The Secret Women

by Sheila Williams

  Finally, Carmen spoke. “So. Did you?” she asked Elise.

  Elise looked up. “Did I what?”

  “Follow your brother’s advice. Did you behave?”

  Elise’s eyes filled again. “No.”

  Chapter 26

  Elise

  For months after Love Story left movie theaters, Elise and her friends quoted Ali McGraw’s character: “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”

  What bullshit, Elise thought, remembering with bitterness and several sprinkles of regret the oft-quoted phrase from the film she’d seen with a boyfriend whose name and face she’d long forgotten. Love did not mean you didn’t have to apologize—just the opposite. Love meant having to say you were sorry over and over again. And then it meant living with the guilt forever if you failed to say you were sorry that one last time, because you couldn’t ever know when the last time would be. And the last time was the only time that really counted.

  For a few weeks after the cookout, Elise played cat and mouse with her mother, inviting her to lunch (sometimes Marie went and sometimes she said she had “other plans”), offering to drive her to church, calling at odd hours of the morning or at night, to Marie’s irritation (“Elise! It’s seven in the morning! I haven’t even had my first cup of coffee!”), hoping to interfere with Marie’s plans, bully her—in a subtle way—to change them, and cut him out altogether. Or, in an effort to “catch” her mother with George, to interfere with some of their plans.

  Dee Dee’s expression was stormy. “Jesus, E. It sounds like a sick version of Parent Trap.”

  Even Carmen, who had been sympathetic to Elise, piled on. “You were an idiot,” she said simply, then sighed. Elise knew that Carmen was thinking about her father and The Mrs. Reverend Doctor.

  “Yes, I was,” Elise said. “An idiot supreme.”

  It wasn’t as if Elise didn’t know it at the time, because she did. But she couldn’t stop herself. She couldn’t think of anything else. She thought about them at work, when she was at home, and even at night when she should have been asleep. She woke up at three or four a.m. and began spinning her mother’s new situation around in her head like a hamster on a wheel, round and round, and she couldn’t stop. If she’d had something else to do or someone else to love or some other “useful employment”—a phrase she thought had been penned by Jane Austen—she never would have been so wrapped up in a life that was not her own. But the truth, and the saddest part of all, was that Elise had nothing else to do. Bobby and she had separated—an event fifteen years in the making—he had moved out, and her work, while interesting, was now mundane: she could do it in her sleep, which was a good thing because now she was barely getting any.

  You need your head examined.

  Dee Dee was right, she should’ve gotten counseling, grief counseling—that would have been the intelligent thing to do, the adult thing to do. Instead, she drove over to her mother’s place at seven thirty in the morning and let herself in. Something she had done only once: when Marie had called her when she wrenched her ankle and couldn’t maneuver the stairs herself, a medical emergency. This was definitely not a medical emergency.

  “Mom?” Elise called as she cleared the top step and walked toward the bedroom. She stopped in the open doorway.

  “Elise?” Her mother’s voice floated toward her. “What the . . . what are you doing here so early? I didn’t hear the doorbell! George, did you . . .”

  “Oh, sorry. Did I interrupt something?” Even as she said it, Elise heard the one rational voice left in her head say, I can’t believe you did this.

  George hadn’t gotten out of bed yet but appeared to be nude, and while her mother had slid on and tied her robe, it was obvious to Elise that underneath it she was nude too, or nearly so.

  Marie clicked the lamp on and stared at her daughter, a slight frown on her face. Elise’s heart sank. The frown was the one Marie wore when she was concerned about something. But as comprehension flooded her brain, the look in her fawn-colored eyes hardened and her lips pressed together.

  “Yes. You did,” her mother said in a sharp tone. She looked at George, who was pink with embarrassment, trying to decide whether to make a run for the bathroom or stay put. “George, I’ll be right back.”

  “Sure.” George said. “Ah, hello, Elise.”

  “Hello, George.” Elise had not enjoyed her triumphant moment. She suddenly wished that she could click her heels together—and disappear.

