Across the Table

by Linda Cardillo

  The second message was from Peter. His voice was tight, cold.

  “Toni, what the hell is going on? Vanessa called me, hysterical, that you’d abandoned her in New York to be with Bobby Templeton. Call me.”

  I started to shake. I’d done nothing the night before except listen to Bobby, but I’d underestimated how out of control Vanessa was in her reaction. That she’d called Peter and instilled in him a sense of betrayal chilled me. I didn’t know how I could have a conversation with him without revealing my own confusion about my reaction to Bobby—and to Bobby’s interjection of himself into my life. Why would I create a work of such personal meaning for him?

  I looked at the clock, hoping it would be too late to call. Almost four o’clock in the afternoon, ten in the evening in Italy. Peter had left the number of his hotel in the message and I dialed it.

  “Peter, it’s Toni. I just got home and picked up your message. I’m sorry Vanessa was so upset.”

  “What happened?”

  “I asked Miles’s assistant to take her to dinner so I could discuss a commissioned piece with Bobby.”

  “He shows up after nearly twenty years and wants you to paint a picture?” Peter’s voice was incredulous. “Is that all? If that’s what he’s telling you, I don’t believe him.”

  “I’m not naive. I know this isn’t an ordinary commission.”

  “Then why are you even considering it? I don’t understand why you’d give him anything as precious as your talent. Do you really want that? Because if you do, you’re not the woman I thought you were.”

  I didn’t have an answer.

  “I can’t talk about this over the phone, Peter. I haven’t agreed to anything. When you get home on Friday we can discuss it. I need your help to sort it out, but you’re no help if you’re going to prejudge me.”

  “Do you have any idea how angry this makes me? Not for me, but for what it could do to you. Don’t let him pull you back to where you were emotionally after he left you.”

  I didn’t tell Peter that I was dangerously close to being there already. I was a wreck. And for the first time in our marriage, I felt he didn’t understand me.

  “I’ll see you in a few days. I hope the rest of the trip goes well.” And I hung up.

  I was too agitated to sleep.

  I grabbed the keys to the studio and walked to the harbor. Once inside the studio I sat by the windows for a while just looking out to sea. I love the light that comes in through the floor-to-ceiling expanse of glass on the eastern wall. I watched as night descended on the ocean, the sky deepening from lavender to violet to indigo. When it was too dark to see the water I got up and turned on the lights.

  I made myself a pot of tea—Sleepytime. It was the only tea I drank when I was nursing and, after nineteen years, its aroma brought me right back to that time when I was the sole source of nourishment for my children. It had been so simple to meet their needs then. Hold them close, suckle them, rock them, sing to them. Vanessa’s favorite song had been “Somewhere over the Rainbow,” and I’d sung it to her constantly—in the car stuck in traffic, walking the floor with her at night.

  What could I sing to her now to reassure her?

  I paced the floor with my mug for a few minutes and then went to the bookshelf where I kept my sketchbooks. They were arranged chronologically, so it was easy to pick out the early years. I pulled two books off the shelves and sat at my workbench on a high stool, slowly turning the pages I’d created before my marriage to Bobby. I was looking for a reminder, a sign, of who I’d been back then.

  Like most of my work, the sketches were intimate portraits, attempting to capture the essence of the individuals in the lines and contours of their faces. I was startled to see how many of the sketches were of Bobby. I’d forgotten that I’d often used him as my subject. In some, his face was ravaged; the eyes staring out at me were blank. In others, he was looking away, unaware that I was sketching him, and he had a softness about his lips and his eyes, almost as if he was asleep. Perhaps he had been. When I first met him, I’d been swallowed up by his physical presence. I used to watch him, the way he moved with the confidence of a man used to being admired, his long, lean body proportioned like one of Michelangelo’s sculptures.

  It disturbed me that I still found him so physically powerful. When our marriage had begun to dissolve, his withdrawal from my bed—long before he swung his leg over his motorcycle and rode away—had been wrenching. To have that primal need reawakened was frightening.

