Family of Liars(61)

“Maybe.”

Tipper has never left any of us to clean the kitchen without her. But she hugs me and nods. “I am missing our Rosemary,” she tells me, her voice choked. “God, I miss her.”

“Me too.” So much, so much.

“Every day,” she says. “My little girl. Each morning I listen for the sound of her footsteps and I realize she’s never coming down the stairs again. And I walk by her room when I’m heading up to bed, and I poke my head in to check—and remember she won’t be there. You know, one night I thought I saw Rosemary. When we first got to the island this summer, she came into my bedroom. She looked like she had crawled up from the sea, just crawled out of it, as if to tell me I hadn’t kept her safe. I couldn’t bear looking at her tiny face, with that wet hair around it. I was looking at my worst mistake, my most tragic failing, and I felt so desperately sad and helpless that I ran away. It was just a dream, or my imagination, of course, but I told myself I couldn’t let my mind play tricks on me like that. I mustn’t think of Rosemary and how I failed her, or I’d fall apart. Sometimes I feel like I can’t live without her,” says my mother. “Like how on earth can I keep existing when my baby is dead? How can I?” Tears are coming down her face again. “But I have to, Carrie. I have to go on. People depend on me. There’s always another pie to bake, or someone needs something. Right? It’s better that way. Your dad needs me, you girls need me, the dryer’s on the fritz or something else is broken. People need to eat supper, every day of the week, rain or shine. It’s better to be busy. To be useful. That’s how I get by.”

I don’t know what to say. I don’t know if it is better to be busy and never talk of things.

“I’m sorry.” Tipper wipes the corners of her eyes. “It just gets to me sometimes. I do think perhaps I should lie down. I’ll be better in the morning, I promise. One hundred percent. Back to normal.” She smiles at me.

Impulsively, I hug her again. I am taller than she is, and she seems frail in my arms. She is brave and in denial, limited and powerless, generous always, my mother.

“Come on, Tipper,” says Harris, coming to stand in the kitchen doorway. “I’ll take you up.”

“It’s fine. I’m fine,” she says.

“Tipper.”

“I don’t need help, Harris. I’m just a little headachy, is all. It’s been a real week.”

“Neither of us is fine,” says my father. “Let’s go upstairs.”





66.


I CLEAN THE kitchen, putting leftover food in stacking containers, loading the plates and cooking utensils into the dishwasher. The tablecloth and napkins go into the laundry. The wineglasses must be washed by hand, and so must the cast-iron pan.

Bess and Penny don’t offer to help, and I don’t ask them to. When I am halfway through, they turn off the TV, call good night, and head upstairs.

I want to see Rosemary.

I have never called for her, not once all summer. She says she doesn’t know why she comes when she comes. “It’s just when I wake up. I wake up and visit you, is all.”

I whisper her name as I wipe the counters. “Rosemary.”

I dry the wineglasses and put them away. “Rosemary, I am sorry.”

I fill the coffee maker for tomorrow morning, just the way Tipper likes it. “Rosemary, I am sorry I left you. I am so sorry.”

I take the trash out the door that leads to the staff building and put it in the bins over there. “Rosemary, buttercup,” I say, walking to the center of the living room. “I am ashamed. What I did was selfish and mean. I don’t know how to be a good person sometimes. If anyone else left you like that, left you when you were scared, I would be angry. I would hate anyone who treated you like that, and I hate myself for it, please believe that I do. I don’t know if you can hear me, but I do love you a million loves. I miss you. And Penny misses you. And Bess misses you. And Mother and Daddy.” I don’t know if she can hear me. She probably can’t. But the words pour out. I say everything I have been feeling. “We are trying to go on without you, but we can’t do it. Not really. We’re pretending to go on and everything’s terrible. We are terrible. It’s not your fault, darling Rosemary. Don’t feel bad about it. We just have to—we have to learn how to live, over again, I guess. And it isn’t easy.”

After that, I sit in silence.

She does not come.

I wait, but still—nothing.

Then I walk to the kitchen. I rinse a stray teacup and wipe the fingerprints off the refrigerator. I turn out the lights.

When I return to the hall, ready to head upstairs, I notice a light on in the den, where the television is.

I go in to shut it off and Rosemary is there, in her cheetah suit. She is sitting on the couch, petting Wharton’s red-gold head.

“That was a big speech,” she says.

“I’m really sorry.”

“Yah, yah.”

“I am.” I kneel in front of her.

“Okay, but I think I’m done talking about hard stuff for now,” she says. “I didn’t come for that.”

“I didn’t wake you up?”

“You can’t wake me up. I told you that a million times, Carrie. I wake up ’cause I’m worried or I want something. I’m supposed to be asleep, but I can’t be.”