Page 28 of Winter Solstice
“The caterers will do it,” Mitzi says. “Come on outside. I want to have a cigarette while we wait for the cab.”
“Ohhh… kay,” Ava says. She knows Mitzi started smoking when she left Kelley to live with George the Santa Claus, but she thought she’d quit. Now, apparently, she’s back at it. Ava can’t really blame her, can she? Watching Kelley’s health deteriorate must be tough.
They stand out in front of the VFW in the crisp fall air, and Mitzi lights up.
“Only late at night,” she tells Ava. “After your father is asleep. Or after I’ve been drinking.”
Ava holds up her hands. “No judgment here.”
“Thank you,” Mitzi says with a relieved smile. “It’s too bad Potter couldn’t get away.”
“He could get away,” Ava says. “He wanted to come, but I asked him not to.”
“Oh no!” Mitzi says. “Trouble in paradise?” She laughs. “Forgive me for saying that. I’m too old to believe thatanyone’srelationship is paradise.”
“We had a challenging weekend,” Ava says. “His ex-wife and her boyfriend were in New York for a Shakespeare conference, and they left PJ, Potter’s son, with us. Well, with Potter. And Potter wanted to introduce PJ to me.”
“Naturally,” Mitzi says. “How’d it go?”
“On a scale of one to ten it was a negative thirty,” Ava says. She tells Mitzi about PJ screaming Friday night, about the video game on Saturday at the Museum of Natural History, about PJ texting his mother to say that Ava had touched him inappropriately.
“Good heavens,” Mitzi says. “What a nightmare!”
“Nightmare,” Ava concurs. She takes a deep breath andinhales some of Mitzi’s secondhand smoke, which isn’tunpleasant or unwelcome. “How didyoudo it, handling the three of us?”
“Ha!” Mitzi says. “The worst year of my life was my first year married to Kelley. Do you not remember?”
“Not really,” Ava says. “Bits and pieces.” She tries to hearken back. She was ten when they moved to Nantucket with Kelley. The boys were teenagers. Patrick was fine in Ava’s memory, Kevin less so—until he met Norah Vale. But what memories does Ava have of herself?
“You were afraid of the dark, do you remember that?” Mitzi asks. “You were fine going to sleep on your own, but then during the night you would come into our room and demand to sleep with your father. I had to go to sleep in your room. You wouldn’t sleep in the bed with me, you hated me, and Kelley never said no to you because he felt so guilty.”
Guilty,Ava thinks. Kelley felt guilty because he’d gotten divorced, then met someone new, then quit his high-paying job as a trader and moved the kids out of New York all the way up to Nantucket, which had been a favorite place of theirs in the summer. But living year-round on the island was another story entirely.DoesAva remember being scared of the dark? Not really. She remembers missing her mother. She remembers Kelley taking her to South Station in Boston and putting her on the train to New York by herself. She remembers crying when Margaret took her back to the train to send her home. She remembers coloring books, paper dolls, and then finally an electric keyboard with headphones to pass the four-hour ride.
What does she remember about Mitzi? A standoff over a brown rice casserole. Ava’s refusal to let Mitzi take her shopping for her first bra.You’re not my mother.Ava said that a lot.
“I was awful to you,” Ava says. “How did you deal with it?”
“I cried,” Mitzi says. “I even called Margaret.”
“You did?”
“I called her without telling your father. I asked her what I could do to make you like me. To make you acknowledge me.”
“And what did Mom say?” Ava says.
“She wasn’t quite the wonderful woman she is today,” Mitzi says. “I can see now that your mother felt guilty as well. She had chosen her career, and Kelley had taken her children away, which she had fought at first, then reluctantly agreed to. She didn’twantyou to like me or acknowledge me, but she did tell me to hold my ground, to be myself, not to spoil you or flatter you or ingratiate myself to you. She said you’d come around.”
“And I did,” Ava says. “Right?”
“You were always the hardest on me,” Mitzi says. “You were enamored with Bart, so I had that in my favor, but I always felt like you resented my presence in your life, in the family. And now look! You’re in a similar situation and you’ve come to me for advice. I have to say, I find poetic justice in that.”
“I’m sure,” Ava says. “And you have my wholehearted apology.”
“I don’t need an apology,” Mitzi says. “You were a child.”
“You also have my gratitude,” Ava says. “For sticking it out. Not only when we were kids, but two years ago. Thank you for coming back to Dad.”
Mitzi takes a long drag of her cigarette. “When Bart was lost, I was lost,” she says. “Thankyoufor forgiving me.”
