Page 48 of Our Last Vineyard Summer

1978

Betsy parked her bike in the musty garage, the pregnancy test burning a hole in her messenger bag. From afar, she waved hello to her sisters, both engrossed in different novels on the back lawn while lounging in Adirondack chairs. Then she hurried up the steps and inside to the smell of cut roses and the sound of her mother’s typing carrying through the house. That darn book. When Betsy mentioned the disparaging writings to her sisters last week, they’d shrugged it off. “It’s probably a way of her grieving. It’s like making sense of who you were with the person and who you are without them,” Louisa said. Aggie nodded: “I think it’s healthy.”

The kitchen was clean of dishes. The living room vacuumed and everything in place. Betsy felt like she couldn’t sit still, and yet she wouldn’t take the test until later, once the chance of someone discovering what she was doing had passed. Betsy slipped up the crooked steps with her messenger bag, burying the bag behind the suitcases in the bedroom closet. She slumped on the bed, staring at the textbooks she’d lined up on the small desk. Rising, she grazed the titles with her fingertips and opened one:Games People Play. It wasn’t a textbook, perse, but a pop psychology bestseller that she’d put off reading. With her elbows on the desk, she began to read, the pages turning quickly. The premise was that everyone needed “strokes” from others to feel good about themselves. Some got positive reinforcement from their fans, like an actor to applause, and some got good feelings from close family members. Betsy lowered the book into her lap and gazed out at the harbor still busy with boats and sailors. Is that why her family was always disappointing her? she thought. Were they the only ones she looked to for affirmation? Perhaps she should rewrite her term paper and finish graduate school, she thought then. Something about the possibility of a pregnancy making her ache for her status quo existence of a month before. She could use the sadness surrounding this beach house as the basis for a new thesis: “The Psychological Implications of Losing Home.”

Dinner that night was a bit of a disaster, with Tabby wailing as Louisa lowered the lobsters into the giant pot of boiling water, while her mother melted butter in a small saucepan and tried to calm the child.

Betsy, who was slicing potatoes in half to boil, resorted to bribery, since red rings around Tabby’s eyes had started to resemble a raccoon. “If you stop crying, I’ll take you for ice cream after dinner?”

Aggie looked none too pleased, placing her daughter on her hip after placing the baby in the bouncy seat. “Please don’t placate Tabby with sweets. That’s dangerous as she gets older and thinks donuts will heal a broken heart.”

“They do heal a broken heart,” Betsy deadpanned. How many sweets had she’d eaten since Andy had left her? The day after, she’d consumed an entire box of chocolates.

Her mother stirred the butter. “Well, your midline won’t appreciate that form of happiness, and no matter how much women complain that men still judge us by our midlines, they also still judge us by our midlines.”

“That’s hardly a feminist stance, Mom.” Louisa wiped her hands on her apron, reaching for the salt to shake into the lobster water.

Her mother ran her hands down the front of her denim skirt. “Think of it this way: Who wants to see someone unattractive holding a protest sign? They let me go on the morning news show and speak my mind for one reason.”

It was Aggie that piped in. “Because you’re incredibly smart and interesting to listen to?”

“I wish that were the only reason.” Her mother used an oven mitt to lift the lid off the lobsters, then placed it back down. “It’s also because I’m not offensive to look at. Why do you think people liked Gloria Steinem more than they did Betty Friedan? It’s because Gloria wasn’t half bad to look at. Femininity is a form of power when it comes to magazines and television. An elegant woman can have a voice because men notice her and want to hear what she has to say.”

“That’s warped,” Betsy said. “Maybe women want to hear what you have to say.”

“Maybe.” Her mother shrugged. “But men must allow it. We live in a man’s world, girls, and we’re not leaving it anytime soon, even if we have Jimmy Carter on our side. Jimmy Carter is not the savior of the feminists.”

“That’s a good cover story headline.” Louisa smiled. “Can Jimmy Carter save the feminists?”

Her mother pulled a small notebook out of the drawer and scribbled it down in black marker. “That’s quite good, Lou. I’ve been a bit out of ideas since Dad died. I only want to write about him.”

Betsy shot her sisters a searing look, mouthing the words,I told you so.

That night, in the pitch-black of her bedroom, with everyone asleep and Louisa gently snoring in the bed beside her, Betsy pulled hermessenger bag out of her closet. Carrying it downstairs to the green-tiled half bathroom, Betsy pulled out the Predictor test. Using a flashlight to see, afraid that turning on the light would alert someone she was inside, she carefully followed the instructions, peeing into a test tube and mixing it with a chemical to leave it in the provided container for two hours. She glanced at her watch. Twelve thirty. In the meantime, she’d continue reading for school, taking notes about this new idea she had for her term paper about the impact of a childhood home on development.

It was two thirty when Betsy put the Predictor’s mirror on the top of the toilet, shining the beam onto the clear plastic cube. The instructions said that women who were pregnant should be able to see a small brown circle gathered at the bottom of the test tube, as reflected in the provided mirror. At first, since she was using a flashlight in the dark, Betsy couldn’t see anything at all, not even the blue liquid. Then she shined the beam directly over the tube. A circle of light angled just right.

And there it was: a tiny brown halo floating in the blue dye.

CHAPTER NINETEENVirgie

Chappaquiddick

1965

The Chappy ferry parked at the tiny terminal on the other side of the harbor, Virgie adjusting her thighs as they stuck to the seats with humidity. She raced off the tiny ferry, the laughter of summer tourists punctuating her thoughts as she said a prayer to Louisa in the front seat. “Please don’t let her be dead. Please tell me she didn’t find Pamela dead.”

Louisa licked her pallid lips, her eyes darting about the roadway.

For a second, Virgie couldn’t remember where his house was, her mind whirring with worry. She blew by the driveway with the hand-painted sign reading, SUNDAY. Turning the car around with a screeching halt, Virgie pulled down the bumpy dirt driveway, wondering if the children had called an ambulance. Parking, she sprinted through the front door.

James had his body draped over his mother’s, who was lying on the floor, while Betsy sat on the couch with a brown velour throw blanket around her shoulders, shivering, despite the eighty degrees. “Honey, go to the car,” she said, instructing Louisa and Aggie to usher their baby sister outside.

A quick sweep of the room with her eyes. The house was still immaculate. The plastic remained on the sofa; the counters wiped clean. Two empty bottles of wine in the sink, a glass shattered on the floor near Pamela’s fuzzy slippers. Virgie nudged the boy’s small shoulder. “James, it’s okay. Sit up, dear. Let me get a look at her.”

The child didn’t move, so Virgie reached under his arms and lifted him. His lips were inflamed, his nose goopy. “Stop,” he roared. “Let me go!”

Virgie checked for a pulse. The woman’s hands were warm and pink, the beds of her fingernails with color, a good sign. In her veiny wrist she felt the ticking of her heart.

---