All the Best People

by Sonja Yoerg

Genres: Family Life; Literary Fiction; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

Vermont, 1972. Carole LaPorte has a satisfying, ordinary life. She cares for her children, balances the books for the family’s auto shop, and laughs when her husband slow dances her across the kitchen floor. Her tragic childhood might have happened to someone else.

But now her mind is playing tricks on her. The accounts won’t reconcile and the murmuring she hears isn’t the television. She ought to seek help, but she’s terrified of being locked away in a mental hospital like her mother, Solange. So Carole hides her symptoms, withdraws from her family, and unwittingly sets her eleven-year-old daughter Alison on a desperate search for meaning and power: in Tarot cards, in omens from a nearby river, and in a mysterious blue glass box belonging to her grandmother.

An exploration of the power of courage and love to overcome a damning legacy, All the Best People celebrates the search for identity and grace in the most ordinary lives.

Release date: May 2, 2017

Publisher: Berkley

Print pages: 368

Sample

***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected copy proof***

Copyright © 2017 Sonja Yoerg

Chapter One

Carole

August 1972

Carole was ten when her mother was committed to Underhill State Hospital. For a rest, her father had said. By the time Carole was old enough to understand that the truth lay elsewhere, beyond her grasp, her mother had received insulin coma treatment for hysteria, colonics for depression, and electroshock just because, and Carole gave up wondering how her mother had lost control of her mind and simply coped with the fact that she had. Recently, Carole overhead the nurses say Solange Gifford was haunted, and although Carole did not, strictly speaking, believe in ghosts, it was as fitting a diagnosis as any.

She arrived at Underhill for her weekly visit a few minutes after nine and signed the register. A vase of lilies crowded the counter, the sweet musky scent mingling with the clinical bite of disinfectant and another smell, mushroomy and dark, that existed only here.

The receptionist greeted her and swiveled to face the switchboard.

“I’ll have them send your mother out, Mrs. LaPorte.”

“Thank you.” Carole felt her cheeks flush. She’d forgotten the woman’s name although she’d spoken with her a dozen times. “I’d like to go outside with her, if that’s all right.”

The woman smiled. If she was insulted at not being called by name, she hid it well. “We’ll have to see how she is, but I’ll let them know.”

Carole nodded and handed a small shopping bag across the counter. “Some blackberries for her. They’re coming on fast this year.”

She took a seat in the empty waiting area, the same seat she always chose, the left of the two between the ashcan and the magazine rack. Stale cigarette, bad as it was, countered the other odor. She leafed through an issue of Woman’s Day with Pat Nixon on the cover and suggestions for budget-friendly casseroles. One with tuna and cream of celery soup appealed to her, and her husband, Walt, was fond of celery, but she’d never remember how the recipe went. Someone had torn out a different recipe, ripped the page right down the middle, but Carole wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing. Even if she could bring herself to destroy public property, she’d never enjoy the meal.

An orderly came through the double door dividing the reception area from the wards and propped it open with his foot. “Mrs. LaPorte.”

She slid the magazine into the rack and stood, her legs heavy, her stomach queasy. She made her way down the corridor and glanced at the windows, set high, out of reach, and thought of the years, the thick stack of years her mother had been locked up here. Thirty-four years inside these brick walls, or barely outside them. Institutionalized. That word said it all. Long and cold and slammed shut at the end like a thick steel door.

The orderly escorted her into a lounge overlooking a slate patio beyond which lay a vast carpet of lawn. Solange stood beside the patio doors expectantly, reminding Carole of how her daughter’s cat waited by the backdoor to be let out. Her mother noticed her and smiled. Perhaps she was having one of her better days.

“Mama.” Carole rested her hand on Solange’s narrow shoulder and kissed her cheek. She led her mother to the patio and breathed deeply once they were outside. They set off by habit along the perimeter of the grounds.

They were not easy to pair as mother and daughter. Carole took after her father, lanky and square-shouldered, with dark blonde hair and eyes the color and shape of almonds. Her mother was petite and fair-skinned, and her eyes shifted from gray to green depending on the light and her mood. Solange’s hair was the color of concrete, but Carole easily remembered the deep red it had once been because she saw it every day on her daughter, Alison. “Red as an October maple,” her husband called it.

