Kindred Spirits (22 page)

Carol said, “Beth’s not a nurse. She’s a librarian. Mary Kay’s the nurse.”

“Right. I knew that.” Then, sensing her growing irritation, he said, “You’re very tired and understandably so, especially with this conversation about the house hanging over your head. I’ll let you take this call from Jeff and maybe we can talk tomorrow when you’ve had a chance to recuperate.”

Frankly, Carol was relieved to have him off the line. “You’re right. Like they say, tomorrow is another day.” Then again, it was doubtful Scott had ever seen
Gone with the Wind
. If he had, he would have detested Scarlett O’Hara.

No sooner had she said good-bye to Scott than the phone rang at 6:01. This time, Carol checked the number, saw it was Jeff, and said, “Hi.”

“Hey, is this . . . Carol?” he asked, unsure.

“Of course it is. It’s my cell.”

“I wasn’t sure. You sound different.”

“Tired.” She told him about Therese and Eunice. “It’s been draining, to say the least.”

“Sure, sure. I should have guessed. How insensitive of me.”

“No, it’s OK. I didn’t mean to guilt-trip you. It’s just. . .”

“Just what?”

She repeated almost exactly word for word what she’d said to Scott. “I’m afraid of ending up like Eunice. It’s because I’ve been such a lousy mother.”

“Don’t do this to yourself, Carol,” he muttered, understanding where she was coming from right away. “You know Amanda. She was always a drama queen, even as a tiny kid. You were a terrific mother. The problem is, you two are cast from the same mold.”

“You mean, we’re too much alike.” She sniffed and patted a Kleenex to her nose, thinking about Beth. And Scott.

“Yeah. You’re both hardworking and ambitious. Always going someplace, never staying still. Never time to talk. You and Amanda give one hundred and ten percent. Whether it’s the law or school. Your dedication is one of the qualities I most admired.”

Admired
. Past tense. Carol sniffed again.

“Remember that spring when you collected tadpoles and set up the aquarium so Jonathan could see how they turned into frogs?” Jeff said. “You didn’t just leave it at that. You got out books from the library on amphibians and made a huge poster of the stages between eggs and full-formed frogs. That was the beginning of Jon’s interest in environmental science, you know, those stupid frogs.”

“We had to let them go in the park.” She thought of Jonathan and her, hand in hand, waving good-bye to each frog he named. Lumpy. Bumpy. Croaky and Chirp.

“And remember the chrysalis you found?” he said.

She hadn’t thought of that chrysalis in years. She’d come across it in the field behind their house and stuck it in a mason jar with holes punched in the lid to see what would happen. For weeks it was just a lump on a twig. But one warm July night while the kids were at a sleepover and she and Jeff were sharing a rare moment alone sipping chardonnay on the back deck, something stirred inside the clear cocoon.

Carol sat in Jeff’s lap as they watched in awe as the butterfly extended first one limp wing and then another before inflating both and becoming fully magnificent. After it flew off, Jeff kissed Carol’s fingers and led her upstairs to the bedroom, the fireflies twinkling outside their window.

“The monarch night,” Carol sighed, remembering the sensation of his incredibly taut body moving with hers, responding to a call as natural and magnificent as the butterfly’s flight.

“One of the best nights of my life. Next to the night we got married, of course.”

“Of course.” She pulled her robe tighter, her heart actually aching liked she’d read in books. She hadn’t known such a phenomenon was physically possible.

“Hey! Guess what.” Jeff shifted to an upbeat attitude. “You won’t believe what we’re getting tonight.”

She decided not to overanalyze his use of the word “we.”

“Snow! I can’t think about first snows without thinking about when the kids were small.”

Carol laughed. “Amanda and Jonathan, co-conspirators in their flannels, insisting they sleep in the same room with an AM radio tuned to the news so they could be the first in the house to hear the official cancellations. And then their utter disappointment when, in the ultimate betrayal, the snow refused to stick. Cruel world!”

