All of Us and Everything (26 page)

Since the green station wagon was hit by the heavy limb in the summer storm of 1985, the limb that Ru had tried to keep aloft with the sheer force of her will, Augusta had replaced it with a second and then a third green station wagon. The six of them—Nick and Augusta, their three daughters and granddaughter—were standing around it, all of them unsure how the seating should play out.

“It's gotten weird with the green station wagons,” Liv whispered to her sisters.

“It's like she can't get rid of the past,” Esme whispered.

“I thought you'd have given up trying to psychoanalyze our mother,” Liv said. “What with the sex-with-strangers and intimacy-issues theories going so very wrong.”

“Who had sex with strangers?” Atty asked. They hadn't known she'd really been listening, but she was kind of always listening.

“What are you all talking about?” Nick asked.

“The alternative theory of our mother's life,” Ru said.

“And what was that?” Nick asked.

“Nothing,” Esme and Augusta said in unison.

“Maybe we should take a few cars,” Liv said.

“We're a family,” Esme said, and Ru and Liv had to believe that she was working from some grand plan—a vision.

“I'm driving,” Augusta said, with preemptive defiance. “I'm the only one insured as a driver on the vehicle except for Jessamine.”

Jessamine was inside, reassembling the smoke detector; Liv had had an adverse reaction to the high-pitched bleating and instead of airing it with a tea towel, as Augusta had suggested, she beat it with a broom handle.

“But do you actually drive?” Ru asked.

“I have a license.”

“You know, it's okay if someone else drives your car once in a while,” Nick said. “Insurance still kicks in.”

“Don't explain the workings of the world to me,” Augusta said. Ru wasn't sure if she preferred to be ignorant or she felt he was being condescending. Her parents together as a couple was foreign terrain.

“If the woman says she can drive, she can drive,” Liv said. “But I call front seat because the backseat makes me carsick.”

“Oh, this bullshit again,” Esme said. “She threw up one time. One time! And has gotten to ride in the front forever after.”

“She threw up
on
Santa,
though,” Augusta said. “It was scarring.”

“For her or that poor fat Philly Santa?” Esme said.

“Both, probably,” Augusta said.

“I wasn't sure I'd get presents,” Liv said. “I'm not like you two. I
need
presents.”

“I don't know what that means,” Esme said to Ru. “Do you?”

“I associate the smell of barf and the holidays,” Ru said, quietly.

“Atty,” Esme said. “You get sick in the backseat. Don't you?”

“Only if I read.”

“So don't read.” Liv got in the front seat and slid to the middle.

Nick moved to sit next to her. “I have long legs,” he said.

“Not really,” Ru said.

“You're actually pretty short. What are you, five foot eight?” Esme asked.

“I'm five foot ten,” Nick said.

“What? In lifts?” Liv said.

“Oh, just let him have the front seat,” Ru said.

Atty, holding on to a copy of Nancy Drew's
The Clue of the Broken Locket
and wearing her fanny pack over one hip, sat in the middle of the backseat between Esme and Ru.

“I wish I'd lost ten pounds before seeing Darwin,” Esme said. “I bought a juicer but I don't like juice, turns out.”

“Help Mom keep an eye on the road, okay?” Ru said to Liv.

“I'm fine,” Augusta said. She drove two-footed—one on the gas, one on the brake.

“Tell a badass spy story like Jason Bourne,” Atty said to her grandfather.

“Those movies are deeply flawed,” Nick said.

“Then tell a love story,” Liv said. “How did you two meet?”

Augusta shot Nick a look and then changed lanes. She was driving so slowly that traffic poured around them.

“We met on a bus in a snowstorm,” he said.

“And when did you fall in love?” Ru asked, thinking of Teddy and wondering if the way he made her feel could turn into something real.

“On that bus,” Augusta said.

“During the snowstorm,” Nick added.

“Right then? Immediately like that?” Ru said.

“Yes,” Nick said. “Right then. Immediately like that.”

