quiet, and she drives with her gaze straight ahead. Grace knows she should reach out to the familiar thin-skinned hand that rests on her mother’s lap and take it in her own. But she can’t.
“George’s went out of business,” her mother says, as they pass a vacant shingled building where they used to go for birthdays and throw peanut shells on the floor. “No one went there anymore.”
And that is the thing that makes Grace cry a little, silently, her face toward the side window. Callie loved that place.
“Kristen Mitchum is getting a divorce,” her mother says. “She’s going to move back in with Maureen and John. For the time being. I guess it’s a good thing now that she couldn’t get pregnant. He left her for his dentist.”
Grace nods at the news of her childhood friend, the Mitchums a constant in her parents’ narrative. She wonders what her mother could possibly tell them about her.
“Did he say anything yet?” Grace asks.
“Who?”
“Dad.”
“Oh. Yes. A little. He’s going to be just fine, Grace.”
You don’t know that, she wants to say.
They drive through the town of Hunter, Charles’s hometown, past the polo field and the sweeping meadows, the horse barns and colonial mansions. Grace is already antsy to get back to New York.
“Mr. Chenowith has prostate cancer, but they caught it early,” her mother says. “You’ll have to go over and say hi to them sometime while you’re home. Marjorie always asks about you.”
The river is on the right, the Chagrin, rushing past, dark and swirling, its banks lined with sycamores and weeping willows, their thin hanging branches dipping into the water with the breeze. The car clicks into a lower gear as they climb the steep hill that turns into one of the few remaining nineteenth-century brick roads; a tunnel of overarching tree branches occludes the sky. And then they are on their street, Woodland Road, home to the Taylors, the Millers, the Mitchums, the Chenowiths, the Carlisles, the Coopers, and so on. No one ever leaves, and Grace feels the heavy tug of being pulled back in.
The driveway has been repaved recently, the fence at the entrance freshly painted white amidst the ivy. The juniper bushes are shaped and trimmed perfectly flat across their tops. The driveway curves around a cluster of pines, and as they approach the large house set on a bit of a hill, its side lawn gently rolling down, the first thing Grace thinks is that her parents must have felt giddy with adulthood and the rightness of their new life when they first bought it. Stone façade, white clapboard siding, black shutters. Built in 1836. A screened-in porch added in 1968. A flagstone walkway put in by her father in 1976. The front door is back to deep red after a brief period of forest green in the eighties. Near it, the crabapple tree her mother put in after Callie died is now giant and flush with pink petals.
“The house looks good, Mom,” Grace says, slicing her finger scar with her thumbnail.
“Yes,” her mother says, putting the car in park without pulling into the garage. “It’s a good house. Maybe next time you won’t feel the need to stay away for so long.”
Her mother smiles and starts to get out, unable to say what she really wants to.
“I’m glad I came,” Grace says.
“I am too. Though I suppose it wasn’t exactly a choice, was it?”
Grace sits and watches as her mother shuts the car door, brushes a twig from the path with her toe, and then lets herself in through the side door by the kitchen.
Later, after her mother has retreated to bed, Grace tiptoes into her father’s den. It smells the same, like leather and the must of old books, but it feels eerie. She feels like an impostor and, at the same time, a detective at a crime scene. His walnut rolltop desk is open and in disarray. Boxes of slide trays litter the floor. She falls into his big chair, molded so closely to his body, and rocks back with her feet against the ottoman. On the
“George’s went out of business,” her mother says, as they pass a vacant shingled building where they used to go for birthdays and throw peanut shells on the floor. “No one went there anymore.”
And that is the thing that makes Grace cry a little, silently, her face toward the side window. Callie loved that place.
“Kristen Mitchum is getting a divorce,” her mother says. “She’s going to move back in with Maureen and John. For the time being. I guess it’s a good thing now that she couldn’t get pregnant. He left her for his dentist.”
Grace nods at the news of her childhood friend, the Mitchums a constant in her parents’ narrative. She wonders what her mother could possibly tell them about her.
“Did he say anything yet?” Grace asks.
“Who?”
“Dad.”
“Oh. Yes. A little. He’s going to be just fine, Grace.”
You don’t know that, she wants to say.
They drive through the town of Hunter, Charles’s hometown, past the polo field and the sweeping meadows, the horse barns and colonial mansions. Grace is already antsy to get back to New York.
“Mr. Chenowith has prostate cancer, but they caught it early,” her mother says. “You’ll have to go over and say hi to them sometime while you’re home. Marjorie always asks about you.”
The river is on the right, the Chagrin, rushing past, dark and swirling, its banks lined with sycamores and weeping willows, their thin hanging branches dipping into the water with the breeze. The car clicks into a lower gear as they climb the steep hill that turns into one of the few remaining nineteenth-century brick roads; a tunnel of overarching tree branches occludes the sky. And then they are on their street, Woodland Road, home to the Taylors, the Millers, the Mitchums, the Chenowiths, the Carlisles, the Coopers, and so on. No one ever leaves, and Grace feels the heavy tug of being pulled back in.
The driveway has been repaved recently, the fence at the entrance freshly painted white amidst the ivy. The juniper bushes are shaped and trimmed perfectly flat across their tops. The driveway curves around a cluster of pines, and as they approach the large house set on a bit of a hill, its side lawn gently rolling down, the first thing Grace thinks is that her parents must have felt giddy with adulthood and the rightness of their new life when they first bought it. Stone façade, white clapboard siding, black shutters. Built in 1836. A screened-in porch added in 1968. A flagstone walkway put in by her father in 1976. The front door is back to deep red after a brief period of forest green in the eighties. Near it, the crabapple tree her mother put in after Callie died is now giant and flush with pink petals.
“The house looks good, Mom,” Grace says, slicing her finger scar with her thumbnail.
“Yes,” her mother says, putting the car in park without pulling into the garage. “It’s a good house. Maybe next time you won’t feel the need to stay away for so long.”
Her mother smiles and starts to get out, unable to say what she really wants to.
“I’m glad I came,” Grace says.
“I am too. Though I suppose it wasn’t exactly a choice, was it?”
Grace sits and watches as her mother shuts the car door, brushes a twig from the path with her toe, and then lets herself in through the side door by the kitchen.
Later, after her mother has retreated to bed, Grace tiptoes into her father’s den. It smells the same, like leather and the must of old books, but it feels eerie. She feels like an impostor and, at the same time, a detective at a crime scene. His walnut rolltop desk is open and in disarray. Boxes of slide trays litter the floor. She falls into his big chair, molded so closely to his body, and rocks back with her feet against the ottoman. On the
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