Maine - J. Courtney Sullivan [0]
Commencement
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Copyright © 2011 by J. Courtney Sullivan
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York,
and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
www.aaknopf.com
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered
trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following
for permission to reprint previously published material:
Arcadia Publishing: poem by Dana Perkins included in Ogunquit By-The-Sea
by John D. Bardwell (Arcadia Publishing, 1994). Reprinted by permission
of Arcadia Publishing, www.arcadiapublishing.com.
The Edna St. Vincent Millay Society: excerpt from “To a Young Poet”
by Edna St. Vincent Millay, copyright © 1939, 1967 by Edna St. Vincent Millay
and Norma Millay Ellis. Reprinted by permission of Elizabeth Barnett and
Holly Peppe, Literary Executors, The Millay Society.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sullivan, J. Courtney.
Maine : a novel / by J. Courtney Sullivan. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
“This is a Borzoi book.”
eISBN: 978-0-307-59681-9
1. Women—Family relationships—Fiction. 2. Family secrets—Fiction.
3. Maine—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3619.U43M35 2011
813′.6—dc22 2011003396
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Jacket photograph © Ruggero Maramotti / Gallery Stock
Jacket design by Abby Weintraub
v3.1
For Trish
Alas, a mother never is afraid,
Of speaking angrily to any child,
Since love, she knows, is justified of love.
—ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING,
Aurora Leigh
Just do everything we didn’t do and you will be perfectly safe.
—a letter from F. Scott Fitzgerald to his daughter, Frances
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Alice
Maggie
Kathleen
Ann Marie
Alice
Maggie
Kathleen
Ann Marie
Alice
Maggie
Kathleen
Maggie
Alice
Maggie
Ann Marie
Kathleen
Alice
Maggie
Ann Marie
Kathleen
Alice
Acknowledgments
Reading Group Guide
A Note About the Author
Alice
Alice decided to take a break from packing. She lit a cigarette, leaning back in one of the wicker chairs that were always slightly damp from the sea breeze. She glanced around at the cardboard boxes filled with her family’s belongings, each glass and saltshaker and picture frame wrapped carefully in newspaper. There were at least a couple of boxes in every room of the house. She needed to make sure she had taken them all to Goodwill by the time the children arrived. This had been their summer home for sixty years, and it amazed her how many objects they had accumulated. She didn’t want anyone to be burdened by the mess once she was gone.
She could tell by the heavy clouds that it was about to rain. In Cape Neddick, Maine, that May, you were likely to see a thunderstorm every afternoon. This didn’t bother her. She never went down to the beach anymore. After lunch she usually sat out on the screen porch for hours, reading novels that her daughter-in-law, Ann Marie, had lent her during the winter, drinking red wine, and watching the waves crash against the rocks until it was time to make supper. She never felt the urge she once did to put on a swimsuit and take a dip or muss her pedicure by walking in the sand. She preferred to watch it all from a distance, letting the scene pass through her like a ghost.
Her life here was ruled by routine. Each day, she was up by six to clean the house and tend her garden. She drank a cup of Tetley, leaving the tea bag on a dish in the fridge so she could use it once more before lunch. At nine thirty on the nose, she drove to St. Michael’s by the Sea for ten o’clock Mass.
The surrounding area had changed so much since their first summer in Maine, all those years ago. Huge houses had gone