“Huh,” Ru said.

“Why do you say that like you don't believe us?” Augusta said.

“The generations following yours have been led to believe that falling in love is something that only happens in movies,” Atty said. “It's like each generation is more super-jaded than the one before it.”

“You're wise,” Liv said to Atty. “Very wise.”

“Thank you,” Atty said, and then feeling emboldened she asked her grandparents, “Why did you have kids?”

“We had kids for the same reason most people do. We fell in love,” Nick said.

“That's naïve. I mean, I don't think people have kids because they're in love,” Liv said.

“Sometimes they just want kids and aren't in love with anyone,” Ru said, thinking of the baby born in the longhouse. She'd been there for the birth—a wondrous slick head emerging then a tumble of body, her little face going taut with squalling.

“Are
they
the reason why you two couldn't hack it?” Atty asked, swooping her finger at her mother and two aunts. Again, Esme wished her daughter would talk about the pending divorce. Did she blame herself for it in some way?

“They're the reason why we tried so hard
to
hack it,
” Nick said.

“Did you try, though? Did you
really
try?” Esme asked.

Nick looked at Augusta. “Should I…”

“Tell her about Maine,” Augusta said.

“After Esme and Liv were born, I had to go on leave for a while.”

“He was dying,” Augusta said.

“I had some ulcers. I didn't die so I wasn't dying.”

“In Maine? You mean you went on leave with us?” Esme asked.

“Liv was still tiny and you were a few years old,” Nick told Esme.

“It could never work,” Augusta said.

“I was already in too deep.”

“In Maine?” Esme said again. “Like on a lake in Maine? With a fishing dock?”

“There was a dock,” Augusta said.

“Sure,” Nick said. “Canoes and life jackets hung on pegs under this little wooden lean-to. And there was an island full of blueberry bushes.”

“And fishing…” Esme said, her voice sounding distant and hollow.

“Esme?” Augusta asked. “What's wrong?”

“Shit,” Esme whispered and then she rolled down the window and shoved her head out of the car.

“Esme!” Liv said. “You're letting hot air in!”

“Mom?” Atty said. “Mom, are you okay?”

Esme pulled herself back into the car. Her hair was blown back from her face, which was blank and pale.

“Esme?” Ru said. “Say something.”

“Uncle Vic,” Esme said and then she grabbed her father's headrest and pulled herself forward. “You're Uncle Vic!” Then she reached up and slapped the back of his head.

“Jesus!” her father said. “Who's Uncle Vic?”

Augusta sighed. “She'd started calling you Daddy. Remember? She couldn't go around talking about her daddy to people. That was the whole point of keeping us safe. There was no Daddy.”

“And so you made up another man?” Nick asked.

“Yes. Yes, I did,” Augusta said.

“You lied to me,” Esme said. “You denied me the only childhood memory that I had of my father!”

“I don't have a memory of him at all,” Liv said. She didn't want to share that her father had saved her life. He'd given her so many gifts that a lifesaving Heimlich would seem like piling on, especially in light of what he'd done to Esme's life; but at the same time, she didn't want to admit what she knew was the truth—he watched over her more closely because she needed him in a way her sisters hadn't and in a way they'd never understand. “I was just a baby in Maine,” she said, knowing that her father understood that they now had a secret.

“I wasn't even born yet,” Ru said and for the first time in a long time she was desperate for a Jolly-Lolly.

“He forced me to control the truth. I told you about him later. And you didn't believe me so what was I supposed to do?”

“Maybe we're all liars,” Ru said. “None of us can be trusted.”

“I just manipulate people. That's different,” Liv said.

“You made all those men think you loved them, but you were using them,” Esme said. “That's a
terrible
kind of lying.”

“You didn't know your marriage was in trouble?” Liv said. “You didn't know your daughter was on the verge of some weird musket-stealing thing? Why? Because you lie to yourself. That's the worst kind of lying!”

