"Here," she said, and she shoveled more sesame noodles on his plate. "You finish these up, darling."
Betty, meanwhile, spoke to the divorce attorney frequently--daily, really--and though she told Miranda and Annie very little of what transpired, her phone conversations were so long and so loud, conducted in Betty's fluty voice of determination, that they were able to piece together a few things. Because Betty would not agree to Josie's terms, Josie would not go ahead with the divorce, leaving Betty in a kind of limbo, legally and financially. She, therefore, had to sue for divorce herself on the grounds of abandonment. This she seemed, surprisingly, to relish. She quit her painting, sparing two of her bedroom walls the sad gray color. Daytime soap operas and talk shows still blared from the TV, but Betty no longer sat on the couch to watch. She established herself formally at her desk each morning and pored over the most recent papers her lawyer had FedExed. She provided herself with a large collection of exquisitely designed folders and file boxes. She referred lovingly to her Case with nearly Dickensian reverence. Because of the Case, she explained, she could no longer do the cooking or the marketing, she was much too busy. In fact, she seemed to have little time left even for eating, living on saltines smeared with almond butter.
"I feel like I'm buried alive," Miranda said one morning.
"Better than being buried dead," said Betty, looking up from her papers. She smiled encouragingly, hoping to cheer Miranda up. Miranda occasionally executed a round of unanswered phone calls, she read the odd manuscript that some memoirist in the boondocks who had not heard of her disgrace still sent in. But she was fading, detaching, disappearing in front of their eyes. All for that young actor? Betty wondered, then answered her own question. No, not for him. For a dream, a dream most women her age had already dreamed and either lived or forgotten. Why had it taken Miranda so long? she wondered.
Then she noticed that both her daughters were staring at her.
"What?"
"Buried alive better than being buried dead?" Annie said. "Hardly, Mother."
"Oh, wait until you're my age."
"God, I hope we're not still in this dump when I'm that old," Miranda said.
"Amen."
Betty looked stricken.
"Not that you're old," Miranda quickly added.
Betty was old and she knew it. That was not the issue. She put both hands down on her pile of legal documents. "Are you so unhappy here, girls?" she said. Her voice was earnest now. "I feel terrible. I thought the change would be so good for you. I'm so sorry, my darlings. I know you came out here for me, and I'm so grateful, but look what it's come to. Oh dear. I've completely disrupted your lives, and for what? I'm afraid I've been very selfish. But I honestly thought . . ."
"No, Mom, it's great, it's fine," Annie interrupted. "It's so beautiful here, it's almost like a vacation for us." She made a face at Miranda--Come on, agree, make Mommy feel better, hurry up . . .
But Miranda was sulking, staring at the floor. "Well, I'm glad someone is enjoying themselves," she said. She rose from the table, gave Annie a sour look, grabbed her coat from the closet, and headed toward the door.
Annie examined her hands. They were clasped tightly. She wanted to use them to murder her sister.
"I'll go with you," she called. Her voice took on a tone she recognized from child-rearing days: rage altered by the alchemy of necessity into enthusiasm. Perhaps outside in the air she would somehow be able to speak to Miranda, really talk to her. "A walk!" she said, in consequence. "What fun!"
"A picnic," Betty muttered darkly. "Everything a picnic." And she turned back to her documents.
They walked to the end of the little street, and there before them stretched Compo Beach. The sand was brown and coarse, the sky blowing layers of dark clouds above the rough gray water. There were a dozen or so people out, couples mostly, with their dogs.
"Miranda, talk to me."
"I'm going crazy here, that's all. Crazy, crazy, crazy."
Three grown women, three independent, bossy women in a tiny ill-equipped house? Three unhappy women . . . Annie was about to expound on this, to say how natural it was to go stark, raving mad, how temporary this situation was, please God, when the sun suddenly appeared through a crack in the slate sky.
"My God," Annie said, stunned by the beauty.
"My God!" Miranda echoed her. But she was not gazing at the illuminated gash in the clouds. She was staring at an approaching figure outlined by the sudden glare. The figure was waving.
"Oh, Annie," she cried. "It's him! It's Kit! He's back."
"No, I don't think . . ." But Miranda was already running toward the man.
"Miss!" he called, his voice muted by the wind and the slap of the waves. "You dropped your scarf!"
Miranda stopped, all the energy drained from her form: it wasn't Kit, after all.
Then, abruptly, she squealed with joy. "Nicky!" she cried. "It's Nicky!"