Beautiful Day(33)

“To Stuart,” Ann said.

“To Stuart and Jenna,” Jim said, and they clinked glasses.

Ann was experiencing typical mixed feelings about watching her oldest son marry. She had known from the beginning that Stuart would be the first, not only because he was the oldest but because he had always seemed like the marrying kind, sweet and devoted. He had had a girlfriend in high school—darling Trisha Hamborsky—and then in college and a few years after, a girlfriend named Crissy Pine, whom the family now referred to (like Voldemort) as “She Who Shall Not Be Named.” Stuart had very nearly married Crissy. Ann still rued the loss of her grandmother’s Tiffany-cut 2.5-carat diamond ring, although over the years Ann had reminded herself that it was only a ring, a physical object, which was a small price to pay for Stuart’s freedom and future happiness. He and Jenna were a far superior match. Jenna was a wonderful young lady, if perhaps a little liberal leaning with her devotion to Amnesty International and her extreme eco-consciousness. (She had once scolded Ann for throwing away her cardboard coffee cup from Starbucks.) Jenna would never have worn Grand-mère’s ring anyway, Stuart had said. She would have called it a blood diamond.

Blood diamond? Ann had thought. Good grief.

“We’re losing our little boy,” Ann said to Jim.

“Now, now,” Jim said. He took Ann’s champagne flute from her hand and set it on the night table next to his own. Then he came after Ann again.

She pretended to protest, but she couldn’t resist him. She didn’t want to think about Helen Oppenheimer, or She Who Shall Not Be Named. Ann wasn’t going to let either of them take anything away from her ever again. Ann was going to shine.





THE NOTEBOOK, PAGE 14


Table Linens


There are ten antique tablecloths in the attic of the Nantucket house in a box marked “Antique Linens.” These are the tablecloths that Grammie used for her wedding to Pop-Pop in 1943. They are ivory with exquisite, delicate twists of ivy along the border. Your great-grandfather J. D. Bond brought them home from Ireland as a gift for Grammie. They are handmade, classic, and elegant. They are family heirlooms. I have seen them, touched them, ogled over them, dreamt of them. Inanimate objects can’t express wishes, but I know in my heart that if those linens could talk, they would ask to be aired out and used again.





MARGOT


The mood in the backyard was funereal. At quarter to nine, Margot stood in her ersatz pajamas—an old blue oxford shirt of Drum Sr.’s and a pair of cutoff gray sweatpants—holding a cup of coffee that Rhonda had thoughtfully made at seven o’clock before she left for her twelve-mile run. Margot was in her bare feet, they were all in their bare feet—Margot, Jenna, the three kids, and her brother Nick. They were gathered in a semicircle a safe distance away from where the men were clipping the ropes of the swing. Ellie was crying.

The tent guys were young, handsome El Salvadorans. The one named Hector clipped the ropes, and the wooden plank of the swing crashed to the ground. Margot felt her heart drop.

Jenna hid her face in her hands. “Oh, God,” she said. “I can barely stand to watch. This is all my fault.”

Nick was wearing nothing but a pair of red Hawaiian-print swim trunks. His hair was overgrown and sunbleached, and his torso was tanned golden brown. He did have a job, right? He looked like he’d just spent two months in California surfing with Drum Sr. He turned to Margot.

“I don’t know about this, Marge,” he said. “Marge” was his nickname for her, bestowed in 1989 with the first season of The Simpsons, and Margot detested it, which only made Nick’s enjoyment of it more profound. “This is Alfie we’re talking about. This tree should probably be listed in the historic registry. It’s two hundred years old.”

“I know,” Margot snapped. She was impatient with Nick and everyone else who was lagging behind; she had traveled this emotional highway yesterday. “It’s just one branch! There’s no other way, believe me.”

Ellie sobbed into Margot’s leg. Margot watched Nick pick the swing up off the ground and loop the rope around his arm. The plank of the swing was worn smooth. Margot was forty years old, and the swing had been there as long as she could remember. Who had put it up? She thought it might have been Pop-Pop; she would have to ask her father. Forty percent chance of showers, she thought. There was no doubt in Margot’s mind that now, because the branch was coming down, there wouldn’t be a cloud in the sky all day tomorrow.

Hector and his associates indicated that they should all back up even farther. He set up a stepladder, and one of the other guys brought out the chain saw.