“You went around telling us that your loves were these grand epics,” Esme shouted, “so romantic we could never understand. But you're a gold digger. See?” She flipped out her palms. “That is what telling the truth looks like!”

Liv's face tightened.

“We can't turn on each other,” Ru said, cautiously. “This is about us now. Together.”

“And I suppose you're going to tell us, once again, that all is fine with Cliff the mysterious fiancé,” Liv said, turning the anger onto Ru.

“I'm going to throw up,” Atty said.

“There's a difference between being private and lying,” Ru said. “Am I allowed a private life? Is that okay with you?”

“Seriously,” Atty said. “I'm going to throw up!”

“But you weren't reading,” Liv said.

Atty clamped her hand over her mouth.

“Pull over!” Ru said, rearing away from Atty.

Augusta put on the blinker and looked in her rearview mirror.

“Just pull over,” Nick said.

“Don't tell me how to drive!”

“It's okay. It's going to be okay,” Esme said, rubbing her daughter's back.

“We were just giving each other a hard time. It's what family does,” Liv said. “We still love each other. Don't we?”

“Just hold on,” Augusta said, very slowly edging onto the shoulder.

“If you don't hit the gas
with
the brakes at the same time,” Nick said, “I think you'll find that the car goes faster.”

“Being yelled at only makes me slow down!” Augusta shouted.

“Don't throw up,” Liv told Atty. “Just keep telling yourself that.
Don't throw up. Don't throw up. Don't throw up.
”

“I thought you said lying to yourself is the worst kind of lying,” Esme said to Liv.

“Okay, just throw up, Atty,” Liv said, “if that's your inner truth.”

Then Atty threw up.

Esme waited outside of the occupied mini mart bathroom with Atty, who was lightly doused in vomit. “You want me to go in with you?”

“No,” Atty said.

“Good thing you were wearing flip-flops?”

“Don't upside this. Please.” Atty had already cried a little. “I got some on my book.”

“I told you not to read in the car.”

“I wasn't!”

The bathroom door opened and a woman with a blond perm walked out. Atty rushed in and locked the door.

Esme didn't want to hover so she walked back to the aisles, where she found Liv and Ru idling in front of the bank of refrigerated drinks.

“How's she doing?” Ru asked.

“It's been years since she got carsick,” Esme said.

“It's not carsickness,” Liv said. “Don't shut down on this.”

“We
all
should have shut down in the car,” Esme said. “We said some awful things to each other.”

“Do you think we're a family of liars?” Ru said.

“Who knows?” Esme said. “Maybe it's the human condition.”

“Atty's freaked out,” Liv said. “I think she might be depressed and anxious.”

Esme opened one of the refrigerator doors and pulled out a ginger ale. “She just needs to settle her stomach.”

“Esme,” Ru said. “It sounds like she took the musket and fired it because she was being bullied. What was this quacking thing about anyway?”

“You can't imagine our year. That clusterfuckingphobic place. That place was crazy. I'm glad she told her French teacher to go poop in a hole. That woman is certifiable.”

“Why did she tell her French teacher to poop in a hole?” Liv asked.

“Is that even an expression?” Ru asked.

“The headmaster brought me in and read the transcript. It was her first
ding.
He thought it was a sign that the time bomb was going to explode. That's how he saw us ever since Doug left, ticking away on his precious campus.”

“What happened exactly?”

“I argued that Atty had actually said to the French teacher,
Why don't you go poop in a hole?
which felt a lot different than demanding that someone
Go poop in a hole.
”

“Well,” Ru said. “That's one argument, I guess.”

“She didn't want to do a project on Paris, and the teacher said something acknowledging that Paris, being the location of her father's indiscretion, must make the assignment difficult for her or some shit. And Atty merely…”

“Queried why this teacher didn't poop in a hole,” Ru said.

“Exactly,” Esme said.

“She wasn't accusing the woman of pooping in holes,” Liv said. “Quite the opposite. She was wondering why she
didn't.
”

“You all might think this is very funny. But I tell you Atty was the sane one in an insane world.”

