“Oh.” The extremity and, what was it—resignation? or defeat?—of her tone startled him. “What, is he sick?”
Jenny’s gaze froze on him.
Neil felt his stomach drop.
“He has cancer. Advanced renal cancer.”
“Jesus.
“I’m sorry,” Neil added after a moment, the shock of the information sounding through him.
Jenny seemed to draw herself together and sit up straighter against the wall. “I’m giving him an arsenal of pills every four hours, and keeping track of the appointments and the insurance, and going to work every morning, and I can’t—I can’t deal with you going psycho. Look at me, Neil.”
Even across the room, across the dark, he could see the steely brightness of her eyes.
“I’m sorry I didn’t…prevent this situation with your job. I really, truly am, and I will do my best to undo that. But you can’t do this. You can’t show up in the middle of the night in Colin’s bedroom. Whatever you want, Neil,” she enunciated very slowly and deliberately. “Just ask me. Visiting rights. Money. Whatever. Email me. Sue me. Just. Don’t. Be. Crazy.”
Carefully, she rose and, with some struggle to make her motions smooth, slid up the doorframe just as she had slid down. On her shoulder the baby stirred—lifted his little head and made a whimpering sound.
“I will break, Neil. I will.” And the way she said it—fiercely, hair wild, and eyes flashing—he believed her. And he was afraid. She was unbreakable. No one would want to see her fall apart.
The sound of sirens in the distance was growing louder. Neil stood, lurching slightly to his feet. And then suddenly there was Jeremy, standing in the doorway of the bedroom.
“What’s going on?” he said, flicking on the overhead light, which threw the room suddenly into the weird relief of the ordinary. And at the threshold of this was Jeremy himself: shockingly gaunt and unhealthy-looking. He wore a gray terry-cloth robe that hung from his body, and leather slippers. He was still—as Neil remembered him—strikingly tall.
“Don’t worry,” Jenny said hastily, wiping a hand over her eyes. “It’s okay—you should be sleeping.”
Jeremy looked from her to Neil. And under his gaze, Neil was filled with an overwhelming shame. His own malcontent, his own sorrows and bitterness, and whatever else had led him here—what were they in comparison to this? The man was dying. He was standing there, knowing he would probably die.
“What are you doing here?” Jeremy said simply.
“I just—I wanted—” Neil began, the words sticking in his throat. “I made a mistake.”
“He broke in,” Jenny said, a certain hardness returning to her voice.
The blare of the sirens was approaching.
“To do what?” Jeremy asked, his eyes boring into Neil.
“I don’t know. Just…to see him—honest to God. I just wanted to…see him.”
There was the violent crunch of wheels on the gravel drive, and in Jenny’s arms Colin began once again to cry.
“Tell them to go,” Jeremy said, looking at Jenny, who nodded without blinking. She extended the crying baby to Jeremy. Despite his frailty, he held the child easily, and in his arms Colin hushed immediately.
There was pounding on the door downstairs and then the sound of it opening, the blare of police radios, and, quietly between these, Jenny’s voice.
“I’m sorry,” Neil began again, shifting his weight. “I’ll get out of your hair—and you don’t have to worry that I’ll come back—that I’ll—”
“No,” Jeremy interrupted. “Let’s sit down,” he said. “When they go.”
There was the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs. Of course the cops would not just take off. Neil knew enough about cops to know that. And weirdly there was some part of Neil that wanted them to take him, lock him up, make him atone for his transgression.
“I think it’s time we talked,” Jeremy said, shifting the baby, who seemed suddenly preternaturally calm, looking around with wide eyes, almost, in fact, like the Sphinx.
7
THE FIRST THING LAURA DID when she hung up the phone was bend all the way over and let the blood rush to her head. Then she considered whether the horrible washing feeling in her stomach was going to make her throw up.
