Beach Girls (11 page)

“I sensed that being here upset Nell the other night,” she said. “Maybe it's because I remind her of Emma. Knowing that her mother and I were friends . . . or that she spent time in this house. And I think she wants to see Madeleine so badly, and she sees me as a way to make that happen.”

“You're right about that,” Jack said, hearing Nell's weeping, ringing in his ears.

“I've decided to stay away from her,” Stevie said. “And not invite her—or you—back. It's not that I don't want to—”

“Stevie,” Jack began.

But she stepped back. He could see her trembling, and now her smile was completely gone. This conversation had shaken her to the core—but what part of it? About Nell? Or Emma? Or was she looking at the circles under his eyes, the two days' growth that he needed to shave—and thinking that her father had done a much better job of holding it together?

“I really just came to get your advice,” he said. “I shouldn't have bothered you.”

She stepped forward, took his hand. The touch seared his heart.

“You're not bothering me,” she whispered. “I just . . . I'm afraid I'm hurting more than I'm helping. For right now, anyway. Something about meeting me seems to have stirred Nell up. Especially since I've invited Madeleine here.”

“You have?” Jack asked. His first reaction was joy—followed, and overridden, by panic.

“Yes. Don't worry—I'm not going to push anything.”

“Even though you don't agree with my decision?”

“Even so. You seem like a wonderful father. I don't want to get in the way of that. I'll try not to, I really will. But since you seem to be leaning toward it, why don't you take Nell back to Dr. Galford?”

“And then?”

“See if she feels better. If she does . . .”

We can come back,
Jack thought.
We can be friends
. . . . He looked around: Madeleine was going to visit Stevie here. What if he just backed down—let Nell and Maddie see each other? It would make them both so happy. But the thought of seeing his sister, looking into those eyes, bringing her back into their lives . . . It was too much.

“What Nell is going through is so terrible,” Stevie said, her voice stronger now. “It's the worst thing in a child's world. Losing a parent . . . But Nell is strong, and she has you. You're doing a great job.”

“Even in keeping Maddie away?”

Stevie stared at him, as if deciding how much to say. “I don't understand your reasons for that,” she said. She couldn't give him her blessing on that—wasn't even going to pretend to. She just stared into his eyes, as if she could will him to back down and change his mind.

Jack couldn't do that.

He hated to let go of Stevie's hand, but he knew that he had to. They were standing so close. He was so exhausted, he hardly remembered backing away, saying goodbye. But he held on to that smile. . . .

As soon as he got home, he arranged for an emergency session with Dr. Galford. A quick drive up to the office outside Boston, after normal hours, so the doctor could fit Nell in. Jack sat in the waiting room while his child was inside, seeing her psychiatrist. Was she drawing? he wondered. Was she weaving a story about losing her mother and aunt all in the same year?

Jack didn't know. He tried not to think about his sister, how much Nell missed her. Was Maddie on her way to Hubbard's Point? Was she already there? He hung on to the picture of Stevie's smile, and to the words she had said to him:
you seem like a wonderful father
.

Chapter 9

MADELEINE KILVERT PACKED AN OVERNIGHT bag, made sure Amanda had the office covered, and kissed her husband goodbye. She drove out the driveway of their old house, down Benefit Street, onto the highway. Chris had been fine about her leaving—he was a great husband and all for anything that would cheer her up.

Receiving Stevie's invitation had, initially, buoyed Madeleine up like nothing in recent memory. She had gotten the mail, gone through all the bills and catalogues. There was a white envelope with elusively familiar handwriting; where had Madeleine seen it before?

The postmark—Black Hall, Connecticut—unleashed tides of memory. Summers at Hubbard's Point, a series of rented cottages—one of which had required that she share a room with her brother—the crescent beach nestled between two rocky points, the lazy days with her two best friends . . .

Stevie—it was from Stevie Moore.

The card had been seductively short and to the point:

Your presence
Is requested
To celebrate
The July full moon
Regrets only . . .

At the bottom, a pencil drawing of the backs of three young girls sitting on a jetty, holding hands, watching a full moon rise out of the sea. Moonlight shimmered, a path on the water.

A banner overhead said,
BEACH GIRLS SWOON BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON.
Along the bottom of the picture, Stevie had written the date, an address, and the words “Plan to stay over!”

Madeleine had rushed to show Chris.

“An original Stevie Moore,” she said.

“Your famous friend,” he said. “I've heard so much about her over the
years . . . great drawing.”

“It's of the three of us. She doesn't know about Emma.”

“How did she find your address?”

“I have no idea,” Madeleine said, staring at the invitation.

Stevie was her wonderful “friend who got away.” Along with Emma, they had been so close at one time. But then Emma had moved to Chicago, and the Kilverts had stopped renting at Hubbard's Point. Emma had become part of the family, falling in love with Jack. But once everyone headed off to college, they lost track of Stevie. She had written for a while—Madeleine recognized Stevie's handwriting and remembered being at Georgetown, getting mail from RISD.