“Wow,” Liv said. “She's right. You
are
proud of her for doing it.”

“Of course I am. I should have done something but I was just being a stupid sheep, following the rules, going quietly so I didn't upset anyone.” Esme turned to Liv. “Did she tell you I was proud of her?”

Liv nodded.

“Still,” Ru said. “I think she might need to talk to someone. You know?”

“She needs family,” Esme said. “Real family. The kind that doesn't walk out on her.”

They walked to the counter and paid then looked through the plate-glass window at their parents. Augusta was pumping gas. Nick, who'd been put on cleanup duty, was holding a plastic bag of vomitous paper towels. He looked happy, leaning against the car, gazing at Augusta while she spoke. Wind kicked up wisps of her hair and she was gesturing wildly, not angrily, but passionately. And then he started laughing. She glanced at him and laughed too, covering her mouth almost girlishly.

“Jesus,” Ru whispered.

“Those two are falling in love,” Liv said.

“I can't believe that Uncle Vic was my father,” Esme said.

And then Atty startled them. “Aunt Liv,” she said, “you've got throw-up in your hair.”

Liv reached around and patted her hair. “Shit!” She headed for the bathroom, but then stopped. “Come with me, Atty. I'll need help.”

Atty sighed and followed her.

“Okay,” Liv said, turning on the faucet and leaning over. “What's going on? Why did you barf?”

“I don't know.”

“Get some foamy soap.”

Atty pumped the canister attached to the wall, filling her hand with white fluff. “I feel these waves of awfulness like the world is going to end.”

Liv held out her hand, and Atty passed the foam to her.

Someone knocked on the door.

“We're in here!” Liv shouted and then she said to Atty, “What's it feel like?”

“It's like being locked in a closet except it's more like I'm the closet. I'm trapped and I'm the trap.”

Liv rubbed the suds into her hair. “Huh. Like people are stuck inside you?”

The knock came again.

“Seriously?” Liv shouted at the door. “People are in here. Do you not understand waiting in line?”

“No,” Atty said. “I'm the person and the closet. Does that make sense?”

“And this feeling hits you like a wave how often?” Liv was rinsing now.

“Almost every day but this is the first time I barfed about it.”

Liv put her head up to the hand blow-dryer and dipped under it. The bathroom filled with noise and hot air. Atty took a picture of her aunt drying her hair, Instagrammed and tweeted it with
#sadyolo.
“How do you get all those rich men to marry you?” Atty asked. “Love must love you.”

“Love loves me?” Liv laughed. “No, no. Love doesn't love me at all. It's scientific. I've invented a very precise system.”

The dryer turned off automatically. The room was suddenly silent. Liv's ears started ringing. She felt raw and unclouded. Everything was clear and unmuffled like she'd just come up from underwater. She looked in the mirror. She remembered being naked in front of Teddy Whistler before she turned him in. When he told her the truth, she should have loved him more. “But maybe I've done everything wrong, Atty. How do I know?”

“I don't understand anything. I'm just the closet and the girl in the closet.”

“No you aren't.”

“You don't know what it was like when they
quacked
at me.”

“Why did they quack at you? Did it have to do with the fanny pack somehow?”

“Why doesn't anyone in this family understand
irony
?” Atty patted her chest, her eyes widened and filled with tears. “One day we're going to just be oil paintings staring out at nothingness.”

Liv grabbed both of Atty's upper arms and held on tight. “Why did you steal that fucking musket? Were you going to kill yourself?” And then she whispered, “If you were, you can tell me. I might be the only one in this fucked-up family who will understand.”

Atty shook her head, refusing to comment.

“Tell me, Atty!” Liv said. “You'll die of an ulcer if you hold this stuff in and you'll never be able to heal because you can't be honest with yourself!”

“I can't tell anyone!” Atty said.

“Nothing is so awful that you can't say it to me,” Liv said. “I'm an addict, for shit's sake!”

“I thought you were at the top of the drug addict hierarchy?”

