But there hadn’t been enough time.
Natalie considers calling Scarlett over as a distraction, but now Scarlett and the other little girl have found a second hoop and a second stick and they’re playing together so nicely. (You worry about social skills as a homeschool mom; you rejoice in every “normal” interaction you witness. Like there’s any such thing as normal.) Scarlett is alittle better than the other girl at managing the stick and the hoop, but Natalie tries not to notice that.
“I’ve seen a lot of ends, and some of them are awful,” says Kara. “A peaceful one is a blessing.”
Oh, no. No, she didnot. “Death is not a blessing,” says Natalie, continuing to hiss. “Losing your mother is never a blessing.” She thinks suddenly of the calves again, those guttural, haunting cries, slicing through the night air.
“You’re right.”
“And I suppose now you’re going to tell me that with her last breath my mom managed to wheeze at you that you should marry my dad?”
Kara looks like Natalie slapped her.
“Of course not. That’s not how it happened. It was much later, long after, when Calvin and I reconnected. I’m not trying to take her place.”
Natalie does not like the wordreconnected, so she gets even meaner. “He’s almost seventy, you know.”
“I know. Of course I know. I’m married to him! I know how old he is.”
“Well. Don’t you think that’s weird?”
Kara shakes her head and says, “No.”
“Whynot?” You should! she thinks. Everyone else does!
“I always thought I’d marry an older man if I married again.”
“You did?”
“Not this much older. But, yeah. Older.”
“Why?”
“It always made sense to me.”
“But why?”
“I didn’t grow up with a dad. My mom was—is—problematic, to put it generously.”
“So you married your dad?”
“No. I marriedadad. I always thought I’d want someone who offered me a chance to step into his life and his family. Someone who was willing to sayHere’s where we live. Here’s our favorite restaurant, our favorite Cabernet, our favorite way to read the newspaper.” (Not from front to back, thinks Natalie, if you ask Calvin. Sports first, then News, then Lifestyle.) “Someone who would sayHere is our life. And here’s how you fit in it.”
“But didn’t you want to do all of those things with someone your own age?” asks Natalie. She thinks about how she and Austin have been growing up together for the past eight years.
“I did that,” says Kara. “My first husband was my age. But we couldn’t have kids, and now, a ready-made family is more appealing to me than any kind of family. And if you’re waiting for an apology, Natalie, I’m not going to give you one. I’m sorry your mom died, but I’m not sorry your dad’s not alone now. I love your dad, and he’s good for me, and I’m good for him.”
Her voice is steady, and her eyes are clear. Kara isn’t asking permission or forgiveness. She’s stating facts. “When I said he’s really sad, I didn’t mean about your mom. I meant about you and your sister. How he feels that by choosing any happiness for himself, any at all, he’s lost you and Jordan. And that’s not fair, Natalie. He shouldn’t lose you two. He doesn’t deserve that. He brought you all here to try to make it better.”
Even hearing this, even acknowledging, in some ways, the validity of it, Natalie still clings to the vestiges of anger that she feels are rightfully hers. “He brought us here to sell our mother’s house! To someone who’s going to tear it down!”
Kara inhales deeply, then blows out a puff of air. “That’s the tangible reason, sure. But also, he wanted to see you all together and he knew you wouldn’t come if he didn’t force you into it. The cleaningout of the garage, getting the house ready, those are things that had to be accomplished. But they’re also excuses. Seeing you all here together, that’s the reason.”
Scarlett comes up to them, breathless, red-cheeked, happy, and says, “I love it here!” before she runs back to her new playmate.
There it goes. The ice begins to thaw, the stranglehold to ease. Natalie softens. Maybe it’s the hundreds of years of ghosts she feels around her that are helping her to do that. There are three centuries’ worth of history and life and death in this very spot, this neighborhood that changed and changed again and again throughout time.
“I thought I’d feel grown-up enough for this,” she says finally, as though Kara is her therapist. “I thought maybe I’d be ready to lose my mother, when the time came.”
