Last Summer

by Holly Chamberlin

  Would she never stop thinking about Meg Giroux! Rosie sighed and turned onto her side. She wondered why she had responded to Meg earlier in the backyard. She had sworn not to say a word, but then she had. She had sworn not to think so much about her. Sometimes it felt that she was in control of nothing at all in her life. The cutting had made her feel better, more in charge, at least for isolated moments. But she was done with that. The memories disgusted her. Rosie put her right hand on her left arm in a gesture of protection, closed her eyes, and willed the memories to go away, at least so that she could get some sleep.

  8

  Jane scrubbed at the wooden cutting board with a green scratchy pad, vaguely aware that she had already scrubbed the board after breakfast. She would wear a crater into the wood if she went on this way, but she couldn’t seem to stop. Cleaning didn’t keep the sad thoughts at bay, but somehow it made them more tolerable. She wondered what Dr. Lowe would have to say about that. She would probably label her obsessive-compulsive or say that she was deflecting or burying her feelings. Well, that was just the way it was. Organization and discipline kept chaos at bay. Repeat continually.

  Since her brief, somewhat heated conversation with Rosie yesterday afternoon, Jane had been feeling uncomfortable. When Mike got home from work she had told him about what had gone on between Meg and Rosie over the backyard fence, and then about her own failed attempt at—at what? What had she really been trying to say to Rosie?

  Mike had considered for a while before saying, “I’m not sure it’s the best thing for Rosie that she talk to Meg, but I’m also not sure it’s the worst thing.”

  “But she was upset!” Jane had argued.

  Mike, ever the rational one, had pointed out that Rosie’s being upset at this early stage of her recovery was totally normal. She had a lot to be angry about.

  “Look,” he added, “she’s going to come around on her own schedule, no matter what we want from her. And she’s going to make her own decisions regarding Meg. I’m not sure we should be hovering over her, watching or directing. If she needs to talk to someone, she knows she can come to us. And she’s got Dr. Lowe. Let’s allow the doctor to do her job.”

  “But I feel so helpless,” Jane had admitted, remembering that Rosie most certainly had not come to either of her parents the last time she was dealing with a difficult issue. “And so horribly guilty.”

  The look on her husband’s face then had startled Jane. She had never seen such raw anguish there.

  “I do, too, Jane,” he had said. “Believe me. Some mornings I wake up and think it all had to be a nightmare. I wonder, where the hell was I, not to see my own daughter deteriorating before my very eyes? What kind of man lets down his own child that way? I know no parent is perfect, but right now, I would do anything to turn back the clock and be given another chance to prove I’m not the lousiest father ever.”

  They had hugged then and the conversation had drifted away, nothing concluded, only guilt confirmed. The depth of Mike’s pain continued to haunt Jane. Until that moment he must have been hiding his grief for her sake, and realizing that made her feel even worse. She felt that she had been a failure as a wife and partner. She hadn’t been there for him when he might have needed her, so absorbed was she in her own misery and self-blame.

  Jane sighed and thoroughly rinsed the green scratchy pad. She reached for two lengths of paper towel and went about drying the wooden cutting board, then carefully put the used paper towels into the trash.

  Jane turned her attention to the toaster. No matter how many times she cleaned the tray, a few crumbs continued to lurk. It was probably her fault that Rosie hadn’t wanted to talk that morning, Jane thought as she rinsed the offending toaster tray. “Fine” and “okay” weren’t very informative responses. But she had pushed Rosie too far the day before, suggesting that she try to forgive Meg. Maybe Meg didn’t even deserve forgiveness. In the course of her recent reading Jane had learned that some people argued that no one deserved forgiveness. They argued that forgiveness was a gift given freely from one person to another. But Meg was only a child, and no matter how angry Jane was with her, she found it difficult to say that Meg didn’t deserve forgiveness. Meg’s mother ... Well, that was a different story.

