“Evelyn!” Donna screamed in delight. “It’s Evelyn.”
A swarm of wet children came running to embrace her, her older siblings turning their heads at the migration but remaining in the chairs where they sat together with their spouses, smoking and enjoying their break from parenting.
Vivie pushed through the children and threw her arms around Evelyn’s neck. “Why didn’t you tell us you were coming?” Then she pulled back and looked at her sister’s face.
“Let’s go back to the cottage.”
“Whatever for?”
“Vivie.” Evelyn was pale, her fingers clenching and unclenching nervously.
Vivie turned and grabbed her towel, wrapping it around her waist before taking her sister’s arm and shooing the children back toward their parents.
“Is it Fred? What did he do?”
Evelyn waited until they were back at the car and made her sister get inside. “It’s not Fred. It’s George.”
“George?”
“Vivie—he—” She took a deep breath. “George married someone else. Yesterday.”
“That’s impossible.” Vivie’s tone was quiet, but confident.
Evelyn pulled the clipping from her pocket and handed it to her sister, who read it. “I came right away. I read it this morning, and I was in the car ten minutes later. I—oh, Vivie, I don’t know what to say.”
“Take me back to the cottage, please,” Vivie said quietly.
CHAPTER FIFTY
My grandmother stopped talking. She took a sip of her screwdriver, then shook her head. “I wish I still smoked.”
“He just . . . married someone else?”
She nodded. “We didn’t know if he’d known her before or if he met her after Vivie didn’t go to the city. The newspaper clipping had a quote about not wanting to wait when you knew it was right.”
“And Vivie?”
“That night, she couldn’t sleep and went out for a walk. It started to rain, and she slipped on the wet rocks. They found her the next morning. It was horrible, but an accident.” She tilted her head. “At least, that’s the story Papa and I told everyone.”
“What?”
She took another sip and began again.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
July 1955
Hereford, Massachusetts
Vivie went straight to her room, admitting no one until bedtime, when Evelyn threatened to pick the lock again. Evelyn was tired and nauseous and wanted nothing more than to lie in bed and let her family spoil her. But Vivie mattered more.
Evelyn sat on the bed, and Vivie resumed the frantic pacing that everyone had heard, glancing uneasily at the ceiling of the living room as they sat after dinner. “You should sleep.”
Vivie looked at her, eyes wild. “Is that what you did? When she ruined your life?”
She opened her mouth to make a flippant comment about how she did, actually, but something in her chest tightened. Evelyn took a deep breath, then another, before she spoke. “Vivie.” Her voice was quiet. “Mama—” She stopped again, unable to say that their mother had been right or wrong in what she had done. Because, at least in Evelyn’s case, she had been both. “Mama doesn’t live in the world we live in. She—it’s like . . . She’s a fish. And you’re blaming her for not knowing how to breathe air.”
“And in the meantime, she’s drowning me trying to force me into her world.”
“You’re drowning yourself. She may have pushed you under, but, Vivie, do you really want a man who would marry someone else this quickly? You deserve someone who will worship you. And that was never George.”
“You don’t know what George was! You and Fred sat there judging him for not being like you, but we were happy being like us. And you couldn’t understand that. Not everyone is like you and can just turn off their feelings for one person, snap their fingers, and have someone better appear.”
Evelyn sat up straighter, stung, but said nothing. Vivie turned, poised to say more, but when she saw her sister’s face, her shoulders slumped, and she sat beside her on the bed. “I didn’t—I’m—”
“I understand.”
Vivie nodded and stood, resuming her path across the room and back.
Evelyn’s eyelids threatened to close at any moment. She remembered her older sisters complaining about how drained they were in early pregnancy, but she had never imagined this feeling of absolute exhaustion that weighed her limbs down. “I need to go to sleep. I drove up here today and all.” Vivie continued walking. Had she been crying, Evelyn would have made more of an effort, but the pacing seemed a good sign. She was angry. And anger would give way to acceptance. “Will you get in bed? Or should I go sleep in Margaret’s room?”