All the Best People Read online

  Praise for All the Best People

  “Not just the best people, but real people: authentic, quirky and troubled. I cared for them all.”

  —Chris Bohjalian, author of The Sleepwalker and The Guest Room

  “Yoerg spins the story of a family on the brink of collapse—writing with tenderness, grace and truth.”

  —Randy Susan Meyers, bestselling author of Accidents of Marriage

  “Beautifully rendered and aching in its portrayal of a mother’s slide into mental illness . . . Destined to be a book club favorite.”

  —Christopher Scotton, author of The Secret Wisdom of the Earth

  “[A] powerful and haunting . . . novel about betrayal and shame, acceptance and unconditional love. Book clubs will devour it.”

  —Barbara Claypole White, bestselling author of Echoes of Family

  “[A] stirring tale of mothers and daughters, their secrets and their strength . . . [A] mesmerizing read.”

  —Lynda Cohen Loigman, author of The Two-Family House

  “Gorgeously written . . . and unforgettable, your heart will break and swell in equal measure.”

  —Kate Moretti, New York Times bestselling author of The Vanishing Year

  “[A] powerful story . . . Yoerg’s writing keeps us on a high wire of tension as we seek salvation and hope alongside her characters.”

  —Holly Robinson, author of Folly Cove

  “With Yoerg’s lush and moving prose, the characters are realistic and bold, yet so compassionately portrayed . . . This book will stay with you.”

  —Amy Sue Nathan, author of The Good Neighbor

  “A suspenseful and poignant tale . . . Readers will need to be reminded to exhale.”

  —Amy Impellizzeri, award-winning author of The Secrets of Worry Dolls

  Titles by Sonja Yoerg

  HOUSE BROKEN

  THE MIDDLE OF SOMEWHERE

  ALL THE BEST PEOPLE

  BERKLEY

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2017 by Sonja Yoerg

  Excerpt from The Middle of Somewhere copyright © 2015 by Sonja Yoerg

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  BERKLEY is a registered trademark and the B colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Yoerg, Sonja Ingrid, 1959–author.

  Title: All the best people / Sonja Yoerg.

  Description: First Edition. | New York : Berkley, 2017.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016031060 (print) | LCCN 2016037964 (ebook) | ISBN

  9780399583490 (paperback) | ISBN 9780399583506 (ebook)

  Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Contemporary Women. | FICTION / Family Life. | FICTION / Historical.

  Classification: LCC PS3625.O37 A79 2017 (print) | LCC PS3625.O37 (ebook) |

  DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016031060

  First Edition: May 2017

  Cover art: Sky and leaves © by Karina Vegas/Arcangel Images; House © by Sandra Cunningham/Trevillion Images

  Cover design by Katie Anderson

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  Contents

  Praise for All the Best People

  Titles by Sonja Yoerg

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraph

  Part 1 Chapter 1: Carole

  Chapter 2: Alison

  Chapter 3: Janine

  Chapter 4: Alison

  Chapter 5: Carole

  Chapter 6: Alison

  Chapter 7: Carole

  Chapter 8: Solange

  Chapter 9: Alison

  Chapter 10: Janine

  Chapter 11: Carole

  Chapter 12: Alison

  Chapter 13: Carole

  Part 2 Chapter 14: Solange

  Chapter 15: Solange

  Chapter 16: Solange

  Chapter 17: Solange

  Chapter 18: Carole

  Chapter 19: Solange

  Chapter 20: Carole

  Chapter 21: Solange

  Chapter 22: Carole

  Chapter 23: Carole

  Chapter 24: Carole

  Chapter 25: Carole

  Part 3 Chapter 26: Carole

  Chapter 27: Alison

  Chapter 28: Janine

  Chapter 29: Alison

  Chapter 30: Janine

  Chapter 31: Carole

  Chapter 32: Alison

  Chapter 33: Alison

  Chapter 34: Janine

  Chapter 35: Alison

  Chapter 36: Carole

  Chapter 37: Alison

  Chapter 38: Janine

  Chapter 39: Carole

  Chapter 40: Carole

  Chapter 41: Carole

  Author’s Note

  Readers Guide

  Excerpt from The Middle of Somewhere

  About the Author

  To Helga

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’m grateful to my agent, Maria Carvainis, for her unwavering dedication to this book and, as always, to me. I’m also indebted to my editor, Claire Zion, for her insightful direction in helping me realize the full potential of this story. Thanks to Elizabeth Copps and everyone at the Maria Carvainis Agency, and to Jennifer Fisher, Caitlin Valenziano and the entire team at Berkley.

  Heartfelt thanks to my readers: to M. M. Finck, for early feedback; to my daughters, Rebecca and Rachel Frank, for their wisdom and patience; to Kate Moretti and Heather Webb for reading with care, more than once, and also for cheering me on, holding my hand and making me laugh. Special thanks to Helga Immerfall for reading, for believing in me and for taking me to Gaynes in 1972 when our mother couldn’t accept that I needed a bra. My love goes out to all of you.

