Interstitial #8
“Your grandfather’s child bride.”
Natalie rolls her eyes. “Much better.” She releases her hair from Caspian’s hold and sits on one of the loungers. Caspian,
still sleepy, lays his head on her chest. Mae sits in one of the regular chairs, holding Leo’s leash, and Jordan hovers, full
of confused energy.
“They were so young when Mom died,” continues Natalie.
“Only Evangeline has any real memories. It breaks my heart to realize they didn’t really know her.
Or she, them.” Jordan watches her sit with that for a moment, then Natalie says, “Did she do anything egregious yet? Anything we can complain about?”
“Not yet,” says Jordan. “Frankly, it’s annoying.”
“How about on the drive, Mae?”
“Hmm. Nope.”
There’s a long silence while all of the Shipman girls look out at the beach. The beachgoers are like characters in a play,
and the Shipmans are the audience, in their own private box. Families, young couples, people walking alone, the occasional
runner.
“You know,” says Mae. “I don’t think it was having no glasses that made Dad look vulnerable.”
Jordan turns to her. “What do you mean?”
“I thought he looked like not himself without his glasses, but I don’t think that was it. I think it was solitude.”
“Oh, please, Mae.”
“What?”
“Where’s your loyalty?”
“It’s not about loyalty.”
“Of course it is,” says Jordan. “Dad marrying Kara is disloyal to Mom. It’s that simple. And if you’re okay with that, you’re
disloyal to Mom too.”
She almost says and that’s that, and makes a motion like she’s dusting off her palms, because Mae is so much younger and has always listened to Jordan. So
she’s surprised when Mae meets her gaze and shakes her head.
“I disagree,” she says. “I think there’s more than one kind of love. I think Dad has found another kind, and maybe that’s
okay.”
It’s a wise thing for Mae to say, and it may even be true, and these things make Jordan even more angry, just the way the
rush of feelings when she saw Kara made her feel confused. “Well, there shouldn’t be,” she spits. “There should only be one.”
From the upper deck, the one outside the primary bedroom, Kara sneezes.
Natalie offers to make dinner for everyone and disappears into the kitchen with Caspian. Mae goes in search of Leo, who’d
been so tired from the airport adventure that he’d conked out in the sunroom.
This is where she finds Evangeline sitting on the couch. Her spine is as straight and her bearing is as pleasing as a debutante’s.
In front of her are two sleeping dogs. Cinnamon lies on her left side and Leo on his right. Cinnamon’s black lip is trembling
with each exhale. Neither wakes when Mae comes in.
“Shhh.” Evangeline lifts a finger to her lips, so Mae does an exaggerated tiptoe over to her and sits beside her on the couch.
This is what she likes about being an aunt: being able to do silly things like exaggerated tiptoes and getting a good satisfying
laugh from her audience.
“How long have you been sitting here?” she whispers.
“Awhile. Leo woke up when Cinnamon came in, then I sang them to sleep.”
“You did? What’d you sing?”
“ ‘Tomorrow.’ From Annie.” Without shame or embarrassment Evangeline opens her mouth and unleashes a verse: “When I’m stuck .
. .” Her voice is high and clear and lovely, perfectly in tune, and Mae is mesmerized.
None of the Shipman girls can sing. Where did Evangeline get this voice?
Can Austin sing? She thinks back to Natalie and Austin’s wedding at the Wentworth by the Sea hotel.
She has a vague memory of Austin holding a microphone, but that’s it.
It had been a giant party of a wedding, and everyone had been tipsy or downright drunk, Mae included.
“They settled down, and then they fell asleep.”
“Amazing,” says Mae, legitimately impressed. “Look at how they’re lying. See? When a dog lies on his side like that it means
he’s completely relaxed. Dogs don’t go into that position unless they feel really safe and protected. You’re officially hired
as my assistant dog trainer!”
“Really?”
“Definitely. Unfortunately, it’s an unpaid position. But it’s prestigious.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Important.”
“Okay.”
Then she asks Evangeline if she can video her singing to the dogs. She imagines sending the video to Human Leo, showing him
how relaxed Leo is around another dog, how well cared for he is during his week with Mae.
“Okay,” says Evangeline.
“I won’t post it or anything. I might just send it to Leo’s owner.”
“I thought you were Leo’s owner.”
“Alas, I am not. I’m just Leo’s trainer for the week.”
“And then what?”
“And then I have to give him back to his real owner.”
“Are you sad to do that?”
“I am. I’m very sad to do that.” Again comes the pull on her heart.
Evangeline repeats the verse, and Mae captures it. “You can post it if you want.” Is there something world-weary in this,
or has Mae imagined it?
