Summer of '69(30)

“Enjoy your time on the Vineyard,” Blair says. “Cleaning is honest work. I’m proud of you.”

“Awww, Blair,” Kirby says. She puts her hand on Blair’s belly and the baby kicks.

“That’s your aunt Kirby,” Blair says.

“Hey, kid,” Kirby says. “Get ready for 1969. I have some protest songs to teach you.”



The next day, Kate drops in to say goodbye before she leaves for Nantucket with Jessie and Exalta.

“Dad will be home in case of emergency,” Kate tells Blair. She sets down an assortment of magazines—Good Housekeeping, Ladies’ Home Journal, Woman’s Weekly. Nothing with any real news. Blair knows her mother wants to keep her from being shocked or upset, but Blair doesn’t want to read “Ten Cold Suppers for Summer” or “Weekend Embroidery Projects.” She needs a far less wholesome magazine with articles like “What to Do When Your Husband Is Seeing a Prostitute.” She needs Cosmopolitan.

“And I’ll be back on the first of August, like we discussed, so I can be with you for the birth.”

“I’m leaving Angus,” Blair says.

Kate doesn’t even blink. “I know he’s been working hard, sweetheart. But the moon landing—”

“Damn the moon landing!” Blair says. Liftoff for Apollo 11 is scheduled for July 16, although any one of a thousand things could delay it, pushing it back a few weeks to Blair’s due date. At this point, she hopes Angus is in Houston when the baby comes; she doesn’t want him anywhere near her. “He’s having an affair with some woman named Trixie.” She can’t bear to admit the prostitute part to Kate, but perhaps the name Trixie makes that obvious.

“Really?” Kate asks. She sounds skeptical. “Are you sure? It’s common, you know, to imagine he’s being unfaithful because you’re feeling undesirable—”

“This isn’t a figment of my imagination, Mother,” Blair says. “She called here. I heard her voice.”

“Well, I’m sure Angus will come to his senses once the baby is born,” Kate says.

Blair closes her eyes and sees red, and all she can imagine is her blood pressure spiking to such an alarming level that the baby shoots right out of her. She needs to calm down. She opens her nightstand drawer, pulls out a pack of Kents, and lights one up. “So you suggest I just wait for this to end on its own? You suggest I tolerate this?”

“You’re seven months pregnant, sweetheart,” Kate says. “You can’t leave and you can’t get divorced and you can’t confront Angus because the emotional turmoil is bad for the baby.”

Blair should never have told her mother. She should have just swallowed her pride and confided in Kirby. Kirby would never advise Blair to stay with a cheating husband. “That’s such an old-fashioned view, Mother,” Blair declares. “What would Betty Friedan say?”

“Who?” Kate says.

Blair shakes her head and collects herself. “I thought maybe I could move into Nonny’s house,” she says. “Since she’s away.”

Kate laughs.

“The house is just sitting there, empty,” Blair says. Her grandmother’s town house in Beacon Hill is large, cool, and gracious with clocks that chime and hand-knotted silk rugs that feel like heaven under bare feet. The bed in the guest room is a king, and the windows look out over the back courtyard, where there’s a tall, wrought-iron fountain that makes a soothing gurgling sound. It wouldn’t be as good as escaping to the islands but it would be better than staying here on Comm. Ave.

“And empty it will remain,” Kate says. “I’m sorry, sweet pea. You’re twenty-four years old, a grown woman, married, and pregnant, and you need to act like an adult and not a child who runs away from her problems. Angus has a remarkable career and provides very well for you. If he is having a dalliance with this…Trixie, it’s probably because he’s under so much pressure. Really, you might think to be grateful.”

“Grateful?” Blair says. “Grateful, Mother? He’s never home, he works all the time, and on the rare occasions he does make an appearance”—she pauses, unsure how much more she wants her mother to know. Kate looks at her expectantly—“he’s…moody. Unpredictable. Sometimes he seems like a completely different person than the man I married.”

“Oh, honey.” Kate seems to soften a bit. She reaches over to brush a stray hair from Blair’s forehead, and Blair briefly leans into the cooling comfort of her mother’s palm, remembering how she used to pretend she felt feverish just so that her mother would rest that soft and steady hand against her face. The memory ends when Kate stands up briskly and leaves the bedroom. She returns a moment later with a glass of brown liquid over ice. At first, Blair thinks it’s iced tea, but when she smells it, she’s happy to find it’s scotch.

“Isn’t your doctor’s appointment tomorrow?” Kate asks.

The appointment with Dr. Sayer, yes. The deplorable Dr. Sayer with the grotesque overgrown beard who feels Blair up with cold hands while his googly eyes swim behind his glasses.

“Yes,” Blair says. She stubs out her cigarette in the ashtray by the bed and takes a sip of scotch. Immediately, she relaxes. “At ten.”

“Is Angus going with you?”