empower: fight like a girl (words empower Book 1)

by Amy Berg

  And in that instant, Marion knew exactly what Rachel was going to say.

  Rachel had wisely chosen to hire a professional cleaning service. Though she kept a relatively clean house, she had a feeling that her domestic skills were about to be judged like never before. Still, when the doorbell rang she didn't feel ready. There were flowers in charming vases placed in nearly every room, an arrangement of pastries and herbal tea laid out in the kitchen, and one particular guest room, the one Rachel knew had once belonged to Marion's eldest son, was made up with the meticulously embroidered sheets they'd received as a wedding gift from Patrick's grandmother. But the house hadn't truly felt like a home in quite some time, and Rachel hoped her guest wouldn't catch on to what she felt was a pervasive emptiness.

  Rachel threw open the door and welcomed Marion with a giant smile, realizing at once how phony she must appear and trying to quash the affected display of enthusiasm. Unsurprisingly, Marion returned the gesture without so much as a smile. She had several pieces of luggage—"only essentials," she'd told Rachel on the phone, having elected to put in storage or sell what her grown children hadn't wanted. "Can I take those for you?" Rachel asked her. "I can manage," Marion answered, carrying the bags up the stairs, and presumably to her room, without any indication of what she felt should be the next step in their cohabitation.

  Rachel sunk into one of the kitchen chairs and shoved a croissant into her mouth reflexively. Erin had warned her that she hadn't thought this through, and she was right, of course.. But Rachel couldn't let the lonely woman leave the lake for some awful condominium off the interstate. She knew too well what it took to heal, and this place was a part of Marion's soul, a geographical representation of the history of her family, her marriage. She'd tried to convince herself that Patrick would have wanted it this way, but that was far from the truth. An introvert, Patrick treated the house like a sacred space reserved for writing, entertaining the occasional close friend, and loving on his wife. What was more, he would have been vastly uncomfortable with the implications of the original owner coming home to roost. Rachel had by this time participated in numerous imaginary arguments with her dead husband, each time coming away the victor. "It's just for the rest of the summer," she would say. "Two months, maybe. And then we'll see what happens.” Patrick would argue that once the old lady got comfortable, she would stay forever. But Rachel had a tendency to be impulsive.

  "May I trouble you for a cup of that tea?” Marion had come downstairs and was looking down at the table spread with goodies, and now, croissant crumbs. "Of course," Rachel said. "That's why it's here," and sprung into action. Marion watched her host, the air between them already charged and awkward. "The room is lovely," she offered. "Daffodils are my favorite flower. So cheerful.” Rachel smiled broadly and put the kettle on.

  Marion hadn't wanted to make the trip to the market, but she feared Rachel's selection process. From what she'd seen in the weeks thus far, the woman had next to no skills in the kitchen, and a person who does not cook typically lacks the ability to select appropriate food as well. So Marion accompanied her, the first time she'd been since losing Arthur. And she immediately felt the stares.

  Rachel had warned her, but Marion brushed it off. She'd lived in this town decades longer, she understood these people. "It's not the people," Rachel had insisted. "They're lovely, and they mean well. But no one knows what to say. So they just… they look at you.” Marion wished she had listened. She turned to Rachel and muttered under her breath, "Let's do this quickly, please.” Rachel nodded, understanding, and hurriedly paid for the tomatoes and yellow squash she'd already dropped into her bag. Marion made a beeline for Dee's booth, suddenly feeling as though a pie would be the only salve that could help her recover from this now wretched experience. "Hello, Dee," she said. "I'll have a rhubarb if there's one left.” Dee smiled at her, making eye contact, which surprised and relieved Marion. "How's Arthur doing? You two go out on the water this morning? It was a beauty, huh?”

  Marion immediately regretted turning on her heel and hurrying off. It meant there would be no pie after supper.

