Bittersweet

by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

  I watched John squat beside the old wheelchair, which Abby lay beside, and realized it was filled with a brittle body. The person—hardly recognizable as such—was facing the view: through thinned maples, a craggy sandstone cliff gave way to a shaded vision of the lake. It was a melancholy vista, barren of the easy escapism the Winslows enjoyed.

  The only indication there was something human in that chair was the constancy of its breathing. Even at John’s touch, the figure didn’t turn its head.

  Ev remembered me. “This is May,” she said. “And this is my old nanny, Aggie.”

  “Who’re you calling old?” Aggie teased, before introducing herself by pulling me into a tight hug. She smelled delightfully of pepper. I was on the verge of sneezing when she released me. “Let me get you all a snack.” She looked fondly at Ev from the doorway and disappeared into the kitchen.

  “Mama,” John said softly, as we all turned our attention to the figure in the wheelchair. “Look who came to visit.” He wheeled his mother around to face us. I had expected an old face, but hers was smooth, girlish in its lack of wrinkles. Her skin was almost trans-lucent—I could make out the veins in her forehead. She had John’s eyes.

  “Hello, Mrs. LaChance.” Ev did not reach out her hand or lean down to the woman’s level, and I knew her tall, beautiful nervousness was easily mistaken for snobbery.

  “Thanks for having us.” I squatted down and touched Mrs. LaChance’s hand. Her fingers squirreled under mine.

  “Who is that?” Mrs. LaChance asked in a vital voice, looking past me.

  “That’s May, Mama,” John answered.

  “Her,” the woman said, her eyes on Ev all the while.

  “I’m Genevra,” Ev said, eyeing John, “I just stopped by to say hello.”

  “No!” Mrs. LaChance yelped, her voice now fierce. “Aggie? Aggie?”

  Aggie appeared in the doorway.

  “Get her out of here,” Mrs. LaChance growled. All the blood had drained from John’s face.

  “Pauline,” Aggie pleaded, approaching. “Let’s be kind.” As Mrs. LaChance protested again, Aggie whispered to John, “You’ve caught us before nap time,” and to me she commanded, “Take Ev for a walk.”

  Mrs. LaChance’s voice had grown more frantic; she was practically yelling, “Don’t bring her in my home!” Abby began to bark, only agitating the situation.

  Aggie nodded me toward the porch door. I took Ev’s arm and pulled her away in retreat as I heard the nurse chide, “Now I know you don’t mean that, Ev’s a lovely girl.”

  But we all knew Mrs. LaChance had said precisely what she meant.

  Ev was crying by the time our footfalls thudded onto the skinny trail running atop the cliff. “See?” The view of the lake was less kind over on this side of camp. The craggy sandstone gave way to ragged boulders below.

  I took Ev’s hand in mine and tried to think of the right thing to say. “She’s not well,” I hedged.

  “She always hated us,” Ev complained, pulling away, “even when we were children.”

  “Well, she worked for you, right?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I thought of my mother taking the abuse of a customer whose Burberry coat had been damaged by a steamer, my father losing a thousand precious dollars on a legal consult when one of his customers threatened to sue. “It’s not easy to serve other people.”

  “Who do you think put a roof over her head when her husband died? Who pays for Aggie? Who keeps John employed and lets her live rent-free?”

  “Maybe that’s exactly why she doesn’t like you.”

  Ev rolled her eyes as my point sank in.

  I walked to the end of the little path, a few yards farther. The way was precarious. The end of the peninsula—no wider than my two feet—was a good sixty feet above the water.

  “He told me we were going to do something fun,” Ev complained.

  I laughed. “Not what you had in mind?”

  She’d plopped herself down on a boulder and I joined her there. We watched a skiff sail by. “She’s never going to approve of us,” she said more calmly. “I don’t know why he even tries.”

  “What’s wrong with her anyway?”

  “She had a total breakdown when her husband died. It was like twenty years ago. I mean, don’t you think she’d be over it by now?” She narrowed her eyes at me. “You didn’t seem scared.”

  I couldn’t tell her my secret. Not yet. “I used to volunteer with people like her.”

  She picked up a stick and threw it over the edge of the cliff. We listened to it crack to smithereens. “Will you get John? I have to get out of here.”