  Marie closed the bedroom door gently and walked past Elise down the hall and down the stairs, leaving a faint scent trail of Jergens lotion in her wake. Elise followed, feeling very much like a six-year-old who was in trouble instead of a middle-aged woman with a family of her own. She stopped at the bottom of the stairs, where her mother was standing, her hand on the knob of the front door.

  “I think I know why you’re here. I just don’t understand it, or you, for that matter. But it’s time for this to stop, Elise, and it’s time for you to get some help.”

  “I don’t need any help, you need help. You’re not a teenager. What on earth are you doing? You and . . . George . . . are too old for this nonsense! What about Dad? What about his memory? You’re disrespecting it!”

  Marie’s jaw tightened noticeably. “You’re right, I’m not a teenager. I am old. I’ll be seventy-eight my next birthday. As for your father, as if you have any right to say what you just did, we had a lovely marriage, fifty-five years together, three children. But he’s gone now. We talked about this, your dad and I. I told Owen to take a cruise to the Caribbean and cavort naked with Jamaican women on the beach! He told me to hire a trio of gigolos and sail to Rio for Carnival. Because, Elise, both of us realized that life goes on.”

  “But it’s disrespectful . . .”

  “Disre—Do you hear yourself? Disrespectful? How? Your father is gone. He is not coming back.” Marie paused for a moment and sighed. “Even if I wished on a star, it wouldn’t happen. But I can’t sit around in the dark, wearing black forever like Queen Victoria. George and I are having a good time—”

  “I can see that. But . . . sex, Mother?”

  “This is none of your business.”

  “Of course it’s my business! You’re my mother!”

  “I am not your prisoner! I am not your ward, your slave, or your child. I am a grown woman who wants to enjoy life . . . all of it, for as long as I can.”

  “Mom, it’s not right. People might think—”

  “People! I don’t care what people think. I never have!”

  “And you don’t care what I think either.”

  Marie turned the doorknob and opened the front door. The cool air swirled in and ruffled the hem of her robe, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  “No. I don’t care what you think, Elise. George is a lovely person and a great companion. I’m getting on with my life. You need to get on with yours.”

  The sound of Marie’s heavy mahogany front door closing was hollow. It echoed in Elise’s memory, the sound of a stone rolled into place to seal an ancient tomb, a baritone note of finality.

  * * *

  “That was the last conversation we had. Two weeks later . . .” Elise stopped and swallowed hard. Her voice was so soft that Dee Dee and Carmen could barely hear her. “Two weeks later, George called me from the hospital. Mom had had a stroke. He was the one who found her.” Elise murmured something, then swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.

  “Sorry. What did you say?” Carmen asked, grabbing two handfuls of tissues from Dee Dee’s large packet and passing a wad of them to Elise, then to Dee Dee.

  Elise sniffed. “I said . . . he never left her side.” The memory of George sitting at her mother’s bedside, humming tunes, talking to her, holding her hand, well, wasn’t that what family did? Wouldn’t her dad, Owen, have done that?

  The images flashed, then changed with a rhythm familiar only to someone old enough to remember the carousel-style Kodak slide projectors that clicked each
time the pictures changed. George changed his position—sometimes sitting, sometimes standing. But he never changed his focus. He had eyes only for the woman lying in the bed and didn’t notice Elise standing in the corner of the hospital room when the funeral home staff arrived.

  The attendant hovered in the doorway, silent, as if aware that George needed “a moment.” Finally, the man cleared his throat and stepped across the threshold. With a reverent nod to Elise and Bill and Warren, he then turned to George, “I’m very sorry for your loss, sir.” Before she could stop herself, Elise raised her hand, prepared to correct the man’s assumption, to tell him that George was not the grieving widower. But Bill’s hand landed on her shoulder, and she said nothing and would be grateful to him forever for preventing her from making another unforgiveable mistake.

  The man continued to speak. “You take your time. I’m just letting you know that we’re here.”

  George dabbed at his eyes and stood up slowly, unfolding his limbs gingerly as if they might break.

  “You go on,” he told the attendant in a gravelly voice that was rough from lack of sleep and from grief. He looked across the room at Elise, who nodded. “It’s all right. You can take her.”

