This is Your Life, Harriet Chance! (5 page)

I
’m so sorry to keep you waiting, dear,” says Harriet, answering her doorbell the morning of the cruise. “Please come in. I’ll just be a minute.”

She’s sorely misjudged Dwight Honeycutt, and the guilt of this miscalculation has been needling at her conscience for two days. All these years, Harriet’s been looking at Dwight with a jaundiced eye. Yes, he was the chief proponent of Mildred’s move to Sunny Acres, the liquidation of her automobile, the downsizing of her existence. Yes, he dresses like a fallen oil baron, in bolo ties and ten-gallon hats, cowboy boots with khaki dress suits. And then there’s the matter of the silver Jaguar, out there in the driveway, crouched in the pink dawn, quietly belching a plume of exhaust into her
dahlias. It’s true he landed a tidy sum listing the bluff house. But why shouldn’t he? It was going to be his someday, anyway. The truth is, all of it was probably in Mildred’s best interest. Harriet can see that now.

Dwight has been a doll the past two days. He feels terrible that his mother has canceled. Yesterday he called to confirm the ride for the second time. He even offered to come over and take a look around the house, make sure everything was in working order. Not only that, he offered to house-sit, and pick up the mail in her absence. She feels terrible for underestimating him.

“Take your time, take your time,” Dwight says, from the open kitchen, admiring the stainless-steel appliances, running a hand cleanly across the marble countertop. “You sure you don’t need a hand?”

“No, no, dear. I’m almost ready.”

It’s no small kindness, Dwight’s offering to drive Harriet as far as Kingston—and at 6:00 a.m., no less. That he was considerate enough to arrive twenty minutes ahead of schedule just puts a fine point on it.

No, there’s nothing shifty about Dwight Honeycutt as he sashays from room to room, flipping light switches, turning water spigots on and off, knocking on walls, inquiring about square footage, admiring views, peering keenly out at the patio.

“Hot tub work?”

“As far as I know, dear. Bernard maintained it scrupulously.”

“Nice amenity.”

“I really ought to use it more, you’re right.”

The relative dryness of the banana belt, sheltered as it was by the rain shadow, had been the decisive selling point, when shortly after his retirement from Blum Bearing in ’88, Bernard made the mutual decision that they were leaving the city for the peninsula. Oh, not that there hadn’t been some discussion on the subject. Harriet’s objections had been heard, among them not wanting to leave the kids (though Skip was nearly thirty), not wanting to sell the family home (though truth be told, it was a drafty old Edwardian with all the frigid corners of a haunted house), and not wanting to say good-bye to their friends (though, let’s face it, how exciting did twenty more years of playing pinochle with Gene and Margaret Blum sound?). In the end, it was a game of inches. Only eighteen inches of precipitation annually in Sequim, according to the real estate agent. Nearly thirty inches less than Seattle. More than pollution, more than crime, traffic, high property taxes, or any symptom of urban decay, Bernard could not abide rust. A corrosive menace. An insidious predator.

“Gotta love this rain shadow,” says Dwight, as though he can hear her thoughts. “No wonder everybody wants to retire here.”

Harriet never wanted to leave the north end, it’s true. She and Bernard had both been born and come of age in Seattle. They’d raised their children in the Ravenna house. But twenty-seven years later, hunched in the passenger’s seat next to Dwight, Harriet thinks of Sequim as the place she’s spent the best years of her life.

It all started with the house—the one decision over which Bernard had been willing to grant Harriet the final word. Because she saw to its upkeep, organization, and operation, the home and hearth would ever remain Harriet’s domain. Long after Bernard had lost patience (having viewed a dozen listings and attended half as many open houses), Harriet was finally swept off her feet by a cedar-sided one-of-a-kind in the Carlsborg flats. It was everything the family house in Ravenna was not, with its river-rock chimney, spacious sunroom, and jetted tub in the master suite. The kitchen was a dream, airy and uncluttered, with counter space galore. She loved the cedar-scented charm of her new home. The luxurious sparsity of the open floor plan. There were even two darling guest rooms for the kids when they visited, and a rec room in the basement for the grandchildren (if Skip would hurry up and produce some). Out back, through the sliding glass double doors, lay a wide flagstone patio facing the Olympics, flanked on all sides by raised garden beds. And all of it for barely two-thirds of what they’d managed to get for the Ravenna house.

“Oh yeah,” says Dwight, reaching for the glove box, from which he proffers a white envelope. “Mom said to wait until the cruise until you read it. And no, it’s not money—I already checked.”