Neil was losing his mind. Clearly. But that was not what made her so sick. He was “sleeping with some twit” in Jenny’s office. That had been only a grain of the outlandish events Jenny had relayed, but Laura had remained stuck on it. That, in all probability, while he was fucking her, he had been also fucking this other woman, or girl, really—Laura imagined a perky-breasted teenager, sly and blond and completely oblivious to the blights of stretch marks or cellulite. Or worse, he had begun fucking this girl in the middle of his affair with her and the comparative pleasure of her nubile young flesh had been responsible for his disappearance from Laura’s romantic life.
In the face of this, the lull that had settled over Laura’s own attraction to Neil seemed unimportant. She had been cast off, rejected, abandoned for someone with a better ass. It stung piteously.
Laura dragged herself upstairs through the suddenly very quiet, very lonely house to shower. It was midmorning: Genevieve was at her summer camp and Miranda and Kaaren were at the park. Under the steaming water Laura ran her hands over her body. It had borne two children and survived. Every month it readied her uterus for more children, dependably, even hopefully. And it was still beautiful—the slope of her breasts was longer, but still lovely, the nipples still small and pink and delicately ridged. Her hips were broader than they had been when she was twenty, but her legs were lean and strong and agile—from what? Climbing the stairs? Pressing the accelerator? In the face of vast neglect, they were holding up valiantly.
Neil had been fired. And he had broken in—broken in!—to Jenny’s house to see the baby. Clearly he was losing it. She had been on to something when she brought this up with Chrissy and Elise. Even in her cloud of hurt, she began to feel worried.
She went through the day in state of distraction, picking Genevieve up from camp and facilitating a playdate with her manipulative friend June, managing Miranda’s tantrums, microwaving edamame and mac and cheese. Kaaren had the afternoon off for the weaving workshop she was obsessed with and Laura missed her usual competent, if joyless, presence in the house.
Getting into bed alone—Mac was not due home until the end of the weekend—she tried to read the paper (never mind that it was yesterday’s).
When finally she dropped the pretense of reading and allowed herself to simply lie in bed in the darkness and think, she was surprised at how quickly sleep overcame her. She was more tired, apparently, than she had realized.
She dreamt about Neil. An awful, unsettling dream in which he appeared on her doorstep looking like death: pale and gaunt and slightly wild-eyed. He seemed to have been stabbed or somehow otherwise wounded. Let me see—can I get you something? A bandage? Should we call the hospital? She had asked, but he wouldn’t let her see what was the matter. He had made a great effort to see her, but was now frustratingly silent.
It reminded her of the dreams she’d had after her mother died—dreams of return, in which her mother came back, hair hanging loose around her shoulders and exaggerating the girlishness that had clung to her even in the final days of her life. And Laura would be overjoyed to see her, but then would realize all was not well. That her mother was dying, or was already dead, and that the great, uncomfortable effort to make herself present had completely exhausted her. Mama, Laura would say, reaching out, trying to hug her, please don’t go. Stay.
It was a worrisome version of this sadness that drove her, the next morning, to turn onto Storrow Drive after dropping Genevieve off at camp, instead of heading back home to finish her now-overdue contribution to The Beacon. She made her way along the wide, congested stretch of Brookline Avenue that ran alongside the big hospitals—Beth Israel, Children’s, the Brigham—and had a flash of Jenny and Jeremy, up there
somewhere, behind one of the giant floor-to-ceiling windows. What would Jenny do if he died? Would she meet someone new? Or go through life a single mother? And what about Colin? What must Jeremy think or feel when he looked at this baby, who in all probability would never really know him?
And then she was in Jamaica Plain. She parked the car opposite Neil’s triple-decker, dug her hands deep into her pockets, and crossed the street. At the door, she pressed the buzzer and waited with a growing sense of anxiety. Neil’s car was on the street—she could see it just a little way down the block. He was home—she was sure. What if—She did not allow herself to finish the thought. But then, just as she was groping in her bag for her cell phone to try calling as well, there was the creak of floorboards and, yes, it was Neil, traipsing down the stairs clad in jeans and a T-shirt and looking reassuringly normal.
