The Winters(31)

Though the pictures unnerved me, this could well be perfectly normal behavior for fifteen-year-old girls. There must be a way to ask if Max monitored her social media accounts without admitting to my own prying. I didn’t want to be a stepmonster, an interloper nosing around in places I didn’t belong. What would Rebekah have done? Would she have set limits, threatened to take away Dani’s phone, or would she have complimented her, celebrated her bold displays of unabashed intimacy? Maybe she’d join her in the frame sometimes.

I tossed my phone aside and stared into the waning embers, pulling my sweater tighter around me.





TWELVE


I did one thing well during those early weeks at Asherley: I stayed away from Dani as much as possible. She had her own routine. Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday a sweet-faced tutor named Adele, not much older than me, would arrive promptly at eight thirty, Dani meeting her sometime after nine, her hair drying down her back. They would work in the study, freshly abandoned by Max, who by then would have left for his constituency office in East Hampton, when he wasn’t away for two or three days in Albany. At first I assumed I’d go with him on those trips, but spouses didn’t do that, he said, and besides, I’d be at loose ends wandering the streets of another unfamiliar city all day, entirely bored at night. He worked through dinner, he said, sometimes with other colleagues who also liked to maximize their time in the legislature so they could be with their families more often. So far, there hadn’t been any events worth bringing me to, he said, opting to invite only Dani to a small zoning meeting at the library one night, because it was “her thing” and she knew how to live-stream it on his social media feed. He said I’d be uninterested, that it was nothing special, and that I’d be on his arm during the big events in the summer. But the truth was, Dani didn’t want me there. Of course I said it was no big deal, that he definitely should take Dani, because it afforded them much-needed time together, and that it was, after all, her thing, not mine.

He kissed me and said, “Thank God you don’t care about these things. I know Dani will come around soon. How did I ever get so lucky?”

Of course I felt lucky, too, my alternative life playing out in my mind whenever I’d stare out over the black bay. While I missed the sun, and the color blue, I did not miss Laureen, or my shabby room, or anything to do with the charters. I did not miss leaving work smelling like fish and arriving there smelling like cigarette smoke. When I did think of the Caymans, it was not so much with longing but with regret that I hadn’t appreciated the heat until I came to a place where I was almost always cold. I meant to ask Max if we’d go back there next winter, when he usually set aside time to spend at the club. I wondered if Dani and I would be friends by then, and how Laureen would greet me, and why I cared.

Still, when Max was away it felt imperative he not know how lonely I felt. So I feigned stoicism, waving him out the door with a brave smile. Then I’d turn to face the empty house, moving like a listless pinball from room to room, regarding this painting, moving that vase, opening this drawer, closing that curtain, eventually ending up in the dark pocket of our bedroom at the end of the day, either waiting for Max to join me or to call me or neither, often unsure which to expect.

One morning, I went to say goodbye to him in the foyer, this time for two nights, and he told me Louisa had booked us a table for lunch that day.

“You mean you’ve asked her to babysit me while you’re away.”

“I asked her to take advantage of my absence in order to spend more time with my lovely fiancée, which she is thrilled to do anyway. You shouldn’t find it hard to believe that she likes you.”

“Well, it’s good to know I’m not universally loathed here.”

He pulled me into an embrace. “Your suggestion to give Dani space was a good one. She’s eating dinner with us now. That’s a good sign.”

True. After sulking in her room for a week or so, she was technically taking meals with us when Max was home. But Max’s inquiries about her day were often met with single-syllable words and sounds.

How was Adele today?

Good.

What are you reading right now for English Lit?

Books.

How’s Claire?

Fine.

Delicious chicken, isn’t it? (I’d usually comment on the food.)

Shrug (indecipherable).

Care to enlighten us with anything else going on in your life?

Nope.

After eating a runway model’s portion, she’d excuse herself and go upstairs for the rest of the evening, where she enjoyed her own TV and laptop. What did she need with the rest of Asherley? What did she need of me?



* * *



? ? ?

With Max gone it meant another few days alone with Dani in the house. Before Katya arrived, I made myself an egg sandwich and a thermos of coffee. Since the horses frightened me almost as much as Gus did, I gravitated to the boathouse, the quietest place on the property and where I felt most myself. The door was locked, so I ate my breakfast on the woodpile, in full view of the house, taking in the smell of musk rising from the bog as it thawed. Swamp maple saplings poked at me, one lodging a sticky bud in my hair that coated my fingers in sap when I pinched it out. I oriented myself by noting Shelter Island on my left, Gardiners Island on the right, and Plum Island straight ahead. On a rare clear day, you could see all three islands from a second-floor window, probably farther still from the turret, but I hadn’t been up there since that first night, when I mistook Dani for Rebekah.