The unmarked envelope is stuffed tight and sealed neatly.

“What’s this? An explanation?”

“I can’t honestly say. All I know is that she wanted you to wait.”

In spite of an unhealthy curiosity, Harriet tucks the envelope neatly in the side pouch of her oversized purse. She turns her attention back to the scenery, which like virtually everything else in the modern world, seems to be changing too fast. Goodness, but how they’ve built up Sequim in the past ten years. The box stores, the hotels, the thoughtless housing developments spreading like gray rashes into the hills. Harriet can remember when there was practically nothing along this strip of Highway 101, she could remember Sequim before the bypass, when the banana belt was a rural outpost, an oddball menagerie of gutsy merchants, not the shopping hub of the peninsula. Fifteen years on, and she still thinks of it as the new highway.

“How is she?” Harriet says at last.

“Incorrigible, if you wanna know the truth.”

“Her health, I mean. Is there something wrong she’s not telling me about?”

“She’s fine,” he says. “Slowing down a bit. Getting a little finicky in her old age, no offense. Frankly, I have no idea why she flaked out on you like this. For years, she tried to get dad to take her to Alaska. But he was always too busy.”

Dwight reaches for the console and cracks the sunroof with an electric whir. “There’s a bottle of water in back if you want it.”

“Thank you, dear, I’m fine.”

“Anyway, I’m sorry about my mom,” he says, notching his bolo tighter. “She could’ve given you a little warning. You’ve
gotta understand, she’s very needy these days, whether she wants to admit it or not. She can’t drive, she can’t hardly boil water without forgetting to turn the burner off. And she’s getting loopier by the day. I’m afraid she’s gonna get herself in trouble trying to do too much, you know? Probably a good thing she’s not going.”

“I do hope she’s okay,” says Harriet, feeling a pang of guilt.

“If you wanna worry about somebody, worry about me. I’m sixty years old, and I’m maxed. Beyond maxed. Upside down. I’ve re-fied twice in the past eighteen months. I don’t even know how I’ll make my mortgage next month without Mom’s help. And this car—ha! I’m two payments behind already.”

Dwight reaches for the glove box again, this time producing a small tin. Harriet’s certain he’s about to offer her a breath mint, when he opens the tin to reveal a number of hand-rolled marijuana cigarettes. Fishing a chrome lighter out of his coat pocket, he lights one of the joints and takes a long pull.

“You’re all right, Harriet Chance,” he says, holding his breath. Bobbing his eyebrows a few times, he offers her the joint.

“Good heavens, no.”

Though Harriet does not approve of smoking grass (legal or not, in automobiles or anywhere else), she’s forced to admit after ten minutes that the marijuana markedly improves Dwight’s driving. Moreover, it seems to take the edge off his
personality. He proves to be a delightful conversationalist. Whatever his habits are, whatever his past looks like, Harriet is forced once again to acknowledge her misjudgment of Dwight. She’ll be sure to include an apology in her first postcard to Mildred, whom she finds herself unable to begrudge.

When he drops her at the curb, Dwight circles the car to assist her with her luggage. Extricating her wheelie bag from amid a jumble of real estate placards, he hefts it on the pavement and reaches for his wallet. For an instant, Harriet thinks he’s going to offer her money. But instead, he presents her with a business card.

“Look,” he says. “I appreciate the friend you’ve been to my mom—she appreciates it. You’ve always been there for her. I really wanna help. Anything I can do, just give me a holler. My cell number is right there on the bottom—it’s always on.”

He sets a heavy hand on Harriet’s back and looks down on her with a meaningful gaze.

“Seriously,” he says. “Give me a call. I mean it. I worry.”

Y
es, yes, we’re all over the place again, pinballing across the decades, slinging and bumping our way through the days of your life, seemingly at random. And yes, pinball has come a long way since the Spot Bowler of your adolescence. They’ve added obstacles, pitfalls, bells, whistles, you name it. But look a little closer, Harriet, and you’ll see there’s a method to the madness, a logic to the game.

Of course, Caroline is on your mind, as you board the ferry in Kingston. Let’s face it, for the ten-thousandth time, it was a mess from the beginning with Caroline, from before the beginning, in fact. God knows we won’t start there. That’s another place you refuse to revisit. But sooner or later, Harriet, you’re gonna have to.

In the meantime, let’s start in 1986.

