Authors: Holly Robinson
Elaine wouldn’t let herself glance up at the blank upstairs windows of the apartment where her mother had died. She could smell the cigarette smoke from here. They were five miles from Moosehead Lake, but the scent of lake water was a pungent grace note to the cigarettes.
“Okay, troops. Who’s got the cue cards?” she asked, forcing herself to smile and trot briskly up the sagging porch steps.
Ava smacked a hand to her forehead. “God, you’re right. We should have thought about what to say. We don’t want to give poor Finley a heart attack.” She glanced at Elaine. “Oops. Sorry. Poor choice of words.”
Elaine shrugged. “Fine by me. She was your mother, too.”
“We should just tell her what Dad said and ask what happened to Peter,” Gigi said impatiently. “How hard is that?”
“Ha. You don’t know Finley,” Elaine said. “She’s not exactly Miss Hospitality. And, no offense, but your dad is pretty much at the top of her blacklist since he walked out on Mom.”
“He was your dad, too.” Gigi pressed two fingers to her bottom lip. It was only then that Elaine noticed she’d removed the lip ring. You couldn’t even see the hole. She was at least slightly less psychotic looking without the lip ring, maybe even cute, but that spiked hair still gave Gigi the appearance of a belligerent hedgehog.
“Could you please call a truce, you two?” Ava was saying. “We’re in this together.” She knocked on the door.
Elaine hadn’t been aware of the tinny sound of the television until the noise was suddenly muted. They heard shuffling footsteps; then the door opened a crack. The smell of smoke was so strong with the door open that Elaine imagined blue strands of it curling out of the house in the shape of a huge hand, like in a cartoon.
“Hey, Aunt Finley,” she said. “It’s me. Elaine.”
“And me, Ava.” Ava looped an arm around Gigi’s skinny shoulders. “This is our friend Gigi. We were passing through town and thought we’d stop by.”
Lame,
Elaine thought.
A hay loader rattled past on the narrow road behind them as Finley grunted and fiddled to unlatch the door. Finally she managed it. The door swung open onto a foyer crammed with boots, a bag of cat litter, a bucket of salt, an ice scraper, and a snow shovel. It might be July in Maine, but Finley was clearly still prepared for the sky to fall.
“Well, don’t just stand there and let the flies in,” Finley said. “Come in and shut the door.” She turned and made her hunched way back into the house. She wore a blue cotton bathrobe and tan mules, her cracked dry heels hanging over the backs of her slippers like a pair of corks.
The apartment was as dark, smoky, and pine-paneled as a VFW bar. Finley had the woodstove going in the living room despite the sultry midsummer heat that had slithered its way even this far north. Elaine immediately broke into a sweat and again regretted her blouse, jeans, and boots. She shot an envious look at Ava and Gigi, who both wore shorts and T-shirts and sandals. There was something to be said for letting your standards slip at the height of summer.
“Have a seat, girls,” Finley wheezed. She settled herself on a plaid recliner with cat-scratched fabric; the chair looked like it had been dragged in off the street. “I’d offer you a pop, except I haven’t been to the store.” She picked up the cigarette smoldering in the ashtray and took a long drag of it, smoke swirling out of her nostrils. Judging from the number of butts in that ashtray, it was no wonder the woman’s skin had the texture of a walnut shell.
The rest of the living room furniture consisted of a sagging brown tweed couch and a coffee table with so many water rings on its surface, it looked like a deliberate helix design. There was a wooden lamp, its base carved like an owl, and magazines were stacked all over the floor and on top of every horizontal surface, even the TV. Navigating the living room was like walking through a miniature city of paper skyscrapers. Glancing down, Elaine made out the date on one
National Geographic
: 1969. Finley probably had every issue dating back decades; she could put this collection on eBay and pay her rent for a year.
In this dim light, and despite her rough brown complexion, her great-aunt didn’t appear to have aged much since the last time Elaine had seen her eight or ten years ago. She was still stout and her pewter hair looked like she’d cut it herself around a cereal bowl. Despite this, she had surprisingly feminine features: a pretty upturned nose, a doll’s pert mouth, and small ears that gleamed like pink seashells through the strands of her sparse gray hair.
Finley had been eating her supper, the remains of which were on a folding table next to the recliner: a half-empty bowl of soup and a sleeve of saltines. “I could get you some water,” she offered. “There’s always water.”
