Chapter 4 #5
“I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to see the three of you together like this,” says Calvin, as Natalie ignores Mae’s question.
“So grown up and beautiful.” These would normally be sentiments Jordan would roll her eyes at—she’s been told she’s prickly, that she has a wall up, that it wouldn’t kill her to be softer—but there’s something really quite touching about watching her father express emotion.
(Are his eyes damp?) Emotion had been Theresa’s department, where Calvin expressed his love with acts of service and gratitude.
And dad jokes, lots of dad jokes. Calvin used to bring Theresa flowers from Bella Flora after work every Friday.
He made her the perfect dry martini each Saturday night before their date night.
He pumped the tires on the girls’ bikes and kept the garage organized and grilled a mean steak.
He would have walked barefoot over a field of razor blades if doing so would have saved his wife.
Beyond the windows, of course, is the ocean, stretching on forever and ever and ever. At low tide, as it is now, it’s the
longest, widest, prettiest beach on the Seacoast. Maybe in the whole world. New Hampshire boasts eighteen miles of coastline,
a length a state like California might laugh at, but each mile is a jewel. In another hour or so the sky will turn its famous
pinks and purples and they’ll have a front row seat to the show. Sunrise is even better, with the fireball rising over the
water from the edge of the horizon.
Jordan takes a sip of her drink, a gin and tonic, Broker’s London Dry; she’d brought it with her because she was worried there’d
be no good gin in the house (correct). The cubes clink against her teeth as she tips the glass all the way back, emptying
it. It would be rude to get up and get another. But she really wants one.
The children and Cinnamon have been banished to the upstairs, with the exception of Caspian, who’s walking around the living
room, placing a flat palm on any items whose name he knows and pronouncing them with authority and flourish, if sometimes
without their first letter. able. indow. ommy. Caspian has been told to give the dog a wide berth but every now and then he circles a little too close and Leo shows the
whites of his eyes.
“There’s another reason I wanted you all here.” Calvin clears his throat again and Jordan feels a pulse behind her left earlobe
(this is where all of her concerns first appear). What’s with all the throat activity? Esophageal cancer? She is not losing
another parent. She refuses!
“I guess I’ll just come out with it.” Calvin frowns, like he’s mad at the words that are about to emerge.
“Okay, here we go. I’m putting the house on the market.
” They all stare at him, open-mouthed. “Tomorrow is Monday. We have an open house scheduled for Sunday. That gives us six days to say goodbye, to enjoy some time here, to complete some tasks. The Realtor expects it will sell quickly. I have a lot of details to manage, so I’m asking you girls to clean out the garage.
I’ll handle the rest. I want you to have enough free time to enjoy your last week here. ”
Natalie swivels her head back and forth between Mae and Jordan. She’s the first to speak. “No,” she says firmly, in her strict
mom voice. “No. You can’t do that. Sorry, but no.”
“I knew that woman wasn’t a renter!” cries Mae. “She was definitely giving Realtor.”
Natalie and Jordan turn to Mae and together they say, “What woman?” at exactly the same time and in exactly the same tone.
Sometimes, there’s no arguing with the power of genetics.
“There was a woman outside when I got here. She was fiddling with the lockbox. I thought she was the renter, like maybe she’d
come back because she forgot something. But it was suspicious; she was way overdressed for a beach vacation.” Mae turns accusingly
to her father. “Why didn’t she say?”
“I asked Nikoletta if she happened to see you not to say anything until I’d talked to you.”
“Nikoletta,” says Natalie. “That’s such a Realtor name.”
“You can’t sell Mom’s house,” says Mae. “You can’t, this person Nikoletta can’t, nobody can.”
Calvin folds his hands and places them in his lap. He might have been praying, except the Shipmans don’t pray. “It’s already
listed. It’s done. I signed the papers. When Kara gets here on Tuesday—”
Natalie breaks in first, but they’re all thinking it, ho, boy, they are all thinking it. “Kara’s coming? To our family bonding
week?” Her voice rises close to a shriek: “To the first time we’ve spent real time here without Mom?”
Calvin says, “Kara is—” and they take a collective breath, because they all expect him to say, Kara is family, and two of them have their mental fists raised, ready to pummel those words. “Kara is visiting her mother in Cincinnati,”
says Calvin. “She’s flying back. She lands at two on Tuesday.”
“That’s a terrible idea,” says Jordan, and her sisters turn toward her, surprised that she could be so bold. “What? She’s
flying into Logan at two? You’ll spend the whole day in rush-hour traffic.”
