The Angle of Vanishing Stability

By Sally Lee Stewart

A vessel can heel to one side, but at a certain point, it will no longer balance above water—and it capsizes. This is the angle of vanishing stability.

 

Thea West, a Northern Californian teenager growing up in the late sixties and early seventies, is one of five daughters trying to stay afloat amid the psychologically catastrophic dynamic between her parents—a covert and commanding mother and an ocean-yachtsman father. A talented sailor and businessman, Mr. West suffers from crippling alcoholism, with frequent rages that mask his fragility. Thea longs to know how to sail, but in her world, traversing the water is a skill that belongs only to men, and she's terrified to ask her larger-than-life father to teach her.

 

When her father's demons drive him to a new low, Thea isn't sure if she can ever learn to forgive. She strikes out from home in search of love and self, running from what she views as the problem—her father and his hold on her family. As Thea falls in and out of affairs, marriages, and jobs, her travels take her from New York to Nicaragua and finally back to California. There, she must reckon with the legacy of her father's love and failure and decide whether she'll let her past capsize her future—or if she can finally find balance with a life of her choosing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sally Lee Stewart
• Release date: Nov 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9798988587613

Book preview

Part One

Even in a world that’s being shipwrecked, remain brave and strong.

—⁠Hildegard of Bingen

1

1963

Thea could open drawers, and she pulled the carved wooden shells out of her mother’s bedside table drawer. They clacked as the little girl handled them, as if awakened from a long slumber, and then one of the pairs fell to the floor.

Like this. Thea’s mother took the castanet from the floor and the other pair from Thea. She slipped the ties over her thumbs and positioned the wooden discs into her palm. Thea heard a purr so magical, so percussive, that she whined. She wanted to make the music. Her mother indulged herself just a bit longer, with one hand making a purring sound and the other accenting the beat that heated Thea’s blood.

Mommy!

Mrs. West handed Thea the castanets. She was unable to replicate the percussive music her mother so effortlessly played on the wooden discs.

How you do it?

Mrs. West looked displeased and tired. Stick your thumbs through those loops. Your fingers get stronger eventually. Go like this. Mrs. West clawed her fingers consecutively through the air. The phone rang, and Mrs. West picked up.

Oh. Hello. Buenas días. Si, no importa, hablo español. Señor Diaz. El jardín necesita a mantener. Es posible que esté disponible? Thea pounded the castanets on her mother’s thigh, making them clack. Her mother put her hand over the castanets and Thea’s hands. Then she put her finger to her lips and looked at Thea instructively. Thea could hear the man’s voice but didn’t know those words yet. Her mom wanted her to be quiet. Thea sat on the carpet and pulled the rug. El seis de enero. Está bien. Gracias. 114 Lochinvar. Si. Gracias, Señor Diaz. She hung up. Where’s your twin sister, Adele? she chanted, as if to send her little girl in the other direction. Thea put her head on her mother’s thigh. Oh. I hear a car. Who’s that? Go wait on the stairs. Mrs. West walked to the front door and stepped out as her husband entered from below.

Mr. West shut the car door and walked up the stairs into the house, two white boxes wrapped in blue ribbon stacked on his forearm, and in the other hand, he carried a brown briefcase. His secretary, Hilda, had been kind enough to pick up the gifts for the twins. Mr. West was different. He was highly sensitive and artistic, not a scientist or oilman like his father and grandfathers. Piscean, through and through, he was like water⁠—boiling, then placid, choppy, then rolling in elongated enormous waves of feeling. At times he pounced, a foam of white water. His moods frightened him, as they did all those around him. His mathematical, logical father loved him, as did his bluntly critical, pragmatic mother, and yet Mr. West perseverated upon only the negative reactions of his parents, forgetting all the good and losing himself in shame.

The affection of the woman he married, Mrs. West, eluded him.

There was⁠—which one of the twins? Thea! She sat under the light at the top of the stairs leading from the garage, which was cut into the hill beneath the one-story ranch-style home. Was she waiting? For him. He forced the emotions away. Mil complained he wasn’t involved enough with the twins, but really, she was upset he spent recently inherited money from his father, in advance of probate. His mother had handed the cash to him directly to avoid a bit of taxation, but then Mil wouldn’t admit her self-interested greed in his inheritance, despite all of his generosity, as that was her modus operandi. Soon enough, he’d buy them a nicer house, for her. Cariña, his new boat, danced in his imagination through Raccoon Strait. There was nothing as straightforward as sailing. You had to pay attention, and whatever you did wrong couldn’t be covered up. He resented his children and was also terrified of the love they elicited. He remembered this very circumstance being described in his psychology classes.

