Cathleen Schine - The Three Weissmanns of Westport

"Housewares, durable goods, knickknacks…" Charlotte Maybank's wavering voice came back to Miranda on the wind. "Oh yes, they'll all have to go!"

Later, Miranda asked Leanne if anything particular was up. "Roberts looked pretty spooked."

Leanne pursed her lips, then gave a quick shake of her head and said, "Just my aunt's nonsense. You know how she is."

On top of the dunes, Frederick stood with his bare feet in the cold sand. He was thinking about the night he gave the reading at the Furrier Library in Manhattan. He could picture Annie Weissmann, her eyes shining, a little imperfectly hidden smile of pride on her personable face. Cape Cod in the winter, his daughter had said with disdain. Annie's sister had said something nice but odd, some nonsense about paragliders, but also something about her feet in the cold sand. Gwen had never understood things like feet in cold sand. Neither, it appeared, did Amber. He leaned into the wind coming from the water. It was almost strong enough to hold him up. He felt it against his face, in his hair, on his scalp. His hands were red and cold. He never wanted to move. With the hollow rumble of the waves and the wail of the wind in his ears, embraced by the gusts of sea air, his feet planted, aching in the cold of the packed sand, Frederick felt safe from the life he led and alive in the life he truly lived. He stood on the edge of the dune until the light began to dim. His joints were stiff. He was refreshed.

When he drove home, he got a call on his cell.

"Where have you been?" Amber said. "I've been calling for over an hour. I thought you had a heart attack or something."

"I hope you're not disappointed. I was on the beach. I left the phone in the car."

"Listen, we're staying in the city a little longer. You don't mind, do you?"

Amber and Crystal had stayed on at Joseph's apartment, even after Frederick came back to the Cape. It had been over two weeks now. It seemed to Frederick that Amber had become quite indispensable to his sister and daughter, a kind of in-house house sitter. She ran errands for them. She babysat for the twins, took them to puppet shows and to the pediatrician. Felicity often asked Amber to run out to the market, to the butcher. They all three (Crystal seemed to bow out of a lot of these activities) would take the little girls to the park and then cross to the East Side to go shopping. Frederick tried not to think about any of them too much. He spent an hour or two each morning walking on the beach, then worked, then took another walk in the evening, then drank himself to sleep. He was a solitary person and was not unhappy with the way things were, only with how they would be.

"Daddy?" Henry said, pointing to the television screen. Kit was against a brick wall, a look of horror and fear on his face, a gun to his head. Henry started to cry.

"Baby, it's not real," Leanne said. "It's make-believe. That's Daddy's job-pretending."

Henry sobbed and wailed, his little body shaking.

Betty said, "Get a cookie. Get the child a cookie." It had never worked with the girls when they were little, but you never knew. Did they even have any cookies?

Leanne and Miranda took Henry into the kitchen and sat him on the counter.

"I'm really sorry, Leanne. My mother should not have been watching that while you were here."

Leanne was opening cabinets. "Where do you keep your cookies? Don't worry about it, Randa. Right, Henry? Mommy and Randa are right here. And Daddy is just fine. So try to shape up, sweetheart," she said to Henry, kissing his forehead.

"I don't have any shape ups left in me," he sobbed.

Miranda opened a cabinet and stared at the boxes of whole-wheat pasta, the saltines, the can of chickpeas, and the jar of almond butter. "How about sort-of peanut butter on a cracker?" Henry nodded solemn agreement. "Good," she said. "And don't cry about Daddy. He'll come back from the TV and see you really soon, right?" She looked at Leanne. "Right?"

Leanne shrugged.

"Right," Miranda said. "I know he will. Let's call him. You know, you can call him up on the telephone and you can see him at the same time talking to you on the computer."

Henry ate his cracker while he contemplated that.

"Okay," he said finally.

Leanne looked relieved. "Thanks," she said to Miranda. "It's so difficult sometimes with Kit in California."

"I understand. It's all been so painful and awkward."

Leanne nodded. "I guess." She stroked Henry's hair.

Miranda watched Leanne's hand. How easily it shaped itself to that beautiful head. She felt a confused stab of jealousy and looked away.

"Painful subject," Leanne said very softly.

Miranda took a deep breath. She exhaled slowly. It was going to rain. She gazed out the window at the putty-colored sky. Then she said what she had wanted to say for a long time, a simple sentiment, a statement of friendship and solidarity, but it had until now always seemed so presumptuous. "I'm so sorry he made you so unhappy."

There was an awkward pause, and then Leanne said, "Me?"

"Well, me too. And I know how weird it is coming from me, but when your husband leaves you… I mean, look at my poor mother… You feel so abandoned. So hurt…"

Leanne was staring at her. " Kit didn't leave me," she said.

"More?" Henry asked, pointing to the crackers.

Miranda spread more almond butter on another cracker, then absentmindedly ate it herself.

"More please?" said Henry.

" I kicked Kit out."

Miranda picked up Henry and set him on his feet on the floor. "Go ask Betty if she wants a cracker, okay?"

She licked almond butter off her fingers as he scuttled away.

Finally, she said, "Ah."

In an irrelevant echo, a crow outside gave a hoarse caw.

The faucet dripped hollow, portentous plunks.

"Also, about Maine?" Leanne said at last.

"Look, I'm really, really sorry I mentioned that. I know it was awkward. I mean, even if you left him," she added. She got up and tightened the taps, first the hot, then the cold. The dripping continued. "It's a tricky subject. Especially between you and me."

Leanne produced an uncomfortable laugh and turned away.

"Okay, I know it's unlikely, our friendship." Miranda felt almost elated, declaring friendship, just like that. "Bizarre that Kit brought us together…"

"Henry brought us together," she heard Leanne say.

Miranda had never really discussed Kit with anyone, but now she found herself compelled to talk about him to the last person in the world she should. "I guess I just needed you to understand about Kit. Because you're the only one who really can." She heard how ungainly she sounded, on and on in an inappropriate, breathless rush, yet she couldn't stop. "All those stories from Maine, they meant so much to me; I was just so happy to be around someone who had such an idyllic childhood, especially after all my Awful Authors and their gruesome stories of childhood, which all turned out to be fake anyway; it was just so comforting, and inspiring, actually, to meet someone normal, someone who didn't have anything to hide, whose childhood was so real, and so real to him…"

As she was speaking, Leanne leaned toward her across the table in an almost menacing posture. After every few words she would try to interrupt Miranda, but Miranda stumbled on. She felt like a broken-down racehorse who has to reach the finish or his heart will break. It was suddenly urgent that she explain herself. "My whole career was built on cheesy lurid tragedy. Cheesy lurid tragedy that turned out to be fake cheesy lurid tragedy. Think how that felt. It felt like shit, okay? So think how refreshing it was to talk to someone who grew up in a family full of love and fun and birds and wildflowers…"

"Jesus!" Leanne said. "Stop! I can't stand it anymore. Love and fun and birds and wildflowers? I'm going to puke. Christ almighty…"