Always the Last to Know(118)

“Thanks, Daddy,” I whispered, and there it was again. Joy, soft and quiet this time. My father loved me. It was May. I had a good dog and options in front of me. Joy would be the key to my life. Be in the places that made my heart sing, do the things that made me feel whole and fulfilled, spend time with the people who did the same. No more phoning it in, no more good enough for now. I would find a way to make a life based on joy, because really. What if you fell off your bicycle one day and injured your brain?

“Thanks for the pep talk, Dad,” I said, and maybe it was my imagination, but I thought he held me a little closer.



* * *



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On Memorial Day weekend, Stoningham celebrated its 350th birthday. I had to hand it to Gillian, my mother and the scores of volunteers. It was beautiful.

We started the day with a parade. I brought Pepper, since she loved people, and she wagged joyfully at every person she saw. At the last minute, I’d found myself one of the volunteers—the person in charge of the nursery school float had had a meltdown over the responsibility of it all, and my mom recommended me to step in. It was right up my alley, after all. Kids. Art. Last-minute accomplishments.

There’s something so tender about a small-town parade. The handful of Stoningham veterans, some of them so old, so noble, riding in a convertible, waving with a gnarled hand as the townspeople cheered and teared up. The National Guard volunteers, somber in their uniforms. My mom, looking beautiful in a blue pantsuit with a red scarf, and the other two selectmen. The town clergy—Rabbi Fierstein, whose daughter had been my bus buddy in grammar school; Reverend Bateman, who used to read The Giving Tree on Easter Sunday; the handsome Catholic priest.

Then came the kids. The 4-H club, the sailing club, the school music bands (including Brianna on trumpet). The Brownies, Sloane looking so stinking cute in her uniform, saying, “Hi, Auntie!” like she hadn’t just seen me that morning.

Then came my float, bright as a garden, decorated in hundreds and hundreds of crepe paper flowers (not the vaginal kind), all the little kids wearing (or taking off) the beaks and wings I’d made out of papier-maché. Damn cute. Fly, Little Birds, Fly! I’d written across the banner, making the letters out of their handprints. As I said, it was my groove.

I saw Noah, Mickey and Marcus across the street. Mickey waved, nudged Noah, and he waved, too.

We hadn’t spoken since the hardware store run-in. I understood. His son needed stability. Noah needed stability, and I wasn’t exactly that. Love was not all you needed. You needed to match, to fit, to want the same things. I had never wanted five kids. I wasn’t sure I wanted any. I’d never really known what I wanted, except to be a painter.

But my heart hurt just the same, looking at him. I loved him, and I didn’t make him happy, and that was an awful ache I didn’t know how to fix. I petted Pepper to remind myself I wasn’t alone in the world.

After the parade, the shops and businesses of Water Street hosted a sidewalk stroll, serving snacks and drinks, putting bowls of water out for doggies. Sheerwater, that splendid house the town now owned, was open all day, the garden club giving tours and hosting a high tea. There was a small regatta (we were Connecticut, after all). In the evening, there’d be the auction to raise money for scholarships.

I hung out with my nieces, letting Oliver and Jules go to the high tea so my brother-in-law could get his Brit fix. When the girls got hot and tired, we went to my parents’ house for a little rest, and I parked them in my old room and put cool cloths on their heads, like my mom used to do for me when I was little.

“Rest, little ones,” I said, and they both smiled, even though they were pretty big. Dad was asleep downstairs, back from his overnight at Rose Hill, Pepper curled up next to him, good pup that she was.

My father had never been a great husband. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that. These past few weeks, I’d seen some looks exchanged between Mom and Jules, and overheard a few whispers.

It was dawning on me that my father may have had an affair. Honestly, I didn’t want to know. It was a moot point now. He was still our dad. He’d released my mom from her duties, something she would never have done for herself.

I looked at him now, the old man who needed his eyebrows trimmed. “You’re a good guy, Daddy,” I said. Maybe not the perfect man I’d once thought, but good enough. I could still love him, and he deserved that love.

Then I got the scissors and took care of those eyebrows.

That evening, Brianna, Sloane and I walked to the green for the auction, which was the crowning event of the weekend. Gillian was there, zipping around like a gerbil on speed, flitting to my mom every thirty seconds. I chatted with some of the women I’d met at Juliet’s party—Emma London, Beth, Jamilah Finlay with the cute little boys. There were Jules and Oliver, holding hands. They had such a good thing going, those two. I was glad for my sister. Ollie got on my nerves from time to time, but honestly, if his greatest flaw was smiling too much, then he was pretty damn great. The girls cantered over to them.

“Hang out with us,” Jules said.

“Nah. I’m feeling melancholy and want to brood,” I said.

“You’re so weird,” Brianna said.

“Takes one to know one,” I said, and she grinned. “See you guys later.”

I found a spot under a tree where I could watch the auction. Some of the big-ticket items were grotesque, thanks to Stoningham’s summer people trying to outdo each other. It was a good cause—college scholarships for low-income families—so God bless, but even so. A week at our ten-bedroom house in Jackson Hole, butler included! Starting bid $2,500. Dinner with Lin-Manuel Miranda after a Hamilton show! Starting bid $5,000. (I would totally bid on that one, had I any money to spare, but I really wanted a new roof.) Design for an addition on your house, courtesy of Frost/Alexander Architecture, starting bid $7,500.