Maine - J. Courtney Sullivan [75]
She was terrified at the thought of her mother or Alice finding out about Fiona. Or even Kathleen—wouldn’t this development just make her year?
Women like Kathleen who focused so much on what motherhood had cost them rubbed her entirely the wrong way. She had always thought the whole movement toward “me time” and all that was a bunch of selfish garbage. But now she wondered what exactly she had gained by being selfless. She had gladly been everyone’s chauffeur and cook and maid and advisor. Her children were a mess, even so. But each time she decided that she was done, that from now on she’d be carving out time for herself, something always came up: Alice wanted a ride to the eye doctor, or Patty desperately needed a sitter so she could stay late at the office. Was Ann Marie going to refuse them?
She turned off the highway at exit 10 and pulled onto a smaller road. After a few minutes she saw the yellow banner hanging on a plain building up ahead: Wellbright Miniatures Fair. She looked down at the seat beside her, where her photos sat in a plain white envelope: the dollhouse from the front, side, and back to show off the Victorian trim, and a shot of each room close up, which looked quite a lot like pages from Better Homes and Gardens.
Might she actually win? She’d never say as much to anyone, but she thought she had a chance.
Ann Marie got so excited that she rolled her eyes at herself. She pushed all the nonsense out of her head and pulled into the parking lot.
Alice
Alice put her paper plate in the trash and the tuna bowl in the sink. She filled the bowl with soap and hot water, letting it sit a minute before rinsing it out.
She and Patrick and Ann Marie had driven up to Maine four weeks earlier, at the beginning of May. Pat pulled the boards off the windows and mowed the lawn and fixed the smoke detectors, which were beeping from the far corners of the house in a whiny little chorus. Alice and Ann Marie moved efficiently through first the cottage and then the house, removing the sheets that covered the couches and chairs; unrolling the carpets; plugging the lamps back in; washing down every dusty surface; and vacuuming up the countless dead flies and yellow jackets that somehow managed to find their way inside but could never seem to get out.
There had been an elaborate spiderweb in the cottage shower. It stretched from wall to wall, probably three feet across. As she sliced through it with the broom and then turned the water on full blast, Alice had felt almost bad for the creatures that had spun it. They had had this tiny kingdom all to themselves for months, and then poof, it was gone.
She spent the rest of May alone, except for Ann Marie and Pat’s weekend visits. She continued preparing the house and the cottage for the kids, but also clearing things away. As soon as she had signed the papers to give over the property when she died, she realized that it might not be so long. She threw out bags of old sheets and bathing suits and tattered flip-flops that had somehow ended up in the loft. She pulled blankets and clothes from the bedroom dresser drawers and closet. She gathered what seemed like hundreds of shells and pieces of sea glass and the odd sand dollar or starfish, and put them all back on the beach one night at dusk. She gave Daniel’s collection of thrillers and political biographies to the Ogunquit library, their spines stained white by the sun that streamed through the bedroom window. She boxed up glasses and plates from the big house, but she had to be careful not to remove too much from the cottage too soon. She didn’t want the children asking questions.
Kathleen’s daughter, Maggie, would be the first family member of the season to arrive, with her photographer boyfriend, Gabe.
Maggie was the artist of the family. Sometimes Alice thought Maggie was what she