Solange walked slowly and with a hitch in her gait, as if she didn’t trust the ground, making her seem far older than sixty-five. Carole stayed close, her shoulder grazing her mother’s, in case she stumbled. It was better to visit this way instead of face-to-face, where Carole could be overrun with a hot sweet tide of pity, and if she looked at her mother directly, the way her eyes shifted out of focus rattled Carole. No, it wasn’t so much loss of focus as loss of presence. Solange’s eyes would film over, like those of a fish left gasping on the shore, and Carole would be uncertain where she had gone. “Inside herself” wasn’t accurate; the bottom had dropped out of whatever remained of her mother’s self. This loss, although temporary, was more acutely painful than the long-term loss of her. Carole was accustomed to her mother’s institutionalization, but she would never become accustomed to the idea that one day her mother might abandon reality entirely and never return.

They rounded the corner of the main building. Her mother asked, “How’s the baby?”

Carole answered the usual questions about her sister. “Janine’s fine. School starts in three weeks so it’ll be back to work for her.”

Solange hesitated. “Back to work?”

“Yes, Mama. Janine works in the school office. She’s thirty-four.”

Her mother shook her head. “Doesn’t seem possible. It truly doesn’t.”

“I know,” Carole said softly, as the passage of time frequently caught even the sane off guard. “She’s coming to visit soon, I hope.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful. She’s such a lovely baby.” Her voice drifted off.

Carole didn’t have the heart to correct her. For years she’d tried, insisting her mother work the logic through and accept that Janine was no longer a baby, or even a girl. But Solange would not utter the name Janine, and no amount of reasoning and explaining could alter her conviction that the infant she’d left behind had stayed small and vulnerable all these years. For Solange, time was a twisted landscape riddled with holes, and Janine the baby had fallen straight through.

Carole moved on to firmer ground. “Did you finish the apples I brought last week?”

“Apples? I think I had one recently. A McIntosh.”

“I’ve left some blackberries at the desk for you. They won’t last more than a few days, but I know how you like them.” Carole was never sure the staff gave Solange the food she brought, but she continued to bring it anyway. That and providing a few outfits a year was all she could do. It seemed so little. “Mama, how’s your friend, Maisie?” Manic-depressive, Maisie had been in and out of Underhill for years—mostly in.

“Maisie? She’s fine except when they have to lock her up. A lot of the others are leaving.”

Carole nodded. “I’m sorry the new medications don’t help you.”

“That’s all right. I never expected them to.”

They circled back to the patio and stopped to rest on an ironwork bench. A few other patients wandered nearby or slumped, sedated or catatonic, in wheelchairs.

Solange said, “As long as you and the baby are fine.”

Carole took her mother’s hand in hers. “We are, Mama. Don’t worry.” She didn’t pause to query herself before answering because, until recently, she had always been fine. She wouldn’t allow the strain to show. Not here.

The patio doors opened and a woman stepped out, holding a girl about one year old dressed in white and wearing a cap tied at the chin. A man, presumably the girl’s father, held an older gentleman by the elbow and directed him to a chair beside Carole and her mother. The older man worked his tongue in his mouth and his limbs trembled violently. The father sat next to him and bent his head in conversation. The child began to fuss, stretching her arms toward her father and kicking.

The mother held her tight. “Not now, sweetheart.”

Solange’s gaze had been drifting across the grounds, but now she studied the mother and daughter with intent.

Carole shifted to face her mother and touched her arm. “Mama?”

Solange continued to stare.

The girl squirmed against her mother’s grasp and whimpered. Within moments, the child’s frustration bloomed and she began to cry. The mother tried to soothe the girl but her cries only grew louder.

Solange stiffened and leapt from the bench. Carole’s arm shot out to stop her but it was too late. Solange grabbed the child by the shoulders. “Come to me, baby! I’m here!”

The woman twisted away in alarm, pulling her daughter closer. “Leave her alone!”

The girl’s father rose and stepped between his wife and Solange, his jaw set. Carole flew to her mother’s side.

