The Paper Palace

Elle’s mother says that Jonas should leave Gina and that because the two of them don’t have kids it’s not even a real marriage. Elle says Wallace is ridiculous but also wonders the same thing in her head.

Switching perspective to October of 1970, Wallace is with her lover, Mr. Dancy, talking about whether he should leave his wife. In the next room over, Mrs. Dancy babysits Elle, Anna, and the Dancy kids. The Dancy daughter cuts off Anna’s bangs, but Mrs. Dancy doesn’t do anything about it. She just watches a pregnant water bug bursting with little roaches. Across the inner courtyard, Elle sees Mr. Dancy holding her mother.

Back in the present, Elle sits on the porch sofa watching her mother swimming in the pond. She thinks about whether she really wants Jonas to leave Gina. She wonders if she could even betray Gina that way, but she realizes she’s already betrayed her by sleeping with her husband.

Elle’s husband, Peter, interrupts her thoughts, and she tries to act normal. Peter says he can’t believe Elle let him fall asleep on the couch last night and asks if he did anything stupid while he was drunk. She tells him that he refused to read the Shelley poem for Anna. Elle describes Peter as, “a handsome man. Not beautiful, but handsome in an old-fashioned movie star way. Tall. Elegant. British. [...] Patient, but formidable when angered. He can keep a secret. He rarely misses a beat” (20).

Peter starts making breakfast and tells Elle to wake the kids up. She says they should wait for her mum to get back, but Peter insists they start now. Peter is the only one who can laugh when Wallace makes a fuss.

In New York City 1952, Wallace was eight years old when her own mother, Nanette Saltonstall, got married for the second time. Nanette’s parents wanted her to marry a rich man to help the family, but she married Elle’s grandfather, Amory Cushing, instead. Amory was a poor artist who only had an old Cape house on the shore of a pond in Massachusetts that he inherited from a distant uncle. He built their house while he and Nanette were together. Because they were poor, he built the interior walls with pressed cardboard. Amory nicknamed it the Paper Palace.

Elle’s grandmother left Amory before he finished building the house, taking Wallace and her brother Austin. When Nanette’s money ran out, she married a banker named Jim. He bought them an apartment in New York. Jim sexually abused Elle’s mother and brother Austin, making them perform oral sex on him when they were eight and six years old. Once, Nanette caught Wallace with Jim and slapped her daughter across the face. Elle thinks to herself, “The odd thing is, [...] my mother lost her respect for women but not for men. Her stepfather’s perversion was a hard truth, but it was her mother’s weak-willed betrayal that made her go cold. In my mother’s world, the men are given respect” (26).

It’s June of 1971, and Anna and Elle are visiting their father’s new apartment. The next day, they take the bus to a summer camp called Triumph Day Camp. Elle doesn’t want her dad to be mad at her, but she cries because she doesn’t want to leave, and she doesn’t like the sandwiches he packed for them. He says she will be fine, a bit annoyed.

At camp, Elle goes to change into her bathing suit but realizes her dad forgot to pack her one. She gets left behind by her group, and they don’t notice she’s gone until snack time a few hours later.

At about half past nine in the Back Woods, Elle wakes her kids up for breakfast. Elle has three kids: Jack, Maddy, and Finn. Jack, the eldest, is 17. Maddy is 10 years old, and Finn is nine. After Elle had Jack, it was difficult for Elle and Peter to get pregnant again. The doctor examined her and informed her that the surgeon managed to chop off an ovary when she was operated on as a baby. The other tube got tacked to a bit of scar tissue and eggs were piling up behind it. Once it was cut free, Maddy and Finn were born 11 months apart.

In June of 1972 at the Back Woods, Anna’s summer friend Peggy is with them at the camp. Elle has chickenpox. Her mother tells her to stay in her room, but she tries to get away. Mr. Dancy grabs her arm hard. Wallace tells him not to hurt her, which causes Mr. Dancy to say he’s leaving for the city. Wallace tells Elle not to move and races out to stop Mr. Dancy from getting into the car. Elle sits inside and watches Anna out the window. She sees Peggy wade into the water until her head is under. Elle watches the trail of bubbles from Peggy in the water, but then the bubbles are gone, and Peggy’s head does not come up. Elle tries to get Anna’s attention, but she doesn’t look up, even though she can hear Elle yelling.

