Anna nodded. The problem wasn’t only Ellen, of course. What was irritating her was that it felt like there was a conspiracy of people set up in Hamilton. Everywhere she turned, people were icing her out. Or maybe she had just been having a bad couple of days. “Actually, it wasn’t just Ellen,” she confided in Di. “Rachel Kincaid, too. When I was out running the Artichoke the other day.”
“You didn’t tell me that part.”
“It was when you were watching the kids for me. I saw her while I was running. I said hi and she just . . . kept running,” Anna said.
“Maybe she didn’t hear you,” Di said, optimistically.
“She ran right past me, eyes to the ground.”
“Okay, well I’ll admit, that’s kind of bad,” Di said.
“It’s just that I’m finally starting to realize that I am completely out,” Anna said. She could see Henry in the corner of the driveway, dribbling a soccer ball toward the house. She had to give it to Di. The woman certainly had invested in the kid. His form didn’t look great, but he did seem passionately invested in the sport. Maybe he had graduated from T-ball, after all. “I’m alone. I’m a ghost in this town. Even with the people who were just a tiny bit nice to me. Even with the people I grew up with.”
“You’re not a ghost to me, kiddo.”
“Careful what you wish for,” Anna said. She inhaled once more, and deeply, then tossed the butt out the window. “Stomp that one for me.” Winking at her friend, she put the car in gear and headed back out on the road.
Later, Anna took the kids all the way out to Sandy Point, six miles out from the entrance to the Plum Island Reservation, the most beautiful slice of beach on the eastern seaboard, if you asked Anna. Ben came back with a large, gray bone, a vertebra from a whale, and Louisa claimed as her own one of the triangular structures that the locals always made: lean-tos, really, swept away by the wind and sea late in the season, rebuilt by beach masters when the weather perked up.
“It’s my Dream House,” she shouted with glee, bringing a towel and sand toys inside.
Anna packed up the kids, spent and sand-covered, and drove them down the long road all the way back, through Newburyport and Newbury, through Rowley and alongside the Great Marsh, where the marsh grasses were just beginning to show signs of autumn: golden and red grasses were always the first tells. They drove past the canoe landing, in Ipswich—locals called it the haul-out—where day-paddlers were pulling red and green boats out after a day on the Ipswich River. She remembered a day from long ago, at summer camp, when she had spent a day on that very river, paddling with an inexperienced boater and swimmer. The canoe had capsized, leaving them waist-deep in warm, murky water, an experience that had baked into her bones. She had avoided the river ever since.
They pulled into the driveway at dusk. The Jeep was parked there. Anna could see a plume of smoke coming from the yard: dinner, the grill, more summer memories, and a relief, too, that she wouldn’t have to think about it. She stopped at the mailbox on the way up, grabbed the mail, and shoved it in her beach bag without thinking. Inside, the house was cool and dark. It felt like summer.
Much later, when she was cleaning out the beach bags before bed, Anna remembered about the mail. Mostly bills, as usual. Gas. Electric. A few pieces of junk mail. She left the things for Denny on the counter. She was about to toss the rest in the trash when she noticed a piece of mail that was completely separate from the rest. It was handwritten, addressed to her, written in loopy script.Mrs. Anna Plummer. The stamp was perfectly affixed. So straight. Unnervingly straight.
She opened it. Inside was a typed note.
Dear Anna Plummer,
We have tried to express to you that you are getting in over your head.
Please try to understand.
Our generosity only extends so far.
Consider this the final extension of our kindness.
—A friend.
This is unhinged,Anna thought to herself.I have to be imagining this. There is no way that the PTO is actually coming over to my house and putting threatening notes in my mailbox. Even repeating the story in her own head, she wasn’t sure if she believed it. Was the note real? Was she holding the paper in her hand? More likely: Some kid had overheard a parent complaining about her and had decided to get in on the fun. It was impossible to take seriously any kind of childish prank that involved a “threat” in a mailbox. In 2022.
“What in the actual fuck am I supposed to do now, anyway?” Anna said to the empty kitchen. Denny had gone upstairs to watch a show about aliens or Nazis. Or maybe both. She knew that she couldn’t just let it go. It was not in her nature, it was not acceptable to walk away from this. Plus, that was just giving the bully what she wanted, even if the bullywasjust a neighborhood kid who had overheard a parent talking shit about her around the dinner table.
I’m going about this all wrong, Anna thought. I need to beat the PTO at their own game.
I got another ridiculous message,she texted Di.
What is it this time
A weird note but I think it’s just from a kid. But it gave me an idea. I think I should run for president of the PTO.She thought about writing more to her friend. What if the note really was from someone else? What if it was serious? But Anna held back. The less energy she devoted externally to these things, she felt, the less she allowed them into the fabric of her life. It was almost as if she was preventing them from being real by limiting how she spoke about them within her tight circle of friends and confidantes.
Di didn’t fall for the bait.What exactly did the note say, she wrote back.
Stupid threat that sounded like it could have come from the PTO or also a teenager hard 2 say
Maybe you should just back off
