“I’m in Washington,” I said.
“Where’s Dorothy?”
“It just so happens she’s right here helping me with dinner. We’re having lemon chicken and salad–you should see the lemon tree, Katie. And the grapefruits are huge. I’m washing the lettuce even as we speak. If you would visit your mother once in a blue moon, we could eat together. Normal meals. We could be a family. ”
“I would like to speak to Dorothy.”
“Hold on.” The phone clunked against something, then Dorothy was on.
“What’s the name of Lucy’s counselor at Edgehill?” I asked right off.
“I’m assuming they’ve assigned someone to her by now.”
“Doesn’t matter. Lucy’s not there anymore.”
“I beg your pardon?” I asked.
“What did you just say?”
“She didn’t like the program and told me she wanted to leave. I couldn’t force her. She’s a grown woman. And it’s not like she was committed or something.”
“What?” I was shocked.
“Is she there? She returned to Miami?”
“No,” said my sister, who was quite calm.
“She wanted to stay in Newport for a while. She said it wasn’t safe to come back to Richmond right now, or some nonsense like that. And she didn’t want to come down here.”
“She’s in Newport alone with a goddam head injury and a problem with alcohol and you’re not doing anything about it?”
“Kay, you’re overreacting, as usual.”
“Where is she staying?”
“I have no idea. She said she just wanted to bum around for a while.”
“Dorothy!”
“Let me remind you she’s my daughter, not yours.”
“That will always be the biggest tragedy of her life.”
“Why don’t you just for once keep your fucking nose out of it!” she snapped.
“Dorothy!” I heard my mother in the background.
“I don’t allow the F word!”
“Let me tell you something.” I spoke in the cold, measured words of homicidal rage.
“If anything has happened to her, I will hold you one hundred percent accountable. You are not only a terrible mother, you are a horrible human being. I am truly sorry you are my sister.”
I hung up the phone. I got out the telephone directory and began calling airlines. There was one flight to Providence that I could get on if I hurried. I ran out of the room and kept going just as fast through the Willard’s elegant lobby. People stared.
The doorman got me a cab and I told the driver I would double his fare if he could get me to National fast. He drove like hell. I got to the terminal as my flight was being called, and when I found my seat, tears welled up in my throat and I fought them back. I drank hot tea and closed my eyes. I was unfamiliar with Newport and had no idea where to stay.
The taxi from Providence to Newport was going to take more than an hour, the driver told me, because it was snowing. Through water-streaked windows I looked out at dark faces of sheer walls of granite on roadsides. The stone was lined with drill holes and dripping with ice, and a draft creeping in from the floor was damp and miserably cold. Big flakes of snow spiraled into the windshield like fragile white bugs, and if I stared too hard at them I started to get dizzy.
“Do you have any recommendations for a hotel in Newport? ” I asked the driver, who spoke in the manner peculiar to Rhode Islanders.
“The Marriott would be your best bet. It’s right on the water and all the shopping and restaurants are within walking distance. There’s also a Doubletree on Goat Island.”
“Let’s try the Marriott.”
“Yes, ma’am. The Marriott it is.”
“If you were a young lady looking for work in Newport, where would you go? My twenty-one-year- old niece would like to spend some time here.” It seemed stupid to pose such a question to a perfect stranger. But I did not know what else to do.
“In the first place, I wouldn’t pick this time of year. Newport’s pretty damn dead.”
“But if she did pick it this time of year. If she had time off from school, for example.”