the anticipation of their trip and all the days they’d have to spend together. Forty-five minutes later, they were crunching up the gravel driveway. “Are you sure nobody’s here?” Jo asked, as Shelley said, “Don’t be such a scaredy-cat,” and Jo followed her through the house, out back to the pool, where Shelley turned, lifting her arms, causing the hem of her pink cotton minidress to ride up high on her thighs. “Unzip me.” Underneath the dress, Shelley had nothing on but a pair of lace-trimmed panties. She kicked them off, gave Jo a grin over her shoulder, and dove into the water, with the clean form of a girl who’d spent her summers at sleepaway camp, where swimming lessons were taught twice a day. Jo pulled off her own shirt and shorts, leaving her bra and underwear on before jumping in the water and scooping Shelley in her arms. Shelley closed her eyes, humming happily as Jo held her, bouncing her a little, walking from one side of the pool to the other.
“This is perfect,” Shelley said, without opening her eyes. “I want a house with a pool.”
“We’ll have to figure out how to get one,” Jo replied . . . and did she imagine it, or did Shelley’s body stiffen, ever so slightly, in her arms? Before she could decide, Shelley wriggled free, slipping away and swimming underwater toward the deep end with her long, dark hair trailing behind her. Jo swam after her, grabbing her ankles, pulling her, wriggling and laughing, into her arms, covering her wet skin with kisses, thinking that she’d never been so happy.
After a little while, Shelley got bored in the water, so Jo swam laps while Shelley lay in the sun, wrapped in a towel, leafing through Vogue with her wet hair gathered into a braid. After half an hour, Jo came to sit with her. She took Shelley in her arms, letting Shelley’s head rest on her shoulder.
“It’s so beautiful here.” Jo had decided to confine her remarks to the present, and the obvious—the sunshine, the green grass, the water. Can’t you just enjoy things? Shelley had asked, like a refrain, all through the spring, when Jo would press her about the future, demanding certainty, demanding answers. Can’t you just be happy being with me now?
“I wonder if my mom was ever happy.” Shelley’s voice was low and musing.
“You don’t think she ever loved your dad?”
Shelley shook her head. “I think, for her, it was more like taking a job than falling in love. If you’ve been bred to marry a rich man and have his babies and basically be decoration, and you have no skills and no idea how to support yourself, how many options do you really have?” She reached down for her cigarettes and her lighter, which were always within grabbing distance. “I think Gloria can barely stand my father, but she knows that she wouldn’t be able to live without him.”
“What do you mean?” Jo asked.
“I mean if you took everything away from my mother, and told her she had to support herself, cook her own meals and pay her own bills and balance her own checkbook and wash her own lingerie, I guarantee you she’d be dead in two weeks. She could never live without help. Without . . .” Shelley gestured toward the house. “. . . all of this.”
Jo was thinking about Sarah, who had been brisk and competent even before her husband’s death. She didn’t think Sarah liked her much, but she and Bethie had both gone to college, the way her father had always wanted, and Sarah’s hard work had made that possible.
“And what about you?” Jo swallowed hard, and made herself ask, “What do you want?” Jo knew that she could dream of a life abroad, or in the Village, in New York City, but could Shelley live like that? Or would she want a life like her mother’s, with a big house, a new car every year, live-in help, and a regular mah-jongg game? Shelley would have to decide for both of them. Shelley would pick a city, New York or Washington or Los Angeles or anywhere in between, and Jo would follow, finding a teaching job and a graduate school.
Whither thou goest, I will go, too. Jo reached for Shelley’s hand, which rested limply in hers. Shelley’s dark-brown hair curled against her pale, faintly freckled skin, and her long lashes lay against her cheeks.
“We need more towels,” Shelley mumbled,