The Girls of Tonsil Lake

by Liz Flaherty

  “You don’t think it’s above and beyond what you need to do?”

  I smiled. “When I was sick, Jake Logan called me almost every day. He sent flowers, and silly presents, and armloads of books he’d go into a bookstore and buy at random. He called from Chicago and had pizza delivered on nights I didn’t feel like eating, called Jean and Suzanne to come over when my voice didn’t sound right on the phone, had Miranda steal hospital bills right out of my mailbox and send them to him so he could pay what the insurance didn’t cover. And he never once came to see me because he knew how low my resistance was. Not once in a whole year.”

  I felt tears pushing against the back of my eyes and sniffed to hold them at bay before accepting the handkerchief Paul held out to me. “So, no,” I finished, “I don’t think it’s above and beyond.”

  He sighed. “Well, damn.” He reached for me and pulled me over into his lap. His words were muffled against my hair. “I guess the rest of the story of my wife’s last months is that it was—I don’t know—a precious time, I guess. Those random moments when we laughed together or shared memories. Even though everything had changed, I guess you’re right when you say I still loved her.”

  He gave me a kiss and met my eyes in the near-darkness. “Tell me how I can help.”

  Jean

  I typed “The End” and started the printer. I had written a hundred thousand words in three months and I hadn’t any idea whether any of those words were even remotely marketable. What was more, I didn’t care. This book, Dancing in Moonlight, had come directly from my heart, leaving it both eased and full at the same time.

  I looked around my office with satisfaction. The room was everything I’d wanted it to be. Even Carrie had been delighted when it was finished. There was something of everyone I loved in here: the wallpaper the girls had hung, the bookshelves David and the boys had built, the book covers the Tonsil Lake girls had framed for me. One wall was devoted to family pictures and there was a small round table with four chairs for brainstorming or man-bashing sessions. But it was my room. Mine.

  A sound from the doorway made me look up. David stood there, dressed in a tee shirt and the cotton pajama pants we’d both taken to wearing around the house as the mornings and nights cooled. “It’s done,” he guessed.

  I nodded. “It may be the end of my career.” Then I frowned at him. “Why aren’t you dressed? Aren’t you going to work?”

  David had gone back to work at his old office as a consultant. He worked a few days a week and traveled when he wanted. It was an arrangement that made David, his employer, and me all very happy.

  “Not today.” He looked at his watch. “I think my wife has a doctor’s appointment in an hour-and-a-half. I’m going with her.”

  “Don’t you trust me to tell you what the tests show?”

  “Nope.”

  I had finally broken down and gone to Carolyn the week before. The pain had progressed to the point that I could no longer hide it, and no amount of antacid I took touched it. She had taken some tests and sent me to the hospital for more.

  “I know what it is,” I told her flatly. “We’ve talked about it before. You know my history.”

  “Do you mind letting me do my job?” she asked testily from her chair beside me. “Maybe it is. I’m not going to lie to you about that. But maybe it isn’t, either. Those symptoms don’t belong exclusively to advanced ovarian cancer. And who are you to just give up without a fight? Your daughters are my patients, too. Is that the kind of example you want to set for them? If it’s your history, it’s theirs, too. How would you feel if it were Carrie or Kelly deciding to martyr herself?”

  “You always were the meanest mom in the carpool,” I said.

  “Nah. Andie was.” She shook my folder at me. “If you’re not back in here next week, Jean, I’m coming to your house. You don’t have to come to me for this if you feel like we’re too close or if you’d rather have a doctor from Indy, but don’t let it go any longer. All right?”

  And now it was next week.

  I was strangely calm as I dressed, did my hair, and put on makeup. David was happy, the children settled, the book done. I could deal with whatever came next.

  He held my hand in the car on the way to the doctor’s office. We talked about things like bringing in the plants before frost, making sure the cars were winterized, what to serve for Birthday Saturday that week.

