The car has been turned off for ten minutes and I still haven't gotten out. I sit in the front seat, clutching the wheel nervously, gazing at the house in front of me in apprehension. I don't want to be here at all.
As I always do when I visit Mary, I notice how beautiful the Berkshires are. The hills sprout on either side of the road, covered thickly in trees, shading the car and the people and the countryside in dappled light. In spring and summer, everything is a rich, emerald green, and in autumn, the landscape is lit with brilliance by the fall foliage. I have never been here in the winter, and if it wasn't for Mary, I would want to see what it's like.
Not now, though. I sigh heavily, figuring that discovery is inevitable. I climb out of the car, taking my little duffel of clothes out of the backseat window and slinging it over my shoulder. I didn't need much from my father's house.
I raise my hand to knock on the crisply painted white door, but before I can, it flies open, and Mary's small, dramatic, long-suffering face greets me.
"What took you so long? I was seriously freaking out, Anne," she doesn't stop to let me explain, but turns around and walks away, leaving the door open for me to walk in through.
My sisters are the epitome of WASP beauty, and at this moment Mary is excelling in the wardrobe category. Her extra-small-sized polo fits her small breasts and waist perfectly, and her khakis sit at exactly her belly button. Her hair is the same medium brown at mine, but shinier, and layered and pulled back in a pony tail. I get the feeling I should be self-conscious standing in front of her with a sweatshirt and ratty jeans, my hair hanging down mid-back. But I don't compare myself with Mary anymore. There's no reason to, considering we have nothing in common and never could.
"Just leave your bags there," she says casually, waving a lazy hand at the foot of the wide staircase. "Eve will take it up for you."
I don't remind her that her maid's name is Yvonne. I don't think that would go over well on my first day. Instead, I follow her into the kitchen.
"Ugh, it is so good that you came now," she says, changing tack entirely. She coughs melodramatically into her fists and sighs like she just hacked up a lung, pulling a mug of tea close to her chest. "I'm soooo sick right now," she draws the word out, giving it as much weight as she can, "and I can't handle all the housework and Charles's soirees and be sick and care of Charlie. It's too much. I just wish you could have come a little sooner, that's all," she finishes, looking at me innocently and yet accusatorily.
My mouth quirks up a bit at her antics, and I lean against the enormous marble island in the middle of her kitchen. "This may come as a shock, Mary darling, but I did have a lot to do before I came."
"What can you possibly have had to do?" she said, apparently amazed that I did anything at all. I thought of all the cataloguing, all the organizing, all the avoiding the Crofts, all the packing, and the auctioning, the selling, the buying, the shipping, the moving.
"A lot, actually," I say, knowing she wouldn't believe me even if I told her. She barely bats an eyelash. She just says, "You didn't ask me how the gala went last night."
I blink back, surprised at the question. "I thought you didn't go. Aren't you sick?" For a moment, she seems lost for words, but she says, "Well, no. I was fine yesterday, but then today rolls along and I'm absolutely disgustingly ill."
I want to ask her about her alcohol intake, but I don't. I want to ask if she caused a scene like she usually does, but I don't. Instead, I say, "Is Charlie here?"
She waves a hand upward to the second story. "He's in his room playing. He has so much energy, I can't keep up. He'll be happy to see you, though." I almost wince at this statement, which generally sounds like an accusation from her. Nothing in her tone is resentful right now, but I'm grateful to get away from the kitchen and climb the plush stairs to Charlie's room, which is the last one down the hall. I knock on the door and a voice mumbles, "Go away, I'm busy."
I smile a bit. Charlie is three years old and mischievous. Anything he's busy at could end in a massive explosion of some kind or other.
"Well, I'll go away if you want me to, hon, but then I wouldn't get to see you. That'd make me cry. Do you want to make me cry?" There is a gasp, and mass scuffling behind the door, which is flung open suddenly, as a very small, very hard body flings itself at my chest.
