Natalie takes a deep breath, trying to push energy into all parts of her body. She’s so tired. Austin wants more children, and theoretically Natalie does too. But how will she ever have another baby,how could she handle four children under the age of seven, when three under six have her balanced on the knife’s edge of sanity? Not that she’s going to admit that to anyone but herself. That would be extremely off-brand.
Cinnamon lets out a low whine.
“Simanon needs the bathroom,” announces Scarlett.
“Cinn-a-mon,” says Natalie (the first rule of homeschooling is that every moment is a teaching moment), and Scarlett repeats, “Sim-a-non.” She has articulation challenges that qualify as adorable right now but that might need intervention soon. Natalie adds it to her mental list.
“Out,” says Caspian.
“Just a minute, buddy. Let me gather myself.” She takes another deep breath.
There’s one car in the driveway: Mae’s old Subaru, the gently used one their parents bought her after college graduation. How did Mae make it here first when she drove all the way from Colorado, while Natalie has come only from Vermont? And why no Jordan yet, why no Calvin? She checks her phone. It’s only eleven o’clock. It’s going to be another thirty-four-hour day.
When she’d told Austin about her father’s invitation-slash-order his face had crinkled up in a very Austin-like way, part sympathy, part kindness, and he’d said, “You have to go. Of course, go! Leave everything to me!” The “everything” did not include the children, of course. It rarely did, as per their unspoken agreement, except when Theresa was sick. Which is fine! It’s mostly fine. Was she hoping Austin would break from tradition and suggest that she go on her own, have a little time with her family, lie on the beach, as she used to do when she was a teenager? Some of the best naps she’s ever had in her life have been on that beach. But she knew better. Austin has a dairy farm to run.
“Out,” says Caspian again, really quite pleasantly.
She sees a lot of Austin in her son right now, as she unbuckles him from his car seat while the girls unleash themselves from theirs. If the color of his eyes is Natalie’s, the size and shape are Austin’s, huge and round; both father and son seem to be always on the verge of a happy exclamation of surprise. This is how Caspian had looked at her the first moment she’d held him after birth:Oh, hey!his expression had seemed to be saying.This is amazing! I was hoping it would be you!Caspian has Austin’s kindness too, his son-of-a-pastor way of putting others before him, which, for anyone who wonders how that manifests in a lightly verbal toddler, means that he’s always thrusting his favorite slimy-eared bunny at his sisters or opening his chubby hands to reveal a smushed, damp graham cracker that he wants to offer to you, because even though he loves graham crackers and they are his favorite snack in the whole world, it would make him happy to see you happy so he’d like you to have it.
It’s a euphemism, the son-of-a-pastor thing; Austin’s family owns a commercial dairy farm in Montana. But heiskind! She cringes, thinking of the online comments she’d seen at the gas station. People are so quick to rush to judgment without having all the facts.
She reminds herself: out of sight, out of mind. The thing about the online world is that if you simply turn off your phone it all disappears. Right?Pop.Whoop.Zoop. Use any sound effect you like; it all disappears.
Her fingers itch, wanting to check her phone again.
If you take the love you have to be okay with the hate,Jordan will probably say when Natalie tells her the story, if she ever does. Or maybe Jordan will see it on her own. Maybe she already has.
But Natalie isnotokay with the hate! She wants only the love.
The girls run up to the door, delighted. Caspian has never been here. He wasn’t yet born when Theresa died, and only Calvin and his daughters made the trip to scatter Theresa’s ashes. It’s actuallyunlikely that Scarlett and Evangeline remember much, but they are obsessed with looking at photos of the Shipman sisters, and they’ve absorbed the house’s memories into their own. Natalie had been fifteen the year the iPhone came out, so there is a healthy amount of digital documentation of her teenage years, for good and ill. (“Is that you, Mommy?” the girls ask wonderingly, scrolling through. “That’s not you.” Which makes Natalie wonder if the enormous amount of time and money she spends on skin care is worth it. On the inside, she still feels nineteen. In a mere five years she’ll be twice that.)
With Caspian on her hip and Cinnamon’s leash in her hand, Natalie and the girls enter through what is technically the back door; all of the houses that sit beachfront like theirs does have all of their best parts facing toward the ocean. And why shouldn’t they?
She drops the leash and calls Mae’s name; no answer. Then she hears her sister’s voice from upstairs: “Leo, stay. I’ll be right back.”
Has Mae brought a boyfriend with her? Natalie tries to remember the last time they spoke and who Mae was dating at the time.
“Stay,” Mae’s voice commands.
Is this some kind of a dominatrix routine?Not in front of the children, please.Natalie had been hoping she could put one or both of the girls in with Mae so she’d have room to set up the portable crib for Caspian. He has a tendency to wander in a new place, so she doesn’t trust him to stay in the bed with her. Caspian grabs a hunk of her hair and shoves it gleefully in his mouth. Cinnamon has ambled off, so Natalie uses her free hand to liberate her hair.
Mae appears at the top of the stairs. From behind Mae’s bedroom, the Green Room, comes a collection of noises, whines and scratches and, what is that, a body banging against the door? Mae is wearing jean shorts with frayed edges and a fitted black tank, along with high-top Converse, also black. (They had always been a no-shoe household, but probably two years of renters had rendered that rulemoot.) She makes her way down, and the noises intensify. Mae has new tattoos since Natalie saw her last, but if pressed Natalie wouldn’t be able to point out which specific ones are new. There are so many.
Natalie puts Caspian down and stretches her arm over her head to release the tension in her hip while she hugs her little sister.
When they were kids, the three Shipman girls had their roles, as you do in a family. Jordan the problem solver, calm and capable. Natalie in the middle, a whirling dervish of emotions and plans and so many feelings she didn’t always know what to do with them. And then there was Mae, the baby, so full of joy that if she burped, butterflies and rainbows came out of her mouth (not actually). And now look at her. Well, Natalie supposes you can be joyful and wear black Converse and armfuls and legfuls of ink. But Mae doesn’t look joyful, hasn’t really looked truly joyful, old-Mae joyful, since they lost their mother.
“Aunt Maeeeeee!” cries Scarlett, and for a second Mae does look like her old self, as she crouches and opens her arms and two nieces and a nephew tackle her until, in an exaggerated movement, she falls flat on the ground, her arms making a T. She sticks her tongue out of one side of her mouth and closes her eyes, pretending to be dead, and Evangeline bangs on her chest, maybe administering CPR. Maybe breaking a rib.
“Did you bring Cinnamon?” Mae asks, when she rises from the dead.
“Of course.” Natalie whistles and Cinnamon comes, tail moving back and forth, heading straight for Mae, who buries her face in Cinnamon’s neck and says, “Hello, gorgeous.” Then to Natalie, “I was hoping you’d have left her back. No offense, Cinnamon.”
A thread of irritation materializes somewhere in the side of Natalie’s neck. She tries not to let herself pull at it, but she pulls a little.
“Well, I didn’t. You love Cinnamon!” Mae loves all creaturesgreat and small, and they all love her right back. She never babysat in high school because she ran such a thriving and lucrative pet-sitting business that she had all the spending money she needed.
Mae crosses one foot over another and stands in one single, elegant move, scarcely pushing off the floor. “I’ve got a trainee dog upstairs. He’s a little reactive.” Evangeline and Scarlett take hold of Mae’s arms and examine her tattoos, tracing their fingers over a set of winding vines.