Mil?

Where the fuck is she? Like a wave pushing something in the water forward, he could never meet his wife as he truly longed to, not in the bedroom, where he felt he did not speak the language, nor in the living room or kitchen. At sea, she was oblivious. The congress she craved in the bedroom seemed out of his reach. But the intimacy he longed for⁠—for her to be openhearted, to hold his pain while he held hers, as he’d experienced with the men he sailed with⁠—had yet to occur. The truth was he had little in common with his wife, outside of a love of good music, people, and parties. She was funny like her brother, and at first, he felt like he’d found fun people, unlike his parents, who were not as lighthearted. The truth was much of what she stood for disgusted him. He was implicitly against her while, at the same time, he loved her. He couldn’t explain it, but it felt inevitable, timeless and doomed.

He stood while Thea received the gift-wrapped box. He didn’t have time for pleasantries, and neither did Thea, who was born with lots of dark hair. Adele put him at ease, with her industry and self-sufficiency. Thea seemed to call out to him, like Mildred, in a way that frightened him. He pulled one end of the wide blue ribbon to show her how to undo a bow. That’s all it took. Mildred obliged him to be número uno, but you couldn’t rule people’s hearts. She and the children⁠—all girls, one, two, three, four, five⁠—were a one and he apart from them. He opened the box then and pulled back the tissue paper. He did not look forward to calling his sister, Edith.

His older twin daughter, Thea, three years old, pulled a soft fuzzy blue creature out of the white tissue.

A doggy! she whispered. It was hard to speak before her father. A doggy. I lub heem, she whispered even more quietly, and held it to her mouth, sniffing the stuffed animal.

That might be a lamb, said Mr. West, examining the creature. It doesn’t matter, as long as you like it. He kept on walking up the stairs. But why had she been sitting there? For him? It hurt. It hurt badly. He handed the other package to Adele, who he found drawing, and strode down the hall to the living room. He poured himself the drink he’d looked forward to for most of the day. Thea had eyes that saw through him and made him uncomfortable. His love for them, all of them, between them, hurt. Mil entered the front door, a handful of straggly green plants in her hand.

Mommy, said Thea, and then Adele came behind her holding her gift, a little brown teddy bear.

Mommy, said Adele, look what Daddy gave me.

Look what Daddy gave me, said Thea. His name is Bluey.

His name is Teddy, said Adele, marching back to their room.

Mrs. West smiled and put the delicate greens in her hand onto the bureau in the entryway.

What’s that? asked Mr. West.

Watercress. I found it in the creek. I thought I’d put it in the salad.

Well, don’t leave it there; it will stain the wood if it’s wet.

Your mother called. And your sister called. They want to discuss the probate for your father’s will.

Mr. West sat down at the center of the couch. He opened his briefcase and pulled out a folder, placing it on the coffee table. He flipped open the lid of a silver box lined with wood, drenched in the sweet aroma of tobacco, a trophy that had belonged to his father. His mother had given it to him after the memorial. It seems since Dad died I have the freedom to do my own thing finally, but it’s proving to be . . . difficult. This needs replenishing, he said, referring to the cigarette box, which housed about three cigarettes. I need to be able to come home and relax. He kicked a Barbie doll across the floor. Would you mind? And what about all this? There was a stack of records.

I can pig dem up, thought Thea to herself, trying to say the words. She put Bluey in a large chair, his head nodding to one side, the tiny bell in one ear ringing ever so quietly. Daddy, lithen, she tried to say. She shook Bluey, but Mr. West disappeared into the master bedroom. Thea picked up a Chubby Checker album, Let’s Twist Again. Thea could twist. Alice and Olivia taught her.

She grabbed Bluey and jumped up in the air with him, when Mr. West returned.

Watch it! admonished Mr. West. Watch what you are goddamned doing. You go in your room with your sister Adele for a time while I make some phone calls. Thea burst into tears, stifling them, and ran into the dark hallway to her and Adele’s door.

