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In this picture—on the end table, living room—the three Shipman girls are lined up for the requisite first-day-of-school photo.
The first day of school was always so hectic! Everybody needed a lunch. A button might pop off a brand-new shirt. Theresa
had her own case of nerves. New classroom, new group of students, sometimes a bigger change in the school like a new principal
or different colleagues. For these reasons, Calvin took the photo before he went to campus to teach his own classes, which
had begun at least the week before so he was much less fraught.
Each year they stood in the same place, by the rhododendron in front of the house. They always stood in age order, with Jordan
farthest to the left, and Jordan often had a look on her face like she was running late for a congressional budget meeting—too
important and busy to stay for long, but understanding that the formality of the occasion required her presence.
Natalie was beginning sixth grade, which means Jordan would have been a freshman in high school.
In Lenox the middle and high schools are combined so she and Jordan would have been in the same building once again for the first time since they were at Morris Elementary.
Sometimes, in certain moods, they could pass in the upstairs hallway of their own house with scarcely an acknowledgment, but Natalie remembers now how comforting a glimpse of her older sister had been in those early days in middle school.
Jordan would be traveling in a small knot of friends, all of the high schoolers tall and exotic; it had felt like sighting a herd of gazelles on the savannah, and she might wave at Natalie or even say her name.
Inside Natalie would swell with pride, even if she’d never admit it.
The only makeup Natalie was allowed at that time was an innocuous lip gloss, although her friend Shay Thompson was already
enthusiastically clumping on mascara. How Natalie had applied her gloss, with strength and fortitude! As though her entire
middle school experience depended on it!
Natalie picks up the photo and examines it. She’s smiling in the photo, of course (Natalie always knew how to look good in
a photo), but she’s sure her insides are roiling with the anticipated stress of changing classes and operating a locker for
the first time.
(Will her kids never learn to use a locker? She and Austin have talked vaguely about “integrating them into the school system”
at some point but that point seems so far in the future, hazy and distant.)
These girls. With their careful hair, their agonized-over outfits, their stiff new backpacks! There was so much ahead of them.
The poignancy of this strikes her particularly hard right now. What would she do if she could go back in time, visit the Natalie
of this photo? What would she tell her?
She would tell her never, ever put a tank top over a shirt with sleeves, for one thing. But what else?
In the early afternoon on Wednesday the doorbell rings. Leo loses his mind and, perhaps suffering from canine FOMO, Cinnamon
joins in. The dogs run back and forth from the door to the window, looking at each other as if to say, Can you believe it? The doorbell? I can’t believe it. Can you believe it?
Someone is here!
Natalie huffs her way down the stairs and hisses at Mae, “What the hell is going on? I just got Caspian down for his nap.
What’s all this barking?”
“Bad word,” says Evangeline gleefully.
“Evangeline,” Natalie says sharply, “I wasn’t talking to you.”
Natalie isn’t doing gentle parenting right now.
“I’m not ringing the doorbell,” Mae hisses right back. She’s all done taking the blame for things she isn’t responsible for. As
the youngest, she’s been the dumping ground for other people’s mistakes her whole life. Enough! “And one of the dogs is yours.
Don’t yell at me.”
“I’m not yelling,” yells Natalie, although, to be fair, the dogs are barking so loudly that yelling is the only way to go
if one wants to be heard. The doorbell rings again. In a slightly quieter voice Natalie asks, “Are you going to answer it?
I’m not expecting anyone.”
This makes Mae feel more affronted than she already feels. She could just scream. But she won’t. She’ll take a deep, cleansing yoga breath (she can’t afford yoga classes, but whatever, breathing is free).
She says, “I’m not expecting anyone either. Why don’t you answer it? I’ll take the dogs to the kitchen.”
“Fine,” says Natalie. She lets out an irritated sigh. Mae happens not to have her magic treat pouch on her, bad form on day
five of a board-and-train, but she rummages in the pocket of her shorts, and, yes, reliable as the sunrise, she finds a handful
of freeze-dried salmon. She calls the dogs to her; they stop barking and come immediately. This is a big win! She heads toward
the kitchen.
“Nice,” says Evangeline approvingly. “Cinnamon never listens like that.”
“Cinnamon never had a professional dog trainer working one-on-one with her,” says Mae modestly, but not that modestly, because
she’s proud that she’s made progress.