  At least I didn’t quote Gandhi at my daughter, Jane thought as she returned the tray to the toaster. Teenagers just loved to be lectured! Gandhi had said, “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” Those words had been haunting her for weeks. She wasn’t sure if she agreed with them. If Rosie couldn’t or wouldn’t forgive Meg for her betrayal, did that really mean she was a weak person? And if Jane herself couldn’t or wouldn’t forgive Frannie and Meg, did that mean that she was also weak? Or did it mean that the standards of good behavior to which she held other people as well as herself accountable were admirably high?

  Jane went to the small, narrow pantry Mike had built for her just after they bought the house. There was little doubt that every can and bottle and jar was in its proper place, but ascertaining that fact was always comforting. Her eyes roamed each shelf in turn, from left to right, slowly, so as not to miss anything. And while she confirmed the order of the pantry, she realized she had been glad to see Rosie express some much-justified anger after her encounter with Meg the day before. But at the same time, Jane absolutely didn’t want her daughter to be provoked into negative feelings that might disrupt her healing process. Rosie had stayed locked in her room all yesterday afternoon and had refused to eat the dinner Jane had taken up to her on a tray. Even Mike hadn’t been able to coax her downstairs with the promise of a game of Scrabble, or even with the suggestion they watch the original black-and-white movie version of Wuthering Heights. It was one of Rosie’s favorite movies; she had asked for a copy of it on DVD for her tenth birthday.

  Jane closed the pantry door. Except for a small glass bottle of vanilla extract that was on the wrong side of the bottle of almond extract—items read alphabetically from left to right—the pantry was in perfect order. She wished she knew what was being said in Dr. Lowe’s office at that very moment. (Mike had an errand to run in Portsmouth, so he had taken Rosie to Kittery and would pick her up after her session.) But the sessions were inviolate. Short of some dreadful criminal revelation, their contents would remain between Rosie and her counselor.

  Jane stood in the middle of the kitchen, hands at her side. There was work to do for a client and she knew she should be attending to it, but she just couldn’t seem to make her way downstairs to her sewing room. Not until she went through with the mission she had set for herself.

  Everything in her world might be in a state of confusion, but one thing Jane did know for sure. She did not want Meg accosting her daughter again. Well, maybe “accosting” was too strong a word to describe what Meg had done in trying to have a conversation with Rosie, but Jane was taking no chances. Even though Mike thought they should neither hover nor direct, Jane was fully prepared to do both. She would tell him what she had done later, when he got home from the office. Maybe.

  Jane looked out of the window over the sink at the Giroux house. The house needed painting. And the roof didn’t look quite right, either. It looked like it was sagging a bit over the living room. Mike would know about that, and about what it would cost to get it repaired. Even when Peter had lived there the Giroux house had begun to get run down. No matter how Frannie had begged, pleaded, and finally, nagged her husband to keep up with the basic maintenance, he had refused. Or maybe he just hadn’t listened to his wife in the first place. Peter Giroux was the kind of man who believed that he was superior to all women, no matter how intelligent, simply because he had man parts.

  Jane shuddered. She had often wondered why Frannie and Peter had gotten together in the first place, let alone married. Well, she hadn’t known either of them when they had first met. Maybe Peter had once displayed some actual charm. She doubted it, but anything was possible. Anyway, it wasn’t a question she could just come right
out and ask Frannie, was it? “You married a jerk. Why?”

  Jane turned away from the window and slid open the silverware drawer to ascertain that every fork, knife, and spoon was in its proper place. Satisfied, she closed the drawer and for the first time in ages actually noticed the small ceramic plaque hanging on the wall just above. Frannie had given it to her years ago. Inside a painted border of hyacinths were the words “Friends Are Forever.” Without a thought Jane yanked the plaque off the wall. No, she thought, friends are not forever. This is a lie. She carried the plaque to the trash can, fully intending to jam it deep inside, but her hand hesitated. She couldn’t do it. She hated herself for not having the nerve or the courage or whatever it was that would allow her to throw away the plaque for good. Instead, she stuck the small plaque in the back of the drawer where she stored the dish towels. Out of sight, out of mind.

  No, Jane thought, closing the drawer tightly, friends were not forever, not when they betrayed you. Not when their children hurt your children.

