Chapter 4 #3
life have been on that beach. But she knew better. Austin has a dairy farm to run.
“Out,” says Caspian again, really quite pleasantly.
She sees a lot of Austin in her son right now, as she unbuckles him from his car seat while the girls unleash themselves from theirs.
If the color of his eyes is Natalie’s, the size and shape are Austin’s, huge and round; both father and son seem to be always on the verge of a happy exclamation of surprise.
This is how Caspian had looked at her the first moment she’d held him after birth: Oh, hey!
his expression had seemed to be saying. This is amazing!
I was hoping it would be you! Caspian has Austin’s kindness too, his son-of-a-pastor way of putting others before him, which, for anyone who wonders how
that manifests in a lightly verbal toddler, means that he’s always thrusting his favorite slimy-eared bunny at his sisters
or opening his chubby hands to reveal a smushed, damp graham cracker that he wants to offer to you, because even though he
loves graham crackers and they are his favorite snack in the whole world, it would make him happy to see you happy so he’d
like you to have it.
It’s a euphemism, the son-of-a-pastor thing; Austin’s family owns a commercial dairy farm in Montana. But he is kind! She cringes, thinking of the online comments she’d seen at the gas station. People are so quick to rush to judgment
without having all the facts.
She reminds herself: out of sight, out of mind. The thing about the online world is that if you simply turn off your phone
it all disappears. Right? Pop. Whoop. Zoop. Use any sound effect you like; it all disappears.
Her fingers itch, wanting to check her phone again.
If you take the love you have to be okay with the hate, Jordan will probably say when Natalie tells her the story, if she ever does. Or maybe Jordan will see it on her own. Maybe
she already has.
But Natalie is not okay with the hate! She wants only the love.
The girls run up to the door, delighted.
Caspian has never been here. He wasn’t yet born when Theresa died, and only Calvin and his daughters made the trip to scatter Theresa’s ashes.
It’s actually unlikely that Scarlett and Evangeline remember much, but they are obsessed with looking at photos of the Shipman sisters, and they’ve absorbed the house’s memories into their own.
Natalie had been fifteen the year the iPhone came out, so there is a healthy amount of digital documentation of her teenage years, for good and ill.
(“Is that you, Mommy?” the girls ask wonderingly, scrolling through.
“That’s not you.” Which makes Natalie wonder if the enormous amount of time and money she spends on skin care is worth it.
On the inside, she still feels nineteen.
In a mere five years she’ll be twice that.)
With Caspian on her hip and Cinnamon’s leash in her hand, Natalie and the girls enter through what is technically the back
door; all of the houses that sit beachfront like theirs does have all of their best parts facing toward the ocean. And why
shouldn’t they?
She drops the leash and calls Mae’s name; no answer. Then she hears her sister’s voice from upstairs: “Leo, stay. I’ll be
right back.”
Has Mae brought a boyfriend with her? Natalie tries to remember the last time they spoke and who Mae was dating at the time.
“Stay,” Mae’s voice commands.
Is this some kind of a dominatrix routine? Not in front of the children, please. Natalie had been hoping she could put one or both of the girls in with Mae so she’d have room to set up the portable crib
for Caspian. He has a tendency to wander in a new place, so she doesn’t trust him to stay in the bed with her. Caspian grabs
a hunk of her hair and shoves it gleefully in his mouth. Cinnamon has ambled off, so Natalie uses her free hand to liberate
her hair.
Mae appears at the top of the stairs. From behind Mae’s bedroom, the Green Room, comes a collection of noises, whines and scratches and, what is that, a body banging against the door?
Mae is wearing jean shorts with frayed edges and a fitted black tank, along with high-top Converse, also black.
(They had always been a no-shoe household, but probably two years of renters had rendered that rule moot.) She makes her way down, and the noises intensify.
Mae has new tattoos since Natalie saw her last, but if pressed Natalie wouldn’t be able to point out which specific ones are new. There are so many.
Natalie puts Caspian down and stretches her arm over her head to release the tension in her hip while she hugs her little
sister.
When they were kids, the three Shipman girls had their roles, as you do in a family. Jordan the problem solver, calm and capable.
Natalie in the middle, a whirling dervish of emotions and plans and so many feelings she didn’t always know what to do with
them. And then there was Mae, the baby, so full of joy that if she burped, butterflies and rainbows came out of her mouth
(not actually). And now look at her. Well, Natalie supposes you can be joyful and wear black Converse and armfuls and legfuls
of ink. But Mae doesn’t look joyful, hasn’t really looked truly joyful, old-Mae joyful, since they lost their mother.
