Things Unsaid: A Novel (29 page)

The desk drawers were full of business-size check registers, the kind Bob had used at his office over twenty years ago. How she had hated
working there. She knew it upset him that she couldn’t keep the messages straight, or the phone numbers. But who cared?

Aida moved slowly, back and forth, pushing empty boxes into the middle of the room and emptying shelves and desk drawers. She rested on the desk chair, swiveling and looking at the clutter all around her. Then she pulled out the top drawer—but something all the way in the back, way, way back, was stuck. The drawer resisted as she tried to pull it out completely. She heard paper crunch. She reached back behind the drawer, her skinny arm lying flat on top, and her index and middle finger tweezered the thick paper causing the jam. She pulled hard, and it came loose. An envelope.

Aida slipped open the flap and saw two brittle sepia photographs. The kind their old Brownie camera took. The first was their wedding photo; the second showed the two of them holding their firstborn child. Both were crumpled. She smoothed out the photo of Julia and turned it over. On the back Bob had written the lyrics—the first stanza—to “Someone to Watch Over Me.” Tears dropped on first one photo, then the other, smearing the emulsion.

W
hat was going on? No response yet from Jules, either by e-mail or snail mail. Zoë was a healthy girl—she’d never had any medical issues before. Had she gotten in some sort of accident? Why did her sister always keep things to herself? And what could be more important than their father’s passing and his funeral? Jules had changed. Dramatically. Suddenly. Wasn’t even there when their parents needed her most. She seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth. What was wrong with her?

Joanne had to get out of her own head or she’d go stark, raving mad. She shook her head hard, feeling her ears beginning to fill up: vertigo. Another episode of Ménière’s disease, perhaps. If only she could shake the clutter out of her mind, she thought as she walked down Main Street to open her shop, A Real Gem. Business was so slow around Edmonds, in the deepest recession in the Seattle area since the Great Depression. Joanne liked to call it the Great Recession. She was in her own Great Depression.

She didn’t like going to work when there were no customers, those days when she spent the whole time organizing the inventory and dusting. But her shop was an escape, a clearing of her mind, her own little haven, her sanctuary. There she could be herself and not think of her daughters, soon-to-be ex-husband, or any of the other shit that pressed down on her as soon as she woke up.

Opening the front door to her shop, Joanne sighed heavily. All around her, stores were closing, even though Edmonds was a tourist town with quaint historic architecture from its glory days as a silver
mining center. Joanne worried her dwindling savings foreshadowed doom. She could usually count on selling a few trinkets each week, enough to cover rent, if not take-home pay for her. But her AmEx bills were piled up on the kitchen counter, unopened. She hoped she could continue to make the minimum payment. Until Jules came through. Then life would get better for her. Sometimes her sister seemed like superwoman, Joanne thought to herself resentfully. Like she was so superior. But she could count on her sense of obligation. Maybe even more so now that their father had died, and his gambling on stocks had died along with him.

Joanne dusted off the head, a dead ringer for Cleopatra, resting in the papier-mâché tomb in the front window. She had bought the faux mummy in Seattle from a costume shop that was closing. The majority of its business, the girl at the register had told her, was at Halloween and for the hospital costume ball—no wonder the store hadn’t survived. But Joanne loved her mummy—it was a real eye-catcher, perfect for showcasing all her fossils from the Jurassic and other prehistoric periods. Then again, maybe she just identified with its bandaged face.

His office was minimalist, located in a four-story building, tall by Edmonds standards. The tallest in town, in fact. Soft, russet-orange leather couches, colorful abstract prints, tall dracaena plants. Joanne felt she was going to be paying for some of that decor. Or, rather, her sister would. Divorce lawyers were expensive, almost $300 per hour. But well worth it, according to her friends who should know.

She waited in the reception area as the attractive, silver-haired receptionist answered what seemed like nonstop incoming calls. Divorce must be big business.

Joanne had bought a burrito from the greasy takeout place, Maya’s, across from her store. Comfort food. She had only one hour to consult with Seligman. The message she had left on Al’s answering machine was probably garbled, and she hated the thought of having to repeat herself at the end of her workday, explaining what was obvious. That it was over.

Seligman entered the waiting room straightening his tie—probably an Italian Zegna silk one. Impeccably dressed. Handsome, early forties. Joanne tugged at her skirt and pulled down her Indian peasant blouse, one of her favorite ones: black cotton with embroidered flowers of red, yellow, and aqua. The drawstring around the neckline could be loosened with one finger. Joanne extended her hand and flashed a smile. Seligman zoomed in on her décolletage, introducing himself to her breasts before looking up.

“Why don’t we step into my office?” he said, waving her ahead of him.

Joanne obeyed, and soon found herself sitting across from Seligman, a cup of tea in hand.

Seligman leaned forward in his chair. “And what can I do for you this lovely noon hour?”

That sounded a bit sleazy, but Joanne decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. “You are a divorce lawyer, aren’t you? So you probably don’t have to read my mind to figure it out.”

“Well, I’m good. Don’t you worry. We’ll get you what you want.”

“I know this is old hat for you, Mr. Seligman. But this is my first—and hopefully, my only—divorce.” She steadied her voice. When she felt it was safe, she went on. “My heart and mind are backed up. Screwed up, I know. But. I’ve got to stop poisoning myself—and Sarah and Megan, my daughters, too. I really do, but I don’t know where to begin. I’ve been living apart from my husband for years.”

