With her husband Bernard two years in the grave, seventy-nine-year-old Harriet Chance sets sail on an ill-conceived Alaskan cruise only to discover through a series of revelations that shes been living the past sixty years of her life under entirely false pretenses. There, amid the buffets and lounge singers, between the imagined appearance of her late husband and the very real arrival of her estranged daughter midway through the cruise, Harriet is forced to take a long look back, confronting the truth about pivotal events that changed the course of her life.
Jonathan Evison, best-selling author of West of Here, The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, and All About Lulu, has crafted a bighearted novel with a supremely endearing heroine at its center. Through Harriet, he paints a bittersweet portrait of a postmodern everywoman with great warmth, humanity, and humor. Part dysfunctional love story, part poignant exploration of the mother/daughter relationship, nothing is what it seems in this tale of acceptance, reexamination, forgiveness, and, ultimately, healing. It is sure to appeal to admirers of Evison's previous work, as well as fans of such writers as Meg Wolitzer, Junot Diaz, and Karen Joy
Release date:
September 8, 2015
Publisher:
HarperAvenue
Print pages:
304
* BingeBooks earns revenue from qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate as well as from other retail partners.
Here you come, Harriet Nathan, tiny face pinched, eyes squinting fiercely against the glare of surgical lamps, at a newly renovated Swedish hospital, high on Seattle’s First Hill. It’s an unseasonably chilly Wednesday in autumn, and the papers are calling for snow. Roosevelt by a landslide! they proclaim. Workers grumbling in Flint, Michigan! In Spain, a civil war rages.
Meanwhile, out in the corridor, your father paces the floor, shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow. Clutching an unlit Cuban cigar, he checks his wristwatch. He’s got a three-o’clock downtown.
By the end of the week, Harriet, you’ll leave the hospital wrapped in a goose-down swaddler knit by your ailing grandmother. Your father will miss his three-o’clock today. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. They don’t call it labor for nothing. Let’s not forget the grit and determination of your mother. All that panting and pushing, all that clenching and straining, eyes bulging, forehead slick with sweat. Let’s take a moment to appreciate the fact that she won’t begrudge you any of it, though you’ll always be your father’s girl.
Here you come, better late than never: a face presentation. Not the boy your father so desperately wanted, but here you come, anyway, all six pounds three ounces of you. Button nose, conical head, good color. A swirl of dark hair atop your little crown. And a healthy pair of lungs, too.
Listen to you wail, as the doctor slaps your fanny: your cries, phlegmy and protracted. Hear them? These are virtually the last sounds you will utter until well after your second birthday.
Yes, Harriet, you were an exceptionally quiet child. Too quiet.
Exhibit A: December 31, 1936. For the rest of their lives, your parents will regale you, and anyone who will listen, with a rollicking story about a certain New Year’s Eve party on the north end. The story involves a bassinet into which your father, in a moment of stoned clarity and admirable foresight, fastened you by your ankles and armpits for safety, using his own necktie and a leather belt from the host’s closet. The party is a triumph, as the story goes, with Bacchus leading the charge. The music is brassy, the walls are thrumming. So frenzied the celebration, in fact, that amid their merrymaking, revelers fail to notice the upended bassinet in the corner. That is, until whiz kid, Charlie Fitzsimmons, the firm’s youngest partner, lipstick on his collar, ladies’ underpants adorning the crown of his head, nearly trips on you on his way back from the punch bowl.
It will not be the last time Charlie Fitzsimmons takes notice of you.
“Would you look at that glass of milk?” he shouts.
For an instant, the party is struck dumb as everyone turns their attention to the corner. Look at Harriman Nathan’s girl!
“She’ll make a hell of a judge,” observes Charlie.
And of course, hilarity ensues. The story never fails, and you’re the punch line, Harriet.
There you are, for God only knows how long, upside down, your poker face turning from red to blue to purple, your little gray eyes gazing impassively at the world, as your parents ring in a prosperous 1937.
You never made a peep.
This is your life, Harriet. The beginning, anyway.
Harriet finds Father Mullinix in his stuffy office behind the chapel, his reading glasses roosting halfway down the bridge of his nose, his laptop propped open in front of him.
He’s on his feet before she can cross the threshold. “Harriet, you’re shivering. Sit.” He lowers her into a straight-backed chair. “My goodness, you’re sopping wet.”
“He’s here, Father,” she says. “I found his slippers this morning next to mine in the breakfast nook.”
Father Mullinix smiles patiently, setting his big hands on the desktop. “We’ve talked about this several times recently, Harriet. There’s but one ghost in the Bible, and we both know who that is.”
“But last week, the WD-40. And now this.”
Drawing a weary breath, Father Mullinix holds it in.
“You don’t understand,” says Harriet. “The WD-40, that was him, telling me to quiet those hinges on the dishwasher. He hated the squeaking.”
Slowly, Father Mullinix releases his breath. Clasping his hands together on the desktop, he proceeds expertly in a measured tone.