At one point, Stevie had shocked Madeleine by announcing that she was married. It was sudden—elopement, justice of the peace, a done deal. Madeleine had called Emma, and she remembered that they'd both felt strange—that it had happened so fast, and that Stevie hadn't considered inviting them. They'd remembered how intensely she'd gotten involved with boys at the beach—Emma would always give her a hard time about it, but Maddie had somehow realized that it had to do with the huge loneliness left by her mother's death.

Then . . . what had happened? Madeleine had gotten engaged to Chris, Jack had married Emma . . . weddings, family holidays.

They began to see Stevie's books at bookstores. Her career took off. Madeleine always read the “author's note” in the back of the books. In that way, she tracked Stevie's life. Some books mentioned a husband, others didn't. In light of how intensely Stevie had always fallen in love, it made Madeleine sad. “Living the life of an artist—unconventional and unstable,” Emma had said.

Madeleine once bought one of Stevie's books—a Christmas present for Nell, when she was five. Driving down I-95, Madeleine tried to remember the story; something about swans . . . about two males fighting for the female. Emma had taken one look at the book and said, “This is obviously Stevie's life. All that drama . . .”

“Well, swans do fight to the death,” Madeleine had said. “Remember at Hubbard's Point, seeing them go at it?”

“Not really,” Emma had said, holding Nell on her lap. “I don't remember it, and I don't really like the idea of you-know-who reading about violence—even in the world of swans! Poor Stevie—I hope she gets it together and finds happiness.”

“She had it tough,” Madeleine said. “Losing her mother. I always figured that that's what made her get married so quickly, in college. I wish we hadn't lost touch with her. We were all so close! How can life take people so far away from each other?”

“She'd probably be bored with us,” Emma had said. “Two happily married ladies, no turmoil or torment . . .”

“Looks like an interesting story,” Jack had said, flipping through. “And the pictures are great.”

“Maybe so, but not for our daughter. Nice thought, buying her the book, Maddie—but I think I'll donate it to the library.”

“Okay,” Madeleine had said. She remembered shooting Jack a little look—Emma had signed on to her mother's way of romanticizing life, wanting everything to look and, if possible,
be
perfect.

Back then, Madeleine and Jack and their families took turns having Christmas at each other's house. That year they were in Atlanta, enjoying Emma's evergreen-and-white-lighted fantasy of the season. Gorgeous decorations, a never-ending loop of carols, cookies for the whole neighborhood, the fattest goose from the best butcher on Peachtree Road.

Leaning forward, in that one swift glance, Madeleine and her brother had a private chuckle—they loved Emma enough to indulge her in banning Nell from reading Stevie Moore's too-true book about swans, and in so many other things.

Madeleine had avoided really looking at the reality of her brother's marriage—he kept it from her. And Emma had just held her unhappiness inside, trying out new ways of finding comfort.

The irony was, within a couple of years, Emma's search for perfection had led her to get very involved in her church. She joined committees, got swept up in a group of lay volunteers. Madeleine had watched with amazement as Emma seemed to decide her life was frivolous and changed direction in midstream. When Nell was seven, Emma decided not to decorate at all: to save the money she would have spent on a tree and wreaths and lights, donate it to charity instead. Jack was upset because Nell was so disappointed. Madeleine secretly remembered Emma, Stevie, and the homeless woman in New London; she wondered whether somehow Emma was doing penance for taking that ten dollars.

Or had Emma really wanted to do good works—to volunteer somewhere that mattered, change the world a little? She couldn't possibly have known that her last choice would destroy her family.

All of that, and more, had been present in Madeleine's initial reaction to Stevie's invitation: trepidation, happy memories, excitement, curiosity, and a need to tell someone the whole story. But now, driving south, crossing the Rhode Island–Connecticut border, getting closer to Hubbard's Point, she wasn't feeling so positive.

Stevie's drawing of three girls . . . Stevie, Madeleine, and Emma.
Beach girls swoon by the light of the moon.
Maddie couldn't help thinking of Emma's proclamation of long ago:
the days are for us, the nights are for them
. . . .

Emma. Driving along, Madeleine couldn't help glancing into the empty seat beside her. She missed her sister-in-law terribly. After the accident, in the hospital for rehab on her injured shoulder and arm, Madeleine had met other patients who had survived bad wrecks. One woman who had lost her right arm told Maddie about “phantom limb.”

“Sometimes I'll be sitting there, and I feel my right arm itching, and I'll go to scratch it. The itch is so real! Or I'll go to pick up a pen—I'm so used to writing with that hand—and be amazed when I can't do it. It's exactly as if I have a phantom arm.”

Now, driving past Mystic Seaport, Madeleine knew she was suffering from “phantom Emma syndrome.” It seemed impossible that she wasn't here—riding alongside, talking away, changing the radio station from Madeleine's favorite oldies rock to Emma's ever-elegant classical music.