“Oh, don’t bother. We’re fine,” Ava said. “We just popped in to say hi because it’s been so long since we’ve heard from you.”
“Last I checked, I’m still here.” Finley’s face wrinkled into a smile. “I read the obits every morning just to make sure I’m not listed.” When Gigi giggled, Finley gave her a rheumy look. “Who are you again?”
“Gigi works for me and plays with my sons in a band,” Ava answered smoothly. “Do you remember Evan and Sam?”
“Not likely,” Finley said with a dismissive snort. “Haven’t seen them or you since that memorial service for your mother. The little one was in that sling contraption you carried on your back. Bigger ’n’ you by now, I expect.”
“Oh yes. They’re both tall like my husband,” Ava said.
“Don’t remember him, either, except he was losing his hair,” Finley said. “I don’t know how you stood it. Some women think a bald man is sexy, but I never did.”
“We’re divorced now,” Ava said.
Finley nodded. “Well, that’s too bad, but at least you don’t have to look at him anymore. I’m sure he didn’t grow more hair as he got older.” She swiveled her gray head owlishly in Elaine’s direction. “And you? How you been keeping? Still working in Boston?”
“Yes.”
“A miracle you haven’t been shot, from what I see on the news. Gangs and drugs everywhere you go. Bombs, too. What kind of job do you have?”
“I’m in marketing.” Elaine had forgotten Finley’s shotgun approach to conversation; it was as if the woman had studied how conversations were supposed to go, but never quite practiced the techniques enough to master them.
“My. Marketing what?”
“Colleges.”
“College, ha!” Finley laughed, showing the pink gums where several teeth were missing. “Only billionaires can afford them now. Even the state university! And why send your kid to college anyway? To listen to a bunch of liberal professors talk like Commies about global warming? No, thank you.”
“College costs are definitely on the rise,” Elaine said, scrambling to stay on neutral ground.
Finley stabbed her cigarette butt into the pile of ash on a chipped flowered saucer. “Married yet? Kids?”
“No.” Elaine shifted her weight. She was suffocating in here, breathing smoke, sweating, the ceiling pressed too close to her head. Did her mother die in the room right above this one? She’d never thought to ask where in the upstairs apartment they’d found her.
“Good on you. You’re a smart one. Men marry you just so’s they can control you.” Finley narrowed her cloudy eyes at Gigi. “Make a note of that, girl. When it comes to men, you can never be too quick or too careful.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Gigi sat up a little straighter on the couch.
Finley smacked her lips. “Well. Somebody’s brought you up right, I see.”
That was enough banter, Elaine decided. Time to get what they needed and get out. Finley was smart; she’d have to know they hadn’t driven four hours to see her on a whim. “We actually came here to ask you something,” she said.
“Ah. Not purely a social call, then. Figured as much.” Finley lit another cigarette and continued squinting in their direction, her eyes so hazy and blue with cataracts that Elaine wondered how clearly she could see. “You never did think much of Maine. Just like your dad, the pair of you, thinking you’re too good for us all. He left this state behind him as soon as he could and never looked back. Took your mother with him and ruined her life.”
Elaine swallowed hard and felt Ava’s thigh muscle tense up against hers. “We’re sorry we haven’t had time to visit lately,” Ava said, “but we’ve both been busy with work. It’s hard to get away.”
Finley waved a hand. “No excuses necessary,” she said. “You know I’m not much for visiting anyhow. Ask what you came to ask and be quick about it. It’s nearly bedtime.” She stared fixedly at the muted television, where a woman was openmouthed in horror at the sight of her son’s stained jeans, reminding Elaine of her blouse.
Ava glanced at her, waiting for a cue. On the other side of her, Elaine could feel Gigi jittering; she wanted to put a hand on the girl’s knobby knee to stop her foot from bouncing, but couldn’t bring herself to actually touch her.
Elaine couldn’t speak. Her brain was overloaded with memories, the circuits fried. She looked back helplessly at Ava.
“Well,” Ava said, “first I want to ask whether you got that card I sent, saying Dad died.”
“Sure I did,” Finley said, with a quick sideways shift of her eyes.