Back in the present, Peter is smoking when the kids come downstairs. Wallace is still swimming in the pond. Elle stands looking at the pond, thinking about the time Peggy drowned. Wallace came back, screaming at Anna, and dragged Peggy out of the water to save her. Now, as Elle watches her mother, she thinks, “I’ve seen all this a hundred times before, but this morning she seems different. Older. And it makes me sad. There is something eternal about my mother. She’s a pain in the ass, but she has great dignity” (38).

Wallace returns from her swim and most of breakfast is gone. Elle offers to make more and asks Jack to clear the plates and get his grandmother the marmalade. Jack says Elle should get it since she’s already up. She thinks, “I hold my breath for ten seconds, trying not to explode. I am under-water, watching the fish through murky green. I close my eyes. I am Peggy. I choose the quiet of the reeds” (39). Peter and Wallace tell Jack to listen to his mother, calling him an “asshole.”

Peter picks up Elle’s phone and tells her Jonas is texting her. She panics, then Peter tells her that he and Gina want them to meet at Higgins Hollow for lunch. Elle feels relief. They ask the kids if they want to go to the beach, and Jack says he has plans to meet his friend at the Racing Club. Jack presumes he will borrow the car, but Elle tells him he can take his bike. Jack is extremely upset by this and calls his mother a “bitch” while exiting the house. Peter laughs and says he Jack a great point. He tells Elle to relax. Elle goes tense and says his laughter encourages their son.

Peter decides to go out for cigarettes, and Elle says loudly, in front of her children, “For fuck’s sake, Peter” (45). In that moment, Elle says, “Peter rarely loses his cool. He much prefers to laugh things off. But he is looking at me now narrow-eyed, [...] as if he has caught me in the act but doesn’t know the act of what” (45). Elle thinks she should probably back down, considering that she’s been unfaithful. However, she snaps back at Peter, telling him not to make this about him. Peter asks if she really wants to go down this road, and Elle apologizes, holds her breath, and waits for what comes next.

In 1956 in Guatemala, after Nanette divorced Jim, her next husband also left her. With no man to support her, she marries a millionaire named Vince Corcoran, who moves their family to Central America. Nanette hates her new husband, and when Vince learns her true feelings towards him, he leaves. In the divorce settlement, Nanette gets a small stipend and a massive villa in Guatemala.

Wallace grows up exploring on her own because her brother Austin is too afraid to leave the grounds. Once, while she’s riding a horse home, a man takes the reins of her horse and blocks her way. He holds a machete and strokes his crotch. Wallace kicks the horse hard, causing him to run straight over the man. When she gets home and tells Nanette the story, Elle’s grandmother is contradictory: “‘I hope you killed him, [...] But Wallace, dear,’ she added, ‘That sort of behavior is unbecoming in a girl’” (43).

It’s August of 1972 in Connecticut. Elle and Anna are at their fraternal grandparents’ farm. Their Granny Myrtle makes the girls cookies and wishes they could stay all the time. Their father comes home from traveling for work, and he plants to stay for a week. Elle is excited for all the fun things he promised to do with them. When he gets out of the car, the passenger door also opens.

After her fight with Peter, Elle squeezes into the car with Peter, Maddy, and Finn. Jack is still in the cabin, and Elle thinks about how stubborn he is. She recalls his painful birth: Elle sent Peter home so they could both get some sleep. Elle woke to Jack screaming at the hospital, and Jonas came to help. He brought flowers and made Elle laugh. The memory makes her think of her unfaithfulness: “There is no such thing as unforgivable between people who love each other. But even as I’m thinking in, I know it’s not really true” (51).

Elle does not want to go to the beach and is annoyed at Peter for making these plans with Gina. She also longs to be near Jonas, and she says the thought of not seeing him fills her with an ache to touch him. Elle daydreams about the events of last night: Maddy and Finn left for bed, and Elle looked at Jonas. He caught her looking. Elle’s mother said something about how divorce is good for children, and Jonas reminded Elle to ignore her mother’s bait. Elle got up to go to the bathroom and went outside in the dark. In a minute, Jonas stepped out looking for her and they had sex quickly against the wall.

Switching to May of 1973 in New York, Elle is six, and her father has remarried a woman named Joanne. It’s obvious that Joanne doesn’t like that Henry has kids. They are with their father for the first weekend visit in over a month. Joanne accuses Elle of using her hairbrush, and Elle says she didn’t do it, even though she did. Henry tries to tell them not to fight, which makes Joanne upset with him as well. Henry tells his daughters that he and Joanne are going out tonight. Elle says that they always go out, and she hates it here. She runs to her room, crying. Joanne tells Henry that she didn’t sign up to be a mother, but Henry agrees not to go anywhere for Elle. She’s happy that she’s won this battle, but Elle realizes that Joanne wins every time after that.

