Chapter 3
DELPHINE
Annie arrived home just as I was getting cleaned up, smelling of bonfire smoke.
After a quick hug, she went upstairs to shower.
I brushed my teeth and put on pajamas, waiting to tuck her into bed.
Since she was a small child, our bedtime routines had been the same.
I would read to her for fifteen minutes or so before kissing her forehead and turning out the light.
Now that she was older, we no longer read together but I still came in to say goodnight.
Often she was out the minute I turned off the light, especially on days she’d had soccer practice or a game.
However, now that she was older, she would read for a few minutes before going to sleep.
I wandered to the window in my room, looking out at the dark garden, then moved my gaze to one of Jon’s paintings I had hanging on the wall.
He’d gravitated toward landscapes, mostly the ocean.
Having grown up poor in North Dakota, the first time he saw the ocean was when he came out west for art school.
He’d told me how utterly transformative it had felt to see the expanse of water, the ebb and flow of the tide, the study in shades of greens and blues.
From then on, he’d tried to capture the magic of the Pacific Ocean in his paintings. He’d done it brilliantly.
Jon and I met at art school, and our connection was so instant and fierce I couldn’t imagine then that anything would ever pull us apart.
But after Annie was born, things shifted.
I became less patient with the way he withdrew into the world inside his head.
I needed more help with the baby and around the house.
It also aggravated me that he didn’t stay long at any kind of job, other than painting.
It certainly wasn’t paying the bills in those days.
When we moved to Willet Cove, I was hired at the gallery, earning a decent salary.
Best of all, the previous curator offered to mentor me so that I could take his place once he retired.
My pottery started to sell in shops up and down the coast. His paintings remained in his studio in our first house.
We argued about whether he should try to sell them.
He said they weren’t ready. I asked when, if ever, he thought they would be.
The more I pushed, the less he painted. He grew more and more lethargic.
I’d come home expecting to find him in his art studio but instead discovered him sitting in front of the television watching old westerns.
I was tired, carrying the load of a small child, plus the gallery and my own work as a potter.
And I admit, he frustrated me. I didn’t have the compassion I should have.
Ultimately, his death was my fault. If I’d been less myself, he might still be with us. Which is what kept me up nights, replaying my actions on some of my worst days over and over again.
By the time I got to Annie’s room, she had brushed her teeth and put on her cotton pajamas dotted with strawberries.
She was already in bed, reading. I perched on the edge of the bed in my usual spot.
She had the window open, letting in the salty summer air that ruffled the yellow curtains.
Annie’s bedroom was always tidy. She was like me that way, precise, with a place for everything.
At nighttime, her stuffed animals were set on the end of the bed—a monkey she’d had since she was a baby, a teddy bear my mother had sent to her when she turned two, and a black cat with a pink nose and whiskers.
Above the small desk in the corner I’d hung shelves for her soccer awards, of which there were many.
I was never quite certain where she’d gotten her athletic ability.
I kept myself fit, but the tip of my foot had never kicked a soccer ball.
For a moment, I just took in my daughter. Her sweet scent—the child had always had the most wonderful smelling hair—now damp from the shower, the flush of her cheeks left from the heat of the bonfire. But then I glanced down and noticed the book in her lap.
The Year of Magical Thinking.
How in the world had she gotten a copy of that? Completely inappropriate for someone her age. Hundreds of pages about grief.
“Where did you get that?” I asked, sounding harsher than I wished.
“At the bookstore.”
“Why did you choose it?”
Her gaze darted to the book in her lap. “There’s something I have to tell. You’re not going to like it.”
“Okay.” I braced myself, heart thumping between my ears. What had she done?
“I went to a grief support group. Specifically for those who lost someone from suicide.”
I stared at her. “Why would you do that?”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“I don’t believe in that kind of thing.”
“But why?”
“It’s no one’s business what I’m going through, and I certainly don’t need to talk to a bunch of strangers about my problems.” I shook my head. “I don’t want you going again. It’s too small of a town. We’ll have everyone gossiping about us.”
“No, it’s all confidential. No one shares outside of the group.”
“Sure, that’s what they say.”
“Mom, you haven’t been to one. I have.”
“Let me ask you again. Why this book?” I took it from her lap and snapped it shut rather dramatically.
“Dorian Flynn was at the group. He said he’s been reading it and found it helpful.”
“And he just suggested you buy a book that’s completely inappropriate for your age?”
