“I’ve got other things on my mind right now.”
Dad pursed his lips and nodded. There it was—the elephant in the living room; the thing we both kept trying to avoid dealing with.
“I still haven’t heard from her, Dad . . . and it’s only two weeks until Christmas.”
He looked distinctly uncomfortable.
“I’ll talk to her again.”
When I didn’t hear from him for another week Dan advised me to call my mom and see if some sort of reconciliation (without apology) was possible.
“At least you can console yourself with the thought that you tried to make peace with her,” Dan said.
He did have a point, and though I completely dreaded the thought of phoning, I bit the bullet and made the call the next morning.
“Hello?”
Her voice—loud, no-crap—jolted me. My voice, on the other hand, was shaky and low.
“Mom, it’s Hannah.”
“Yeah?”
That was it. A flat, indifferent monosyllable, drenched in contempt. The phone shook in my hand. I forced myself to speak.
“I was just wondering if we could talk?”
“No,” she said. And the line went dead.
Half an hour later, I was in Margy’s room, my eyes red from all the crying I had done en route from my apartment.
“Fuck her,” Margy said.
“That’s easy for you to say.”
“You’re right—it is easy for me to say. But I’ll say it again: fuck her. She has absolutely no right treating you this way.”
“Why are our parents so completely insane?” I asked.
“I think it has something to do with failed expectations,” Margy said. “Plus the fact that, in America, we’re all supposed to have these perfect families. Ozzie-and-fucking-Harriet: that’s the role model . . . even though Lizzie Borden is closer to the truth. I tell you, there’s no way I’m doing the kid thing . . .”
“You can’t know that now.”
“Oh yes I can. Just as I can also tell you that I truly hate my mother.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not? It’s true. And the reason I loathe her is because she’s made it so clear over the years that she completely loathes me. Like don’t you hate your mother for the stunt she’s pulled?”
“Hate is a horrible word.”
“That’s the difference between you and me. You do this Emily Dickinson thing . . . always hiding your real feelings behind this veneer of New England gentility . . . whereas I am Manhattan Direct. And if I were you, I’d tell that witch where to get off, arrange to have Christmas Day with Dan, and let her stew by herself in her own venom on the day.”
I actually took Margy’s advice and went home with Dan to Glens Falls. Before we left, Dan counseled me to make one final pre-Christmas stab at fence mending . . . without uttering the two words she insisted on hearing from me.
“I know what’s going to happen,” I told him.
“Yeah, but there’s an outside chance that the thought of you not being home for Christmas might just break down the wall she’s put up between you two.”
“Her vanity—her pride—is more important to her right now.”
“You’ll feel better for giving it another shot.”
“You said that the last time, Dan.”
“Then don’t call.”
I stood up and went to the phone and dialed home. Mom answered. “Yeah?”
“I just wanted to wish you Merry Christmas . . .” I said.
“That’s two days from now.”
“Yeah, but as I’m not welcome at the house right now . . .”
“That’s your decision.”
“No, that’s your decision, Mom.”
“And I’ve got nothing to say to you until you apologize. So when you’re ready to apologize, call me.”
“Why are you being so fucking unreasonable?” I yelled.
Her tone remained cool, almost amused. “Because I can be.” And she hung up.
I threw down the phone, stormed into our bedroom, and fell down on the bed. Dan came in and put his arms around me.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have . . .”
“Don’t apologize for her asshole behavior. You’re not at fault here.”
The day before we left for Glens Falls, Dad called and asked if he could stop by the apartment around noon. I told him Dan would be out, but I’d certainly be here. When he showed up, he had a couple of wrapped packages under one arm, as well as a bottle of something in a brown paper bag.
“Beware of professors bearing gifts,” he said with a smile. I gave him a hug. We went upstairs.
“How about an eggnog?” I asked, moving to the fridge.
“I’ve got something a little more appropriate,” he said and handed me the brown bag. I opened it. Inside was a cold bottle of champagne.
“Wow,” I said, studying the label. “Moët et Chandon. It looks expensive.”
Dad just smiled. He opened the bottle with great assurance. I watched him ease the cork out, thinking: My dad is so elegant, so poised. No wonder this Molly Stephenson flipped over him. He had such presence, such class. And though I had vowed to fight all negative thoughts so close to Christmas, I couldn’t help but see my mom as an ogre who’d trapped him, and with whom he was only staying out of a deep sense of loyalty.
“Penny for them?” he asked.
“Nothing . . .” I said, trying to sound nonchalant.
“It’s Dorothy, isn’t it?”
“Are you surprised?”
“Hardly. But you know she’s hurt herself too . . . to which I say: too damn bad. But as I really don’t think talking about your mad mother is going to do either of us much good, my suggestion is: let’s drink the champagne.”
My first sip of champagne told me: this is one of life’s true pleasures. My second sip convinced me: I really must go to Paris next year.
Dad must have read my thoughts, as he said, “Another reason to spend your junior year in France is that it will so enhance your palate when it comes to life’s more epicurean pleasures”—Dad always got terribly loquacious when tipsy—“and you will discover why all smart Americans love Paris. In Paris, you can be a true libertine . . . and no one will criticize you for it. On the contrary, they’ll approve.”
