Christmas party. “Did you still have a tree?” Sylvie asked. He nodded, patting her head, “Yes, of course. We still had a tree.”
Those afternoons with her grandfather were filled with peppermint tea and chocolate chip cookies on the estate’s enormous back porch. They watched the swans in the pond, which were probably the grandparents or great-grandparents of the swans that lived there now. They sat at the Steinway baby grand piano that is still in the music room. He played Chopin for her, his fingers kissing the keys.
When Sylvie saw her mother’s car wending up the driveway, her heart would plummet. Her own house was dark, the blinds pulled tight. Doors in different wings eased quietly shut; her parents rarely spent any time together except for meals. Sylvie hated eating with her parents most of all—they never spoke during those taut dinners, the only sounds were of the clinking forks, the scraping plates, and the chewing. When Sylvie couldn’t stand another second of silence, she’d burst out with something her grandfather told her that day, even though her parents had heard the stories plenty of times before. “Did you know Charlie Roderick let some of the people who worked on Swithin stay at his house?” she’d crow. “Did you know he worked even on his birthday?” But this just angered her mother, Clara, even more, and she often wearily snapped, “Your grandfather isn’t the messiah you think he is. Those people who rebuilt the school? The ones he let stay at his house? Fat chance he let their children go to Swithin. Even if they’d scrimped and saved all their money, he would never let them in.”
And then Clara would glance at Sylvie’s father, Theodore, as if daring him to scold her for saying such things about his family. But Sylvie’s father never took the bait, his eyes remained fixed on his Wall Street Journal, his jaw working his food.
Sylvie didn’t understand what her mother meant by those comments. It wasn’t until she was in middle school and heard similar rumors that she finally worked out what her mother was implying. But by then she refused to believe it. Everyone was jealous of the Bates family, including Sylvie’s mother, who had come from a good family, but not as good. And anyway, her mother was bitter and mean-spirited about everything and everyone. It was obvious why Sylvie’s father was around less and less, conducting most of his business out of New York. Sylvie would have escaped to New York, too, forever avoiding those crypt-quiet dinners, her mother’s inimical remarks, and those heaving sighs through her nose. Her mother had once been involved in Sylvie’s life. Sylvie still remembered the dollhouse she’d gotten for Christmas when she was six. Clara had even helped Sylvie to select furniture for it from a big, glossy dollhouse catalog. And Sylvie used to slip her hand into her mother’s when they walked through the revolving doors at the Strawbridge & Clothier department store in Philadelphia, snug and secure in her mother’s grip. But something had happened to her mother in the years between, something that seemingly couldn’t be reversed.
When she was thirteen, Sylvie called her father at the hotel he usually stayed at in New York, wanting to know if she could take the train up and visit him. She thought that once outside their dour house, her father would be more like his father, the great Charlie Roderick Bates. The hotel concierge connected Sylvie to her father’s room and a woman answered. Sylvie said she must have dialed the wrong room and went to hang up. “Are you looking for Teddy?” the woman asked. “Who?” Sylvie said. “Theodore,” the woman corrected. “He’s in the shower.”
Sylvie slammed the phone back into its cradle, her heart beating fast. Teddy. She couldn’t imagine her father being called that. It seemed childish, a stuffed bear flung on a bed.
After that, Sylvie drifted away from both her parents. Whenever anyone
Those afternoons with her grandfather were filled with peppermint tea and chocolate chip cookies on the estate’s enormous back porch. They watched the swans in the pond, which were probably the grandparents or great-grandparents of the swans that lived there now. They sat at the Steinway baby grand piano that is still in the music room. He played Chopin for her, his fingers kissing the keys.
When Sylvie saw her mother’s car wending up the driveway, her heart would plummet. Her own house was dark, the blinds pulled tight. Doors in different wings eased quietly shut; her parents rarely spent any time together except for meals. Sylvie hated eating with her parents most of all—they never spoke during those taut dinners, the only sounds were of the clinking forks, the scraping plates, and the chewing. When Sylvie couldn’t stand another second of silence, she’d burst out with something her grandfather told her that day, even though her parents had heard the stories plenty of times before. “Did you know Charlie Roderick let some of the people who worked on Swithin stay at his house?” she’d crow. “Did you know he worked even on his birthday?” But this just angered her mother, Clara, even more, and she often wearily snapped, “Your grandfather isn’t the messiah you think he is. Those people who rebuilt the school? The ones he let stay at his house? Fat chance he let their children go to Swithin. Even if they’d scrimped and saved all their money, he would never let them in.”
And then Clara would glance at Sylvie’s father, Theodore, as if daring him to scold her for saying such things about his family. But Sylvie’s father never took the bait, his eyes remained fixed on his Wall Street Journal, his jaw working his food.
Sylvie didn’t understand what her mother meant by those comments. It wasn’t until she was in middle school and heard similar rumors that she finally worked out what her mother was implying. But by then she refused to believe it. Everyone was jealous of the Bates family, including Sylvie’s mother, who had come from a good family, but not as good. And anyway, her mother was bitter and mean-spirited about everything and everyone. It was obvious why Sylvie’s father was around less and less, conducting most of his business out of New York. Sylvie would have escaped to New York, too, forever avoiding those crypt-quiet dinners, her mother’s inimical remarks, and those heaving sighs through her nose. Her mother had once been involved in Sylvie’s life. Sylvie still remembered the dollhouse she’d gotten for Christmas when she was six. Clara had even helped Sylvie to select furniture for it from a big, glossy dollhouse catalog. And Sylvie used to slip her hand into her mother’s when they walked through the revolving doors at the Strawbridge & Clothier department store in Philadelphia, snug and secure in her mother’s grip. But something had happened to her mother in the years between, something that seemingly couldn’t be reversed.
When she was thirteen, Sylvie called her father at the hotel he usually stayed at in New York, wanting to know if she could take the train up and visit him. She thought that once outside their dour house, her father would be more like his father, the great Charlie Roderick Bates. The hotel concierge connected Sylvie to her father’s room and a woman answered. Sylvie said she must have dialed the wrong room and went to hang up. “Are you looking for Teddy?” the woman asked. “Who?” Sylvie said. “Theodore,” the woman corrected. “He’s in the shower.”
Sylvie slammed the phone back into its cradle, her heart beating fast. Teddy. She couldn’t imagine her father being called that. It seemed childish, a stuffed bear flung on a bed.
After that, Sylvie drifted away from both her parents. Whenever anyone
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