  Rachel Sargeant was a terribly heavy sleeper. So much so that it had been a problem throughout her life: missed alarms, a complete inability to get out of bed before work to carve out time on the treadmill, and the unlikelihood of nocturnal romps with her beloved husband. But something had woken her, and it was coming from inside the house. It took her a moment to remember that she had a roommate. The month or so Marion had been her guest hadn't been enough for Rachel to grow accustomed to sharing her home again, but it did mean that the likelihood she'd need to use the Louisville Slugger Patrick insisted she keep underneath her side of the bed was slim. She threw off her blankets and made her way down the hall to Marion's room. The door was ajar, and the bed empty. She followed the sound, finding herself at the top of the stairs. There on the landing was Marion, crumpled up in a ball, sobbing quietly. She looked up at Rachel and embarrassment flooded her face. Marion buried her head in her hands, "Go away," she whispered. "Please, please go away.” But Rachel ignored her, rushing down the stairs. "Are you hurt? Did you fall?” Marion looked up at her, confused. "Fall?” "Marion, did you hurt yourself?" a panicked Rachel asked again. Marion, finally understanding, shook her head. "I woke up. Thirsty. Got to the top of the stairs and I just…” As Rachel watched Marion's face twist in agony, she knew what had happened.

  It was a very particular kind of post-traumatic stress, the loss of the one most dear to you. In the months following Patrick's death, Rachel's own nights had been torn apart by brutally vivid dreams: Patrick's hospital room, the alarms bleating from the machines on that awful day they finally resigned to performing the tracheotomy, her sweet husband's face contorted in pain even in a drug-induced state approximating sleep. Rachel tried to imagine what Marion felt when she approached the stairs. She pictured Arthur's body, the pain he must have felt as he cracked his head, his final terrified moments alone. No, Rachel needed no further explanation. "I'm sorry," she whispered. Marion took in the words, finally grateful, and made no effort to avoid Rachel's outstretched arms.

  The next morning brought an unseasonable chill, and the lake wore a heavy layer of fog. Marion woke early and brought her much-needed steaming mug of tea down to the water. Her eyes felt near swollen shut. She found one of the kayaks at the edge, the red lightweight single-seater Arthur had always chosen. They'd sold the Sargeants much of the house's accoutrements along with the property itself, secretly overjoyed by the prospect of an upgrade. But her husband was a creature of habit and had never completely taken to the finer equipment. Marion strapped on a life vest, dragged the boat into the water and began to paddle across the lake to the east corner, where it was shallow and tangles of lily pads bobbed along the surface.

  She knew it was where the loons built their nest, and soon enough she saw the mother leading her babies out for a swim. Arthur had loved the birds; the singular look of their long black necks and white mottled plumage, and most of all their curious social and breeding patterns that made their study the main event on any freshwater lake in summer. The adults protected their offspring with ferocity and after their hatching, spent summer's end teaching them to swim and fish. Every year, Marion and Arthur followed the little ones' adolescence with great interest, naming them, rating their emerging skills, cooing over their adorable practice of riding around on their mothers' backs.

  Arthur's ashes were spread in the lake. When Marion watched a loon dive, she tried to imagine him watching the show from underwater, delighted, at peace.

  Rachel returned from her most dreaded of all errands, lugging the bulging reusable shopping bags to the kitchen counter, and was surprised to find the house still empty. Vermont in summer meant there were few necessities one couldn't find at the farmer's market, a nearby honor-system vegetable stand, or one of the many co-ops. But she had a wine habit, and the miserable fluorescent Price Chopper was the grocery store with the best, or perhaps least t
errible, selection. Rachel couldn't help but think the worst; Marion was an early riser but it was now mid-afternoon and still no sign of her. Patrick's absence had awakened a fear of the twist of fate, and Marion loved to take morning swims. She finished unpacking the groceries and reached for a sauvignon blanc, the one bottle she'd bothered to buy cold just in case the massive store found her in need of sedation. She poured a glass and carried it to Patrick's writing desk, where her gaze landed on a cribbage board her husband had made during a brief flirtation with woodworking, imagery from their life on the lake whittled into its surface. Rachel could never quite recall the detailed rules of the game, but she did remember countless nights moving the pegs around the board and laughing with friends over glasses of the same nine-dollar bottle of wine from which she'd just poured her own.