“Speaking of which,” he said, “Amanda tells me the two of you have discussed the house.”

Carol gripped her doodling pen, disappointed their stroll down memory lane had reached an end so soon. “We spoke this morning. Did you know she’s thinking of spending Christmas in Paris with some man she hardly knows? A friend of a roommate’s brother or something.”

“She’s almost twenty-one.”

“I know, but. . .”

“But let it go. She’s old enough, Carol. Face it. Your chicks have left the nest.”

No! Bring back that magic time of little sticky hands and soft hugs, sweet kisses, tadpoles and butterflies on balmy summer evenings. “I can’t believe our children are grown,” she said. “I miss those years.” Then, though this contradicted everything she thought she knew about herself, about how she hadn’t been cut out for motherhood, she added, “I’m glad I had the chance to stay home with them.”

“Me too. We were very fortunate.”

She nodded. “Very.”

“So, I guess it’s decided then.”

What? What were they talking about? “You mean the house?” She hoped Jeff couldn’t hear the panic in her voice.

“The kids are OK with it. Which means the only people holding back from selling are you and me, ironically.”

“Yes,” Carol said quietly. “Ironically.”

“By the way, I’ve put aside a few things that the Realtor said we should remove for showings, like your grandmother’s antique fish plate and the photos of our family skiing vacation in Vermont.”

Another golden memory. Another twist of the knife. The two of them snuggling by the fire as a light snow fell outside their window, Jeff running his hands under her sweater, kissing her neck, her shoulder, and then more, both of them stifling moans of pleasure so as not to wake Amanda and Jon in the next room.

Did he mention this, the monarch night, the first snowfalls on purpose? Or was she just being supersensitive?

“Carol?”

“Hmm?”

“I said I thought maybe you might want to pick those up on your way home if you happen to be stopping off at Marshfield before you go back to New York.”

“OK. Sure,” she said, a little dazed. What was she supposed to pick up again?

“Or I can pack them up and ship them to you, if that makes more sense.”

“No, I can stop by.”

“There’s some china involved.”

“No, honestly. I don’t mind at all.”

“Really? Could be awkward on the train.”

Carol wanted to throttle him. First he reminds her how wonderful it was when they were married, then he refuses to be in the same room with her. What was he up to?

He waited a second and said, “Carol?”

“Yes?” she asked, hopefully.

“I’ll need your signature on the Realtor form. Once that’s done, I expect we’ll have an official offer by the end of this week and then we can formally, completely, start our new lives.”

They hung up and that was that. Carol blinked at the computer screen. Forget the stupid memorandum.

Shutting down her computer, she grabbed her key card and padded to Mary Kay and Beth’s room. “I just got off the phone with Jeff.”

Mary Kay quit shaking the silver martini shaker. “And?”

“And we might have an offer on the house as early as this week.”

Mary Kay lifted the top off the shaker, poured a ginger martini to the rim, and handed it to her. Carol knocked it back in one gulp. Like a cowboy slugging whiskey.

“Hit me again,” she said, holding out her empty glass.

“Don’t you have to work?” Beth asked.

“Fuck work.” Carol took the shaker and poured herself a glass. “Work can kiss my ass.”

“The amazing thing about ginger martinis is they feel almost healthy for you. No, really. I’m serious.” Carol exhaled a plume of smoke over her shoulder, so it wouldn’t pollute Mary Kay and Beth, who stood next to each other on the other side of the balcony, clutching their half-drunk martinis, keeping watch.

She hadn’t had a cigarette since learning about Lynne’s suicide and it felt great. Fabulous!

“How about some sushi?” Mary Kay suggested. “And then you can go to bed.”

“Bed? Hah!” Carol took another hit of the cigarette and tossed it over the balcony so it landed in a bush by the parking lot. She emptied the last of her glass and regarded it fuzzily. “Who wants another round?”

