"I imagine you'll need to air out the bedding. Caroline," she told Mama, who said nothing. "Everything must be stale and stuffy and stink of cigars."
"Thanks for making it sound so inviting," Mama told her. "It was never inviting for me, but you're different."
"Yes," Mama said. She smiled as if
Grandmother Emma had given her a wonderful compliment.
"Actually, your getting away under these circumstances," Grandmother Emma said, looking at me, "is probably very wise. I'm glad I can provide such an escape at this particular time for you. Perhaps there'll be some improvement of the situation before you return."
"Oh, we can hope," Mama said, and looked at Daddy. "Can we get started. Christopher, or are there more instructions yet to earn our keep?"
"I'll call you," he told Grandmother Emma, and got into the car.
"You're not helping the situation by being so contentious. Caroline," he told Mama before starting the engine.
"I'm being contentious? Me? How would you describe what she's being?"
"Mother is Mother,' Daddy said, as if that explained it all. "It's so easy when you just nod or tell her what she wants to hear."
I raised my eyebrows. That sounded familiar.
"Easier for you. Not for me," Mama insisted. "I'm the one she'd like surgically removed from this family."
Daddy shook his head. "Did you ever think about what you're going to have someday, Caroline? All this," he said, waving his hand at the grounds and landscaping as we drove down the driveway. "You never sound appreciative."
"I'd leave tomorrow if we could," Mama said. "This isn't a home. It's a giant echo."
"What?" Daddy smiled with confusion. I looked at Ian. He was mesmerized by their conversation. "An echo? How is all this an echo?"
"Your mother is still living in the past. Her world is long gone. She hears voices no longer there. Did you ever look at her friends and her when they gather for one of their weekly teas at the mansion? I mean, really look at them and listen to them? What am I talking about? You're never there, so you don't see it and hear it. I don't know if there's a sentence uttered that begin's without a 'Remember when.'
"And all those women in their seventies, even eighties, with their plastered hair and collagen-riddled lips. They're not comical; they're farcical. Some of them are so weighted down with jewelry, they stoop. It's a wonder their spines don't snap. They're selfanointed queens who have lost their kingdoms and have to settle for ruling over desperate salesgirls and salesmen in department stores who kowtow to put food on their tables."
"Oh, come on now, Caroline. All that just sounds like envy to me."
"Envy?" Mama laughed. Then she suddenly grew serious. "Actually, you're not all wrong. I'm not so different from them. I suppose. I live in a dream, too."
Daddy didn't say anything. He glared at her and then he turned on the radio.
My stomach turned and I felt cramps coming. Was I making eggs again? Or was I just nervous and upset listening to Mama and Daddy argue?
Where was all this heading? Where was it taking us? Wa
s my problem going to bring us together or help tear us apart? I looked at Ian. As usual he stared ahead with his eyes locked on his own thoughts. He traveled on roads I couldn't see. Suddenly I wished he would take me along.
The radio music didn't seem to lift the heavy silence in our car. The tension and the static that hovered over and around us in the house stuck to us. I thought. We carried it off, wore it like our clothes. I hoped the farther we went, the less and less it would be and we would suddenly burst into sunshine and leave the dreary clouds of unhappiness behind us.
"There she blows," Daddy announced when the lake first came into view. "Everybody excited?'"
"No," Mama said. "Your mother always makes me feel like we're a homeless family accepting charity whenever we come up here, Christopher. Before I have a chance to even think about enjoying myself, she sucks out all the possible pleasure by reminding me just how much in debt to her we are."
Daddy smiled at her as if she had said something wonderful and pleasant.
"I'm serious!'" Mama exclaimed.
"I know you are. You're just too sensitive. Try to be more like me and ignore it. Yes her to death until we get up here and forget about what she said anyway,"
"I don't forget and I'm not you," Mama told him.