  Her reverie was interrupted by movement from the sliding glass door, and she looked up to see Marion entering the house with a relaxed smile on her face. "Hi," Rachel said, surprised. "You look… good.” Marion crossed to the desk and looked down at the cribbage board. Rachel was still absentmindedly stroking the carving of a loon with her fingertips. "I feel better," Marion said. Rachel knew it best not to press for the source of the older woman's contentment. Marion looked down at the chilled glass of wine. "May I join you?" she wondered. Rachel jumped up to retrieve the bottle.

  Marion had been in bed for hours, far from sleep. Rachel had gone out, and it was very late. There was something about the old familiar house that felt quieter than any other spot on the lake, a quality Marion remembered prizing back when her young children fought sleep so valiantly. But as their time together flew by she had grown accustomed to her companion—was that what Rachel was?—and now the emptiness ate away at her. She was relieved to hear the car in the drive, the slamming of the door, until the voices carried up the stairs and into her room. It was a man, unmistakably a man. Hadn't Rachel said she was going for drinks with friends? She never really spoke of friends in town, and until the proclamation of her plans tonight Marion had doubted that she spent time socially with anyone outside New York City. But this man, judging by the way his laugh roared through the house, was quite fond of Rachel. Marion hoped he would leave, having deposited her safely home. Now that Rachel had returned perhaps she could get some sleep. But the sounds of ice clinking in glasses, the turntable springing to life, told her the night was far from over. Marion cursed the thin walls and floors in the old cabin, angry with her former self for pinching pennies when she and Arthur planned the renovation twenty-five years ago. But as the chatter continued she realized she knew the man, recognized the distinct, deep voice as Tom Sullivan, Annie's sweetheart of a son who worked in that charming taproom in Plainfield.

  The moment Marion entered the room she knew she'd made a mistake. She tried to turn around, creep back up the stairs unnoticed, but Tom spied her, bellowing, "What the hell?" and climbing off of Rachel, who had opened her shirt for him, baring her bra.

  "Marion?" Rachel exclaimed, shocked. "Jesus Christ, Marion, get the fuck out of here!” Rachel's face was red with anger and embarrassment as she rushed to button up. Marion was speechless. "Marion. Please." Rachel repeated, fuming.

  Marion looked into her eyes, past the heat of the moment, and for the first time, saw the pity there. "I'm so sorry," Marion said. She climbed the stairs and made her way back into bed, but never could get to sleep.

  It had become something of a ritual, these cocktail cruises. Very quickly after she moved in, Rachel learned that Marion hadn't cared much to drink alcohol since her retirement. She explained that with free time stretching out before her, she'd found the need for a more regimented structure to her day, and alcohol only stalled one's productivity. Rachel, of course, felt quite the opposite and had subsequently learned that even an old lady is vulnerable to peer pressure. Today it was gin and tonics, and Rachel knew she'd had one too many. But captaining a pontoon boat required little skill, and the sticky sweet tang of the drink felt as good on her throat as the sun did on her face. In the weeks since Tom had come by for a "nightcap," Rachel and Marion had spoken very little. But they still rode beside one another on the boat evening after evening, as much to kill an hour or two as anything.

  "You're in too far," Marion scolded her quietly, her eye on the shore. "This spot is less than three feet deep in places.”

  "I'm aware," Rachel said, sipping her cocktail, and gave the boat a bit more gas. Marion heard the bitterness in her voice. "Are you angry with me, Rachel?”

  "Of course not," the younger woman answered, too quickly. Marion pressed her. "If you're not angry, perhaps you're ashamed of your own actions.” Rachel almost spit out a mouthful of gin. "And what the hell would make you say that?”

  "Watch where you're going," Marion said, alarmed. "The loons nest in this corner.”

