10. Patty
The crowd milled around inside the green bungalow, and at the edge of the kitchen, Evelyn Huberman stood with Patty’s mother, Margaret. Evelyn was smoking a cigarette as the women stood there, speaking to one another in hushed tones. Outside, Patty could see her father standing with Jacob Huberman, their backs to the house as they faced in the direction of the sea. They were both holding highball glasses and drinking their way through the sadness.
Patty wore a black crepe dress and held a cup of tea that someone had put into her hand. She stood next to a collection of flowers that made her nauseous with their strong scent, and she blinked slowly, not even registering the names of the people as they passed by her, touching her arm gently and whispering condolences.
Jekyll Island had been her home since the eighth month of her pregnancy. Trixie was born there. Patty had waited eagerly in the bungalow with the Hubermans for the return of their son from Vietnam, hoping every night as she closed her eyes to sleep that Bradley was safe, and that he’d come home soon to meet their baby girl. But now she had nothing.
At one point, she’d seen Jacob Huberman fiddling with his camera, possibly taking footage of the funeral or the attendees. Seeing this had nearly made Patty vomit, though she didn’t have the strength to ask him to stop. She’d just stood there, holding her cup of tea and wishing it would all end.
“Patty,” her mother said, walking up to her and gently taking the cup and saucer from her hands. “Honey, you should sit.”
Patty did not care to sit. She did not care to stand. She did not care to live.
Having to write a letter to Bradley explaining that their baby had died suddenly in her sleep from an undiagnosed heart condition had nearly killed her. What kind of woman was she to send her beloved a letter that he’d receive in the midst of a war, telling him that the daughter he’d never even met was dead? But what kind of woman would she be if she didn’t send the letter, letting him go on believing that everything was fine when nothing would ever be fine again?
She let her mother lead her over to the gold couch and she sat down there, eyes wide as saucers. “I think you should come home with us, Patty,” her mother said, sinking down onto the gold velvet cushions next to her. “Evelyn and I discussed it, and we think it would be best. The cold, fresh air in Seattle will do you good, as will a change of scenery. Nothing good will come of you staying here and being surrounded by the memories.”
Against her will, a sob escaped from Patty’s chest. It came out like a wail, and a few people stopped their conversations to glance her way, then politely resumed their talking so that the grieving mother could cry in peace.
“I need to wait here for Bradley,” she said weakly. “He can’t come home to find me gone.”
“Honey,” Margaret said, taking her daughter by the arm, pulling her up from the couch, and leading her out the front door so that no one would overhear their conversation. “You being here is hard for Evelyn and Jacob. They need to heal too. It’s time to come home.”
It was these words that finally jolted Patty out of her trance. “They want me to go.”
Margaret nodded slowly. “We all think it’s for the best.”
And so Patty packed her things. She left behind everything of Trixie’s aside from one small stuffed bear and a baby blanket, and she kept the gold anchor bracelet with the tiny chip of ruby that Jacob had gotten for her as a gift to mark the month that Trixie was born. He’d said she was their anchor, their reason for being. Patty had known that Trixie gave them all something to focus on while Bradley fought in Vietnam, and without Trixie, there wasn’t much to live for. For any of them.
She went back to Seattle with her mother, moved back into her childhood bedroom, and saw a therapist who told her to find a new purpose and put it all behind her. She chose law school and put the teddy bear and the blanket into a box—both literally and metaphorically—and refused to speak about Trixie to anyone.
Her daughter Ruby would live the first fifty years of her life never knowing that she’d had a sister once, and for that, Patty would never be sorry. Some secrets were meant to be kept.