The next time they come to visit, Henry drops Anna and Elle off at the home of Joanne’s parents, Dwight, and Nancy Burke. Joanne always makes up an excuse as to why they can’t stay with them. Elle says that “When he waves goodbye to us from the car he always looks sad, and I know it’s my fault” (61).

Peter returns from town, and Elle braces herself. He bangs on Jack’s cabin door and tells his son to come out. Elle watches them talk and then Jack bursts out laughing. When they come over to Elle, Peter asks if she has calmed down. He says Jack understands that he behaved poorly and tells Jack to apologize to his mother. Jack apologizes and says he will never talk to her like that again. Then, he asks if he can take the car tonight. Elle says no again. Peter tells everyone to get in the car so that they won’t be late for lunch. Elle tells Peter she loves him.

It’s May 1974 in New York, and Elle and her mother are having a picnic in Central Park. Elle needs to use the restroom, but she’s wearing her new leotard and tights under her clothes. Wallace tells her to hold it. Elle is going to her first ballet lesson, which is a gift from her father. They arrive at the studio late, and Elle wants to leave. Wallace makes her take her place, even though she still hasn’t gone to the bathroom. Elle tries to keep up by watching the other girls, but then she has an accident in the dance room and runs away in tears. The next week, Wallace makes Elle go back, even though she begs not to, saying, “We are not a family of cowards. You have to face your fears head on. Otherwise, you’ve already lost the battle before it’s begun” (72).

At half past 12 in the present, Elle’s family arrives at the beach to meet Gina and Jonas for lunch. Peter tells Elle to be nice to Gina, not “bitchy Elle.” She says she’s always nice and tries to kick him. As they walk to the beach, Elle panics about keeping the secret from Peter and Gina. She tries to remember everything that happened last night to see if they would suspect anything, but she’s pretty sure they both saw nothing.

Jonas is facing away from them as Elle and Peter walk on the beach. Elle wonders if he can’t face what they’ve done, if he doesn’t care about her anymore, or if, she says, “maybe he, too, wants to avoid this moment of acknowledgement—keep his old life alive for one moment longer, before everything changes. Because, either way, it will” (76). Gina runs up and says they’ve been waiting for them. Elle worries that Gina suspects something. Jonas finally looks at Elle and whispers that he missed her. She thinks that it is all too much to bear and whispers that she missed him too.

In 1976, Wallace’s new boyfriend, Leo, is coming to visit them at the Back Woods for 10 days. He’s bringing his two kids, Conrad and Rosemary. They are from Memphis and have heavy southern accents. Rosemary is seven. Conrad is 11—one year older than Elle.

Elle is in fifth grade in February of 1977. Elle’s dad and Joanne are living in London and are getting married in May. Elle and Anna are staying with their mom’s friend, Dixon. Dixon is fun and everyone loves him. Elle is best friends with his daughter, Becky. One day, the girls are playing Monopoly when Dixon emerges from his room completely naked, and his girlfriend Andrea is also naked in bed. Andrea announces they’ve just had a “good fuck.” Elle stares at Dixon as he puts on a record, and she wishes she could disappear.

Elle puts sunscreen on Peter, and he goes to the water with the kids and Gina. Elle stays back and gets a drink. Once she is alone with Jonas, he tells her that he’s been in love with her since he was eight, and Elle says that’s a lie.

In 1977 at the Back Woods, Leo and Anna have been fighting constantly since he and Wallace got married. Leo doesn’t approve of Anna’s friends and says she’s unintelligent. He sends Anna to her room if she talks back, and Wallace says she can’t interfere. Elle wanders the woods thinking she will have to save Anna somehow since their mother won’t. She thinks that she and Anna should run away together, saying, “Mum was going to be sorry she let Leo punish Anna and never took Anna’s side. Maybe not right away, but eventually she would miss us” (86). Then, in the woods, she comes across a small boy who introduces himself as Jonas. Elle takes his hand and walks him back home to his mom.

Back on the beach, Elle tells Jonas that the first time she met Gina, she recalls Jonas making a big point to tell her he’s in love with Gina and over Elle. Jonas says that he only said those things to hurt her. Then, he slides his hand under the mesh part of the tent to hold her hand. He says they should have done what they did last night a long time ago. Elle says it’s already too late for them. Jonas takes his hand away, and Elle is desperate to have his touch back. Jonas tunnels his hand under the tent and goes to the inside of Elle’s thigh. He fingers Elle under her bathing suit. Jonas says that it isn’t too late for them.