  When David had parked and we were walking toward the professional building beside Lewis Point Memorial Hospital, he took my hand again. His was trembling.

  “David?” I stopped walking and looked up at him, drawing my hand free to lay it on his chest.

  His heart beat strong and safe against my fingertips. The leaves overhead fluttered in the breeze so that the sun dappled the ground around us in a dance of lights. I thought, as we stood there together, that life had given me many perfect moments—the children’s births, sitting on a rock in Maine with my best friends, time after time with this man that I loved. How could I ask for more?

  He smiled and reached to frame my face with his hands. “All I want in this life,” he said, “is you.”

  And one more perfect moment was given.

  Suzanne

  What am I supposed to say when people ask me how many children I have? Two? One? I had two but now I have one?

  I doubt that anyone’s asked me that question ten times in the last two years, but now it’s asked every time I turn around. The mothers at the daycare center all asked. Now that they know, they give me these soft-eyed looks that mean, “God, I’m sorry for you, but I’m glad it’s you instead of me.”

  I know that look because I used to wear it myself. When I couldn’t anymore, when I knew the agony that is the deepest of all agonies, I became someone else. I always said I was afraid there would be nothing left of me if I lost my looks, but now I’ve lost my child. When I catch myself even thinking about my looks, it makes me sick.

  I don’t mean to say I have nothing to live for, because I have Sarah and I have friends and I have a new job I like, but the person I was died the day Tommy did. And I don’t know what is left.

  Trent and I cleaned Tommy’s things out of the apartment he’d kept in Indianapolis. It is nice being with Trent right now because he shares my need to talk about Tommy. Nearly everyone else avoids the subject, as though that will make the pain go away. Even Sarah doesn’t want to talk about him. I suppose everyone copes in their own way, but coping’s never been my strong suit.

  We gave most of our son’s clothes to the neighborhood thrift store, threw away things like razors and half-used bottles of shampoo, and donated his books and linens to a shelter. Except for Jean’s books, all autographed and in a neat row on a shelf over his bed. Trent packed them away carefully and labeled the box for Sarah while I stripped the sheets from the bed.

  “I’ll wash these before we donate them,” I said, but the cotton went right past my nose as I folded them and I stopped moving altogether. It had been so long since I’d smelled the scent that was Tommy’s alone, and it nearly brought me to my knees. “Oh, Trent,” I said.

  He knew. He’d spent a lot of time with grieving parents during his years as an emergency room doctor. “Don’t wash them yet,” he said huskily. “Wait till you’re ready, and if you never are, that’s okay, too.”

  I pushed the folded sheets inside a pillowcase and set them aside along with photographs we’d found and put into a manila envelope to be gone through when we could bear to look at them.

  When we found the bag of pot in his bottom drawer, neither of us commented. Trent flushed the weed down the toilet along with an assortment of pills and a vial of suspicious-looking white powder.

  “I keep asking myself where we went wrong,” he said, watching the water taking the drugs away. “I was an asshole of a husband, but not a bad father. You were a good mother. Even Phil Lindsey tried. But nothing ever worked, did it?”

  “No,” I admitted. “Tom always knew he was loved, whi
ch I thought would carry him through because it would have me, you know? But it wasn’t enough for him.”

  “Nothing was,” said Trent. “Nothing was ever enough for him.”

  I knew anger was a part of the grieving process, and even though I hadn’t gotten there yet, it was obvious that Tom’s father had. I went to him and put my arms around him.

  “Funny, isn’t it?” he said, rubbing his cheek on the top of my head. “We’ve held each other more in the past month than we did when we were married.”

  I smiled up at him. “We’re grownups now.”

  When the apartment was clean and empty, we turned the key over to the building superintendent and started toward Lewis Point. It was Friday night and the traffic was terrible. It took us forty-five minutes to reach the outskirts of Indianapolis, normally a twenty-minute drive.