“Perhaps it is possible he’s trying to speak to you through God,” he concedes. “But certainly I wouldn’t take the WD-40 as a sign. Perhaps you left it there on the chair, a lapse in memory. It happens to me daily. Yesterday I found these very glasses in the pantry. We’re all so busy in these times, so preoccupied. And you of all people, Harriet, you are so diligent in all things, particularly for someone of your . . . experience.”
“But I know I didn’t leave it there. And the slippers.”
“Well, I’m sure there’s an explanation.”
“I saw him Father, I felt him. Last night, we were at the Continental Buffet. He was eating corned beef.”
“Ah, I see. You’ve had another dream.”
“I wasn’t dreaming. He was an actual presence.”
Father Mullinix smiles sadly, but Harriet can tell his patience is wearing thin. For months, she’s been eating up his time, unloading her grief on him, bludgeoning him with the details of her dream life and, most recently, trying in vain to convince him that Bernard still lingered somehow in the earthly realm. Perhaps she was mistaken in confiding in him this time, though he’d never failed her in the past.
“Do you think I’m, oh, Father . . . you don’t think I’m . . . ?”
“I think, perhaps, you could use some rest, Harriet.”
“But Father, I assure you I’m—”
“Please, let me drive you home, Harriet.”
Look at you, Harriet, a grown woman! No longer a glass of milk but a tall drink of water. Okay, not so tall. Maybe a little on the squat side, maybe a little pudgy, to hear your mother tell it. But your hygiene is fastidious, your bouffant is formidable. And you’re still quiet, which makes you popular among lawyers and men alike. But you’ve no time for men. You’re a professional. Marriage is one negotiation that can wait. First, your own apartment. An automobile. A promotion.
The sky is the limit!
Here you are, at Fourth and Union, top floor, just three months removed from your associate’s degree. And not your father’s firm, either. Sure, you had a push, a few advantages in life, but you got here on your own. No, you’ll never be a lawyer, but a crack legal assistant is not out of the question. You love your job. Okay, maybe love is a bit strong. But prepping documents, writing summaries, filing motions, all of it agrees with you. Look at you, downtown girl: chic but pragmatic. Shopping at Frederick & Nelson! Lunching at the Continental Buffet!
Let’s be honest, though. Let’s talk about the problem that has no name. All these months later, they’re still slapping your fanny around the office. Your salary doesn’t stretch that far. The work is exhausting. As both a woman and an assistant, you’re expected to work harder. And for what? A string of pearls? A sleek automobile? A slap on the can from a junior partner? It will be six more years before Friedan exposes the “feminine mystique,” twelve more before Yoko Ono proclaims woman as “the nigger of the world.” But by God, Harriet Nathan, you’re determined to buck your disadvantages. Okay, maybe determined is a bit strong; how about resigned to them? The least you can do is achieve independence. Tackle adulthood on your own terms. Put that associate’s degree to some purpose.
Make a name for yourself, Harriet Nathan.
The truth you’re not telling anyone, especially not your father, is that amid the administrative whirlwind of the office, the hustle and bustle of downtown, the ceaseless tedium of legal research, you yearn for something less exhausting: for stability, predictability, and yes, a Christmas hearth festooned with stockings.
You yearn, too, Harriet, for a man. C’mon, admit it.
So, what is it about this new young building superintendent that catches your attention in the hallway upon your return from lunch, as he explains to your boss, in layman’s terms even you can understand, the difference between AC and DC? Surely, it’s not his stature. He’s two inches shorter than you. And it turns out, he’s not all that young, at thirty-three. There is, however, a squareness to his shoulders, a symmetry to his face, a quiet confidence in his bearing. Not just the firm, but the whole building—all that concrete and steel, all that electricity, all that plumbing—is reliant upon his capability. You’re not alone. The whole office is impressed by his confidence, charmed by his forthrightness. Even the partners, those pompous autocrats, bulging at the waist, those experts who defer to no one, treat this man as an equal.
But here’s the thing: tending an elevator, a fan, a heating duct, in his neatly creased work trousers, penlight clutched between his teeth, as he reaches for his tool belt, exposing the gray Semper Fi tattoo on his inside wrist, he strikes you as more than their equal.
Harriet Nathan, meet Bernard Chance, your valentine for 1957.
A phone is ringing. Slippers pad down the hallway of a large, otherwise quiet house in the flats of Carlsborg. Three bedrooms, two and one-half bathrooms, in the banana belt. With mountain views. Convenient shopping. Imagine country living in this dream home on 2.5 acres!
A spotted hand picks up the receiver and answers in a voice dry and brittle as a wheat cracker. “Hello?”
“May I please speak to Bernard Chance?”
The voice on the other end is also female, slightly stiff.
“I’m afraid he passed in November.”
“I see, I’m so sorry. Is this—?”
“This is his wife, Harriet.”
