Now I felt I could never sail again. The very thought of doing it and then returning to a house without Winston to share in my excitement and enjoyment sickened me. The deep emptiness in my stomach was much like the emptiness I had felt after Daddy's death, and just as I avoided looking at anything even remotely connected to or reminiscent of the Navy. I wanted to ignore and be blind to all those things Winston and I had shared and loved so much together. Without him they were simply reminders of the pain. I hated even living here in a palace that had become a prison of memories and sadness.
I realized I wasn't thinking enough about Mommy. After all, she had lost deeply twice. too. I always knew she didn't love Winston with the same sort of passion she had loved my daddy, but she had become quite fond of him and certainly very dependent on him over these last five years. She was well aware of the fact that the new world, the new life she had so wanted for us was now seriously compromised. I could see she trembled with insecurity even though she tried to put on a brave face for me the very next day at breakfast.
"Well. Grace." she began after we both had gazed sadly at Winston's empty chair. "we're back to just each other again. It seems cruel fate has not retreated as far into the background as I had hoped.
"However." she said, nodding at her own thoughts. we are not going to hunker down like frightened rabbits. We're going to continue to enjoy and to appreciate each and every opportunity. For starters. I don't like this idea of you not returning to school."
"I'm not sure what I want to do with myself," I replied.
"But isn't college the best place to explore all that?"
"No." I said firmly. "There's too much distraction. I will take some time off and..."
And do what. Grace? Hide in your room? Walk on the beach? Go sailing by yourself for hours and hours, not go to any parties with young people your age? What? What will you do with this time off?"
"I'm not sure. Mommy. Let me be," I said. I said it with such authority I surprised even myself.
"Well, I'm telling you this, Grace. I'm not going to become some pathetic widow draped in black and in retreat. I want to be just as vibrant and alive as I was. Otherwise fate has had its way with me," she said with defiance. 'If you don't do the same, you're victimizing yourself. I promise you this as well," she continued. "I won't spend the rest of my life lecturing you and trying to get you to do the right things for yourself. You're old enough to make the right decisions for yourself now."
I said nothing. We ate quietly, me nibbling at my food like a small mouse and she deliberately attacking hers with a vigorous vengeance. The grandfather clock banged, the servants scurried about doing their chores as usual. and Joya del Mar, like a ship set on a course that couldn't be changed. continued.
However, it wasn't long before Mommy discovered her plans and expectations were built with an optimism that had no substance. It was all as airy as dreams. Even the artificial friends she had developed over the past few years drifted away. Invitations became less and less frequent. It wasn't long before it became crystal clear that the only reason she had been included in anything the so-called core families and A-level society conducted was Winston. He and his family had been old Palm Beach with something akin to royalty rights. Mommy was just another usurper, an accessory. What good were earrings without ears, necklaces without a neck, bracelets without a wrist? Winston had been the body, and he was gone. She was as unimportant as last month's gossip on the pages of the Palm Beach Shiny.
And so those first six months or so after Winston's death were very difficult. Almost
> immediately a nightmare began to shadow our days. More often than not Mommy would walk about with a worried frown drawing her eyebrows together. She resembled someone with a constant headache. I often heard her mumbling angrily to herself about this one or that. Even the Carriage sisters stopped coining around and taking her phone calls. Hardly anyone she called returned a call, and every time she learned about an event from which she had been excluded she went into a new rage. It got so I tried to avoid her. Fortunately the house and the property were so large it wasn't all that difficult to spend most of the day without confronting each other.
I did as I had planned, dropped out of college for what I thought would be about six months. I kept up my reading but rarely went anywhere except to the bookstore or to shop for necessities and, on rare occasions, to see a movie by myself. I knew I was becoming an old maid, even though I wasn't even in my mid-twenties, Whenever I stepped out to do anything I felt myself close up like a clam and begin to tremble inside. I thought I could even be diagnosed with agoraphobia and placed in therapy.
Every once in a while Mommy succeeded in getting a handful of guests to come to chimer at Joya del Mar. I realized before she did that they were really coming not to be friendly again, but just to see how she was doing. how the property was doing, so they could have some new gossip to spread. There was nothing like being at the forefront of a new story or rumor in Palm Beach. It gave the reporter some momentary popularity, and that was the coin with which they bought one another's company and friendship: popularity,
Mommy's only real friend. Dallas, came by as often as she could or as often as Mommy invited her. They had drifted apart somewhat over the years because Mommy and Winston were in an entirely different social world. Whenever Dallas and Warren came to any affairs at Joya del Mar they seemed to spend most of their time talking to me and just watching Mommy move from guest to guest. both of them looking at her as if they were looking at some stranger.
Phoebe had started college but soon had met someone and was engaged almost before the first semester ended. Winston, Mommy, and I had attended the wedding and learned she was pregnant. Less than two years later, she was separated and working at the restaurant, something she had always disdained. She had an au pair taking care of her child, which in my mind was better for the child. Not wanting ever to be friendly with Phoebe. I lost track of everyone else I had known at the school. It truly seemed as if even; tie Mommy and I had to our past had either been cut or was about to tear. I had contact with no one. I was like some small planet lost in space, passing closely by some face, some acquaintance, for only a moment and then continuing on into the dark beyond.
Whenever anyone who came to our infrequent dinners at Joya del Mar asked about me. Mommy would chime in before I could respond and claim I was on a sabbatical. doing independent study. and I was soon to be going to school in Switzerland or France or Italy, depending on the people at the dinner. She got the idea to use that response when she saw me perusing same old school brochures Winston had brought me during those times when he was trying to get me to be more outgoing.
I didn't deny anything she said because that was the easiest way to get the spotlight off me. Of course. Mommy tried to get me actually to do any one of those things. She used every argument she could, including claiming she needed me to be more educated to handle the complexities of our financial life,
"I don't know what I'm doing or saying yes to when the broker calls or our manager calls or the lawyer calls. Winston took care of everything when he was alive. Now we've lost some money, too," she revealed in an attempt to get me to become more concerned. "Some bad things happened in the market. and some real estate partnerships have gone sour. I've been advised to end the jet plane lease."
"We don't use it anyway. Mommy."
"That's not the point!" she cried.
I returned to what I was reading, and she stormed away.
Finally one night she didn't come down to dinner. Instead she stood in the dining-room doorway and announced she was going out.
"Where?" I asked. She was wearing a lot more makeup than usual and a very tight-fitting dress with a low neckline. It looked like something she might have ordered out of a Frederick's of Hollywood catalogue and was quite unlike the expensive, elegant, stylish designer outfits she had been buying and wearing all these years.
"Out." she said. "With you drooping about all day and night and with the servants standing and waiting for constant instructions and the financial people driving me crazy, I've decided I need to get out,"
Before I could ask another question she was gone. I had no idea what time she returned at night because I was long asleep. Soon she was going out two and then three and four nights a week. The phone began ringing again. She had developed some new
friends. Of course. I was curious about it, but every time I started to ask a question she jumped down my throat and made a speech about how young and attractive she still was and how she was wasting her opportunities. According to her it was a lesson I should learn.
And then, one morning when I was down at breakfast, not expecting her to join me, as was usually the case these days. I heard her descending the stairs. but I heard a man's voice as well. It made my heart beat faster and faster as their footsteps grew louder and closer. She came through the doorway and smiled at me.