  I’m not much of a joiner but I’m delighted to say I’m a Tall Poppy Writer. This group celebrates and supports the talent, passion, determination and general badassery of women writers, and I’m lucky to be counted among them.

  Finally, I’m grateful beyond words to Richard Gill for loving me despite the fact that I think six impossible things before breakfast. You are honest, loyal and true—one of the best people.

  MAD HATTER: Have I gone mad?

  ALICE: I’m afraid so. You’re entirely bonkers.

  But I’ll tell you a secret. All the best people are.

  —Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

  Part 1

  1

  Carole

  August 1972

  Carole was ten when her mother was committed to Underhill State Hos
pital. For a rest, her father had said. By the time Carole was old enough to understand that the truth lay elsewhere, beyond her grasp, her mother had received insulin coma treatment for hysteria, colonics for depression and electroshock just because, and Carole gave up wondering how her mother had lost control of her mind and simply coped with the fact that she had. Recently, Carole overheard the nurses say Solange Gifford was haunted, and although Carole did not, strictly speaking, believe in ghosts, it was as fitting a diagnosis as any.

  She arrived at Underhill for her weekly visit a few minutes after nine and signed the register. A vase of lilies crowded the counter, the sweet musky scent mingling with the clinical bite of disinfectant and another smell, mushroomy and dark, that existed only here.

  The receptionist greeted her and swiveled to face the switchboard.

  “I’ll have them send your mother out, Mrs. LaPorte.”

  “Thank you.” Carole felt her cheeks flush. She’d forgotten the woman’s name although she’d spoken with her a dozen times. “I’d like to go outside with her, if that’s all right.”

  The woman smiled. If she was insulted at not being called by name, she hid it well. “We’ll have to see how she is, but I’ll let them know.”

  Carole nodded and handed a small shopping bag across the counter. “Some blackberries for her. They’re coming on fast this year.”

  She took a seat in the empty waiting area, the same seat she always chose, the left of the two between the ashcan and the magazine rack. Stale cigarette, bad as it was, countered the other odor. She leafed through an issue of Woman’s Day with Pat Nixon on the cover and suggestions for budget-friendly casseroles. One with tuna and cream of celery soup appealed to her, and her husband, Walt, was fond of celery, but she’d never remember how the recipe went. Someone had torn out a different recipe, ripped the page right down the middle, but Carole wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing. Even if she could bring herself to destroy public property, she’d never enjoy the meal.

  An orderly came through the double door dividing the reception area from the wards and propped it open with his foot. “Mrs. LaPorte.”

  She slid the magazine into the rack and stood, her legs heavy, her stomach queasy. She made her way down the corridor and glanced at the windows, set high, out of reach, and thought of the years, the thick stack of years her mother had been locked up here. Thirty-four years inside these brick walls, or barely outside them. Institutionalized. That word said it all. Long and cold and slammed shut at the end like a thick steel door.

  The orderly escorted her into a lounge overlooking a slate patio beyond which lay a vast carpet of lawn. Solange stood beside the patio doors expectantly, reminding Carole of how her daughter’s cat waited by the back door to be let out. Her mother noticed her and smiled. Perhaps she was having one of her better days.

  “Mama.” Carole rested her hand on Solange’s narrow shoulder and kissed her cheek. She led her mother to the patio and breathed deeply once they were outside. They set off by habit along the perimeter of the grounds.

  They were not easy to pair as mother and daughter. Carole took after her father, lanky and square-shouldered, with dark blonde hair and eyes the color and shape of almonds. Her mother was petite and fair-skinned, and her eyes shifted from gray to green depending on the light and her mood. Solange’s hair was the color of concrete, but Carole easily remembered the deep red it had once been because she saw it every day on her daughter, Alison. “Red as an October maple,” her husband called it.

  Solange walked slowly and with a hitch in her gait, as if she didn’t trust the ground, making her seem far older than sixty-five. Carole stayed close, her shoulder grazing her mother’s, in case she stumbled. It was better to visit this way instead of face-to-face, where Carole could be overrun with a hot sweet tide of pity, and if she looked at her mother directly, the way her eyes shifted out of focus rattled Carole. No, it wasn’t so much loss of focus as loss of presence. Solange’s eyes would film over, like those of a fish left gasping on the shore, and Carole would be uncertain where she had gone. “Inside herself” wasn’t accurate; the bottom had dropped out of whatever remained of her mother’s self. This loss, although temporary, was more acutely painful than the long-term loss of her. Carole was accustomed to her mother’s institutionalization, but she would never become accustomed to the idea that one day her mother might abandon reality entirely and never return.

  They rounded the corner of the main building. Her mother asked, “How’s the baby?”