"Anne! Anne! Anne!" he squeaks, now wrapping his arms around my legs and tugging me from side to side, rocking me. I look at the top of his head fondly as I hug him back. He looks like a child version of his father, with the same turned up nose and boyish features. On him, of course, they don't look as striking, since he's three. But soon, I guess, he'll have his father's height, a full six-foot-two, as well. I've always thought Charles's mix of features were a little on the ironic side.
"How's it going, buddy?" I say, my mouth quirking up of its own accord. He looks up at me, grinning his gap-toothed grin that will, in ten years, be encompassed by braces, and says, "Awesome! I just caught, like, free frogs, and they're gonna be my pets!" his speech impediment is endearing, and I almost chuckle at it, but the fear of what Mary will say when she sees three amphibians in her son and heir's bedroom stops me.
"Don't you think you should ask Mummy first?" He screws up his face in distaste, as if I had just suggested he eat his broccoli.
"Noooo, Anne! She won't let me have them! And I waaaaaaaaaant them!" He squeezes me tighter, pulling me up on my tiptoes. He's obviously learned his wheedling from Mary. I struggle to retain my balance and decide to drop the whole subject for now. Charlie doesn't pay attention to any new scheme for longer than two days. Hopefully it will be forgotten by tomorrow when he realizes how much work he has to do to keep the frogs.
The front door slams, and a big voice booms, "Look who's home!" Charlie squeals and drops his death grip on my lower body and races downstairs, this time yelling "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!"
I move to the top of the staircase, and watch as Charles picks his son up with no effort. Charles takes up the whole entrance, and is built like Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, a stature he hides in big, expensive suits and exorbitant attachés. In his arms, Charlie looks like a toy, a teddy bear. Charles is laughing heartily and ruffling his son's hair when he sees me coming down the stairs. I can see his eyes take in my appearance, my straggly hair, my old clothes, my bad shoes, and for the first time in my life, I see pity steal its way into his gaze. It's embarrassing, and I speak to cover up my humiliation. "Hello, Charles," which is my customary awkward greeting for him.
"Anne," he replies civilly, "how are you?"
I am about to answer with some sort of well-meaning lie when Mary speaks behind me. "Aren't you forgetting someone?" Her voice is pitched higher, as it generally is when she speaks to Charles, but I can feel the bite in it. She doesn't like me to be anywhere him. Not like there's any danger, anyway. I have never been interested in Charles in my life, not when …
"Ah, my beautiful wife, how could I forget you?" he boomed, striding to her and kissing her genially on the cheek. She smiles smugly and tilts her body into his. I feel a twang of envy, just for a moment, as I watch them. Not for Charles, but for this comfortable, stable, happy family life they have together. I want it for myself, but looking at them I know that's not possible.
"Come on, honey, I'll make you a cup of coffee," says Mary flirtatiously, stepping backwards into the kitchen. I know she's doing this for my benefit. Normally, she doesn't touch anything in the kitchen if she can help it.
I'm villianizing her, I realize. She's not all that bad, and definitely not as destructive as the combined powers of Elizabeth and my father. I shouldn't be so hard on her, since she is giving me the chance to leave home and escape for a bit. I resolve to stop victimizing myself and just deal. Stop being miserable. Presto-chango.
Charles smiles at his wife before turning to me and conspiratorially whispering, "Mother, Hen, and Lou want to see you. They're all home now, if you're available."
"Good. Charlie's got three frogs in his room." I give in return, and step out of the house to the sound of Charles's groan of apprehension.
Charles's family lives right next door, which in Berkshire standards means down one long driveway and up another. In true WASP fashion, Charles calls his parents "Mother" and "Daddy," and three years ago had moved his wife into the four million dollar house his parents had bought him as a wedding present. Mary, in her way, generally feels repressed by the proximity, and always tries to avoid contact as much as possible. Maybe she feels…stop that, you! Enough! I reprimand myself again, contemplating giving myself a slap on the wrist. I'm getting bitter in my old age now, I suppose.
