She sounded like she might have been crying. Jo made herself turn away, and when Shelley said, “I should go,” instead of trying to comfort her, Jo said, “I’ll get your coat.”
“Hey,” Shelley asked when she was at the door. When Shelley was wrapped in her fur again, Jo thought she could detect at least a little of her old love’s familiar rich-girl insouciance. “Did you ever get to take that trip?”
Jo shook her head, pushing down the anger and resentment that the thought of her truncated travels always stirred up. “No. I spent a big chunk of my money on . . . you know, on that other thing.” All this time, and she still couldn’t say the word “abortion” out loud, even though abortion was legal and had been for almost four years. Nor had she ever told Shelley who the abortion had been for. That was Bethie’s story, not hers. “And after that, it felt like I was ready to start the next part of my life, you know? Like it was time to move on. Time to grow up.”
“Well.” Shelley looked like she wanted to say more. Her mouth was trembling as she pulled her short fur coat closed. “Bad timing.” She’d jammed her purse underneath her arm and pushed her hands in her pockets.
Jo shrugged. Part of her felt desperate relief that Shelley was going. With every second in Shelley’s presence, looking into those luminous gray eyes, smelling the scent that was perfume and tobacco and Shelley herself, she felt the urge to just toss everything she had, everything she’d built with Dave, to leave her daughters in the backyard and her sister staring into a candle flame, her mother in the kitchen and her husband at some bar, to jump into Shelley’s car and just go. But she couldn’t go. She could never leave her girls. They were her loves now; they were her life. “Good luck. I hope you’ll be happy,” she said, and Shelley’s voice was flat, her smile joyless as she said, “Yeah. You, too.” Jo had closed the door gently behind her and stood, with her forehead resting against the wood, listening as Kim and Missy came in through the back door, needing to go to the bathroom, needing their snowsuits unzipped, their boots pulled off, their noses wiped, clamoring for hot chocolate, saying, Hurry, Mama, hurry!
“Jo?” On Judy Pressman’s living-room floor, her sister nudged her. Jo could picture her sister’s face, her eyes wide-open in the dark.
Jo didn’t answer. Instead, she held still, making herself take long, slow breaths until, hopefully, she’d convinced Bethie that she’d fallen asleep. She couldn’t risk talking about Shelley. Not to Bethie, not to anyone. She had her girls, she had her house, she had a husband, and work. A car to drive, food to eat, books to read, miles to run, people in her life who loved her. It was enough, Jo told herself. It had to be enough.
Bethie
Bethie Kaufman didn’t know who her sister thought she was kidding, but Bethie was not fooled. All of Jo’s talk about how happy she was, how she was fine, how everything was great, and she loved her life and loved her husband and, oh, let’s not talk about me, let’s talk about the girls. Or OPEC, or the weather, or disco music, or the democratic elections in Spain. As if Bethie couldn’t see the way her sister’s gaze followed Nonie Scotto whenever Nonie was around. As if Bethie hadn’t noticed the small, subtle, possibly unconscious ways Jo found to put space between herself and her husband. If Dave was in the kitchen (rare, because he had a wife and two daughters, all well-versed in the art of beer- and snack-fetching), Jo was in the family room. If Dave was in the family room, sipping his fetched beer, munching on a plate of Wheat Thins and cheddar cheese that one of his women had prepared and watching Wide World of Sports, Jo was in the kitchen. If Dave was in the shower, singing Bee Gees songs loud enough for everyone in the house to hear, Jo was folding the laundry she’d washed or unloading the groceries she’d purchased or making dinner, or getting the kids’ school lunches ready for the morning.
All the women in Avondale lived this way, as far as Bethie could tell. She’d opened Judy Pressman’s pantry and seen canned goods lined up, as regimented as soldiers in an army, all the labels facing