Look at you, Harriet, in your shoulder pads and billowy sleeves, pushing the big five-oh! Once again, a little fuller of figure, a little longer of tooth. But your hair is, shall we say, very much of the times. Maybe a little young for a lady of your station, though in all fairness, that’s only fitting for a woman who has just reclaimed her independence. That’s right, your children are out of the house! What’s on your flight itinerary, Harriet Chance, now that you’ve finally got that empty nest? Travel? A new hobby? A second shot at a career? What will you do with all those empty rooms? All that extra time?

Not so fast, Harriet.

Ground control, we’ve got a problem: Caroline has failed to launch. And let’s be honest, that’s a bit of an understatement. Not only is your daughter back from college, she won’t leave the nest. As a matter of fact, she won’t even leave her bedroom. She hardly eats, won’t bathe, and doesn’t return phone calls. She won’t respond to your muffled inquiries, beyond three syllables. Softly, you hear the drone of the television, the monotonous pulse of rock music from behind her door. Other than that, not a sound.

Why don’t you walk through that door, Harriet? What’s stopping you, what are you afraid of?

Only late at night does Caroline leave her den, stealing wraithlike to the kitchen, or down the hall to the bathroom. You can hear her down there, so why do you lie in bed
listening? Why don’t you put on your slippers and bathrobe, walk down the stairs, and confront her?

The isolation lasts through early spring. And you let it, Harriet. Because, like a ball bearing, your path is smoother without friction. Because as much as you love your daughter, as deeply as you’re attached to her, you cannot (or will not) resolve yourself to certain circumstances precipitating her very existence.

So, what’s Bernard’s excuse? Surely, from behind that crossword he sees his daughter withdrawing, just as sure as the heart of an adolescent woman is totally incomprehensible to him. And then there’s this: if he starts looking too close, he may recognize something he doesn’t want to see. What’s a nine-letter word for turning a blind eye?

Finally, one fine morning, May Day, as it happens, you find Caroline’s bedroom door wide open. Tentatively, you poke your head in, smiling as though the universe is in perfect balance, though there’s pure dread in your heart. The bed is made. The drawers are empty. The record player is gone.

Yes, Harriet, you were worried sick. But admit it—c’mon, I dare you—you were the tiniest bit relieved.

You will not hear from your daughter for the next four months, until she calls you collect from a motel room in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

“Mom,” she will say. “I need help.”

W
hen Harriet disembarks in Edmonds, Caroline’s already waiting at the terminal, stationed like a crossing guard at the head of the gangway, head bobbing above the oncoming stream of commuters. Though Harriet stands a head shorter than anybody else, it would be hard to miss her—a slow eddy in a fast stream as she totters down the ramp, dragging her wheelie bag behind her. Spotting Harriet, Caroline begins waving both hands emphatically and working her way upstream, where she relieves Harriet of the suitcase.

“I’m parked up the hill,” she says. “Do you want to wait here, and I’ll go fetch the car?”

“No, no. I’ll be fine.”

“Where’s Mildred?”

Silence, as Harriet looks down at the back of her hands.

“Where is she, Mom? Does she need help?”

“She’s not coming.”

Caroline stiffens. “What? What do you mean?”

“She canceled.”

“Whoa, wait a minute, Mom. Not coming? What’s wrong with her? Why didn’t you tell me? Does Skip know?”

Harriet averts her eyes.“He wouldn’t have let me come.”

“You’re right.” She fishes her phone out of her purse. “I’m calling Skip.”

Harriet takes hold of her wrist and looks meaningfully into her daughter’s eyes. “Caroline, please.”

Caroline looks curiously back at her for a long moment.

“Let me do this, dear,” says Harriet.

Caroline runs a hand through her scraggly hair and sighs. “Fine. But Skip’s not gonna be happy.”

Within a half block, Harriet regrets the decision to walk. Even with Caroline pulling the bag, the incline presents a struggle. It takes them ten minutes to traverse the hill, and Harriet’s exhausted long before they get to Caroline’s dented Mazda.

“You all right, Mom?”

“Yes, dear,” she says breathlessly.

By the time Harriet lowers herself into the passenger’s seat, she’s decidedly not fine. She’s having a hot flash, as a matter of fact. Her breathing is ragged. Her scalp tingles. Goose flesh is rising on her forearms.

“You sure you’re okay?”

“Just a bit winded, dear.”

Reclining her head as much as her ailing neck will allow, Harriet closes her eyes and draws a few slow breaths as Caroline pulls away from the curb.

