Maine - J. Courtney Sullivan [90]
“Maggie doesn’t drive me nuts,” she said. “The rest of them, yes. But not Maggie.”
She could not believe Gabe had broken up with her daughter the day before they were supposed to leave for vacation. Kathleen had never liked the kid. She wished Maggie would go somewhere fun with her girlfriends, or come out to California for a visit. But for some reason she wanted to go to Maine instead. It couldn’t be good for her to be isolated up there with only Alice for company.
The whole idea made Kathleen nervous. She could picture her mother giving Maggie all the wrong advice (He’s great! You’re fat! Drink more!). That was the best-case scenario. Worst case, she’d be cruel, and hurt Maggie, who was already hurting enough.
Kathleen wished she could be there to help. But there was nothing on earth that could get her to Maine. She associated the place with Alice in every way. It made Kathleen remember what she wanted to forget.
When she reflected on her childhood, she thought of how Alice had had three children in her twenties, right on the heels of her sister’s gruesome death. No wonder she drank. Alice would never discuss the death, but Kathleen recognized her mother’s response as a clear case of survivor guilt. Though why Alice had decided to have children when she did, Kathleen would never know. No doubt, they all would have been better off if she had waited.
Five years back, after her brother Michael died, Alice had gone into a deep depression. He was the last of her siblings. Her husband was gone and so were most of her friends, her family. Kathleen talked to Alice at length—a rare moment of connection between them—and convinced her to come along with her and Maggie to a yoga retreat in the Bahamas for New Year’s.
Kathleen had long dreamed of going on one of these immersion trips. A friend at AA had told her they were a great way to see the Caribbean on the cheap. Kathleen thought the whole excursion might be a bit too hippie dippy, even for her, but she loved the serenity that yoga brought, and on these trips, her friend had told her, you got to lie on the beach and connect with your surroundings. Each day, there were mandatory classes and an afternoon lecture by a master swami. Kathleen read up on him and thought he was terribly impressive. He had developed the Five Points of Yoga, the most important of which was “We become what we think.”
Kathleen imagined the three of them—Maggie, Alice, and herself—side by side, three generations of women absorbing power and wisdom from one another. She realized it was a mistake from the moment they arrived. The swami asked to inspect their belongings. Kathleen had expressly told her mother that there was no caffeine or alcohol allowed, and Alice had said that was fine by her. But when he unzipped her suitcase, he found two Ziplocs full of tea bags, three bottles of red wine, a huge bottle of rum, and a blender. A blender!
“What were you thinking?” Kathleen demanded, mortified.
“I was thinking, what’s the Bahamas without mixed drinks, that’s mostly what I was thinking,” Alice said, flashing a big flirty smile at the swami, who sort of smirked in response.
“Grandma!” Maggie said, sounding amused. “You’re bad.”
Alice refused to accompany them to the yoga and meditation classes, even though Kathleen had prepaid. Instead, she walked the beach alone for hours. When Kathleen said that she could have stayed in Massachusetts if she wanted to do that, Alice’s venom came out: “I wish I had stayed,” she snapped.
She got in trouble with the swami for smoking, and—done with flirtation now—shot him the deadliest look before saying, “Oh, honestly, we are paying to be here. Go ahead and send me to the principal’s office.”
Maggie chuckled at that. Apparently she too thought it was ridiculous.
That night Kathleen discovered Alice and Maggie out on the beach, sipping rum they had mixed with organic pineapple juice. They were giggling, and she felt furious at the idea of being the odd man out.
“I don’t know why either of you even came,” she said. “You’re making a fool out of