  Jane had not spoken to Frannie since Meg’s awkward apology in the Patterson living room. Actually, it had been fairly easy to avoid Frannie. She left her house and came back to it every day at set times, at least during the week. Weekends had proved a bit more difficult. Schedules weren’t as set, and they often changed. Jane felt slightly ridiculous peeping through the curtains before she left the house on a Saturday or Sunday, hoping that Frannie wasn’t about to mow the lawn, hoping she wasn’t about to get into her car to go to church.

  But now, Jane thought, taking a deep breath and walking with determination out of the kitchen and to the front door, it was time for a confrontation. Meg had seen to that with her unwelcome presence.

  The short walk from Jane’s home to the Giroux home seemed like her own version of no-man’s-land. Her stomach twitched and her heart began to race. How many times over the years had she made this journey with a light heart, anticipating the welcome that awaited her? Certainly too many times to count.

  Frannie opened the door almost immediately. Jane couldn’t help but wonder if Frannie had seen her coming across the yard. She looked more tired than usual. There were dark circles under her eyes and her hair looked lank, as if it hadn’t been washed in a day or two. Jane felt a flash of concern—only habit, she told herself—and tried to ignore it.

  “Jane,” Frannie said, offering a tentative smile. “It’s good to see you.”

  When Jane didn’t respond, Frannie gestured behind her. “Would you like to come in?” she asked.

  “No,” Jane said. She was aware that she was holding her arms stiffly by her sides and that there was a purposeful steadiness in her tone. “I’m here to ask you—to tell you—to keep Meg away from my daughter. She upset Rosie yesterday.”

  Frannie’s brief smile died on her lips and Jane thought she saw her grip on the door tighten. “What did she do?” Frannie asked. “What did Rosie say she did?”

  “Nothing specific,” Jane admitted. “Meg just wanted to talk. But that was enough to upset Rosie for the rest of the day.”

  “I’m sorry that Rosie ... got upset,” Frannie said after a moment. “But maybe it would help if the girls did talk to each other. Seriously, Jane, maybe if we encouraged them to talk it all out, then—”

  “No,” Jane retorted. “I don’t agree at all. I think they should have nothing to do with each other. So does Mike.”

  That last part was an outright lie, but Frannie didn’t need to know that.

  Frannie briefly put her hand to her forehead, as if to confirm a pain there. “I’ll talk to Meg when she gets home from the library,” she said.

  Jane nodded and turned to leave. And there was Petey where he hadn’t been moments before, sitting cross-legged on the Giroux front lawn, playing with some sort of plastic action figure.

  “Hi, Aunt Jane,” he said as she walked toward him. Petey had called her Aunt Jane since he could first talk.

  Jane wondered if Frannie was still at the door, watching this encounter, or if she had retreated inside the house. She smiled awkwardly at the little boy. Of course she felt bad about being forced to abandon Petey because of his sister’s careless actions, but she just didn’t see any other way.

  Jane willed a smile to her face. “Hi, Petey,” she said, hoping he didn’t hear the strain in her voice.

  Petey squinted in the strong afternoon sun. Jane wondered if he had a pair of sunglasses, but doubted that he did. “I saw you talking to my mom,” he said.

  “Yes. I had something to ask her.”

  “Oh. Are you going home now?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I have a lot of work to do this afternoon.”

  “Okay.”

  Jane hesitated. She was torn between wanting to race away and to stay longer with the little boy. “How’s day camp?” she asked, noting that his T-shirt was one he had been wearing for at least two years now. It was clean but tight and the neckline was a bit frayed.

  Petey smiled, but Jane thought there was something guarded now in his smile. Or maybe she was imagining it.

  “It’s good,” he said. “We’re going to a pool tomorrow.”

  “I’m glad you’re having a nice time. Well, I have to go home now, so ...” With a little wave, Jane continued on to her own home. Her face felt heated. It might have been anger but more likely, she thought, it was shame.

  Jane went straight to the backyard patio and sank into a chair at the small wrought iron table. She made certain that she chose a chair facing away from the Giroux property. She couldn’t bear to catch another glimpse of Petey. She sighed and rubbed her forehead. The stand of bright orange daylilies and the profusion of pink and white lilies she had so lovingly planted and nurtured failed to boost her spirits as they so often did.

