I will not let her sleep in the house with a dragon, all curled and smoky upon her pile of gold. Greedy.
She wishes her dragon of a mother slept not on gold but on the dead pile of broken china, Royal Copenhagen, she had smashed at their father’s feet. She had made some deal, once a beautiful princess asleep on the sharp stones of broken plates and the sad, closed faces of smashed teacups, she became a dragon to turn her bed to gold. To keep a man beside her. Libby can’t believe she has never seen this before. For the last fifteen years of her life, she has not smelled this smoke. And now it forces her, her and her friend, out across the water, to the inn on the opposite shore. Libby heads into the house, to roll up her friend’s sleeping bag, to put her books back into her duffel, to take her toothbrush from the edge of the sink. She will cough as they motor over the thoroughfare in the Whaler, a smoky scratch at the back of her throat.
TWENTY-TWO
LIBBY
July 10
After lunch the weather turned, and the fog rolled in thick; and now the sun was hidden, too tired to burn off the mist. “Soup” their father would’ve called it.
“The day had such a good start and now . . . ,” said Melissa, coming into the rug room.
“Socked in,” said Libby, motioning out the arched window.
Gwen and the boys were each napping. Fog inspired long naps. Libby sat on the chaise in the rug room, her legs crossed, a game of solitaire spread out before her, stacked and cascading, showing her efforts. She imagined playing at a casino, the dealer only letting her go through the deck three times. She was halfway through the second round; she must move slowly. Be deliberate.
Melissa flopped a pot holder on the coffee table and put a teapot on it. Steam slipped lazily from its spout. The table was half covered with a jigsaw puzzle Melissa had been working on since she arrived. Libby stayed focused on her cards. It’s here somewhere, she thought, the opening, the space, the place to lay the next card.
“You want more?” Melissa pointed to Libby’s empty mug.
“Sure, thanks.”
Melissa poured and Libby set down the deck, decided to let the cards breathe for a moment, consider their next move. A plate of cookies sat next to the teapot, half of which Libby had already eaten. Melissa helped herself. They both stared out the window into the fog, the thoroughfare somewhere in it. Low foghorns bleated far away. Even better than a train whistle, thought Libby, the sound of coming home.
“Who’s winning?” said Melissa. She tapped a cookie on the plate like she was ashing a cigarette.
Old habits, thought Libby. “I’ve decided that luck really isn’t a lady,” she said. “More like a fourteen-year-old boy. A distracted quick draw that is totally useless to me.”
“I think that would make Frank Sinatra a pedophile,” said Melissa.
“It’s just a theory.”
“I still can’t get over that dinner on the Fourth.” Melissa held her teacup close to her chest.
“Lobster can bring out the worst in people,” said Libby, imagining Tom standing on a stack of cookbooks and espousing the slow-cook method. They both looked toward the view they couldn’t see, ghost limbs of trees reaching black-sleeved out of the mist.
“You know that Tom doesn’t mean to be insensitive or malicious.”
Just controlling and condescending, thought Libby. “You’re legally obligated to be on his side,” she said as she shifted on the chaise, the wicker creaking.
“That’s not entirely true. There are a lot of loopholes.”
“You don’t agree with him, do you?”
“It’s not that simple anymore.” Melissa sighed. She moved the cookie plate and tried to wedge a blue puzzle piece into an expanse of evening sky.
“It seemed like you were on our side. I thought you were as attached to this place as we are.”
“I understand where you’re both coming from, and if things were different, I would be behind you totally, but . . .”
“What’s different?” Why does that stupid offer seem to make everything different to Tom? Libby wanted money to be what it was for her students, shiny coins best put to use when shoved up the nose or made of chocolate wrapped in foil.
“Bibs, I love you. I love this family. I love this place.” Melissa turned the puzzle piece in her hand, spun the tiny bit of clear sky between her thumb and finger. “But giving up on it might be what has to be done.”
“Why do I feel like a puppy you’re about to abandon by the side of the road?”
“I just—I think Tom is trying to shield you all from what is going on with him, and in doing so he’s coming off as totally insensitive. He doesn’t want to give this place up, Bibs, but it’s how he needs it to go.” Melissa kept forcing the piece into different spots, wedging it and then having to torque it loose, a bad tooth. “Seven hundred thousand dollars would put both our kids through college with some left over. We need this money.”
“Why on earth do you need it all of a sudden? Oh my God, you’re not pregnant, are you?”
“God no—not possible.”
“No?” Libby frowned. That can’t be good.
“Tom and I are separating.”
Melissa put her hand on Libby’s, and Libby could feel the heat from her teacup still clinging to her fingers. Was this what her friends had all gone through as kids? Hearing these words from their parents, instead of siblings, hot hands on theirs, disorientation?
Funny that you can see something coming, thought Libby, and it’s still a shock when it arrives like a bus you’ve been waiting for, coming in too close to the curb, you have to step back suddenly, afraid it will clip you.
“Are you sure?”
“He started the ball rolling, and the thing is, now I see I can’t stop it. I tried for a long time. I still do sometimes, but now, I think too much time has gone by.”
“Do you love him?” Libby wasn’t even sure why she asked this. She had always assumed Melissa’s love for Tom was unconditional, involuntary, like thirst or watching It’s a Wonderful Life at Christmas. Something commanded by the autonomic nervous system, like blinking.
“The money, selling the house,” Melissa said, shrugging her shoulders, “would cover the cost of the divorce. It would pay for us to become a two-household family. It would let us make a really smooth transition for the kids, for ourselves.”
“Have you guys been to therapy? Is there someone else?” How could Tom want anyone but Melissa?
“There was someone, a while ago, but I ended it hoping that Tom would want to—that we could fix things, but now I can’t pretend that Tom’s ever going to give me what I need. I love him. But sometimes it’s just not enough. I tried really hard.” She began to cry now. “I didn’t want this. Not any of it. I kept saying I’m not happy. I tried to get us into therapy. You can imagine how that went.”