“But they never met again?”
“Nope. It was a four-decade silence . . . and they only lived seven blocks from each other. But you know what your mom was like. A cupcake with a reinforced steel filling.”
“Tell me about it. Negotiating with her was like taking on Jimmy Hoffa.”
“There you go. But though she was a hard-ass, she was also pretty damn ethical. That’s why she hinted to me that, if the story was going to be told to you, Sara would have to do it. Because it was her own unstated way of letting Sara know that she didn’t go to her grave angry at her. It was a gesture, a mitzvah. I think Dorothy’s final thought on the subject was: if I’m no longer here to worry about it, why not let her finally meet you.”
“Then why didn’t you just come out and introduce us . . .”
“Your hard-ass mom had the last word on that. ‘If that woman decides she does want to meet Kate, you must promise me that you’ll say nothing to Kate in advance. In fact, I want you to deny all knowledge of that woman. Let her figure out a way of getting in touch with Kate . . . and then see if Kate will listen to her.’ ”
I shook my head in stunned incredulity. It was a classic Mom move. Forgiveness . . . but with a little get-the-message sting as part of the overall absolution package. She always knew how to ram home a moral point—yet to mask it behind a lily-scented smoke screen of decorum and propriety. This was, without question, her final masterstroke. She understood me better than anyone. She knew—damn her—that I’d play the hard bitch and resist all attempts to meet up with some old lady I’d initially file under dotty. Just as she also knew that Sara was strong-willed enough to finally get her own way, and force a meeting. And then? Then I’d be in possession of the story—but only Sara’s version of events. Had Mom wanted to put across her point of view, she herself would have told me everything before she died. Or she would have left a long letter of explanation. Instead, for reasons I still couldn’t fathom, she chose silence . . . and the risk that I would only hear Sara’s side of the story. And this decision baffled me completely.
“You still should have warned me that a bombshell was en route in my direction,” I said.
“A promise is a promise,” Meg said. “Your mom made me swear on a stack of Gideons not to say a damn word to you. I knew you weren’t going to be a member of my fan club after Sara finally met you. But . . . what can I say? If there’s one worthwhile thing that Catholicism taught me, it was how to keep a secret.”
“Are you sure Charlie never knew?”
“Mr. Self-Pity? Even as a kid, he was too absorbed in feeling sorry for himself to ever notice anything going on around him. And since he didn’t deign to see your mom for the last fifteen years . . . Nah, Charlie-Boy was way in the dark about this. And always will be. Unless you tell him now.”
“Why would I do that? Especially as it would just reinforce all of Charlie’s beliefs about his dysfunctional heritage. And when he learned that Daddy was a rat . . .”
She suddenly turned on me. “Never, never call him that again.” Her voice was hard, angry.
“Why the hell not?” I said. “He only destroyed a couple of lives. And now—hey, presto!—back he comes to haunt mine.”
“Well, honey bun, I am so desperately sorry to hear that your fragile psyche was undermined by the discovery that your father was one complicated guy . . .”
“Complicated? He did some terrible things.”
“Yes, he did. And God, how he paid for it. Just as Sara paid for her bad calls. You don’t get through life without paying big-time for getting it wrong.”
“Tell me about it. I’m the poster child for Getting It Wrong.”
“No—you’re the poster child for self-flagellation. Which is so dumb.”
“That’s me: Ms.-Refuses-to-Be-Happy. It’s a great Malone family tradition.”
“What family isn’t screwy? What family doesn’t have some shit hidden in the attic? Big deal. But what saddens the hell out of me . . . what neither your mother nor I could ever work out . . . was why, over the past ten years, you always seemed so damn disappointed in everything. Especially yourself.”
“Because I am disappointing.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not? I’ve failed everybody: my mom, my son. Even that shit, my ex-husband. And me. I’ve really failed me.”
“You are so wrong there,” she said, trying to take my hand. I pulled it away.
“No. I’m not.”
“You know what I discovered some time ago? Everything in life is fundamentally catastrophic. But the thing is, most stories don’t end happily or tragically. They just end. And usually in something of a muddle. So as long as you know that it’s all a shambles with a definite terminus, well . . .”
“Oh, I get it. Try to be happy within the shambles?”
“Hey, is happiness a federal offense?”
“I don’t do happy.”
“You used to, you know.”
“Yeah, but that was before I started making mistakes . . .”
“With guys, you mean?”
“Perhaps.”
“Listen, I could write chapter and verse on every damn disappointment and sadness and failure I’ve suffered. So what? Terrible stuff happens to everyone. It’s the basic law of living. But so is one simple fact: you have no choice but to keep going. Am I happy? Not particularly. But I’m not unhappy either.”
I stared down into my drink. I didn’t know what to say, think, or feel anymore.
“Go home, Kate,” Meg said gently. “You need some sleep.”
“Understatement of the year,” I said, picking myself up out of the chair. She stood up as well.
“I think I’ll phone Mom’s lawyer tomorrow,” I said. “It’s time to get the will probated. Not that there’s much to probate. The way I figure it, the trust was virtually depleted by the time I finished college.”