“He didn’t suggest it. He mentioned it during the meeting. But it sounded really interesting, so, after the meeting, Seraphina took me by the bookstore and I bought it.”
“Excuse me, did you just say Seraphina?”
“She took me to the meeting and waited in the parking lot, then took me to the bookstore.”
Seraphina? How could she? Without asking me?
“I begged her, Mom, so it’s not her fault,” Annie said. “Please don’t be mad.”
“I’m not mad, just hurt that neither of you thought you could come to me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What did Dorian say when you brought it up to the counter?” What right did this man have to sell a fifteen-year-old child a book like this?
“He wasn’t there. It was Theo. The guy who works in the evenings. He did ask me if I knew what it was about and did my mom know I was buying it?”
“Theo asked you that? The stoner guy?”
“He’s really sweet, Mom.”
“What did you say to him?” I asked.
“I told him you would be happy I was getting something that might help me.” Annie’s voice quivered. “But I guess I was wrong.”
“It’s not that I … don’t want you to … have help. If you need it.”
“Mom, how could I not need it?”
My nemesis, guilt, crept up the back of my spine. But as I often did, I pushed it aside and let anger live there instead. “I don’t want you going to the support group. And you’re to stop reading this book at once.”
She stared at me for a moment, like she didn’t recognize me. “It doesn’t matter. The group leader said I couldn’t come again because I’m too young. But she told me about a group for teens. I want to go, Mom. Please.”
The look in her big brown eyes was too much. I softened. “Yes, fine.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because I figured you’d react like you just did,” Annie said.
“We don’t have secrets between us.” I smoothed the comforter with one hand.
“You think that.”
My head snapped up. “What does that mean?”
“It means there are things I can’t talk to you about,” Annie said. “Things that I know will upset you.”
I wanted to ask more questions. I really did.
But something held me back. Lately, with Annie, it felt like this balancing act between wanting to understand her and being there for her versus me burying my head in that proverbial sand so the pain couldn’t reach me.
There was this invasive feeling in my chest that made me want to hold on tight to whatever story I’d told myself about my life instead of hearing the pain in my daughter’s voice.
Nothing made me feel like a bad mother more than this habit I’d formed over the years for self-preservation.
But it was as if it were lodged somewhere deep inside me, this place that had hardened over time and become impenetrable.
“Mom, I think you should go to the group. The people were so nice, and they’re hurting in the same way we are.”
“Which does what exactly?” I asked softly.
“Makes you feel less alone, I guess. And understood. Not that I’d wish it on anyone, but there was something about sharing in the group and hearing their stories that made me feel seen.”
“I see you.”
“You see what you want to see,” Annie said, not unkindly but with a tone of world-weary reservation that a child of fifteen should not have.
Tears were starting at the backs of my eyes, pressing to get out and leaving me unable to speak.
“Do you want to know why Dorian was there?” Annie asked. “Who he lost?”
Her question startled me. What did he have to do with anything, other than to tell my child about a book she had no business reading.
“His best friend from the Navy,” Annie said. “Left behind a wife and two kids.”
Hearing that made me feel sick to my stomach. “How awful.”
“It is.”
I smoothed a lock of hair off Annie’s cheek, then smoothed the comforter, tucking it closer to her shoulders. “It’s late. Let’s get some sleep.”
“Good night, Mom.”
I leaned over to kiss her forehead. “Night, my love.”
She turned over onto her side like she always did. I turned off the lamp, but not before I took hold of the book. This was getting returned tomorrow. I’d demand a full refund and an explanation as to what would possess a man to suggest it to a fifteen-year-old girl.
As for Seraphina and her betrayal? That one was more complicated.
The five of us loved one another’s children almost as much as we loved our own.
Choosing to take her to the meeting was out of a place of love.
I knew that without a doubt. Yet, keeping it from me.
Telling me the kids were just having a regular hangout at their bonfire when really she was going to a meeting and then buying a book meant for adults?
That was something I couldn’t just look past. I’d have to confront her about it or it would fester until it was a tangled mess inside of me, and when that happened I tended to strike out in ways that would ruin our friendship.
That could not happen. Because, no matter what, Seraphina was my chosen family and nothing could pull us apart.
Still. I was mad. But knowing myself as I do, I didn’t text or call when the anger boiled fresh and hot.
Tomorrow I would wake more rational. At least I hoped I would.