The Dutch House(98)
“Come on Friday,” she said. “You and Mom and Kevin. I want you to see this.”
May had the tendency to seem like she was overselling, but the truth was she always delivered. I was only sorry that Fluffy and Norma weren’t there. It was a June night and all the windows around the house were open again. The young people who arrived in black sedans with tinted windows—people who May assured me were achingly famous—climbed up the two flights of stairs to dance in the ballroom and look out the windows at the stars. Celeste had come in early to help May’s assistants get everything ready. No one believed this blonde of average height was May’s mother.
“Tell them!” she said to me, and again and again I did. May’s genetics seemed to have ignored her mother’s physical contribution completely, but she had Celeste’s tenacity.
Kevin stationed himself at the door so as not to miss a thing. I had hoped he would take over my business someday but he started medical school instead. A lifetime spent listening to how much better it was to be a doctor was not without influence.
Sandy and my mother stayed at the party for a while, but not very long. I drove them over to Maeve’s old house in Jenkintown, where it was quiet. By the time I came back there were too many cars in the driveway, so I parked on the street and let myself in through the gate. The house was lit up like I had never seen it before, every window on every floor spilled gold light, the terrace was ringed with candles in glass cups, and the music—I had told May to keep the music down—was a girl with a dark, quiet voice singing over a little band. The sound that she made was so clear and low and sad I imagined all of the neighbors leaning forward to listen. I couldn’t make out any of the words, only the melody juxtaposed against the sound of people screaming as they leapt into the pool. I was going to go in and find Celeste, see if she wanted to drive back into the city with me. We were too old for this, even if we weren’t that old. New York was the only chance we had of sleeping.
In the far corner of the yard where the linden trees met the hedge, I saw someone sitting in an Adirondack chair, smoking. The chair was well beyond the reach of the light from the house, and all I could really be sure of in the shadows and darker shadows was a person and a chair and the intermittent glow of a tiny orange fire. I told myself it was my sister. Maeve had no use for parties. She would have come outside. I stood there quietly, as if it were possible to scare her away. I gave myself this small indulgence sometimes, the belief that, if only I paid attention, I would see her sitting in the darkness outside the Dutch House. I wondered what she would have said if she could have seen all this.
Fools, she would have said, blowing out a little puff of smoke.
The person in the chair then shook her head and stretched her long legs out in front of her, pointing her bare toes. Still, miraculously, the illusion held, and I looked up into the blanket of stars to keep myself from seeing too clearly. Maeve threw her cigarette in the grass and stood to meet me. For one more second it was her.
“Daddy?” May called.
“Tell me you’re not smoking.”
She came towards me from the darkness, wearing what looked to be a white slip covered in pearls. My daughter, my beautiful girl. She slipped her arm around my waist and for a minute dropped her head against my shoulder, her black hair falling across her face. “I’m not smoking,” she said. “I just quit.”
“Good girl,” I said. We would talk about it in the morning.
We stood there in the grass, watching the young people fluttering in and out of the windows—moths to the light. “My god, I love this so much,” May said.
“It’s your house.”
She smiled. Even in the darkness you could have seen it. “Good,” she said. “Take me inside.”