The Mother-in-Law(29)

“How about a local bar or restaurant?” Pearl suggests and we all mutter our agreement.

“Now, for the service. Some people who have nondenominational services like to have a few church hymns. Do you think Diana would—”

“No,” Ollie and Nettie say in unison.

“Mum wasn’t really into hymns,” Ollie explains.

“No hymns,” Pearl says, making a note in her paperwork. “That’s fine.”

While I hadn’t thought about it much in the past, Diana’s harsh rejection of her Catholic upbringing is curious to me now. I find myself wanted to ask her about it . . . and I’m hit by a jarring sadness that I can’t.

“All right,” Pearl said. “Moving on.”

For the most part, Nettie and I do the choosing. Ollie and Patrick sit there like a couple of pieces of meat, nodding and grunting and looking at their watches. Around lunchtime, Pearl suggests Nettie and I pop down to the corner store for sandwiches.

“I’m not hungry,” Nettie says.

“It’s important that you eat,” Pearl says. She’s entirely firm and also entirely serene. “And grab something for the men while you’re at it.”

Outside, we shuffle along the street. A train station runs along the side of the road and the noise takes the edge off the silence for thirty seconds. Then it’s gone, and there’s nothing but the sound of us breathing. Nettie lifts a hand to scratch her nose and her shirt sleeve rides up revealing a thick purple ring around her left wrist.

“What happened to your wrist?” I ask.

Her gaze flickers to me, then back to the road. “What’s it to you?”

“Nettie. Come on.”

“Let’s just get the sandwiches, shall we?” she says quietly.

We walk a few more paces.

“I hate this,” I explode, suddenly unable to keep it in any longer. “Diana would hate it too. You know she would.”

Nettie stops.

“Now of all times we should be coming together as a family.”

“Family?” Nettie squares up against me. “You and Ollie and the kids are a family. Patrick and I, we . . . we’re just two people. Two people who don’t even—”

“I know—”

“You don’t know. You couldn’t possibly know.”

I sigh. “Nettie, I want so much for us to put this behind us. I want to help you through this.”

I’m not hopeful, but I think I have a chance. Here, without Patrick, without Ollie, I feel like I might be able to get through to her. And I want to get through to her. There has already been too much loss for this family. First Tom. Then Diana. I can’t lose Nettie too.

“I don’t care what you want.”

She turns away and continues walking down the street. It’s not until later that I realize she never told me what happened to her wrist.





15: DIANA


THE PAST

I’ve heard it said that every parent spends 80 percent of their energy on one child, and spreads the remaining 20 percent among any subsequent children. Ollie has always been my 80 percent child. I spent most of his childhood wondering if he was eating enough, learning enough, doing enough. He wasn’t the most popular kid in school, but he wasn’t a social leper by any means either. His general contentment, which should have comforted me, somehow only served to baffle me. Did he want to invite his little friend over to play, or did he wish I’d stop inviting that friend over? He never seemed to care either way.

Nettie, on the other hand, was born so capable and articulate, I never bothered worrying about her. Being her mother was like having a tiny little peer that accompanied me everywhere. If someone picked on her at school she’d simply have a quiet word to them, saying if they didn’t stop being mean they’d have no friends left, and wouldn’t that be silly? When I served them vegetables for dinner and Ollie, five years her senior, refused to eat them, she’d ask him: “Don’t you want to be big and strong like a superhero, Ollie?”

Once, when Ollie was eleven and Nettie was six, they’d been swimming in the pool for most of the afternoon when I had to go inside. Ollie and Nettie were both strong swimmers, so it wasn’t a big deal to pop back to the house for a short while.

“Keep an eye on your sister,” I must have said, or something to that effect.

I went to the kitchen and started on dinner, peeling potatoes. It was a warm day, and the sun beamed in through the window. As I picked up the last potato, a funny feeling came over me. Mother’s instinct, perhaps. I should check the kids.

When I got outside, I saw a tangle of bodies just under the surface of the water.

I didn’t pause even to take off my shoes before leaping into the water.

I grabbed Nettie first, but Ollie had ahold of her and wasn’t letting go. I pulled and twisted her but he was like an anchor, weighing her down. Finally, I gave Ollie a kick in the stomach, and she came free. I pushed her to the side of the pool and a moment later, did the same for Ollie. He clung to the side of the pool, blood and water dripping down his face, landing in the hollowed-out part of his collarbones.

“What . . . on earth . . . happened?” I said, panting.

“Ollie did a flip and hit his head,” Nettie gasped. “I saw blood and he wasn’t moving. I tried to save his life and then he tried to drown me!”