I frowned and picked at a pill on my velvet armchair.
I stood up. I was happy to end the evening—the one I’d envisioned as a quilting bee, and that had started to feel like an IRS audit.
“Sometimes it’s best to sleep on things, dear,” I said.
She asked to take a few scrapbooks home, and I hesitated. She said she’d take good care of them and I nodded; I knew she would. I also knew that taking them home meant taking away my influence; she would look over them with her mother. Tinsley, a darling girl really, but one who knew nothing about me or my family, would suggest unusual aspects to her; Tinsley would see something different in the pages than I would, than Theo, than Tom. And what if Tinsley started asking questions, dredging up things? She had always been such a curious person, that was one of the things Theo and I had loved about her. When we shared a meal, she never failed to inquire after Theo’s business or our tennis games, our tomato plants, what-have-you. If you had a new sofa she would ask where you had it made, and what kind of fabric it was. What questions would she carry forth into that scrapbook? There were no pictures of my daughter—I purposely hadn’t even opened that trunk. But what if she started in on my father, my mother? The last thing I could imagine doing was explaining our family’s heartaches to Tinsley. The very thought of it made me feel queasy. Funny, isn’t it, that I could sooner imagine telling Ellie? A child over an adult!
“Well… as long as you’re careful,” I said finally. “And remember, there’s more to look through here, upstairs. Don’t make any… snap decisions.”
I put them in her tote bag and we sat on the window seat together, watching for the lights of Tinsley’s station wagon. When it was 8:15 and she still hadn’t arrived, I dialed her cell phone number but it went to voice mail. She was one of those people who insisted you leave a “brief message,” so I simply said, “Tinsley, your daughter is wondering where you are.”
“She never answers her phone,” Ellie said quietly.
I looked over at Ellie but her eyes were fixed on the floor.
“Well, that seems silly, doesn’t it? Why have one?”
“And she never lets me play games on it, either.”
“She probably thinks those games are a waste of time. And they are.” Tinsley had excellent policies, I thought, on some of these things. No video games ever. No television on a school night. Good, solid parenting, that.
“She gets mad if I even touch it.” Ellie’s eyes were fixed on the floor. “You know, when it rings or something. She freaks out.”
I patted Ellie’s hand.
“Someday you’ll have your own phone, and maybe you won’t let her play games on it.”
She smiled. “Even if she begs.”
Across the street a young woman was walking two dogs on one leash. “Dogs,” I thought—I was seeing everything in “aspects.” A group of college boys passed her but didn’t whistle or hoot; it was too early in the evening for that. Ellie sat with one leg tucked under her, looking out at the street, watching the dogs and boys, waiting for the next thing to happen, while I waited for the next thing she would tell me. I couldn’t force it. I just had to let it come.
May 27, 1967
regular bath
leftover oatmeal
THEO DIDN’T COME HOME LAST night. Looks a tad dramatic when I write it down, doesn’t it? But it isn’t, I know in my bones.
Yes, it happens to be one year to the day after my high school reunion, but I don’t entertain thoughts of Theo’s retaliation, or of my comeuppance. Perhaps if I felt guiltier I would. Perhaps if he knew of my transgression I would. When I think back on that night, it felt necessary and absolute. There could have been no other ending. The Tuesday before, Emma ran a fever so high I woke Theo and asked him to drive us to the emergency room. He rubbed his eyes and looked at his watch. He said he’d only come to bed an hour earlier. What? I’d said as I held Emma tightly, though I hadn’t misheard him. He didn’t repeat himself, he only blinked and sat still, as if his eyes were trying to adjust to the darkness. I told him to get dressed and meet me downstairs, and he asked me if I wasn’t