Between Husbands and Friends

by Thayer, Nancy

  “He’s in his office,” Dora said.

  “I know the way.” I smiled at her and walked confidently on by.

  Max’s office was divided from the rest of the large room by glass walls; I could see him bent over a filing cabinet. I knocked and entered at the same time, and once in the room, I shut the door firmly behind me.

  He looked over his shoulder, saw me, and turned so sharply that he hit his knee on the filing cabinet.

  “Lucy. Are you all right?”

  “Of course I’m all right. I just wanted to talk with you a moment.”

  He looked wary. “Sure. Sit down.” He gestured at a scarred wooden desk chair.

  I sat, moving the chair slightly to position it so that my back was to the outer office. “Could you sit, too?” I asked, smiling.

  Max went to the wide leather chair behind his desk, the only other chair in the room. He leaned forward, arms folded on his blotter. The sleeves of his red-and-white-striped shirt were rolled up to the elbows. He wore a white cotton sweater vest. A blue bow tie. But his beard was about three inches long now, and ragged.

  I tried to be positive. “You look patriotic today.”

  “Do I?” He looked down at his tie. “I guess I do. What’s up?”

  “Max, I want you to go to Nantucket with me in August.”

  He blinked. “That’s why you came in here today?”

  “We don’t seem to be able to talk much at home.”

  “Honey, listen—”

  “No, Max. You listen. What you’re doing isn’t fair.”

  “What I’m doing?”

  “Working all the time. Ignoring me. Shutting me out.”

  “Come on, Lucy. By now you should know that working all the time goes with the territory of—”

  “You haven’t talked to me, really talked to me, since Maxwell died.”

  “This is hardly the place—”

  “You haven’t held me, we haven’t made love—”

  “This is not the place for such a personal discussion!” His face flushed red with anger and embarrassment.

  “It seems to be the only place,” I calmly pointed out. “You never talk to me at home.”

  “All right. I’ll talk to you at home. But not here. Not now.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Tonight.” His mouth thinned into a exasperated line.

  “Max.” I leaned forward and spoke softly. “Max, I love you. I need you. Margaret needs you. I won’t let you go into another depression. I can’t.”

  He rose. “Not here, Lucy.”

  I sat firm, crossing my legs, folding my arms over my chest, glaring at him. He sat down again. “I’m not depressed.”

  “Not here, you’re not. Here you’re managing just fine, here you’ve barricaded yourself from your emotions with all this, this—” I waved my arm to indicate the glass walls, the activity in the outer office. “But at home you’re another person. You’re silent and miserable and closed off. It’s hurting Margaret. It’s hurting me.”

  “I have a reason to be miserable.”

  “So do I. But life has to go on. For our daughter if not for each other.”

  We stared at each other, deadlocked.

  Max’s shoulders sagged. He rubbed his hand over his jaw. “What do you want me to say? I’ll try.”

  “I think you should see a therapist.”

  “I said I’d try, Lucy. I don’t need a damned therapist.”

  “I want you to promise to stay with us a full week on the island. You need to lie in the sun and build sand castles with Margaret. You need to sail with Chip.”

  “You think it’s going to be that easy? A week on Nantucket?”

  “I didn’t say it was going to be easy. And if you don’t think a week on Nantucket will help, then why are you so dead set against seeing a therapist?”

  “A therapist won’t bring back my son.”

  I looked down at my hands. My son, too, I thought. I wanted to say a hundred different things to my husband, but all I could think of was that Maxwell had had curly black hair, like Max’s. Even in his newborn state, he had resembled Max clearly. His loss shot through me like an arrow of grief.

  I leaned forward. “Max,” I whispered. “Help me. I can’t do this alone.”

  He looked away. He cleared his throat and swallowed. I wanted him to come around the desk and hold me. He had not been able to hold me since Maxwell’s birth. “All right,” he said at last. “I’ll try.”

  His phone rang and he snatched it up.

