When Stephanie finally visited the Shanks again, in the fall of her senior year, she found that her mother was wrong. Her grandparents seemed quite happy together, proud of their growing franchise and eager to show it off. They’d had Stephanie meet them at one of their newest branches in Frederick, a small city about an hour east of Willowboro. They took her on a tour of the store, giving her samples from the deli, the olive bar, the bakery, and the Cheese Cave, the innovation for which the stores were most famous. At the back of the store, adjacent to the parking lot, was an outdoor café with a stone patio and an artificial pond with a fountain that her grandfather referred to as a “water feature.” Stephanie ordered a wheat berry salad for lunch, wheat berries being something she had never tried before, and she remembered their gummy, foreign texture in her mouth while her grandparents held forth on Nicole and her various missteps in the wake of Sam’s diagnosis. There had been a question of malpractice, because the doctors might have caught the disease earlier. And then, there was the general shabbiness of the hospitals in Hagerstown, the city closest to Willowboro. They had begged Nicole to take him to Johns Hopkins, but she wouldn’t because the long drive made her “anxious.” And Stephanie just listened, chewing her way through her fibrous salad, thinking they sounded a little manic but at the same time wondering if what they said had any merit. At home, she asked her mother to show her the medical files pertaining to Sam’s illness, a request her mother had honored without question, pulling down the ceiling ladder that led to the attic and handing down the dusty boxes. Stephanie couldn’t make much sense of the files—it was mostly insurance billing—but she found a snapshot of Sam’s leg, postsurgery, and she could see it was a young, muscular leg beneath the angry red stitches, the leg of a boy she might know. And she could see no point in blaming her mother, or even the doctors, for never suspecting that a young, muscled leg could conceal a large, soft, festering tumor.
But her mother felt blamed, and instead of telling Stephanie about Sam, she told Stephanie about the way she had been treated in the aftermath of his death. How the Shanks had basically abandoned her, leaving her alone with her baby, their grandchild! How her parents had been in serious debt, scrambling to save the farm, too preoccupied with their own problems to help her. How Joelle was the only one who seemed to care. But Joelle was in college at the time, and she could only visit on the weekends. During the week, Stephanie’s mother was left by herself. That was the first time that she began to feel what she referred to as “the dread.” But she told Stephanie that it felt like the dread had always been inside her, like it was waiting for an excuse to get out.
“I know a stronger person would have handled it better,” she told Stephanie. “I know I let you down. But I was dying of loneliness. I talked to you—a little baby. I told you everything. You listened, it really seemed as if you were listening.”
And as Stephanie’s mother spoke, Stephanie felt cast in the role of listener again. For the first time, she was aware of how angry she was to always be put in this position. Here she was, asking for stories about Sam, and what did she get? More stories about her mother. About her mother’s pain.
Finally, one night, when her father was out at a Boosters event, Stephanie’s mother brought out a small album Stephanie had never seen before, a cheap-looking drugstore album with clear plastic sleeves for pages. It was from a trip, her mother said, a trip that she and Sam had taken to Chincoteague Island when they were in college. It was on this trip that Stephanie’s father had proposed. And as Stephanie’s mother stared at the photos, she began to cry, saying it was difficult to talk about Sam because she didn’t remember him as clearly as she once had. And then she started telling Stephanie a bunch of random, disconnected facts about him. She told her that he had big, fleshy hands. That he wasn’t as tall as he seemed. That he loved mustard—he put it on everything—and that on game days he always wore the same blue-and-white-striped tie. That he had a good singing voice and for a while he was in a rock band. That he didn’t read very much but he liked books about Civil War history. That he’d considered volunteering for the draft but his parents had objected. And then, after he got sick, he wished he had gone into the draft, because maybe he wouldn’t have passed the physical and then he would have known earlier. Either that or he would have died nobly, for his country. Sam had actually thought that would be a better way to die—in a foreign country, away from his family. Being sick hadn’t given him any clarity. It hadn’t made him a better person. He didn’t die in peace or in love. Instead he died angry, not knowing what he wanted to do with his life or what it had meant to him.