“She used the money wisely—for you guys.”
“I never wanted anything from her.”
“Yes, you did. Like every kid, you wanted a perfect, unflawed parent. Instead, you discovered that she was a mess. Just like the rest of us.”
I put on my coat. She picked up the manuscript box and said, “Don’t forget your book.”
“It’s not my book. And how about you giving it back to her?”
“Oh no,” she said, dropping the box in my hands. “I’m not playing mailman for you.”
“I don’t want to see her.”
“Then take it to a post office and send it to her.”
“Fine, fine,” I said wearily. I hoisted the box. I reached for the front door. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” I said.
“So we are going to talk again?”
“Do we have a choice?” I said.
“Go to hell,” she said, giving me a fast, no-nonsense kiss on the cheek.
Outside Meg’s building, I hailed a cab. I gave the driver my home address. Halfway there, I told him that I had decided to change destination. We were now heading to West 77th Street.
I reached her building just after eight. I pressed her bell on the front door intercom. She answered, sounding very awake. When she heard my voice, she buzzed me in immediately. She was waiting for me in the open door of her apartment. She was as carefully dressed and poised as before.
“This is a lovely surprise,” she said.
“I’m not staying. I simply wanted to give you this.”
I handed over the box.
“You’ve read it already?” she asked.
“Yes. I’ve read it.”
We stood there, not knowing what to say next.
“Please come in,” she finally said.
I shook my head.
“Please,” she said. “Just for a moment.”
I went inside. I didn’t take off my coat. I sat down in one of her armchairs. I didn’t accept her offer of coffee or tea. I didn’t say anything for a while. And she shrewdly didn’t attempt to draw me into a conversation. She just s
at opposite me, waiting for me to speak.
“I wish I hadn’t read your book,” I finally said.
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t,” I said quietly. “You can’t begin to understand.”
Another silence. Then I said, “The Jack Malone in your book . . . that’s not the dad my mom told me about. I mean, he was Mr. Morality, Mr. Good Irish-Catholic. I always felt . . . I don’t know . . . as if, compared to him, my mom was the lesser person. Some lowly school librarian who lived this tedious life with two kids in a cramped apartment, and who was so damn constrained that no other man would ever dream of marrying her.”
“Meg told me she did go out with the occasional fellow . . .”
“Yeah—when I was growing up, she dated one or two guys. But from the midseventies onward, I don’t think there was anyone. Maybe she’d been betrayed enough by dear old dad.”
“You might be right.”
“You screwed up her life.”
She shrugged. And said, “That’s an interpretation. But it was her choice to stay with him. And that choice shaped the way her life ensued. Was it the right choice? I wouldn’t have put up with such an arrangement. I would have thrown him out. But that’s me—not your mother. So who’s to say if it was the right choice or the wrong choice. It was just a choice.”
“Just like it was your choice to be my guardian angel. ‘Someone to watch over me.’ Didn’t you have anything better to do with your life, Miss Smythe? Or were you so completely incapable of getting over the wonderful Jack Malone that you had to turn your attention to his daughter? Or, let me guess, I was your way of doing penance.”
She looked at me with a steady gaze. Her voice remained calm.
“Meg did warn me you took no prisoners . . .”
“I think I am a bit upset,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“You have a right to be. It’s a lot to take in. But just for the record: after your father died, I left journalism . . .”
“You? The writer who always needed an audience? I don’t believe it.”
“I got sick of the sound of my own typewriter . . . and my own frothy shallowness. So I moved into publishing. I was an editor at Random House for thirty-five years.”
“You never married again?”
“No—but I was never short of male company. When I wanted it.”
“So you never got over my father?”
“No one ever matched Jack. But I came to terms with it . . . because I had to. Of course, I think about your father every day. Just as I think about Eric every day. But Jack’s been dead for . . . what is it? . . . God, so many years. Eric even longer. It’s the past.”
“No, it’s your past.”
“Exactly. My past. My choices. And do you want to know something rather amusing? When I die, all that past will vanish with me. It’s the most astonishing thing about getting old: discovering that all the pain, all the drama, is so completely transitory. You carry it with you. Then, one day, you’re gone—and nobody knows about the narrative that was your life.”
“Unless you’ve told it to somebody. Or written it down.”
She smiled a small smile. “I suppose that’s true.”
“Was that the object of getting me to read this literary exercise the day after I buried my mom?” I said, pointing toward the manuscript box. “To finally let me in on a few sordid family secrets—and, in the process, share your pain?”
Oh God, listen to me. She dismissed my sarcasm with a light shrug.
“Meg and I both felt that you should read this.”
“Why did you write it?”
“I wrote it for myself. And maybe for you too . . . though I didn’t know if I’d live long enough for you to read this, and for us finally to meet.”
“You have some way of engineering a meeting, Miss Smythe. Couldn’t you have waited a bit? I mean, I only buried my mother two days ago.”
Another patrician shrug.
