“You’ll get absorbed in your painting and forget all about them,” Mom muttered.
Dulcie exhaled sharply, clearly exasperated. “I’ve had sole responsibility for Emma since she was a baby. Does she look neglected?”
The argument went on during dinner, which made it hard to enjoy the pasta topped with Dulcie’s special marinara sauce, concocted from her ex-husband’s Italian grandmother’s recipe.
“It’s the only good thing I ever got from that man,” Dulcie said. “Besides Emma, of course.”
Dad laughed and Mom allowed herself to smile, and then they returned to the argument. Round and round they went, saying the same things over and over again. Mom refused to give in: I was too young to leave home for a whole summer, too young to be responsible for Emma.
At the end of the meal, Dad laid his fork and knife on his plate and said, “I’ve heard enough. Ali’s a sensible, responsible girl. There’s absolutely no reason why she shouldn’t spend the summer at the lake.”
Mom put her coffee cup down and stared at him, obviously shocked. “Pete, please—”
Whatever she was about to say was drowned out by Emma’s shout of joy. “Hooray! Hooray!” She jumped up from the table and ran to hug Dad. “Thank you, Uncle Pete, thank you!”
I looked at Mom uneasily, taking in the defeated slump of her shoulders. “Say it’s okay,” I begged. “Say I can go and you won’t be mad.” Or hurt. Or betrayed. Or worried.
She wiped her mouth carefully with her napkin. “If it means so much to you, go.” Without looking at anyone, she rose from the table and began gathering the dinner plates. The set of her jaw and her jerky movements clearly showed her anger.
“Give me a break, Claire. Don’t get in one of your moods.” Dulcie picked up a few glasses and followed Mom into the kitchen.
Carrying the serving bowls, I trailed after them, with Emma close behind clasping a fistful of spoons and forks. She handed them to Mom, then ran off to the living room.
Without speaking to anyone, Mom began loading the dishwasher.
“It’s the silent treatment,” Dulcie whispered to me. “She inherited it from our mother—and perfected it.”
I turned away, unwilling to criticize Mom. Dulcie was right, of course—silence and tears were Mom’s weapons. But it made me uncomfortable to agree with my aunt. After all, I had no reason to complain. I’d won. I was going to Sycamore Lake.
Leaving Mom to clean up, I followed Dulcie into the living room. Dad was reading The Lonely Doll to Emma in a sweet bumbling bear voice.
I perched on the arm of Dulcie’s chair. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure, sweetie.” Dulcie pushed her hair back from her face. Her long dangly silver earrings swayed and her bracelets jingled. She smiled, waiting for me to speak.
“Well, a couple of months ago I found an old Nancy Drew book in a box in the attic. While I was leafing through it, a photograph fell out. It was of you and Mom at Sycamore Lake—I could see the water behind you.”
Dulcie smiled. “Your grandfather loved taking pictures. Every time you turned around, there he was, pointing a camera at you. They were usually awful. We thought he had a special ugly lens he used for our pictures.”
“There was another girl with you,” I said, “but all that shows is her shoulder and arm. The rest is torn off.”
“Another girl?” Dulcie shook her head, and her soft hair brushed my cheek. “We didn’t have any friends at the lake. Gull Cottage sits out on a point, all by itself. There were no other kids around—just your mother and me.”
“Grandmother wrote your name and Mom’s name on the back,” I went on, trying to make her remember. “She wrote the girl’s name, too, but only the first letter is still there—‘T.’”
“‘T’?” An odd look crossed Dulcie’s face. “Did you ask your mother about the girl?”
“I told her I didn’t remember.” Mom stood in the doorway, her hands clasped, staring solemnly at her sister.
“I don’t remember, either,” Dulcie said quickly.
“What did you do with the picture, Mom? Maybe if Dulcie saw it—”
“I threw it away,” she said. “It was old, torn, faded.” Without another word, she picked up a gardening book and began to read, her way of saying she was still in a bad mood.
Before I could ask another question, Dulcie scooped up Emma. “Time for bed.”
“But Uncle Pete is still reading about Edith and the bears,” she said.
“You know that story by heart, sweetheart.” Ignoring Emma’s further protests, Dulcie carted her off to the guest room.
Dad turned on the TV to watch one of his favorite crime shows. It looked as if no more would be said about “T” that night.
4
After Dulcie and Emma went back to New York, Mom nursed her bad mood for weeks. She refused to take me shopping for summer clothes, so I tagged along with Staci and her mother. She wouldn’t talk about the lake or give me any baby-sitting tips. She spent almost all her time working in the garden, down on her hands and knees, weeding till her knuckles bled, watering and fertilizing, rearranging plants, adding new ones. Just to avoid me, I thought.
Even Dad found it hard to be patient with her, especially after she changed her mind about driving me to the lake.
“If Dulcie wants Ali to baby-sit, she can pick her up and drive her to Maine herself,” she told him.
He stared at her. “But, Claire, what about our plans to spend a few days on the coast?”
“I can’t leave the flowers. They’ll dry up. The weeds will take over.” Mom folded her arms tightly across her chest, her face taut with anxiety.
Dad’s frown deepened. “You realize that coming all the way down here to get Ali will add hours to Dulcie’s trip.”
Mom shrugged. “It was Dulcie’s idea to take Ali to the lake. Let her figure it out. She can always find another babysitter.”
Close to tears, I glared at Mom. “You’re still trying to keep me from going, aren’t you? Why don’t you just put me on a leash and tie me to a tree in the backyard?”
My outburst surprised Dad, but Mom nodded her head angrily. “You should’ve been Dulcie’s daughter—you’re more like her every day.”
“Good. Maybe I won’t grow up scared of everything, afraid to have fun, ruining everybody else’s fun.”
Too upset to reply, Mom ended the conversation by leaving the room.
Dad grabbed my shoulders and gave me a little shake, more to get my attention than anything else. “Don’t talk to your mother like that. Can’t you see you’re hurting her?”
I wanted to say Mom was hurting me, but Dad had already followed her out of the room. She’s not having a nervous breakdown, I shouted silently. She’s just crying because she can’t think of anything else to do.
I sighed and grabbed an apple from the bowl on the counter. Living in this house was good practice for crossing a minefield. If you weren’t careful, you could set off explosions with every step you took.
While I ate my apple, I stared out the kitchen window at the neighbor’s dog, tied to his tree. He lay in the dirt, his nose on his paws—totally bored, I was sure, but safe.