“Yes, but that’s because you’re all sensible and mature.” Palmer tsked disapprovingly. “I want to have wild reckless adventures while I’m still too young to know better.”
“Be careful what you wish for,” Grace told her. “Hallie was wild and reckless, and now look at her: she hasn’t changed her sweatpants in three days.”
Hallie was still curled up in bed when Grace got back to the house, so she ventured to their mom’s studio for advice.
“Just a second, sweetie,” Valerie cried, not looking up from the huge canvas that covered half the wall. “I’m in my flow.”
Grace idled in the doorway. The annex was a converted conservatory with a high glass roof and sharp light flooding through; unfinished paintings propped against the wall and dried paint palettes cracking on every surface. A corner was now devoted to Valerie’s spiritual well-being: a yoga mat rolled up beside a small Buddha statue and bamboo plants, wind chimes tinkling from the window. It was easy for Grace to be dubious about the morning meditations, and the new love of Eastern philosophy, but the move had been good for her mother, Grace knew. She was still distracted and flighty, but it was an animated frenzy of activity, not the absent, glassy-eyed remoteness that had enfolded her after John’s death. As Grace watched, her mom hurled great slashes of vivid purple paint at the abstract canvas that seemed almost alive with light and color.
“There.” Valerie finally caught her breath. She lowered the brush and turned to Grace. “What do you think?”
“I like it.” Grace didn’t pretend to understand her mother’s art. What had started with neat paintings of fruit in bowls and the bay at dusk had, over the years, spiraled into something wildly abstract, every canvas more obscure than the last. “The color’s great,” she offered.
Her mom smiled. “It’s coming along. Now, what did you want to talk about?”
“Hallie.” Grace sighed, still feeling like she was six years old, tattling on her sister for breaking the vase on the hall table. “You know, she hasn’t gotten out of bed all week.”
“She just needs time.” Her mom began rinsing her brushes in the porcelain sink. “Her poor heart’s been broken.”
“But she did this before!” Grace protested. “For months, over Dad. It’s not good for her.”
“Grief is the air we breathe,” her mom replied, a calm look on her face. “Our tears wash the past away.”
“They’re not washing anything away,” Grace tried to argue. “She’s drowning in them!”
Her mom moved closer, and pulled Grace into a hug. “You don’t understand, this is natural. It’s only when the well of sorrow has irrigated the plains of our heart that we can plant new crops.”
Perfect.
“So you won’t talk to her?” Grace asked, already defeated.
“She’ll get up when she’s ready.” Valerie turned back to the canvas. “I can’t rush her.”
Their mom may not be in any rush, but Grace was.
She perched on the edge of the bed, watching her sister sniffle quietly. “Maybe a nice hot bath would make you feel better,” she suggested hopefully. “You could use the one in the master suite, with the whirlpool jets, and all of Amber’s aromatherapy candles.”
Hallie shook her head listlessly. “What’s the point? He’s met someone else, I can feel it!”
“The point is, it’s been days since you had a shower,” Grace pointed out. “Do you want fungus to start growing in your toes?”
“That doesn’t happen.”
“You want to bet?” Grace looked at her, lying there helplessly as if someone had died all over again. But they hadn’t. Was this really going to be Hallie’s fate: to take to her bed indefinitely at every sign of heartache? Grace felt a flicker of impatience.
“Come on.” She stood, and threw back the covers.
Hallie whimpered.
“You’re getting up, and taking that bath,” Grace informed her briskly. “And then we’re going to do something about those sweatpants.” She looked at the mangy gray fabric pooling around Hallie’s legs. “Laundry is too good for them, I’m thinking we burn them.”
“Leave me alone.” Hallie rolled away, burying her head in the pillows.
“Nope!” Grace grabbed her arm and pulled her upright.
“A bath won’t help.” Hallie began to cry again. “Nothing will help. He’s gone. He’s not coming back!”
“But I’m here.” Grace yanked her out of bed. “And I can’t look at you like this another day. Or smell you like this. No offense,” she added. “What if one of your friends comes over? Do you really want them to see you like this?”
Hallie paused, catching sight of herself in the mirror. “Well,” she ventured in a small voice, “maybe that bath wouldn’t be too bad. Can we light Amber’s Diptyque candles?”
“Absolutely.” Grace felt like cheering. Basic hygiene may not seem like much, but after seven solid days of moping, it counted as a major achievement for Hallie. “Go crazy with the candles. And use all the Crème de la Mer bath foam you can find!”
With Hallie soaking in five hundred dollars’ worth of bath products, and those sweatpants safely dispatched to the garbage, Grace wandered into the kitchen, in search of snacks, and human interaction that didn’t involve a pack of Kleenex.
“Grace, sweetie!” Amber was lounging at the table, drinking a glass of wine with one of her friends. Grace had tried to tell them apart, but it was hard: an identical sea of twentysomethings with the same blown-out hair, designer jeans, and oversize diamonds on their wedding finger. This one was dark haired and skinny in the way Grace had only ever seen in L.A. Professionally underfed, all sharp cheekbones and protruding clavicle. “You remember Missy, right?”
“Sure, hi.” Grace smiled and went to the fridge.
“How is she doing?” Amber’s forehead crinkled with concern. “Her poor sister,” she explained to Missy, “just had her heart trampled by some scoundrel.”
“Awww, poor thing. When I’m feeling the breakup blues, I always go straight to Fred Segal.” Missy suggested, “There’s nothing like a new purse to cheer you up. Except shoes!”
“Thanks,” Grace said, trying not to smile. “I’ll pass that on.”