The man scanned Carole’s face and her mother’s, assessing the likelihood both were a threat. He turned toward the building and shouted, “Orderly! Nurse!” The woman hurried inside, tucking the child’s head into her shoulder.

Solange’s eyes were wild and incredulous and filled with terror, as if no part of her comprehended her actions, much less her emotions. She held her arms outstretched, reaching after the baby. Her face contorted in a grimace, and she cried out, a long, low wail. Carole wrapped her arms around her, in protection, restraint, solace and fear. Her mother’s body was rigid and twitched as if electrified. Carole held on, her heart beating in her throat.

A nurse appeared, with a doctor and a syringe. Carole shook her head. “Please, give us a minute. Please.”

She ignored the impatience on the doctor’s face and the uncertainty on the nurse’s, and tended to her mother, stroking her hair and speaking into her ear in the most ordinary voice she could muster. “There were six deer in the field behind the house last night, Mama, lined up as if someone had arranged them. You could hardly see them, the grass being as high as it is on account of all the rain we’ve had. Walt’s been meaning to cut it but it’s been too wet and he’s been so busy—almost too busy—in the garage anyhow. And between you and me, I’d prefer to see the goldenrod bloom. Last show of summer, they are, and I’d sure hate to miss it.”

Solange’s limbs softened as Carole spoke, and her breathing slowed, though it still caught in her chest. A trickle of sweat ran down Carole’s back and her mouth was dry. The nurse helped her lower Solange onto the bench. The doctor disappeared. Carole knelt beside her mother and smoothed the damp hair from her forehead and stroked her cheek. Solange’s eyes were closed. Carole imagined her mother was knitting together pieces of herself before daring to look upon the world again. Or perhaps she was simply tired.

Several minutes passed. Solange slowly opened her eyes.

“Hello, Mama.”

She regarded her daughter. “Carole, dear. Is it visiting day?”

“Yes, it’s Sunday.”

“Are you making a dinner?”

Carole smiled. “Later, yes. If I can corral everyone.”

“Well, don’t let me keep you.” She looked around, as if seeing the day for the first time. “I’m just going to soak up a little sun.”

“All right, Mama. If you’re sure.” She kissed her cheek. “See you next week.”

Carole left Solange with the nurse, thanked the receptionist and returned to her Valiant. She drove through the village of Underhill and took Route 120 toward Adams. The smooth workings of the machine under her control and the changing views steadied her nerves, and she reflected on her mother. Solange hadn’t had a good day, but it hadn’t been an awful day, either. At least her mother wouldn’t spend this beautiful morning sedated and oblivious. It was bad enough they had to medicate Solange every night to stop her wandering in search of her baby. Locking the door was not enough, as she only rattled the handle and wailed. The nurses were probably right. Her mother was haunted by a baby lost in time.

Before Solange Gifford had been committed to Underhill, she had been, quite naturally, the center of Carole’s world. Then her mother was gone, leaving Carole confused and bereft. One of her aunts let slip that Solange was not tired but mad, which Carole at first took to mean she was angry. Shortly thereafter she learned the word “madhouse” and the significance of her mother’s disappearance swallowed her whole.

Everyone continued to call her sister “the baby” long after she’d been named, but she was nothing like the prim porcelain dolls on Carole’s dresser. She was swaddled fire, with powerful lungs and coal-black hair. Carole had promised her mother she would care for her sister and protect her, and although she’d been a child herself at the time, she’d done her best.

The road crested a hill, and Mount Mansfield, proud and solid, loomed before her. The spine along its north slope cast a deep shadow into the wooded valley. Later today the sun would find the valley, and tomorrow it would find it again. Normally, Carole would find honest reassurance in the regular sweep of the sun, the march of the hours, the parade of the seasons. She wasn’t the kind of person to pine for spring in January or to sigh when the first yellowed birch leaf fell to the ground. She didn’t slow her step to look over her shoulder and she certainly didn’t crane her neck around the corner of her future, wishing. But for months now something had shifted out of place, as if the mountains and the waters and the sky had been shaken up in a jar and put back together, but not perfectly. The seams were showing. It made no sense, but still.

