Somewhere along the line—from Darla, who cleaned Betsy and Evan’s house—she learned that Coco had graduated from her holistic studies training. She was gone then—off in Hawaii attending a course in what her mother had called “higher-level healing modalities.” Word came back that she’d met someone there at an acro-yoga retreat. “It sounds serious,” Betsy had told Darla. Hearing the news secondhand, Eleanor had felt a rush of relief, though she could not have said why.
Then, suddenly—more than a year later now—there was surprising news.
“Coco’s back,” Toby announced. They were in the car on a Sunday afternoon, making the long drive back from Akersville to Brookline after the weekend with Cam. From the back seat, Eleanor could sense the uneasy silence from her daughters. Ursula had poked Toby—a signal to keep quiet. But Toby wasn’t having it.
“She lives at our house now,” Toby said. “They told us on the way home from ice cream.”
“Coco and Dad are getting married,” Ursula said. They must have designated her to announce this.
Eleanor knew they were all watching her closely. Or the girls were, anyway. Possibly even Toby understood this was a big moment.
Eleanor kept her eyes on the road. “When did this happen?”
“When Coco came back from Hawaii they realized how much they missed each other when she was away,” Ursula said. “It’s like in a movie: they knew each other practically her whole life but it just hit them they were in love.”
Eleanor could hear the cautiousness in her younger daughter’svoice, the air of tension in the car from the others—even Toby. The children hardly ever spoke of what happened at their father’s house, but Ursula had made the decision, evidently—more likely, she and Al made it together—that their mother needed to be told about Coco moving in, Cam and Coco getting married.
They knew they were headed into dangerous territory, but she was going to find out anyway. They must have figured it was better to tell her now—and while they were at it, Ursula was doing her best to make it clear to Eleanor that she and her siblings were fine about what was happening. More than fine. Happy. The last thing any of them wanted would be to suggest that their father was doing anything that had upset them. Their mother had enough grievances against their father. They weren’t about to contribute any others to the list.
Eleanor had learned this over the years: children of divorced parents were like citizens of two hostile countries, observing the laws and customs of each, depending on where they were at the moment. Crossing borders, going through customs. Shedding the language and clothing and manners of one culture when they entered the other, doing the same when they crossed back. Having to keep their story straight, depending on where they were. Their one source of continuity, each other.
“He said it just happened, when she came back,” Al added. The fact that now Al was contributing information struck Eleanor as out of character. Maybe she wanted to emphasize to Eleanor that the romance between their father and Coco was a recent development. Maybe some part of her had actually considered the possibility that it wasn’t.
“It’s just like inThe Sound of Music,where the girl starts out being a nun that’s just helping out with the family, and then one day the dad figures it out that they should get married,” Ursula said.
Except that in this case, unlike that of the von Trapps, the children’s mother hadn’t died. She was alive and well—alive, anyway—in a Brookline condo. Coco was not much of a singer. Other than that, she was evidently assuming the role of Julie Andrews.
“It’s really good Dad fell in love, finally,” Ursula said. “He was so lonely in the house by himself all that time.”
Eleanor gripped the steering wheel tightly. She could feel her chest tightening. “How about Coco’s mom and dad?” she asked. “How do they feel about this?” Most parents would not consider it cause for celebration, hearing their daughter’s announcement that she was marrying a man twice her age, only a few years younger than her father.
“Coco said at first they needed some convincing,” Ursula said. “But once they saw how happy Coco was, they said it was fine with them. I guess that makes Betsy and Evan kind of like our grandparents.”
“That’s really great,” Eleanor told her. “You kind of came up short in that department, before.”
“Dad said you might be mad,” Ursula said. She was probably still waiting for the Crazyland moment.
“Why would I be mad?” Eleanor adjusted the rearview mirror, studying Al’s face, and Ursula’s. Toby’s, she knew. “We got a divorce. He can do what he wants.”
“That’s what I said,” Ursula said. “It’s not like some stranger we never met is moving in. We love Coco. You love her, too, right, Mom?”
They got married six weeks later—a small gathering, just Evan and Betsy and the children, Eleanor gathered—though nobody mentioned it until after, and might not have said anything even then if Toby hadn’t told about the cake they had with two miniature people on the top, and chocolate frosting, his favorite.
Every Friday now, when Eleanor drove out to the farm to drop off Alison and Ursula and Toby she’d see Coco’s little yellow VW Bug in the driveway, and once, when there was laundry hung out to dry, she noticed a row of tiny bikini underpants clipped to the line. Coco had planted petunias, but in that way that a person does who’s a first-time gardener. A single row of plants, twelve inches apart, like soldiers.
The children said very little more to their mother about Coco after that, but when they got home at the end of weekends at the farm now, and they unpacked the contents of the backpacks, there were craft projects (not the kind Eleanor might have thought up;these came from store-bought kits, mostly: potholders with happy faces, key chains with identical googly-eyed puppies) and little Tupperware containers full of healthy-looking cookies of a kind Cam would never have gotten around to making. Sometimes, when they unpacked, Eleanor would spot a new shirt with a unicorn on the front (this would be Ursula’s) that said “Dreams can come true,” or a vial of some kind of herbal remedy for Toby that was supposed to help new brain cells develop.
Al returned home one Sunday with a pair of Doc Martens Coco had bought for her at the mall—the shoes she’d been wanting all year. Once, undressing Toby for bed, she had found a press-on tattoo of a goat with the word “Capricorn” circling it. Coco might as well have taken out a Sharpie and written the words “Coco was here.”
He’s not your son,she wanted to tell Coco.Don’t scribble your graffiti on him.
62.
Dream Girl
Dark as it was at Timmy Pouliot’s apartment—with a smell always hanging in the air of other people’s dinners, the sound of other people’s babies crying, the faded Farrah poster—it was the place where Eleanor most consistently found comfort. Stepping in the door, Friday nights, after dropping off her children, she could feel her whole body soften. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, he’d be there holding her, his face buried in her hair.
“Take off your shoes,” he said. She took off everything.