“Lo!” he said, turning the multitude of locks and opening the door. “What are you doing here?”
“I just—wanted to see if you were okay,” she said. It was cool out despite the fact that it was nearly the Fourth of July. The wan sun had disappeared behind a cloud and Laura hugged her arms tightly around herelf.
“Ahh.” Neil sighed and ran a hand over his stubbly hair. “So you talked to Jenny.”
Laura nodded.
“Come up.” He titled his head. “I have…water I can offer you.”
Upstairs, the sight of Neil’s packed bags greeted her: two scrappy duffels and a backpack resting on the floor of the hallway.
“What’s this?” she asked. “Are you going somewhere?”
Neil disappeared into the kitchen without answering. “Water?” he asked, when she followed him in.
“Are you leaving?”
Neil leaned against the counter—the same counter, it occurred to her, where they had had their first kiss. There was not even a vestige of that excitement left.
“Is that surprising?” Neil countered.
Laura accepted the water he held out and sat down. “Did you—you lost your job?”
“Nah—they apologized. Jenny called them or something. I could go back.”
“But you don’t want to.”
“Fuck that.”
She stared at him for a moment.
“Was this just a total disaster for you—this return…home?”
Neil looked back at her directly. “No,” he said. “No it wasn’t.”
They were silent for a moment, and from down in the yard there was the sound of the dog—of Amos—barking his signature high-pitched yelp.
“He’s not on your watch this time, is he?” Laura said.
Neil shook his head.
“What a drama queen.”
Neil smiled. “You’re a good person, to come check on me, Lo.”
Laura squinted her eyes at him. “Especially since I heard about the marketing girl,” she said.
Neil blanched. “Galena?”
“Is that what her name is?”
“God.” Neil slapped his forehead. “That was a mistake. I’m an idiot. It meant nothing, you know—just—”
Laura waved this away. “Don’t. Don’t.”
“Lo.” Neil crouched down in front of her, reminding her again of that first afternoon, what seemed like so long ago. “If I were another person—”
“Stop.”
Neil hung his head and then finally rose and then dropped into the other green and chrome dinette-set chair.
Laura smiled. “So were you even going to say goodbye if I hadn’t come here?”
Neil hesitated. “I wanted to write.”
“Of course.” Outside, Amos finally stopped yapping.
“And Jenny?” she ventured. “And Colin—are you going to try to get some kind of custody…?”
Neil shook his head. “Look at me, Lo. What would a baby want with me?”
“Anything, Neil. You’re a good—”
“Jenny’s a good mother,” Neil cut her off. “You were right. She’s…Jenny, but she loves him. And he already has a father. I just wanted to see him.”
Laura regarded him closely. There was something different about him. He looked sad, but also calmer somehow—less animated by reaction and impulse.
“Will you keep in touch with them—with him?”
“Yeah,” Neil said thoughtfully. “I want…” he seemed to grope about for a moment, and then looked squarely at her. “I want to make something out of myself—do something he can be proud of.”
Laura nodded, the thought of her own girls—her own sweet babies—creeping in around the edges of her mind. “That’s a noble idea.”
For a moment they were silent.
“He’s of the future, Lo. I’m of…”
“The past?”
“No.” Neil shook his head. “The sidelines.”
Laura considered this. “Where does that leave me?”
Neil regarded her carefully. “The past.”
She had asked this lightly. But it ushered in a crushing sense of sadness. The past. She was like Laura Ingalls Wilder or something, the typewriter, the phonograph, a ghost…
There was screech of brakes outside the window, followed by shouting.
“Well. I should be going,” she said, standing, when she was sure her voice would not fail her.
“Thanks for coming, Lo,” Neil said, as they walked down the long creaky hall to the door. “Thank you for everything—I’m sorry I dragged you down with me—because you deserve—” He smiled and shook his head inscrutably. “I mean, I want you to be happy, I wish I could have made you happy.”
