Sisters in the Wind(13)
At my annual checkup, Bridget volunteered examples of the times I had been “difficult.” The nurse practitioner asked about stress, but I didn’t feel comfortable saying anything in front of Bridget. At the mention of counseling, I shook my head.
The only person I wanted to talk to was Abe Charlevoix. There was something warm and caring about his voice. I wanted to hear the stories he’d told my dad. His telephone number was listed in the Charlevoix phone directory at the public library. I saved his number in my phone. Every day I thought about calling him but wondered if he’d remember me.
I didn’t have grandparents. When classmates mentioned visits and gifts from grandparents, I’d listen intently and try to imagine myself in their place. My dad had grown up in Lansing. He was an only child; his parents were dead. His mom had died when he was twelve; his dad had passed after his freshman year at CMU. My birth mother’s family was a mystery.
I had read several novels where the main character was orphaned. Poor, pitiful Sara Crewe in A Little Princess. It was one thing to read it. But to live it was a desolate singularity.
* * *
My freshman year ended with all As and zero friends. The absence of friends had never bothered me before, but it had been six months without my dad. Grief and loneliness became a constant pain in my lower abdomen. I hoped a summer of sunshine, fresh air, and swimming at the country-club pool would help me feel better.
I was surprised when we went shopping for swimsuits and Bridget included several bikinis for me to try on. Wasn’t she the one always warning me about boys staring at my overdeveloped chest? Proper young ladies were supposed to cloak their breasts to ward off predators. I wondered whether she was testing me.
Bridget seemed disappointed by my selection of functional one-piece swimsuits.
The summer families rehired me. I spent nearly every day at the country-club pool. When I wasn’t with my charges, I swam laps and read books while sunbathing on a chaise lounge. I grew another inch overnight, it seemed. My skin went from tan to copper.
Boys suddenly noticed me. They were the same ones who had summered in Harbor Springs since infancy. Their families owned grand “cottages” on parklike properties, and yachts larger than our house. Last summer they’d shoved each other into the pool. Now they paraded by my chaise and offered to swipe cocktails from unattended tables.
“I’m not allowed to talk to boys,” I repeated, to no avail. Thankfully, they couldn’t talk underwater, and I could swim the length of the pool in one breath.
On July 3, I mentioned the birthday fireworks stored in the garage. My dad had stocked up the previous fall. Bridget was too afraid to light them and didn’t want me to do so either. She offered to redecorate my bedroom for my fourteenth birthday. I politely declined. I liked my room; each item had a story connected to my dad. I didn’t want a space that had no memory of him.
Bridget redecorated her bedroom instead. White wicker, pink florals, and lilac toile replaced the dark furniture and red plaid comforter. Her new décor triggered a memory of my tenth birthday.
My dad had taken me to the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island for afternoon tea. I wore one of my church dresses and white patent leather Mary Janes. Turning ten was special. Double digits. My dad had been as excited as I was, but we left midway through the tea service. He didn’t feel well. It happened so suddenly that he even paid for an expensive horse-drawn taxi so we could catch the next ferry back to Mackinaw City. We never went back.
Maybe a refresh was part of Bridget’s grieving process, the way mine was to reread the books my father had gifted me each birthday.
Bridget asked if I’d like to move the portrait of my dad and me from above the fireplace mantel to my bedroom. I was happy to do so. She replaced it with a painting of a woman strolling along a boutique-filled avenue with the Eiffel Tower in the background. It was an actual oil painting with textured brushstrokes, not a framed reproduction like our other artwork.
I continued with my tiny acts of rebellion, using a steak knife to etch my dad’s initials in an upper corner of the canvas.
Her refresh continued in the kitchen with new dishes, glassware, silverware, and professional-quality cookware. It seemed odd to have a large glass-domed cake platter of pastel cupcakes as the centerpiece on the kitchen island; neither of us ate sweets. And Bridget was clearly lacking as a cook. The cupcakes came from a bakery. The fake fruit was now in a crystal bowl on the dining table.
In my non-petty moments, I tried to rationalize Bridget’s changes. I hadn’t lived with a woman before. Maybe this was normal. She was trying to create a beautiful home for us. But the more perfect it looked, the less it felt like my home.
It wasn’t until the refresh extended to her wardrobe that I realized none of the changes were for my benefit. The woman who had dressed like a modern-day nun the entire time I’d known her now wore a new outfit whenever she ran errands in Traverse City on Saturdays. She favored floral-print blouses and carried a purse with a lady’s name on it, Kate Spade. Was this a different type of camouflage? Or was she shedding her previous disguise? She still left for school in her usual teaching outfits: cardigans and collared shirts buttoned to the top and ankle-length skirts.
That fall, I began my sophomore year. Bridget gave me permission to join the swim team. It seemed she now wanted me to be in a swimsuit around older boys. Although I wanted to join, my need to rebel against her won out. The more Bridget encouraged me to live the life of a normal teen, the more I became a hermit.