Hi, Dad. It was Alice on pointe shoes, a portion of her straight dark hair pulled back in a barrette. They all wore their hair cut very short. It saved Mrs. West a lot of time brushing hair. She’d found herself hitting Suzanne on the head with the hairbrush. Cutting everyone’s hair short was a solution, and yet, they were all asking to grow their hair long now.

How’re you doing, kiddo?

Alice landed back down on her feet, then popped up onto her toes again. I’m practicing pointe.

He thought of pinching, on a sailboat, pointing higher. He’d be sailing in two days on Cariña, his newly purchased Nicholas Potter Cal 32. He had costs now, and he’d wanted to responsibly manage his budget, but Millie seemed to need to buy the most expensive clothes she could find in San Francisco, then went to Elizabeth Arden for what she called grooming. He wouldn’t begrudge her. It would be ungentlemanly. And yet his own father had not married a vain woman. A surge of love came through his heart. Cariña. Cariña! He couldn’t wait to fly the spinnaker over the jade-green bay.

I’d think that would hurt, said Mr. West, the chop of his commute flattening from the gin. He swirled his drink, the sound of ice soothing.

Nope. It feels good if you know how to do it.

Hi, Dad. Olivia entered sheepishly. Where’s Mom? she asked, as a kind of safeguard.

In the kitchen. How was your day, Olivia?

My day? Olivia looked mildly panicked. My day was⁠—Olivia stared at the floor⁠—I got a B on my test on the states of the United States. She looked at him expectantly.

A B? That’s very good. Congratulations. He finished his drink. I need to make some phone calls to your aunt Edith and to your grandmother. Can you please keep it down and stay out of the living room for a time?

Olivia walked down the hall, then stealthily walked forward again, staying in the shadow out of his line of sight. She eavesdropped. Alice joined her, using Olivia’s shoulder to support herself as she popped up on the pointe shoes.

It’s not to do with favoring. Do you recall that I attended business school while you practiced dressage and majored in zoology?

Olivia and Alice could hear their aunt’s deep voice traveling from the receiver of the phone, accusatory, scolding.

Why is her voice so low? whispered Alice.

She smokes two packs a day and drinks scotch and sodas, whispered Olivia, slowly, cautiously, right into the cave of Alice’s ear canal.

She sounds like a man, said Alice. Why is she so mad at Dad?

He controls the money now, but Aunt Edith is older.

Down the hall, a fight was brewing between the twins.

I don wannu show you how I diabah Bluey, because you neber lemme finid, and you wanna do it wong.

If you lemme, you’d see how stubid you are and how much bedder my way is.

You play with the animal Daddy gabe you!

Don tay me wha do do, boggy!

You are boggy. You are the boggy one, Thea said, clutching Bluey to her chest, then walking to the other side of the room, she sat down cross-legged facing the wall and burst into tears.

Stop makin’ my bed in the morning! yelled Adele.

Hang on! said Mr. West, putting down the receiver. Olivia and Alice made a quick dash into the bathroom and shut the door before he entered the hallway. He strode, furious, to the twins’ room, the farthest from the master bedroom. Keep it down! he ordered, shutting their door briskly. He strode back to the phone.

All I am asking is that you send me a budget.

Olivia went back to her and Alice’s room, and Alice crept into the twins’ room. She popped up onto her toe shoes. I want to play with my balloon. She kept the helium balloon in the twins’ room because Olivia had a phobia of balloons. Alice wanted the twins’ attention. They were drawing monsters, then princesses, each holding the drawing up for the other to see. They had a closeness that was irritating.

I almost killed you when you were little, she said, hopping up, then down. These are my toe shoes in case you are wondering. They were immediately fascinated with her feet.

How? said Adele, sticking the bottom legs of the teddy bear into the waistband of her pants.

How what? said Alice, now extending her leg behind her in an arabesque. She thought she could try to hop up onto pointe like this. It was harder than she thought, and she collapsed to the floor and crossed her legs. I was mad at you because you were both making so much noise, so I pushed your pacifiers deep into your mouths. You turned blue. I thought you were going to die. But then you didn’t.

