Lucy by the Sea (30)

And it horrified me as I recalled this, because I had sort of believed it.

But Chrissy would be a wonderful mother. When I spoke of it to William, he rolled his eyes and said, “Your mother was an absolute whack job. God, Lucy.”

I thought about this.

My mother, because she was my mother, had great gravity in my young life. In my whole life. I did not know who she was, and I did not like who she had been. But she was my mother, and so some part of me had continued to believe things she had said.





The days went by, but I do not really remember how. The silence from Chrissy made me feel numb with awfulness. Michael finally called, and he sounded very serious. He said, “She’s hurting.” And I said, Of course.

And then, one day toward the end of the week, William came back from his walk and said, “I just talked to both of them. They have the virus.”

Apparently Chrissy had gotten it at the emergency room, because the next day she received a phone call and was told that unfortunately she had been in the presence of someone who tested positive, but because she had her mask on she would probably be all right. But she was not all right. And then Michael became ill as well. Michael’s symptoms were different, he had an extreme backache but, bizarrely, not terrible trouble with his asthma, although there was some. Chrissy’s symptoms were more like Becka’s had been.

I called Becka immediately and she picked up. She said, “They’re going to be okay, Mom. Don’t worry. I’m here taking care of them.” And I told her I was proud of her, and she said—with just the slightest sound of disgust, it seemed to me—“Of course.”



—

“William,” I said. “Why did they call you but not me?” I did not feel jealous of him, I simply wanted to know.

And he said, “Oh Lucy, they just worry about how much you worry.”

“But aren’t you worried about them? About Michael?”

“Yes,” William said, “but I don’t let it show.”

“I get it,” I said, and I did.





Chrissy eventually called me the next week and she sounded quiet. I asked her how she felt and she said she was okay, she was getting better, and Michael was too. It was strange, she said, that Michael had only had a little bit of extra trouble with his breathing, but he was getting better, though she said he had had “brain fog.”

“Oh God,” I said, and she said, “Yeah, he said he has a peek into what dementia could be like.” I thought: Sweet Jesus. “But it’s getting better,” she said. “It’s definitely getting better.”

Then Chrissy said, “We are going to have a kid, Mom. One way or another we are going to have a family.”

And I said, “Yes, you will.”

Chrissy said, “That guy that Becka liked—the documentary writer. He turned out to be a douchebag and she’s feeling pretty bad.”

“Oh God,” I said.

“She’ll get over it,” Chrissy said, and I said she was right.

When we hung up I was aware that I felt a slight sense of remove from both the girls, and I understood this was because their sadness affected me too much.





Three

i

William had stayed in touch with Lois Bubar, his half-sister, and now that it was July they had come up with a plan. They would each drive two and a half hours and meet on the campus of the University of Maine, in Orono. He read me her emails—almost obsessively, it seemed to me—and she’d suggested this plan after he’d said that he was so Covid-averse he could not stay in her house, which she had initially invited him to do; he had said it nicely, and she had responded with the Orono plan. He told her that I would not be coming with him, though not out of any hostility, and she wrote back that she understood perfectly, that she was very much looking forward to meeting him.

“I have to take her something,” William said, a few days before he was to make the trip. “What can I take her, Lucy?”

“We’ll figure it out,” I said, but I had no idea what he should take her.

The next day he said to me, “I’m going to make her brownies.”

“Brownies?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “I have never made brownies before, but I’m going to make them for her.”

“Okay,” I said.

He went to the grocery store and came back with a tinfoil brownie pan and a box of brownie mix. I watched him as he stirred up the dark brown stuff and spread it in the pan; he had already smooshed a lot of butter over the bottom of the pan. He put the pan into the oven, and I said, “Check it five minutes earlier than it says, this oven is old.” And he did, but the edges of the brownies were already a little burned, and he looked crestfallen.

“They’re perfect,” I said. “I’m telling you, William, this is perfect.” I put a sheet of tinfoil over the top.



—

In the morning William packed a lunch and took some bottles of water, and he left early.

It was not an especially hot day, the sky was very blue, but there were lots of white clouds as well, and so I called Bob Burgess and asked if he wanted to go for a walk. “Or Margaret too,” I added. But Margaret was busy, and so Bob drove up, and we walked toward the cove, and I told him the whole story of Lois Bubar—I had told him some of it before, but this time I went into great detail—and he kept watching me and saying, “Lucy! Wow!” I loved how much he paid attention, how much he cared. “So I’m very nervous and hope it goes well,” I said.