  I considered saying, “If you really love him, you’ll have to face her someday.” But I kept my mouth shut and did her bidding. On the small footpath that led me back the way we’d come, I thought of the cold touch of Mrs. LaChance’s fingers under mine.

  I heard John before I saw his outline on the porch, crouched beside his mother’s chair. “Mama, you have to give her a chance.” The wind was coming in my direction, carrying the low tones of his voice. Had he turned, he would have seen me, so I told myself I wasn’t eavesdropping, even as I backed behind a tree and listened hard for his mother’s response.

  “Anyone who isn’t one of them,” she croaked. “Anyone else, and I’ll say yes.”

  “I deserve to have what you and Dad did,” he pleaded. “Life is short. When you find love, you fight for it.”

  “She is a Winslow,” Mrs. LaChance enunciated, ending the conversation.

  Through the trees, I could make out the peacock tones of Ev’s sundress as she picked her way toward me. I darted back onto the path, heading for the house, and John emerged from the porch door, whistling Abby to him, letting the door slam shut behind him. “Where’s Ev?” He ran his hand over the dog’s back as she snorfled after a chipmunk under the porch stairs.

  As we sped out of the camp, I expected tension between John and Ev. But as soon as we passed out of the Winloch woods and into the meadow, the sound of our motor turning the world yellow as it scattered a dozen goldfinches into the air, he slung his arm over her shoulder.

  “A sparkle of goldfinches,” she murmured.

  “A siege of herons,” he replied.

  “A murder of crows.”

  “A murmuration of starlings.”

  She nuzzled up in the crook of his neck. “A host of sparrows.”

  “An exaltation of larks.”

  I was struck that they had known each other longer than anyone outside of my family had ever known me. “A skein of geese,” she laughed.

  “It’s a gaggle.”

  “A gaggle is when they’re on the water. They’re called a skein when they’re in flight.”

  “Fine then. But I call foul on your pronunciation.”

  “Fowl?”

  John cracked up. “Puns are strictly outlawed in this truck.”

  “It doesn’t matter how I pronounce it,” Ev said vehemently, “there’s no points deducted for mispronunciation.”

  His eyes crinkled at her solemnity. “Okay, smarty pants, so what do you call a lot of quail?”

  “A bevy.”

  He shook his head in protest. “A drift.”

  On they played, leaving his mother, and Winloch, behind.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The Festivities

  The next morning, Ev and I were sipping coffee in our bathrobes when John arrived dressed in white from head to toe. His tanned skin looked even browner against the pristine cotton fabric—slacks, button-down, cap. I tried not to let my eyes linger too hungrily as Ev wolf-whistled.

  He rolled his eyes. “It is fucking ridiculous your mother makes the help dress like this too.”

  She laughed breezily.

  “Where are your whites?” He frowned at us.

  I looked between them, bewildered, but Ev seemed to know exactly what he meant. They laughed at my bafflement until Ev chirped, “It’s Winloch Day—che
eseburgers, football, fireworks! Put on those white clothes!”

  My heart stuck in my throat. The best I had was a T-shirt and a pair of granny panties. “Look at her face!” Ev giggled, pointing at me. “Don’t worry! I got you something in Montreal!” She leapt from the table, squeezing past John with a chaste, if lingering, peck on his lips, and returned moments later with an ivory cotton dress on a hanger. I knew just by looking at it that it would fit me perfectly.

  As I uttered my thanks, John wrapped his arms around Ev and kissed her neck. “Evie, you are the sweetest girl I know.”

  “You have no idea.”

  “Someday,” he said, holding her tight, “someday I’m going to give you everything you want. A big house. Six bedrooms. One for every baby.”

  Ev snorted.

  “And plenty of bathrooms. A state-of-the-art kitchen.”

  “I don’t know who you think will be cooking in that kitchen.” Ev tried to twist from his grasp. He didn’t let her go.

  “I promise,” he said. “Anything you want, Evie. Anything.”

  “A carousel!” She was not going to let this get serious.

  “Okay, a carousel then,” he said indulgently. “What else?”

  “A cotton candy machine.”

  “I’m going to take care of us.” His voice was so low I could barely hear it.

