The Identicals(45)

At seven o’clock, Harper calls Ainsley to the table, and Ainsley approaches with wide eyes.

“Wow,” she says. “This is the first time we’ve ever used the table this way.”

“What way?” Harper asks.

“Like, for eating,” Harper says.

Harper tries not to let the surprise show on her face. “Really?”

“We go out,” Ainsley says. “Or we eat Thai food standing at the counter. Or cereal in front of the TV.”

“Oh,” Harper says.

“My mother is very busy,” Ainsley says.

Harper has lit the candles and filled the Waterford goblets with ice water. “Cheers,” she says.

Ainsley lifts her glass. Her hand is trembling.

“Are you okay?” Harper asks.

Ainsley nods, but she doesn’t meet Harper’s eyes. Is she stoned? Harper wonders. Has she been throwing back vodka shots in her bedroom?

“Ainsley?”

“This is pretty,” Ainsley says, indicating the candles, the tablecloth and china, the silver, the wide shallow bowls filled with pasta and salad, the basket of bread. “Thank you.”

She seems on the verge of tears, and a lump presents in Harper’s throat. But Harper sensed this, didn’t she, at Billy’s memorial reception? Ultimately that’s why Harper agreed to come. Tabitha treats Ainsley like another adult, which was how Eleanor treated both Tabitha and Harper. They were never allowed to cry or whine; they weren’t cuddled or indulged; they weren’t allowed to be children. They hadn’t been mothered. Tabitha had rebelled the year she turned into a pony, and Harper… well, Harper had rebelled later, she supposes.

And now, Tabitha is doing the same thing with Ainsley. She doesn’t cook for the girl, and Harper would bet she doesn’t kiss her good night. She doesn’t nurture, when even the toughest, most badass child requires a little nurturing.

Harper fixes Ainsley a plate of food, then a plate for herself.

“Eat,” she says. “Eat.”



After Ainsley has cleared her plate, wiping up the last of the sauce with a piece of bread, she falls back in her chair. “That was really yum.”

“I’m glad you liked it,” Harper says. She rests her elbow on the table, chin in her hand. “We were so busy eating that I neglected to ask about you. How’s school? Do you have a boyfriend?”

Just like that, the tears start, and the story falls out: Had a boyfriend, Teddy, new kid this year from Oklahoma, everything fine until this party I threw here last weekend. He decided he doesn’t want me, he wants Candace Beasley. Candace was my friend then not my friend then almost my friend again until she stole Teddy.

“Oh, honey,” Harper says. She holds out a hand, and Ainsley takes it and squeezes. It’s a story as old as time, Harper thinks. I love you; you love somebody else. For the first time since she got to Nantucket, she thinks of Sadie Zimmer and Drew, the people she has wronged. Then she thinks of Reed. He is an ether surrounding her. Harper’s love for him is her atmosphere; she’s always thinking of him, even when she’s trying not to think of him.

“But that’s not the worst thing,” Ainsley says. She’s all snotted up, so Harper rises to fetch some tissues. Her poor niece is suffering from teenage angst, trying to make sense of an unfair world. Oh, how Harper had hated growing up! No matter what she has gone through recently, it has been ameliorated by the adult knowledge that regardless of how bad things get, she will survive.

“What is the worst thing?” Harper asks. She hands Ainsley a box of tissues and sits down, scooting her chair closer. Fish, sensing people anxiety, plops down at Harper’s feet.

“My best friend?” Ainsley says. “Her name is Emma…”

There’s a noise. A slamming door. A voice, amped up with anger. “Ainsley?”

Ainsley’s eyes widen, and she leaps to her feet, knocking over her Waterford goblet, which snaps where the cup meets the stem, a clean decapitation. Harper inwardly curses—Tabitha will blame her for that, no doubt—but Ainsley doesn’t even seem to notice.

“Mom?” she says. Her voice contains what sounds like terror.

Tabitha is clicking up the stairs; Harper can hear her stilettos on the hardwood. She wonders if the unthinkable has happened and Eleanor has died. But it quickly becomes apparent from the set of Tabitha’s mouth and the smoke coming out of her ears that the problem isn’t Eleanor. It’s Harper.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Tabitha asks.





TABITHA


What bothers her most is how cozy they look. The Stephen Swift table is set with china, silver, and the Waterford goblets that were a wedding present to Eleanor and Billy. The candles are lit, dripping wax down the Georg Jensen candlesticks.

Harper has cooked a meal. The air still smells of toasted bread, garlic, onions, bacon. Tabitha’s stomach rumbles. At the hospital it was coffee and crackers from the vending machine, and back at the hotel, it was wine and microwave popcorn.

Two of the chairs are pulled close together. Tabitha imagines her daughter and her sister sharing confidences. Tabitha had preferred seeing the table used for beer pong.

“I specifically told you that she wasn’t allowed here, Ainsley,” Tabitha says.