Avery bristled instantly.
“I had some work to finish up in the city, Mom.”
“You’re always busy, always rushing, that’s your problem.”
Her mother’s idea of being helpful was unsolicited criticism delivered swiftly, seemingly from nowhere, like getting hit by a dart in the dark. By the time you realized you were punctured, the next one had usually been thrown.
“Let me look at you,” she continued. “You didn’t have to get dressed up for me.”
Avery looked down at her linen trousers and light cotton shirt.
“I didn’t,” she murmured.
Her mother was already marching inside, gesturing for her to follow. Inside, the house was dark and cluttered with objects, some precious, many not. The kitchen was the center of the house, the largest room, with space for a large farmhouse-style dining table and eight mismatched chairs. A large abstract expressionist painting hung on the wall, contrasting with the yellowing old newspapers and damp-curled books that were scattered on every available surface. Avery glanced into the living room, where she recognized an African ram’s skull her mother claimed to have belonged to Hemingway with a plastic shopping bag hanging from its spiraled horn. On a chipped credenza by the door was a flash of hot pink. Avery saw it was a picture frame containing a photo of the four sisters and their mother squeezed around a restaurant booth, grinning over plates of profiteroles and melting sorbet. Their mother was in the middle, one arm encircling Nicky and Lucky on her right and the other around Bonnie and Avery on her left.
She knew instantly that it was from Nicky’s college graduation dinner, one of the rare happy memories they shared as a family, in part because their father had stopped drinking for that summer after a brief stint in the hospital with jaundice. Avery was also sober by that point; out of solidarity with her and him, they had all ordered Shirley Temples, laughing as the saccharine concoctions arrived garnished with swirly straws and maraschino cherries. Avery vaguely remembered that Lucky and Nicky had not been speaking at the start of that dinner because of some skirmish at Nicky’s graduation party with her sorority sisters but, without fanfare or explanation, had forgiven each other by dessert. In the picture they were wedged close to each other like two daffodils in the same pot, Nicky’s golden hoop earring resting against Lucky’s cheek. It was their father who had taken the photo, Let me get one of all my Shirleys together, and Avery remembered how his hands were steady when he took it, how proud she had felt that they seemed, for one moment, like a regular family. Inscribed on the picture frame in the curly font usually found on posters declaring Live Laugh Love or Keep Calm and Carry Prosecco was the phrase Mothers & Daughters Are Forever. Avery could imagine Nicky picking it out at the store, without a hint of irony, her childish belief that good things really could last forever, even in their family.
“Come sit, come sit,” beckoned her mother, pointing to the dining table. She was rustling over the sink, washing her hands. Avery wondered if she’d noticed her looking at the dirt under her nails when she arrived. She plunked herself down at the large wooden table; at its center, in a small clearing of papers, was a blue painted jug filled with irises.
“I picked these this morning when I heard you were coming,” said her mother. “They’re lovely, aren’t they? Van Gogh’s favorite. They always remind me of you.” She turned and touched an indigo petal with the tip of one soapy finger.
“They are,” agreed Avery, though it hurt her to think of her mother trying to please her in this small way after disappointing her in such big ones for so long. She wished she would just be a good mother or a bad one; this vacillating in between was unbearable.
“How are the girls?” her mother asked.
Anyone overhearing this would have thought she was asking about Avery’s children, but, of course, she was inquiring after her own. If her mother knew that Avery was aware she had been in the city yesterday, she wasn’t going to let on. Fine, Avery thought, you want denial? Let’s do denial.
“They’re great,” she said with a bright smile. “It’s so good to see them.”
No need to mention they were currently not speaking; out of loyalty, Avery preferred to present a united front to their mother.
“What are they up to back in New York?”
Why don’t you ask them yourself?
“Lucky’s just taking a break,” Avery said vaguely. “Bonnie’s back at Pavel’s training.”
Her mother sniffed.
“I’ll never understand her obsession with that barbaric sport. We have your father to thank for that.”
“She’s incredible, Mom. You should have come to one of her fights.”
“What mother wants to watch that? The amateurs, that was one thing. At least they wear their headguards. But this pro stuff? It’s masochistic.” She shook her head and turned to lift the kettle. “Tea?”
“It’s not masochism,” said Avery, the old defensiveness of her sisters rising quickly to the surface. “It’s a respected sport. And I’m good on the tea.”
“It’s a blood circus and should be illegal. You sure? I have the strong British stuff you’re probably used to now.”
“Sure, fine, sure.” Avery waved her hand in a gesture of surrender. She had just escaped a country that held tea to be the solution to all things, a fact that, she realized now, probably annoyed her so much because it was her mother’s attitude too.
“You should talk to Bonnie about doing something else. Why can’t she coach? She’d be a wonderful coach.”
“Because she wants to fight, Mom. I can’t talk her out of it. None of us can.”
“That Pavel better protect her,” she said. “It’s his job to keep her safe.”
And then Avery saw it, the raw, almost animal fear guarded beneath her mother’s querulousness. She was scared for Bonnie, scared for all her children. Had she been this way before losing Nicky? Avery never remembered her mother seeming so concerned before. The fear appeared between them, unspoken but startling in its frankness, and then it was gone.
“She’ll be okay,” Avery said softly. “Pavel knows how to take care of her.”
“I can never get more than a grunt out of her on the phone,” she continued. “Any of you! I might as well have had sons. I thought girls were meant to be verbal.”
Avery chose to ignore this. Her mother had a long list of all the ways her children had disappointed her, topped forever by the fact that not one of them had had the magnanimity to be born a boy.
“Where’s Dad?” Avery asked instead. “Is he sleeping?”
Her father usually fell asleep in the living room or somewhere equally central to family life; even unconscious, he found a way to dominate every space he was in.
“That’s something I wanted to talk to you about. He’s not here.”
“I see that.”
Her mother turned so her back was to the kettle she’d been fussing over and looked at Avery.
“He’s back in treatment.”
“What? When? For how long?”