In the kitchen, feeling a little show-offy, Mae gives both dogs the hand signal for down. They lower themselves, Leo with a graceless plonk as his ribs hit the floor. They stare at Mae with such attention, such
adoration and love. Or probably they just really like freeze-dried salmon. Either way, she’ll take it. She slides her phone
to Evangeline and asks her to take a video. “I feel like the saint that commanded the animals,” whispers Mae. She rewards
the dogs for staying down, placing treats at intervals between each set of front paws so neither dog is tempted to get up
before she releases them. “Was that Patrick?”
“Patrick was snakes,” says Evangeline. “You probably mean Saint Francis.”
“Look who’s here,” says Natalie. This time the Realtor is dressed for the beach, in a striped cover-up, flip-flops, and a
straw sun hat. She smells like Sun Bum and has a little strip of white near her ear, where she didn’t rub it in completely.
She’s carrying a big HomeGoods bag with a white frame sticking out of it.
“Hello!” she says brightly. “Excuse my casual wear. I’m technically not working today.”
“I can see that,” says Natalie frostily. Nikoletta had really thrown Evangeline into a frenzy on Monday, making her worry
about the ethics of the milk industry—it had taken a while for Natalie to talk her down, and even after Evangeline had fallen
asleep Natalie had lain awake for a while, thinking about the harrowing cries of a baby calf on the first night it’s separated
from the mother. She and Austin can never sleep on that first night; they lie awake holding hands. Her children have been
brought up to think milk is good for you. Not to think it, to believe it, because it’s the truth. Milk is good for you! This is obviously too much to explain to the Realtor right now so she settles for a stern look.
“I just wanted to drop off a few things for the open house that I’d promised your dad—”
“He’s on the patio,” says Natalie. “I think he’s fixing the latch on the door.”
Obviously the Realtor knows where the patio is but Natalie leads her through anyway.
Calvin has moved on from the latch to examining a small bit of wood rot on the house’s exterior. Jordan is sitting on one
of the loungers, tapping out an email on her laptop, brow furrowed.
“Hello, Nikoletta,” says Calvin.
“Hi! Excuse my casual wear.”
“What have we got here?” Calvin asks, indicating the bag.
“Ah.” She puts the bag on an empty lounger and looks inside as though she herself is curious about that. “A few things for
the open house. You’ll want to take down all personal photos, of course, so I’ve brought you a few more impersonal beach scenes
you can hang to hide any nails or picture hangers. Then, let’s see, here’s a nice throw blanket for the living room—”
“We have a throw blanket,” says Natalie.
“Right. But it’s a little battered. This one’s just nice and fresh. And, oh, a couple of matching hand towels for the bathroom.
Aren’t these pretty? They have seashells.” She beams. “These little touches can really make a difference in how a house shows.”
“Thank you,” says Calvin. He has a small pad of paper and a pen tucked inside his back pocket—Calvin is such a professor—and he takes it out to show Nikoletta his to-do list. “Here are the things I’ve done, and here are the things I’m hoping to do.
Could you help me prioritize? Since time is flying, and I’d like to take care of what you think is most important and then spend as much time with my daughters as I can before the big day. ”
“I love an organized seller!” Nikoletta beams harder. She takes the notepad and studies it, then holds her hand out for Calvin’s
pen. “These, I’d definitely get done.” She goes down the list, circling. “And these, I wouldn’t put any time into. Like the
latches on the windows? Not a big deal. Fan in the upstairs bathroom? Same thing. Things like that, a buyer isn’t going to
worry about at this point.”
At this point? Natalie looks to meet Jordan’s eye, but Jordan is still staring at her phone, so she searches for and finds
Mae, newly arrived from the kitchen. “What do you mean, at this point?” asks Mae.
“Well, because . . .” says Nikoletta, but her voice trails off when she sees Calvin’s expression, which Natalie could only
describe as warning. “Oh, I see!” says Nikoletta. “You haven’t had this discussion yet. No, that’s fine. Why don’t I leave you this bag, and we’ll
catch up tomorrow, okay, Calvin? No need for me to go through the house. I’ll just walk around this way.” She takes the three
steps down to the beach, then scurries around the side of the house.
“Dad?” says Natalie. “What was that about? Why doesn’t she care about the window latches? Or the bathroom fan?”
Calvin clears his throat. He sits on the lounger beside Jordan’s, feet planted on the ground, hands on his knees. “The structural