“There’s something related to this that I really need to talk to you about. I’ve been avoiding bringing it up because it’s uncomfortable—” She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes briefly, opens them.
“What is it?”
“It’s money. That’s it. It’s money. This place isveryexpensive.”
“What do you mean byvery expensive?”
Annie hesitates. “Upward of nine thousand dollars a month.”
“Amonth?” Nine thousand dollars a month is... almost one hundred and ten thousand dollars a year. More than all of Louisa’s salary, pretax. Nine thousand dollars is three average Brooklyn mortgages, two expensive private schools; nine thousand dollars is getting one and a half children a new set of braces every single month.
Annie nods. “Your father’s father lived to the age of ninety-two... so we could be talking—well, we could be talking well over a hundred thousand dollars foryears,Louisa. This place is the best around, and I want the best.” She pauses, and takes a sip of her iced tea. “I’m going to have to make some changes in order to afford it, and that’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about. I guess now is as good a time as any.”
Louisa braces herself. “But—you have money. Right?” Therightcomes out in a whisper. She’s always thought of her mother’s money as a creek that will never run dry. There’s always been money—for gifts for the children, for Ships View, for Pauline and Danny and expensive dinners out in Brooklyn when Annie and Martin come to visit.
Annie clears her throat and shifts her eyes toward the door. “Yes. I have some money. But there are the vagaries of the market, which hasn’t always been kind. I put money into the college accounts for the children. You know that. I was glad to be able to do that. There’s upkeep on the Portland condo. Condo fees, utilities. Then taxes and maintenance on our house here. Yes, we own this house outright, but you’d be astonished by how much it takes to keep it running. The roof will need replacing before the winter. The water heater is going to go. There’s paying for Barbara, and for Danny. The lawn and gardens alone . . .” She shakes her head. “There’s Pauline. I’m sure I could manage without Pauline, but what am I going to do, put her out on the mean streets of Rockland after all she’s done for us? She depends on this job. And Barbara will only be able to help us for so much longer. She’s a caregiver, not a nurse. We really should have a nurse . . . we need someone who can dispense medications, and so forth. Help more with toileting.” (Louisa wants to wince at the wordtoileting.It is simply not a word you want to think of in the context of your father, and yet, there it is, sitting on the table with the condiments.)“An actual nurse is double the cost of Barbara.” She looks straight at Louisa and says, “I’m going to have to think about some very specific changes to make all of this happen.”
Louisa feels a vise tighten around her heart. “What specific changes are you talking about?”
Annie fiddles with her wedding ring, twisting it around and around. It’s looser than it should be. “One option is to sell Ships View.” In a smaller voice she says, “That’s the best option, really. The only option. I should be straight with you. That is the option. The plan.”
Annie may have well been telling Louisa she intends to swim across the English Channel without a wet suit. And that she wants Abigail to swim next to her, watching for sharks. Louisa feels lava made out of confusion and rage rise into her throat, threatening to spill out. “No!Mom, no. You can’t.”
“Louisa—”
“No.”
“Listen to me. Please. What I’m saying is that I’ve already come to terms with selling. I just need to figure out the whys and wherefores, you know. Get the ball rolling before next summer. I know this feels sudden for you, but it’s not so sudden for me. I’ve been thinking about it, running the numbers, for a long time now. And I’ve become resigned to the idea, as much as it pains me to say that.”
“Where willyougo next summer?” (Where willIgo,Louisa is also thinking.)
“The Portland condo, for now. But before too long I’d like to move into one of the residential places in the facility, to be near your father.”
“You can’t do that, live in some tiny apartment... You’ll shrivel up and die.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Louisa. Of course I won’t shrivel up and die.”
Louisa stares at her sandwich, and the sandwich stares back at Louisa. She knows that she’s doing nothing to make this conversation easier for Annie—but she also feels like the rug has been ripped out from under her, and that under the rug, it turns out, there’s a giant hole, and she’s about to fall into the hole. She thinks about someone painting over the handprints in the half bath off the kitchen, maybe ripping up the peonies or putting ugly lawn furniture on the spot where Steven and Louisa got married. She thinks she might throw up.
The drive home is long and painful and very, very quiet. When they finally pull into Rockland proper Louisa says, “How much would you need to keep from selling it before next summer?”
Annie’s eyes behind her sunglasses are inscrutable, but her lips are pressed together, a thin pink line. “Louisa. It’s decided.”
“Fifty thousand? One hundred? Half a million? How much?”
“At this point, sweetheart, it’s a matter of putting everything in place. I thought maybe you could help me find a Realtor, whileyou’re here. You know how terrible I am about searching for things on the Internet.”
Louisa concedes this point with a nod; her motheristerrible about searching for things on the Internet. But: “No, Mom. Don’t. Not yet.”
As soon as they get home (but home for how much longer?) Louisa calls Steven at the office. Greta answers. “He’s in production,” she says.
“This is an emergency,” says Louisa. “Can you get himoutof production?”
“Easier said than done, but I’ll try. Hang on, okay?” Four beats of silence, then Greta returns. “Hey, Louisa. Sorry. He’s in the studio, so I had to wait until the light went off. He wants to know if it’s like anemergencyemergency, like someone broke a limb or is bleeding profusely, or if it’s an emergency that can wait like twenty minutes.”
Louisa sighs, considers lying, then thinks better of it. “It can wait like twenty minutes,” she says eventually. “Nobody’s bleeding or broken. Butpleasehave him call me as soon as he can. Please, Greta.” She sits in the rocker and puts the phone on the small table and stares out at the water for a moment and tries to imagine someone else on this deck. She picks up the binoculars that one of the children (her money is on Claire) has left illegally outside and trains them across the harbor on the breakwater. The fog has rolled in from the east, shrouding the white buildings of the Samoset, but with the help of the binoculars she can see the outline of the lighthouse; she can even see a solitary figure making its way down the breakwater. She thinks about the safety net she’s always assumed was there—and how it’s now floating out to sea.
Her phone rings and she lunges for it. “Steven. Hi. I’m glad you called me back—I’m really really sorry to bother you at work. But it’s important, and I had to talk to you about it right away.” She takes a deep breath and goes into it: the lunch, the pamphlet, theconversation. She doesn’t specifically describe the potential fracturing of her heart into many little pieces but she assumes that’s implied along with the rest of the details. She expects to wait a bit while he processes this, but his answer comes too quickly.
