Interstitial #11
Natalie brings down Caspian’s portable crib and sets it up in the dining room. Calvin opens a bottle of sauvignon blanc and walks around the table like a fine-dining waiter, filling glasses. “I’ll get a second bottle from the kitchen,” he says.
When he’s gone, Kara stands uncertainly—not quite guest, not blood relation, she’s somewhere in the no-man’s-land in between.
The only unclaimed chair, they all realize at the same time, is Theresa’s. “She can’t sit there,” Jordan says to no one in
particular. “That’s Mom’s chair.” Then to Kara, “Sorry, it’s just . . .”
“No, I get it,” says Kara. “So where should I sit?”
Mae is desperate to save Kara. (What is taking Calvin so long?) “Switch with me,” she says. She picks up her water glass,
the napkin she’s already unfolded, and prepares to move around the table. Then Calvin comes back, assesses the situation,
and says, “Kara, you sit here.” He indicates his own chair. “I’ll sit there.” Theresa’s.
The lemon pasta is gorgeous, with ribbons of fresh basil on top and shaved Parmesan on the side. There’s a homemade dressing
to go with the salad. Croutons from scratch, which Mae watched Natalie make by cubing a partial loaf of bread, tossing the
cubes with olive oil and spices, and baking them. Mae didn’t even know homemade croutons were a thing. Mae puts Leo’s leash
on and loops it around the leg of her chair. She has a pocketful of treats to reward him for nice dinnertime behavior. Natalie
offers to serve the pasta from her seat since the bowl is heavy, but says she’ll pass the salad and the cheese and the bread
around the table. She passes to her left first, to Jordan.
Jordan passes the cheese without taking any.
“Please don’t tell me you’re vegan now too,” says Natalie.
If this family were a string diagram, thinks Mae, with each string representing a source of tension between one person and
another, they’d have quite a design by now. She’d start with whatever is going on between Jordan and Natalie; that would be
one string. Jordan and Kara: a permanent string. Ditto Natalie and Kara. Who would Mae’s string attach to?
Jordan says, “Too?”
Evangeline is watching closely with the observance of a person small enough to fit into the corners of the world and witness
from there. “Like the lady Mommy doesn’t like.”
“Who?” says Natalie.
“The lady with the brown hair.”
“The Realtor,” deciphers Mae.
“I didn’t say I didn’t like her!” Natalie protests.
“You called her an idiot,” says Evangeline.
Mae sees the color rise to Natalie’s cheeks.
Mae waits for Natalie to Houdini her way out of this, but while there is a lot a person can argue with, there is very little
arguing with the Venus flytrap memory of a smart young girl. Mae places a slender string between Evangeline and Natalie.
“Nikoletta comes highly recommended,” says Calvin. “I didn’t realize you had a problem with her.”
“I don’t,” says Natalie. “I have a problem with selling the house. As you know.”
Caspian yells, “Bah!” and beats the side of the portable crib. Natalie fed him while she was cooking, so he’s chewing a board
book for dessert.
They eat in silence for a while. “The dinner is phenomenal,” says Kara. She sneezes. Mae peeks under the table and sees that
Leo is lying on Kara’s foot. She tries to give him a hand signal to move him closer to her but he doesn’t see, or pretends
not to.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to eat a store-bought crouton again,” Mae says, digging into her salad. “These are incredible.”
“We grew up on store-bought croutons,” Jordan points out.
“Me too,” says Kara. Jordan ignores this attempt at solidarity.
“Sure, but homemade is always better,” says Natalie primly.
“If you have time to make them. Mom didn’t.”
“Easy, girls,” says Calvin warningly.
This odd little altercation is not about the croutons, obviously, but Mae can’t figure out what it is about. The string between
her sisters is growing thicker.
Calvin drops his napkin and bends over to get it. It’s just out of reach, and the display of his bald spot as he tries for
it makes Mae sad. She wonders if her sisters notice it too. Throughout his fifties and into his sixties Calvin had had famously
thick hair. The Lion of Lenox, Theresa used to call him. Scarlett cries, “I’ll get it!” and jumps out of her seat.
Jordan says, “Dad can get his own napkin.” Her voice is sharp.
Scarlett freezes.
Natalie shoots Jordan a look and says, “No, go ahead, Scarlett, thank you, that’s very kind.”
Scarlett reaches down slowly, like the napkin might bite her.
“Natalie,” Jordan hisses.
“What?”
“Your daughter is waiting on the man. Do you not see a problem with this?”
“My daughter,” says Natalie, “has manners, and she’s being helpful to her grandfather.”
Jordan shakes her head. “This is why you’re where you are right now.”
“Where is Natalie right now?” Mae wonders.
“Nowhere,” snaps Natalie. “I’m right here.”
“Can we get a puppy?” ask Evangeline. Kudos to Evangeline, thinks Mae, if she’s trying to change the subject. If it’s just
your garden-variety non sequitur, well, then, props to that too, because it pulls Natalie’s attention away from Jordan.
Caspian says, “Uppy!”
Natalie puts her hand to the side of her neck, where she once told Mae all of her tension resides. “You have a puppy,” she says. “You have Cinnamon.”
“You said when we get to two million followers we can get a puppy,” says Evangeline. (Mae clocks the first use of we.)
“We haven’t gotten to two million,” says Natalie.
“Cinnamon is old,” accuses Scarlett.
Cinnamon, hearing her name a second time, raises her head and looks offended.
“She’s not old,” says Natalie. “She’s younger than you are.”
“She’s not a puppy,” says Evangeline.
