Page 43

The bad weather broke around midnight, and by morning, the sun rose on a water-logged island.

The waters had calmed, the wind was light, and the sailing regatta was on.

Betsy dressed and showered, her heart sore, her eyes burning from yesterday’s tears.

She whipped up some American cheese omelets and a platter of toast, trying to go on with her day like everything was normal.

Aggie dozed on the couch while the baby napped on her chest and Tabby sat on the floor with a bowl of dry Frosted Flakes watching Scooby-Doo .

Aggie never complained about getting up alone with the kids every morning.

She wasn’t short with Tabby or Betsy, and she rarely asked for help.

It had been on Betsy’s mind since their talk on Senatorial : how different her sister’s life was than it used to be.

Not once had Betsy offered to take the baby for the afternoon; she shirked from changing a diaper.

It was Aggie that warmed the bottles. It was Aggie that dressed Tabby and chopped bite-size apples and bathed the children each night.

Even her mother had retreated to her study rather than spending time alone with her granddaughter and grandson.

It’s no wonder Aggie was unable to find thirty minutes to go jogging.

What would be left of Betsy if she decided to become a mother too?

The wood floors creaked underfoot as Betsy bent over the overstuffed couch and gently nudged her sister.

Aggie’s eyes shot open with surprise. She had the kind of thick lashes that appeared to be wearing mascara at all times, and her long nose and high cheekbones had grown sophisticated with age.

But it was Aggie’s temperament that Betsy envied.

She was determined like their parents, but there was a serenity about how she went after what she wanted.

A woman who checks on runners behind her in a race.

“Aggie, go jog or play tennis or something. I can watch them for an hour,” Betsy whispered, careful not to wake the baby. Tabby pulled her blanket tighter around her shoulders, unable to peel her eyes away from the television.

Aggie ran her palm over the back of the baby’s white onesie. “I didn’t tell you that stuff on the boat the other day to get you to watch my kids.”

Betsy scooched next to her on the couch. “I know, but I could use a little cuddle time with my nephew.” She held out her open hands, motioning for Aggie to hand her the baby.

Her sister didn’t seem convinced. She gently kissed the fuzz of the boy’s head, pausing. “He might wake up and cry.”

“So?” Betsy rolled her eyes and held her hands to urge her along.

“You’re just saying what I want to hear,” Aggie said.

“It doesn’t mean I don’t mean what I’m saying.” Betsy lingered, insisting her sister get up. “I’ll lean back at the same angle, and you can place him right on my chest. I’ll let him sleep, and if he wakes up, I’ll tell him how we used to sneak chocolate out of the pantry before bed.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” Aggie allowed a smirk to spread across her face.

She adjusted her position gently, lifting the baby’s warm body and laying him down onto Betsy.

Mikey lifted his tiny blond head and expressed his disapproval with a few raspy cries before settling into sleep.

Betsy closed her eyes, too, listening as her sister rushed upstairs.

Drawers opening and closing, a toothbrush scrubbing.

Minutes later, Aggie was downstairs in track shorts with a stripe up the seam, tying her tennis shoes.

“I won’t be long,” Aggie whispered, pulling an elastic off her wrist and threading her blond curls into a high ponytail. “Shoot. I haven’t even had water.”

“I don’t need to leave for an hour, so don’t rush back,” Betsy said. Aggie gave her a thumbs-up and popped a kiss on Tabby’s tiny cheek. She planted one on Betsy’s cheek too.

The back door latched shut, and Betsy felt her breath fall in sync with her nephew’s.

He had the sweetest little nose that reminded her of a button mushroom, chubby cheeks that fell slack with his lips open in sleep.

His entire body rose and fell with his breath, and he smelled like the softest, cleanest pillowcase.

Or maybe it was honey and milk, or the smell of soft powder warm in the afternoon sun.

Betsy imagined the baby inside her coming out with its own unique scent, how it would look up at her with wide eyes and a depth of curiosity.

She could even see the child in later years waiting for the kindergarten bus and bouncing a basketball.

He’d have muddy knees and wear collared shirts on holidays and the two of them would huddle over a school science project, making dioramas of the ocean floor.

They would hold hands as she walked him to school, until he got too old and said he was too embarrassed, and she would take him to the beach and teach him how to sail.