  A chill had drifted into the studio after the sun had set; despite their modernization these old buildings were drafty, their cavernous spaces quickly dissipating the heat. Rather than turn up the thermostat, I opened the potbellied stove, built a nest of crumpled newsprint and twigs and lit a fire. We still had a small supply of logs left after the winter. With the fire going and a second cup of tea in my hand, I continued to turn the pages of my notebooks. But it wasn’t just Bobby’s face, in all its variations of mood, that I was seeking. It was the artist herself. I’d become someone else in the years since Bobby had left. The woman who’d been muffled and silenced during my marriage, constrained first by Bobby’s expectations and then by Bobby’s needs, had finally emerged after his abandonment. Why would I risk losing her?

  I finally fell asleep on the daybed, too tired to walk back home, too unsettled to resume my domestic life. I was startled by a ringing sound early in the morning and it took my groggy brain a few seconds to grasp that it was a telephone, not the alarm clock I was unsuccessfully groping for. I shivered as I put my bare feet on the floor and wrapped the quilt around me. I picked up the phone on the counter.

  “Hello?”

  “Toni? Oh, thank God that’s where you are! I worried all night when Joe told me you weren’t back.”

  “Sorry, Ma. I came over to the studio to do some work and was too exhausted to go home late at night. Didn’t mean to have you worry.”

  “Are you alone?” Her voice was sharp, expecting the worst.

  “Of course. Who else would be here?”

  “I talked to Vanessa last night when you didn’t come home. I thought maybe you’d stayed in New York with her. She told me Bobby Templeton showed up at the gallery.”

  “And you thought I was spending the night with him while my husband was away?” I was incredulous that my mother would imply such a betrayal.

  “You’re angry with me, but from what Vanessa told me you’re treading on very thin ice, Toni. Are you crazy to be jeopardizing everything you hold precious in your life?”

  “Ma, I’m not sleeping with him. I’m not even remotely considering the possibility of sleeping with him. It’s a business transaction, nothing more.”

  “Don’t be a fool, Toni. And don’t ruin your life. Come home, take a shower and remember who you are now.” And she hung up the phone.

  I wondered who else would berate me as word spread across the family that the devil himself had returned.

  I cleaned up the studio and left for home. It was only seven in the morning. Maybe my mother was right. If I got back into the rhythm of my life I’d be able to calm the storm Bobby had created in my mind. I hoped so.

  I threw myself into the frenzy of activity that I’d watched my mother and grandmother engage in when I was a girl. When trouble hits, clean and cook. I put on my jeans, pinned up my hair and prepared the house for Peter’s return, vacuuming and dusting and polishing to keep from brooding on the mess my willingness to listen to Bobby Templeton had generated.

  After I finished cleaning, I went down the street and picked up ingredients for Peter’s favorite meal—fennel and onions from the greengrocer’s, salmon filets from Giuffre’s fish market and white wine from Martignetti’s. One bottle to cook with and one bottle to drink.

  I was carrying my shopping bags up the stairs when my mother opened her door. Her arms were folded across her chest.

  “I’m happy to see you back.”

  “Just to let you know, I had every
intention of coming home.”

  “Have you talked to Vanessa since you got back from New York?”

  “Vanessa isn’t speaking to me right now, although apparently she’s had no problem airing my life to anyone who’ll listen. Who else knows? Aunt Bella in Albany? Father Dom?”

  “Toni! She’s your daughter, and this escapade of yours affects her, too!”

  “It’s not an escapade! Look, I’ve got to get the fish in the refrigerator. If you still need to tell me how terrible I am, then come upstairs instead of yelling at me on the landing.”

  “I’m not yelling at you. And I don’t think you’re a terrible person.” She was following me up the stairs, taking one of my bags.

  In my kitchen she helped put things away.

  “You’ve been cleaning.”

  “Thanks for noticing. I learned it from my mother.” I tried to smile.

  “How about a cup of tea?” She already had the kettle in her hand.