I don’ member dat, said Thea, clutching Bluey to her heart, burying her face in his fur. Alice was dangerous, and yet, Alice was a vital link to the family. Through the door, they heard Mr. West bellow.

We can discuss that, but you cannot just start breeding horses without any clear idea of what it’s going to cost versus generating income. Mrs. West floated out of the kitchen, monitoring for a moment, looking at Mr. West with an expression of Take a deep breath, try to relax and get along. But Mrs. West had known Edith before she met Louis, and she knew how rivalrous they were⁠—and even utilized this to her advantage. There was nothing one could do. A man provided. But if Edith was allowed to spend as much as she wanted, that could limit funds for the lifestyle of Mr. and Mrs. West. She saw her husband rise to his feet now. He took a deep drag on his cigarette. She would watch him carefully so that he never disappeared again. She’d almost lost him. She went back to the kitchen to prepare the tuna fish casserole and a salad. The help had gone, and now she was in charge of everything, and the twins ate at the table with the rest of the family. She had enjoyed dinner with the smaller configuration. It allowed them to be who they once were, before the twins. Before the sales trips got so long and Mr. West appeared only now and then to join them. A woman must never show jealousy. Act oblivious and curl your hair. But then Mr. West had overheard Adele and Thea talking using the word ain’t.

Louis had said, Thea and Adele are more our housekeeper’s family than our own. And Thea, Why can’t we eat in the kitchen with Mary anymore? And he insisted they not watch television, which had been a free babysitter for Mrs. West. A man made the rules, bought a sailboat instead of a trip to Europe or a house with help. She knew her husband and mother-in-law looked down on how she handled domestic help. It wasn’t something she’d ever done before. Adele and Thea entered the kitchen.

My, what cute little stuffed animals your father got you.

Mommy, we’re hunree, whispered Thea, standing on her tiptoes. Adele seemed lost in her own world but always with a tether to Thea. Adele, with two auburn curls pointed upward at each side of her forehead. A devil and an angel, thought their mother. Two different recipes, she thought to herself, pouring a can of mushroom soup into the casserole dish on top of a mixture of sliced potatoes and tuna fish. She sprinkled potato chips on top and put the casserole in the oven.

It is almost dinner. A few minutes.

Suzanne came up the stairs with a mutilated Barbie doll. Her room was down between the garage and basement.

Mr. West hung up. Suzanne stood, her auburn hair pulled back in a white headband, her blue eyes dancing with pleasure. She presented her monster for her father.

What’s that? asked Mr. West.

It’s my creation. She’s a heroin addict. She’d singed the feet and hands with a lighter and put the arms where the legs should be and the legs where the arms should be. She’d cut off all the Barbie’s hair and drawn dark circles under her eyes.

That’s just awful. Get that out of here. Suzanne went into the kitchen. She held up the doll to her mother.

Ha! Oh my! What’s this?

It’s a heroin addict. Like in the magazine article.

Oh, yes, dreadful, that is! Mrs. West’s curiosity and detachment allowed the kids to say or do almost anything in her presence.

Suzanne put the doll down on the windowsill and helped her mother, pulling a head of lettuce out of the produce drawer and chopping it, then ripping pieces of the watercress. After that, she sliced tomatoes and cucumbers.

The family gathered at the table, with the twins near Suzanne, who sat at the opposite end of the table from Mr. West. Mrs. West sat always to the left of Mr. West. Thea picked a bright green piece of lettuce off her plate and put it in her mouth.

At this table, we use our utensils. Mr. West looked right at her, his deep voice threatening. Thea wished she was in the kitchen with Mary, who called her child and who had relaxing, kind exchanges with her own mother while Adele and Thea ate. Mary was familiar, and yet the love for her father pushed forcefully, as if behind a dam. She was unable to talk when he asked her a question.

Do you like salad especially? What did especially mean? A salad with a tomato? She felt her throat lock and the breath freeze in her chest. She was unable to form a word. She would say yes, but it would not come out of her mouth.

Do you like salad? I am asking you.

Olivia whispered, Yes, to her. Thea looked up at her father with large frightened eyes, but she couldn’t make the sounds or move her mouth.

You answer when you are being spoken to.

Yeth, I lie thala, she said and began to weep.

Yes, I like salad, said Alice, demonstrating good articulation.