  The confrontation had been even more difficult than Jane had imagined it would be. She hadn’t expected to be moved by it. She thought she had thoroughly hardened her heart against Frannie. But it seemed that she still felt a bit of sympathy for her. Being a single parent was never easy, and it was even harder when a person didn’t have any support from her ex-husband. Even when Frannie was still married to Peter she had shouldered almost all of the family’s burdens, from financial to domestic. And yet, she had always made time for Jane and her family. When Jane had been sick during the pregnancies that had ended in miscarriage, Frannie had watched Rosie for hours on end, feeding and changing her right along with her own daughter. That sort of kindness and generosity was hard to forget.

  Jane wished she could shake off the treacherous feelings of sympathy. To forgive Frannie for her part in Meg’s actions would be tantamount to a betrayal of her own daughter. Wouldn’t it? How did you parcel out the blame in a situation like this? Frannie might argue that she wasn’t at all to blame for Meg’s actions, but wasn’t a parent always responsible to some extent for what her child did or said, or for what her child didn’t do or didn’t say? Except, maybe, in cases where the child was mentally unstable and unable to decide between right and wrong, which was certainly not the case with Meg. Meg had always been—or had always seemed to be—a levelheaded girl, responsible beyond her years. If she had ever felt any resentment or anger about her home situation, she certainly hadn’t shown those emotions to Jane, or, as far as Jane knew, to anyone. Maybe that was the problem....

  Jane pressed her lips together. No. She was not going to excuse Meg’s behavior as the result of a difficult home life. Everyone faced pressures and trials. Besides, Meg didn’t have it too bad. If Peter was less than a good father, at least Frannie was a ...

  With the tip of her finger she wiped absentmindedly at a tiny mark on the tabletop. It used to drive Frannie nuts, Jane’s always wiping up the tiniest drop of liquid or endlessly sweeping away crumbs that were virtually nonexistent. Jane almost smiled at the thought. And she was forced to admit, however begrudgingly, that Frannie was, indeed, a good parent. She was hardworking and loving, never overindulgent but always thoughtful of her children’s feelings. I
f she was sometimes a bit hard on Meg that was only because she felt she had to be, for Meg’s own good. Frannie had never said as much, but Jane was pretty sure she worried about one of her children turning out to be like their deadbeat father. What sane mother wouldn’t worry about something like that?

  A deadbeat and a philanderer and quite possibly, an alcoholic. Jane shuddered as a feeling of relief spread through her. Relief and gratitude toward a god she didn’t even believe in. She had been so lucky to find Mike, someone she could trust implicitly. To no one’s surprise, Mike had never had much use for Peter. They were entirely different sorts of men, and their differences went much deeper than a collection of habits. Mike was intelligent and responsible and devoted to his family. Peter was none of those things. Mike was loyal to his wife. It was likely that Peter had never been loyal to Frannie, even in the earliest days of their marriage. Frannie had admitted as much to Jane, though anyone with eyes could have seen that Peter was worse than a tomcat. The amazing thing was that Peter had never tried to flirt with Jane, let alone seduce her.

  No doubt that was because of Mike, who, though a peaceful man, was large enough to make some people think otherwise. Back before the divorce the men had survived each other’s presence by sticking to neutral topics like lawn care and the weather. Any topics more challenging than that would have immediately shattered the illusion of neighborly friendship. Jane wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Mike was relieved when Frannie threw Peter out of the house. No more having to pretend civility for the women’s sake. But whatever his feelings, Mike had kept them to himself.

  That was another good quality he possessed, self-control and the sense of when not speaking was best. In spite of Mike’s dislike of Peter Giroux, he had never let his sour feelings negatively affect his behavior toward the other members of Peter’s family. Only a few nights before, Jane recalled, as they lay in bed, Mike had mentioned that he felt bad he hadn’t spent any time with Petey in almost a month. They had argued in hushed tones about this, not wanting Rosie to overhear. Jane believed it was Mike’s duty to keep away from the entire Giroux family. “You need,” she had said, “to show loyalty to your daughter.”