“Then you can start by actually divorcing him. Not just thinking about it. That’s my job.” Seligman touched her hand. “We’ll try for an amicable divorce settlement without a lowered standard of living for you.”

Joanne nodded. That sounded good. She needed some breathing space.

“You shouldn’t consider it a disgrace or anything,” he said in a lighter tone.

Before Joanne could respond, her cell phone lit up. “Mom,” bright and white, on the screen. One too many calls from Mom. This time she was going through with it. Enough of Mom’s advice that a woman without a man was nothing.

Joanne placed her and her husband’s joint tax returns on the
attorney’s desk, fluffing her hair and pulling her peasant blouse down as she did. Maybe he could reduce the fees. She was almost sure he was single—or at least that he wished he were.

“You can see from my tax returns that my income by itself wouldn’t be enough to live on. And my mom wouldn’t be comfortable if I had to lower my standard of living. She couldn’t bear seeing me that way. I’d be a failure in her eyes. And besides, I can’t move Sarah and Megan out of our neighborhood—it has the best school system here! They have to have the very best, no matter how lousy my marriage is.”

Joanne thought again of the conversation her mother had had with Andrew about her topaz ring. Was she as concerned with Joanne’s well-being as Joanne was with that of her own daughters? She wasn’t so sure now.

She heard her mother’s voice again:
“What Joanne doesn’t know won’t hurt her, now will it?”
Listening to the recording, Joanne had been able to hear her own breath stop, and her eyes had clouded up so she couldn’t see clearly anymore.

Why would her mother do that to her? Break her promise to give her the topaz ring she had wanted as a little girl?

After Joanne returned to her shop from the attorney’s office, she saw two young photographers, dressed in jeans and sweatshirts, hurrying down the street, heaving equipment—cameras, tripods, and lights—as a van followed slowly behind them. A pretty young redhead dressed too stylishly for Edmonds was setting their pace. In a snug black-and-white-striped knit dress—the kind so formfitting that only a young woman who worked out every single day could pull off—she led them single file down Main Street, carefully avoiding divots with her stiletto heels. Joanne watched the three of them walk into the Wine Sip, the wine bar that had opened two months ago across the street. A huge wooden placard with purple-colored globe grapes hung outside; at night, it was lit up neon. Joanne liked their happy-hour wine tastings because some of the local guys were hot. So was one of those two photographers.
Wonder what that’s all about?
Joanne thought as she dusted, peeking out the storefront window. Back from Seligman’s just in time for some action, perhaps.

She was in the back of the store making herself a cup of Tibetan white tea—hoping for good karma—when she heard the ringing of her sleigh bells slapping against the front door on their leather strap. Her friend, Stacy, had bought the bells as a Christmas present for her. She loved old things—they reminded her of happier circumstances, childhood. And Christmas was fast approaching.

The two photographers came into the store, followed by the tall, slender redhead. “Good morning. Welcome to A Real Gem,” she beamed, trying to look busy, dusting more frantically. Her happy pill always could be called upon, kicking in in sixty seconds, fast and furious.

Thank God for her happy pills. Celexa—a lifesaver. Not quite literally a Life Saver; they were more oval, without the hole, and a paler red than the candy she’d liked to suck on when she was little.

Joanne couldn’t quite remember what had first propelled her to call her shrink. She thought it had something to do with crying at the movies—crying so hard she couldn’t stop, even after the closing credits. Someone in the theater had gotten up out of his seat and yelled at her to stop all that racket one hour in.

It had to have been a Friday evening—her weekly movie date with Mom, after she closed the cash register and locked up. Just the two of them, mother-daughter quality time. Sometimes Megan and Sarah, or just one of them, would tag along. But not usually. At the last movie they went to see—
My Sister’s Keeper
—Joanne had run out of Kleenex. Her mother kept needling her, impatient and annoyed.

“Why can’t you stop all that crybaby stuff? Do you have a bladder for tear ducts, like my mother had? Sobbing at nothing,” she scolded, passing a tissue like a small white flag to her.

Joanne had surrendered. After her visit with her psychiatrist, Dr. von Simson, she’d watched the same movie, Kleenex box within reach, by herself—and she was fine. No tears.

“I had gone from cable TV with one lousy channel before I had my appointment with my shrink. But now I’m back to the entire two hundred channels, more alive,” she remembered telling Jules.

“Happy pills may help,” her sister had said. “But you should seek counseling when you get back to Seattle. Not just medication.”

Joanne wanted her sister to give her free counseling. Jules had refused.

“It’s never a good idea to treat your own family,” Jules said. “You need some distance to see the dynamics. Besides, I do learning disabilities, not depression. And since I deal with kids—and don’t approve of medicating them—I just don’t keep up on such things.”

“Well, I have a new, brighter personality. Don’t you know I don’t want the old me—the one no one likes? I donated that one to charity.”

Where was her sister’s exuberance about her new self? Had she left her capacity for joy by the curb for the garbage collectors to pick up? She was no fun anymore.

“Well, hello,” the older camera guy said, cutting off her thoughts about her sister. He was about forty, maybe forty-five. Looked cute in his baseball cap and dark blue sweatshirt, which was emblazoned with “Seattle Mariners”—probably bought at the Sea-Tac airport. He was lean, clean, athletic.