Chapter 3 Greta
Greta
The thing about life was, you had to control it.
Especially when you were at Innisfree.
Greta had never truly liked it here. Her mother had named the place after the Yeats poem, but to Greta it had not lived up
to the promise of peace—not for the past sixty-nine years, anyway.
But if the beds were made with tight corners and quilts you could bounce a quarter off of, the porch corners swept free of
cobwebs, the table set with a vase of hydrangeas, the kitchen spotless, her extensive perennial gardens thoroughly weeded—she
did love the way the hummingbirds and butterflies flitted among the liatris, the salvia, and the purple coneflowers in the
mornings—then she could feel she had regained dominion over the place. Strange that, after all these years, trying to control
it all was still a thing she felt the need to do, not just upon first arriving for the summer, but every single day she was
here. But maybe it explained why she’d kept coming back, summer after summer, all these years. That odd satisfaction she got
just from keeping the place in order. The triumph of showing that it could not defeat her.
The ocean, which ceaselessly caressed the rocks below, was always there to remind her that even things you thought would last forever never actually did.
Not even—it turned out—Innisfree itself, which Greta was planning to put on the market the day after Hailey’s wedding.
Lindy didn’t know a thing about that.
There were a lot of things that Greta’d been keeping from Lindy lately.
“Tom?” she said, looking across the table at her husband. They were eating lunch at three o’clock, because things were slipping
out of her control more and more every day.
Lindy had been over at the yellow cottage since late morning getting ready for the party, and Greta had gone out to the garden.
She’d lost track of time! (She never used to “lose track of time.” Even the notion had felt impossible; she’d always been
suspicious when people made the claim.) Then she’d had to arrange some fresh hydrangeas. Put in another load of wash. Note
down the messages that had been left on the answering machine while she was outside. (Fortunately, Tom never answered the
phone anymore.) Three people had called to say they were going to be late for the party, and two weren’t coming. One message
was just static—people never understood that their cell phones didn’t work in this part of Maine—and she deleted it. Only
then, with everything in order in her mind, could she tackle making lunch.
Not that its lateness truly mattered. Neither she nor Tom had much of an appetite these days. He might forget to eat entirely,
if she didn’t remind him.
Even now, seated at the table! He was staring into the distance, out across the living room toward the windows and the ocean, blue eyes watery behind his glasses.
His white hair was neatly combed, his L.L.Bean shirt and khakis pressed-looking.
All Greta’s doing. She had made an entire platter of BLTs, which he loved, and she had set the big sturdy barnboard table in the dining area for just the two of them with new bright blue dishes and paisley cloth napkins, a mixed bouquet in a blue vase.
Lindy liked to keep Innisfree “freshened up” and was always buying dishes and napkins, lamps and tablecloths and sheets, plus the occasional end table or little desk at a yard sale, which she’d spend a sunny day or two refinishing outside.
A couple years ago, she’d gone to the L.L.Bean Home Store in Freeport and picked out a new couch and chair for the living room in a pretty blue-and-white pattern, with coordinating throw pillows and blankets and even a large, braided rug.
Greta didn’t mind—she knew how happy these small tasks made Lindy—but she was glad that Lindy had never suggested switching out this table, which had been Greta’s mother’s, long ago.
Tom didn’t appear to notice the half sandwich growing cold on his plate. He didn’t respond to his name, either. “Tom!” she
said again, louder, and finally he looked at her, mildly startled, and she felt terrible. It was so hard to stay patient,
as the kids would say, twenty-four seven. She inhaled, took a gentler tone. “Eat your sandwich, please, darling.”
Obediently, he picked up his BLT and took a bite. He began chewing, and a look of pleasure came over his face, as if he was
remembering the surprising fact that this was something he liked—or perhaps he was experiencing the pleasure of the taste
without actually remembering ever having eaten a BLT before.
Greta suddenly wanted to cry. She ached for the music which was absent from her life these days. The arthritis in her hands
made it too painful for her to play piano, and she didn’t have the wherewithal even to put an album on the stereo. Even the
choosing of one felt like too much.