“Why didn’t you stay, Dad?” I asked.
“That’s a question I’ve often asked myself. There was even a teaching post in American history opening up at the Université de Paris. But . . . I had a thesis to defend back at Harvard, and there was a big part of me that felt I really couldn’t be a professional expat. If America was my subject, my argument, I really needed to be in the thick of it . . . especially during the darkest part of McCarthyism, when our essential liberties were—”
He broke off, refilled his glass, then downed the champagne in one long go.
“Will you listen to me, making excuses for myself. I came back to America because I lost my nerve. And I also felt I had to prove something to my father by finishing the Harvard doctorate. Imagine turning down a job at Princeton just to get back at your old man; just to show him that you didn’t need his idea of respectability.”
I had heard about him turning down Princeton before, but in the past the story had been told in a triumphant manner: Dad against the establishment; Dad the maverick who didn’t need the Ivy League professorship. Now . . .
“But look at what you’ve achieved here in Vermont. I mean, you’re famous . . .”
“As an ephemeral radical, maybe. But as soon as this war ends, my fifteen minutes of fame will evaporate with it . . . and no bad thing either.”
“But how about the Jefferson book?”
“That was ten years ago, Hannah, and I haven’t published a damn thing since then. Which is my own damn fault. Dispersion of energies—better known as spreading oneself too thin. And the truth is: I’ve started three other books since the Jefferson tome. Just couldn’t sustain them. Another
loss of nerve, I’m afraid.”
“Dad, aren’t you being a little hard on yourself?”
“Sorry for myself is more like it. Sorry for inflicting it on you.”
“You’re not inflicting anything on me. I’m really pleased we can talk.”
He took my hand, squeezed it, then took a deep breath. We finished the champagne. Dad stood up and said, “I best get back home.”
“I’ll miss you on Christmas Day.”
“Not as much as I’ll miss you.”
For the next six months I adjusted to Mom’s absence from my life. Though I was baffled, hurt, and furious about her behavior, another part of me simply missed her. Why did she have to ruin everything on a point of pride? Why was she so determined to bend me to her will? I knew the answer to those questions. She’d given it to me already: Because I can.
And unless I said, “I’m sorry . . .”
Oh, to hell with it.
I maintained that point of view through winter and spring. I also kept myself busy, throwing myself into all my classes (I particularly loved Balzac—his novels were all about the destructiveness of families), and hanging out a great deal with Margy at the Union, smoking cigarette after cigarette. Since Christmas, my onetime occasional smoking habit had turned serious. When Dan first noticed I was now puffing away heavily, all he asked was, “How many a day?”
“Around twenty.”
He just shrugged and said: “Your call.”
Even though he mightn’t have approved, he wasn’t going to lecture me on the dangers of cigarettes . . . especially as half the students in med school smoked during class.
Margy, of course, was exultant about the fact that I was now a serious smoker.
“I knew they’d hook you eventually.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“You’re so straight, you need one bad habit. And the best news is, when you get to Paris next year, you’ll fit right into the café scene. The way I hear it, most French parents give their kids a pack of Gauloises when they’re twelve and tell them to get on with it.”
I stubbed out my cigarette and lit another.
“I don’t think I’m going to Paris next year,” I said.
Now it was Margy’s turn to stub out her cigarette. Then she looked at me with a mixture of dismay and disapproval.
“You serious?” she said.
I avoided her accusatory gaze.
“I’m afraid so,” I said.
“Dan didn’t stop you, did he?”
On the contrary, Dan was fully supportive of my semester in France, telling me that he’d come over for Thanksgiving, and that living in Paris really was something I should do.
“You know he wouldn’t pull something like that,” I told Margy.
“So you stopped yourself.”
It wasn’t a question, it was a statement of fact . . . and wholly accurate. No one had pressured me, or dropped subtle hints, or made me feel as if I was endangering anything by going away. No, it was me myself I who talked myself out of my junior year abroad—and it largely centered on one deep-rooted fear: if I buzzed off to Paris, Dan would drop me. I knew this was an absurd fear, both self-punishing and stupid. But I couldn’t stop it from taking hold of me. Fear is a curious thing. Once it has you in its grip, it is hard to shake off. Naturally, I should have talked to Dan directly about all my worries, but every time I was about to bring the subject up, another fearful thought crossed my mind: if you confess you’re worried he’ll leave you, then he will leave you.
So I waited until the application deadline for the Paris program had passed, then told Dan of my decision. He wasn’t disappointed. A little surprised, perhaps, as I reeled off a prepared list of lame justifications, culminating with, “And, of course, I’d miss you.” And I reached out to ruffle his hair.
“But you shouldn’t let that keep you here. Like I said before, I would have come over for Thanksgiving. We’d only have been apart for around twelve weeks . . . which is really nothing.”
Oh God, I knew he’d be so reasonable.
“Why don’t we plan to do Europe the summer we both graduate?” I said.
“That’s cool, but I don’t want you to feel that you’re staying here for my benefit, or out of some weird fear that I wouldn’t be here when you got back. Because you know that just wouldn’t happen . . .”
