Or maybe Mom made him. Maybe she was too afraid to spend any more nights with me alone.
In some ways, life has gone on as if nothing even happened, like stubbing your toe and trying to walk through the pain with tears in your eyes. School started up again in August, the way it always has, and I just went through the motions as if everything were fine. As if Margaret’s little backpack weren’t still suspended next to mine in the mudroom, partially zipped shut with her favorite sweater peeking out. It was like we all wanted it there for her, just in case she clawed her way out of that coffin and came walking back from the graveyard, wet and shivering and covered in mud, looking for something to keep her warm. Her bedroom remains untouched, though Mom insists on leaving the door shut. Dad says it’s because she can’t stand to see it: her little bed, her pink walls, her white mesh canopy dangling like a cobweb from the ceiling. Sometimes, I stop in the doorframe and try to imagine what it must have felt like for her to open her eyes and see me standing there, rigid and staring, a silhouette in the dark.
How afraid she must have been.
In other ways, though, life after Margaret has been unimaginablydifferent. Holidays have come and gone and we’ve just ignored them all, pretended they didn’t exist, as if disregarding the passage of time would make the fact that the world was moving on without her a little less real. Everything reminds me of her now: the taste of sweet tea, the smell of the marsh. The quietness of the house every morning as I make my way downstairs, the deafening silence amplified even further by the fact that she isn’t here to fill it with her footsteps, her laughter, her voice.
Mom’s stopped painting, her third-floor studio slowly morphing into a room for storage. Dad’s home constantly, his cheeks, once perfectly smooth, sprouting wiry little hairs that have slowly grown into a fully formed beard peppered with gray. We have visitors on occasion: Chief Montgomery checking in, the neighbors offering casseroles and condolences. The tourists poking their heads through the bars feels even more ominous now, like it isn’t the history they want to see, but something darker. A week after Margaret died, a bald man with oval glasses started coming over twice a week, listening to Mom cry. He nods his head and scribbles notes on a legal pad as she talks—or, more often, just sits in silence, tears dripping from her chin—leaving her with various bottles of pills that keep multiplying on the countertop.
The biggest change, though, seems to be with my sleep—or, rather, my lack thereof. I used to be such a deep sleeper; I used to fall asleep in an instant, like the closing of my lids signaled to my brain that it was time to shut off, too. Parts of it, anyway. But now I lie awake, unblinking eyes on the ceiling, watching as my room morphs slowly from dusk to dawn. It’s like my brain wants me to remember something; it won’t shut down until I remember. And when I do fall asleep—finally, after hours of violent fits and bursts—I have the same dream, always.
Every single time, I dream of her.
I dream of the two of us outside, the glow of the moon making our nightgowns shine as we stand at the edge of the water. I dreamof her hand in mine, fingers tight, her neck twisting as she stares at me in the darkness.
Her eyes wide, trusting, before she turns back around, faces the marsh.
And then she takes a slow step forward, her toes sending a ripple through the water as I stand back and watch her go.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
NOW
I’ve grown used to uncomfortable silence in this house. After Margaret, that’s all there ever was.
Dad offered me a drink when I first walked in. “We have whiskey, wine…” His voice trailed off before he could finish. He was embarrassed, I think, when he realized it wasn’t yet noon.
“Coffee,” I said. “Please. Thanks.”
We’re in the living room now, the three of us sitting in opposite corners. I’m perched on the edge of the couch—the kind of couch that’s purchased for aesthetic alone, the cushions the consistency of cardboard, and the upholstery a clean, crisp white—while my parents are in two armchairs on either side of the fireplace. There’s a tray of cookies between us arranged in an ornate circle. My mom brought them out—mostly, I think, to give her hands something to do, an excuse not to touch me. I know they’re just going to sit there, growing stale. That she’ll brush them all into the trash once I leave, slap the lid shut, like my presence alone somehow rendered them spoiled.
“I got your card,” I say at last. “And the check. Thank you.”
“Sure,” my dad says, smiling. “It’s the least we could do.”
“You didn’t have to, though. I mean, I don’tneedit—”
He waves his hand as if brushing off a gnat.
“How’s Ben?”
I look at him and notice his set lips and clenched jaw. He’s uncomfortable, grasping for conversation, a mad scramble in his mind that I’m sure began the moment he opened the door and saw me standing on the other side of it. He’s never liked to talk about problems; neither of my parents have. Politics and religion were always welcome in our house, but emotions and feelings and all those other sticky subjects were simply buried beneath piles of money and presents until they disappeared altogether.
“He’s fine,” I say at last. Of course, they don’t know we’re separated. I never told them. “Busy with work.”
“Good,” he says, nodding. “That’s good.”
I set my coffee on the side table. I haven’t taken a sip since I sat down. I’m too afraid of sloshing the liquid over the side, staining the couch. Old habits die hard. Then I glance at my mother, at the way she’s sitting rigid in her chair like she’s strapped into a straight jacket. Her hands are clenched tight in her lap, one ankle hooked around the other the way we learned in cotillion. They’ve changed so much since Margaret died. My mother used to see the world in such vibrant colors. I remember the way she would look at me with such wonder in her eyes—her head lolled to the side, fingers tickling at her chin, like I had come into this world as a piece of artwork, commissioned by her steady hand, and somehow sprung myself from the canvas. Took on a life of my own. But now it’s like her world has faded into black and white.
Whenever she looks in my direction, those same eyes skip over me completely, like I’m nothing but empty space.
“So what can we do for you, Izzy?”
My dad squirms in his chair, crossing and uncrossing his legs. He’s changed, too. His booming voice has withered into a whisper, jittery and unsure. He used to command attention every time he walked into a room, but now it’s like he looks for the nearest corner and hides there, tries to blend into the wallpaper.
“I was actually in the neighborhood,” I lie. “For work. I’m writing a story.”
“Oh, that’s great, sweetie.”