“If you put in effort, you gain something from it.”
An inhale on the cigarette. Its ashy smell mixed with the salt of the air. “Not all pain is worth it,” said Tipper. “Some pain is just pain.” There was a pause. “Should we put sun lotion on Rosemary? She’s getting pink.”
“Don’t wake her.”
Another pause. Then: “Carrie is beautiful as she is,” said Tipper. “And they have to cut through the bone, Harris. Cut through the bone.”
I froze.
They were talking about me.
Before coming to the island, I had been to the orthodontist and then to an oral surgeon. I hadn’t minded. I had barely paid attention. Half the kids at school had braces.
“She shouldn’t have a strike against her,” said Harris. “Her face this way, it’s a strike against her. She deserves to look like a Sinclair: strong on the outside because she’s strong on the inside. And if we have to do that for her, we have to do that for her.”
I realized they were going to break my jaw.
3.
WHEN WE FINALLY discussed it, I told my parents no. I said I could chew just fine （though the oral surgeon disagreed）。 I said I was happy with myself. They should leave me alone.
Harris pushed back. Hard. He talked to me about the authority of surgeons and why they knew best.
Tipper told me I was lovely, beautiful, exquisite. She told me she adored me. She was a kind person, narrow-minded and creative, generous and fun-loving. She always told her daughters they were beautiful. But she still thought I should consider the surgery. Why didn’t we let the question sit? Decide later? There was no rush.
I said no again, but inside, I had begun to feel wrong. My face was wrong. My jaw was weak. I looked foolish. Based on a fluke of biological destiny, other people would make assumptions about my character. I noticed them making those assumptions, now, pretty regularly. There was that slight condescension in their voices. Did I get the joke?
I began to chew slowly, making sure my mouth was shut tight. I felt uncertain of my own teeth, whether they ground up food like other people’s did. The way they fit together began to feel strange.
I already knew boys didn’t think I was pretty. Even though I was popular—went to parties and was even elected freshman delegate to the student council—I was always one of the last to be invited to dances. Boys asked girls in those days.
At the dances, my dates never held my hand. They didn’t kiss me, or press against me in the dark of the dance floor. They didn’t wonder if they could see me again and go to the movies, the way they did with my friends.
I watched my sister Penny, whose square jawline was nothing to her, shove food into her mouth while talking. She would laugh with her jaw wide open, stick her tongue out and let people see every shining white molar.
I watched Bess, whose mouth was fuller and sweeter, and whose jaw was a forceful, feminine curve, complain about her six months of braces and the retainer that followed. She snapped the blue plastic retainer cover open with a groan when Tipper reminded her to replace it after meals.
And Rosemary. Her square face mirrored Penny’s, only freckled and goofy.
All my sisters, their bones were beautiful.
4.
THE SUMMER I was sixteen, we spent our days on Beechwood, as always. Kayaks, corn on the cob, sailboats, and snorkeling （though we didn’t see much besides the occasional crab）。 We had the usual Fourth of July celebration with sparklers and songs. Our annual Bonfire Night, our Lemon Hunt, our Midsummer Ice Cream party.
Only that year—Rosemary drowned.
She was ten years old. The youngest of us four.
It happened at the end of August. Rosemary was swimming at the beach by Goose Cottage. We call it the Tiny Beach. She wore a green bathing suit with little denim pockets on it. Ridiculous pockets. You couldn’t put anything in them. It was her favorite.
I wasn’t there. No one in the family was. She was with the au pair we had that year, a twenty-year-old woman from Poland. Agata.
Rosemary always wanted to swim later than anyone else. Long after we all went to rinse our feet at the hose by the Clairmont mudroom door, Rosemary would swim, if she was allowed. It wasn’t uncommon for her to be with Agata on one beach or the other.
But that day, the sky turned cloudy.
That day, Agata went inside to get sweaters for them both.
That day, Rosemary, a good swimmer always, must have been knocked down by a wave and caught in the undertow.
When Agata came back outside, Rosemary was far out, and struggling. She was beyond the wicked black rocks that line the cove.