“Well, like I said, Beth taught me. The ones who knew her miss her terribly. They want to know what’s happening with her case, and I do my best to fill them in and let them get their feelings out. You just wouldn’t believe the emotion. It’s a completely different perspective than you get in stuffy old Black Hall.”
Kate smiled at Scotty. She could hear an echo of Beth’s compassion in her words. Lulu stretched on the blanket, September sunbathing. Scotty squeezed Kate’s hand, mouthed Love you, then peered at her phone’s screen, scrolling through Facebook.
Love. Kate thought of the words in love. Love, in love, love, in love. Such different states of being, of feeling. An image came to her mind—a man and a woman standing in an art gallery, close enough to kiss each other. She remembered that moment of feeling desire. The memory of Conor came with an emotion too strong to bear, so she pushed it away.
While the girls continued to scrub the garish paint off the granite boulder, as the muted soft browns and grays emerged again, streaks of pearl-white quartz, Kate walked farther down the beach. She pictured her sister and Scotty at the soup kitchen; it sounded as if Beth was guiding Scotty still.
Just before Kate got to the next rock outcropping, she stopped. She cleared a patch of seaweed from the tide line and used her driftwood branch to write in the sand. Crouching down, she wrote her sister’s name. She wrote her own. She drew two hearts, two drops of blood. She drew a full moon and squiggled a path of light on the waves. She drew stairs leading to a basement. She drew stick figures of one woman and two girls tied together, heads bowed. She enclosed the entire tableau in a heart.
46
Scotty stared at Kate, halfway down the beach, and wondered what she would have thought to know Beth had considered doing something drastic about the baby. Beth hadn’t actually put it into words, but she’d expressed such misgivings. She’d been just a few weeks along, fighting morning sickness at the soup kitchen. Scotty had hustled her outside, away from the lunch line and the smells of roast chicken and sweet potatoes.
“How am I going to do this?” Beth had asked. “I can’t handle it.”
“You’re just upset,” Scotty had said. “Not thinking clearly, understandably.”
“Scotty, I’m so worried. I’m terrified about what’s going to happen, how it’s going to affect Sam, our whole family. God, what a mess I’ve made of everything.”
“A new little baby to love,” Scotty said. “How is that a mess?”
“Pete? Jed?” Beth said.
“It’s not about them,” Scotty said.
“Well, actually it is,” Beth said. “And what about Sam? I feel as if we’ve already failed her—she’s going downhill. You see it when she’s with Isabel, don’t you?”
“She’s holding her own,” Scotty said. She’d grabbed some saltines from the condiment table, and she ripped open the cellophane and handed Beth a cracker. Beth leaned against the church wall and took tiny nibbles.
“I don’t think she is,” Beth said.
“Frankly, Beth, I don’t see how that enters the equation. Look at my family! We were perfect—we thought we were—Nick, me, and our amazing Isabel. Then Julie, with her problems—you can’t imagine how hard it’s been. I don’t complain; I never would—but there have been sacrifices. Do we love her any less because she has issues?”
“I know how much you love her.”
“Both my children. And you’ll love both of yours,” Scotty said.
“I know. Of course,” Beth said, slowly eating the rest of the cracker. “I’m just scared, Scotty. I never thought this would be my life.”
“None of us ever think our lives would be our lives,” Scotty said. She stared hard at Beth and wondered what she was planning. What had she really meant when she’d said she couldn’t handle it? Scotty had plenty of problems, and Beth had no idea. Beth had the perfect house, money, a business, a career. It gave Scotty a strange, shameful thrill to know that Beth had screwed up. Everyone idolized her. Scotty felt glad that Beth could turn to her. She was the only one Beth was expressing her doubts to. And it was up to Scotty to support her.
Two clients from the soup kitchen walked out of the building. Rosalie, whose children had been taken from her by DCF, and Martin, one of the most tragic cases of all—a brilliant man who chose the wrong path in life.
“Hi,” Beth called to them, waving. “How are you doing?”
“I’m great, Beth,” Rosalie said. “I’m going to see my kids on Saturday. Two hours with them. We’re going to the aquarium.”
“That’s fantastic, Rosalie!” Beth said. Scotty watched her. Even in her own despair, Beth was so enthusiastic in supporting other people.
“You’ve got to take them to the Treworgy Planetarium too,” Martin said. “At Mystic Seaport.”
“Oh, I love the Seaport,” Scotty said, entering into the spirit.
“Have a good day, you guys,” Beth said. Rosalie and Martin waved and were on their way. Scotty had the feeling they were heading to the package store. She knew drinkers when she saw them.
“Everything will work out,” Scotty said to Beth when they were alone again.
“Are you sure?” Beth asked.
“Honey, you have morning sickness. You can’t think straight when you feel like you might throw up at any moment.”
“You’re right about that.”
“Let’s take a little walk,” Scotty said. “It will clear your head.”
“Thanks, Scotty,” Beth said, giving her a big hug. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. Life is going to get crazy when people find out.” She touched her belly.
“Well, I’ll be there for you no matter what,” Scotty said.
She held out the cellophane pack, and Beth took another cracker.
“Chew it slowly,” Scotty had said. “Too fast and you’ll get sick. There you go; that’s the way.”
It had touched her, the way Beth had listened to her. Respected what she had had to say. Complied with Scotty’s suggestions, even about eating a saltine.
Sitting on the beach, Scotty reflected on how it had seemed almost as if Beth were a child instead of Scotty’s best friend.
PART III
47
November 16
Lulu counted the months without Beth. Summer ended; fall sped along. The holidays, starting with Beth’s birthday, would be here soon, and no one wanted to face them. A blast of Arctic air, extreme for November, slashed down from Canada. At dusk, when the light was lavender, Lulu bundled up in her red fleece jacket and drove north, past Mathilda’s stone gates, to one of the oldest cemeteries in Connecticut.
She parked on the road, slung a brown leather bag over her shoulder, and climbed to the top of the hill. Heronwood Cemetery was surrounded by a wall built before the Revolutionary War. Colonists were buried here, graves dating back to the seventeenth century. The first time she had visited, on a late May afternoon two decades before, had been with Beth. Although Beth had had her driver’s permit, she hadn’t had her license yet, and Kate had been on a flying trip with Mathilda, so Lulu had driven her here. Beth had wanted to visit her mother’s grave.