Yeth, I like thalad, said Thea. Thea saw Olivia gulp, also frightened.

Okay! said Mr. West, who then whistled and rolled his eyes up. The older girls laughed. Adele studied him and then rolled her eyes up too. He made a funny face. Even Thea laughed through her weeping. He made his lizard face, which he sometimes did to amuse them. Mr. West could wiggle his ears too, and the whole thing ended with his ears moving inexplicably up and down on the side of his head.

2

On the first day of kindergarten, Mrs. West told Alice and Olivia to dress the twins, who were sobbing and blithering about something.

We don’t know how to read! cried Thea.

Don’t worry, said Alice, thrilled with the job of dressing her younger sisters in whatever outfit she pleased. She pushed Adele’s arm into the sleeve of a blouse.

No! screamed Adele. I don’t know how to read. Olivia and Alice smiled at each other. It was amusing how the twins saw the world. Olivia was trying to brush Thea’s hair; she loved the texture. She loved hair, and she even brushed the rug in their room⁠—had done so the night before. She got Adele and Thea to participate. They brushed every fiber of the rug, which looked the color of overcooked spinach. Then, after, they took turns making footprints. It had been a fun game, but the rug was starting to look smashed down again.

"Sillies. You go to school to learn to read," said Alice.

No one in kindergarten knows how to read. It’s going to be okay, said Olivia, her hands in Thea’s hair now, forming a ringlet. But Thea could tell that it wasn’t going to be okay, not today or ever.

And then it was. At school, they sat in a circle and had show-and-tell. Mrs. West hadn’t remembered to read the notice from the kindergarten teacher that invited students to bring something from home, so Thea and Adele would have to share a story.

I broke my leg when I was two, on the jungle gym here, shared Thea.

How? asked several of the kids.

I fell off, said Thea, pulling on the felt flower on her pink jumper. She was taxed from crying but liked the peace and conviviality of the circle.

Who carried you home and who carried the leg home? asked a boy across the circle.

They never tell me. I ask my mom that.

Let’s move along. Adele, what would you like to share? asked Mrs. Worth, the kindergarten teacher.

I hit my head on a rock. It was the first time I was ever away from Thea. I wore a bandage around the top of my head. My sister Suzanne put a feather under it, so it was like a headdress.

Oh my, thank you, girls, for sharing how brave you are. Now, who would like to share?

I made this with my bare hands, said a girl with a smear of red jam above her lip. She held a pink plastic violin.

After school, a boy followed the two of them. Thea talked to the boy, who was named Peter. Thea could tell he liked her, and she was happy about that. They talked about how many people were in their families and about their pets and what they liked to do when playing with toys or playing pretend. Thea told him that her dad was a sailor. She did not know how he made money, but she thought maybe it was in the basement. The boy also did not know exactly what his father did, something to do with assurance. Adele, feeling the walking and talking was tedious, walked up ahead. Thea felt important, having an actual boy follow her home, for she knew that girls became brides. Her mother often showed her the wedding album.

3

One day, Mrs. West told Adele and Thea to walk all the way to the new house, farther up the street. It was time to move in, finally, and their rooms would be ready for them. For months, a house was being built up the hill. The road was unpaved, and the sandstone sometimes sat in large chunks among the dust. They had walked up to the new house before and played throughout the three acres. Thea had seen her father’s pleasure in the creating of the house. The best thing about the house was the view, he said.

After school, they walked up to the new house. Mrs. West handed them a plastic garbage can.

Put this under your bathroom sink, she said.

At dinner, Mrs. West looked harried. They were having broiled chicken, and she had trouble figuring out the new oven and how to broil with it. Mr. West was hard to please. He was a sentimental baby, then a brute, but she loved his way with words and his raucous humor when he was having a good time. He couldn’t dance, but she was the only one who could dance with him. She would never be organized, efficient, or clever enough for him. She sat down, at last, and took a sip of wine. Mr. West had arrived from the St. Francis Yacht Club, having had some drinks before his commute, which on this particular day⁠—well, Mrs. West wouldn’t complain.

Well, whadda you think? he asked to his daughters.

It’s great, said Alice.

I like the trees outside our windows, said Olivia.

Bluey likes it, said Thea quietly. Adele was looking at a tiny wood box.