  I sat a little longer, regaining my calm, until I could walk back out through the office, dry-eyed.

  August 17, 1998

  Margaret has made lasagna. The house smells of garlic and olives, a hearty aroma, a comforting one. Jeremy runs straight through the house to his sister.

  “I’m going to get an aquarium!”

  “Cool.” Margaret picks her brother up and carries him to the stove. “Look what I made for you.”

  “When can we eat?”

  “We were just waiting for you to come home.”

  “The plates are on,” Abby says, coming in from the dining room. She’s carrying a tray with the worldly ease of someone who works as a waitress when she isn’t in school. “Now what?”

  “Give everyone glasses,” Margaret tells her, and Abby hastens to obey. Our two families are tangled with skeins of idolatry: Jeremy adores Abby, who admires and copies Margaret, who in turn worships cool, perfect Kate. “Wineglasses for the adults.”

  Matthew stands at the counter, slicing tomatoes for a salad. This simple fact takes my breath away. Never before in his fourteen years has he shown any interest in cooking. And I don’t believe it is cooking that brings him to the kitchen now.

  Matthew wears a tattered T-shirt and baggy madras shorts; Margaret a short blue-checked sundress. Her long chocolate-brown hair is held back with a pale blue headband. I loved headbands on my daughter, they made her seem serene and collected … and young.

  But Margaret is no longer a child. Any implication that even a remnant of childishness remains turns Margaret into a fury.

  Matthew and Margaret have been buddies all their lives. How will adolescence change that? When the two were infants, Kate and I had joked about them marrying, but now I find that thought disturbing.

  It doesn’t matter now. This will certainly be the last summer our two families would share a house. Possibly the last night.

  “Hey.” Kate comes into the room, one finger bookmarking a paperback. She wears loose white trousers and a blue T-shirt. “How did it go?” She looks perfect as always, and just for a moment she stands in a shaft of sunlight that backlights her, rings her body with an aurora. She looks like an angel, beautiful, calm, cool, but she is only human, and vulnerable, my best friend, to age and time. To loss. Tears well up in my eyes.

  I’m trying hard to remain in control. Especially in front of the children, I must remain calm. I smile falsely, brightly. “Fine. Is Max home?”

  “He just got in on the Hy-Line fast boat. He’s upstairs changing.”

  “Margaret? Take care of Jeremy, okay?”

  “But, Mom, aren’t we all going to eat together?”

  “Dad and I will come down and eat later.” Reaching into the refrigerator, I take out two bottles of beer. I would prefer straight scotch, straight gin, but with everyone watching I settle for the beer.

  Silently Margaret sets Jeremy on the floor. She’s chewing the inside of her cheek.

  Abby hands my son a pile of napkins. “Help me put these around,” she says.

  “Okay.” Jeremy’s game for anything Abby suggests. As he follows her from the room, he announces “I got attached to electrodes!”

  “I had to have two cavities filled at the dentist,” Abby counters, undaunted. “It sounded like a blender in my head.”

  Kate trails me out of the room. “Lucy, what’s up?” Her forehead is creased with worry, more fine lines on that flawless face.

  “Oh,
Kate.” I hesitate at the bottom of the stairs. I want to put my arms around her. I want to sink to my knees and beg her to help me. I want to beg her to forgive me. “I wish … I’m sorry. I’ve got to talk to Max first.” I run up four steps, then turn back to look at her. She’s standing at the bottom of the stairs, watching me. “Kate. You know I love you, don’t you?”

  Her frown deepens. She opens her mouth, to protest, to demand that I tell her what’s going on, and then she gets it: Something serious is up. Something huge. “Yes. And I love you.”

  “I know.” Tears blur my vision and I stumble on the stairs, banging my shin. “Shit.”

  The door to our bedroom is shut. I open it to find my husband changing clothes. Behind him, the August sky shines through the open windows in a flawless blue. The evening air is so heavy and fragrant it seems as if someone in the neighborhood is making wild grape jam. Birds call as they settle in the apple trees and in the tangled thickets surrounding the house. This is paradise.

