“No,”I tell him and tighten my fingers on Joy’s arm like I had when she was four and kicking and screaming at the pond in Central Park because she didn’t want to leave. I remember being mortified because other children were well-behaved, remember being horrified having to drag her because she was too big for me to bodily lift, remember being terrified that the police would cite me for child abuse, remember realizing that I’d brought this on myself by being too permissive. It was a pivotal moment in my life as a parent.
Use your words,I would beg her, and oh yeah, doesn’tthatcome back to bite me now.
“I really want to, Mom, and why does it have to be only a week? There is nothing in New York that I have to do. I mean, they won’t miss me at the cat shelter, and I can do my summer reading here as well as there, and don’t eventhinkpiano, because let’s face it, I’m no Mozart. And anyway, really, don’t we both deserve more than just a week off?”
“Life isn’t about what we deserve,” I say. “It’s about what survival demands. I can’t take time off. I have a job.”
“You said you were cutting back.”
“Not cuttingout.”
“Oooo-kay,” Joy says as I had earlier, “so you can go back and I’ll stay. Annie is here, and Papa. The times I wanted to go to summer camp, you wouldn’t let me, but I’m older now, and this is different, Mom. This is Bay Bluff. This isfamily.”
Softly, I say, “We’ll discuss this later,” and tack on a more urgent, “Please?”
Grinning a grin that smacks of victory, she bobs on the tips of her toes and gives me a quick hug—though I have no idea why, since I am not giving in. And still there’s something akin to triumph in the look she shoots Jack. “I’ll get back to you,” she tells him like a CEO, and she’s the one to lead now, taking my arm, calling back, “BTW, I like your dog!”
We’re at the top of the stairs before I say, “That was not fair, Joy. There’s a whole lot you don’t know.”
“Why are you angry?”
“Because there’sa whole lot you don’t know,” I repeat and pause to let her precede me on the narrow path through the heather.
“So tell me.”
“Jack used to be my best friend. Now he is not.”
This message she gets. “Tellme,” she invites, eyes widening with the salacious interest of a BFF. Only she isn’t my BFF. Well, she is. But she’s also my daughter. And she’s only thirteen. So I really can’t talk about all that.
“Later,” I say, though I hate it when people use that word. Later can mean later. Or it can mean when I feel like it, or I don’t want to, or never. For me, right now, it is all of the above in an I-can’t-deal-with-this way.
“Well, I do like his dog,” Joy remarks.
“That’s fine. That’s allowed.” Hoping we’re over a hump, I come alongside her, link our fingers, and look up at the house. “What do you think of it?”
Following my gaze, she tips her head and considers. “It’s cool. Grand, actually.”
“Not grand,” I say. Grand is twice the size, with twice the windows and chimneys. Grand has stone on the front and a circular drive passing beneath aporte cochere.Grand is what we’d seen on the drive into town. The Aldiss house isn’t that. But it does have location.
“Very beachy,” she says. “I love the turrets.”
“One’s in the living room, one’s in the master bedroom, and one’s in the stairwell leading to the second floor. Did you go up there?”
“Not yet.” She glances at the Sabathian house. “His doesn’t have turrets.”
“It does, only square,” I say, but absently. I’m caught up now by the wide steps leading to the front porch. “We used to take family pictures here each year.”
“Seriously? I want tosee.”
“You will.” I don’t say later, because I do mean it this time.
“We don’t have any pictures of little you in New York,” she complains as we start up the steps.
“No. We should.” Leaving here twenty years before, I hadn’t wanted reminders. Actually, I hadn’t realized twenty years would pass before I returned. “Omigod, the rockers. Still rocking. Know how many sunsets we saw from here?” These were good memories. Letting them open, a morning glory unfurling, I drop Joy’s hand, rush to the nearest rocker, and plop down.
“Mom.”
She wants to go inside, but I’m not ready. Closing my eyes, I rock. Wood creaks on wood, a long familiar, eternally soothing sound.