  She finally broke free. “I have to shower.”

  “Be my guest.”

  She nodded toward my dress. “I’m glad you like it.” Then slipped past him and into the bathroom.

  “So you’re the help today?” I asked.

  “Lackey, Sherpa, at your service.” He took a sip of Ev’s lukewarm coffee.

  I asked what I’d been wondering for a while. “How is working for the Winslows?”

  He took me in so carefully that I felt the need to explain myself. “My parents own a dry cleaners.”

  The suspicion melted from his face as he considered my question. “Seems like I’ve been working for them my whole life.” He wasn’t self-pitying, just honest. I wondered if that was why he loved Ev—because it felt so natural to be looking after a Winslow—but the instant the thought flitted through my mind, I chastised myself. Who was I to judge why one person was bound to another?

  “What about the other guys?” I asked, thinking of the men with farmers’ tans I’d seen doing work around camp. When I first came to Winloch, I’d noticed them everywhere—the way they parked the small, white groundskeeping trucks off the beaten path, the sound of their hammers on the shingles atop the Dining Hall. I realized that, as June had turned to July, I’d become less attuned to their whereabouts, which meant that either they were doing less work nowadays or I’d become so accustomed to all my needs being met I wasn’t noticing who was meeting them anymore. I had a sneaking suspicion it was the second. “Where are they from?”

  “Locals. Their fathers and grandfathers worked for the Winslows.” He was quiet then. We listened to the water streaming from behind the bathroom door. “There’s a lot to be done down there. You put in the docks, and the swim floats, repair the roofs, you know? Do all the mowing, all the planting. Then you’ve got to shore up the banks below the cottages to stop the erosion, so you haul rocks, bring in the backhoe, that kind of thing. Weed whacking. Tending to the leech fields, making sure they’re clear of saplings and the sewage is evaporating. You replace sump pumps in the basements, and the wood beams of the foundations with steel ones. When the decks rot, replace them. And in the winter, you’ve got to close up the cottages, so that’s shutting off the water, draining the pipes, sweeping off roofs, taking off the gutters, moving the furniture, repainting.”

  I had never heard him say so much. “Do you work on the woods?” I asked, wanting more of his voice washing over me like water.

  “Oh sure. You thin out the softwood saplings—white pines, red pines—you want the hardwoods to grow. See, in my grandfather’s day, it was all farmland down here, and what comes after farmland is the softwoods. But hardwoods are what give you good heat for stoves in fall and spring, so you thin out the pine so the maple and oak can get enough light to—”

  “Hey!” Ev’s chipper voice cut through his. She was standing in the living room, one towel wrapped around her lithe frame, the other like a turban on her head. “Are you going to help me pick my outfit or what?” She walked suggestively into the bedroom.

  John practically panted as he stood to follow her. “Excuse me.”

  I washed the dishes a few times until they were done.

  That afternoon, dressed in our alabaster frocks, Lu and Ev and I stuck flags embossed with the Winslow crest at three-foot intervals along the border of the Trillium lawn as per Tilde’s instructions. John backed in his full pickup. I watched Ev observe his interaction with her mother—John’s cap in his hand, Tilde’s words of instruction—and wondered how Ev felt. But as he hauled the bags of ice onto his shoulder and followed Tilde to the porch, neither he nor Ev acknowledged each other, so I kept my head down and pushed the next dowel into the soft earth.

  “Do you think Galway’s coming?” I asked as casually as I could muster, when we had finished up our task.

  “He’s probably with his girlfriend,” Lu said, flopping to the ground.

  “He has a girlfriend?” I tried to sound calm.

  Lu caught sight of Owen mounting the stairs up from Flat Rocks. She checked to make sure her mother was out of sight, then rushed to his side. Ev lay beside me, squinting at the teenagers as they embraced furtively.

  “Have you ever kissed John like that?” I asked.

  “In front of my mother’s house?” Ev shook her head emphatically. The day had grown warm, but not unpleasantly. Bumblebees darted in and out of the tiger lilies that edged the grass. “Why the sudden interest in Galway?” she asked.