And one syndrome begot others. Madeleine now experienced phantom-Jack syndrome, phantom-Nell syndrome. She missed her brother and niece so terribly. It got harder, not easier.

What was she doing, going back to Hubbard's Point, the place where she and Jack had first met Emma? Stevie might have happy thoughts of the three teenage girls, but to Madeleine, the strongest Hubbard's Point memories had to do with how her family came there together.

It was going to be very difficult, trying to explain that to a woman who, apparently, got married the way some people changed shoes. Stevie was probably great in her own way, but Madeleine couldn't expect her to understand what she was going through. She glanced at her face in the rearview mirror: this last nightmare year really showed. She'd put on weight, and she'd gotten into the habit of drinking a little more than she should—to forget the things she couldn't stand to remember.

Madeleine hoped that Stevie's free-spiritedness extended to liking to drink. She had brought along two bottles of champagne—Mumm Cordon Rouge. They had to toast the July full moon in style!

Numbness was really the only way to go.

PEGGY'S AUNT TARA
had a bicycle-built-for-two. After recreation and lunch, Nell and Peggy went over to ride it. Peggy's mother was looking after Nell while her father went to Boston on business; she was there, too. Nell watched the two older women showing the girls how it was done, riding the long blue bike up and down the quiet street behind the seawall.

“One of you gets to steer,” Tara called. “The one in front. The other rides in back, and has to completely give up control.”

“Which is the hardest thing in the world to do,” said Peggy's mother, riding behind, laughing. “Giving up control . . .”

“What?” Peggy asked. “Will you two speak English?”

Nell watched the two women and thought of her mother and aunt. They had acted the same way: laughing, joking, saying things that made sense to no one but them. Grown-up women with young-girl secrets. The funny thing was, instead of feeling left out, Nell had felt safe and secure seeing and hearing them together. She felt that way now, watching the women laugh and have fun.

They were wearing matching straw hats with daisies in the headbands. Mrs. McCabe had on a Black Hall High School T-shirt, and cutoff shorts, and Tara wore a black shirt with
FBI
in yellow letters over her bathing suit. Tara rode the bike down the middle of the road, weaving in and out, as if it was an invisible obstacle course. Peggy's mother took her bare feet off the pedals and held them up in the air, saying, “Wheeeeee!”

“Mom, you're being totally embarrassing,” Peggy said.

“She can't help herself,” Tara said, stopping the bright blue bike in front of the girls. “It's completely hopeless.”

“You're just jealous because I have such a great voice,” Mrs. McCabe said.

“Wheeee!” Tara said, even louder, even though they had stopped.
“Wheeeeeeee!”

“My God, you are both demented,” Peggy said, but she laughed. Nell tried to, but she was too busy remembering her aunt teasing her mother for having such a perfect house: always clean, never any dust, nothing out of place, garden like something out of a magazine. Something else that reminded her of home: the way Tara's and Peggy's mother's gardens were so beautiful and cared for.

“Nell's not embarrassed by us, are you, Nell?” Mrs. McCabe asked.

Nell shook her head. “No,” she said.

“Thank you. Now,” Tara said, “who wants to drive?”

“That'd be me,” Peggy said.

“Okay with you, Nell?” Mrs. McCabe asked. “You think it's easy to sit in back, but I'm telling you, it's not. You have handlebars, but you can't steer.”

“That's okay,” Nell said.

Tara showed Peggy the handbrake and made sure her seat was the right height, and Mrs. McCabe adjusted Nell's seat and helped her climb on. Her arm felt so strong and sure, and for a few seconds Nell remembered what it was to have a mother.

The girls went up and down Tara's road a couple of times, then biked along the seawall and boardwalk, around the boat basin, up the road that bordered the marsh. They passed Foley's Store and cut through the old cemetery, past Nell's cottage, up toward the Point. It was as if Peggy could read Nell's mind. . . .

Peggy had to half stand, riding the bike up the small hill to Stevie's dead-end street; Nell pedaled with all her might, to help. Tall trees shaded the pavement, and a fresh breeze blew off the water. Peggy was pointing to the left, saying something about how there'd be a full moon that night, that maybe they could watch it rise.

But Nell was staring up to the right: at Stevie's house. It sat in the shadow of oak and pine trees; in this light, the white shingles looked blue. She wondered if that's how it had looked when her mother and Aunt Madeleine used to visit, when it used to really
be
blue.

She thought of the baby crow, wondered whether it had learned to fly yet. She wondered whether Stevie ever thought about her. Whether she wondered why Nell hadn't come back to visit.

Nell knew that the reason her father didn't want her going over to Stevie's wasn't because of her writing schedule. It was because Nell had had a meltdown, let the cat out of the bag about missing Aunt Madeleine. Nell knew that her father was definite about not wanting her to see her aunt, and he didn't want Stevie stirring things up and making them worse.