Beth opened the sliding-glass door to their room, hoping to entice Carol to put some food in her stomach and drink something besides alcohol. Right now, though, she was on a tear.

“What’s in this again?” Carol asked, making a beeline for the martini shaker.

“Vodka, ginger brandy, pear nectar, and a squeeze of lime.”

“It’s delicious.”

Mary Kay eyed Carol warily as she sloppily poured in the ingredients, pausing at one moment to take a big swig of vodka straight out of the bottle. “Just checking to see if it is fresh,” she said, wiping her mouth on her pj’s. “Forget this ginger, pear watchamacallit. Straight vodka is A-OK by me.”

“You wanna talk about it, hon?”

“Talk about what?” She tried capping the bottle, but the top fell off, forcing her to bend down and pick it up with a groan.

“Jeff. The house. Amanda.”

“It’s done. The house is practically sold. And then we’ll all live unhappily ever after.” She peered into the martini shaker and scowled. “No ice.” She checked the ice bucket, where a layer of water was all that remained. “No ice there, either.” Placing a hand on her hip, she said, “Now what are we going to do?”

“Sushi?” Beth offered.

“No. Hold on. They have ice machines here. I know because this is a
hotel
. And in hotels they have free ice. It’s a perk!” She hiccupped slightly.

Mary Kay said, “Oh, don’t bother about that, Carol. There’s a cold Diet Coke in the cooler.”

She went over to the Igloo, but Carol grabbed the bucket. “You two stay here and I’ll be right back in a jiffy.” And she toddled off in nothing but her slippered feet and pink pj’s.

The door closed and Beth let out a breath. “Whoa. I have never seen her like this.”

Mary Kay handed Beth her sushi. “It’s exactly like when she decided to leave him. And we called that emergency meeting. Did we have ginger martinis then, too?”

Mary Kay ripped open a packet of soy sauce and dumped it over the dollop of wasabi. “I think so. Ginger’s supposed to promote healing and Carol could have used a dose of that. Lynne, too. Didn’t work, unfortunately.”

“But at least Carol kept it together.” Beth thought back to that night, Carol still in her navy business suit from the school-board meeting, coolly grasping the stem of her martini glass as she drank one after the other with mechanical efficiency.

They had done their best to dissuade her from leaving, reminding Carol of all she and Jeff shared—twenty years of marriage, the kids, the house, their memories. Finally, Lynne threw down the trump card.

“What I would give for twenty more years with Sean. You have no idea how lucky you are, Carol, to have that luxury. I didn’t appreciate what I had either, until cancer made me stare down death. Now I thank God for every blessed day.”

“Exactly,” Carol had replied, starting in on her fourth martini. “Your cancer was my wake-up call, Lynne. If I don’t start living for myself, today, then soon it might be too late.”

It was crass. Beth was pissed off at Carol for being so self-centered.

“That’s not where joy comes from though,” Lynne shot back. “Joy is in the little things. One afternoon, when I was too tired to move an inch, I just lay on the couch and watched a hummingbird buzzing at the feeder and it made me so happy. That’s what I mean by every moment is a gift.”

Carol had shrugged and kept on drinking, harping on how she had more support from her friends than her husband. Later, Lynne and Beth went home while Carol slept over at Mary Kay’s. And the next morning, she cleaned out her essentials and had them sent to Deloutte Watkins, where for the rest of the week she crashed on her office couch.

By the weekend, she’d moved into a small apartment Deloutte kept for clients and witnesses visiting from out of state. Beth and Mary Kay sent her another shipment from the Connecticut house—stuff they’d gathered while Jeff was at work—and that was it.

Carol didn’t set foot in Marshfield again. Until Lynne’s funeral.

“If only she and Jeff could sit down and have an honest discussion instead of suppressing their anger and wants,” Mary Kay said, dipping her
uni
into the wasabi. “I’m sure if she owned up to how she still loves him, all would be forgiven. Look at her, she’s not the ice queen anymore. She’s
hurting
.”