Carole arrived at a T-junction and came to a stop. She signaled left and peered down the empty road in each direction. Adams was definitely to the left—she’d been here a thousand times—but a worm of uncertainty burrowed inside her. She looked to the right again, where the road divided pastures dotted with cows. On the far side, an old hay barn with a rusted roof slanted a few degrees toward the hill rising behind it. That way was Waterville, and beyond Waterville, Yardley. She was only confused because she hadn’t slept well for several weeks and it was catching up with her. That’s why everything seemed a little off. She was exhausted.

She glanced in the rearview mirror, unsure how long she’d been stopped in the road. No one was behind her. But she couldn’t afford to dawdle. She had to get home, clean the house, help Lester with his reading, get dinner ready and do a load of laundry so Walt would have a clean shirt to start the week. Oh, and she had to find the source of the error—over five hundred dollars—in the garage accounting. No doubt there were a hundred other things she had to do but was forgetting. A knot throbbed at the base of her skull. She studied the barn a second time, and the road, faded yellow lines down the middle. Pressure built at her temples. Carole let go of the wheel, stretched her fingers and gripped it again. Adams was to the left.

She was certain. Nearly.

Chapter Two

Alison

Alison slid off the beanbag and flicked off the television. The Brady Bunch had been boring as usual, but it was Delaney’s favorite, and it was her room and her television. Delaney grabbed her sketchpad and scooted onto her bed with the thirty-seven pillows, shaking her head so her silky brown mane fell perfectly across her shoulders. Alison didn’t have to see the sketchpad to know Delaney was drawing a bay mare with black markings, same as she always did. Correction. Her bay mare: Calamity Jane. Alison had once made the mistake of calling it brown and Delaney had refused to speak to her for days. Delaney had a way of not speaking that made it feel like a month.

“I guess I’ll go,” Alison said.

Without looking up, Delaney raised her pencil and waved it an inch.

Mrs. Dalrymple appeared in the doorway. “Don’t worry your folks by being late, Alison.”

Alison stifled a shrug. “Thanks for having me, Mrs. Dalrymple.”

“Suck-up.” Delaney said it loud enough to reach Alison, but no farther.

Mrs. Dalrymple smiled. “Our pleasure. Make sure you go straight home.”

Grown-ups and their pointless warnings. Where else would she go? After dark, crossing the field between their houses was like swimming the English Channel. She’d seen a show about it. You didn’t go halfway then get it in your head to try for Newfoundland. “I will.”

She put on her Keds, careful not to break the frayed laces, crossed the kitchen and nudged the Dalrymples’ golden retriever from the back door. “Sorry, Mr. Darcy.” She stroked his head and he mashed his jowls into her palm, coating it with slobber. “Thanks a lot.” Alison wiped it on his neck and slipped outside.

The yellow glow of the porch lights reached halfway across the lawn, where two Adirondack chairs squatted, facing the hills. According to Alison’s father, “no self-respecting Vermonter would ever set his backside in one of them chairs.” He thought Vermonters were always self-respecting, meaning they had more pride than money, and lots to say about out-of-staters like the Dalrymples, though he made them in private and in a sorry voice, the way you’d talk about an ugly baby. Delaney’s family had moved to Adams four years ago, at the start of second grade. Alison used to think being a real Vermonter gave her an edge over Delaney, but she’d grown less sure. She stopped at the far reach of the light and turned to admire the house, its porch wide as a driveway, with chairs you could sink into and a swing and, off to the side, cordwood stacked neat as teeth for fireplaces that made the house cozy, which wasn’t quite the same as heating it.

She made a beeline for her house through the middle of the field. She could’ve taken the road, but it was longer and hugged the woods backing up to Buchanans’ farm. She knew those woods, and the river flowing through them, better than anything and was convinced they held an abundance of magic. To tease it out, she left folded notes in crevasses and under rocks, and hid special things in small boxes or folds of fabric tied with kitchen string. She’d wait for as long as she could, then make the rounds, inspecting the places for messages from the hidden world whose existence was as obvious to her as the sticky pine bark and springy mosses. Sometimes she’d find slugs in the creases of the notes, soaked with dew or rain, and sometimes the things inside the boxes disappeared. She didn’t know what that meant, but she kept at it. At night, though, the woods were their own kind of black, and none of the magic they held was good.