  I was going to refuse, tell her I had work to do. But I knew that sooner or later she’d manage to have this conversation with me. My mother was indefatigable. She gave up on nothing and no one.

  “Sure,” I said, and let her bustle around getting cups and tea bags.

  “Listen, sweetheart, I’m only trying to tell you what I see happening to you and what I’ve learned from what’s happened to me. I’m so proud of you! Look at what you’ve accomplished in your life. You’ve raised three wonderful children, married a man who adores you and made a name for yourself with your beautiful artwork. I see all this, the Toni sitting here at the table with me, and I compare you to the Toni of nineteen years ago, weighed down by the burdens of marriage to a selfish, immature man who didn’t love you.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but she held up her hand.

  “Don’t tell me he loved you. A man who loves doesn’t do what he did. That’s why I cannot understand why you would even listen to him, let alone do ‘business’ with him, as you put it. He has no right to even ask you!”

  I didn’t know how to answer my mother. I saw so many shades of gray where she only saw black and white. I couldn’t explain to her what I was feeling because I didn’t understand it myself. The memories of the Bobby who’d once drawn me into his orbit were jumbled together with those of the Bobby who, as my mother so accurately and painfully described, had not loved me, and the Bobby who was so deeply troubled by his mental illness and addiction to alcohol.

  “I feel pity for him.”

  “You can’t save him, Toni. You tried before. All it did was drag you down. Why do you think you can help him now? Believe me, this will bring you heartache. And it will drive a wedge between you and Peter. Even if it’s only a stupid picture. Because that won’t be enough. He’ll keep taking more. Please, sweetheart.”

  She stretched across the table to squeeze my hand.

  “I hear you, Ma. I know you’re speaking your heart, and I understand in my head what you’re saying. I’ll think about it. I promise.”

  “I’ve got to get downstairs. Why don’t you eat with us tonight? I’m making tuna and olives with polenta.”

  “Thanks, Ma. But my stomach’s upset. I’m just going to have some chicken soup and try to get a good night’s sleep. The daybed in the studio isn’t the most comfortable place to spend the night.”

  “Okay. I’m not surprised you don’t feel good. But listen, before you go to bed, call Vanessa. You may think she doesn’t want to talk to you, but she needs to hear from you.”

  She kissed me and left me alone in my darkening kitchen.

  When the phone rang, I thought it would be Peter or Vanessa and steeled myself for more lectures and outrage. But when I heard the voice on the other end, I broke into a sweat.

  It was Bobby. And he’d been drinking.

  “Toni. I needed to hear your voice. Ever since I saw you in New York you’ve been on my mind.”

  “Bobby, don’t start.” I didn’t want to hear this.

  “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. It took me a long time to understand that, but now I know. I’m not asking you to take me back into your life, but I really need you to listen to me just this once. Just for tonight.”

  “Bobby, that’s what you said the other night. I can’t give you what you’re looking for. If you were Catholic I’d tell you to go to a priest for absolution. But I can’t, I won’t, absolve you.”

  He started to sob.

  “Where are you? Can I call someone to help you?” I was concerned that he was alone, in despair.

  “I’m in Boston.”

  I went rigid. Don’t go to him, all the voices in my brain were screaming. If you step out your door, you’re stepping into hell. Do I abandon him, the way he abandoned me and the kids? I answered back. He needs help.

  And then I knew what I had to do.

  “Where in Boston?”

  “I’m at the Langham Hotel.”

  “Meet me at the bar in half an hour.”

  I hung up the phone. But instead of leaving for the hotel I dialed Mike’s number, praying he was home. He and Graham had bought and renovated a town house in the South End before gentrification—one of the many collaborations they’d successfully pulled off over their years together.

  I was relieved when he answered.

  “I need an enormous favor from you,” I said.

  “You sound like you’ve seen Nana’s ghost on the stairs. What’s the matter?”

  “Come with me on an errand. An errand of mercy. I need your moral support and I need you to help me keep my resolve.”

