Don't Forget to Write: A Novel(50)
But as I went through the photographs that morning, I realized something—her mother never smiled in a picture after the baby died. Not once.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
In the mornings, I sorted pictures and began placing them in the first scrapbook, carefully labeling each picture with the information from the back. There was something soothing about returning to these now-familiar faces, watching them grow and change.
After lunch, I took a break, walking two blocks north to the beach. It was a necessary change. The first day that I chose to return, I went to my normal spot, and Freddy came over.
“Can we talk?” he asked.
I opened a single eye. I had been enjoying a little “siesta” as Ada called her afternoon naps, typically taken on the wicker love seat on the porch.
“I’d rather not.”
He sat in the sand next to me, knowing better than to try to sit on my towel now. “Marilyn, please. I’m miserable without you.”
I pushed my sunglasses to the top of my head and leaned up on my elbows. “What do you want me to say to that?”
He looked perplexed, which wasn’t attractive. When confident, no one was more handsome. When confused, he resembled a chimpanzee.
“That you miss me too,” he said finally.
My eyebrows approached my hairline. “Darling,” I said. “I do not intend to lie to you.” I pulled my sunglasses down and lay back on my towel.
“Marilyn, you have to understand—”
I sat up, annoyed now. “Freddy, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” The chimp face again. “Look, we all make mistakes. And we have to live with the consequences. Yours was not using protection with your new fiancée. Mine was getting sent down here in the first place. Because while I appreciate the life experience, I honestly wish I had never set eyes on you. And if you ever actually cared about me, not just yourself, you’d do me the favor of making sure I never had to again.”
He started sputtering excuses, protesting that he still wanted to be with me, until I finally picked up my towel and left the beach.
From then on, I selected the 16th Street beach, where he wouldn’t think to look, to enjoy my solitary time communing with nature, reading, and processing my next steps.
I brought a notebook to the beach. There was something about lying in the sun, the sound of the waves crashing in the background, punctuated only by the laughter of seagulls, that sparked creativity.
My new story started with a broken heart—while I had told Ada the truth about the state of my own, I felt I could write about such things now with a sense of accuracy. I began borrowing from the photographs as well, though my timeline was modern. The unsmiling mother. The close-in-age sisters. The father who supported them through it all. I didn’t know exactly where the story was going to wind up yet, nor whether it was a comedy, a tragedy, or a biting social commentary. But it was mine to create. Where I had felt trapped my whole life by society and the expectations of everyone around me, I was free in this world that I had begun to spin around my characters.
And I realized that, while I told Freddy I didn’t want to lie to him, I had. My mistake wasn’t being sent to Ada; it was not listening to her in the first place. I didn’t regret being here at all. And truth be told, I didn’t regret Freddy. I needed that experience to write about relationships and the all-encompassing emotions that come with desire.
When I had gotten my fill of sun and sand for the afternoon, I walked the two blocks home and rinsed off in the outdoor shower at the back of the house. It was what Ada did each morning after her swim, and the first day that I tried it, I cowered at every noise. Yes, it locked from the inside, but I was still certain the door would somehow open, and I would be exposed to the world. What world I thought would be gathered in Ada’s shore house backyard, which contained only a shed and a clothesline, I could not say.
But by my third time bathing in there, modesty had been forgotten. I loved the sunlight that I could see through the roof slats as I washed my hair, the feel of the stones warmed by the sun and water beneath my bare feet. I began singing so loudly that Ada later told me I was scaring away small children and cats. I hit her with a verse of “A Bushel and a Peck,” doing my best Vivian Blaine impression until she shook her head and walked away muttering that I’d scare Frank Sinatra away too with that rendition.
We ate dinner together, then when Ada retired to the den to watch television, I went upstairs to write.
“Don’t stay up too late,” Ada said each night, coming to my doorway before she went to bed.
I promised her I wouldn’t, even though I usually lasted past midnight. It was a code between us. Ada would never show me affection, but her admonition was as good as telling me she loved me.
And the reality was, whether she kicked me out of the business or not, I had grown to love her as well.
So I smiled every night when she left my room, giving another zinger to the sassy aunt in my story in her honor.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
I presented Ada with the first scrapbook, which covered the photos before she was born up until her tenth year.
She flipped through the pages, taking her time. I knew if I made any errors, I would hear about them, in great detail. Ada was stingy with her praise and generous with criticism. But it made the actual praise so much more valuable when she gave it.