  The man looked over his shoulder at his colleague, who pulled a gurney toward the open doorway. Elise grabbed her purse and followed her brothers as they left the room, pausing to wait for George. Before she could speak, the attendant said, “Perhaps you’d like to step out of the room, sir. If you’re ready.”

  George coughed. “Yes. Of course. I’m ready.” He leaned down and kissed Marie on the forehead.

  “Good night, my sweetheart,” he said. Then he walked past Elise and out of the room, wearing the expression of a broken-hearted man.

  * * *

  “Talk about a love story,” Carmen said, her eyes downcast. She appeared to be studying her hands.

  Dee Dee sniffed, then diverted herself by digging through the contents of her seemingly bottomless handbag, extracting more wads of tissues. She offered one to Carmen, who gave her a look that said, No way, then shrugged and quietly blew her nose.

  “Yes,” Elise said sharply. “It was a love story, a beautiful one. And I, like a damn fool, did my best to ruin it for my mother.” She felt her throat closing and stopped. She looked across the table at her friends. “I feel as if I’m at a psychological crossroad. I can’t keep all of Mom’s stuff—I know this. The condo’s sold, and I don’t have room for her things, either in my house or in my life. Besides . . .” She stopped. “I’m selling my house, too. Bobby and I are divorced. He’s moved on. And I . . .”

  “You need to get on with your life. Yes, we know. We need to get on with our lives too,” Carmen said sharply. “We are just too damn old to continue having these . . . existential crises.”

  “Exis—what?” Dee Dee asked, grinning.

  Carmen chuckled. “Existential crises. We’re all having one, or we’ve had them and we’re getting over them. Me . . . with my dad trying to move on with his life and me wrestling with the fact that I, well, that I wasn’t exactly who I thought I was.” She looked at Dee Dee. “You. Your mother.”

  Dee Dee looked away.

  Carmen glanced over at Elise, who was dabbing at her nose.

  “And you. Especially you! You know what you have to do, right? You have to do what you told us to do. You’re the oldest . . .”

  Elise sat up and snorted. “Oh yeah? Well, thanks for that!”

  Dee Dee giggled.

  “You’re welcome! And you know it’s true.” Carmen sighed. “Elise, we’re all trying to face down these . . . fears, terrified as we’ve been. And you . . . well, you can’t keep all that stuff. And you can’t keep all the guilt that’s preventing you from getting rid of it. From what I see, there’s only one way to do that.”

  Elise’s eyebrows rose. “Oh yes? What’s that?”

  “You have to apologize and ask for forgiveness,” Carmen said.

  Elise shook her head, tears spilled from her eyes. “Forgiveness? Apologize? To whom? My mother is dead.” Her voice cracked. “I-I missed the chance to say I’m sorry to Mom.”

  “But not to George,” Dee Dee said. “You said that he’s living over in Madeira somewhere?”

  Elise nodded. She couldn’t think of what to say.

  “When was the last time you saw him?” Carmen asked.

  “At . . . at Mom’s funeral.”

  Dee Dee handed over another sad-looking tissue excavated from her tote. Elise took it but held it up as if it was contaminated.

  “Well, get on over there. You have a lot of work to do.”

  “We have a lot of work to do,” Carmen commented.

  Dee Dee nodded. “Yes, we do.”

  Carmen reached across the table and grabbed Elise’s hand. “Go see George. Talk with him.”

  “I will,” Elise said. Her voice was so soft that Carmen barely heard her.

  “Yes, go talk with him,” Dee Dee echoed. “He isn’t getting any younger,” she added, her eyes twinkling with laughter. “And neither are you.”

  Chapter 27

  Carmen

  Carmen received voice messages from only one source: her dad.

  “Carmen, I’m just calling to . . . Hello? Are you there?” A pause. Then, “Okay. I’m calling to cancel dinner tonight. I have a cold. Not feeling up to it.” There was another pause and Carmen smiled slightly. She knew that her father was still trying to figure out whether to wait—in case she was monitoring her calls—or just hang up. Finally, after a prolonged coughing spell, he made his decision. “All right, Daughter. Bye now. God bless you.”

