built playhouses for other people’s children. Tim had run a lobster boat, and Dianne had set up shop in the oyster shack, where they lived, on the wharf. During their thirteen months together, her playhouses had smelled a lot like shellfish. By then she had orders pouring in from everywhere. She advertised in magazines appealing to parents, romantics, and lovers of New England. Word of mouth did the rest. Her houses were big enough to play in. They had gingerbread, dovecotes, eaves, peaked rooftops, and cross-and-Bible doors; her company was called Home Sweet Home.
Dianne’s HMO paid for several hours each week of physical therapy and nurse’s aides. If Julia were left alone, she would spend all day in the fetal position. She would curl up, drawing herself inward like the slow-motion nature films of a flower at dusk. Therapy helped, but Dianne didn’t like strangers in her home. She preferred to work with Julia herself. No one loved Julia like Dianne did.
Many people had suggested Dianne institutionalize Julia. She could go to St. Gertrude’s Children’s Hospital or to Fresh Pond Manor. They had told Dianne that Julia would be too much for anyone, even a saint. Sometimes Dianne felt guilty, imagining those people thought she wanted credit for her sacrifice and devotion. She asked herself: Wouldn’t Julia get expert care in a place like that? Wouldn’t she be exercised and changed and fed and monitored? Wouldn’t Dianne be set free to live a less burdened life, be lighter of heart during the time she spent with Julia?
But Julia needed massage. Her muscles would knot up. Her stomach would tighten, and she’d get constipated. And only Dianne knew exactly how she liked to be rubbed. With baby oil on her rough hands, Dianne would soothe her baby’s woes. Julia liked circular motions on her angel wings. She liked light pressure around her rib cage, in the area of her kidneys, and she hated being touched on her scars.
Who at the institution would know that? Even if one nurse’s aide got used to Julia’s preferences, what if that person got transferred or moved away? Julia would have to go through the whole thing again, getting used to someone new. Also, there was the matter of her constipation. Most newcomers didn’t realize it was part of the territory for Rett syndrome kids. Medical people were always so quick with laxatives, when all Dianne needed to do was gently rub her belly – using a flat palm, no fingers – to help things along.
Julia would sigh. She would gurgle like a baby, and Dianne would talk back in words: “There, honey. Is that better? Let me tell you about the owl and the pussycat.…Ever hear about how monarch butterflies migrate to Belize? …About the otters that live in the marsh and the hawks that hunt along the banks …”
Dianne was no saint. Her anger and frustrations knew no bounds. She banged nails with a vengeance. She’d yell while she sawed, swearing at God, the universe, and the McIntosh boys. Money was tight. She charged huge sums for her playhouses, targeting the richest people possible. But production was limited; she lived rent free with her mother and paid nearly everything she made to insurance and deductibles. When the aides were there, she’d take off on breakneck runs along the beach, rows through the marsh in her father’s old dinghy. Crying and exercise were free.
Her studio was now in the small cottage behind her mother’s house, where she and Julia had come to live after Tim left. The windows overlooked the estuary, the green reeds golden in this twilight hour. Sawdust was everywhere. Like pollen carried on the spring air, it filmed the cottage floor, workbenches, table saw, miter box, and the inside of the windowpanes. Stella, her shy tiger cat, hid in her basket on a high shelf. Julia sat in her chair.
They listened to music. Dianne loved out-of-date love songs that expressed mad longing and forever love; she sang them to Julia while she worked. “The Look of Love,” “Scarborough Fair,” “Going Out of My Head.”
Dianne had been without a man for Julia’s entire life. Sometimes she saw women with husbands and imagined what it would be like. Did they have all the love they needed, was it worth the fighting and disagreements to be part of a secure family? In the dark, Dianne sometimes felt lonely. She’d hug her pillow and imagine someone whispering to her that everything would be okay. She tried not to picture a face or hear any certain voice, but the night before she had imagined how Alan’s back might look under his shirt, how his muscles would strain if he held her really tight.
Measuring carefully, she used a pencil to mark lightly the places she wanted to cut. The table saw let out a high-pitched whine as she guided the wood through. Her father had been a carpenter. He had taught her his craft, and Dianne never cut anything without hearing his gentle voice telling her to mind her priceless hands.
“Home from the wars,” Lucinda Robbins said, walking in.
“Hi, Mom,” Dianne said. “Tough day?”
“No, darling,” said her mother. “It’s just that I can feel my retirement coming in July, and my body is counting the days.”
“How many?” Dianne asked, smiling.
“Eighty-seven,” Lucinda said, going over to kiss Julia. “Hello, sweetheart. Granny’s home.”
Lucinda crouched by Julia’s side. Julia’s great liquid eyes took everything in, roaming from the raw wood to the finished playhouses to the open window before settling on her grandmother’s face.
Dianne stood back, watching. Lucinda was small and thin, with short gray hair and bright clothes: a sharp blue tunic over brick-red pants. Her long necklace of polished agate came from a street market in Mexico, bought on the only cruise she’d ever taken with Dianne’s father, eleven years earlier – the year Julia had been born and he had died.
“Maaa,” Julia said. “Gaaa.”
“She’s saying our names,” Lucinda said. “Ma and Granny.”
“She is?” Dianne asked, dumbstruck by her own need to believe.
“Yes,” Lucinda said soothingly. “Of course she is.”
Julia had hypersensitive skin, and Dianne smoothed her blond hair as gently as she could. Her hair felt silky and fine. It waved just behind the girl’s ears, a white-gold river of softness.
“At Julia’s age, you had the same cornsilk hair,” Lucinda said. “Just as soft and pretty. Now, tell me. What did Alan say?”
“Oh, Mom.” Dianne swallowed hard.
Lucinda touched her heart. “Honey?”
Dianne shook her head. “No, no bad news,” she said. “No news at all, really. Nothing definite one way or the other.”
“Has she grown?”
“An eighth of an inch.”
“Isn’t that a lot?” Lucinda asked, frowning. “In so short a time?
“No!” Dianne said more sharply than she intended. “It isn’t a lot. It’s completely normal, Mom.”
“Good, honey,” Lucinda said, striking what Dianne had come to consider her Buddha pose: straight back, serene eyes, hands folded in prayer position under her chin. She might have the same turmoil inside as Dianne, but she hid it better. “Were you nice to him?” she asked.
“Nice?” Dianne asked.
“To Alan,” her mother said. “When you saw him today …”
“Well …” Dianne said, remembering the look on his face as they’d left his
