Page 55 of Our Last Vineyard Summer

Betsy gently squeezed the boy’s small feet curled up on either side of her abdomen. “I kind of feel like a kid again, living here and teaching sailing.”

“I don’t want you to think this nonsense with the house will get in the way of your degree. I will find a way to pay for it. Okay?”

Her former lover told her he wanted nothing to do with this baby; Betsy was thinking of having it on her own. What did she have to lose in admitting to her mother her ambivalence toward graduate school? Last week, she’d committed to returning. Now she wasn’t sure.

“I’m still trying to figure out if I should return to Columbia in the fall. I’m not sure I want to finish.” Betsy braced herself for an earthquake, the collapse of the roof, the pain of being kicked in the chest.

A Chatty Cathy doll commercial interrupted the weight of what she’d said, and Tabby hugged Virgie’s legs, grinning up at her grandma, before turning back to her show.

Her mother gave Betsy a strong decisive nod. “Okay.”

There was no frown, no demand. It was almost disappointing. “You don’t care if I finish my degree or not?”

Outside the living room windows, the hydrangea blooms pressed against the screen. “Oh, I care, honey, and I think it’s a mistake, but I can’t force you to continue. You’re getting older, and that means, at some point, you’re going to have to figure out what’s going to make you happy. I wish you liked your program because you would be done with the tough part, figuring out what you want out of life. Not knowing means you’re going to have to start over, and I don’t envy that. It’s hard work finding the thing that lights us up.”

Betsy sank into her thoughts. She wasn’t expecting theapprovalof her mother, and it confused her further. If she had this baby, Betsy would have no money, no job, no house, no direction. It was ludicrous, and yet why did she want it? Maybe because she was tired of waiting for a man to begin her life, maybe because she wanted to do things differently than she’d been prescribed. Career first, husband second, baby third. Still, she couldn’t go back to Columbia and push a stroller around campus. Her professors barely took her seriously now. It was maddening. Andy would earn tenure at Dartmouth without anyone wondering how he would pull off being a father and a professor.

Betsy’s thoughts churned. She needed someone to blame. “My classmates, they just make me feel so stupid. I have this paper, and I was told I had to do a complete rewrite.”

Small lines around her mother’s mouth deepened, her “thinking lines,” she called them. “Do you know how many people have insulted my intellect, Betsy? Even your father was guilty of that, and he would call himself a feminist, at least in private. Don’t let them win, Betts. You know that.”

“I know.” The baby was warm against her chest. “But I’m already flattened like a pancake. I’m not sure I have any fight in me. I’m not sure I ever did.”

“Oh, honey, but you do.” She started to offer examples of when Betsy had fought back as a kid, then stopped, inhaling deeply. “Listen, Betts, I’m happy you’re enjoying sailing, and I know that you brieflyreconnected with James, but going back in time, it won’t fix things. It won’t bring Dad back.”

“I’m not trying to bring Dad back. Don’t you think I know he’s gone?” The baby startled at Betsy’s rising voice.

Her mother crossed her arms, curling into herself. “You don’t talk to us, Betsy. You don’t tell us what’s going on in here.” Pressing her hand against breastbone, her mother’s voice wavered. “You aren’t processing. You’re avoiding, and I’m worried that if you keep avoiding—”

“Stop telling me everything I’m doing wrong, Mom. Why don’t you tell us about what you’re writing up there all day long?” Betsy rose from the couch, pacing in front of the television while holding the baby, motioning for Louisa to come inside. “How you’re typing up horrible things about Dad, and for what, some article?”

Internally, Betsy scolded herself for engaging in this fight.Go silent, she told herself. Louisa leaned against the doorjamb.

“I’m writing our story, journaling.”

“For what publisher?”

Her mother didn’t move. “Betsy, writing is how I process the world around me, and for now, what I’m doing is none of your business. You shouldn’t have been in my drawers.”

The baby started to cry, and Betsy lowered her voice. “Now look at what you’ve done. You woke up the baby.” She bounded past Louisa into the kitchen. “You know, sometimes you make me never want to come home.”

“All I was saying is that you can’t go backward, and now you’re flipping out.” The concern in her mother’s eyes made Betsy feel like she might throw up.

“I’m not going backward; I came here because you asked me for help!”

“But you brought everything you own? You moved back here like you were coming for good, even your winter coat and Stevie Nicks records. I don’t understand what that means.”

“It means that the one person who should always be looking out for me is worried that I’m going to inconvenience her.”

“That is not true.” It was quiet for a while. Her mother followed her out the back door in bare feet. “I know we’re not perfect, Betsy. I know I’m not perfect, but with Dad gone, we’re all you’ve got.”

“Gee, thanks for the reminder. Let’s talk one more time about how much we mean to each other when no one in this house seems to like each other!”

Betsy stormed down the lawn, still cradling her nephew. She paced the dock besideSenatorial, wishing her father were there. That was when he would have come outside to talk to her, to offer a balanced voice and urge her to come inside. Sliding one of his strong arms around her shoulders, he would have said something like, “Your mother needs to feel like she’s in control. You and me, we don’t like as many rules.”

Betsy trudged through the muddy grass to the front of the house, where she would wait on the porch for Aggie to get home. Then she’d go to the yacht club and race those boats as deep into the harbor as she could.

Fresh flowers in every room. Open windows. Beds made with hospital corners.

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