The conversation had ended there but an unsettled feeling had lingered in Vivi through the night. Are children ever punished for the mistakes of their parents, she wondered, or was that just her novelist’s mind at work?
Vivi had woken up at five thirty, not only because it was June and sunlight streamed in through the windows like it was high noon, but also because she heard a noise. When she crept out into the hallway, she saw her daughter Carson stumbling up the stairs, smelling distinctly of marijuana.
Vivi had last seen Carson the afternoon before, dressed for work in cutoff jeans and her marigold-yellow Oystercatcher T-shirt, her dark hair still a little damp, neat in two French braids. Carson was the most attractive of Vivi’s three children, though of course Vivi wasn’t supposed to think that. Carson alone favored JP—the dark hair, the clear, glass-green eyes, the fine pointed nose, and teeth that came in white, straight, and even. She was a Quinboro through and through, whereas both Willa and Leo favored the Howes. They’d inherited Vivi’s overbite and crowded lowers and spent years in braces.
Carson was still in her cutoffs, but she had downgraded her T-shirt to something that looked like a silver-mesh handkerchief that only just covered her breasts and left her midriff and back bare except for one slender chain. She had no shoes on; her hair was out of its braids but held kinky waves. When she saw her mother standing at the top of the stairs, her eyebrows shot up.
“Madre,” she said. “What’s good?”
“Are you just getting home?” Vivi asked, though the answer was obvious. Carson was walking in at five thirty in the morning when her shift had ended at eleven. She was twenty-one, fine, so she’d had a drink at work and she probably went to the Chicken Box to catch the band’s last set, then she either went to the beach with friends or hooked up with a random stranger.
“Yes, ma’am.” Carson sounded sober, but that only served to make Vivi angrier.
“The summer isn’t going to be like this, Carson,” Vivi said.
“I hope you’re right,” Carson said. “Work was slow, my tips were trash, the guys at the Box all looked like they were on the junior-high fencing team.”
“You can’t stay out all night then come home reeking of marijuana—”
“Reeking of marijuana,” Carson mimicked.
Vivi searched for extra patience, which was like trying to find a lost shoe in the depths of her maternal closet. This is Carson. Ten years earlier, when Vivi learned that her husband, JP, had fallen in love with his employee Amy, Vivi had moved out. All three kids took it hard, but especially Carson. Carson had been almost eleven years old and unusually attached to Vivi. Vivian’s novel that year, Along the South Shore, had been something of a breakout book, and Vivi, wanting to escape the inevitable divorce fallout—people asking what happened, people asking was she okay, people telling her she was brave—had gone on a twenty-nine-stop book tour that kept her away for seven weeks (she’d missed the first day of school and Carson’s birthday). By the time Vivi got back, Carson had changed from the funny little spitfire of the family to a “troubled child” who threw tantrums, swore, picked fights with her siblings, and generally did everything in her power to get attention. Vivi blamed the transformation on JP’s affair (which their therapist had insisted they not disclose to the children), and JP blamed it on what he called Vivi’s “abandonment.”
Ten years had passed. Carson was no longer a little girl but she still had her challenging moments.
“This is my house,” Vivi said. “I pay the mortgage, the taxes, the insurance, the electric bill, the heating bill, the cable bill. I do the shopping and make the meals. While you’re sleeping under this roof, I don’t want you out all night drinking, smoking, and having sex with complete strangers. Do you know how that looks?” Vivi stopped just short of reminding Carson that she’d already had chlamydia once, the previous summer. “You’re setting a rotten example for your brother.”
“He doesn’t need me to set an example,” Carson said. “He has Willa. I’m the screwup. It’s my job to be a hideous disappointment.”
“No one said you were a hideous disappointment, sweetheart.”
“I’m twenty-one,” Carson said. “I can drink legally. I can smoke pot legally.”
“Since you’re so grown up,” Vivi said, “you can move out on your own.”
“That’s the plan,” Carson said. “I’m saving.”
You’re not saving, Vivi wanted to say. Carson made good tips at the Oystercatcher but she spent them—on drinks, on weed, on clothes from Erica Wilson, Milly and Grace, the Lovely. Carson had finally dropped out of UVM after struggling through five semesters—her cumulative GPA was a 1.6—and although Vivi was initially aghast (an education makes you good company for yourself!), she knew college wasn’t for everyone.
“I’m not giving you a curfew,” Vivi said. “But this behavior won’t be tolerated.”
“This behavior won’t be tolerated,” Carson mimicked. It was the response of a seven-year-old, and yet it brought the reaction Carson wanted. Vivi took a step toward her, arm tensed. “Are you going to spank me?” Carson asked.
“Of course not,” Vivi said, though she kind of wanted to. “But you have to clean up your act, babe, or I’ll ask you to leave.”
“Fine,” Carson said. “I’ll go to Dad’s.”
“I’m sure Amy would take very kindly to you coming home like this.”
“She’s not as bad as you think,” Carson said. “When you demonize her, you show how insecure you are.”
Vivi stared at her child, but before she could come up with a response, she smelled something. “Did you…cook?” Vivi asked.
Carson stepped into the bedroom and slammed the door behind her.
Vivi flew down the stairs to the kitchen, which was filling with black smoke. The leftover sausage and basil pasta from last night’s dinner was in Vivi’s brand-new All-Clad three-quart sauté pan on a lit burner. The inside of the pan was charred black. Vivi turned the burner off, grabbed a towel, carried the smoldering pan outside, and set it on the flagstone path. It was so hot, it would have scorched the deck or the lawn.
Brand-new pan, ruined.
The sausage and basil pasta in a luscious mustard cream sauce, which Vivi had been thinking of taking over to Willa’s as a peace offering, ruined.
And what if Vivi hadn’t gotten out of bed? What if the kitchen had caught fire; what if flames had engulfed Money Pit while Vivi—and Leo—were sleeping? They would all be dead!
Back in the kitchen, Vivi caught sight of her bottle of Casa Dragones tequila on the side counter next to a shot glass. She felt a formidable strain of fury brewing inside her. That tequila was hers; she wouldn’t even let her (almost-ex-) boyfriend, Dennis, make margaritas with it. Carson had come home, put the pasta on a burner, done two—or three?—shots of Vivi’s tequila, which Carson knew was not for public consumption, and then left the pasta to burn on the stove.
Vivi marched back up the stairs and pounded on Carson’s locked door.
“You left the pan on an open flame!” Vivi said. Leo would definitely be awake now, which Vivi felt bad about because it was Saturday morning, but oh, well. “What is wrong with you, Carson? Do you honestly not think about anyone but yourself? Do you not think, period?” There was no response. Vivi kicked the door.