“Aunt Maeeeeee!” cries Scarlett, and for a second Mae does look like her old self, as she crouches and opens her arms and
two nieces and a nephew tackle her until, in an exaggerated movement, she falls flat on the ground, her arms making a T. She
sticks her tongue out of one side of her mouth and closes her eyes, pretending to be dead, and Evangeline bangs on her chest,
maybe administering CPR. Maybe breaking a rib.
“Did you bring Cinnamon?” Mae asks, when she rises from the dead.
“Of course.” Natalie whistles and Cinnamon comes, tail moving back and forth, heading straight for Mae, who buries her face
in Cinnamon’s neck and says, “Hello, gorgeous.” Then to Natalie, “I was hoping you’d have left her back. No offense, Cinnamon.”
A thread of irritation materializes somewhere in the side of Natalie’s neck. She tries not to let herself pull at it, but
she pulls a little.
“Well, I didn’t. You love Cinnamon!” Mae loves all creatures great and small, and they all love her right back. She never babysat in high school because she ran such a thriving and lucrative pet-sitting business that she had all the spending money she needed.
Mae crosses one foot over another and stands in one single, elegant move, scarcely pushing off the floor. “I’ve got a trainee
dog upstairs. He’s a little reactive.” Evangeline and Scarlett take hold of Mae’s arms and examine her tattoos, tracing their
fingers over a set of winding vines.
“What does that mean? Reactive to what?”
Mae clears her throat. “Most things. People. Dogs. A garbage can that looks at him the wrong way. It’s okay, it’ll be fine.
I have a crate in the car. And you might have to leash Cinnamon when we’re all here.” Cinnamon looks offended. “I’ll wear
him, just in case,” Mae goes on. “I should be doing that anyway.”
“How do you wear a dog?” cries Evangeline, fascinated. Natalie imagines a dog in a BabyBjorn.
“I put a leash around my waist, and I attach him to it. That way I keep him safe, and I can teach him things as I go about
my day.”
“Attachment parenting at its best,” says Natalie.
She’s kidding, but there’s Mae, nodding seriously and saying, “You know what? I’m glad you brought Cinnamon. She’ll be a great
practice dog. She’s so mellow.” Natalie doesn’t know what a practice dog is but she figures it’s all there in the context.
Bang bang, goes the upstairs guest. Scratch.
“What is your trainee? Part elephant? All elephant?”
“Phant,” instructs Caspian sternly.
“No, he’s—” Mae glances at the kids. “Doesn’t matter. He’s a mix. He’s a rescue. He’s a good boy, just a little anxious. We’re
working through it. I’ll go get him before he knocks the door down.”
“I’ll get our bags. Scarlett, why don’t you help me.
Evangeline, keep an eye on Caspian. Caspian, keep an eye on Cinnamon.
” (Cinnamon doesn’t need an eye, but as she’s said on her parenting Substack, it’s important for the youngest member of the family to feel a sense of responsibility as early as possible.)
When she and Scarlett return with the luggage Mae is in the kitchen, filling a glass at the sink. Around her waist is some
sort of belt, and clipped to the belt is a dog leash. At the end of the leash, sitting next to Mae with his eyes fixed on
her, is a gray dog with short legs, a short snout, and a wide white stripe down the center of his face. His chest, which is
also white, looks so strong he could have just come from a CrossFit gym.
“This is Leo,” says Mae. “Don’t say hi right now. I’m working with him. Leo, you’re okay. Good boy. Stay.” Leo whines and
rolls his head toward Mae; Natalie can see the whites of his eyes. Mae puts down her water glass and feeds Leo a steady stream
of small treats from a pouch clipped to her waist contraption.
“Um, Mae. Is Leo a pit bull?” says Natalie. She takes Scarlett by the shoulder and backs her up.
Mae turns and moves to the far corner of the kitchen, keeping Leo right next to her.
“Only part,” she says. “Do you mind keeping your voice calm? ”
“You brought a pit bull with aggression issues around my children?” Natalie feels her voice go up an octave or two.
Mae sighs. “He’s not aggressive. He’s reactive. They’re not the same—”
Natalie cuts her off. “Where’s Cinnamon? Where are Evangeline and Caspian?”
“I asked Eva to—”
“Evangeline,” corrects Natalie. Natalie doesn’t allow nicknames.
“—keep Cinnamon and Caspian in the living room. I didn’t want to introduce the dogs yet. I thought that might trigger Leo.”
She’s not looking at Natalie so she doesn’t see how dramatically Natalie rolls her eyes at that one. “You know what? I’ll
grab the crate from the car.”
“Uh, yeah,” says Natalie, more snarkily than she means to. “Good idea.”