“Not great,” says Kara. “It was her birthday, that’s why I went out—but it’s never great.”
“I’m sorry,” says Mae. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know. We have a lot of baggage, the two of us, and we spend most of our time tiptoeing around it, pretending everything is okay.” Mae knows the barest outlines of Kara’s story—single mom; alcoholic, absent dad; free school lunches; a scholarship to study nursing at Ohio State, where she maintained a 4.0 and graduated with distinction. But of course Mae doesn’t know how that felt, what Kara’s life looked like from the inside. “It’s exhausting. Honestly, she needs to do something about her drinking, but I couldn’t bring that up on herbirthday.”
Mae and her sisters have been so well cared for, so carefully tended, like hothouse flowers, their biggest complaint being—what? A curfew earlier than they thought was fair? Having to share a bathroom? She’s embarrassed for them, thinking about how they must look to Kara. She wants to put her hand over the ache in Kara’s heart.
“I’m sorry,” Mae says again.
“It’s okay. It is what it is. I’m happy you all had some time with just your dad, and now I’m really happy to be here. I can’t wait to see the house.”
“I can’t believe you’ve never seen it.”
“Your dad and I only reconnected in September, remember?” Mae hears Natalie’s voice in her head, callingreconnecteda euphemism.(Be quiet, Natalie.) “He came out here a couple of times over the winter, to check on it, get it ready for renters. I never asked to come. I thought maybe it was a place he needed to go to think about your mom.”
They’re making their way past the shopping centers, the gas stations, the iconic hulk of Kowloon Restaurant.
“How’d it go when he told you all about selling? From your point of view?”
“Well,” says Mae carefully. “Natalie and I are more upset than Jordan. You know her, Miss Practicality. She sees how it makes financial sense. Natalie and I want to keep it forever. And I—” She almost starts to cry anew, thinking about the little dream she had of living in the house indefinitely. “I’m sad,” she says finally. “Yeah, I’m sad about it, for sure.”
“I’m sorry,” says Kara. She squeezes Mae’s hand. After a beat she asks, “Are they blaming me?” Mae doesn’t want to lie, so she pretends to be very busy checking the GPS and remains silent, but they’ve left Route 1 and they’re traveling north on the highway, so there’s nothing to check. “I know they are,” says Kara. “I get it. It’s all part of the package.”
“I’m sorry,” says Mae.
“Don’t be. I’ll be fine. I’m tough! I’ve handled worse.” Kara turns her face toward the window, and her blown-out hair swings. Softly, like she’s just telling the outside world, she says, “Much worse.”
To give Kara the full experience Mae exits the highway in Salisbury, and before long they’re crossing the causeway leading to Hampton, with water on both sides of them, and then, finally, into Hampton proper, with the sandy beaches to their right. They may as well be on a whole different planet from where they started theirjourney. Mae lowers the back right window enough to let Leo stick his snout out, and Kara lowers hers too.
Kara can’t get enough of it. She squeals at the wide sandy beach, points out the people on the deck of Bernie’s, the stands selling fried dough, the cat walking on a leash. Even The Wall that hides a section of Hampton Beach from the road delights her, especially when Mae tells her that this is where you’ll find the biggest number of surfers on any given morning.
“But this beach is nothing,” says Mae, even though this beach is definitely not nothing. “Wait until you see our beach.” Jenness won’t be their beach after this summer! Probably not even after this week! Someone will put in an offer at the open house; that’s how things go in today’s market.
Everything is so sad, to Mae. The mom holding the hand of a little girl to cross the street is sad, because someday that mom will be gone and the little girl might be living out of her car, training dogs for a living. The young couple with their arms slung across each other’s shoulders is sad, because they might break up tomorrow, and one or the other will have a broken heart, because breakups are rarely mutual. The old lady in a wheelchair, being pushed by a man in a hat who’s bending over the woman, saying something that’s making them both laugh—sad! They may be laughing, but it’s still sad.
Kara must have caught something in Mae’s expression because she says, “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry about the house.”
“It’s not just the house,” says Mae, before she can check herself.
Kara’s face, turned toward her, is so full of kindness and concern. The crosswalk empties, and Mae drives on. Should she tell Kara? If she unburdens herself, will she feel better or worse?
“What is it? You can talk to me.” Kara’s hands, folded in her lap, are so familiar to Mae—except for the simple gold wedding band she now wears; of course that’s a change. Mae can see Kara’s handsholding a cup of water so Theresa could drink from it, pulling the bedsheets taut, shaking pills into Mae’s hand so Mae could help her mother swallow them. Checking Theresa’s pulse, checking her temperature, checking on all of them.
Mae shakes her head. “It’s okay,” she says. “It’s not a big deal. I’m having some money troubles. It’s so boring.” She hears her voice catch, and she swallows down the accompanying lump. She will not cry again, and she will not elaborate. But then what will she do?What is your plan?as Jordan would say. Jordan likes there to always be a plan.
“Can you tell your sisters or your father? Can they help you?”
“No. Maybe.”
“I think you should.”
They are entering Rye and the scenery takes over the conversation for a moment. “Welcome to paradise,” Mae says.
“Wow,” says Kara. “I mean. Wow. This is even prettier than I imagined.” Mae feels proud, like she created the scene herself, as the road curves and curves again and the magnificent mansions come into view, and across the street from them, the endless expanse of ocean, just a small froth of whitecaps, a single gull flying above, a runner moving along the rock-bordered path. It’s a picture-perfect summer day.
They pass the beach parking lot, and Summer Sessions, and The Carriage House, and, as they’re about to pull into the driveway, Kara says, “Talk to your family, Mae. If there’s anything my work has taught me, it’s don’t waste time keeping things to yourself that people can help you with.”
What really ruined things in Boulder for Mae was the same thing that Theresa had kindly called Mae’s “willingness to see only the best in people.” More roughly translated, her naivete.
