3
Super Constellation
CLAIRE, 1961
They called her mother-in-law Birdy. Everyone did. Even Peter called her Birdy instead of Mom or Mother. Claire never liked it. To her, birds were small, delicate things with hearts beating fast in their chests and lovely feathers and songs. This Birdy was tall and big-boned. No bright plumage. No catchy songs. Think pelicans, Peter teased. Think flamingos. Still, the nickname always caught in her throat. It’s what my father always called her, Peter had explained. But she’s so un-bird-like, Claire insisted.
Claire glanced out the window at the snow falling steadily. In her hand she held the invitation, a formal one on heavy paper with green embossed leaves climbing up one side and the words:
Come Celebrate Birdy’s 80th Birthday
January 19, 1961
8 p.m.
THE HOPE CLUB PROVIDENCE
The truth was, she didn’t want to go her mother-in-law’s—to Birdy’s—birthday party. What she wanted was to stay right here and go to her neighbor Dot’s inauguration brunch tomorrow morning. The entire neighborhood would be there, and they would watch John F. Kennedy take the oath of office. All of the women were guessing what color Jackie would wear, and the winner got a daiquiri party. Pink, Claire had guessed, and she felt certain she would win. She could picture Jackie in pink. That dark hair against pale pink, against the winter sky. Now she wasn’t even sure if she’d get to watch the inauguration at all. Would Birdy want to sit around and wait to hear what Kennedy had to say? Or what Jackie wore? Claire had considered using her condition to stay home, and let Peter go off to Rhode Island alone. But she owed him. She knew that.
Still, with him out of the house, Claire thought she might be able to breathe, to think straight. Because the truth was she had not really thought straight since Dougie Daniels went missing. The baby inside her rolled lazily, and Claire put her hand on her stomach as if to say good morning. Outside the window, the snow was accumulating fast. This storm was supposed to move all the way to New England, and they would be right in it. They should have left last night, Claire thought. They should stay home.
At the corner, their big green Chevy station wagon turned, inching along the slippery road. Peter, always prepared, an Eagle Scout still at thirty-two, had gone to fill the gas tank and check the oil and tires.
“Romper!” Kathy was saying. “Romper! Romper!”
“You’re right, Kitty Kat,” Claire said, lifting her daughter from the high chair. “It is time for Romper Room.”
She carried Kathy, clutching her stuffed rabbit Mimi, into the den and turned on Romper Room. Miss Bonnie was already looking through her Magic Mirror.
“And I see Debbie, and I see Wendy,” Miss Bonnie said.
“See Kathy!” Kathy shouted at the television. “See Mimi!”
Claire went back into the kitchen and stood at the window again, staring out at the snow, her husband’s headlights moving straight for her. She didn’t love him. Every time she had that thought, she felt like she was strangling. Literally, she gasped for breath. She didn’t love her husband and she was pregnant with a baby that she didn’t think was his. Just six months ago, she would never have believed that she would be a woman standing by a window in a situation like this. But here she was.
“Reach for stars!” Kathy sang from the living room.
Claire leaned forward, barely able to lean across the expanse of her belly and press her head against the cold pane of the window.
She heard the car stopping, its engine dying. She heard the car door open and then shut, her husband stomping across the snow.
Gulping for air, she tried to shut out her thoughts. A woman in 1961, who did not love her husband, had nowhere to go. A woman who’d had an affair and been caught, had no choice but to hope her husband forgave her and would let her stay. So then why did Claire want neither of these things to happen, not forgiveness, not to stay? What was wrong with her?
The kitchen door opened.
Miss Bonnie sang, “There goes Jupiter, here comes Mars . . .”
“Claire?” Peter said.
She swallowed as much air as she could take in.
Her husband was walking across the gold-speckled linoleum floor toward her. She could see his wingtips covered in rubber galoshes.
“Honey?” he was saying. “Are you okay?”
She lifted her head and gave him a weak smile. “Just dizzy,” she said, her hands floating above her belly as evidence.
“Come sit,” he said.
He put his hands on her shoulders and guided her to the chair at the head of the table, the one called the captain’s chair. Their eyes met briefly. Claire was the first to look away.
“Water?” he asked, already moving to the sink.
But Claire shook her head.
Peter stood in the middle of their kitchen, looking lost.