They would spend hours collecting shells and seeds and rocks and head to the library to look up the names of them in books.

This baby inside her, she decided then, was most certainly a boy.

Betsy thought about shared vacations with Aggie’s family, how the two boys could be brothers to each other.

The fantasy ended quickly. Betsy would be the dreaded single mother, the biggest symbol of messing up in American pop culture.

A scarlet letter of Betsy’s own doing. For the rest of her life, she would be written off as reckless and misguided.

But some single moms could be happy, right? Betsy strained to imagine what her life would look like if she went through with the pregnancy, if she would have to tell people a fib about the child’s father. It would be easy to say its father had died. That would get anyone to change the subject.

Her nephew slept as the rest of the household made its way downstairs, Louisa yawning as she sipped coffee and flipped through the newspaper. Her mother ambled by next, pouring Earl Grey tea that Betsy had brewed into her FEMALE mug.

“Wiley said you’ve returned to your status as star instructor.” Her mother crossed her legs under her silk bathrobe in the striped armchair facing the couch.

Betsy gently squeezed the boy’s small feet curled up on either side of her abdomen. “I kind of feel like a kid again, living here and teaching sailing.”

“I don’t want you to think this nonsense with the house will get in the way of your degree. I will find a way to pay for it. Okay?”

Her former lover told her he wanted nothing to do with this baby; Betsy was thinking of having it on her own. What did she have to lose in admitting to her mother her ambivalence toward graduate school? Last week, she’d committed to returning. Now she wasn’t sure.

“I’m still trying to figure out if I should return to Columbia in the fall. I’m not sure I want to finish.” Betsy braced herself for an earthquake, the collapse of the roof, the pain of being kicked in the chest.

A Chatty Cathy doll commercial interrupted the weight of what she’d said, and Tabby hugged Virgie’s legs, grinning up at her grandma, before turning back to her show.

Her mother gave Betsy a strong decisive nod. “Okay.”

There was no frown, no demand. It was almost disappointing. “You don’t care if I finish my degree or not?”

Outside the living room windows, the hydrangea blooms pressed against the screen.

“Oh, I care, honey, and I think it’s a mistake, but I can’t force you to continue.

You’re getting older, and that means, at some point, you’re going to have to figure out what’s going to make you happy.

I wish you liked your program because you would be done with the tough part, figuring out what you want out of life.

Not knowing means you’re going to have to start over, and I don’t envy that.

It’s hard work finding the thing that lights us up. ”

Betsy sank into her thoughts. She wasn’t expecting the approval of her mother, and it confused her further.

If she had this baby, Betsy would have no money, no job, no house, no direction.

It was ludicrous, and yet why did she want it?

Maybe because she was tired of waiting for a man to begin her life, maybe because she wanted to do things differently than she’d been prescribed.

Career first, husband second, baby third.

Still, she couldn’t go back to Columbia and push a stroller around campus.

Her professors barely took her seriously now.

It was maddening. Andy would earn tenure at Dartmouth without anyone wondering how he would pull off being a father and a professor.

Betsy’s thoughts churned. She needed someone to blame. “My classmates, they just make me feel so stupid. I have this paper, and I was told I had to do a complete rewrite.”

Small lines around her mother’s mouth deepened, her “thinking lines,” she called them. “Do you know how many people have insulted my intellect, Betsy? Even your father was guilty of that, and he would call himself a feminist, at least in private. Don’t let them win, Betts. You know that.”

“I know.” The baby was warm against her chest. “But I’m already flattened like a pancake. I’m not sure I have any fight in me. I’m not sure I ever did.”

“Oh, honey, but you do.” She started to offer examples of when Betsy had fought back as a kid, then stopped, inhaling deeply. “Listen, Betts, I’m happy you’re enjoying sailing, and I know that you briefly reconnected with James, but going back in time, it won’t fix things. It won’t bring Dad back.”

“I’m not trying to bring Dad back. Don’t you think I know he’s gone?” The baby startled at Betsy’s rising voice.

Her mother crossed her arms, curling into herself. “You don’t talk to us, Betsy. You don’t tell us what’s going on in here.” Pressing her hand against breastbone, her mother’s voice wavered. “You aren’t processing. You’re avoiding, and I’m worried that if you keep avoiding—”