Those summer days, he took us on boat trips, and on road trips like the ones I described to Joy. I remember Mom cooking chili, which he loved, using tomatoes from the garden—actually from the greenhouse nook of the potting shed, which was as much hers as the boat was his. He loved grilled steak, so she grilled steak. And made clam chowder from the clams we gathered. And boiled lobster.
These memories, too, are good. Sure, we chafed in the backseat of the car, and quickly learned that if we didn’t have a destination, spending hours on the boat while Dad stood tall at the helm with his ball cap clipped to his collar so that it wouldn’t blow into the sea, was boring as hell. Still, when he was happy, we were happy. Even Mom. She didn’t have to make clam chowder from scratch, when she could as easily have bought homemade in town. But she did it for him. That was proof of love. Wasn’t it?
Then Dad grew antsy. At its onset, he would walk around with his hands in his pockets, never quite able to settle down. When it worsened, he would find fault with Monopoly, shout snide answers to Trivial Pursuit from across the room, pontificate on the superiority of William Faulkner to whatever we were reading, and if we were on the beach doing nothing at all, he would complain about that.
Margo likened him to a caged bear. I remember that image clear as day. I didn’t entirely agree with it—even at his worst, Dad was more disciplined than a bear. I did agree, though, that he seemed to dislike his life.
Not that he would write about that in a Lawyer’s Diary. The page of Aldiss-MacKay is blank, as is the entire week that followed. On the pages for the week after that, his sprawling script refers to anational meeting of judges—Dallas, it says, though I don’t see any sign that he actually went.
The investigation was in full swing by that time, and with his being on top of the detectives and the detectives being on top of him and the local press watching it all, he hadn’t gone far. But I see no reference to any of that. It’s like he saw this diary as his legacy, and didn’t want it tainted by even the slightest untoward scrawl.
Did that make him guilty of a crime? Of course not. Closing the diary, I return it to its slot and glance at the ones he’d been holding when he fell. Those may tell more. But more of what? I don’t know what I’m looking for, which makes the search absurd.
Whatever, there is no gun in these books. Determined, I quickly search behind other bookshelves and between stacks of files. I run a palm over brown folders with the label of Dad’s law firm on the front, but all is smooth and flat. I feel through Dad’s old suits, hanging on a metal rack, but find nothing resembling a gun in any pocket.
There are other boxes. Mom was organized. She used to label cartons for us to fill—ANNE’SSCHOOLPAPERS,MALLORY’SPHOTOGRAPHS—and though Margo took her own things when she left, ours remain.
The stuffiness is starting to get to me. I’m also thinking I ought to head into town. But how to resist MALLORY’SPHOTOGRAPHS?Just for a second?
Pulling the top flap free of the opposite corner under which it’s wedged, I pull it open. The faintly vinegar-y smell takes me right back. It’s from the fixer I used to print pictures, lodged as deeply in my memory as in these prints. When I used a darkroom, in those days before digital, my hands chronically carried this smell.
The carton is packed with photos. The top one is of the ocean, yet another view at another time, this one with the golden light of the sun gilding the scalloped waves, or so my mind’s eye sees in this black-and-white shot. There are others of the beach—a spiral whelk, a knot of seaweed, a piece of sea glass. Shots of Jack are tucked in at the side, and while I sift through the others, I leave him be for now.
A camera is the keeper of memories,Mom used to say. And there she is, smiling at me as she flips burgers on the back porch. She loves me there. I know she does. For that alone, my eyes cling to her face. Joy resembles her so much that it’s frightening. No. It’s wondrous. But the issue of resemblance passes quickly, because this is my mother’s face. Sure, I have shots of her taken in the years after we left. I’m a photographer, for goodness sake. But a shot of Mom at Margo’s place in Chicago or mine in New York isn’t the same as one from my growing up years in Bay Bluff. That face is the one I remember. I haven’t seen it in twenty years. Back here now in Bay Bluff for the first time, I miss her more than ever.
I don’t recall the moment when I took that picture, don’t recall whether Dad was around or not. He used to wave my camera away, like it was a beach fly, so I’m guessing he was off somewhere else when this picture was shot.
Mom’s face reflects that. She is relaxed, her green eyes smiling right along with her mouth. Those eyes in that heart-shaped face radiate love. I feel it now in ways I’ve maybe forgotten. She loved me openly. But only when Dad wasn’t around. I’ve imagined every reason why, but only one makes sense. It’s obvious, isn’t it? Only it doesnotmake sense, not based on what I remember.
“Tom,” my mother hisses with hushed urgency. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Treat her that way.”
“I’m fine to her.”
“You’re critical of her. You hold her to a different standard.”
“She’s a middle child. She lets the others go first. She needs to harden up.”
“She needs to be loved.”
“Don’t go there, Ellie. We’ve talked about this. I have three daughters. I love them all.”
I was ten, standing in the shadows when this conversation took place, and I’ve replayed it hundreds of times since.I have three daughters. I love them all.There were words after that, but I was already slipping away. These were the ones I wanted. For years, I clung tothem as proof that I wasn’t a mistake. Even when I tried to retrieve the others, these were the ones I heard.
Then I left home and became a different person, and the memory shimmered with doubt. Was that challenge on the part of my mother, who rarely challenged my father? Was that deference on the part of my father, who rarely deferred to anyone? Was there an element of rote in their exchange, like the words were part of a script that had to be repeated to be believed?We’ve talked about this.What had that meant? Was it a general statement of parenting, or a specific reference to something unique to these parents?
Each time I’ve seen my father in recent years, I feel apart, and oh, I know. I’m likely transferring childhood feelings to the present. But then there are those other words, spoken right before I slipped away. At times I think I remember a phrase or two. But it may as well be imagination as fear.
My mother knew the whole truth. With her gone, it’s impossible to confirm.
With that thought, I realize that I’ve had enough for now. Now I need Joy. She is my unconditional love, no questions asked.
Closing the carton, one flap under the other, I turn to leave only to glance past, then return to, the end of the attic that holdsthings.Most are stacked on and around the high chair in which each of us once sat, in which our children would have sat had our lives not been pulled apart. Crossing there, I can’t resist touching the crocheted crib blanket that is tucked under an oversized bear on the seat of a bouncer. My breath hitches when I spot, half-hidden behind these things, the tiny table and chairs that we used for coloring, and on top of those, a pile of games—Candyland, Monopoly, Sorry! and—omigod,Where In the World is Carmen Sandiego! Ilovedthat game.
But those memories are for another time. Joy is in town with the grandfather she barely knows, the aunt who’ll be running from kitchen to table and back, and a slew of utter strangers eating bacon and eggs. I’ve dallied long enough. She needs me.