Where do you think this was made? she asked Thea. They could both read now.

Quiet, said Mr. West. The wind blew through the northwest window, over the dining room table and out a southeast window across the hall. They heard the bay laurel leaves out the southeast window brushing up against one another.

I would like to make a toast to you, my wife, Mildred, said Mr. West. Mrs. West looked at him with false appreciation. They began to hungrily eat.

Where do you think this was made? asked Adele.

India.

Wrong.

China.

Right. The Wests ate, utensils moving across porcelain, then paused. Thea wiped her mouth with her napkin, as did Olivia and Mr. West. Mr. West looked at his wristwatch.

Seven minutes. We ate dinner in seven minutes. We will try to make dinner last a bit longer. Mr. West began to laugh, snorting at first, then tears rolled from his eyes.

What’s so funny? asked their mother.

Petersen, at the end of a story, said, ‘No man is an island,’ and Roberts replied, with his down-under accent⁠— Mr. West burst into laughter again. Roberts said⁠—he laughed⁠—Roberts said, ‘Well, there’s no ketchup in Australia.’ Ha ha! He thought Petersen had said, ‘There’s no mayonnaise in Ireland.’ The older daughters laughed. Mrs. West was locked into a silent interior monologue. The twins had not been listening⁠—nor had anyone noticed, for the time being, they had slipped under the table.

4

Thea understood there had been more Mr. Wests before her father. Her grandfather, and his father, who would be her great-grandfather. These men were described by her mother as a kind of center to revere. Her father’s mother, who they called grandmother, spoke loudly into the phone. They were visiting their father’s mother in what had been his childhood home.

Mr. West is dead. He has been dead for three years. I would appreciate it if you would remove him from your list of names to call. She hung up the phone. Mrs. West, Thea’s mom, never spoke to anyone with that kind of authority, and her grandmother’s stern manner intimidated her. She loved her grandmother’s house, which was light and airy and composed of chintz and Persian rugs, sun porches, white paint, and black iron railings to keep you in, with floor-to-ceiling windows on the second floor. Thea and Adele got to stay in the room her father had when he was a little boy. Some of his toys were still in the room, and they got to play with them: a jack-in-the-box, a fire engine, and a metal ship. The house could fit all seven of the Wests and the matriarch.

After playing in her father’s old room, Thea stuck her head gingerly through the balusters, about three-fourths the way up the swerving staircase. As she pulled back, she realized her head was stuck. Her grandmother passed below her, oblivious. She started to pout.

Alice, she whispered, beginning to cry, her head truly stuck. Adele came out of the room. Tell Alice my head is stuck. Adele pouted, and ran down the stairs, but Alice had already arrived.

I did the same thing when I was younger, she said, pulling Thea up, then holding her head level as she slipped her back on the staircase.

Let’s run on the grass! Thea said. The three ran down the stairs, through a large sun porch with rattan furniture, and out in the air, which was yellowish gray and smelled vaguely of metal and plastic. Their grandmother had an enormous lawn, while they had a lawn no bigger than their bedroom in San Rafael. At the end of the lawn were a venerable oak tree and a small white iron table ornately composed of vines and flowers with two matching chairs. They took turns pretending to drink tea at the table. Alice went back into the house, and the twins cried after her.

You’re it! said Thea, running.

Adele ran but could not catch up. She felt her lungs hurt. Ow.

They went inside to find their mother. Mrs. West was in the kitchen with their grandmother, and when the girls came for her, she quickly exited the kitchen with them through a swinging door.

Mom, it hurts here, said Adele, pointing to her chest.

Better rest inside. The air is polluted today.

Why is the air polluted? asked Adele.

Automobiles and factories. So many automobiles. And we are in a valley. The smog gets stuck here.

Thea lay on the library floor with Adele. If Adele took a deep breath, it hurt. Mrs. West pulled a black book out of the bookshelf. She opened it up and found a photo of a man covered in crude oil.

"This is your great-great-grandfather. He discovered this oil that he’s covered in."

But isn’t that what’s polluting the air from our cars? asked Adele.

Yes. It is, but back then, they didn’t know that. They were just trying to do good. He was a very religious man. It doesn’t look like he had much of a sense of humor.

Did he die? asked Adele. From the oil?