Once her mother started talking, it was as if she couldn’t stop. Stephanie was quickly overwhelmed. She’d gotten what she’d wanted, but it didn’t answer the question that seemed to grow more and more with each passing day, expanding to fill her body as well as her mind, the question of Who am I? And who will I become?
The Shanks told her she looked like him, an observation Stephanie wasn’t sure how to take. Sam had been attractive in a masculine way, with a jutting chin and a heavy brow. Stephanie had always felt that her features were lacking in delicacy and that her jaw was perhaps a bit too pronounced. She could pass for pretty with plucked eyebrows and mascara to bring out her hazel eyes, but she wasn’t like her mother; no one would ever compare her to Tuesday Weld, or any movie star.
And that was okay with Stephanie, for the most part. She felt that people were inordinately fixated on her mother’s beauty, especially after her death, as if it was beyond them to imagine how anyone with symmetrical features could be unhappy. As if her mother’s death could have been averted by her looking in the mirror. It dawned on Stephanie that the whole culture of women’s magazines was premised on this idea, that if you seemed healthy and pretty you just wouldn’t die, and now when she saw the glossy covers of magazines and catalogs with their smiling blond models—everyone was always blond!—she wanted to rip them off. And yet listening to Courtney Love and Bikini Kill and Sleater-Kinney and all the riot-grrrl bands she loved didn’t make her feel better. Instead she listened to John Denver, because her mother had loved his voice and Stephanie felt guilty for all the times she’d made fun of her taste in music.
Stephanie hated to think of how hard she had been on her mother. Her father had told her that her mother’s death was no one’s fault, but then what was that thing he had said last night? About her giving her mother the silent treatment? It wasn’t true or fair, but her father got like that when he was angry and feeling out of control. She remembered a time last November when her mother was supposed to go to the football awards banquet and she said she couldn’t face it. And her father had lost it and said, “What can’t you face? You don’t have to do anything! You just have to sit there and look pretty!” His dismissal had shocked Stephanie, but what was even more shocking was that her mother had actually gone to the banquet and she had sat there and said nothing and her father had seemed okay with that. After that it was like her father gave up trying to make her mother happy. Stephanie couldn’t tell if he’d given up because he was tired or because he was afraid, and she couldn’t decide which was worse. And she also couldn’t decide whether or not to blame him for escaping into coaching, because hadn’t she begun to visit her grandparents, in part, to get away from her mother?
The Shanks turned out to be a lot of fun. The sour ruminations of their first visit were never repeated—it was like they had to get it out of their system—and they devoted her remaining visits to spoiling her. They had season tickets to the Baltimore Opera and they took her once a month, treating her to dinner beforehand. One night they took her to Haussner’s, an old-fashioned place with oil paintings stacked up the walls and a coat check and a dessert cart, a kid’s idea of what a fancy restaurant should be. And Stephanie let herself be a kid, getting a little thrill out of their dinner of oysters and crab cakes and filet mignon—and for dessert, German chocolate cake! They took her there a second time to celebrate her acceptance
to Swarthmore, allowing her one small glass of champagne. It was their idea for her to apply to Swarthmore (and Johns Hopkins, and Haverford, and Carnegie Mellon). They told her not to worry about money, that they would pay if she got in. When Stephanie told her parents, they shrugged, slightly baffled. It didn’t occur to them that her academic record was good enough to compete with kids from prep schools. And it didn’t occur to them that she would want that. Stephanie herself was unsure, but as she read the Fiske Guide that the Shanks bought for her, she began to imagine herself attending the kind of brick-and-ivy places she’d only seen in movies. And then Mitchell borrowed it and began to share her daydreams. Her life got busy as she wrote her applications and studied for her SATs and then her subject tests (she was one of only three people in the county to take them) and then her AP exams. And when she wasn’t doing that, she was either hanging out with Mitchell at his house or hanging out with Mitchell backstage, because he did the lights for the school play. Stephanie liked standing in the wings during rehearsals, watching the same scenes unfold again and again, but never in exactly the same way; it was like getting glimpses into subtly altered worlds.