“That’s not the terrible idea!” cries Natalie, going for it. “The terrible idea is that she’s coming at all.”
“She could take the bus,” says Mae. “You could collect her in Portsmouth.”
Calvin shakes his head. “She’s not taking the bus. I’ll pick her up.”
Mae says, “It’s a coach bus. It’s not, like, a yellow school bus.”
“You could put her in an Uber,” says Jordan. “If she has to come at all.”
“Uber’s worse,” says Mae. “She could get murdered in an Uber.” Then, at her father’s expression, “She could. You’re not supposed
to take an Uber alone for a long ride!”
“A young woman can’t be too careful in this world,” adds Natalie snarkily. Guns are blazing, thinks Jordan. Leave it to Natalie.
(Kara is forty, only four years older than Jordan.)
“None of this is the issue. Why is Kara coming?” asks Jordan. “She’s never been here, right?”
“Correct,” says Calvin.
“Why not just keep it that way?” asks Jordan.
Calvin sighs. “She wanted to see the house once. And she is my wife, so, like it or not, she’s part of this family.”
Natalie huffs and says, “I call not liking it.”
“You’re all missing the point,” says Mae.
“The point is that selling the house is like selling Mom. Her ashes are out there!” She points to the ocean.
Yes, it’s true; on a cold gray October morning, just past dawn, six months to the day after Theresa died, they’d all donned waders and walked across the piles of seaweed cast upon the sand and flung handfuls of ashes into the sea.
“It does feel like you’re selling Mom,” confirms Natalie.
Calvin rubs his eye for many, many seconds. When he stops rubbing it, he says, “I understand your responses. Everything you’re
feeling is valid. But I’m not selling your mother. This is a financial decision, not an emotional one.”
“All decisions are emotional,” counters Natalie.
Calvin takes a breath so slow and deliberate they can all see his ribs expand. “This is a financial decision,” he repeats.
“You’re all off in your own lives. This house is three hours away from Lenox. I needed to make a plan that makes the most
sense.”
“This house has always been three hours away from Lenox,” Mae points out.
Jordan is annoyed—are her sisters being deliberately obtuse? “What he’s saying, you guys, is that Kara doesn’t want to come
here.”
“I’m not saying—”
“I knew Kara was behind this,” spits Natalie. “I knew she was making you sell it.”
“Kara isn’t making me sell anything. But obviously we’re not using it the way we did when your mother was alive.”
“I thought you were renting it,” says Mae.
“I was. But that’s a lot to keep track of, from afar.”
“You can hire a property manager,” says Natalie.
“But if something breaks, I could lose the whole rental check on the repair. The roof needs replacing. The washer and dryer are on their last legs. The taxes are high. Flood insurance is through the roof. I’m just waiting for the day when the insurance company cancels it altogether.
The cost of keeping a house we’re not living in has become untenable.
” He clears his throat again. “I’m sorry.
I know this isn’t something you wanted to hear. But you all have your own homes now.”
“Not me,” says Mae softly.
“Yes, you do,” says Natalie. “A rental is still a home.” She pats Mae’s knee, and Leo growls. Mae lets out a puff of air and
doesn’t answer. Natalie was four when Mae was born, and Jordan remembers how Natalie used to treat Mae like her own personal
American Girl doll. She tried to help their busy mother change her diapers; she fed Cheerios, one by one, into Mae’s little
mouth as soon as she was old enough. She picked out her outfits and brushed tangles from her beautiful hair.
“Where’d all the pictures go?” asks Mae. Suddenly she sounds so young. “The family photos? Are they gone?” Her voice cracks.
“Same question,” says Natalie.
“I put them away when we started renting it,” says Calvin.
“If this is our last week here,” says Natalie, “we need to put the pictures back.”
“I’ll put the pictures back,” says Calvin. “Yes, sure, I can do that.”
“I really thought this was family bonding week,” says Mae. She looks really desolate. “Not selling-the-family-house week.”
“I told the kids we’d go to the beach every day, and now we’re cleaning out a garage,” says Natalie.
“Of course we’ll go to the beach!” says Calvin. “There are a lot of hours in a day.”
“Not enough,” says Natalie.
“I’m getting another drink,” says Jordan, standing, picking up her phone. “Anyone want anything?”
Natalie and Mae shake their heads. “I’ll take a double,” says Calvin.
“A double what?”
“A double anything.”
The living room bleeds into the kitchen. The sunroom is off to the side, with its own door. The sunroom is where, as kids, they were relegated with their card games and board games, their pre-technology forms of entertainment.