cream, which I had to explain to Ellie did not contain any actual eggs, and Ellie decided on a banana split.
“I’m going to ruin my dinner,” she announced.
“What are you having?”
“Spinach lasagne.”
“No great loss,” I said, smiling, and she giggled.
When I pulled up to Tinsley’s house later that afternoon, she ran outside like a shot and told Ellie to go in and start her homework. Ellie climbed out and thanked me for the ride, wisely not mentioning the ice cream, although I knew Tinsley would find out eventually—Ellie had dripped chocolate sauce on her polo shirt.
“Just so we’re clear,” Tinsley said after Ellie was safely inside, “if you ever do that again, Ann, I’ll—”
“You’ll what, Tinsley? Tell Tom? Because I’m sure Tom would love to be told about your boyfriend.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about this,” I said, leaning over and pulling the photo out of the glove compartment.
“This is nothing, I don’t, you don’t… You’ve been following me?”
“No need for that. It’s a small world, Tinsley. You ought to be more careful.”
“This… this proves nothing.”
“I wonder if Zach’s wife would think so, too.”
At the sound of his name, her cheeks went ruddy.
“What do you want?”
“You know what I want.”
“Grandparents have no automatic visitation rights in the state of Pennsylvania.”
I cocked my head curiously; why would Tinsley know this? Had she asked another lawyer in Tom’s firm? And why would she be doing this kind of research?
“Neither do adulterers,” I said. “See you next Thursday.”
June 12, 2010
Last night I woke at 2 AM, not with a start, suddenly alert, but slowly, as if someone was tapping me gently. I struggled into consciousness, reluctant to release a dream I can’t even recall, and I heard the sound then—half knocking, half grinding, a mix of progress and protest.
I sat up. I walked toward the sound, which seemed much less loud now that I was fully awake, and stood in front of the French doors overlooking my backyard, the ones that opened onto a small deck. There was little light from the quarter moon, but I saw the outline of the split railing, the red metal café table and chair. I put my ear to the glass. The rhythm of the sound was familiar, and after a few seconds I smiled in recognition: woodpecker. He missed his bird house, I thought guiltily, and made a mental note to put it back in the morning.
After breakfast I carried the bird house and ladder out to the tree. I stepped beneath the deck to find the Braille of the woodpecker holes, and my breath caught in my chest. I took an enormous step backward, too fast, and I stumbled, my hands crablike behind me, gripping tufts of spring grass. I sat on the soft hill, looking at the hard cantilevered beams Theo had drawn and specified so carefully, which now had a chunk missing on either side, a gnawed V that looked too deep to have been carved by a bird.
Tinsley? Was it possible she’d go this far? She wasn’t cut out to be a criminal; adultery was no preparation for it. No. It blinded you to things; it warped your vision. She didn’t see what was right in front of her eyes: that there was only one chair on my deck, and only one purpose for it: coffee for an adult in the morning. I suppose Tinsley knew that much: that Ellie would not go out there. But what she should have known, had she been looking carefully, had she been paying attention, had she done her criminal homework, was that I considered that deck a shrine to Theo, and hadn’t set foot on it in years.
I got up and called the handyman Betsy had referred me to and asked him to repair the deck. When he came out and saw the damage, he sighed. “Damned squirrels,” he said.
“Really?”
“You’d be amazed by what they’ll chew through, just for fun.”
“You don’t think a—person could have done this?”
He blinked at me, considering. “No way. This is squirrel nibbling.” Still, he said, any woman living alone needed an alarm system. “If you were my mother, I’d install a camera, too. You could put it somewhere hidden, mount it in a tree or a bird house,” he said.
I smiled and looked up at the tree grazing the secondstory window and said I’d think about it, indeed I would.
Something to watch over me and worry a little, just the right amount.
June 15, 2010
I decided to go