  “I’ve already got my jacket on. Where should I meet you?”

  I walked quietly down the stairs. I didn’t want to explain myself to my mother. Once on the street I headed toward the financial district and the hotel. When Mike arrived, I told him what I intended to do.

  “And my role in this drama?”

  “Keep me in sight and make sure I walk away when I’m finished.”

  “Do you think he might hurt you? Because if you do, I’m not letting you near him.”

  “No, he’s not dangerous in that sense. But he can suck me into his suffering—he has already—and I have to put an end to his ability to do that.”

  “Good for you. I know you’ve been getting it from all sides of the family about this. But you had to come to this decision on your own. I’ve got your back, Toni. If you start to waver, just look across the room.”

  “Thanks, Mike. I knew I could count on you. And thanks for not adding to the chorus telling me what to do. Thanks for trusting me.”

  When we got to the Langham, I went to the bar first. Mike followed a few minutes later and took a seat where he could see me and Bobby couldn’t see him.

  Bobby was grasping an old-fashioned glass filled with bourbon when I slipped into the seat across from him. He looked as if he hadn’t slept since I’d left him in New York.

  He grabbed my hand as soon as I sat down.

  “You don’t know how much this means to me, that you’ve come. You haven’t given up on me, like everyone else in my life.”

  “Bobby, I’m not in your life. I haven’t been part of your life for nineteen years. More, if you consider how isolated we were from each other at the end.”

  “But you’re here now.”

  “I’m here now to tell you what you need to hear. Not to forgive you or save you from whatever demons are clawing at your soul. Including that one.” And I pointed to his glass. “The only person who can do that is you.”

  “But I can’t do it on my own.”

  “You’re right, Bobby.”

  “I knew you’d understand.”

  “Bobby, I understand that you need help. I understand that you’re in pain. And I came here tonight to tell you that. You need help. But not from me. My artwork isn’t going to change your life. My listening to you and comforting you isn’t what you need.”

  “But you’ve already helped me, just by coming.”

  “B
obby, you need something I can’t give you. You’re an alcoholic. You suffer from depression. The forgiveness you’re seeking has to come from yourself. Get into a program. Find a doctor. You are sick. And I can’t heal you. I couldn’t when we were married and I certainly can’t now.”

  “I need you, Toni.”

  “No, Bobby. I’m not what you need. I might be a Band-Aid for some minor cut, but you’re bleeding out. Look at yourself in the mirror tonight. And then get on a plane and go home.”

  I pushed my chair back and stood.

  “Don’t go! Please.”

  “No. I’ve said what I came to say. Anything more is pointless. Listen to me. Go back to Tennessee and do whatever you must to get well.”

  “Will you do the portraits?”

  “No. Untangle your relationships with your kids in Tennessee instead of trying to preserve their images.”

  “What can I say to change your mind?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Will you write? Can I call you?”

  “No. No. When I walk out of here tonight I’m walking out of your life. I don’t belong in it. And you don’t belong in mine. Goodbye, Bobby.”

  I was on my feet and moving toward Mike.

  “Toni, stop! I love you.”

  I kept walking. Mike put himself between Bobby and me, and we headed home.

  We got to Salem Street and climbed the stairs arm in arm, as quietly as we had when we left. At the door to my place, Mike kissed me.

  “Are you okay, sis, or do you want some company?”

  “I’m fine. Set free, actually. Thanks. You’re the best.”

  “I’m just returning the favor you did for me by accepting me when I came out.” He smiled that sweet, embracing smile of his that’s always made the world seem right, and went on down the stairs.

  I called Vanessa as soon as I was in the door. The adrenaline that had propelled me to the Langham and through the conversation with Bobby was rapidly ebbing. I wasn’t sure I had enough left to break through Vanessa’s resistance and keep my own anger in abeyance at the complications she’d precipitated by bringing everyone in the family into this mess. She answered on the second ring, and the brightness in her voice disappeared the moment I spoke.