Read This is Your Life, Harriet Chance! for Free Online Page A

disappointment, all so that Caroline and Skip could enjoy a better quality of life than her own? It breaks Harriet’s heart that Caroline squandered every opportunity, that she sabotaged her life with bad decisions. It breaks her heart that Caroline never gave her grandchildren and that Caroline’s unofficial “foster daughter” is, and always has been, something of a problem, much like Caroline herself. But what breaks Harriet’s heart the most is that things might have been different. She might have saved Caroline. Or Bernard, for that matter.
    “That doesn’t change the fact that he was your father,” says Harriet. “Or that I failed him.”
    “He was a bully, Mom. Quit saying you failed him. You were his servant, his nurse, you were practically his mother. The only meal Dad could cook was toast.”
    “And beans,” says Harriet.
    “Fine, and beans. I mean, who gets to be ninety years old and never cooks a single meal for himself besides beans and toast?”
    “He made tapioca pudding, too. Oh, Caroline dear. I knowyou had your differences. But you’re nearly fifty years old. Isn’t it time to forgive your father?”
    “Why, because you did?”
    “I fell apart, Caroline.”
    “He’s the one who fell apart.”
    “C’mon, you guys,” says Skip, brandishing his pickle like a traffic wand. “We’re not getting anywhere here.”
    “Where are we supposed to be getting to? Is this another intervention?”
    “Settle down, Mom.”
    “You vacuumed under some sofa cushions at your father’s wake. You made a few calls to the insurance company. But when did I ever ask either of you for help? Darlings, if you really want to help me, fix that garage door, and pressure-wash those steps. Clean the gutters. If you want to comfort me, how about sending an Easter card? Or reminding my grandchildren that I exist?”
    Caroline looks away.
    “Okay, Mom,” says Skip. “I get it.”
    Skip takes Harriet’s elbow and leads her the first few steps to the sofa. Halfway there, she breaks free.
    “My goodness, a few phone calls, a couple trips to the dump—that’s all I ever asked.”
    “Mom,” says Skip. “The thing is, look: we just think this cruise is too much right now. Caroline, back me up here. We really think you ought to call Mildred and postpone the thing. Maybe in a few months, when—”
    “Absolutely not,” Harriet says, surprising herself. “I intend to honor your father, no matter what the two of you might think of him. He bought this cruise for me; he intended it for the two of us, the least I can do is go on the darn thing. And I’m taking his ashes with me.”
    “Mom, is that even legal?”
    “Don’t try to talk me out of this, Skip.”
    “But Mom, you—”
    “Please. Let me do this.”
    Her children exchange glances. Caroline shrugs.
    “And Mildred, she’s good to go?” says Skip.
    “Yes,” lies Harriet. She knows it may be her only chance.
    “You’ll take it easy, right?” he says. “Promise?”
    “I promise.”
    Skip looks to Caroline for approval.
    “Why are you looking at me?” she says.

September 8, 1962
(HARRIET AT TWENTY-FIVE)
    T hen, after a few wearisome years of domestic drudgery, a few years sequestered in your little house, in your little neighborhood, with your little problems, something happens. The outside world calls. On the north end of downtown, they’ve erected a futuristic wonderland, a marvelous, humming other-world full of possibilities, punctuated by a six hundred foot exclamation point. It’s impossible not to get caught up in the excitement. Suddenly your life, by mere extension, does not seem so small.
    Is that a smile, Harriet Chance?
    Look at you, on the global stage! All the world is taking notice of you and your gorgeous city, drinking you up like a Sloe Gin Fizz. The traffic jams are horrific. The lines are soul-crushing. But there is magic at the end of each one.
    There you are, Harriet, on the amazing Bubbleator, Skipper, nearly three years