“Caroline, I’m so glad you called. I need your advice. Your father and I are going to a summer soiree and the dress code is ‘garden chic.’ I was going to wear that dress from the awards dinner, but Daddy says I shouldn’t wear black.”
“You should wear whatever makes you feel good, Mom.”
“See? GREGORY, CAROLINE SAYS I CAN WEAR BLACK!”
“Hey, Mom? I was calling because Van and I broke up.” Over the entire spring her mother had never asked her about Van, so Caroline hadn’t said a word.
“Oh, no! Why?”
“Well,” Caroline said slowly. “He wanted to spend more time with the baby.”
“What baby?” asked Gwendolyn. Caroline could hear her mother clanking around in the kitchen as they spoke.
“Remember? His friend Bailey? Who he,” Caroline stumbled. “helped get pregnant?”
“Oh, right. The one who wanted to have a child on her own.”
“Well, I think I might have given you the wrong impression of the situation. Bailey and Van had been a couple before I met him. And it turns out Van wanted to be a dad.”
“Oh. Thatisa plot twist,” Gwendolyn mused. “But better her than you, darling.”
“What do you mean?”
“If Van wanted a baby, it’s better he realized it now so he could have the child with someone else. You don’t want to be a mother yet.”
“What?”
“Caroline, you are awriter.History is littered with women writerswho were destroyed by parenthood! They drain you of your creative energy. Right now you are in an absolutely critical stage of your writing career. You’re finding your voice. Motherhood would derail everything.”
Caroline snorted. What a thing to say. “Is that why you didn’t want to have children?”
“What do you mean?” Gwendolyn stopped banging around the kitchen.
“In your wedding announcement when you said you didn’t plan to have children. Was that so that I didn’tdrain you of your creative energy?”
“Oh!” Gwendolyn laughed. “I put that in the announcement to torment your grandmother! Believe it or not, my mother and I had a difficult relationship. But Daddy and I always planned to have a baby. You were very much wanted, Caroline.”
“Mom?” Caroline’s voice cracked. She looked around her little cottage, a place of such joy and heartbreak. “I think I need to come home.”
Seventeen
Augusta
A Shimmer Of Truth
Augusta hadn’t spoken to Fran in two months when they ran into each other on the boardwalk at Crane’s. It was the longest they had gone without speaking in their lives, even counting the time they were twelve and Fran burned off a piece of Augusta’s hair with a flat iron and Augusta called her an idiot.
Augusta wanted to walk right by, she was still furious Fran had told Caroline about Colin and Eben, but the children greeted each other with the extravagance of astronauts returned from space, falling all over one another and hugging, dropping buckets and towels and blocking the ramp for anyone else trying to get past, and so Augusta herded them all over to the benches so they could carry on with minimal obstruction.
“I GOT A GIGANTAMAX MEOWTH!” screamed Hale.
“THAT’S FOUR HUNDRED DAMAGE!” screamed Charlie.
“It’s like TWO FIFTY.” London scoffed dismissively.
“You should keep it in the plastic so you can sell it.” Jane sniffed.
“If I have to have one more conversation about Pokémon, I amgoing to commit myself to a sanatorium,” said Augusta. She wasn’t ready to forgive Fran, but seeing their kids together was cracking something open inside her.