“I know that,” I lied. “But really, my mind’s made up . . . and it’s for the best.”
He studied me carefully. I could tell that he was bemused by my decision; that he just didn’t buy it, and was wondering why the hell I’d made it. But, in true Dan style, he didn’t push for a further explanation.
“Your call,” he said.
Dad, however, went right to the heart of the matter. We were in our usual booth in the diner when I told him.
“This is because of her, isn’t it?”
“Not entirely, Dad.”
“I wish I could believe that,” he said.
“Does it matter?”
“Actually, it does.”
His tone was stern, peeved. My nervousness—already extreme—amplified.
“I just don’t think it’s the right moment to go to Paris.”
“Oh that is such bullshit, Hannah.”
I was stunned by the ferocity of his response.
“You’re making a decision which is all about security at a time in your life when the last thing you should be thinking about is security.”
“Don’t you dare lecture me about security,” I said, suddenly angry. “Especially after the games you’ve been playing . . .”
I stopped myself. “Sorry,” I said quietly, pulling a cigarette out of my pack.
“I probably deserved it,” he said.
“No, you didn’t. But I certainly haven’t deserved the crap that’s been heaped on me for the last few months either. And if Mom was a little happier . . .”
“Your mother has never been happy. Never. So please, do not think that, if I were making her happy, she would never have turned on you like this. She turns on everyone eventually. You can’t win with her. And that’s why I’m leaving her.”
That last sentence caught me unawares. I tensed.
“Do you really mean that?” I asked.
He nodded, keeping his gaze firmly level with mine.
“Does she know yet?”
“I’m going to tell her at the end of the semester. I know it’s another six weeks, but I want the explosive repercussions to happen when there’s nobody around.”
“Is it the other woman?”
“I’m not leaving Dorothy because of her. I’m leaving because our marriage is no longer tenable . . . because she’s impossible to be with.”
“But will this other woman be coming up here to live with you?”
“Not immediately. There will need to be a certain cooling-down period—and, quite frankly, I don’t want tongues to wag any more than they will once the news gets out. And I need to ask you something . . .”
“I know: don’t tell anyone. As if I would . . .”
“You’re right, you’re right. It’s just . . .”
“You don’t have to explain, Dad. But I need to ask you a favor in return: don’t drop the bombshell until after Dan and I have headed to Boston for the summer. I doubt she’d contact me, but I just don’t want to be around when things turn ugly.”
“You have my word about that. And I won’t bring up Paris again . . .”
“Even though you think I’m making a huge mistake.”
He smiled.
“That’s right. Even though I think you’re making a huge mistake.”
Dad didn’t make any further mention of his plans in the weeks leading up to final exams and summer vacation. When my grades came in—two A-, one B+, one B—he took me out for a final lunch a few days before I left town.
He knew that I had found work at a private school in Brookline that gave summer remedial courses, and that I’d be making a whopping $80 a week, wh
ich struck me as a small fortune. And he knew that we’d managed to rent the same sublet apartment we’d had last year.
“Can you give me the number again?” he asked quietly. “I may be calling you in a couple of days.”
A week later, the phone rang at around three in the morning. It was Dad, his voice terse, frightened, almost otherworldly.
“Your mother tried to commit suicide,” he said. “She’s in intensive care here at the Fletcher Allen Hospital, and they don’t expect her to make it.”
We were dressed and in Dan’s car within fifteen minutes. Driving north, we said nothing. Dan sensed that the last thing I wanted to do right now was talk. And to his infinite, amazing credit, he left me alone with my thoughts. I chain-smoked on the three-hour drive north, staring blankly out the window, trying to fathom what had happened—and how I could have stopped it.
We drove straight to the hospital. Dad was in the waiting room adjoining Intensive Care. He was slumped in a chair, staring down at the linoleum, a lit cigarette in a corner of his mouth. He didn’t embrace me, or burst into tears, or even take my hand. He just looked up at me and quietly said, “I should never have told her.”
I put my arm around him. Dan caught my eye, nodded toward the door, and left the room.
“What exactly happened?” I asked.
“A few days ago, I finally got up the nerve to say I’d be moving out—that I didn’t want to be married to her anymore. Her reaction threw me. I was expecting screaming and shouting. Instead, I got silence. She didn’t want to know any details, any reasons, or whether Molly was waiting in the wings. All she said was, ‘Fine. I’ll expect you to be packed up and gone by Friday.’
“The next forty-eight hours, I hardly saw her. She left me notes—Will be sleeping in the spare room . . . Don’t take anything that isn’t yours with you . . . My lawyer will be calling yours next week—but assiduously avoided me. Then, around six last night, I came home and found her slumped in the car in the garage. At first I couldn’t see her—because the car was full of smoke. She’d also managed to tape the gap in the window shut—so she was obviously very serious about doing the job properly. If I had shown up fifteen minutes later . . .
“Anyway, I managed to get her out of the car, then called 911, and kept doing mouth to mouth until the ambulance showed up. They took over and . . .”
The Douglas Kennedy Collection #1 Page 116