  Carmen glanced at the digital clock on her desk. One more meeting and then she could pack up the files in her in-box, call it a day, and take off. A quick stop at Kroger for lemons, soup, and crackers, then she’d drive around to her father’s house. She didn’t like the sound of that cough.

  That wasn’t all Carmen didn’t like that evening. When she pulled into her dad’s cul-de-sac, her usual parking spot was occupied by a smart-looking red Cadillac STS bearing a vanity plate: E-LANE. Carmen parked on the street and gathered up the groceries she’d purchased, smirking as she walked toward the door. Didn’t Elaine have an i in it? Geez. The smirk had barely left her face when the front door opened and Elaine called out to her.

  “Hi, Carmie! Come on in! I just got here. I brought your dad some soup. Homemade!” She added that phrase with pride, a huge smile on her face. “Here, let me take those,” she added, pointing with a perfectly manicured talon at the Kroger bags.

  Carmen, who hated being called Carmie more than she hated liver, repaired her expression in a nanosecond.

  “How are you, Mrs. Oakes?” she said, maneuvering deftly away from the woman to avoid a four-layer lipsticked kiss on the cheek. Homemade, my ass. “It’s nice to see you.” Liar, liar, St. John suit on fire!

  “Oh, please!” the woman gushed, closing the door behind them and leaving a fragrance tailwind of what smelled like Shalimar on steroids. “Call me Elaine!”

  Not in this life.

  But later, after gulping down a cupful, Carmen had to admit that the soup, homemade or otherwise, was tasty and substantial and just what her father needed. Howard looked pasty and uncomfortable, blowing his nose uncountable times. He coughed continuously until Elaine finally persuaded him to drink a concoction she’d whipped up.

  He sat in his leather recliner, palms wrapped around the large white mug, and stared at the contents with a dubious expression on his face. A small spiral of steam rose toward his nostrils. He sniffed, but his sense of smell most likely was gone.

  “What’s in this?” Howard asked Elaine. He glanced over at Carmen, who shrugged as she took a seat on the couch. She had no idea but had decided that if it was some kind of crazy-ass Geechee woman mess, she was going to take out The Mrs Reverend. Doctor.

  Elaine’s hundred-watt smile brightened. “Now, Howard, don’t be contrary. It’s hot and it’s good for you.” S
he stood in front of him with her hands on her hips, the gold buttons on her St. John jacket catching the light like little Christmas tree ornaments.

  Carmen watched as her father considered this directive for a moment—being used to giving directives, not taking them. Then he sighed—something else that Howard Bradshaw rarely did—and took a tentative sip. He coughed and looked up at Elaine with a poisonous expression on his face. Carmen sat up straight.

  “What the . . .” Howard swallowed and coughed again. “There’s . . . liquor in this!”

  Elaine was nonplussed. “Of course. You didn’t think that cup of green tea was going to knock that congestion out of your chest without an infantry behind it, did you?”

  Carmen turned away so she could recover her composure.

  “Elaine! I don’t drink . . . spirits. And you’re a Baptist!”

  Elaine countered with a look that said, Oh, grow up!

  Carmen wanted to hug her.

  “It’s for medicinal purposes, Howard. One tablespoon of whiskey won’t call the devil to your side. He’s too busy with that serial killer they’re tracking out in Wyoming. He doesn’t have time to try to steal your soul over one splash of Wild Turkey. Now, drink up!”

  Carmen was surprised to see her father, without another word, drink his toddy. Satisfied that her orders had been obeyed, Elaine turned around and picked up the tray to take it back into the kitchen. She winked at Carmen as she swept by, another trail of fragrance following her. This time it smelled like Shalimar mixed with Lagerfeld.

  “Dad . . .”

  Howard cleared his throat and looked up. “Yes, Daughter.”

  “Are you okay?” She couldn’t suppress a smile this time.

  Her father smiled back. “I’m fine.” He glanced toward the hallway that led to the kitchen. “You’ll have to excuse Elaine. She can be a bit strong-willed sometimes.”

  Carmen chuckled. “Dad, I’ve met five-star generals who are less formidable! But I’m glad she brought you the soup. And the hot toddy.”