So much of Stephanie’s imaginative life was devoted to the construction of alternate universes. In the weeks after her mother’s suicide (without warning, without explanation, without even a note) she kept reimagining the day it happened, different versions of it: a day when she didn’t go for a horseback ride; a day when she did, but with her mother instead of her father; a day when the whole family rode together, having a picnic, laughing in the sun; a day when she woke up sick with a stomach bug, so sick that her mother had to take care of her, had to bring her a bowl to vomit in and a cold compress to drape on her forehead when she was through. For some reason this last fantasy was the most compelling; it seemed to be the scenario that might have convinced her mother to stay on earth just a few days longer.
Stephanie breathed deeply to dissolve her gathering tears. She stepped out of the shade of the church and headed toward the sidewalk, where Robbie and Bry were still playing. She called to them to say she was going to get Dad and they barely nodded in her direction. Stephanie remembered how much her mother hated this, how she would point to herself and say “Acknowledge me!” She wondered if Robbie and Bry remembered the last thing their mother said to them. Stephanie couldn’t. She had tried so many times, but she could only guess. It must have been something banal and forgettable: have fun or see you later or bye now. It made Stephanie think that her mother’s act must have been impulsive, because if she’d been planning it, wouldn’t she have said something of significance before Stephanie went on her ride? Wouldn’t she at least have said “I love you”? Then again, maybe she had, and Stephanie hadn’t even noticed.
Her father was in the lobby, talking to a woman with shiny brown hair and dangling leaf-shaped earrings that Stephanie admired. She looked familiar, and when her father introduced her, he acted like they’d met before. Apparently she was Ms. Lanning, a sub at the high school.
“Are you still subbing?” Stephanie asked, just to be polite.
“Actually, I got a job at the middle school as a guidance counselor.”
“That’s where my brother Robbie’s going to be,” Stephanie said. “He’s starting sixth grade this year.”
“You didn’t mention that!” Ms. Lanning said, turning to her father.
“I guess I forgot. I still think of him as being at the elementary school.”
“Forgot your own son!” Ms. Lanning laughed. Stephanie was alarmed. Was going to college in the fall really the right thing to do? Aunt Joelle had hinted to her that it might be better if she deferred her acceptance. But her father had already said no, that he didn’t want her “backsliding” because of her mother.
A tall, thin man approached. He was young, with a scraggly goatee and wire-rimmed glasses. On his left wrist were a large black digital watch and two faded friendship bracelets, the kind that little kids make at camp. Stephanie knew he had to be Ms. Lanning’s boyfriend because he looked like her: a little different, a hint of sophistication. Like he was possibly connected to some nearby urban center—D.C. or Baltimore or even just one of the wealthier suburbs like Chevy Chase or Falls Church. After a minute or two of small talk, he said they had to leave for a picnic and the two of them were off. Her father stared after them for a moment and then mumbled that it was always awkward to see people from work out of context.
“Does she go to this church now?” Stephanie asked.
“She’s just here for today, for the baptism. That guy she’s dating is the godfather.”
“Oh, yeah.” Stephanie remembered him, now. He had stood up front while the baby wailed in her white dress, offended and confused by the drops of water on her head. Stephanie’s own baptism had yielded the one and only photo of her entire biological family: her mother and her father and both sets of grandparents. It was disconcerting to look at it now, to see the Shanks standing so close to her mother.
Once, driving home after a night at the Baltimore Opera, Mrs. Shank had attempted to apologize for her absence in Stephanie’s life.
“I think I resented that your mother could have more children. That she could start over. I know that’s petty. I don’t expect you to understand.”
Stephanie didn’t know what to say.
“The irony is that I’ve always been grateful to your mother for having you,” Mrs. Shank said, that same night. “I know she pushed Sam to start a family.”
Stephanie wanted to ask, If you’re so grateful, why did it take you fifteen years to get to know me?
