The Cliffs

by J. Courtney Sullivan

Most of the work of her life was invisible—she made the doctor’s appointments and gave Benjamin his nightly bath and remembered to send flowers on her mother-in-law’s birthday. Tasks no one took any notice of if you did them properly. Only if you didn’t.

“It makes me really sad to think of throwing all this away,” Holly said. “It’s the stuff of her life, you know?”

Two nights ago, she had impulse-bought a chocolate birthday cake at the grocery store. A small one (serves 6–8, the label read), decorated with puffy frosting balloons in primary colors. A kid in a hairnet wrapped it up, and asked if she wanted anything written on top. Jane briefly considered asking him to pipe out Jane, You Are an Idiot or Quit Stuffing Your Face but she demurred.

She believed Allison about Genevieve. Jane knew the type. They had patrons like that at the archives, entitled rich women who felt they were superior to everyone else, and needed to be indulged.

She remembered going along with David on a work trip to Nashville. While he was at the conference, Jane visited Andrew Jackson’s homestead, because this was what she did whenever she

went someplace new—sought out the nearest historical home or museum or walking tour. A busman’s holiday, her grandmother would have said.

Her mother once told her and Holly that if you couldn’t think of something nice to say, you could always just state a fact with enthusiasm, and it would be received as a compliment.

It wasn’t unlike the way Samuel’s mother called on the children sometimes and I was made to blend in, like the door to that upstairs room that, when closed, could no longer be seen.

“You never run in the mornings anymore because you’re too hungover,” he

“You’ve missed work four or five times this month because you were hungover,”

They laughed, a sad sort of laughter, encompassing as it did the knowledge on both their parts that their connection wasn’t gone, but it wasn’t enough to keep them together.