where they all were. I looked out at the water toward the platform, a heavy wooden raft anchored in the deep water and held afloat by empty oil drums. Every last one of the teenagers was crammed on top of the platform, which was really too small for all of them. I could hear them laughing from where I sat. I could hear music, too, and I wondered how they’d managed to get a radio out there in the deep water without it getting wet. My sister and another girl were standing up, dancing, moving to the music. Bruno Walker was balanced on the edge of the platform, and I watched him do a perfect dive into the water. Then he swam back to the platform, hoisting himself onto it using his muscular arms rather than climbing up the ladder. He took a seat near one of the girls I didn’t know.
I chewed my sandwich slowly, watching them. I’d never been on the platform, although I longed to be. I was a good swimmer and I was certain I could even hoist myself up onto it the way Bruno had just done, but I was intimidated by the teenagers who always hung out there, Isabel included. It was clearly their territory. A twelve-year-old would not be welcome. Watching them, I had no way of knowing that my sister, who looked so vibrant and alive, would be dead before the summer was over. And I had no way of knowing how that platform would one day haunt my dreams.
CHAPTER 8
Maria
I weeded my garden every day. Although it was only late June, I could already see weeds popping up through the mulch Julie and Lucy had spread for me. Most people hated weeding, but I didn’t. I loved being in the sun—the Italian portion of my blood, no doubt. Maybe I had more wrinkles than I would if I hadn’t spent so much of my life outdoors, but I didn’t care. It was a privilege to grow old, and not everyone got to enjoy it. I was grateful for every minute I was given.
I liked keeping the flower beds neat and orderly, scratching out the weeds from around the red begonias and pink peonies, making order out of chaos. Julie was exactly like me in that regard. Lucy was another story altogether. She was sloppy and complicated. I tried not to think of where Isabel would have fallen in that continuum of neatness to messiness. Thinking about things like that could drive you crazy.
That morning in late June, I was sitting on the little seat-onrollers Julie had bought for me, working on the flower bed near the front steps, when a car pulled into my driveway. It was a big car with a long hood, the kind of car an old man would drive, and sure enough, I watched as a man about my age got out of the driver’s side.
I set down my trowel and stood up slowly. That’s one thing I’d learned—I had to take my time getting to my feet after working in the sun, or everything would go dark for a few seconds. I took off my gardening gloves and dropped them to the mulch as I watched the old man retrieve a cane from the car and begin to hobble toward me.
“Hello,” I called out, taking a few steps across my lawn.
He waved at me. “Hello, Maria,” he said, and my mind started the frantic racing it did when someone unfamiliar seemed to know me. My memory was not bad at all, but when I’d meet people out of context, I often couldn’t place them. Did I know this man from church? From Micky D’s? I shaded my eyes with my hand, trying to see him more clearly. He was tall and nearly gaunt, his white hair very thin on top. He limped when he walked toward me and I knew he needed that cane and that it wasn’t just for show. He looked like a complete stranger to me.
He smiled as he neared me, and although there was something familiar in the curve of his lips, I still couldn’t place him.
“You don’t recognize me, do you?” he said, without reproach.
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, I don’t,” I said. “Do you go to Holy Trinity?”
He held his left hand toward me, his right hand leaning heavily on his cane. “I’m Ross Chapman,” he said.
I had stood up slowly enough, of that I was certain, yet my head went so light I thought I might pass out. I took his hand more to steady myself than to shake it and I could not seem to find my voice.
“It’s been a long, long time,” he said.
I managed to nod. “Yes,” I said.
“You are still a stunning woman,” he said, even though I was wearing my gardening overalls and probably had dirt smeared on my face.
“Thank you.” I couldn’t bring myself to reciprocate. Ross Chapman had once been a very handsome man, but in the fortyone years since I’d last seen him in person, he had withered and paled. After we left the summer house for the last time in 1962, I would see his picture occasionally in the papers and on TV, since he was a prominent figure in New Jersey and had even run for governor. But he looked nothing like that robust politician now.
“Is this how you spend your days?” he asked, motioning toward the flower bed. “Working in your garden?”
“I also work at McDonald’s in Garwood and I’m a volunteer at the hospital,” I said.
“McDonald’s?” he laughed. “That’s marvelous. You always knew how to keep busy,” he said, nodding with what I guessed was approval.
I wasn’t sure what to do with him. We stood for a moment in an awkward silence. I didn’t want to invite him in, but I saw no alternative.
“Would you like to come in?” I asked finally. “Have something to drink?”
“I’d like that,” he said.
I walked up the front steps and inside the house, holding the door open for him. I could see that the four concrete steps were a bit of a struggle for him and I looked away, not wanting to embarrass him by noticing his frailty.
“Why don’t you sit here?” I motioned toward the armchair in the living room, then rattled off the things I could offer him to drink.
“Just ice water,” he said.
In the kitchen, I took my time getting out the glasses, filling them with ice. I wished he had not come. I could see no point to this visit. I could have quite happily lived out the rest of my days without seeing my old neighbor again.
When I returned to the living room, I saw that he had not taken a seat as I’d suggested. Instead, he was looking at the pictures on the mantel. There was one of the four of us—Charles and myself and Julie and Lucy, when the girls were fifteen and eleven. It was the last picture I had of Charles; he’d dropped dead from a heart attack in our kitchen only a few weeks after it had been taken. Then there were Julie’s and Lucy’s old college-graduation pictures and, next to them, Shannon’s senior picture. Ross lifted that last one up and looked toward me, a smile on his lips.
“A granddaughter?” he asked.
I nodded. “Shannon,” I said. “She’s Julie’s.” I thought of telling him more about her, how she’d been accepted to Oberlin, how accomplished she was already, but I didn’t want to extend my conversation with Ross any longer than I had to.
“Lovely.” Then he poked a finger at Julie’s picture. “That’s Julie, right? She was the sharp one. The one with the brains and the spunk.”
His words jolted me. Julie had brains, all right, but her spunk had gone out the window long ago. He was right, though. When he knew my girls, Julie was the one who’d had the most gumption.
“Yes,” I said, to keep things short and simple.
