I can provide her with stability. You don’t even know where you’re going.”
“Yes I do—I’m going to Maine.”
He snorted. “You think your life here is hellish, wait till you spend some time in Bangor. You’ll be out of there by the end of the summer.”
Kathryn relinquished the dog. They didn’t fight over wedding presents; Paul kept the ones from his side of the family, his friends, and she kept the ones from hers. The day before she was to fly out of Charlottesville for good, she packed her meager belongings into boxes and drove into the countryside to the UPS command center to drop them off. As she stood in the front office, watching her brown boxes ascend the ramp on little rollers and disappear over the top, Kathryn felt a great weight lift from her. She didn’t care if she ever saw the packages again—in fact, part of her wished that she’d given a false address. It would be fitting, she thought, for the boxes to be stuck in limbo, riding around in those big brown trucks until somebody figured out that there was no destination. She was, for the first time in a long time, free of baggage. She felt as light as air.
Chapter 5
T he next day, after sleeping late again, Kathryn decides on an impulse to drive out and see her father. He lives in Hampden, ten miles from Bangor, in a modern home with a swimming pool on twelve acres of land. A partner in one of Bangor’s largest accounting firms, he drives a forest-green Miata and a Jeep Wagoneer and keeps bottled water and fresh-squeezed juices in the refrigerator. When Kathryn was in high school, every time she went to visit him there’d be music on the sound system wafting out to the driveway and back behind the house to the pool—the kind of music that she and her friends listened to, REO Speedwagon and Jefferson Starship and the Bangles. Hearing it as she walked up to the door always made her wince.
Kathryn used to wish she had one of those fathers who was around at night and on weekends, who’d help her with her homework or toss a ball with her in the park. Even before he moved out, her father wasn’t like that. He never quite seemed to be part of their family. He was vacant with them; he kissed her mother on the top of the head when he camehome from work, holding her, literally, at arm’s length. Kathryn and Josh pulled back and watched. When he left the house in the morning, they watched him dither about when he’d be home; they saw the look on their mother’s face when he called to say that, yet again, he’d be working late.
Margaret Fournier had been Kathryn’s father’s secretary. She was also, on Saturdays, a gymnastics instructor at the Y. Most of the girls in Kathryn’s middle school had, at one time or another, taken gymnastics with Miss Fournier in the cold, cavernous gymnasium at the West Side YWCA. They were in awe of her—in her brightly colored leotards, her hair pulled back in a bun, Miss Fournier looked like a star. The first time Kathryn saw her in street clothes, ill-fitting jeans and a baggy acrylic sweater, drawing on a cigarette as she waited for the bus, she was shocked at how she looked: scrawny, mean-faced, cheap. Kathryn remembered this image when her father came to tell them he was leaving.
It took her mother years to get over the hurt. “Did you know about it?” she’d ask Kathryn or Josh, trapping them in the hall as they left for school. “Could you tell?”
They’d shrug and squirm away, embarrassed at the naked pain in her eyes. When their father called the house wanting to speak to Josh or Kathryn and their mother answered the phone, her voice, calling their names, would take on a tense, high-pitched quality. They’d pick up the receiver without looking at her and answer their father’s questions like prisoners under duress. Their mother became intensely busy; she volunteered at the hospital and was elected president of the PTA. Before the divorce was finalized, she binged on shopping; Kathryn would come
“Yes I do—I’m going to Maine.”
He snorted. “You think your life here is hellish, wait till you spend some time in Bangor. You’ll be out of there by the end of the summer.”
Kathryn relinquished the dog. They didn’t fight over wedding presents; Paul kept the ones from his side of the family, his friends, and she kept the ones from hers. The day before she was to fly out of Charlottesville for good, she packed her meager belongings into boxes and drove into the countryside to the UPS command center to drop them off. As she stood in the front office, watching her brown boxes ascend the ramp on little rollers and disappear over the top, Kathryn felt a great weight lift from her. She didn’t care if she ever saw the packages again—in fact, part of her wished that she’d given a false address. It would be fitting, she thought, for the boxes to be stuck in limbo, riding around in those big brown trucks until somebody figured out that there was no destination. She was, for the first time in a long time, free of baggage. She felt as light as air.
Chapter 5
T he next day, after sleeping late again, Kathryn decides on an impulse to drive out and see her father. He lives in Hampden, ten miles from Bangor, in a modern home with a swimming pool on twelve acres of land. A partner in one of Bangor’s largest accounting firms, he drives a forest-green Miata and a Jeep Wagoneer and keeps bottled water and fresh-squeezed juices in the refrigerator. When Kathryn was in high school, every time she went to visit him there’d be music on the sound system wafting out to the driveway and back behind the house to the pool—the kind of music that she and her friends listened to, REO Speedwagon and Jefferson Starship and the Bangles. Hearing it as she walked up to the door always made her wince.
Kathryn used to wish she had one of those fathers who was around at night and on weekends, who’d help her with her homework or toss a ball with her in the park. Even before he moved out, her father wasn’t like that. He never quite seemed to be part of their family. He was vacant with them; he kissed her mother on the top of the head when he camehome from work, holding her, literally, at arm’s length. Kathryn and Josh pulled back and watched. When he left the house in the morning, they watched him dither about when he’d be home; they saw the look on their mother’s face when he called to say that, yet again, he’d be working late.
Margaret Fournier had been Kathryn’s father’s secretary. She was also, on Saturdays, a gymnastics instructor at the Y. Most of the girls in Kathryn’s middle school had, at one time or another, taken gymnastics with Miss Fournier in the cold, cavernous gymnasium at the West Side YWCA. They were in awe of her—in her brightly colored leotards, her hair pulled back in a bun, Miss Fournier looked like a star. The first time Kathryn saw her in street clothes, ill-fitting jeans and a baggy acrylic sweater, drawing on a cigarette as she waited for the bus, she was shocked at how she looked: scrawny, mean-faced, cheap. Kathryn remembered this image when her father came to tell them he was leaving.
It took her mother years to get over the hurt. “Did you know about it?” she’d ask Kathryn or Josh, trapping them in the hall as they left for school. “Could you tell?”
They’d shrug and squirm away, embarrassed at the naked pain in her eyes. When their father called the house wanting to speak to Josh or Kathryn and their mother answered the phone, her voice, calling their names, would take on a tense, high-pitched quality. They’d pick up the receiver without looking at her and answer their father’s questions like prisoners under duress. Their mother became intensely busy; she volunteered at the hospital and was elected president of the PTA. Before the divorce was finalized, she binged on shopping; Kathryn would come
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