  The lie came easily. “Oh, he knows I’m interested in the Winslow genealogy and—”

  “Oh my god, you’re such a nerd!” She slapped at me, and I scowled. She rolled onto her back. Her fair hair splayed across the close-cut grass and her eyes dreamily opened and closed as one hand lay open upon her stomach. “I have some news—”

  “Genevra?” Tilde’s voice snapped Ev out of whatever she was about to say.

  “Yes, Mum?”

  “Have you gotten out the tablecloths? Look at you girls. Grass stains everywhere.”

  Ev darted to her mother like a little girl.

  The men lit the barbecue. The women set out the potato salad and lemonade and ketchup. The white-clad guests arrived and relished the juicy jalapeño burgers topped with Cabot cheddar as a pack of dogs drooled below the children’s table, hoping for a dropped morsel. The Winslows wore their summer’s best white clothing—collared polo shirts, cotton sundresses—and I realized I had finally stepped into the picture that had hung in our dorm room. I closed my eyes and uttered up a prayer of thanks to Jackson Booth, my patron saint, the reason I was there.

  I was standing on the porch beside Ev, deciding whether I could allow myself a second corncob rolled in butter, when she gasped and grabbed my arm. I followed her gaze out the screen. “It’s Aunt CeCe,” she said, abandoning her plate on the table and rushing into the house.

  All I knew of CeCe Booth was that her only son had committed suicide, and that she had been devastated—embarrassingly so (at least according to the Winslows)—at his funeral. I had heard snippets of gossip—that her overprotectiveness was the reason Jackson had enlisted, that she had driven her husband away with unparalleled neediness—but I had taken the unkind assessments as idle chatter, the inevitable fallout of tragedy. I knew all too well how quickly the wolves gathered.

  Standing outside Trillium, the woman looked undone by grief, as if all it would take was one touch and she’d disintegrate. Her brown hair was pinned back messily, her too-warm gray wool sweater too big, her hands wrapped around herself as if she might crack apart. I watched her approach her older brother’s house. I expected to see her embraced. And she was—by h
er sisters Stockard and Mhairie, by her nieces, Lu and Antonia and Katie, and by the local family friends who had heard of her tragedy and now gathered around her, cooing in sympathetic tones. Far more instructive was to notice who did not open their arms. From my vantage point on the porch, the division was glaring, if the reason for the rift invisible. Birch didn’t look her way, and her elder sisters, Greta and Indo, pointedly remained in their Adirondack chairs on the Trillium lawn. I was shocked by Indo’s snub. She was eccentric, yes, but usually welcoming in her oddness, and I’d assumed she’d embrace the one person who seemed even more out of place at Winloch than she. But then, perhaps that was precisely it; perhaps Indo didn’t want to be associated with someone perceived as weak.

  Tilde swept across the Trillium lawn like an arrow, reminding the guests gathered around the grieving woman that there was cold beer on the porch and waiting until, one by one, they had moved away from CeCe to lean in close and whisper into her sister-in-law’s ear.

  CeCe’s body tensed. In a desperate tone, she replied, “I just want to join in the fun, Tilde. I’m not going to ruin anything.”

  Tilde leaned in for another exchange, at which CeCe exclaimed, “Well of course I’m emotional,” her voice getting louder as she said that word. Tears began to leak from her eyes.

  Ev appeared beside me again, lifting her plate in a satisfied gesture.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked.

  Ev followed my gaze to her mother and aunt’s conversation. Tilde’s hand was now on CeCe’s arm, and CeCe was trying to remove it. “She promised not to come,” Ev replied tersely.

  “Why?”

  “She’d just upset everyone. Which is exactly what she’s doing.”

  “Her son just killed himself!” I balked.

  “For god’s sake, Mabel, butt out,” Ev snapped. Then she disappeared into the crowd.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The Fireworks

  Chastened, I ate and drank alone, observing CeCe’s gradual admittance into the festivities, although she hardly looked festive. Without a second glance in my direction, Ev slipped off as the football game began. Athol and his wife, Emily, argued about who had forgotten the baby carrier, and, some moments later, Lu and Owen retreated down to Flat Rocks for a make-out session. Indo’s Fritz and Tilde’s Harvey got into a growling match over a squeaky toy, which ended in Indo barking at Fritz and leading him back to her house.