“Take the boys?” The idea alarms her. First her husband, then her boys. “I’ll be all alone.”
“Then come. Gwen, honey. There’s bound to be media attention. You don’t want to expose them to that. Imagine the things they will say. The probing. It could get very ugly.”
Gwen lets out a choked sob. Maybe her mother is right. She needs to protect George and Rafi.
Barb opens her purse and pulls out a compact the size of her hand.
“Look in the mirror, honey.” Her mother holds up the compact. All Gwen can see is one of her eyes, swollen from crying and smudged with mascara. “Look at yourself. Is this how you want those boys to see you? Give yourself a few days to get it together.”
“I need to tell them. I can’t keep the truth from them, as much as I might want to.” She stares at her one eye in the mirror. It’s the eye of a stranger, a disintegrating woman. Is her mother right? Does she owe it to her boys to be pretty and pulled together? Barb can confuse her this way, the way no one else can.
“It’s just for a night or two,” Barb coos, stroking her arm. “You don’t want them seeing police coming and going, their mother in tears. Give them one last weekend of pure innocence before it’s all snatched away. Once they learn what’s happened to their father, once theyknowabout their father, well, they can never unknow it, can they? Give them this weekend. It’s a gift to them, believe me.”
“Fine.” Gwen relents. Maybe her mother is right. Maybe by letting them go she is allowing them one last gasp of their childhood. And if she’s being honest, she doesn’t have the guts to tell them. Not yet. Dealing with their grief on top of her own seems unfathomable right now. She’ll be better in a few days, stronger. She’ll use the weekend as a respite, the chance to think, the quiet time to process what has happened, so that when they return she can be the mother they deserve.
Is that terrible? Is she a terrible mother that she doesn’t want to have to be pulled together in front of her boys? Maybe a better mother would plaster on a smile and make dinner from scratch the night after she found out her husband has been murdered. But Gwen feels like she’s wearing one of those weighted blankets, pulling her to the ground.
“Smart girl.” Barb stands up, smoothing out her slacks. “I’ll just pack up a few things. I’ve got bags in the car. I’ll be right back.”
“Wait, what?” Gwen’s spine stiffens. “You brought bags with you? I didn’t agree to anything until just now.”
“I knew you’d see sense.” Her mother is unfazed. She’s heading outside.
“You brought your own suitcases?” Gwen calls after her.
Barb pauses at the door. “I wasn’t sure if you had yours easily accessible and I was trying to make less work for you. Stop trying to make it sound nefarious. Not everyone is out to get you.”
She watches her mother leave the house and return a few moments later with two matching navy carry-on bags, and then take them up the short flight of stairs with the efficiency of a seasoned flight attendant. She disappears into the boys’ room, and moments later Gwen hears drawers opening and closing. She’s filled with a strange sense that her mother has come to take her children away forever.
Her mother is not an ally, has never been. How Gwen wishes she was. How she wishes she could unburden herself to Barb, and spill the poisonous, inky secret that is seeping into every corner of her soul.
Not her secret, but Anton’s. The one he told her last night.
She could use some real advice. She’s going to be navigating treacherous waters soon and Barb would know what to do. But telling Barb what Anton told her would come with too high a price. Her mother would use it to manipulate Gwen forever.
No, Anton’s secret is one that Gwen must manage all by herself.
10
NOW
Aimee is drawing on every last ounce of patience to assuage her client, who is upset because she has learned she will have to net the blueberry bushes in the summer.
“But netting will destroy the aesthetic.” The woman crosses her arms over her chest. In leggings and a fleece with the crest of a local private school embroidered over the chest, her blond hair pulled into a tight ponytail, she looks like an average suburban mom. And while Aimee is not intimidated, she knows these Washington moms can be vicious. She will have to thread the needle between accommodating her demands and setting boundaries so this woman doesn’t walk all over her.
“Well, you can leave the bushes unnetted,” Aimee says. Her tone is gentle, considering she went over these details with the woman and her husband a few weeks ago. “But the birds will pick most of the berries. Birds love blueberries.”
“But I didn’t plant them for the birds.” The woman narrows her eyes. “I planted them for the antioxidants. You told me this would be an edible hedge.”
“And it will be!” Aimee’s chipper response does nothing to wipe the scowl off the woman’s face. “But for about one month out of the year, you will have to net them. Don’t worry, they make very unobtrusive green netting. You won’t even notice it.”
“I feel duped. I really do.” The woman shakes her head, looking at Tim nearby as if he might confirm this, but Tim is looking at his phone, trying to ignore the whole thing. Aimee feels jealous. Being the boss means having a lot of these conversations.
“I mean, what do farms do?” the woman asks.
“They use netting.” Aimee employs the same voice she uses with her kids when they are on the verge of spiraling into a tantrum. “Or walk-in cages.”
“Cages? Oh no.” The woman shakes her head. “I don’t want my front yard to look like a factory.”