The Last September: A Novel

“Oh, that’s comforting,” I said, and Maxine laughed. “It’s just not like Charlie,” I went on, “not to call when he said he would.”


Maxine looked away, out the window, as if she weren’t so convinced of Charlie’s reliability. Sarah wailed as I attempted to wipe her face. When she quieted, I called the landline again; its unanswered rings sounded canned, old-fashioned, as if I were calling Timbuktu rather than two miles away.

“I’d better go over there,” I told Maxine. “Do you mind watching Sarah for half an hour?”

Maxine was way too polite to point out that this was the same time frame I’d suggested yesterday. She and Sarah eyed each other warily.

“Okay,” Maxine said, her voice displeased but resolute. “But really just half an hour this time.”

I left quickly, not realizing till I was halfway there that I’d left my phone on Maxine’s breakfast counter.

CHARLIE’S PARENTS HAD BOUGHT their house and its oceanfront acre years ago. A two-story, cedar-shingled cape with picture windows looking out on the bay, back then it had been a modest old house in a modest seaside neighborhood. These days there was no such thing as a modest seaside neighborhood, and his father routinely battled the temptation of selling. The only people who could afford to buy beachfront property had too much money to spare. While neighbors succumbed and trophy houses rose up like skyscrapers, the Moss residence stood low to the ground in rebellious disrepair. Other than the ocean view, it boasted nothing in the way of luxury except the wide green lawn where Charlie and I had been married. As I pulled in behind his battered old Golf, I could see Eli pacing back and forth across the grass, the bay clear and calm in the distance. It seemed odd that his little dog, Lightfoot, wasn’t following at his feet.

My tires rumbled over the seashell and pebble driveway, and I thought of another time I’d rounded a corner and stumbled upon Eli, my sophomore year of college in Colorado, another September day. My birthday, in fact. I’d gone home the back way to find Eli outside, blowing up a package of balloons one by one, and floating them into my open bedroom window. Eli had stood there in the sunlight, concentrating on his task, then looking up at me—caught—his cheeks puffed with air. “You were supposed to go in the front door,” he said. His fair, straight hair stood slightly on end from the static electricity, and his face was pink from exertion. We walked around together, through the front door and into my bedroom, where balloons rolled around at our feet and floated inches above the floorboards, filling my room with color and air. I remember the happiness at the center of my throat, bubbling up, that someone would do this for me. I remember it happening, and I remember remembering it, over and over so many times that it feels like just that—a continuing moment that happened over and over again. It occurs in a series of cartoon infinity bubbles.