“Sorry again about the hill,” Caroline says, reaching for the rear of the car. “I couldn’t get any closer.”

“That’s fine, dear. The exercise was good.”

Caroline plucks something off the backseat, and plops it in Harriet’s lap. “I put together a few things for your trip.”

“How thoughtful of you.”

“Aren’t you going to look?”

“Just resting my eyes, dear.”

“A few creature comforts, that’s all. I know it’s not much. Just little things I always find myself wishing I had when I’m traveling.”

Dutifully, Harriet opens her eyes, peering down into the pink gift bag for a quick inventory: a book of crossword puzzles, a roll of Tums, some orange foam ear plugs, and a pair of reading glasses.

“I hope those are strong enough,” says Caroline. “The glasses, I mean.”

“Oh yes, dear,” Harriet says, closing her eyes once more. “They’ll be perfect.”

She can hardly get the last three words out, her tongue is so heavy. Within seconds, her thoughts lose all fluidity, hardening like wax in her brain, until her mind is a complete blank and her eyelids refuse to stay open. Soon Harriet is deeply and dreamlessly asleep in the passenger’s seat.

When she awakens, much refreshed, somewhere around Everett, Caroline is sipping a latte, with the radio on low.

“There’s a decaf latte there for you in the holder,” she says. “Geez, Mom, I had no idea you could snore like that.”

“I don’t snore.”

“Of course you don’t.”

“Well, you don’t have to be rude about it,” says Harriet, looking out the side window.

“Rude? I was—you were—ugh, never mind. Enjoy your latte.”

Why does it always come to this between her and Caroline? As though they’re out of patience before they’ve even begun. It doesn’t seem to matter how firmly they resolve themselves to diplomacy or civil obligation, after the briefest of exchanges their relationship devolves into this prickly state of nervous exhaustion. They’re forever plagued by the same old pettiness, still stung by the same insults, still harboring the same old resentments. Harriet knows damn well things might have gone better. She knows she should cut her daughter some slack, a lot of slack. But somehow she can’t. And it pains her to admit that, if anything, Harriet has become less expansive with age. The fruits of self-pity were no less bitter at seventy-eight than they were at sixteen.

“You never give me enough credit,” says Caroline. “You never have.”

“Why, Caroline, darling, that’s not true.”

“It doesn’t matter what I do, what I say, it’s never enough. I’ll always be a fucking addict to you.”

“Oh, Caroline, stop, please. This has nothing to do with you. I’m an old woman, I’ve got a long day ahead of me. Thank you for picking me up. Thank you for the lovely gift bag. Thank you for the latte. I appreciate everything you do, truly, I do, but my goodness, Caroline, am I supposed to fall all over myself every time you carry a bag or buy me a cup of coffee? And must you always use such language?”

Caroline stares straight ahead at the road, stonily silent.

They maintain the silence past Mount Vernon, through tulip fields and the sprawl of light industrial, with the north Cascades rearing up out of the farmlands to the east. Harriet tries to nap again, but sleep won’t have her.

“I’m sorry, dear,” she says, at last. “Forgive me, I was exhausted from the walk.”

“I told you, I’d get the car.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. And I’m sorry you feel I never gave you enough credit. Oh, Caroline, I’ve failed in so many ways, I know that.”

“You favored Skip.”

The observation is so unexpected, so out of context, that Harriet finds it momentarily disorienting. “Why, Caroline, that’s not true. Dear, how can you even say that?”

“Because it was obvious.”

“In what way?”

“It was like we were competing.”

“Competing? Caroline, I would never pit my children in competition. What kind of mother do you think I was?”

“No, you and I.”

Harriet is dumbstruck.

“You treated me like a rival, Mom.”

Stunned by the realization, Harriet stares numbly at the wrinkled hands piled in her lap.

“Was it any wonder I hated Skip growing up? He got everything, all of Dad’s attention. You and I had to split what was left while Skip got to
do
everything. And I was expected to stand on the sidelines like you, like a cheerleader, rooting for Skip. So Skip could go to camp, so Skip could get a scholarship, so Skip could—”

“You went to camp, dear.”

“You made me,” she says. She sets her coffee in the holder next to Harriet’s untouched latte and grips the wheel fiercely with both hands. “Skip was the one who wanted to go. I hated it.”

“Good grief, Caroline, that was 1976!”

“You were cheap with me—just like you were cheap with yourself.”

