Stiltsville: A Novel - By Susanna Daniel Page 0,71

said Bette. “I hear it gets worse before it gets better.”

Later, Grady gave a toast thanking everyone for coming and telling Margo how proud he was. “You are thoughtful and smart and gracious,” he said, choking up. “And we love you.” When his speech was through, he and I stood watching the party from the far side of the swimming pool. Margo was across the water from us, making conversation with a woman from Grady and Gloria’s church. Her dark wavy hair reached past her shoulders and she bit her bottom lip in concentration, as she had a habit of doing. She’d been asked a dozen times what she planned to major in, and each time the answer was different: political science and history, then political science and art history, then art history and biology. I’d even heard her say that she wanted to take dance classes.

“Ah, the nest,” Grady said, clinking my glass with his beer can.

“Empty,” I said.

In the torchlight I saw, as I often did, the shadow of Dennis in Grady’s curly mop of hair, mostly gray now, and the scattering of freckles across his nose. I hadn’t allowed myself to think much beyond the coming weekend, when Dennis and I would leave Margo in Gainesville. I hadn’t thought about returning to an empty house. Two years earlier, I’d left my position at the bank for a part-time job as the bookkeeper at a small medical practice in downtown Coral Gables—I thought now that maybe I would take on more hours, keep busier.

Grady said, “Of course Bette stayed home, but she wasn’t around much. Dennis was off in the dorms and came home on the weekends. It was quiet. We didn’t know quite what to do with ourselves. Gloria started with the bridge club then, and she’s still at it. I started fishing more.”

“Dennis has been running a lot,” I said. He’d been getting up before dawn, then returning to make a big breakfast before heading to work. He’d done this two or three times a week for six months.

“Go with him,” said Grady. “You might like it.”

I’d gone twice, and both times I’d felt a little sick from the early hour, and Dennis had to slow down when I cramped. “I joined a tennis team,” I said.

“Now that’s something,” said Grady. He put an arm around my shoulders. “My granddaughter is moving away from home. I’m an old man.”

“You are not,” I said. He was sixty-eight that year, but he looked much younger in the red-gold light of the tiki torches. His hair was thick and tousled, and his face was flushed.

Gloria came up behind us and slipped an arm around Grady’s waist, then took a long drag from her cigarette and blew a thin line of smoke over the pool. “My lovely,” said Grady.

“Isn’t this a success?” said Gloria. “Margo’s charming.”

“We were just discussing the empty nest,” said Grady.

“You should travel,” said Gloria. “Go on an archaeological dig in Egypt. They teach you everything you need to know.”

In twenty years, Grady and Gloria had never seemed to understand that their means were not our means: we could not afford to travel, at least not to Egypt. To say this aloud would have ruined their vision of us, not to mention the conversation.

Across the swimming pool, Margo had started what seemed to be a serious conversation with Ed Everest, Eleanor’s husband. Margo was using her hands to make a point, and he was nodding and asking questions. The torchlight accentuated her planes and contours—her fit upper arms, her collarbone and jawline, the dark waves of her hair. I had no idea what my daughter would have to discuss with Ed Everest, who was the pastor at Grady and Gloria’s church, but Margo had a way with adults and always had, even when she was a little girl and had sat quietly with clear, wise eyes at our dinner parties, answering questions in complete sentences and offering to help me clear the plates. I suppose as an only child she’d had little choice in the matter. After a moment, Ed laughed heartily, and Margo put out her hand to shake, and the success of the interaction, the maturity of it, struck a chord in me, and I felt a little dizzy.

That night, Margo took my car to meet girlfriends, and at three a.m. I awoke to the still house, my heart pounding. I was certain that when I opened the door to her bedroom I would see