In 1978, Leo catches Anna and her friend Lindsay outside on the street asking strangers for money. He comes out of an ally and confronts the girls after they receive $10 from a man. Leo makes Anna give him the money and says that he and her mother will discuss what to do with her. Anna says, “fuck you” and jokes that Leo is sexually interested in her. Leo slaps her across the face. He sends Anna to boarding high school in New Hampshire.

Elle is sad Anna has to leave, saying, “Because I know she’s scared and homesick, even before she’s left. And I know she wishes our mother had chosen her” (90). Anna cries in the bathroom before she leaves. Elle suggests that she go live with their dad, but Anna has already written to him. Their dad replied with a short letter saying if it were up to him he would let her come, but Joanne won’t allow it. Anna says she wishes Elle was coming with her. Elle thinks this it’s the nicest thing she’s ever said to her. Anna doesn’t say a single word to her mother when she the bus picks her up.

Back on the beach in the present, Elle imagines that a shark is in the water, and she is the one to save everyone. She wonders if she would save Peter if he were the only one in the water. They start eating lunch, and Gina notices a heart Jonas drew in the sand for Elle that reads, “I love only you.” Gina thinks it’s for her, and it makes Elle want to punch her. Jonas jokes with Peter about flirting with his wife, and Peter jokes that he’s been waiting for a good buyer to come along.

Elle says she wants to leave the beach and go home, but her kids want to swim longer. Gina suggests that she and Jonas can bring them back later so Elle and Peter can have some alone time. Elle doesn’t want to agree because she doesn’t want to be apart from Jonas nor be alone with Peter. Jonas says he will have a swim with Elle in the pond later if she waits for him. In the car, Peter suggests they go have a swim at Black Pond. Elle flinches when he touches her leg, then says that sounds like a great idea to cover it up. Peter takes his hand away.

In June of 1979, Henry and Joanne are getting divorced. He tells Elle and Anna it’s because he misses his daughters, and Joanne refuses to move back to the states. Elle is excited that their dad has chosen them for the first time. Elle’s Grandmother Myrtle argues in whispers as Elle tries to listen. Myrtle says that Joanne cuckolded Henry, but Henry says he really does miss the girls. Elle hears a hollowness in his voice. Anna tells her, “He has zero right to put us on some big guilt trip. He deserted us. And now that he’s back, we’re supposed to be grateful?” (99). Henry comes to tell the girls dinner is ready. Anna looks at him with contempt and says she’s not hungry.

Grandma Myrtle says she wants to take Anna and Elle for a swim at a neighbor’s house. Henry says he thought he would take them for a swim at the quarry. Elle says she wants to go to the quarry with her dad, making Henry stand up straighter. Elle convinces Anna to come with them. The three of them race each other, running barefoot across a cornfield towards the watering hole.

At two o’clock in the present, Elle and Peter drive to the Black Pond, where Elle had picnics as a child. Elle thinks about one time when she and Anna came to this spot and saw a naked couple having sex on the beach. Elle remembers when she first brought Peter to Back Woods. They made love on the beach. She had been thinking about the naked couple then, too. She says, “I have always known there was something bad in me, a secret perversion I have tried to hide from Peter. That I hope he will never see” (103).

Peter apologizes for his behavior the previous night, but Elle tells him he has nothing to apologize for. Peter says that he noticed her flinch when he put his hand on her in the car. Elle lies and says she didn’t flinch. They kiss, and Elle suggests going for a swim to avoid having sex. She thinks that they cannot have sex after she was just with Jonas. She cannot humiliate him this way. Peter catches her in the water and tries to bring her close. Elle says she’ll take a rain check.

In 1979, Elle and her family are going to visit Leo’s friend William Whitman (Whit) in Vermont. Leo says Whit and his son Tyson moved there after his wife died. Elle asks how she passed away, and Leo explains that while Whit and Tyson were on a weekend bonding trip, Tyson’s mom Louisa was stabbed to death. When they got back from the camping trip, they found her body. Tyson stood there, not crying or saying anything.

Conrad moved in with Elle’s family the prior year (1978). Leo tries not to fight with Conrad in order to make him feel comfortable living with them, but it’s obvious Conrad wishes his mother chose him. At the farmhouse, Whit and Tyson greet them, and they have a supper of rabbit stew. After dinner, Whit shows them to their room. They’ll all be sharing the attic space, and there are three mattresses laid out on the floor. At night, when Elle and Conrad are supposed to be asleep, Elle hears her mother begging to have sex with Leo. He says she’s drunk and not in front of the children. Elle says she sounds pitiful and desperate, and she covers her ears.