Evangeline leans against Mae like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Her hair smells like strawberry shampoo and her hand is just a little sticky. Is this motherhood? wonders Mae. This deep and abiding sense of peace, the connection with another person—is this it? Could she do it one day?
She remembers Natalie’s all-consuming fatigue the summer she was pregnant with Scarlett and Evangeline was still so little.
Mae had stayed on the farm with the family for two weeks. She remembers how Natalie had to keep dragging herself from task
to task because, well, she had no choice. To the barn, to the house, the crib, the kitchen. “Go rest,” Mae had told her. “That’s
why I’m here.” Natalie had said, “This is resting.”
“I have to tell you something,” whispers Evangeline.
“I’m all ears.”
“I lost a tooth.”
She unrolls her fingers to reveal the white nugget in the center of her palm. With her other hand she pulls down her lower
lip to show Mae a hole in the center of her bottom row of teeth.
Mae says, “May I?” When Evangeline nods she picks the tooth up and studies it. It’s so small! How did it possibly do any chewing
or biting? “Wow,” she says reverently.
Evangeline nods. “My first one.”
Mae sits up straight, almost throwing Evangeline off of her. “Your first one?” Should Mae get Natalie? What is supposed to
happen next? Evangeline nods and then confesses, “All my friends already lost their first ones. I’ve been wiggling it with
my tongue.”
“As you should!” says Mae. “The wiggling of a tooth is a rite of passage.” Then she says, “Should we get your mom?” Evangeline
considers, then shakes her head. “Are you going to put it under your pillow tonight?” Evangeline shakes her head more vehemently.
“Why not?”
“Scared,” she whispers.
“What are you scared of?” Mae hands the tooth back to Evangeline, who puts it down on the coffee table, where it looks even smaller, like a piece of rice that spilled out of somebody’s take-out container.
“I don’t want a little fairy flying around me.”
Mae thinks about this. She doesn’t blame Evangeline. Grimms’ Fairy Tales, Santa coming down chimneys to bring presents, creatures flitting near pillows while you slumber. What outlandish scenarios
we paint for children! It’s a wonder, thinks Mae, that anyone comes out of childhood even remotely sane.
On the other hand, Evangeline has seen some real shit. She’s seen a cow die in childbirth, another from pneumonia. She’s witnessed
stillbirths. Evangeline understands that a glass of milk is not just a beverage but a stop on the life-death continuum. With
this vast life experience, shouldn’t she be okay with a small money-dropping fairy?
“Did you?” asks Evangeline.
Mae snaps herself back to the conversation. “Did I what?”
“Did you used to like when the Tooth Fairy came?”
Mae squeezes her eyes shut, brings herself to their house on Galway Court, her twin bed with the light pink comforter.
She used to have a little heart-shaped cushion with a small pocket on the front of it to hold the tooth.
The pillow had belonged first to Jordan and then had been passed down to Natalie, then down again to Mae.
By the time Mae started losing teeth, of course, her sisters were all done; Jordan was already in braces, her adult teeth established enough to need straightening, always so far ahead of Mae.
“I liked the money, sure. Who doesn’t?” Two dollars was the going rate then.
Five for each front tooth. Mae remembers Jordan complaining that she used to get only a dollar and Theresa had said, “Inflation strikes even the fairy world.” She probably had a wink in her voice, but Mae was too young, or simply too much of a believer, to catch it.
She had believed so long in the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, even the St. Patrick’s Day leprechaun, which should have strained even her stalwart credulity.
Her family is right about her. She is too naive.
And that’s why she is where she is now—pretty much penniless, quite literally unhoused, and without a plan for how to get back on track.
Evangeline sucks on her bottom lip and says, “Yeah, I guess. I guess the money would be good.”
“What would you buy with it?”
Evangeline thinks about it, really thinks, and then says, “A present for Mommy. A diamond necklace.”
This kid is too good to be true. “Okay!” says Mae, encouragingly. “That’s really nice.” She won’t pop the bubble of Evangeline’s
dream with an economics lesson. Instead she asks, “Do you miss your cows when you’re gone, or do you like having a break from
the farm?”
“Both.”
“What’s your favorite thing about them?”
“Their eyelashes,” says Evangeline instantly.
“Nice!” says Mae. “Eyelashes. Love it. What about them?”
“They’re long. And pretty. Sometimes they’re blond and sometimes they’re brown but they’re so, so pretty.”
“I’ll have to look more closely next time I visit you.”
The dogs begin to stir. Cinnamon stretches her front legs all the way straight, which is a signal that she’s waking up. Evangeline