The trees formed a canopy over the road. Small green buds dotted some of them, but others were bare. ‘I just worry, that’s all,’ Joanna said. ‘Your poor mom. After your dad and all…she doesn’t need this.’
Charles pulled the lever for the wiper fluid. The windshield wipers made a honking sound and slid the soap across the glass. ‘Probably not.’
‘And I think you should help Scott. You’re his brother. Don’t you think you should?’
‘Well, he hasn’t asked for help.’
‘People don’t always ask,’ she reminded him.
‘He hasn’t done anything wrong.’
Joanna touched the smooth, slick buttons on her jacket. She was tempted to ask Charles if he really believed that.
‘Don’t worry about it, okay?’ Charles said, putting on his turn signal. ‘It’s not a big deal.’
They were at the turnoff to his parents’ house. It was so ensconced by the trees it was easy to miss. Charles pulled up the long, snaky drive. A pine near one of the turns had fallen against a few other trees, reminding Joanna of a happy, drunken girl propped up by her friends at the end of a long night. They pulled into the circular drive behind Sylvie’s car, the newish Mercedes she often parked outside, and Scott’s car, the slightly older Mercedes that Sylvie had given to him. Scott’s Mercedes had dings on the side, worn tires, and a speckled half-moon of rust across the front bumper. The back bumper was plastered with stickers, many of them irate and instructive. One bumper sticker near the window said Free Mumia; it featured a picture of a black man with a beard and dreadlocks who’d been wrongfully imprisoned. According to an article Joanna read on Wikipedia, this Mumia guy had been accused of committing a crime because of preconceived notions about his past, his looks, his blackness.
The house loomed ahead of them, a turreted estate over a hundred years old that Charles’s great-grandfather had passed on to Sylvie. It was made all of stone, with a low stone wall around it, a little balcony on the upper floor surrounded by a wrought-iron terrace, and a six-car detached garage across the drive. The house had numerous out-croppings and gables and cupolas and a brass weathervane in the shape of a rooster at the very highest point. There were three patios, a sun room, and a lap pool out back, and the whole thing was surrounded by thick, shapely pines and an elegant garden. Whenever Joanna beheld the estate, she got reverent chills. She always felt like she needed to be on her best behavior here. It was like what her mother used to say to her when they went to Mass at the drafty, icon-filled, stained-glass Catholic Church in Lionville, Pennsylvania, where she’d grown up: Don’t make any noise. Don’t touch anything. God’s looking at you.
Sylvie was already standing on the large brick side porch, her hands clasped at her waist, a brave smile on her face. As always, she was impeccably dressed in an ironed lavender skirt and a perfectly tucked-in eyelet blouse. She even wore heels, little lavender things to match the skirt, and pearls looped twice around her throat. She dressed this way to go to the grocery store, to go for a walk. The ring Charles’s father had given her a few months before he died glimmered under the porch light.
‘I made banana bread, Charlie,’ she said after everyone hugged. ‘Your favorite.’
They entered the house through the kitchen. Dim golden light dappled through the stained-glass window and across the white-painted wooden cabinets, the ancient, rounded Sub-Zero refrigerator, and stout, space-age MasterChef stove. The smell of banana bread drifted comfortingly through the air. Sylvie had put an old classical record on the turntable, presumably plucked from the collection that belonged to her grandfather.
‘Sit, sit,’ Sylvie urged, gesturing toward the kitchen table. A bunch of vacation property brochures were spread out on the surface. As Joanna and Charles sat down, a very different sort of song thumped through the walls to their left. Joanna cocked her head, listening to the drubbing beat, the muddy bass, the muffled shouting. She tried to meet Charles’s eye. Scott’s suite shared a wall with the kitchen.
‘So listen – we’re so behind!’ Sylvie said, fluttering from the oven to the cupboards to the sink and then repeating the cycle all over again, though bringing nothing to the table. ‘We haven’t picked out a vacation house for this summer! But I think I found a good one. It’s on the water in Cape May. July seventh to the twenty-first.’
She plucked a magazine from the pile on the table and leafed to a marked page. ‘Here. It has seven bedrooms. It seems like a lot, but you know those houses – they’re all huge. Really, I wonder if we should just buy a place instead of rent. Then we could decorate it the way we want.’
Charles shifted in his seat. Joanna wondered if he was thinking what she was thinking: planning a vacation in the middle of a scandal seemed inappropriate. Only, was that what this was? A scandal?
‘And it’s brand new,’ Sylvie went on, pointing at the tiny pictures of the house’s interior: a country kitchen with white bead board on the walls, a master bedroom with lavender striped curtains, a shed that was filled with beach balls, bicycles, plastic kayaks, and kites. ‘It won’t have that smell; you know that old beach smell? Even the nicest houses get it sometimes.’ She flipped through the catalogue to another page. ‘Though this one’s nice, too. It’s closer to town. It’s hard to decide.’ She looked up at Charles, her face softening as if a thought had just struck her. ‘Honey, don’t think you have to come for the whole time. I know you have to work. But at least for a week, right? And then for the weekends?’
The volume next door rose higher. Joanna glanced at Charles again, but his eyes were fixed stubbornly on the rental magazine.
‘And we’ll need so many supplies,’ Sylvie added. She grabbed a Land’s End catalogue from the bottom of the pile. ‘I’ve marked lots of things.’ She turned to a page that displayed flashlights, travel mugs, a fondue pot. ‘We could make s’mores on the beach,’ she crowed gaily. ‘Wouldn’t that be fun?’
‘Huh,’ Charles murmured vaguely.
Sylvie folded her hands over the magazine. ‘How is work, by the way?’
Charles shrugged. ‘Busy. You know.’
‘Dealing with any interesting clients?’
There was an abrupt, fuzzy thud next door, and then a faster-paced song. Joanna flinched, but she didn’t bother glancing at Charles again. He was obviously ignoring it.
‘Not really,’ Charles spoke over the noise. ‘Same ones.’
‘And Joanna?’ Sylvie turned politely to face her daughter-in-law. ‘How’s the new house coming along?’
Joanna smiled. ‘Good. Lots of boxes still to unpack, though.’
‘Have you met any neighbors?’
She looked down. ‘Uh, no one yet. But I’m sure we will soon.’
Sylvie nodded. Joanna could tell she was searching for something more specific she could ask her about – a hobby, maybe – but was coming up with nothing. ‘Excellent,’ she finally said. And then, ‘Goodness. The bread.’
She scampered to the oven, slid on two mitts, and pulled the banana bread pan from the tray. Steam curled around her face, fogging her small, wire-framed glasses. She carried the pan over, removed one of her oven mitts with her teeth, and set it on the table. Then she placed the pan on top of the mitt. The knife slid easily against the sides of the pan, and more steam gushed out. She pushed the pan to Charles and he cut himself a thick slice and put it on his plate. He used the side of his fork to cut off a bite.
Joanna waited and waited. Just as he was about to put the bite in his mouth, she touched his arm and said in a voice far whinier than she intended, ‘Charles?’
He looked up; she nudged her chin toward the pan. He lowered his fork. ‘Oh. Sorry.’
He began cutting her a piece, but she changed