The moon was up and threw a silver veil from behind thin clouds. She could make out the ridge of hills against the sky. At the bottom sat her house, half of the windows pale yellow. Security lights attached to the body shop shone toward the gas pumps, hidden by the house. A single streetlight, whiter than the others, lit up the auto graveyard. Alison had crossed the field a million times. She could do it blindfolded, and had. Using a flashlight felt like a betrayal of a place that had always welcomed her. Even as a toddler, when her brothers were supposed to be watching her and she chased after a butterfly or a toad from backyard to field, nothing bad had happened. Her bedroom faced this way, so this four-acre patch was the first thing she saw when she woke and the last thing in her mind’s eye when she lay down at the end of the day.

The wind picked up, sending the smell of sun-warmed earth to her. It had been hot today, but there wouldn’t be many more days like it. Earlier she’d noticed a bitter taste at the back of her throat, like she’d swallowed a bug. The faint strawberry sweetness was gone. Summer was down to the last lick of ice cream before the cone collapsed.

Alison felt uneasy and didn’t know why.

She stopped, now in the dead center of the field, and stared at the sky. The clouds moved faster, streaking in front of the moon, their edges burning white for a second, then rushing past, leaving the moon uncovered, like an eye. Alison spun in a circle, head tipped back, and traced the shadows as they flew by, her heart fluttering. A curl escaped her headband and stuck on her mouth. She blew it away.

The wind swept from below as she started again toward home. If only she could fly! She stretched out her arms and leaned forward into a warm breath of air, equally soft and sturdy, pressing against her chest. Her legs became lighter, and she walked faster and faster without effort. The sharp edges of the grasses nicked her shins. Ahead, the maple in her backyard, its crown as large as the house, stood bold against the changing sky. In her dreams she had flown over it and far beyond.

On this night, she did not have the power of her dreams. She had only the wind, the clouds and the peekaboo moonlight. So she ran.

She caught the screen door with her heel before it slammed and followed the sound of the television into the living room.

Her dad slouched in his recliner, two empty cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon on the lampstand. “Hey, sunshine.”

“Hi, Daddy.” She glanced at his right side, the spot where she used to curl up next to him. Her head would bounce up and down when he laughed at Green Acres. She doubted she could squeeze in there now. “Where’s Mom?”

“Doing battle with the books. Wish I could help her out, but you know about me and numbers.”

Sally, Alison’s gray-and-black tabby, slinked against her leg. Alison squatted to stroke her. Sally purred and snaked her tail in the air, then hurried down the hall on other business. “I’m going to get some milk then go upstairs.”

“All right. You’re not missing anything on the idiot box, that’s for sure. Sleep well, sunshine.”

“Good night, Daddy.”

In the kitchen, a sliver of light lay on the floor from the doorway leading to the office and garage. Her mom should’ve been done with the books hours ago. Cha-rumph, cha-rumph, cha-rumph went the machine, as her mom hit enter again and again to move the paper along. Alison pictured her lifting the curled paper ribbon with a finger, leaning forward to read the faint numbers and scowling. The only other time her mom was in the office this late was Tax Time, a gloomy period that cast a shadow on the pale green of spring. Alison knew better than to interrupt.

She opened the fridge and drank from the milk bottle because it was quieter than bothering with a glass, and because she could. On her way out, she dipped her hand into the cookie jar, expecting to find only crumbs, but coming up with a single Nutter Butter with a corner broken off. Her mother was talking to the books now, and her voice trailed after Alison as she left the kitchen, numbers strung one after another like an incantation.

She went up the steps to the second-floor landing, past her parents’ bedroom and the one her brothers shared, the low twanging of a guitar solo seeping into the hall. Alison opened the narrow door leading to the attic stairs, flicked the wall switch and climbed up, stretching her neck to graze her head on the sloped ceiling. Crossing to the center of the room, she yanked the dangling chain. The ceiling fan hummed to life and stirred the stale air.

