“I can’t—” Melissa shook her head. “Just leave me alone a second.” They stepped back, and the tears came down Melissa’s face and blood came from between her fingers, smearing on her shirt. Air hissed through her teeth as she stood there frozen. Gwen hurried down the back hall and returned with a dusty first-aid kit from the seventies. She opened it, and the plastic hinge broke off. Libby grabbed a roll of paper towels and pulled off a few sheets as Gwen began to unpack the kit onto the table.
“Let’s just see how bad,” said Libby, easing Melissa’s hands away from her chest. Libby covered the bleeding hand with the towels, and Melissa sat down. Libby held Melissa’s hand to her own chest so that Melissa looked as if she were raising her hand to ask a question. Libby is the one who should have a baby, thought Gwen. She has the partner; they have a family to expand. Libby hadn’t been very maternal as a child; she carried her first doll around by the hair. But now Libby was the one who tied shoes and changed diapers and understood the difference between Dora and Diego. Libby is already more of a mother than I am, thought Gwen, no matter what she’s avoiding. Gwen already had her foray into motherhood, giving Danny bottles and baths and suctioning snot out of his nose. How many times in life did you need to do those things? Libby looked at Gwen, eyes wide, prompting.
“Melissa, don’t you wish Libby had brought Patricia?”
Libby rolled her eyes, and Gwen shrugged. If Libby wanted distracting conversation, she couldn’t get choosy.
“I love Patricia,” said Melissa, looking everywhere but at her hand. “I really do. She’s the prettiest woman I have ever seen in real life. You should marry her, Bibs. She obviously makes you happy. Marriage isn’t for everyone; it’s risky, but she brings out the best in you. How many couples can say that?” Melissa looked out the window at the oak tree.
“Maybe I’m just not sure this is my best,” said Libby. She snuck a look at the cut, tilted her head from side to side, an it-could-be-worse tilt.
Holding gauze and tape, Gwen moved to stand next to Libby. She mouthed the word “stitches.” Libby shook her head. Libby rested her head on Gwen’s shoulder for a moment, and Gwen squeezed with her free arm.
Once Melissa’s finger was bandaged and she had been plied with Tylenol and whiskey, Libby doled out the mussels into shallow bowls. Gwen took a baguette from the bread box, a little stale but perfect for soaking up the juice. The cooked mussels sat on the kitchen table, their sharp little beaks open, exhaling steam.
At dinner Tom scootched his chair next to Melissa’s. He opened each shell for her, speared each mussel on a small fork, and handed it to her. She held her bandaged hand on top of her head, like she was keeping a hat from blowing away. Maybe I’m wrong; maybe things aren’t that bad between them.
TWELVE
DANNY
July 7
Danny played Ping-Pong with Gwen in the great room, while Tom stood beneath the balcony on the east wall staring up at the discolored beams. Libby had gone for a walk up the road, to “touch pavement.” Meaning she would go all the way to the paved town road, one mile each way. The rest of them had opted to stay home. Still too early in their trip for earnest exercise, Danny had explained. At least that was what he had meant by, “Hell, no.” Once Libby passed the bend in the road, Danny felt as if they were teenagers left home alone, or when someone leaves you alone in their dorm room. Gwen immediately wanted to play the most cutthroat game of Ping-Pong possible. Tom began inspecting the house. Danny wondered how long Tom would wait to announce to their sisters that he was an academic failure. What was he waiting for? Maybe Tom thought it could all be fixed, that the girls shouldn’t have to worry about Danny’s fuckup. He couldn’t bear them worrying about him anymore anyway. At least Gwen was easy to distract.
Danny sent shot after shot sailing over the table into a new corner or cobweb. The ball skittered under masts that were pushed against the long, low step of the stage. It wasn’t actually a stage, but an alcove with diamond-paned windows just under their parents’ room. Its raised stone floor and lower ceiling set it off from the rest of the great room. The whole space was like the bow cabin in a cruising boat. The cabin that his sisters always shared, while Danny had to sleep in a berth across from the galley, smelling the kerosene and cod all night long. Danny always thought this alcove cast the rest of the house as a great schooner. Each summer they embarked on an epic voyage, a transatlantic crossing, rounding the Golden Horn, skirting the Falklands, the Maldives, the Faroes. When they sat on the porch, he saw them all sitting on the deck of a steamer, or a jammer, depending on the weather.
His next shot sailed over Gwen’s shoulder and bounced up the wood step to the stones of the stage. Gwen bounded after it, and caught the ball in midbounce. She didn’t even ask if Danny was ready; in one fluid motion she stepped up to the table and took her serve. He tried to chop the ball, as if instead of a paddle, he wielded a hatchet.
“Dan, quit trying so hard,” said Gwen as she picked up another rogue shot from underneath the child-size pool table. “You’re wearing me out.”
“I’m trying to master backspin. You’ve got to give it some snap, you know?” Danny flicked his paddle forward.
“It might be a more effective strategy for you, if you ever actually hit my side of the table.”
She sent a fast and low serve over the net that just nicked the table, before sailing behind him into the dining room. “Like that,” she said.
Danny had learned Ping-Pong from Gwen, but she had conveniently left out the secret to backspin, which she used against him mercilessly.
“You’re a shark,” Danny said, retrieving the ball for the hundredth time from underneath the dining room table.
“I sleep too much to be a shark. And I believe that was the game point. Tom, you wanna take over?” Gwen held her paddle out toward her older brother.
His back was to her as he looked up to the ceiling. Danny didn’t want to play Tom. He’d rather bounce the ball on his paddle. He knew that was unfair. Tom just approached everything like an assignment, like there was a secret instruction booklet that only he had seen, and it was his responsibility to Do It Right. Danny wondered if Tom’s manual was one large volume divided into different chapters and headings, or if he had many volumes, thousands, like a Time-Life Book collection: How to Tile Your Bathroom or Kitchen; How to Alienate Your Children; How to Belittle Your Brother Under the Guise of “Encouragement”.
“Where’s Melissa, I need a decent opponent.” Gwen said this more to Danny than Tom. Melissa was a shrewd Ping-Pong player. Danny couldn’t deny that.
Tom continued to eye the ceiling.
“Napping,” he said. “She sleeps almost as much as the kids. Teenagers.”