Page 38 of Our Last Vineyard Summer

He nodded, telling them that he had two Sunfish he kept on his dock, how he wanted his daughter to be comfortable on the water. They followed Mr. Erwin into his fluorescent-lit office, except for Aggie, who lagged behind and asked the teller, dressed in a pressed skirt suit, if Tabby could color at her feet. Minutes later, Aggie joined them in his office, holding the baby against her flowy chambray dress.

The sisters sat opposite Mr. Erwin’s metal desk in wooden chairs that looked like they were bought at a local chowder house. Louisa got right to the point. “We would like to apply for a personal loan. Our mother is in financial trouble, and we need to help.”

Betsy’s thoughts flashed to a meeting she’d gone to with her mother on Capitol Hill several years ago, when Virgie had been advising college women about lobbying to end sex discrimination when renting a house or apartment. How they’d listened to her with rapt attention as she’d told them: “Don’t demand. Don’t be angry. Be nice and smile but be persuasive. Make it personal, make your cause about the mothers and sisters and girlfriends in these staffers’ lives.”

Mr. Erwin’s elbows were on the desk, and he folded his stubby hands together. “Well, your father was a longtime member of our institution. If there’s a way I can help, I will.” His eyes trained on Betsy, which seemed to unnerve Louisa, but she played along.

“Why don’t you explain everything to Mr. Erwin, Betts?”

The lights on his tan office phone blinked red, indicating a call coming through. Betsy tried not to race through their story in fear that he’d cut her off and pick it up. How her mother believed she needed to sell the house, but they wanted to take out a loan, the three of them applying together, to try to pay off the debts.

Louisa twirled the diamond stud in one ear. “We’re coming to you in the exploratory phase.”

He cracked his knuckles. “Do you know what you owe?”

“First, we’d like to know what we need, what documents we must gather, to apply for the loan.” Aggie bounced the baby in her arms, shifting her weight from one huarache sandal to the other. Her blue eyeshadow made her light eyes pop.

The lights blinked on and off on the banker’s phone. He folded his arms on the desk.

“Is it just the three of you applying?”

Mikey’s gentle protests grew into a high-pitched howl. “Sh, sh, sh. Yes, the three of us.”

He spoke over the baby’s cries. “There will be no husbands on the loan.”

Louisa turned to Aggie, her voice sharp. “Maybe he needs a diaper change?”

“I can change him,” Betsy offered, her thoughts sliding away.You have six hundred dollars in a sock in your top drawer. You can go to a clinic if you need to.

Aggie popped a binky in the baby’s mouth, nodding for Louisa to keep talking. “What documents do we need to apply?”

Mr. Erwin scribbled a list on a piece of notepaper. “W-2s. Any real estate holdings your family has, stocks.”

“I don’t believe our mom has much savings at all,” Betsy said, her voice frantic. “I couldn’t find anything in her records other than a joint bank account. There are two loans we’re trying to pay back that total $150,000.”

Mr. Erwin lowered his pen. “Well, I hope your mother has some savings.”

Her mother had three hundred dollars in her account; Betsy had seen her checkbook.

Mr. Erwin stood abruptly from behind the desk. “Listen, girls. I’m afraid I can’t help. If your father owes $150,000 and your mother is in the red and two of you don’t have real jobs…”

“This is what I make.” Louisa wrote a number on a notepad and turned it around for him to see, keeping it out of view of Aggie and Betsy. “My sisters have some savings. What do we need to do to get a loan for $150,000?”

He returned to his desk, sitting and clicking a silver pen a few times, then set it down. “I’m sorry, but this isn’t going to work. A note shared by three sisters, two of whom don’t even work real jobs—that is a red flag to us.”

Betsy felt like she was disappearing into the scratchy fabric of the chair. “You’d at least consider our application, wouldn’t you?”

“You’re welcome to apply.” Mr. Erwin pulled out his bottom drawer, licking his fingers and unsticking pages to slip into a packet thick withinformation about bank rates and requirements. “The law says anyone can apply. But the law can’t measure the amount of risk, and this doesn’t feel like a traditional setup. What if Louisa loses her job tomorrow? How will the two of you pay?”

They left his office, walking into the teller lobby with Tabby smiling at them. A sense of failure permeated all three of the sisters’ moods as Betsy closed the screen door to the bank. They walked toward the harbor in silence, sitting on a rock with a plaque about the earliest settlers.

“Here’s what I don’t get. Mom and Dad told each other everything. He must have told her he was taking out these loans.”

“That’s the strange part, Betts. He didn’t have to. Mom’s name isn’t even on the deed of the house, even though she is the one that inherited it. The deed is registered to Charles Whiting.”

“Good God. Property is just one more way that women are disenfranchised in this country.” Louisa got that self-righteous grimace on her face, like she was the only who could see the hypocrisy of the world. “It happened all the time when property transferred. Women couldn’t own it on their own or it wasn’t deemed acceptable for them to, so it was easiest to put real estate in their husband’s name. You realize, right, that single women could only get a mortgage as of like four years ago.”

“You’re not the only one who read Mom’s article.” Aggie flicked her sister in the shoulder. Her mother had written a series of articles in the early seventies about the audacity of banks not to give single women credit cards or a mortgage; it had started a debate in Congress and likely helped turn public opinion to pass the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, a law that established a single woman’s right to apply for credit.

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