“Thank you, Mae,” says Calvin.
“Who’s the favorite daughter now?” Mae asks.
Nikoletta looks back and forth. “You’re all sofunny!”she says uncertainly.
Natalie and Scarlett are looking at what may just be Natalie’s favorite photo of all time. It’s back hanging where it’s always hung, in the sunroom, in a natural woven frame. Pottery Barn, circa whenever. It’s the three Shipman girls, on the sand, facing the house, their backs to the ocean. Her mother must have taken the photo—except for the first day of school pose by the rhododendron, Theresa took all the photos. As a result, she was in far fewer than she should have been.
It’s summer 2007. Fourth of July, the girls are holding unlit sparklers. Natalie knows she was fifteen because that was the summer she’d used her birthday money from the spring to buy a bikini, which she’d done with gusto, choosing a one-shouldered ruffled tie-dyed number that she’d now certainly caution herself (or anyone else) against. But how happy she’d been in it.
Natalie does some quick math. Yes, this was the summer of Simone! This was the summer Jordan got in trouble for staying out all night after a party at Simone’s house; the battery on her flip phone (a flip phone!) had died, and she hadn’t called.
“We thought you were dead!”Natalie remembers her father bellowing, and even her mother, who usually saved her disciplining for the classroom, had raised her voice.
“Well, I’mnot,” Jordan had snarled, eighteen, exhausted, stomping her way up to her bedroom, where she’d slept the rest of the day.
Mae is deliciously eleven, spindly legs, concave chest in her bright orange one-piece. (How Mae hadlovedthat suit, even though orange was then, and would be forevermore, a terrible color on her.)
“Look at my butterfly clips!” Natalie tells Scarlett, pointing at her hair in the photo.
“Oooooh,” says Scarlett appreciatively.
Natalie was in love, too, that summer, with an older man (sixteen) who had been visiting his grandparents for a week. Sean? Mark? She can’t remember, but she does remember that he promised to call her once he got back to Michigan or wherever he was from and she never heard from him.
Talk about a cruel summer.
In the photo, Natalie is wearing the bikini, and Jordan, who had been flirting with a hair crimper that summer, with mixed results, is in shorts and a Cinnamon Rainbows T-shirt. She’s looking slightly off to the left with a sly smile. Natalie is grinning straight at the camera, and Mae is jumping, both feet off the ground, like a kid in a commercial who’s just been told she’s going on a surprise trip to Disney World. Natalie puts her fingertips on the photo, touching each of the girls in turn.Take me back, she wants to say.Just for a day, take me back. She doesn’t even realize she’s crying until Scarlett says, “Are you crying, Mommy?”
“A little bit.”
“What are you sad about?”
“I guess time passing. But that’s what time does. It passes.”
Tuesday
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After Leo’s morning walk on Tuesday, Mae and Leo return to the kitchen, and Mae unhooks Leo’s leash. He flops on the floor, tongue out, breathing fast in the satisfying way that a tired dog breathes. There’s no sign of Cinnamon, but Natalie is sitting at the kitchen island, frowning into a coffee cup that saysI’M SILENTLY CORRECTING YOUR GRAMMAR. They’d started getting these mugs for their mom years ago, the cornier the better, and they’d all ended up at the beach house. In Lenox, the cabinets hold a matching set of twelve light blue pottery mugs. Here they each drink from one of approximately nine ridiculous mugs.
“You like the coffee? I made a pot before I took Leo out,” says Mae, pleased with herself.
“Thanks,” says Natalie wearily. “It’s on the weak side, but, yeah, thanks.” Mae rolls her eyes—sisters can be so ungrateful.
“Then make it yourself next time,” she suggests, not unkindly, but not kindly either.
“You asked if I liked it.” Natalie rubs her temples. Her phone, next to her coffee, buzzes, and she silences it and turns it over, but not before Mae sees Austin’s name on the screen. Mae fills the teakettle, sets it on the stove, and chooses a mug that saysMY BLOOD TYPE IS COFFEE.
Leo raises his head, his ears go up, and footsteps approach. Mae grabs her phone, tells Leo to settle, and captures him watching Jordanenter the kitchen. He looks back at Mae for confirmation that this is okay, puts his chin on the floor.Good boy, Leo.
Jordan finds a mug that saysHOLD ON, LET ME OVERTHINK THIS, and fills it nearly to overflowing. She opens the refrigerator door and stands there for way too long. “This house has no milk alternatives,” she says. “Why didn’t we get any when we went to the store yesterday?”
“Who needs alternatives?” asks Natalie. “You’ve got the finest, freshest milk there is right there. Organic.”
Leo raises his head again, lifts his ears, and Caspian trundles into the kitchen. He’s wearing pajamas with trains on them, and his hair is sticking up all over the place.
“Good boy, Leo,” Mae says encouragingly, and Leo sighs and settles once again.
“Ommy?” says Caspian.