  “Did I ever say I was sorry?” asked Trent, when we were sandwiched between two eighteen-wheelers and moving at the approximate rate of a sedated snail.

  “Sorry?” I looked over at him, noting how he’d aged in the past weeks. He still looked boyish, but no longer immature, never again carefree. He’d lost his only child.

  The tenderness caught me unawares, and I reached to touch his face. “Sorry for what?”

  “Wrecking our marriage.” The car moved forward another six feet. He took my hand and kissed my fingers. “For letting you go.”

  “Well, no,” I said, a little breathless. “Most of the time, we hardly spoke at all. But we were kids, Trent. Maybe not chronologically, but in every other way we were. The time for blaming is long past. Like I said, we’re grownups now.”

  “Yes.” He released my hand and eased into the left lane. “We are.”

  We picked up Chinese on the way to my condo and sat on the floor and ate out of little white buckets while we watched The Quiet Man for the hundredth time. Watching the sensual interplay between Maureen O’Hara and John Wayne, I was suddenly conscious that my hair was in dire need of cutting and coloring and that my makeup had worn off hours ago. I was glad for the darkness in the room.

  Was this the beginning of healing? Instead of making me sick with self-hatred, thinking of my appearance gave me a thread of hope. I considered what Andie’s response would be to that and almost laughed aloud.

  “I wonder…” I mumbled.

  Trent turned a sleepy-eyed glance my way. “What?”

  “How I’d look as a redhead.”

  Vin

  “What in the hell is this?” I waved the single piece of paper around as though that would make it visible to the lawyer on the other end of the line.

  “I’d say that was obvious, Mrs. Stillson. Mr. Stillson’s daughters, Marie Stillson-Lance and Joanna Stillson-Martin, would like your permission to make use of the Palm Beach house during the month of October. They plan to do some entertaining while there and will of course pay their own expenses.”

  Randall Naismith talked, as Andie might say, as though he had a corncob up his ass. If the man ever sneezed, I’m sure the top of his head would blow off. He had been Mark’s lawyer and probably his closest friend, but, like Marie and Joanna, he still considered me an interloper.

  “They’ve used the house every October that I can remember, Randall. Why did they feel the need to put it in writing?”

  “They didn’t use it last year.”

  “They didn’t?” I didn’t remember. I had still been in a fog of grief over Mark’s death and consumed with worry over Andie. “Why not?”

  “Out of respect for your bereavement, I’m sure.”

  I almost snickered. “I’m sure. Well, tell them…” I stopped. “No, wait a minute. Tell them I’ll discuss it with them over lunch on Friday. One o’clock. Here.”

  “Mrs. Stillson, I hardly think that’s appropriate given the circumstances. You can just sign the letter where indicated and return it in the envelope included. There’s no necessity for difficulty.”

  “No.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “No. Lunch. Friday. Here.”

  I hung up and went into the kitchen, where Archie was putting the finishing touches on dinner. “Arch, was I what you’d call a wicked stepmother?”

  She set a platter with four grilled pork chops on the counter between the two place settings she’d laid, complete with linen napkins, Mark’s mother’s china, and the crystal we’d bought on our honeymoon. It had taken me the entire month of July to convince her that we could eat together, in the kitchen, and remain civilized.

  “No.” She still had to bite off the “ma’am,” but she was getting better at it, and I grinned at her. “But I believe anyone Mr. Stillson married would not have met with his daughters’ approval.”

  “Really? Even if it had been one of their mother’s friends, you don’t think they’d have liked her?”

  Archie shook her head and set a small serving bowl of vegetables on the counter. “Wine?” she asked.

  I nodded and went to the cellar in the pantry to choose a bottle. “Did they think, seriously, that I was going to displace them in their father’s affections, or what?”

  “Their mother was an unforgiving woman,” said Archie carefully. “Even though you didn’t even meet Mr. Stillson till long after they were divorced, I’m sure she portrayed you to their daughters as the other woman. There you were: pretty and smart and scarcely any older than they were. You would most certainly be considered a threat.”