And in one of those rare moments of grace that usually only arrived to her afterward in the form of regret, Laura put a hand to his lips. “You did,” she said, half truthfully. “Take care of yourself.” She looked him full in the eyes. “You’re worth it.”
Letting herself into her house, she was surprised to see Mac’s briefcase and suit jacket in the entryway. It was only Friday—she had not expected him until Sunday. A rush of guilt and the fear that somehow she had been found out darted through her, quickening her heartbeat. From upstairs there was the sound of Kaaren reading a story to Miranda before her nap.
Laura walked down the hall into the kitchen looking for her husband. She had been doing errands, she prepped herself guiltily. No—there was nothing to show for this—she had had a doctor’s appointment. A routine checkup.
But Mac was not in the kitchen. He was not in the living room either. He had gone upstairs, maybe. Laura was starting toward the stairs when she saw a movement from the library—the darkest, most unfinished-looking room in their house, embarrassingly light on books. Mac was standing just inside the threshold of this, his back to her.
“You’re home!” Laura said nervously, and he turned. There were deep circles under his eyes—he had been working hard. And the fatigue somehow made his face softer, or more thoughtful than usual.
“The deal collapsed.”
“With the developer?”
Mac nodded.
“Oh, no! I’m sorry.” Laura rose onto her tiptoes to give him a kiss.
“It’s bad,” he said. “The market’s collapsing all over. It’s not just us.”
Laura felt a chill of premonition. Was this how the end began? Bad news in the paper. Bad news from Mac’s work. Mac home at noon. Was this the beginning of that time she had become convinced was around the corner—that time when they would need to grow their own food in the backyard, and use their fireplaces for heat rather than pleasure? When even Americans like the Eliases would know insecurity and want?
How bad? she was about to ask Mac. What kind of bad? when he spoke.
“It’s really coming along,” he said. And Laura followed his gaze to her tapestry. She had forgotten it was there. Last night when she had finished her obsessive work on it in the wee hours of the morning she had spread it over the back of the library couch.
“Kind of,” she said. And for a moment they stood side by side, looking. It was beautiful.
&
nbsp; “Kind of funny to think of why your mom picked that out, isn’t it? That picture?” Mac said thoughtfully.
Laura looked up to read his expression. It was genuinely contemplative.
She put a hand on his back, which felt warm and firm through the thin shirt cloth. “I guess it was just what she wanted to look at,” she said.
And for a moment she felt as if she and Mac were on the same side of a great divide, looking across. In a flash she recognized how strange this was—how usually she felt she was on the other side of this chasm from him, not alone, but with her mother, the two of them a unit sufficient enough to render real connection with anyone else unnecessary. It was like discovering that the person you had been talking with, you had been thinking was right beside you as you walked down a crowded street, had somehow ducked off and been replaced by a stranger. But this stranger had a trustworthy face. Reliable, strong, beleaguered.
Tentatively she reached over and took his hand.
8
THIS WAS WHAT JENNY HAD PICTURED for Colin’s first birthday party: fifty or sixty people, a giant lion-shaped cake from Party Favors, mimosas and Bellinis, and a paid performer of some sort—the guy who played ukelele or that guitar-playing clown. There were going to be gold and silver balloons (the Mylar kind that were not a choking hazard) and flowers from Winston’s.
Instead, the party consisted of Elise and Laura and their families, Maria, and Jenny’s mother. The cake was one she had snagged last minute at the Market Basket. There weren’t even balloons.
From up here at Colin’s changing table, she could look out the window onto the back lawn, where everyone was hanging out. Maria was setting out paper plates and plastic utensils, Elise and Laura were enmeshed in conversation, Mac was on the grass, crawling around with Miranda on his back. In the corner of the terrace, Chrissy sat at the edge of a chaise lounge, elbows on her knees, leaning into her conversation with Jeremy. Jeremy himself was reclining on the matching chaise, a light blanket over his legs. Jenny could not see his face, which was hidden under a baseball cap. The chemo had given him an awful raised and pimply red rash: he had to block every possible ray of sun.
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