The Mother-in-Law(30)

I look at Ollie, sucking in wild breaths at the side of the pool. “Did you panic, Ollie? Is that why you were holding onto Nettie?”

Ollie didn’t reply. He seemed just as confused as Nettie was.

That’s when I realized. Some people jumped in and tried to save someone who was in trouble; others did anything they could to save themselves. Ollie hadn’t meant to drown Nettie, he was simply following his instincts, just as she was following hers.

My children had just shown me who they were.

When I arrive home that afternoon, Nettie is sitting on a bar stool in my kitchen, leafing through the newspaper. Her suit jacket is on the back of the chair and her hair is swept into a very corporate-looking chignon.

“Hello, darling,” I say, jostling with my bags from the supermarket.

Her eyes flicker up from the newspaper. Nettie stops by like this from time to time on her way home from work, sometimes under the guise of dropping something of, sometimes just because. I don’t really understand it, but I’ve come to quite enjoy the routine of it. “Hey, Mum,” she says.

“I saw your friend Lisa in the supermarket just now.” I haul the bags onto the counter. “She mentioned a bunch of you girls were going to Hong Kong for a girls’ trip.”

“I’m not going,” Nettie says.

“Oh. Why not?”

She sighs. “Money. Time.”

I nod. But it seems to me that a girls’ trip might be exactly what Nettie needs.

“Have you seen Lucy and Archie?” I ask her.

“Not since the hospital.”

“I’ve just been to visit them.”

“Oh.” Nettie turns the page of the newspaper, studiously uninterested. “How are they?”

“I think Lucy’s had better days. But that’s what it’s like with a new baby.” The clock on the oven catches my attention. It’s not even five o’clock. “Nettie, shouldn’t you be at work?”

“I left early.”

I look at her. “Are you allowed to do that?”

“I’m allowed to do anything I like.”

I look at her. She’s in a strange mood. Her posture is sullen, almost teenage.

“Is something the matter, Nettie?”

She shakes her head, of course. My daughter, for all her softness and light, is fiercely private, at least with me. She’s actually one of only a handful of people who can make me uncertain of myself. I enjoy this about her, the juxtaposition of it. There was a time though when Nettie did used to open up to me. When she was a teenager, I practically had to tell her to stop telling me things. Some things, I’d say, are for sharing with your girlfriends, Antoinette. But somewhere along the line she’d stopped sharing so much. Started talking to Patrick, I assume.

“Are you sure?” I ask.

She’ll never divulge that she’d dearly love a baby. That she wished it was her holding a newborn instead of Lucy. I know it’s true just the same. The poor girl is so desperate for a baby it’s practically written on her skin. Her polycystic ovaries make it tricky to conceive, but there must be things she can do to help. She’s probably already doing things. But she won’t tell me and I won’t ask, instead we’ll just be together for a little while, not saying anything at all.

“Would you like to stay for dinner?” I ask.

“No,” she says. “I need to get home to Patrick.”

“Patrick is welcome to join us too,” I say dutifully.

In the early days, Nettie and Patrick would come to dinner often. They’d retire to the den after dinner and Patrick would mix drinks and smoke cigars with Tom. Patrick always seemed so comfortable that for a while, I’d worried we’d never have a night to ourselves. But a year or two in, he’d stopped coming at all, save for Christmas and family occasions.

“No,” she says. “I’ll go home.”

“You know, if something is bothering you, you can talk to me about it,” I say. “I might not be the best conversationalist . . . but I’m not a bad listener.”

Nettie looks at me, and for a long moment, I think she might cry. Nettie is not a crier, she hasn’t been since she was a very little girl. But a few seconds pass and Nettie regains her composure, sits straight. “Thanks, Mum,” she says. “But everything is fine.”





16: LUCY


THE PAST . . .

“Are you feeling okay?” Ollie asks.

I nod gloomily.

“Not carsick?”

“No.”

I do get carsick, but that’s not what’s bothering me. We’re in the car, on our way to the Goodwins’ beach house. I understand, of course, that it is a privilege to be miserable about this. There are people with worse problems. Certainly, Ollie isn’t unhappy about it. He loves Sorrento. All year he romanticizes it, waxing lyrical about how nice it is to have the whole family together under the same roof for a week. He is utterly oblivious to any undercurrents of tension. If I mention anything to him, he always looks baffled. (“Mum, stressed? No. That’s just how she is! She enjoys the stress.”)

Perhaps it’s just Ollie who enjoys the stress. He’s been whistling all morning, and his entire body is growing more spongy and relaxed as we inch along the foreshore in bumper-to-bumper traffic, catching the odd glimpse of sapphire blue through the beach scrub.