Epilogue #2
Grace padded into the kitchen in her socks and poured herself some juice. "She still can't tell which one Constance is," she said to Deborah, and climbed onto a stool. She spun her glass on the marble. "Deborah, can I come see the birthday picture?"
"You've seen it."
"I want to see it again." Grace kept spinning it. "Aunt Carrie can bring me."
Deborah stopped snapping and waited for Carrington to answer.
Carrington had spent an hour in Deborah's good chair with that photograph on the wall across from her. She didn't want to stand in front of it with Grace.
"Tuesday," she said.
A little before six, tires crunched on the gravel out front.
"That's your wife," Deborah said, without looking up.
Carrington carried the husks to the compost pail by the window and saw Lucy's car coming up past the fountain.
The stuffed gray rabbit sat up on the dashboard, one ear faded almost white from the sun.
Carrington's shoulders dropped an inch. Lucy walked in from the courtyard with sand in the cuffs of her jeans and dropped her bag and her keys on the counter.
"Nobody talk to me until I've eaten something," Lucy said, and fished a bean out of the bowl.
"That's raw," Deborah said.
"I know it's raw." Lucy ate it anyway. "The twins found a jellyfish. They carried it up the beach in a bucket to show me, and then they wanted to take it home in the car."
Grace set her glass down. "What kind?"
"A dead one, Grace."
"Was it clear, or did it have purple on it? Dead ones can still sting you. Did anybody touch it?"
"It had sand on it," Lucy said.
"I read Mom's letter," Grace said.
Lucy glanced at Carrington. Carrington nodded, and Lucy turned back to Grace.
"Yeah?" Lucy said. "How was it?"
"She says I come at things sideways."
"You do."
"Everybody keeps saying that."
"She quizzed me on the fish first," Carrington said.
Deborah laughed and sent Grace to the drawer for the forks.
"The twins' mothers are both off on Friday." Lucy helped herself to another bean. "I thought I'd take you to the aquarium before school."
Grace stopped at the drawer. "Is Aunt Carrie coming?"
"You'd have to ask her."
Grace faced Carrington. "Are you coming?"
Carrington had a site meeting on Friday morning at ten. She’d moved them once already. "Yes.”
Lucy raised her eyebrows. "You have that meeting on Friday."
"This is more important."
One of the twins had stuck a gold star on the back of Lucy's cardigan, up by the shoulder blade. Carrington wiped her hands on the towel, peeled it off, and pressed it onto the back of Lucy's wrist. Lucy looked down at it and laughed. She leaned into Carrington's side, warm and solid.
Deborah left at nine. At the car, she said she'd call Tuesday morning, and Carrington promised that she would pick up.
The water came on in the kitchen. Carrington headed up to say goodnight and meant to be quick about it.
Grace had left her door open a crack, with music coming through it. She sat up against the wall on her bed with the whale book open on her knees, Marguerite's page folded back.
"Deborah says goodnight."
"I heard her go." Grace licked a finger and turned a page. "Do Marguerite."
"No."
"Once."
"I can't do voices. You've heard me."
"I know." Grace swung the book around and pushed it at her, open to the page. "Mom did it too loud. Deborah does it too low."
Carrington came in and sat on the bed by Grace's feet. She knew the line by heart.
"I am the biggest thing here," she said.
It came out high and polite, like a woman reading out the minutes of a board meeting. Grace dropped her face into the book and laughed until the mattress shook.
"Louder," Grace said.
Carrington said it louder. Grace rolled onto her back with the book on her chest, still laughing.
"Mom would've hated that," she said.
"She'd have made me do it until I got it right."
"You'd never get it right."
"No," Carrington said. She got up and pulled the door almost shut behind her.
Downstairs, Lucy was washing dishes by hand. Her ring sat on the windowsill above the faucet, and the gold star was still on her wrist, its edges curling from the water.
"Was that you?" Lucy said. "Up there?"
"Don't."
Lucy snorted. "You okay? About the letter."
"No. I wanted it back the minute she had it in her hands. I still want it back."
Lucy rinsed the bowl. "I cried about a bowl once. On the side of the highway. I still think about it." Lucy shut the water off. "It was a good bowl."
Lucy wiped her hands on her jeans and propped herself against the counter by the faucet.
"She asked me last week if she was allowed to ask you for it," Lucy said.
"What did you say?"
"That she'd have to ask you." Lucy folded her arms. "She practiced on me first. She wanted to start with the fish."
"What did she say?"
"'Is the fish thing in the letter?' Over and over, until she could get it out without her voice going up." Lucy tipped her head. "Then she asked me if you'd be sad."
"And?"
"I told her yes. And that you'd give it to her anyway."
Carrington set the bowl down. Her eyes stung, and she had to wait it out before she could talk. Lucy took her ring off the windowsill and pushed it back on. She kissed Carrington on the side of the mouth on her way past. Carrington put a hand around Lucy's wrist as she passed and held on.
"Come up," she said from the hall.
"In a minute."
Lucy's keys were on the counter beside the bowl.
The green string on the courtyard key had faded to a dirty gray, worn down to a few threads where it passed through the hole.
Carrington hooked the keys up on one finger and turned the string over.
She thought about replacing it. Then she set them back down, switched off the island light, and went up after Lucy.