“That was bullshit. Addicts are addicts. There's no hierarchy. Tell me! Tell me now! You wanted the musket to go off, didn't you? You thought it would? You wanted it to put an end to it all.”

“I wanted it to go off! But I didn't want to kill myself!” Atty shouted and she ripped herself loose and threw her shoulder against the wall.

Liv watched her slide to the tiled floor. “I don't understand.”

“I didn't want to kill myself,” Atty said, staring at the tips of her fingers. “I stole the gun and wanted to get Brynn Morgan interested in it. I had this elaborate plan where I'd teach her how to clean it. I wanted it to go off in her face. Like an accident. This was before I really realized how time-consuming it is to fire a musket, of course.”

“
Like
an accident?”

Atty kicked the large metal garbage can. “But I couldn't do it, could I?”

“Of course you couldn't,” Liv said. Her heart was banging. She patted her chest and then scratched her arms and then she laughed. “You're not a killer, Atty. Is that what you think?”

“Brynn wasn't interested in the musket. Who wants to clean an antique? I wasn't thinking straight. You thought I was going to kill myself. You said all that stuff about the trigger and putting an end to it all,” Atty said, staring up at Liv. “You said you'd be the only one who understood. You tried to kill yourself, didn't you?”

“It was a misunderstanding. There was a gun.” She closed her eyes, but only lightly, as if she were remembering something peaceful. She'd gotten a pawnshop owner to assemble her ex-husband's pheasant-hunting gun. She'd taken it to her favorite restaurant on the Upper West Side. She ordered her favorite meal and then folded her napkin into the shape of a swan, propped it on the table, and went to the bathroom. She was going to do it, right there, where, she figured, it would be easy to wipe down the mess. “I couldn't do it either,” she said.

“I need help,” Atty said. She held out her hands, and they were shaking badly. “I walk around all the time feeling like I'm going to explode out of my body. I'm so anxious. I wouldn't kill myself because I already feel like I'm dying!”

“It's panic,” Liv said. “You're going to be okay.” She dug through her pocketbook. She pulled out a wallet with lots of zippers. She slipped her fingers inside one compartment and pulled out a ziplock bag with two pills in it. “This is a great gift I'm giving.”

“What are they?”

“My last two Valiums.” She shoved them into the front pocket of Atty's jean shorts.

“I can't take these!” Atty said.

“I find great comfort in just having them,” Liv said. “But more comfort in actually taking them. Either way, it's not fair for you to feel this bad. Try them out. If they work, we'll talk to your mother about medicating you a little.”

Atty stood up. “I probably shouldn't take drugs from a druggy.”

“Realistically, they're usually the ones with the best shit.” Liv rested her hands on Atty's shoulders. “This is how America survived the 1970s.”

“Okay.”

“Listen. Your shit is real. And this is a weapon in your arsenal. That's all.”

“Thanks.” Atty started to tweet something about having real shit going on in her life, but her aunt slapped her hand.

“What are you doing?”

“Tweeting.”

“Well, stop. It's weird and dissociated or something. No one needs to know your business anyway. Be a little more mysterious, okay? Jesus.” Liv unlocked the door, but before she opened it, she said, “I'm going to need another few minutes. Tell everybody I'm coming.”

“Okay,” Atty said.

Liv opened the door and found a middle-aged woman in purple yoga pants, glaring at them.

“I had throw-up in my hair,” Liv said to the woman. “And we were having a tender moment.”

“Like I care,” the woman said.

Liv stiffened and stared at her. “Looking at people with that
face
on your
face
is making you prune up.”

The woman was about to shoot something back but Liv raised her hand and gave her a look. “Why don't you go poop in a hole?”

Atty smiled at Liv then walked past the woman back into the store, tweeting,
Looking at people with a face on your face will prune you up.

Liv shut the door again, locking it quickly, and as the woman in purple yoga pants started pounding, Liv lit up a joint, sat down on the toilet lid, and calmly smoked it.