Something about the way Jess said the words, and her accompanying tight face, scuttled sadness and regret through Karen. “Did you really expect that?”
Jess’s eyes flashed. “I didn’t expect the intensity of her savagery and spite. Not after years of sharing everything.”
Neither had Karen, although surely Jess must have known Libby would push back? She ached for the young girl inside Jess, whose dysfunctional mother had failed to teach her the unspoken laws of family. In the early years of her marriage, Karen had shared some of the same bewilderment when, like a soldier returning from active duty, her highly tuned survival instincts collided with normal family life. If it hadn’t been for Dot and Peter, Karen might have found herself in a similar situation to Jess.
“You didn’t ask to borrow Nick.”
Jess’s shoulders squared. “Mi casa es su casa. Remember?”
Oh, yes. Karen did remember.
Libby and Jess’s friendship had started much like a love affair—heady and intense and without need of other people. Until recently, it hadn’t changed all that much. Right from the start, they’d made mi casa es su casa a pact and they’d shared everything. It had taken Karen many months to realize there was a constant flow of Libby’s possessions out of the house as, initially, Libby had been obstructively vague about their whereabouts. It was Alice’s tears of fury and betrayal when Libby gave Jess their copy of Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire—a shared gift for the twins from Peter’s sister—that brought the extensive sharing into focus.
Even though none of the things Libby had lent or given away to Jess had belonged to Karen, their loss had raised hives on her skin and invited flashes of unwanted images. Her father purging the house of all the items he’d determined were the devil’s handiwork. The pungent smell of books burning. The shattering of the glass dome mingling with Lisa’s sobs as a snow globe hit the flagstones. The crack of her father’s axe breaking into the walnut case of the piano and the tear of wood splintering along with her heart. When Karen finally got the chance to construct a life without her birth family in it, she’d put all her energies into buying a house. Over time, as she’d surrounded herself with precious things that made her feel safe and secure, she’d turned the house into a home. When she dusted and polished the piano, a daily ritual, the girls would tease her that she cared more for the instrument than for them. She’d always laughed to keep the unmitigated horrors from surfacing.
Although she’d told Peter the bare bones of her childhood, she’d only done it during periods of duress, revealing just enough to make him understand why, in that particular instance, she needed his help. The girls knew nothing about her family and Karen was determined their lives would never be tainted by stories or association. This had put her at great disadvantage when she’d tried talking to fifteen-year-old Libby about her excessive sharing with Jess.
“Daddy and I work too hard for you to just give away your things.”
Libby’s mouth had formed a mulish line. “I’m not giving stuff away.”
“Then why aren’t some of these things coming back? Sharing means something far more equal than what’s happening here.”
“You’re so middle class, Mom! And it’s such a double standard. You’re always telling me to think of others and that’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m sharing what I have with my best friend, no strings attached.”
As altruistic as Libby sounded, Karen had long suspected that Jess was giving Libby items in return—things Karen didn’t want her to have. But as those items never made their way to Pelican House, it was an impossible suspicion to prove. Once Libby and Jess were no longer teens, Karen had expected the communal sharing to stop, but it hadn’t. Jess was right, they’d shared a house, clothes, makeup, music, meals and vacations. More recently they’d shared child-minding and, apparently, Nick. Karen had never fully understood the sharing or approved of it. Now it seemed neither Jess nor Libby understood it either.
“You struck at the heart of her family,” Karen said gently.
“I am part of that family.”
“Oh, Jess …” Karen recognized a grain of truth in the statement, but it was buried in such skewed logic that she had no idea how or where to even start to try and understand it.
“It occurs to me, Alice,” said Bert Lascelles, “you’re hearing all our stories but you’re suspiciously quiet about your own young man.”
“I don’t have a young man.’
“Would you like an old one?”
A titter went around the table and Alice glanced up from Tansy Donovan’s memory page. She met the rheumy gaze of the wily nonagenarian. In Bert’s heyday, he’d have been described as a ladies’ man and Alice was certain he’d be flirting until he took his last breath.
“I couldn’t keep up with you, Bert.”
He grinned at her. “You’re not wrong there.”
Alice was always surprised by the banter and the direct questions the Summerhouse residents asked her. She supposed they’d dispensed with some of the social niceties and went straight to the heart of any issue since they were now short on time.
“Ignore him, Alice, love,” Tansy said. “He’s all talk. What he won’t tell you is he was faithful to Ivy for fifty-nine years.”
“My Ivy always said, ‘You can dance with any girl at all as long as you come home with me.’ I just did what I was told.”
“What’s it like to be married for so many years?” Alice asked Tansy.
The woman considered the question. “Swings and roundabouts. Bad times, good times and a lot of ordinary times in between. “What sort of man are you looking for? Or is it a woman? Back in my day, you had to hide that sort of thing but thank goodness not anymore.”
“I like blokes with a sense
