Chapter 31. Cait
CAIT
It was close to midnight when Cait returned to the Folly.
She hadn’t eaten anything beyond the oysters earlier that evening, and in the kitchen, she ventured a bite of the untouched vegan apple pie that Alice had begrudgingly baked for her.
The filling was too sweet, but the taste ignited her hunger, and she cut an enormous slice of the regular apple pie and plopped it onto a plate.
After taking a few bites standing at the counter, she topped the pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and sat at the table.
Through the window, the snow sparkled under the moonlight. Earlier that day, Maggie had pointed out the broken fence and warned her it wouldn’t keep the twins away from the water. Cait could see the damage more clearly now. She’d have to get that fixed.
The house was quiet, but thinking about Luke alone in his nearly empty childhood bedroom, she felt its fullness with a new sense of gratitude.
Her family, all asleep. The Tiffany table lamp on the desk in the foyer dimly lit as always.
Her grandmother’s gardening boots never moved from the mudroom.
The doorway of the butler’s pantry notched with generations of children growing taller each year, her measurements alongside her grandfather’s and father’s, her sisters’ and brother’s.
She would have to remember to mark the twins’ heights in the morning.
When she was a kid, she’d sometimes sit in a room and try to imagine the lives that had been lived within these walls.
This is my home now , she would think, and then daydream about the people who would live here after her.
As she stood to put her dish in the sink, Alice came into the kitchen for water. Cait tried to duck out with a quick good night, but Alice began speaking while she filled her glass. “About today,” she said, and turned. “I am pregnant.”
“Oh,” Cait said. She knew her reaction was stilted, but she wasn’t sure how to read her sister’s tone. Her eyes were puffy, as though she’d been crying. “Are you… excited?”
Alice shook her head. “No,” she said. “I’m talking with my doctor on Monday about how I can, you know…”
Cait wasn’t entirely sure what her sister was trying to say. “Have an abortion?”
Alice winced at the word and crossed her arms. “I thought you should know, because you found the test and everything.”
Cait tried to keep the shock out of her voice. “Thanks for telling me.” Then she said, “And good for you.”
“It’s a pretty shitty situation. I’m not sure I need your congratulations.”
“I didn’t mean it like that—”
“No, I know,” Alice said. “Sorry.” She pointed to the cyst on her chin. “Anyway, that’s what this is about, too.”
“Hormones,” Cait said. “They don’t lie.”
Alice laughed, then turned to the sink. “You ate the regular apple pie, didn’t you?”
“It was delicious .”
Alice huffed. “I’m never accommodating one of your diets again.”
“Fair enough,” Cait said. Then she shifted. “I had one. An abortion. I’m not sure if you knew that.”
Alice stared at her.
“It was a few months before I took the bar exam. Bram and I were long-distance, and I knew I’d ruin all my plans if I became a mom then, so.”
“I didn’t know.”
“I figured you wouldn’t approve,” Cait said. “Maggie took me to the appointment.” The exclusion seemed to hurt Alice, which Cait hadn’t intended, and so she added, “I never told Bram either.”
“I understand why you would have thought that. There was a time when I wouldn’t have approved, but I guess I see things differently now.”
Cait nodded. “Life will do that to you.”
Alice smiled. “I guess it will.”
“How does Kyle feel about it?” Cait asked.
“Devastated, but he’s supporting me. Or trying to?” Then she said, “I also told Mom.”
“What the hell?” Cait said, almost incredulous. “What did she say?”
“That she understands.”
Cait was staggered. She wanted to know more, but she could see that Alice was in a vulnerable place, so she just said, “Things have certainly changed around here since I left.”
“Some things. It’s been a while.”
Cait looked out the window at the broken fence, then back at Alice. “I know you’ve had to deal with a lot here on your own.”
Alice stood straighter. “I appreciate you acknowledging that.”
“I’m not just acknowledging it. I see it. And that’s going to change.”
Alice looked skeptical, but then said, “Well, I have plenty of ideas for how you can help—”
“I’m sure you do,” Cait said. She could see that Alice was annoyed at being cut off, so she added, “We can talk about it more tomorrow. I have some of my own ideas.”
“Why does that make me nervous?”
“Don’t be,” Cait said, and headed toward the stairs.
Back in her room, Cait panicked when she discovered only Augustus in the bed.
She tried to wake him to ask where Poppy had gone, but all he did was mumble incoherently and turn over.
Shame overwhelmed her as she checked her parents’ room, only to find them asleep.
What had she been doing, hanging out with Luke all night, playing pool like a teenager?
