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Ben grunts in reply. I hesitate, wondering which battle to pick as I feel like I am always doing. I used to simply not bother, because I was too tired, too sad, too worn down by life. But in the last few months I’ve been trying more, before my children slip away from me completely.
So now, despite the resistance I’m sure to meet, I plant my hands on my hips and take a stand.
“Come on.Now.” I stand over him, my hands on my hips, waiting. Ben gives another one of his groans.
“Fine.”
Outside Katherine is struggling to get a bag out of the trunk and with a snort of derision, Ben elbows her aside and hauls it out, catching the side on the latch of the trunk and creating a big rip in the side. Perfect.
“You hurt me!” Katherine squeals resentfully, and Ben just shrugs. I sigh and take the bag from him before it gets battered further. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.
The honk of a horn makes all three of us jump, and I turn to see Rebecca at the wheel of her SUV, the window down, expensive sunglasses hiding her eyes as she waggles her fingers. “Remember,” she trills. “Tomorrow at five!”
As if I could forget.
“Why do we have to go there for dinner?” Katherine asks once all our bags are inside and I am starting to unpack, putting my t-shirts and shorts in the drawers of the dresser in my bedroom. The boughs of the pine trees completely cover the window, making the room gloomy and dark.
“It’s nice of them to invite us, Katherine.” Even if I’m dreading it almost as much as I think my daughter is. I know women like Rebecca Finlay. She might live on the Upper East Side but there are plenty of women like her in Brooklyn, which has become so gentrified in recent years that it’s hard to believe we moved there to be arty and cool, back when we were young and idealistic and the rent wasn’t astronomical. It feels so long ago now it’s like looking through the wrong end of a telescope, everything fuzzy and distant. Was that me? Was I really like that?
In any case, no matter where they live, women like Rebecca are experts at seeming friendly while making subtle digs. Making you feel inadequate—hell, she only needs to show up to make me feel that—while acting like your friend. Sort of.
Uneasy guilt creeps through me, because I know I’m being at least a little judgmental. I’m painting Rebecca Finlay with the same colors as the moms I know in Park Slope—the ones who smile vaguely at me from a distance, as if we’re friends, and then “forget” to include me in the Friday night social at the local wine bar. I never expected motherhood to be so hard, in so many ways. If I’d had my own mom to guide me, or at least to complain to…
A lump forms in my throat, even after two years. I feel like I should be past it now, I should be able to move on a little more. My mother’s death, two years on, shouldn’t make me cry, but in these unguarded moments I feel like I could sob. I miss her. I need her.
As if to drag me out of my encroaching self-pity party, my phone buzzes and I see it’s my best friend Rayha, no doubt checking in to see how I’m doing.
“So, is it fabulous?” she asks as soon as I swipe the screen to take the call. I glance at Katherine still standing in the doorway of my bedroom, and Ben back on the sofa.
“We just got here, but I think it’s going to be really good.” I give Katherine a quick, reassuring smile before I slip past her and step outside for a little privacy. The glare of the sun hits me all over again and the air smells fresh, of pine and sunshine. “The lake’s right on our doorstep. We’ve already had a swim.”
“Wow, I can’t even imagine! That’s great, Tessa. I’m so happy for you.” Rayha’s voice is full of warmth; she knows a little bit about how I’ve struggled, especially after my mom’s death, although she doesn’t know it all. No one does, because I’m too ashamed to admit how lost I feel when it comes to my own daughter, how helpless when it comes to my son, or how my marriage feels like something that’s broken. And I don’t talk about my mom at all, because it hurts too much.
But I’ve told Rayha some things, and she’s always sympathized. “I think this could be really good for you all,” she continues. “Exactly what you need. A reset button, a new perspective.”
“Yeah.” She’s echoing back what I told her in April; back then Rayha was worried and disappointed I was going away for the summer and she tried to hide it from me. She’s a single mom with a full-time job and a special needs son, and the hectic chaos of her life has reduced our friendship over the years to phone calls, texts, and the very occasional night out, but she liked having me around in Brooklyn, just as I have needed to know she was there. Three months apart felt like a long time.
We met in a baby group when Ben was born, before her son Zane was diagnosed with childhood disintegrative disorder, one of the most heartbreaking conditions I’ve ever known or heard of. As a baby, Zane was cheerful and normal, with his drooly, toothless grins, his excited squeals. I don’t know exactly when he started to lose his social and motor skills, but Rayha says she thinks it was around two years old. The diagnosis came a year later, and six years on, Zane is unable to walk, talk, make eye contact, or hold things.
When I think of what Rayha has to endure, and how much she loves her son, I feel nothing but humility and shame for my own petty problems. And yet she’s a generous enough person to be concerned about them on my behalf, while my own efforts to help her have sometimes felt paltry by comparison.
“Have you met anyone? Any nice neighbors?” Rayha asks, and I think of Rebecca, but for some reason I don’t say anything. Rayha, being such a sunny person, won’t see Rebecca the way I do. She’ll take her friendliness at face value, which would be easier for me to do if I hadn’t been there before, time and time again. I saw the way Rebecca’s lip curled when she looked at Pine Cottage, and more tellingly, when she looked at my children.
I wonder what on earth she is doing stuck here in the Finger Lakes, instead of in the Hamptons or somewhere else that’s upscale and ritzy. Or perhaps the real question is, what is she doing withme?
The screen door bangs behind me and Katherine comes out and sits next to me on the sand. I end the call with Rayha, promising to talk later, and slide the phone into the pocket of my shorts.
“Hey!” I touch Katherine lightly on the shoulder and she shies away, just a little, but enough for me to notice. To feel it. Has she always been so distant, or has it become worse with age? She’s only eleven; surely the teen angst shouldn’t start now?
“So, what do you think of this place?” I ask and she shrugs, staring out at the water. “I think if we give the cottage a bit of a clean, open a few windows…” I feel optimism buoy gently in my soul, like waves lapping the shore. I need to feel it, after the fog of the last few years, when it was hard enough just to get through each day. “It could be great, Katherine.” Just like Rayha said.
“Do we have to go there?” Katherine asks in a low voice, her gaze still on the water.
I don’t pretend not to know what she’s talking about, even though I am a little bit tempted. “It’s just dinner, Kat,” I say, using a nickname Kyle gave her that never quite stuck. “A couple of hours at most.” I can’t fault her for dreading another encounter with the mutinous Zoe, just as I am semi-dreading seeing Rebecca again, noticing how her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “If it’s really terrible, we don’t have to see them again.”
Katherine turns to look at me suspiciously, as if she thinks I might be making a promise I can’t keep. Of course we’ll see the Finlays again; they’re our neighbors for the summer. And perhaps I shouldn’t be making such promises in the first place. Shouldn’t I be encouraging Katherine to give it a chance, to make friends in a new place? I tried to when she started at school in Park Slope two years ago, but it was so hard for both of us. I want it to be better now.
“Don’t worry so much,” I say softly, and while I mean it as encouragement, I can see from the flash of hurt in her eyes that Katherine takes it as a criticism.