“It’s hardly as if we were wealthy.”

“Cheap in other ways. Oh, forget it,” she says, waving it off. “I should have eaten something.”

“Well, goodness,” says Harriet, reaching into her gift bag. “Let’s stop and eat, then. I have until four o’clock to board. It’ll do us both good.”

Peeling back the foil wrapper of her Tums, Harriet pops one in her mouth, replacing the roll in the pink bag as the antacid begins its chalky dissolve, coating the inside of her mouth.
She doubts whether she can actually eat, but the change of scenery and the presence of other people can’t hurt. Fishing her compact out of her purse, she refreshes her lipstick.

At a Denny’s just off the interstate south of Bellingham, they sit in a booth across the aisle from the window. Caroline orders a club sandwich and bowl of minestrone. Harriet orders the avocado chicken Caesar, without avocados. They maintain silence as they wait for their food, Caroline checking her cell phone distractedly. She looks haggard and worry-worn, her eyes rimmed blue-black. Harriet can see that her nails are bitten to the quick.

“You look tired, dear.”

“Gee, thanks, Mom.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. I’m just concerned. How
are
you? How is Cassidy? Have you heard from her?”

“What do you think?”

“Have you seen the baby yet?”

“No.”

“Are you talking?”

And that’s when Caroline does a most unexpected thing: she casts her eyes down, clutches her face in her hands, and begins sobbing.

Harriet reaches both hands across the table.

“Goodness, dear, I’m so sorry. Is everything okay? Did something happen with Cassidy’s baby?”

Caroline wipes her eyes, blurring her mascara, then extends a hand, which Harriet sandwiches between her own.

“Dear, what is it? What’s wrong?”

Caroline withdraws her hand gently and straightens up.

“Oh, Mom, it’s nothing, okay? I just made a mess of my life.”

Studying her from across the table, Harriet can still see beyond the worried lines of her daughter’s drawn face, beyond the graying hair and the drooping flesh of middle age, past the two failed marriages, the drugs and alcohol, the numerous career changes, the countless disappointments and indignities, to the roly-poly toddler, the gap-toothed little girl, and the sullen teenager with whom she’d fought so bitterly. Though Caroline has achieved varying degrees of success, known fleeting triumphs and sporadic fulfillment, she has not lived a happy life. And somehow, Harriet suddenly sees herself responsible for all of it, every dashed hope, every shade of disillusionment.

“That settles it,” she says. “We’re turning around. We’re going directly to your house, and I’m staying the week. Longer, if necessary.”

“No, Mom, slow down, really. I’m fine.”

“Please, Caroline, dear, let me do something. Let me come stay for a week. I’m more useful than I look. I can cook and clean and run errands. I can—”

“Mom, really, no. I was just having a moment, okay?”

“It’s the change of life, isn’t it, dear?”

“No, it isn’t, Mom. I wish it were that simple. Sometimes I
just start thinking about my life, you know, the parts I can’t have back. But it’s good, reflection is good. I’m fine.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m positive.”

With that, Caroline flags the waitress, and in spite of Harriet’s protestations, insists on picking up the tab—tipping nearly thirty percent!

“Dear, check your math,” says Harriet, dutifully. “Fifteen percent of twenty-seven is roughly four dollars.”

“Hello, Mom, get with the program. Fifteen percent was decades ago. These days, it’s eighteen percent minimum—and that’s just for cheapskates and large parties. These people don’t have benefits. They have no job security. It’s cruel to tip less than twenty-five percent.”

Harriet’s determined not to haggle, though fifteen percent has always seemed fair. Besides, she’s proud of Caroline. Generosity, after all, is one of the few virtues that trumps thrift.

“Whatever you say, dear.”

They leave their food half eaten and drive mostly in silence through Ferndale, toward the border crossing at Blaine. Caroline loosens her grip on the wheel and rolls her shoulders several times to ease the tension.

“I’m glad I broke down back there,” she says. “It was a relief. I needed to get it out.”

“I’m glad, dear.”

Harriet reaches over and rests a hand on Caroline’s thigh and gives it a few loving pats. A dense, almost unbearable grief wells in Harriet’s chest as she withdraws her hand. Harriet, too, is thinking of a life she can’t have back. Tentatively, she replaces her hand on Caroline’s lap.

“Dear?” she says. “I know where you stand on the church, but . . . would it be okay if I . . .”

“Sure,” she says, producing a sad smile. “You can pray for me. That would be fine.”