Kiersten
Monday morning Kiersten dropped the boys at school and returned to the disaster awaiting her at home. The house on Monday mornings always reminded her of a hockey arena after a game, when everyone goes home, leaving behind an empty building strewn with half-empty cups, ketchup packets, and lone mittens.
Would her house look like Monday morningevery dayonce they started homeschooling?
Probably. But the idea still made sense. She and Garrett planned to speak with the boys tonight. If they were on board, the Experiment would move ahead.
In the meantime, she needed to learn more about how to homeschool. And she needed to make more progress unpacking the remaining boxes in the basement.
Her fingers caressed the diary on her kitchen counter.
But first she needed to find the owner of these diaries so she could return them, and the cash, to their rightful owner. She felt a sense of urgency about this. Whoever had written them must be in her eighties by now.
She picked up her phone and called Henry DiLorenzo, the previous owner of her house. He answered on the sixth ring, just as she was about to hang up. After reminding him of who she was and how she knew him, she explained why she was calling.
“Oh gosh,” Henry said. “I’m sorry you got saddled with those boxes. We organized a garage sale on Beaverbrook about ten years ago. Someone in the neighborhood donated a set of encyclopedias. But they didn’t sell, so I lugged ’em back inside with some other junk I planned to take to Goodwill. Then I forgot all about them.”
“I found some diaries hidden inside,” Kiersten explained. “They belong to a woman who lived on Beaverbrook in 1965.”
“That was a lifetime ago.” Henry gave a wistful sigh. “We moved to Beaverbrook in June of ’67. All the homes were new then. State of the art. Myrtle knew all the ladies on the block, of course. They were always getting together for coffee. Lots of nice families. Most of the men worked at the Pentagon or the State Department. The wives stayed home, took care of the house and the kids. Beaverbrook was a great place to raise a family.”
“Does the name Dottie ring any bells?”
“No,” he said slowly. “Not with me, but I didn’t know the ladies the way Myrtle did. But Myrtle, well ... she’s not so good with names anymore ...” His voice trailed off, and suddenly Kiersten felt terrible for asking him questions.
Henry and Myrtle had sold their house because Myrtle developed Alzheimer’s and needed to move into a memory-care unit. Henry had moved into an assisted living apartment in the same complex. Garrett’s old college roommate said it broke his grandfather’s heart to live apart from his wife of almost sixty years.
She thanked Henry for his time and hung up as the dishwasher hummed in the background. Then she sat down in the tiny breakfast nook off the kitchen, picked up the diary, and began to read.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Dottie
April 12, 1965
We went to a dinner party last night at Clara and Howard’s house. Clara looked lovely as always, and she served a beautiful pimento cheese dip appetizer, Steak Diane, which she flambeed perfectly at the table without setting any of her guests on fire, stuffed peppers and Baked Alaska for dessert. I have to say, it was pretty impressive.
Dickie was wonderful, while we were there.
But as soon as we got in the car, he started up again. Why can’t I arrange flowers like she can? Why isn’t our house decorated like theirs? Why don’t I wear my hair in a bouffant, like hers?
“You could never pull off a dinner party like that. You’d probably serve boiled carburetors and spark plugs à la mode. I should have married someone else, someone more ... feminine.”
I bit down on my tongue so hard I tasted blood. If he were married to someone else, he wouldn’t know Howard, whose father is the president of the bank, or my godfather, Roy, who’s the majority leader of the state Senate and was also there last night. Without me, Dickie would never have been invited to that dinner party in the first place. Without me, Dickie wouldn’t be driving a new car to a new house while wearing a fancy watch and an expensive suit.
“A man could go far with a wife like that,” Dickie said, looking thoughtful. “I should have married someone like Clara.”
A little piece of my heart flaked off and fell away when he said that. But anger flashed through me too. I could feel it, loosening my tongue, burning my cheeks.
“Maybe I should have married someone who doesn’t scream at me all the time,” I shot back.
“No one else would want you.” His tone was so matter of fact that a tiny part of me wondered if it was true. “A woman who works on cars in her spare time? Who wants a wife who can change the oil but can’t make a decent pie crust? If I hadn’t come along, you’d die an old maid.”
“I’d rather be an old maid than live with someone who criticizes everything I do.” The words flew out of my mouth before I could bite them back and the moment I said it, I realized it was true.
“Careful, Dottie.” His tone was soft, but menacing, too, like a hammer wrapped in velvet.
“Why did you marry me, if I’m so deficient?” I hated the plaintive undertone in my voice, the pain that I couldn’t quite scrub from my words.
