“Oh no?” said Johanna. “Okay, I’m going now.” And she left with the baby on her hip and four Champagne flutes wedged upside down between the fingers of her other hand, probably not the wisest way to travel over slippery sand, but neither Sally nor Harrison made any effort to stop her.
“So. Tell me about your friend,” said Harrison when she’d gone. This time his tone was deliberately flat and decidedly unprovocative.
“Her name’s Rochelle,” said Sally. “She was my freshman-year roommate. You might actually like her, Harrison.”
“Oh?” He opened up the refrigerator door and looked balefully inside. Then, as if he were settling for something far beneath his intentions, he pulled out a carton of Newman’s Own lemonade and drank from the spout.
“I mean, she’s very smart.”
“Smart? Or educated?”
“I don’t even know what that means,” said Sally.
“I know you don’t,” said Harrison, sounding triumphant. He raked back a forelock of his thick brown hair. This had been a habitual gesture, almost a tic, since middle school, but it looked sillier than ever just now, and the hair fell back over his eyes almost immediately. But maybe that was the point.
It did smell good out there, a mix of shellfish and roasting corn coming up through the dunes and in through the kitchen window. She hadn’t eaten since that morning.
“Did Mom say anything to you about papers?” Sally asked.
“What kind of papers?”
Newspapers, dummy. Academic papers.
“Legal stuff. Guardianship for the baby.”
He stared at her.
“I’m not going to be a guardian for that baby.”
“By which you mean our sister, Phoebe.”
“I’m not going to be a guardian for any baby. Including that baby.”
“Okay,” Sally said. “Glad that’s clear. I’m actually more concerned about what it means for Mom, her wanting us to sign something. She doesn’t seem okay to me.”
Harrison shrugged. “What’s wrong with her?”
Sally shook her head. “I don’t know. But I’m concerned.”
He faced her and crossed his arms. “She shouldn’t be dumping this kind of stuff on us, now. She should have worried about it before she did such an asinine thing. Nobody told her to do it. Nobody said, ‘Hey Mom! Why don’t you defrost that kid you left behind eighteen years ago and hire some lady in a trailer park to give birth to it?’”
Spoken with his trademark Harrisonian compassion and empathy, thought Sally. And it hadn’t been a trailer park. Though how she knew that she wasn’t sure.
“I’m just saying, I’m worried about her.”
“And I’m saying: Don’t be. The whole point of growing up is to put away childish things. If she can’t do that, the best her children can do is model responsibility.”
“Really? That’s the best her children can do?” Sally shook her head. “The parent-kid handbook doesn’t say anything about caring for your aged mom and dad if they’re sick or incapacitated?”
He hauled open the Sub-Zero, which made its usual sucking sound, and shoved the lemonade carton back inside.
“Mine doesn’t. Not that that’s what we’re talking about. We’re talking about rewarding her for a selfish and insane and utterly immature decision by reassuring her she can abdicate her responsibilities anytime she wants.”
But that wasn’t it at all, thought Sally. Or not entirely. Our mother had so loved being a mother, the Maypole around which her little ones danced, perpetually competing for her attention. Who wouldn’t feel alive and necessary under those circumstances? The basic responsibilities for food and shelter and safety, the encouragements and rituals, the special time with each of them. And what came after that? Only the frantic appeasement of her meandering partner, the children peeling off to begin their separate widening gyres, and then their outright, heartbreaking departures. When Sally thought of it, she wanted to cry, despite the fact she herself had howled to get away. She was still howling. She was howling right now.