“She has a puppylike attitude,” says Natalie. “That will have to be good enough for now. Is everybody done? Good. Girls, let’s
clear the table.” She stands and begins whisking the salad bowls away, making a tower of them. “When everything is in the
kitchen, you can go play on the iPad.”
Scarlett and Evangeline exchange a look at this unexpected bounty. “For how long?” asks Evangeline.
“Until I say you have to stop. Hurry, go, before I change my mind.”
“Calvin and I will wash the dishes,” says Kara. “In fact, I’ll clear what’s left.”
“I got it,” says Natalie. Kara is trying to get the last mouthful of pasta in before Natalie takes her plate too.
“Well, Natalie,” says Calvin, when she returns from the kitchen, “thank you for making dinner. I give you credit for everything
you’re doing. Little kids are a lot of work.”
“Confirmed,” says Natalie.
Calvin continues: “I forgot how tiring this stage of parenting is. I must say, watching you, I’m glad it’s behind me.”
“Is it?” challenges Jordan.
“Geez, Jordan,” says Mae, adding a string between Jordan and her father.
Jordan turns to Mae. “What? It’s not like we all haven’t been wondering. All three of us, not just me. I’m just the one with the nerve to ask.”
“To ask what?” Calvin looks truly bewildered.
With a dramatic flourish of the wine bottle, with which she’s refilling her glass, Jordan says, “To ask if you and Kara will
be attempting to produce a male heir.”
“Oh my god,” says Mae. “Jordan! Too far.”
Jordan fixes Mae with her fiery gaze. “I’m only saying out loud what we said in private.” She casts a glance around the table,
her eyes locking onto Mae’s. “What we all said in private.”
“I didn’t,” says Mae quickly. “I didn’t say anything.” She glances at Kara, willing her to understand: she is not her sisters.
“If you and Kara have a child, you’ll be eighty-eight by the time that kid goes to college,” says Jordan.
Natalie joins in. “But the kid may one day have a nice little nest egg tucked away from selling this house. So that’s something.”
Kara stands up so fast she almost knocks her chair over. They all turn toward her. “That’s not why your dad is selling,” says
Kara.
“It’s okay,” says Calvin, and slowly Kara regains her seat. “We don’t need to get into it.”
“I think we do,” says Kara.
“Why else, then?” challenges Jordan.
“He’s selling to pay back the loans he took out to pay for your mother’s treatment.”
They all turn to Calvin, shocked. Jordan says, “What?”
“You never told us that!” Natalie says, her voice full of sound and fury.
“What treatment?” says Mae. “Like, was there a treatment we didn’t know about?”
Calvin’s face has turned somber. He says, “There was. About six months before your mom died, we flew to Switzerland for her to receive a treatment that wasn’t available in the US.
It was very expensive and very experimental.
None of it was covered by insurance. We took out a second mortgage on the Lenox house to pay for it. And it wasn’t successful, obviously.”
“When?” cries Jordan.
He takes a deep breath. “The time we said we were taking a bucket-list trip to Paris.”
“How come you didn’t tell us?” demands Natalie.
“She didn’t want you to know. She didn’t want you to get your hopes up.”
The Shipman sisters absorb this. Mae imagines her parents boarding the plane, checking into some Swiss hotel room, lying quietly
together either before or after the treatment. She doesn’t know what to do with this image.
Kara says, “And the answer to your original question is no. We aren’t having kids. I can’t carry a child.”
Jordan’s head swings back and forth between Kara and her father. “You can’t?”
“Apparently I have an inhospitable womb,” says Kara. Jordan blanches. “It’s an outdated term, but it just means that . . .
Well, never mind the details. I’ve known since my first marriage. I just—”
She doesn’t get to finish. “What?” say Mae and Natalie and Jordan at the exact same time, and then, elaborating on that, Jordan says, “I’m sorry, what? You were married before?”
Kara folds her napkin. “I was married when I was in my mid-twenties. We were married for two years, together for three, and
he died in a car accident.”
“You never told us that!” Jordan turns again to Calvin, again accusingly. “Dad?” This is yet another thing Calvin has been
keeping from them, and, somehow, fair or not, another strike against Kara.
“It’s not my past to tell,” says Calvin neutrally.
“That’s awful,” says Mae. “Kara, I’m so sorry.” Jordan kicks Mae under the table, and once again they are seven and fourteen.
“Ouch,” says Mae irritably.
“Thank you, Mae. It was a long time ago.”
“Does anybody else have any secrets to share?” Natalie asks, sort of sarcastically, but also sort of not. Mae clears her throat,
wondering if this is the time, but nothing comes out. She feels Jordan shift.
“No, but I have something to say,” says Kara.
“Fantastic,” says Jordan, and now Mae kicks Jordan.
“You’re not just upset about the seat, you’re upset that I’m here at all, in your house, in your lives. I get it. I do. But
I have a place here, too, now. And I’m not going to apologize.”
This is where a Shipman girl might have made a dramatic exit. Mae remembers Natalie storming off after a fight with Theresa
over the length of her skirt; Jordan screaming at Calvin, “Those classes are a waste of time!” after she got caught skipping out on SAT prep; Mae herself dissolving into tears and slamming the door of her room on Galway
Court when her phone was taken away after a curfew infraction. She thought the world had ended; they each had thought that,
so many times, while all the time the world kept spinning.
But Kara, stranded but also safe in her no-man’s-land, neither Shipman girl nor Shipman parent, rendering the sisters silent,
looks like she understands this intuitively. On and on, the world will keep spinning.