“Are Robbie and Bry still outside?” her father asked. He didn’t wait for an answer, leading Stephanie toward the door. But they were intercepted by Ms. Lanning, who had come back to ask Dean about a referral for a good sports doctor. Apparently Tim was having trouble with his knee.
Stephanie left them and went to find Robbie and Bry. When she found the lot empty, she looked immediately toward the road, her heart pounding. But then she heard them calling to her. Their voices came from the pines. They had climbed one of the trees.
“Steffy!” Bry waved from a surprisingly high branch. Robbie was lower down; she could see the white of his button-down shirt.
“Get down before you hurt yourself!” Stephanie wasn’t actually worried. Pine trees were easy to climb, with their evenly spaced branches. The only danger was how spindly the branches were near the crown.
“I can see Dad from here! He’s talking to some lady!”
“Be careful,” Stephanie said, knowing the boys wouldn’t listen but feeling the need to pester them anyway. She was only going to be here for a few more days. And then they would be on their own, with no one to warn them of anything.
NICOLE’S YOUNGER SISTER, Joelle, lived in the turn-of-the-century farmhouse where she and Nicole had grown up. It was made from fieldstone. The roof, recently replaced with expensive copper, had been purchased with Joelle’s inheritance after her father’s death. The copper was beautiful, especially in the late afternoon, when it turned a peachy-gold color. Inside, the house was dingier, with wall-to-wall carpeting and a mishmash of furniture: the very old, very simple chairs and crates, faded with use; the heavy-looking inherited pieces, made of dark lacquered woods; and the newest purchases, puffy chairs and sofas, chosen for comfort and upholstered in faux leather. There were knickknacks, framed craft projects, and family photos everywhere, arranged in no particular way. It was chaotic but also cozy.
Joelle got to live in the house because she was the one who married a farmer. Dean liked her husband, Ed, a big-gutted, easygoing man whose tendency to bullshit about subjects he knew nothing about had earned him the nickname of Cowpie. Over the years he had amassed a number of novelty T-shirts that featured turds in one form or another. He was wearing one today as he grilled burgers and hot dogs.
“Why on earth would you wear a shirt like that if you’re going to be serving people food?” asked Geneva, Dean’s mother-in-law.<
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“Never mind Uncle Ed,” Stephanie said. “What is Aunt Joelle wearing?”
Joelle’s outfit was perplexing: an oversized white tunic with plastic gems sewn on the collar and down the front, like buttons, and beneath it, purple leggings. It seemed better suited to an elementary-school-aged girl than a short, chesty woman with skinny legs.
“Maybe that’s how people dress at her new church,” Geneva said. “Bejeweled for Jesus.”
“Grandma!” Stephanie chided. But she was smiling.
“I finally caved and went with her to a service. I knew it was going to be bad as soon as I saw the church. Have you seen it? It’s prefab. Real shoddy construction. I said, ‘Joelle, Jesus was a carpenter!’”
“I bet she loved that,” Dean said.
“You can’t joke with her anymore—that’s the worst thing.”
Dean had no idea what he’d done to get his mother-in-law on his side, but it felt good to have at least one person in the family rooting for him. She had an independent streak that he admired, one that he felt the rest of the family failed to recognize. They were all shocked when, after her husband, Paul, died, she decided to renovate one of the old outbuildings at the edge of the pasture and live there. Joelle and Ed insisted she continue to live with them in the farmhouse, and even offered to build out an addition, but Geneva said she could smell Paul’s death in the rooms.
“Who’s ready for a burger?” Ed called from the grill.
“I’m going to go help Aunt Joelle with the salads,” Stephanie said, glaring at Dean before heading into the house.
“What was that about?” Geneva asked.
“She wants me to ask Joelle to help out with her brothers this fall, but I’m not crazy about that idea.”
“I don’t blame you,” Geneva said. “Did you know she’s going to homeschool Megan and Jenny this year? She doesn’t want Megan going to the high school.”
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