  Carole answered the usual questions about her sister. “Janine’s fine. School starts in three weeks so it’ll be back to work for her.”

  Solange hesitated. “Back to work?”

  “Yes, Mama. Janine works in the school office. She’s thirty-four.”

  Her mother shook her head. “Doesn’t seem possible. It truly doesn’t.”

  “I know,” Carole said softly, as the passage of time frequently caught even the sane off guard. “She’s coming to visit soon, I hope.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful. She’s such a lovely baby.” Her voice drifted off.

  Carole didn’t have the heart to correct her. For years she’d tried, insisting her mother work the logic through and accept that Janine was no longer a baby, or even a girl. But Solange would not utter the name Janine, and no amount of reasoning and explaining could alter her conviction that the infant she’d left behind had stayed small and vulnerable all these years. For Solange, time was a twisted landscape riddled with holes, and Janine the baby had fallen straight through.

  Carole moved on to firmer ground. “Did you finish the apples I brought last week?”

  “Apples? I think I had one recently. A McIntosh.”

  “I’ve left some blackberries at the desk for you. They won’t last more than a few days, but I know how you like them.” Carole was never sure the staff gave Solange the food she brought, but she continued to bring it anyway. That and providing a few outfits a year was all she could do. It seemed so little. “Mama, how’s your friend, Maisie?” Manic-depressive, Maisie had been in and out of Underhill for years—mostly in.

  “Maisie? She’s fine except when they have to lock her up. A lot of the others are leaving.”

  Carole nodded. “I’m sorry the new medications don’t help you.”

  “That’s all right. I never expected them to.”

  They circled back to the patio and stopped to rest on an ironwork bench. A few other patients wandered nearby or slumped, sedated or catatonic, in wheelchairs.

  Solange said, “As long as you and the baby are fine.”

  Carole took her mother’s hand in hers. “We are, Mama. Don’t worry.” She didn’t pause to query herself before answering because, until recently, she had always been fine. She wouldn’t allow the strain to show. Not here.

  The patio doors opened and a woman stepped out, holding a girl about one year old dressed in white and wearing a cap tied at the chin. A man, presumably the girl’s father, held an older gentleman by the elbow and directed him to a chair beside Carole and her mother. The older man worked his tongue in his mouth and his limbs trembled violently. The father took the adjoining seat and bent his head in conversation. The child began to fuss, stretching her arms toward her father and kicking.

  The mother held her tight. “Not now, sweetheart.”

  Solange’s gaze had been drifting across the grounds, but now she studied the mother and daughter with intent.

  Carole shifted to face her mother and touched her arm. “Mama?”

  Solange continued to stare.

  The girl squirmed against her mother’s grasp and whimpered. Within moments, the child’s frustration bloomed and she began to cry. The mother tried to soothe the girl but her cries only grew louder.

  Solange stiffened and leapt from the bench. Carole’s arm shot out to stop her but it was too late. Solange grabbed the child by
the shoulders. “Come to me, baby! I’m here!”

  The woman twisted away in alarm, pulling her daughter closer. “Leave her alone!”

  The girl’s father rose and stepped between his wife and Solange, his jaw set. Carole flew to her mother’s side.

  The man scanned Carole’s face and her mother’s, assessing the likelihood both were a threat. He turned toward the building and shouted, “Orderly! Nurse!” The woman hurried inside, tucking the child’s head into her shoulder.

  Solange’s eyes were wild and incredulous and filled with terror, as if no part of her comprehended her actions, much less her emotions. She held her arms outstretched, reaching after the baby. Her face contorted in a grimace, and she cried out, a long, low wail. Carole wrapped her arms around her, in protection, restraint, solace and fear. Her mother’s body was rigid and twitched as if electrified. Carole held on, her heart beating in her throat.

  A nurse appeared, with a doctor and a syringe. Carole shook her head. “Please, give us a minute. Please.”

  She ignored the impatience on the doctor’s face and the uncertainty on the nurse’s, and tended to her mother, stroking her hair and speaking into her ear in the most ordinary voice she could muster. “There were six deer in the field behind the house last night, Mama, lined up as if someone had arranged them. You could hardly see them, the grass being as high as it is on account of all the rain we’ve had. Walt’s been meaning to cut it but it’s been too wet and he’s been so busy—almost too busy—in the garage anyhow. And between you and me, I’d prefer to see the goldenrod bloom. Last show of summer, they are, and I’d sure hate to miss it.”

  Solange’s limbs softened as Carole spoke, and her breathing slowed, though it still caught in her chest. A trickle of sweat ran down Carole’s back and her mouth was dry. The nurse helped her lower Solange onto the bench. The doctor disappeared. Carole knelt beside her mother and smoothed the damp hair from her forehead and stroked her cheek. Solange’s eyes were closed. Carole imagined her mother was knitting together pieces of herself before daring to look upon the world again. Or perhaps she was simply tired.