She busied herself cutting her own sandwich into bite-size pieces—though, oh, she was not hungry—blinking back tears, hoping today, for the party, would be a good day for Tom. Hoping Lindy still wouldn’t notice how
bad he was getting.
He’d always been quiet, polite. His natural sweetness seemed only to have increased with the progression of the disease. So
had his desire to immerse himself in research, in writing. He seemed to take such comfort in these familiar acts that Greta
no longer complained—“You’re retired,” she’d been reminding him for the last decade—when he spent most of his days at his desk in their bedroom, which he’d piled high with his favorite books and notebooks.
Every night he reported great breakthroughs, and every morning it broke her heart to glance at his notes and see that few of them even made sense.
“It goes this way sometimes,” the doctor had said.
The alternative, Greta understood, was rage.
She could tell, this past week, that it had puzzled him sometimes when Lindy walked into the room and said “Hey, Dad!” and
kissed his forehead, but he would pat her hand (oh, thank God for that steady, good-natured way he’d always had) and Lindy
would head for the coffee, or the refrigerator, rambling on about one of her parties or one of the kids. Greta wasn’t trying
to keep track of details, not on those particular subjects, not right now. All she was trying to do was keep Innisfree, herself,
and her husband under control so that her daughter could have these parties she wanted to have, because, after this summer,
nothing was ever going to be the same.
He’d been diagnosed in March. The party plans had already all been set. Hailey’s wedding had been the first thing on the calendar,
then Lindy had added the fiftieth anniversary party for them (a sweet thought back in January; a nightmare to imagine now),
and the birthday party for David. In March, Tom was still well enough to talk it over with Greta. “We can’t ruin Lindy’s plans,”
he’d said. “I don’t think we should even tell her. Not till afterward. All right?” He had looked at Greta with such love and
pleading, how could she even begin to think otherwise? And truly Greta had agreed, whole-heartedly! She’d actually believed
that by late July—only four months away—he’d still be fine. She’d thought they’d have months and months, possibly years, to
discuss their old favorite albums, concertos she’d played on the stage, the news, the constellations, the gardens, the grandkids,
the latest exhibit at the Met and what was playing at the movies at Lincoln Center.
Things had progressed much more quickly than she’d imagined possible.
Yet, it had seemed—to her alone now, because Tom could no longer weigh in—too late to tell Lindy that they needed to change
their plans.
He still had good moments. He’d had at least two conversations with Lindy that Greta had overheard from the kitchen, and yes, Lindy had done most of the talking, jabbering on about the parties, but Greta thought he’d seemed to understand everything that was being said, and Lindy (it did seem unbelievable, but she was quite distracted with these parties) evidently hadn’t noticed a thing.
He would remember their grandchildren, Greta had to believe.
Not a minute later, though, Cody and Eli banged in the side door, and Greta saw panic in Tom’s eyes as he dropped what was
left of his sandwich back onto his plate. Cody (my word, he was a giant now) came toward them, grinning, bellowing, “Grandma! Grandpa!” Greta hopped up and went around to stand beside Tom, draping
her arm over his shoulders. She could feel the tension in him, but he evidently trusted her enough to realize that the young
men who’d just barged in must not be a true threat.
“Tom,” she said. “Look, it’s Cody! And Eli. Why don’t you give your grandsons a hug?”
In this way, she managed the greetings, then quickly suggested to Tom that he go upstairs for a nap or a bit more work on
his book. He shuffled off, seeming relieved, as Cody grabbed a sandwich from the platter. “Is Grandpa okay?” Eli said, with
a worried look.
“Yeah, he seems off,” Cody said, with his mouth half full.
Greta would’ve scolded Cody’s manners, but she didn’t have it in her just now. “He’s just tired. He’s been working so hard
on his book!” she said, bustling to clear away the dirty plates, and she didn’t know how she was going to get Tom through
a party, let alone these next two weeks, if the sight of his grandsons—whom he clearly did not know—had unnerved him so.