. “Heisthe star quarterback, after all. And he has a full scholarship to Notre Dame next fall.” She snakes a thin arm around his waist, leans into him. He blushes at the attention.
I try and read her face, scanning it for any evidence that I’ve been ousted by Margot or by the group, but it’s a blank.