Elaine followed her great-aunt’s glance to an old pine table in the corner. There was a basket on top of it, overflowing with mail. Ava’s card was probably buried in there someplace and maybe even unopened, if Finley couldn’t see well enough to read anymore. Not that Finley would have cared about Dad being gone anyway; she probably would have danced a jig, hearing the news. Or at least bought a fresh pack of smokes to celebrate.
“The thing is,” Ava went on, “just before Dad died, he told us we have a brother. He said Mom had the baby before I was born.”
“He did not say that.” Finley jabbed her cigarette into the ashtray, though it was still long and white.
“He did,” Ava said gently. “Dad said they had to give the baby up. A little boy. I heard they gave him to you.”
It was a bold stab in the dark, Elaine knew. She was prepared for their great-aunt to be as mystified as they were, or to deny it all and shoo them out the door.
But Finley’s face crumpled like a damp paper bag, her eyes nearly disappearing in the folds of her skin. “I told Marie it was too much,” she whispered.
Jesus, Elaine thought with a horrified shiver. So the rumor was true. Her mother had another child, gave him up, and kept it from them all this time! From
her
, even though she’d been living here, alone with her mother, for an entire wretched year! She felt her own face crumple like Finley’s, feeling hurt and betrayed.
Ava heaved herself up off the sagging couch to kneel on the floor between stacks of
Ladies’ Home Journal
s. She awkwardly embraced Finley around the old woman’s thick waist. “I know it must have been difficult,” she said softly. “Tell us about it. It’s okay to talk now. Everything happened so long ago. It wasn’t your fault. We know that.”
Did they really know that? Elaine was nearly holding her breath now; beside her, Gigi had gone completely still.
“Your mother, she was such a beautiful girl. Pretty as this one.” Finley lifted a finger and pointed right at Elaine. “Dark and thin, quick as a fairy. Her parents treated her like a princess. They brought her up in the Catholic Church, bought her nice clothes, made sure she knew her manners. Then she started over at the high school and all that went out the window. Just about killed my sister with what she did.” Finley looked longingly at her pack of cigarettes but didn’t light another one.
“Our parents fell in love,” Elaine said. She felt like somebody had to speak up on her mother’s behalf. “Mom wasn’t trying to hurt anybody. Dad was her whole life, she said, from the first minute she saw him.”
Finley was nodding, staring into her lap, her gnarled fingers twisted together. “That was true. Once Suzanne met Bob, you couldn’t talk a grain of sense into that girl. Your grandparents didn’t see the trouble coming, but I did. Then, when it was too late, your mother didn’t want to tell them she was in a family way. She was a good girl and knew it would break their hearts.”
Ava asked what year the baby was born, but Finley shook her head. “I don’t rightly remember. It was just a couple of years before they eloped and then you came along.”
Elaine tried to calculate the year: 1970 or 1971, probably. “I don’t understand why getting pregnant was such a big deal. The women’s movement was well under way by then.”
“Not here,” Finley said. “Nowhere close to here, anyway. Feminists would’ve been run out of Maine. Back then everybody was sure feminists must be lesbians. Lesbians weren’t welcome anywhere, except maybe California and New York City.”
Elaine understood, suddenly: Finley was gay. All these years, and she’d never guessed. Had she been with other women? She must have tried, judging from the bitterness in her voice.
“What about abortions?” Ava was asking. “They weren’t legal then, but women had them.”
“Not in Maine,” Finley repeated. “Besides which, our family was proper lace-curtain Catholic, so that wouldn’t have been a solution even if it hadn’t been too late for that by the time your mother faced the music and told them. She should have told someone sooner, of course, but Suzanne knew she was going to bring shame on her family. Especially after your grandfather worked his fingers to the bone making a success of that Pontiac dealership and getting himself into the chamber of commerce. Suzanne hid the pregnancy for as long as she could, pinning her skirts and eating a lot, pretending she was just gaining weight. I knew, though. The poor thing looked like a marshmallow on toothpicks by the time she told my sister.”
Elaine didn’t ask why Finley had kept quiet. She knew the answer would be complicated: Finley didn’t get along with Marie, their grandmother, for reasons that probably went as far back as them sharing a bedroom growing up in Prince Edward Island.
“Where did she have the baby?” Gigi asked.
The girl was like a bloodhound, going straight for the facts, Elaine thought with grudging respect. If there was a brother to be found, this girl would find him. Elaine still wasn’t sure how she felt about that.