No. Just took a shower, I think.

What about your grandfather, Mommy? asked Thea.

Well, I had two. One lost a lot of money. He tried making soap for balding, and then when that failed, he bought some very expensive Scottish sheep, and they all died. She sneered. Thea looked bewildered at her mother. She talked about her family as if they were strangers. Then one day⁠—Mrs. West held her hand up and pointed⁠—he ran off with a redheaded woman in the circus. And let’s see, I can’t remember anything about my other grandfather.

Mrs. West left them. Thea looked into the fan as it blew air on them. Thea knew that the fan swirled the same air she breathed outside, so how could it help her? Wasn’t all air one air? She wished they were home where the air smelled of dry grass and the ocean. Or in winter, bay laurel scented the wet ground. She wanted to run. It was going to be difficult to live in a world where she couldn’t run. People would have to stop this. Her family had made the smog. They’d done a bad thing, and maybe that was why they were all dead now⁠—her father’s father and all the people in his family; they couldn’t live with it. The mistake. There was nothing she could do about it except cough. When she coughed, it hurt. Her mom didn’t seem mad at her grandfather⁠—her father’s father. Her mommy’s parents lived in a dark house in San Marino with a palm tree in the front yard. Her mother had told stories about the radio when she was a little girl. People invented things, but the cars, unlike the radios, made dirt in the air.

5

They settled into the new house in San Rafael. Olivia, almost fourteen, went to boarding school, but Alice, eleven, still attended the country day school where Adele and Thea now attended. Next year, Suzanne would go away to college.

Suzanne took Adele and Thea up on the hill near the house one Sunday. The rainy season had begun, and small shoots of green grass rose out of the dry grass of summer and early fall. Under a family of coast live oaks, in some thicker, taller green grass, milkmaids grew, and then out in a patch of sun, buttercups. Suzanne leaned down to pick one and held it under each of their chins.

You like butter! So do you, she yelled, because that was the tradition. At first, one had to talk in a loud voice at the beginning of the hike, then gradually reduce volume.

I love it here, yelled Thea, looking up at the branches above.

They had arrived at the top of the first steep ascent, an eroded slope where children liked to grass slide. They stood under a tunnel of coast live oaks on a fire road. It feels like a home. I could live in here.

Quieter now, normal voice, said Adele.

We play down there, Adele told Suzanne. See down there, that little creek? We’ve been all the way down there. A trillium was in bloom. Suzanne gasped and then held her finger to her lips. The twins were silent. She touched above her nose three times, invoking something she must have understood about the magic of the flower, and then as if to sprinkle water, she fluttered her hand above the trillium. The twins repeated these actions.

After crossing on a contour path, then scrambling to the top of a rock outcropping, Suzanne surprised Thea and Adele by yelling out toward the bay.

I am the princess of the hills! she called to unseen entities. The regal title came as a shock. Weren’t they supposed to be getting quieter and quieter? Were there still princesses here in San Rafael? They shuffled after her, sweating and laughing, and the three of them spoke less and less and whispered more and more quietly. The wind was blowing more powerfully when they came to what Suzanne called the Mother Tree. Here they had to be silent. It was an enormous bay laurel growing right on top of a creek where two slopes intersected. Two enormous branches extended, one horizontally, and the other at a forty-five-degree angle to the sky. Thea began to scale up that branch, using other branches that grew perpendicular to the trunk to climb.

Hang on! said Suzanne. Adele was on her way up behind Thea. The wind blew the branch at its outer end, swaying more powerfully in the gusts.

Thea was elated to feel the branch moving against her body and called out, Yahoo, giddy up, horsey!

Adele was right below her⁠—they could hear the wind building. The leaves whipped and rippled, and the trunk swayed up and down while the smaller branches yielded more extremely. Thea and Adele smiled at each other, having found they could ride a tree in the wind. After, they slid on the rust-colored leaves down the steep ground where the tree grew and then climbed up, occasionally slipping on the leaves, red-faced and sweating. They drank from the creek, which tasted slightly of bay leaves.

~

The rains came, and the ground smelled peppery, and leaves fell off a few Japanese maples planted around the house. What had been a life of living outdoors became a life indoors on rainy days. Thea was seated, as was everyone else. Mr. West turned a dial on