“I’m sorry if . . .”
“And why did you have to stalk me?”
“That wasn’t stalking. I came to the funeral because I felt I should be there, and pay my respects . . .”
“And I suppose that was you who called me at my mother’s place after the funeral . . .”
“Yes, that was me. But Meg told me you’d decided to sleep there, and I just wanted to hear your voice and make certain you were all right.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“It’s the truth.”
“Just like you expect me to believe that, while we were growing up, you really never once saw me or my brother—even though, to all intents and purposes, you were funding our education?”
“I said, I didn’t come near you. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t attend your graduation from Smith or Brearley.”
“Or didn’t see me play Sister Sarah in my school production of Guys and Dolls?”
“Yes,” she said with a slight smile. “I was there.”
“And were you sneaking glimpses at Charlie throughout his childhood as well?”
She shook her head.
“Naturally, I was pleased that the trust helped pay for his education. But I really didn’t follow his progress as closely.”
“Because he was the child who kept you from my dad?”
“Perhaps. Or maybe because you were the child I was supposed to have with your father.”
Silence. My head was swimming. I suddenly craved sleep.
“I’ve got to go. I’m very tired . . .”
“Of course you are,” she said.
I stood up. She followed.
“I’m glad we finally met, Kate,” she said.
“I’m sure you are. But I want you to know something: this is the last time we will ever do so. You’re to stay away from Ethan and myself. Is that clear?”
She remained impassive. How the hell did she manage that?
“Whatever you want, Kate,” she said.
I headed toward the door. She walked ahead of me and opened it. She touched my arm and held it.
“You’re just like him, you know.”
“You know nothing about me . . .”
“I think I do. Because I also know that, unlike your brother, you were always there for Dorothy. Just as you are still there for Meg—who utterly adores you. She just wishes you were happier.”
I gently disengaged my arm from her grip.
“I wish that too,” I said. Then I left.
TWENTY-EIGHT
AS SOON AS I was outside her building, I walked halfway up the street. Then I suddenly sat down on the steps of a brownstone until I had composed myself. A thousand and one chaotic thoughts went swirling around my brain—all of them skewed, troubled. And I couldn’t help but wonder: were these the same steps upon which my father sat down and wept when Sara told him it was over?
Another thought preoccupied me: the urgent need for sleep. I forced myself up. I found a taxi. I went home. I called Matt at his office. We had a civilized, neutral conversation. He told me that he’d taken Ethan to a Knicks game last night, and that our son was longing to see me this afternoon. I thanked Matt for looking after Ethan during the past few days. He asked me how I was doing.
I said, “It’s been a curious time.” He said, “You sound tired.” I said, “I am tired,” and mentioned that I appreciated his thoughtfulness over the past week. Matt started to say something along the lines of how he hoped we could be friends again. I said nothing, except: “No doubt we’ll be in touch about Ethan stuff.” Then I hung up the phone and climbed into bed. As I closed my eyes and waited for sleep, I thought about that wartime photo of my dad, taken by my mom when they were both stationed in England. He was young, he was smiling, he was probably thinking: in a couple of weeks, I’ll never again see the woman taking this picture. No doubt, similar thoughts were shared by that woman as she peered through the viewfinder. Here’s one for the scrapbook: my wartime fling. That’s what now so haunted me about that photo: the fact that
an entire story was about to engulf the man in the picture and the woman behind the camera. But how could they have known? How can any of us recognize that inexplicable moment which seals our fate?
The image vanished. I slept. The alarm clock woke me just before three. I got dressed and walked over to collect Ethan from school. En route, I found myself once again trying to make sense of Sara’s story. Once again, I failed—and instead started feeling overwhelmed by just about everything. When Ethan came bounding out of Allen-Stevenson’s front door, he quickly searched the crowd of parents and nannies. Finding me, he smiled his shy smile. I bent down to kiss him. He looked up at me with worry.
“What’s wrong, Ethan?” I asked.
“Your eyes are all red,” he said.
I heard myself say: “Really?”
“Have you been crying?”
“It’s Grandma, that’s all.”
We started walking toward Lexington Avenue.
“You’ll be home tonight?” he asked me. I could hear the anxious edge to his voice.
“Not just tonight. I told Claire she didn’t have to come in until Monday. So I’ll also be picking you up at school tomorrow. Then we’ll have the whole weekend to hang out, and do whatever you want.”
“Good,” he said, taking my hand.
We stayed in that night. I helped Ethan with his homework. I made hamburgers. We horse-traded: after he agreed to play two games of Snakes and Ladders with me, I granted him thirty minutes on his Game Boy. We popped popcorn and watched a video. I unwound for the first time in weeks. Only once was there a moment of sadness . . . when Ethan, snuggled up against me on the sofa, turned and said, “Can we go see the dinosaurs after school tomorrow at the museum?”
“Whatever you want.”
“Then can we all watch a movie here tomorrow night?”
“You mean, you and me? Sure.”
The Douglas Kennedy Collection #1 Page 60
