“Okay, Food Network star,” says Natalie approvingly, and Mae grins.
After she had her children Natalie saw her own mother in a different light, and she had so many questions for her.Did you go through this?she wanted to ask her mother.Did you feel all of these things?But of course she must have! Theresa had given freely of her own body in all the ways Natalie was now doing and had never said a thing about it, about how she had navigated the vast canyon that lay between the warmth of motherhood and the sheer exhausting physicality of it all.
Natalie had waited too long to talk about all of this with Theresa, and then Theresa was sick, so she didn’t ask her, and then she was gone, and it was too late, and now she will never know what her mother thought about any of it.
In the winter, Lenox kids went sledding at Gould Meadows in Stockbridge. Natalie is looking at her adult baby sister now, but she’s seeing Mae all bundled in her snowsuit at age four or five, barely able to walk because Theresa had put so many layers on her. She’s watching the three of them in age order on their bright orange family-size sled: Jordan in the back, her long legs extended; Natalie in the middle, always in the middle; Mae cross-legged in the front. An invisible push from behind, and off they went. Mae used to laugh so hard the whole way down that the entire hill could hear her. Now here she is, standing in front of Natalie, looking for someone to tell her it’s all going to be all right.
Mae looks down. She says, “I just wonder what Mom would say, seeing what a mess of things I’ve made. Seeing where I am.”
“You haven’t made a mess—” Natalie is interrupted by Calvin, breezing into the kitchen, saying, “Hello, ladies! Any snacks around?” He takes a carrot slice and pops it into his mouth. From far away, Kara sneezes. “I heard,” says Calvin, “that Cinnamon ate Evangeline’s tooth.”
“Natalie, this looks beautiful,” Kara says. They are all in the dining room, ready to sit.
Scarlett and Evangeline have set the table, without complaint, in a way Mae doesn’t ever remember doing herself at such a tender age. With two working parents their dinners on Galway Court were often chaotic; the older girls would have homework spread over the dining room table right up until it was time to eat; then, as soon as everything was cleaned up, Theresa would work on lesson plans or grade spelling tests and Calvin would read through student essays. Natalie’s table, by contrast, is gorgeous. Who even knew they had matching linen napkins in this house? Who knew they had candles; who knew you could snip a couple of hydrangeas from the bush on the garage side of the house and,bam,instant centerpiece?
“Thank you, Kara,” says Natalie, icily at first, and then more generously, “Mae and the girls helped.” All Mae did was chop an onion, and now that the dinner is complete, Mae can see that there’s a tiny charity sprinkling of onions on the salad, but otherwise Natalie was giving her busywork, no different from the coloring books she pulls out for the girls when they’re at a restaurant or the waiting area of an airport.
Natalie brings down Caspian’s portable crib and sets it up in the dining room. Calvin opens a bottle of sauvignon blanc and walksaround the table like a fine-dining waiter, filling glasses. “I’ll get a second bottle from the kitchen,” he says.
When he’s gone, Kara stands uncertainly—not quite guest, not blood relation, she’s somewhere in the no-man’s-land in between. The only unclaimed chair, they all realize at the same time, is Theresa’s. “She can’t sit there,” Jordan says to no one in particular. “That’s Mom’s chair.” Then to Kara, “Sorry, it’s just...”
“No, I get it,” says Kara. “So where should I sit?”
Mae is desperate to save Kara. (What is taking Calvin so long?) “Switch with me,” she says. She picks up her water glass, the napkin she’s already unfolded, and prepares to move around the table. Then Calvin comes back, assesses the situation, and says, “Kara, you sit here.” He indicates his own chair. “I’ll sit there.” Theresa’s.
The lemon pasta is gorgeous, with ribbons of fresh basil on top and shaved Parmesan on the side. There’s a homemade dressing to go with the salad. Croutons from scratch, which Mae watched Natalie make by cubing a partial loaf of bread, tossing the cubes with olive oil and spices, and baking them. Mae didn’t even know homemade croutons were a thing. Mae puts Leo’s leash on and loops it around the leg of her chair. She has a pocketful of treats to reward him for nice dinnertime behavior. Natalie offers to serve the pasta from her seat since the bowl is heavy, but says she’ll pass the salad and the cheese and the bread around the table. She passes to her left first, to Jordan.
Jordan passes the cheese without taking any.
“Please don’t tell me you’re vegan now too,” says Natalie.
If this family were a string diagram, thinks Mae, with each string representing a source of tension between one person and another, they’d have quite a design by now. She’d start with whatever is going on between Jordan and Natalie; that would be one string. Jordan and Kara: a permanent string. Ditto Natalie and Kara. Who would Mae’s string attach to?
Jordan says, “Too?”
Evangeline is watching closely with the observance of a person small enough to fit into the corners of the world and witness from there. “Like the lady Mommy doesn’t like.”
“Who?”says Natalie.
“The lady with the brown hair.”
“The Realtor,” deciphers Mae.
“I didn’t say I didn’t like her!” Natalie protests.
“You called her an idiot,” says Evangeline.
Mae sees the color rise to Natalie’s cheeks.
Mae waits for Natalie to Houdini her way out of this, but while there is a lot a person can argue with, there is very little arguing with the Venus flytrap memory of a smart young girl. Mae places a slender string between Evangeline and Natalie.
“Nikoletta comes highly recommended,” says Calvin. “I didn’t realize you had a problem with her.”
“I don’t,” says Natalie. “I have a problem with selling the house. As you know.”
Caspian yells, “Bah!” and beats the side of the portable crib. Natalie fed him while she was cooking, so he’s chewing a board book for dessert.
They eat in silence for a while. “The dinner is phenomenal,” says Kara. She sneezes. Mae peeks under the table and sees that Leo is lying on Kara’s foot. She tries to give him a hand signal to move him closer to her but he doesn’t see, or pretends not to.