Next, she checked the kids’ bunk room, where Finn and James slept as soundly as kids who knew their parents were in the next room!
She was on the verge of waking everyone in the house when she finally discovered Poppy in Maggie’s room, cuddled between Maggie and Isabel.
She scooped her up, her heart finally settling, and put her back in the bed next to Augustus.
Then she snuck downstairs and into her father’s office.
She closed the door behind her, sat at the desk, and picked up the phone.
It was nearly six a.m. in Amsterdam, and Bram would be waking for work.
The morning was blinding, with the sun reflecting off the snow, but Cait slept late, and when she woke, Poppy was no longer in her bed and Augustus was sitting on the floor playing with her father’s trains. The smell of coffee and bacon filled the old house.
Downstairs, Alice made pancakes, and the kids ran around pretending to be characters from a movie Cait didn’t know.
“Why do I always have to be the princess?” Poppy yelled.
“Because you’re the girl,” Augustus said.
James raised his hand. “I’ll be the princess.”
“You can’t be the princess!” Augustus said. “You’re a boy.”
“He most certainly can,” Cait said.
“Ruthie says boys can’t be princesses,” Poppy explained.
“Well, Ruthie’s wrong,” Cait said. “Now scram.”
Through the window, she watched her father and Kyle greet a van that read ANIMAL CONTROL .
In the kitchen, Maggie and Isabel set the table. Cait poured herself coffee. She felt clearer than she had in a long time.
As everyone took their seats, she sat and placed her napkin on her lap. “I have some news,” she said.
“What is it?” Alice asked.
“I’m moving back home.”
Alice was about to slide a pancake onto James’s plate, but she paused with the spatula in midair and looked at Cait. “Back to Port Haven?”
“Back here .” Cait tapped the table. “At least for a bit. Until I can plan our next move.”
Their mother clapped. “Isn’t it just grand?”
Alice forced a smile. “Sure,” she said to Nora, then turned back to Cait. “But what about everything in London? Your job and—”
“I quit.”
“Weren’t you going for partner?”
“I didn’t get it,” Cait said. Admitting this stung less than she’d expected. “And I’m miserable there.”
“I didn’t know that,” Maggie said.
“I’m not sure I did either,” Cait said.
Alice continued to plate the pancakes, mechanically moving through the tasks of mothering, but she was clearly holding back as she asked more questions about the logistics. “What will you do? I mean for work and everything?”
Cait wanted to challenge her sister’s lackluster response to what she thought would be welcome news, but after yesterday, she was trying not to cause a scene, and so instead, she said, “Half of my graduating class from Columbia is in the city. I’ll find something.”
“And what about Bram?”
Cait nodded toward the twins and raised her brow.
“Oh, sorry.”
“I spoke with him last night. He comes to New York quarterly, so he’ll see the twins just as much. And, master of the grand gesture, he’ll take them on some extravagant summer holiday every year.”
Alice put down the now-empty platter and looked at Cait. “So you’ll live here ?” she said. “In this house? With Mom and Dad?”
Cait squared up. “Yes,” she said defensively. “I’ve thought about it, and we’ll come in the summer after the twins finish school, then see what happens. Maybe get a place in the city. Or not. Maybe we’ll stay on.”
Alice was about to take a bite of pancake but put her fork down. She started to say something, then stopped.
“For God’s sake,” Cait said. “What?”
“Nothing,” Alice said, shaking her head. “I’m just surprised, I guess.”
Cait resisted making the barb that there were plenty of surprises going around this weekend, and relied on another truth instead. “I thought you’d appreciate it. Having some help around here?”
Their mother turned to Alice. “What do you need help with?”
“Nothing,” Alice said.
“Why are you crying, Grammy?” James asked.
“I’m happy.”
Poppy stood on the bench and stomped her feet. “You can’t cry when you’re happy.”
Were all children this self-righteous, Cait wondered, or just hers?
“Oh, but you can,” Nora said.
“That’s silly.” Poppy sat and drowned her pancake in a pool of syrup.
Cait took a sip of her coffee. “Isn’t it, though?”
From the other end of the table, Finn pushed his empty plate away with his one good hand and leaned back in his chair. “I’m bored,” he announced.
“Good for you,” said Isabel, next to him. “You’re on the path toward enlightenment.”
Finn looked at her in confusion.
“You know,” she said, “the whole ‘do nothing’ thing. Just be.”
“Huh?” Finn said, but everyone else laughed.
Sensing the tension between Cait and Alice, Maggie turned to the kids. “How about a snowball fight?” She nodded to Finn in his shoulder wrap. “We’ll take it easy on you.”