Free Family Dancing by David Leavitt

hello to them. She sits, knitting, at the kitchen table. She is dressed in a fisherman’s sweater and a kilt fastened with a safety pin—an outfit she saves and wears only these few weeks on the Cape. “Are we late?” Douglas asks, bewildered by her silence, out of breath.
    “No,” Lydia says.
    “We had fun at the beach,” Julie says, and smiles, unsure of herself, still a stranger in this family. “How was your day?”
    “Fine,” Lydia says.
    Ellen rubs her eyes. “Well, Mom,” she says, “would you like me to tell you I nearly drowned today? I wish I had. One less person to make a mess. Too bad Mark saved me.”
    Lydia puts down her knitting and cradles her face in her hands. “I don’t deserve that,” she says. “You don’t know what it’s like trying to keep ahead of the mess in this house. You have no right to make fun of me when all I’m trying to do is keep us from drowning in dirty dishes and dirty clothes.”
    “Didn’t we do the dishes after lunch?” Douglas asks. “We must have done the dishes after lunch.”
    “If you can call that doing them,” Lydia says. “They were soapy and greasy.”
    “I’m sorry, Lydia,” says Julie. “We were in such a hurry—”
    “It’s just that if anything’s going to get done right around here, I have to do it, and I’m sick of it. I’m sick of it.” She reaches for a pack of sugarless chewing gum, unwraps a stick, and goes to work on it.
    “This is ridiculous, Mom,” Ellen says. “Dishes are nothing. Dishes are trivial.”
    “It’s that attitude that gets me so riled up,” Lydia says. “They’re trivial to people like you, so people like me get stuck with them.”
    “I’m not people. I’m your daughter, Ellen, in case you’ve forgotten. Excuse me, I have to change.”
    She storms out of the kitchen, colliding with Alex, whose face and clothes are smeared with mud and sand.
    “What are you in such a hurry for?” he asks.
    “Ask her, ” Ellen says, and slams the door of her bedroom.
    Lydia is rubbing her eyes. “What was that about?” Alex asks.
    “Nothing, nothing,” she says, in a weary singsong. “Just the usual. Did you fix that pipe yet?”
    “No, almost. I need some help. I hoped Doug and Mark might crawl under there with me.” All day he’s been trying to fix a faulty pipe which has made the bathtub faucet leak for twenty-five years, and created a bluish tail of rust near the spigot. The angrier Lydia gets, the more Alex throws himself into repair work, into tending to the old anachronisms of the house which he has seen fit to ignore in other years. It gives him an excuse to spend most of his days alone, away from Lydia.
    “So can you help me?” Alex asks.
    “Well,” Mark says, “I suppose so. When?”
    “I was thinking right now. We have to get out and pick up the lobsters in an hour or so. Henry said we could ride out on the boat with him. I want to get this job done.”
    “Fine,” Douglas, says. “I’m game.”
    Mark hesitates. “Yes,” he says. “I’ll help you with it. Just let me change first.”
    He walks out of the kitchen and into his bedroom. It is the smallest in the house, with a tiny child-sized bed, because even though Mark is the tallest member of the family by three inches, he is still the youngest. The bed was fine when he was five, but now most of the springs have broken, and Mark’s legs stick a full four inches over the edge. He takes off his bathing suit, dries himself with a towel, and—as he dresses—catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror. It is the same face, as always.
    He heads out the door to the hallway, where Alex and Douglas are waiting for him. “All right,” he says. “I’m ready.”
     
    Of course, it was not this way at first. The day they arrived at the cottage, Lydia seemed exuberant. “Just breathe the air,” she said to Mark, her eyes fiery with excitement. “Air doesn’t smell like this anywhere else in the world.” They had spaghetti with clams for