Every Day by Elizabeth Richards

Author:Elizabeth Richards [Richards, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

chapter seven

I’ll have no need of advice or scolding from anyone else ever again. Jane will provide me with all I require in these departments. Gillette I will work for. My parents I’ll depend on for the occasional bed and breakfast. Eliot I will call for help and venting, Fowler to satisfy wantonness and vain pursuit. Liselotte can pontificate into the future to Catherine, who will laugh back through the centuries at such earnestness as glorious men chase her through the fields of Provence. I am now seen to. I have a daughter who knows everything and will not be cowed by tawdriness.

“Mom, we have to talk.”

She stands dead center in the living room, full face to the culprit, with ample room for gesture on all sides, of which she makes good use. She and Daisy have recovered from their squealing reunion, and I have sunk into the cushions, trying to summon the hard edge I’ve been cultivating during my days away. It’s the sound of their unknowing love that undoes me, the sound of their unbreakable love.

“Isaac and Dad and I are really mad at you, Mom,” she declares. “We don’t understand how you can do what you did. And neither does anyone else.”

I don’t know why, but I look for vestiges of laughter, a smirk, an indication that she knows this speech is somehow the wrong one.

“Who else?” I ask.

“Only everyone. Adrienne, Kirsten, the kids at camp, the counselors, Grandpa, Grandma. God, Mom, it’s horrible.”

“What’s horrible?” I need to know what she knows.

“What you did!”

“What did I do?”

“You slept with that man. Which means you’re a slut. That’s what a slut does, Mom.”

She takes no delight in assigning me this term, although I do note her pride in knowing it. It’s the pride one takes in a new authority, one that has been earned.

I wait a minute, for our minds to leap over details.

“Do you know who the man is?”

“Yes, I know who the man is,” she spits, in vicious mimicry. “He’s Isaac’s dad, and because of him, my dad has to stay in a hotel and Isaac isn’t going to live here anymore.”

It is frightening to me that she doesn’t think to cry as she announces these things, that she’s resigned to them. I keep calm for her, and for Daisy, who’s begging Jane, arms outstretched, for more relief from the floor.

“Where is Isaac going to live?” I ask.

“Like you care!” she shouts, at the same time shielding Daisy’s ears from the volume.

“I do care, Jane. Now tell me where he’s gone.”

“He went to stay with a guy from camp, another counselor. He says he doesn’t want to see you anymore.”

“Do you know the counselor’s name?”

“Of course I know his name. I have to know his name. He’s my counselor! But why should I tell you? You decided to go live with someone else too. Why shouldn’t Isaac?”

“I was staying at Grandma’s, Jane,” I say, “except for one night when I didn’t. When I was a slut, as you would say.

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