“Well, I guess that explains it. I’m so sorry.”
“Explains what, dear? To whom am I speaking?”
“This is Janis Segress from the Ann and Virginia Nitterhouse Foundation. Mr. Chance never picked up his gift basket after our silent auction last fall—wait, let’s see, 2013, so, that’s two falls ago. The voucher expires at the end of August.”
“Voucher?”
“The Alaskan cruise? He never mentioned it?”
“Bernard? Alaska? This is the first I’ve heard of it. Are you certain you have the right Bernard Chance?”
“One thirty-six Rake’s Glen?”
“Yes, that’s us.”
“We’ve been trying to reach him for months at 491-2318, but that number is no longer in service.”
“Oh, that was his cellular telephone, dear. He never cared much for the device. He swore it would give him a brain tumor.”
“I see.”
“Of course, he went much quicker than he might have with a brain tumor. Physically, anyway.”
“Well, that’s a blessing, I’m sure.”
“It was no blessing, dear, let me tell you.”
“Well, I’m certainly sorry to hear it. You’re welcome to—”
“Unless you consider urinating in Walmart a blessing.”
“I see, well, as I was about to s—”
“Or wandering Cline Spit in your pajamas.”
“Yes, well, I’m certainly glad we were able to track you down before the—”
“I was outmatched, dear. It’s that simple. I was an old woman myself. Who was I to think I could care for anybody under the circumstances?”
“Mm. I see. Well,” says the voice. “At any rate, our offices are located on—”
“He was still quite strong, physically, you understand. Overpowering at times. But that was only part of the problem.”
“Uh-huh, yes, I see. As I was saying, our offices are located on North Sequim Avenue at West Hendrickson—kitty-corner to Jace Real Estate.”
“It’s a cruel process, aging. Take my advice, dear, maintain your independence as long as possible.”
“I’ll be sure and do that, Mrs. Chance. Now, you’re welcome to redeem your gift anytime between ten a.m. and four p.m., Tuesday through Friday.”
“Don’t let the world push you around. Stick up for yourself, dear.”
“Yes, I’ll be sure and do that. And Mrs. Chance: congratulations!”
“Thank you, dear.”
Replacing the phone receiver, Harriet pads back down the hallway to the foyer, where Bernard’s blue windbreaker droops like a windless flag off the coatrack, a book of crosswords jutting out of the side pocket. On her way past, she stoops to straighten his sneakers.
“Hmph. Alaska,” she says, straightening up. “What on earth were you thinking, dear?”
She retires to the kitchen, sets the kettle to boiling, and lays out two mugs in the breakfast nook.
“Well, you can hardly expect me to go alone,” she says, unsheathing a tea bag. “It’s true, I could always take Mildred. Oh, but dear, do I have to go? Would you be hurt if I didn’t? You know I’m not a traveler. What you were thinking? A cruise?”
Just as the kettle is about to hiss, she hoists it off the burner and proceeds filling the mugs. “Oh, fine, then. I’ll ask her. Are you happy now?”
Forgettable dress shirt, forgettable tie, pattern baldness: CTO Charmichael is nothing like Bernard expected. But then, none of this is what he expected.
“Mr. Chance, please sit down,” Charmichael says, without looking up from the manila folder splayed open before him.
Chief transitional officer, you’d think he’d have a bigger desk. Something in mahogany. But no, it’s institutional, bland and sturdy. A vice principal’s desk. In fact, the whole office screams high school administration—the cork bulletin board, the squat gray filing cabinets, the rotary pencil sharpener.
“I presume you know why you’re here?” he says, still not looking up from the file.
“Actually, no, sir.”
Finally, Charmichael looks up, engaging Bernard’s gray eyes meaningfully. “A little matter with some household lubricant, for starters.”
“Sir?”
“Some wandering slippers? Starting to ring a bell, Candidate Chance?”
“Ah,” says Bernard. “That.”
Charmichael furrows his brow. “Strictly forbidden, you understand. As is eating, for the record. Yes, even in dreams.”
“I thought that—”
“Any contact is forbidden, Candidate Chance. Regardless of the nature. This was all in the orientation, as well as the manual. Hard to miss, really. Section One, as a matter of fact. Was that not perfectly clear?”
“Uh, yessir. Yessir, it was, or I thought it was. Forgive me, sir.”
“Believe me, I’m trying, we all are. There’s hope for you, Chance. That’s why you’re here. If there wasn’t hope for you, you’d be . . . well, somewhere else.”
“But, sir, the thing is, she has no idea what’s coming. The shock might be too much. I gotta get to her, I gotta explain.”
“By my reckoning, Candidate Chance, you had nearly four decades to do that. Why the big hurry, now that you’re deceased?”
“I don’t mean just about me, sir. There’s a lot more. Stuff with the kids. Especially with Caroline. With all due respect, it’s liable to kill her, sir. She won’t understand, she doesn’t see it coming. Somebody’s gotta be ther. . .
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