Elle wakes up before everyone else the next morning and goes outside for fresh air. After walking for an hour, she sees an enormous buck 10 yards away from her. The deer and Elle stare directly at each other. Then, Elle hears a gunshot, and the deer falls to the ground, blood pouring from its neck. Tyson appears, lies down beside the buck, and watches its eyes. Then, Tyson gives it a gentle kiss on the mouth. Elle gasps, and Tyson cocks his gun. Elle steps out of the woods and yells to wait, but Tyson runs away after seeing her. Elle doesn’t tell anyone what she saw.

In the present, Elle is agitated that Jonas, Gina, and the kids aren’t back from the beach yet, thinking, “It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours and already, when I’m not with him, I’m marking time until I am—as if my own life has ceased to exist and is only the time in between him and him” (113-14). Elle leaves to go for a swim. Wallace says what a complete nightmare Elle has been all morning.

Flashing back to 1979 in New Hampshire, they are visiting Anna for parent’s weekend at her school. Wallace wasn’t planning on making the trip, but Dixon wanted to because he is Anna’s godfather. He and his girlfriend also recently broke up. Anna’s relationship with her family is distant: “a coolness that will never thaw—as if [Anna’s] last life is in the rearview mirror, still visible, but her eyes are only on the road ahead” (117).

While showing Elle her dorm room, Anna confides that she lost her virginity. Elle wants to wait until she falls in love. Anna tells her that this is a good plan for her, but Anna believes it is unlikely that she’ll ever fall in love herself. On the way home, Anna, Elle, and Dixon’s daughter Becky find Dixon’s journal of pornographic sketches. They look at the pages and laugh together. Elle thinks of Anna having sex and thinks, “The thought of her with someone she barely knows makes me feel sad for her, and I wonder if, deep inside, she regrets it. Because once you do it, you can never undo it” (120).

At 4:10pm, Jonas pops out of the water while Elle is swimming and scares her. She tells him that she suspects that Gina senses something between them, but he reassures her that it’s alright. Elle says that when Gina thought the heart in the sand was for her, Elle felt smug, like she’s the one who has won. Jonas tells her she has won and that he knows it’s a terrible thing to say. Elle has always loved that Jonas admits his faults.

Jonas also says that he loves Gina, but he feels compelled to be with Elle. It isn’t even a choice for him. Elle disagrees, saying that of course he has a choice. She thinks of him as a sacrifice and penance for the past. Then, she pulls Jonas under the water and kisses him. When they come up for air, Jonas says he has waited his entire life for last night to happen and doesn’t want to take it back. Elle says that she has been waiting, too. They go back to the shore together and sit on the sand.

It is April 1980 in Briarcliff, New York, and Elle and Anna are spending more time with their father. Elle knows that if Joanne was still around, her father would not be. They’re going to pick up some of Henry’s items at Joanne’s parents’ home. Grandma Nancy is there, though their grandfather Dwight is not. Elle looks through her father’s old photos. Henry tells her that Wallace’s mother, Nanette, never liked him, and she thought Wallace was marrying down. Henry comments that she was probably right, and Elle says Nanette sounds like a bitch. Two days later, they learn that Dwight drowned in the Hudson River. He got drunk with his friend and went to the river the next morning to shake off the hangover.

In October of 1980, Elle leaves school late because of orchestra practice. A boy from another school catcalls her, and she calls him a moron, but then walks away as quickly as she can, trying to hide her fear. He corners her, and Elle stomps on his foot as hard as she can before running home.

Back in the present, Jonas asks Elle what she and Peter did when they left the beach earlier. Elle lies and says they had sex in the car, and Jonas can tell she’s lying. Elle admits that they didn’t do anything because she was waiting for him to come back, making Jonas smile. He says that he’s in love with her, and Elle returns the sentiment but isn’t sure that it matters.

At five o’clock Jonas wants to show Elle something before they head back. Under a thick overgrowth is an old, abandoned house that they’d found as kids. They laugh, remembering that they were going to live here when they got married. They have sex. When they’re done, Elle says he shouldn’t have left her that summer when he never came back. He replies that he left to start a fresh life, but she reminds him that she had no one to talk to. When he asks her if she ever told Peter about Conrad, Elle says that she has never broken their oath. She says, “I wish Peter knew. I hate that there has always been a lie between us. It isn’t fair to him. But he doesn’t. And he never will” (137). As she walks out, she says that Conrad ruined everything.