Only half the attic was hers. The other part was piled to the rafters with junk, separated by an old plaid blanket nailed to a crossbeam. “There,” her mother had said after she hammered in the last nail. “You’re the only one lucky enough to have a plaid wall.” It wasn’t true, because Aunt Janine, her mom’s sister, had red plaid wallpaper in her bathroom when she’d lived in the big house in Burlington, but Alison didn’t say anything. At seven, she’d been nervous about moving to the attic, but glad to get away from her brothers. They were noisy and wild and had started giving off a funny smell, like muddy elephants. She’d never smelled an elephant, not even a clean one, but she was sure that’s what it was.

She kicked off her shoes, lay on the bed on her stomach and pulled the dictionary from the pile of books on the nightstand. It was a big dictionary, unabridged, a word she’d looked up. She’d flipped to the front, too, to make sure the meaning of “abridged” wasn’t something else. That happened more often than she expected. Years ago, she’d overheard her parents arguing about having too many kids and not enough money. Her father had said, “Two was all we wanted, Carole. All we could afford.” Her mom said, “You can’t blame me, Walt. It was an accident.” Alison knew about accidents from the body shop: broken lights, bashed-in doors, sometimes the whole car squished like a stepped-on soda can. In third grade, Marybeth Colton had an accident in her snow pants during recess. Mrs. Jackman made her stand in the hallway to wait for her mother because she smelled so bad, then told the class accidents like that only happen if you have weakness of character. Character, Alison reasoned at the time, lived in your underpants, in which case it was best not to discuss it.

None of it got Alison any closer to understanding why her mother called her an accident, so she’d grabbed the dictionary from the hallway bookcase and lugged it to her room. It took forever to chase the meaning of the words through the pages because each definition had words she didn’t know: “unforeseen,” “circumstance,” “ignorance.” She’d smiled a little when she learned what that last one meant.

Whenever she was bored, she’d open the dictionary and hunt for the meaning of words. She started at the beginning and hadn’t finished the As yet, but things would speed up once all the definition words she’d tagged in this game of chase would be waiting for her, familiar. But Webster’s Unabridged could not solve the original mystery, and Alison had been left with the troubling conclusion that someone—her parents, most likely—had knocked something over without meaning to, and she was the result.

Au gratin . . . augur . . . augural . . . augury . . . august. Alison’s eyelids were drooping. She set the dictionary on the floor. Downstairs, the door between the office and the kitchen opened and shut. Her mother ran the faucet, clinked dishes, closed cupboards and talked with her father in low voices.

“Alison?” Her mom was coming up the stairs.

“Yeah?” Alison sat up and peered down the attic stairwell. Her mother had stopped halfway up the main stairs. Her face was slumped, from the books probably. Alison smiled at her and she smiled back.

“You going to sleep soon?”

“Uh-huh. Good night, Mom.”

“Good night, dear. Don’t forget to brush your teeth.”

“I won’t.”

“Sweet dreams.”

Her steps retreated. Someone turned up the television. Alison changed into her pajamas, went down to the bathroom to brush her teeth. After, she knelt on her bed and stared outside. Across the field, a few windows shone yellow at the Dalrymples’. The wind had scattered the clouds to the edges of the sky, and only a few stars—the brightest ones—were out. The shape of the woods along the river was sketched against the night.

Alison climbed in between the sheets and hugged Flopsy, her stuffed rabbit, to her chest. Augur. Augury. To predict from signs or omens. August. Only nine days left of it. Something was definitely shifting. Alison could feel it—in the air, in her house, inside herself—but couldn’t put words to it. The feelings were real and strong and made her restless, but she couldn’t figure out whether the change was good or bad. She’d have to trust in the sense of things. She’d have to wait for a sign.

Chapter Three

Janine

Janine hated meeting with Lane Snelling, the guidance counselor. Even being in the same room with him made her skin crawl. It wasn’t just that he was ugly; it was that he seemed to try to be as ugly as possible. Few people were naturally beautiful, and she didn’t take one iota of her own good looks for granted. Nearly everyone had to make an effort. Or should. In Lane Snelling’s case, bas