  Not listening, Rachel continued. "Look, I know we're both members of this twisted widow's club and that my cabin—my cabin, Marion—is our little clubhouse. But me making out with someone two years after Patrick died doesn't mean I loved my husband any less than you loved yours.”

  "I never said that," Marion answered. "And I don't think that. Now please, focus on the boat.” But Rachel couldn't let it go.

  "You and Arthur were married for almost fifty years," she said, crumbling. "My husband was diagnosed with a goddamn brain tumor at forty-two and died before his next birthday. No one tells you what to do, Marion. They don't tell you how to move on, or if you're even allowed to move on. I'm doing the best I can.”

  "This is not a contest," Marion answered her, hurt. "I'm an old lady, yes. Arthur was an old man. But your loss isn't bigger than mine, it's not. They're both gone and we're both still here, alone.”

  Suddenly, Rachel heard a bleating sound, loud and strange and terrible. The loons were screaming. Marion saw that they were nearing the shore and the nest. The mother loon had swum out from the comfort of the brush to signal her defense to the oncoming boat. Marion stood and yanked at the steering wheel, overcoming Rachel's grasp and pointing the boat back toward the center of the lake, away from the birds. A moment passed as she tried to calm herself, knowing any urgency had passed. She then looked down at Rachel. "Get up. I'll steer us home," Marion said, stern. Rachel heard the loon, the cackling cry of distress, begin to fade, and tears started to roll down her face. She moved out from behind the steering wheel and Marion took her seat. They rode home in silence.

  It was almost surreal, packing to leave her old cabin for the second time. Of course everything looked different, and it was only three suitcases instead of the boxes upon boxes of miscellaneous items that make up a life, but it brought Marion back to a time when she and Arthur had first said goodbye to their days as a young family. The new house had brought with it a new chapter of their life together; they'd even had a tag sale to rid themselves of all Andy and Colin's old toys and baby clothes.

  She looked down at the bedside table holding the omnipresent vase of daffodils. Rachel had made sure to replenish them weekly and Marion had enjoyed their yellow aura all summer. She was ready. It was time.

  "Where exactly is Danvers," Rachel asked, politely. "Is it close to Boston?”

  "About a half hour north. Essex County," Colin Anderson answered. "Near the coast.”

  "Great, that's so great… It sounds really… nice," Rachel answered, struggling to further the conversation. Marion's youngest son seemed kind, but the minute she'd heard he was a CPA she knew they would have very little in common. She and Patrick had fought hiring someone to do their own taxes until his first book was published and they realized they actually might be able to buy their lake house, and soon. She guessed that Marion was very proud of her son.

  "I want to thank you," Colin said. "This hasn't been easy for any of us, losing Dad. I wanted Mom to move in with us right away, but she wouldn't even consider it. She can be… particular.”

  "Try white wine," Rachel said lightly. "It's her weakness.” Colin smiled, surprised. He took a moment to cons
ider his next words. "I was against this, her living here. But I think that I, my brother and I… we just didn't know what she needed.” Rachel smiled back as Marion entered. Colin excused himself and headed upstairs to retrieve his mother's things.

  Rachel watched Marion look around the room and could only imagine what she must be thinking. "Will it be okay," she wondered, "Living with them? Will you like it there?” Marion shrugged. "I love my son, but I don't think I'll ever 'like' living anywhere but here, on this lake, with Arthur.” Rachel nodded. "But yes," Marion said. "I will be okay. Will you?” Rachel thought carefully before she answered. "I think I will be, yeah. Maybe even soon.” Marion looked at her friend, heard her words.

  And they understood one another.

  About The Author

  Lisa Randolph is a television writer with a diverse group of drama credits that include Being Human, The Shield, and Gilmore Girls. Lisa hails from Canton, Connecticut and graduated with a Bachelor of Music in Voice from New York University.

  Follow her on Twitter: @LisaMRandolph

  “Martyoshka”

  by Kay Reindl