The Musgrove family had long ago told me that I didn't need to knock on their door. Even now, years after they had bestowed this honor on me, I can't get used to the feeling of opening up a door this huge and walking in as if it was my own house. But I do, or Mrs. Musgrove will reprimand me about it for hours, or days, or weeks.
"Hello?" I call, over the sound of two girls singing along badly to Ewen McGregor and Nicole Kidman.
"Anne!" the voices shriek from the kitchen, and, much like Charlie, they slide over to me and throw their arms around me. Louisa, just twenty, is glowing and audacious, and her curly yellow hair sprays into my face as she flings herself at me. Henrietta, or Hen, is younger, more cautious, quieter, and takes care to straighten her hair every day. Now, however, she is barraging me with questions.
"What took you so long?"
"Was Mary flipping out at you?"
"Did you see Charlie?"
"Was your dad being a bastard again?"
"Did you know Charlie has some illicit material in his room?"
"How long are you staying?"
"Jesus you're thin!" says Lousia, invading my personal bubble and lifting my sweatshirt hem to poke at my stomach.
"Lou! That's a little rude," says Hen in disapproval, then turns to me. "You're in for it, though, Anne. When Mummy sees you now she's going to stuff waffles and bacon and things down your throat."
"Are you anorexic?" Lou asks, dropping my hem and looking at me pointedly. I can almost feel the burn of her gaze travel down to search my soul, and then I realize I'm being ridiculous and that I sound ominously like an emo song.
"No, Lou, I'm not. There's just literally been nothing to eat and no time to eat it in. And waffles sound really good," I say, trying to get her to believe me and let it drop. The truth is, I barely know myself anymore. If I had food in front of me, would I want to eat it? Lou looks at me suspiciously, then leads me to the side of the house, where the kitchen is, and plunks me down in a chair. "Elizabeth ate all the food, didn't she? Cow, I bet she'd stop if she just saw the size of her own ass—"
"—Lou," puts in Hen.
"—But I'm making you my famous Musgrove waffles. They're super good!" she says, and turns up the volume of the CD player so Ewen McGregor's voice is pumped through every corner. The smell of Musgrove waffles wafts through the air, and I admonish myself for the third time in twenty minutes for being totally wrong. Now that I smell them, I'm completely ravenous, and I watch Louisa's movements with a wolfish hunger, waiting for her to take the waffles out of the iron. I feel almost like holding my fork and knife perpendicular to the table, like in the old Saturday morning cartoons I used to watch with my mother.
Before the plate can reach me, however, another big pair of arms enfolds me, and I am brought close to Mrs. Musgrove's large chest. Louisa turns the music down again as Mrs. Musgrove turns me around in my chair so I can embrace her, and I do with fervor. If I love anyone in this world like a mother, I love Mrs. Musgrove. She has always fed me, or given me a place to sleep, or listened to my opinions, or loved me, with no conditions and no questions. She rocks me from side to side a put, rubbing my back with her chubby hand, then steps back.
Mrs. Musgrove is not the average WASP woman. Most women around here try their hardest to maintain perfect figures, like Mary. They eat carrots with a side of steam, go to the gym every day for hours, or have personal trainers, and consider it bad form to have a spot that jiggles anywhere on their bodies. Not Mrs. Musgrove. Not fat, but chubby, with a sizeable bosom and bright twinkling eyes, she gives the impression that she doesn't give a damn about what other people think simply because it never crosses her mind that they would think negative things about her. Now, her shrewd eyes are a little sharp as she takes me in, and she turns to Lou and says, "Make that five waffles, Louey. This is going to take some work."
She tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear and sits down next to me. I lean my head against her shoulder, feeling my smile grow a little bit. It feels good to be home. But I straighten as Lou plunks a plate of food in front of me, and I tuck in with vehemence, enjoying the feeling of slowly getting full to bursting.
It feels very good to be home.