  “Oh.” I poured the wine and we took our places. “They’re coming for lunch Friday.”

  “Here?” She looked horrified, but her voice was sturdy and calm. “What would you like to have?”

  I shrugged. “Something easy, maybe something a little bit Hoosier so they won’t be disappointed in their worst expectations. Think we should eat in here?”

  “No!”

  I grinned at her again, and this time she grinned back.

  “Here, look at this. I want to talk to you about something.” I handed her the letter from Randall.

  She reached for the reading glasses we kept on the counter for whichever of us needed them and read in silence, then looked expectantly at me.

  I plunged in. “I’m thinking of giving the houses—this one and the one in Palm Beach—to Marie and Joanna.”

  She looked shocked. “Giving?”

  “Yes.”

  “But they’re yours.”

  “No, the house in Maine is mine. Property in Indiana is mine. But these houses, even though Mark left them to me, should go to his daughters. Should have been theirs all the time.”

  “They’ll evict us.”

  I laughed. “No, the giving will have some strings attached. One of those strings is that you go with this house if you so choose.”

  Archie nodded, though she didn’t look relieved. “What will you do?” she asked, then immediately retracted. “I’m sorry. That’s not my business.”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted, “but I’m not going to stay in New York.”

  It was the first time I’d said those words aloud. Even though I’d been thinking them ever since I returned from Hope Island two months ago, I’d been reluctant to commit the decision to voice. I looked across the counter at the woman who had, against all odds, become my friend. I would miss her.

  “I’ll go to Hope Island or Indiana,” I said. “Or both.”

  Archie was silent a moment, cutting her pork chop into neat bite-size pieces. Then she said, “Ma’am?”

  I sighed. “Yes?”

  “Will you be needing a housekeeper?”

  Part Four

  “Not only is life a bitch, but it is always having puppies.”

  Adrienne Gusoff

  Chapter Thirteen

  Andie

  I cleaned house all morning long. I did windows, mirrors, and windowsills. I went down to the supermarket and rented a machine and came back and began to shampoo carpets. I took down curtains and tossed them into the washing machine.

  Suzanne came in at noon, took one
look at my house, and began stripping the beds even though no one had slept in the guest room since Vin came back for Tommy’s funeral.

  “Don’t you have to go back to the daycare center?” I asked at twelve-thirty, looking down the length of a long curtain rod at her.

  “No. I’ve cut back to three days a week. I spent the morning packing stuff up at the condo till I couldn’t stand my own company anymore. I can’t believe David hasn’t called. He knows we’re worried to death.”

  “He’ll call,” I said. “She’s probably not even out of surgery yet.”

  “It’s been four hours.”

  “I know.”

  Without discussion, we prepared the guest room and bath for Jake’s imminent arrival, cleaning out the dresser drawers and the closet, replacing daisy-laden sheets with soft white ones. I hung new black and white towels in the bathroom and placed a new, guaranteed-not-to-slip mat in the bottom of the shower.

  “I should probably see about renting a hospital bed,” I said finally.

  “Do you think?” said Suzanne.

  Then we left the room quickly, closing the door behind us.

  We ate ham sandwiches sitting at the table and tried not to look at the silent telephone.

  “Jean and I did this the day you had surgery,” said Suzanne, picking the crust off her bread in little pinched pieces.

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Tonsil Lake.” She looked startled. “We never went back this year, did we?”

  “The year’s not over yet,” I said, keeping my voice light. But, God, I wish it was. How much more of this year can we take? Will it just go on till we’ve lost more children, more ex-husbands, each other?

  “God,” said Suzanne, “I wish it was.”

  I blinked. “Me, too.”

  “I don’t know whether I’m more afraid of one of us dying,” she said, “or that we’ll continue to live and it won’t get any better.”

  I wanted to shout at her that living was better; I’d come close enough to dying to know that.