Would my stone read only Maisie Thomas, beloved wife of ____? Only that? Never the story of this full-throated longing beyond. I looked across the tombstone, over the roofs of Middle Haven, and outward to the harbor: who I was—all that I was—cast up into the bright air. Nothing can represent us—nothing satisfy. Indeed, Miss Grange, I admitted sadly, you are right.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Mama and I settled into a quiet custom of visits to Papa’s grave, often venturing separately to see him. I liked to walk there by myself along the green alley of the road to Middle Haven. Indeed, his grave became a punctuating constant, a place to which I returned and rested from the strain of waiting for Miss Grange to summon me, as I imagined she would. I longed to tell her how much I could see now; how I had understood what she wished me to. I considered writing her a note, but then in a mix of cowardice and politesse, I decided it best to wait for her to seek me out. Perhaps she did not know quite how to approach me, with her diary now between us.

But she never called for me, nor did she descend after that first evening. Neither was I aware of her in her customary position at the window. Often I would look up, thinking to catch her there, though nothing but the blank eye of glass returned my stare. And this present silence folded round the vibrant character of the past, until the firm line between the diary and the woman upstairs wavered in my mind as a hot day shimmers over water.

Save for me, the silence in the uppermost regions went entirely unremarked below, for the Boston and Maine had recently proclaimed Middle Haven the “watering hole for the decided and unpretentious wealthy,” thereby drawing all the decidedly pretentious to watch how old money was handled. The Maconomo House, which loomed at the opposite end of the harbor, accommodated ninety people, though they charged the exorbitant price of four dollars and fifty cents a night to stay there (without dining). J. J. Sullivan, the manager, demonstrated his talents as host to celebrities by planning weekly follies, sometimes importing a singer from Boston just for the weekend evenings. In town itself, there were three other guest establishments, the Manchester House, the Stanley Cottage, and a boardinghouse kept by Miss C. E. Brown, and all three appeared positively to hiccup with people, they were so full.

Simplicity is difficult to teach, however, and much of the gaiety of the season drew from the meretricious and boundless excesses of the newcomers’ spirits. Mama was quite put out at first, complaining about the tuba orchestras that one could hear bellowing over the water—“like mating cries,” she’d sniff as we mounted the stairs to retire.