The Last September: A Novel

Charlie listens carefully. He hears me. He packs a bag and comes along with me to Maxine’s, where he will be safe. Where he will continue.

But that’s not what happened. Instead I went to see Ladd, who had found some books I’d been pining after for a long time, The Years and Hours of Emily Dickinson. The volumes were impossible to find, as they’d been stolen from every library, even Widener. I’d tacked my name and phone number to bulletin boards of rare bookstores across New England, in case one or both volumes ever appeared. It was so like Ladd, to remember that I wanted them. Leaving his place, I let the car idle at the end of Eldredge Lane. The dashboard clock read 3:36, but it felt much later. One thing that continually astonished me in my life as a parent was how much day I had now that a child demanded my waking before first light. It seemed, today, I had already been up for so long, so much had already happened.

The sun moved a little lower and a little stronger, as if settling into the late afternoon. I could feel its heat, an Indian summer sort of warmth that raised the hair on my forearms, and I lowered the driver’s-side window. At the same moment, I caught a glimpse of myself in the side view mirror. My skin had a pinkish glow. I thought, for the first time in ages, that I looked passably pretty.

Seven years ago, I had left Ladd Williams. With only the smallest bit of encouragement, I had run away from everything my life was supposed to become. Driving away from him now, with the dusty volumes resting on the passenger seat, I remembered one of the earliest of those days. This is not hindsight or revisionist history. I remember it absolutely, thinking as I drove, about walking on the beach with Charlie in the days when we were first together.

That day—the day I remembered—I didn’t have a bathing suit. So when Charlie went out to swim I stood on the sand and watched him. Staring out to sea, I didn’t expect Charlie to stop or wave to me any more than I’d expect that from a porpoise. It felt like enough just to stand there, watching him, knowing he’d swim back to me before too long. And my chest swelled with a very specific sort of joy.

Charlie dove into the waves, disappearing, then reemerged. He stopped for a moment, getting his bearings, searching the sand. Looking for me. Across the water, I could sense more than see him smile. I thought of a stanza from an Emily Dickinson poem, which—if you believed my dissertation—had been written for Sue:

She beckons, and the woods start—

She nods, and all begin—

Surely—such a country

I was never in!

At that moment, the world settled in around me. Mist off the ocean draped itself over my skin. I could smell beach plum, rotting snails, and festering seaweed draped over rocks. Not so far away, Charlie dipped and dove under a sun that still insisted on summer. And I didn’t just love him. I loved him enough to stop caring about anything else. I loved him enough to wreck my life. I loved him the way you dream about being loved, when you don’t even know you’re dreaming.

LATER, THE POLICE TOLD me that Eli arrived a little after five. A neighbor saw his VW Golf pull into the driveway. A few hours later, I was putting Sarah to bed. She sprawled out in the middle of the queen-sized mattress—a fortress of pillows and sofa cushions surrounding her. Charlie and I had never been able to get Sarah into a crib. The first four months of her life, we’d traded off sleeping with her on our chests. Since then, she’d slept snuggled blissfully between us. Once I was sure she’d fallen asleep, I tiptoed down Maxine’s staircase. Walking into her kitchen, I could see the moonlight shine off the lake through professionally washed windows. Everything seemed peaceful and clean. Maxine poured me a glass of white wine and topped off her own while I placed the baby monitor on the kitchen table.