Now I go over to Nadine’s closet, which is crammed full of clothes while Marlon’s stands empty, in anticipation. From the top shelf above the dress rack I pull down a hatbox and remove a beautiful, wide-brimmed straw hat in pale cream, with a black silk band. I have always loved this hat. I remember visiting Opal in Florida, for one of our last family vacations together, and watching my mother walk barefoot on the beach in this hat. There was a violent pink sunset dying behind her, and she wore a buttoned cover-up that would have looked too formal for the beach on anyone else but suited her perfectly. She didn’t have a glass in her hand, for once. She didn’t need one; she was alone, without Marlon or Opal or Zelda or me. She looked serene, and I crouched near a sand dune to watch her burrow her toes into the low tide and dislodge a sand dollar. She squatted on the beach to pick it up and stayed poised on her haunches in a surprisingly athletic pose, holding her prize and looking out over the water. Maybe nostalgia and my desperate need for a perfect memory add this last detail in, but I remember a school of dolphins bursting out of the waves nearby, skating through the rosy water.
I sniff my mother’s hat, smelling for a trace of her hair before she was taking so many medications, before she stank of age. But I smell only the box it has been stored in. I project the fragrance of sand and salt water onto it, such vivid scents that they are easy to imagine, and I think briefly that I should take my mother to the ocean, to Cape Cod, where she grew up. I could put her in a chair by the water and let her dig her toes into the sand there, bring her a glass of wine and a plate of baked clams, remind her of where we are when she looks puzzled and angry. Maybe we could talk about her sister, Nina, help her heal after a lifetime of refusing to acknowledge her death. Maybe we could sit there, cathecting together.
I think about sitting with Zelda at the kitchen table, after Mom’s diagnosis, talking over our options. They were limited. Lewy body dementia is degenerative, incurable. We could let our mother descend deeper, lose more of herself until she basically forgot how to breathe. Or we could do something. Choose the ending now. Go to Oregon? Switzerland? We promised to keep it as an option, a possibility as Mom’s condition worsened. And it has worsened. Zelda has sweetened the pot, with the insurance policies, but we talked about it long before. Even Nadine had hinted at it, though she couldn’t ask us. She couldn’t admit to needing us, to being so vulnerable. And, of course, I did go to Oregon, though I think I never fully admitted that this could have been one of my reasons for fleeing to the West Coast and following Jordan home.
On the balcony, Marlon is now snoring mildly. I creep quietly around him and put the hat on Nadine’s head, looking at the skin on her neck and décolletage, to see if she’s sunburned yet. She seems okay. As I tug the hat over her disheveled hair, she reaches up and grabs my wrist, surprising me with the texture of her rippled fingertips, so wrinkled they feel waterlogged.
“What is it, Mom?”
“What? Oh, nothing. I just—thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“It’s nice of you. To look after me, these past few years. I know it’s not how you want to spend your life. But you’re so sweet, Ava. A good girl.”
I swallow hard, feeling around for the Vicodin in my neurochemicals. Not nearly stoned enough. Blindly, I make my way downstairs, homing instinctively on the wine cellar.
It is cool and musty below the house, and I feel a familiar frisson of pleasure at the way it smells down here, full of moisture and secrets and age. I walk along the wine racks, fondling the cool necks of the bottles. Something deeply interior flushes with pleasure at the sight of this abundance, and I contentedly stroke each glass curve, sensuously moving along the racks. I stop at a fifteen-year-old bottle of Meursault that Zelda and I stowed away in the cellar when we graduated high school, seven years ago; our father had mailed it as a gift, along with a bottle of Champagne that was meant to be drunk immediately. Zaza and I occasionally mused over when we would open the wine; what occasion would warrant it? When will it be most wonderful? I look at the label.
“I don’t care what your W is, Zaza. W is for wine,” I announce to the dusty flagons. I walk upstairs with the bottle cradled in my arms. It is covered with accumulated silt, and I know it will leave a trace on my dress. In the kitchen I pull down four wineglasses and hold their stems delicately between my fingers, dangling upside down, clinking together.
On the balcony, I nudge Marlon’s shoulder, and his eyes flutter open uncertainly.
“What is it?”
“Meursault,” I answer with a smile. “I thought it was time.” He stares blankly at me, then at the bottle, trying to place it. I can see the moment when he remembers on his face, which twitches, pained. “Zelda and I were never quite sure when to uncork it,” I explain. “I don’t think we should wait any longer.” I set down the glasses and methodically open the wine with the corkscrew that has been sitting on the deck railing since my evening of excess with Wyatt. I sniff the cork and pass it to Marlon. He shuts his eyes and breathes in the scents, then hands it to Nadine, who fondles it absently before breathing in its mysterious complexity. She looks like she might try to eat it, though, so I take it back.
“Is it cold enough?” Marlon asks in concern.
“I hope so. It was in the cellar. Should be around fifty degrees, if the cellar’s doing its job.”
Marlon grunts in response and reaches out to touch the bottle. We are like a trio of acolytes, all suddenly alert and respectful in the presence of this sacred liquid. I pour the wine evenly into the four glasses, the ochre substance sloshing toward the rim. We wordlessly claim our glasses; Nadine looks perkier and more coherent. We sit and sip, saying nothing, the fourth glass perched on the little table to warm in the sun.
24
EXpecting sunshine when I awake the next morning, I’m dismayed to see gray skies greet me instead. I look out at the ashes of the barn, which have long since cooled. Even the smell of burnt wood has dissipated, and I’m almost sad; it reminded me of bonfires, nights clustered around a flame while Zelda and I initiated mischief. I wonder if the whole heap will turn into a soggy mess if it rains. When it rains. I suppose we should do something about it. Clean it up, rake it over. Will we be able to grow grass on it ever again? How? I speculate briefly about the way one goes about such a thing and eventually realize that it is yet another task that will fall to the people who actually run this place, who grow the few grapes we manage to produce.
Zelda’s memorial is scheduled for this morning. Marlon needs to get back to California, and after very little discussion, it was determined that no one would be coming from far away; we don’t have any real family, and Zelda never left here. It’s nicer to think about prosaic details than to wonder where Zelda is, what havoc she is currently wreaking. The last pair of letters briefly flash through my mind. I’m perfectly happy to dwell on what to dress Mom in and who will bring food. Marlon and I had a forty-minute conversation over what wine to serve. I lobbied for the sparkling, which I’m certain is what Zelda wants, but Marlon has opted for a lavish reserve Chardonnay and one of our older red blends. I wonder if he suspects that Silenus is on its last legs and he wants everyone’s final taste of the fruits of his long-ago labor to be the best we have. If the best is what he wants, however, I feel we should drink someone else’s wine.