know what you’re talking about,” Mara’s mother said, and Mara could hear in her voice that she was wrestling with an enormous force, still winning for the moment, still calm or calm enough, but not yet the final victor. “Moving from the Upper West Side, five minutes from the office, into a small, dingy flat an hour and twenty minutes away in Brooklyn doesn’t give your life more meaning.”
“But that’s what I’m trying to say, Lynne. You’re not listening. The work, the apartment, our little neighborhood—for quite some time now, it’s all felt artificial.”
“Don,” she said, and Mara could hear that she was straining her patience to its limit, “Jamaican patties and Sunday gospels isn’t your reality. It’s not authentic to you.”
“Why couldn’t it be?”
“No. Stop.” Mara’s mother’s voice sounded like broken glass, and Mara could almost see her waving her arms. “Oh. God. Just stop.” The line was silent for a beat, and then she spoke again, and it was clear she’d begun to cry. “You think I don’t know this? How stupid do you think I am? This isn’t about goddamn authenticity. This is a lot more cliché even than that. This is about you banging that,” she caught her breath, “that Caribbean author Vic’s age—”
Mara yanked the phone away from her ear, not sure what her father meant by “authentic” or the monkeys thing but certain that she was finished listening. She quietly replaced the receiver.
Since then, lingering outside her mother’s door, she’d been thinking about how to change things for her mother—would a kitten help? Should she throw a party? Maybe buy some cupcakes at the bakery on 81st? It all seemed a bit lame. She was wishing a solution would just pop into her head, the way answers sometimes did on multiple-choice tests, when she heard a key in the door. She wondered, for a breath, if it might be her father, fresh from Brooklyn and here to talk things through with her mother. Sometimes, as her father said, her mother didn’t really listen; she seemed so lost in her own thoughts—always had, now that Mara considered it. Maybe a good set of ears from his wife was all her father needed, and he’d returned to claim it.
But of course it was not her father at the door. Her father would not simply wander back in at this point. There would be no magic wand; this was not a musical. Mara herself was going to have to figure out how to fix it.
She moved away from her mother’s bedroom door, still shuttered, and headed toward the living room. “Hey, Vic,” she called out, because only one other person had keys to their apartment.
“Mar-muffin, the angel.” Vic stood smiling in the center of the room, holding a white plastic bag with one hand, her hair pulled away from her face. Vic was so beautiful she glowed, literally, as though her skin were a thin veneer covering pure gold. Mara was smart, really smart; she knew that. She’d been tested, and though her parents didn’t discuss it because they thought it unhealthy to dwell on, she knew the scores had surprised even them. But she also had wiry, brittle hair and a small, sharp nose. She wore glasses. She had bony shoulders that gave her prominent angel wings, contributing to the family nickname. As to which would prove in the end more useful, being smart enough and very beautiful or very smart and not too attractive, she hadn’t yet figured out.
“I’m so sorry. It’s been insanely busy. Rehearsals—well, you know. I’ve missed you, though, baby. I brought a loaf of whole-grain and some sawbies,” Vic said, using the word Mara used to say when she was a toddler, before she could say “strawberries.”
“We already have sawbies,” said Mara, flinging one arm behind her toward her parents’—her mother’s—bedroom, with a play on the words she knew her sister would get.
“Jeez,” Vic said. And then, “Mom?” And in a louder, more authoritative tone, “Mom.”
After a long moment, the bedroom door pushed open, the hinges squeaking a little in protest, making Mara think of muscles stiff from disuse. Her mother swept in, arms open. She wore jeans and a fresh, long-sleeved white shirt. Her tangled hair, blond with a few scattered strands of silver, fell to just below her shoulders; her face was splotchy and mirror-shiny at once. “Vic!” she said almost manic-gaily, adding, “Mara!” a moment later, as though Mara had just arrived as well. She pulled both daughters into her arms, rocking them for a moment, and then said in a bright tone, “What time is it, girls? Shall we have some breakfast?”
“Breakfast?” Vic glanced at Mara. “What’d you eat today?”
Mara didn’t respond. Vic didn’t know how bad it had gotten.
Vic shook her head. “C’mon,” she said. “Let’s wash the berries.”
Their mom followed them into the kitchen—as if she were the kid, Mara thought—and sat, crossing her arms on top of the table. Vic pulled a brush from her purse and handed it to Mara. “You brush,” she said, gesturing toward their mother’s head. “I’ll do food.”
Mara took the brush and pulled out some of Vic’s golden auburn hair, twirling it around her finger and setting it carefully on the table. Then she held the brush over her mother’s scalp for a second. Mara was uncoordinated; that was another thing about her. While Vic was a dancer who seemed to control her body as easily as she might lift a cup to her lips, Mara had trouble cutting along a straight line for school projects. Sometimes she wondered how she and Vic could be sisters. She lowered the brush and began slowly working on her mother’s hair. Her mother allowed it, even leaned her head back a little, her eyes narrowing as she watched Vic at the sink.
“Have you gotten thinner over the last couple weeks?” their mother asked.
Vic shrugged. “Same as always, I think,” she said over her shoulder. “Though Alex has been working us.” She bent to a lower cabinet to find a colander.
“Hmm.” Her mother tapped her fingers on the table. “Are you . . .” she paused, “. . . seeing anyone?”
Mara stared at Vic, eager to hear how Vic would answer. She liked catching little bits of a world removed, one in which she didn’t yet have to participate. She was also curious because Mara knew something that her mother, caught up in her own drama, had failed to notice. Mara knew—at least she was pretty sure—that Vic liked Jonas. At another time, a pre-Dad-leaving time, this would have been big news. Vic and Jonas had been friends since high school, when he lived four blocks away and they used to share meals at each other’s houses, do homework together. Jonas had even seen Vic with pimple cream on her nose. No big deal.
About three weeks ago, though, Vic came to visit and brought Jonas with her, and Mara saw that something had changed. When Mara walked into the living room, they were standing near the window, their fingers barely touching, and they were looking at each other in a certain way that startled Mara, then scared her for a second, and then made her feel like giggling—from embarrassment, mainly. But she was glad. Jonas was sweet. Jonas was the only one who seemed to notice Mara—at one point during the visit, he knelt down to Mara and asked, “How’s it going?” and when she shrugged, he squeezed her shoulder and said, “It will get better. Promise.” Mara thought if she had a brother, she wouldn’t mind him being like Jonas.
Vic waved her right hand in the air dismissively. “Dancing is taking up all my time right now.”
“Well,” said their mother, and then she stopped, but she looked pleased. “How are rehearsals coming?”
“Good.” Vic brightened. “Want to come opening night? It’s Tuesday, remember.”
“Is