  Max sees my face and swallows. “What is it?” he asks.

  Summer 1991

  When we suffer a terrible loss, it seems that the world has stopped. But of course the earth keeps turning, the sun keeps rising, the birds fly north to sit outside our windows, singing blissfully, bird-brainedly, of the return of summer’s warmth and light. The summer after Maxwell was born, I woke to each day with a heavy heart. I mourned the loss of my little boy. I would continue to do so, in privacy, in the secret space of my own heart, all my life.

  But for Margaret’s sake I tried to strike a proper balance between grief and perseverance, between sorrow and the recognition of remaining joys. I loved my daughter. I did not want her to feel as lost in the enormity of Maxwell’s death as her father seemed to be. With each passing day Max became more withdrawn, isolating himself into a carefully guarded darkness into which we could not penetrate. He would recover with time. But Margaret needed me now. And I needed her. I decided to take her to Nantucket. I would devote all my time to my little girl. We would build sand castles on the beach, play in the salty ocean, let the sea and wind and sun scour our souls and heal us. I would show Margaret I could still be happy. We would be happy, together.

  Max said he would come, but as usual, he was tied up with work. Chip promised to come, too, later. As usual, Kate and I loaded up the Volvo and made the trip ourselves. Almost as usual … Abby was with us now.

  Kate nursed her baby while I drove and sat holding Abby on the ferry ride over while I supervised the M&Ms, trailing behind them as they exuberantly explored the boat. When we arrived at the house, we settled Kate and Abby in state in the living room. I carried all our luggage into the house and up the stairs. I made all the beds, Kate’s and Matthew’s as well as our own, and set up the port-a-crib for Abby. I left the children watching television with Kate while I went off to fight the crowds in the streets and stores for groceries. At home I unloaded the groceries and fixed dinner. By the time I got the M&Ms in bed, all I wanted to do was to fall into my own, and I did.

  I woke to a room full of sun. It was almost nine o’clock, and I sat up in bed, slightly dazed. How could I have slept so late?

  Most mornings, Margaret woke me. I would awaken to the breeze of her arrival, the slight drift of air as she lifted the sheet from my skin and scooted down next to me, the warmth of her presence. I’d feel the stir of her sweet child’s breath against my skin.

  “Mom-mee,” she’d whisper to me.

  I would feign sleep, playing a game that we’d begun when she was there.

  “Mom-mee.” A little song. “Time to wake up.”

  Sometimes I’d peep out at her from beneath my lashes. She would be studying my face, one plump finger hovering above me as she decided just where to touch me, lightly. Would she lift my eyelid? Or try to tickle me beneath my arm? Or make a buzzing noise and delicately brush my ears and lips, then giggle, “Mommy, that bee is bothering you again!” Finally she’d cry, “Wake up, Mom! The whole ocean’s waiting!”

  Why hadn’t she awakened me today? She must still be sleeping.

  Or perhaps she was lying awake in her bed, waiting for me, thinking that since Maxwell’s death everything had changed. My heart twisted.

  I slipped from bed, pulled on my scarlet kimono, and went into her room. Her bed was empty, rumpled, the covers tossed back in a rush.

  I headed downstairs.

  And there she was, my daughter, seated on the living room sofa in her pink-and-white nightgown, a pillow tucked beneath her arm, and nestled on her lap and arm was three-month-old Abby. The baby wore only a diaper and a white cotton undershirt. Her pink feet and hands waved in the air.

  “Hi, Mommy! I’m holding the baby!” Margaret called proudly.

  “Morning, Glory,” I said. I sank down next to my daughter. “Good morning, Abby.”

  We both looked down at Abby, who stuck a rosebud tongue between rose petal lips.

  “She’s making bubbles, Mom. She’s trying to talk. Aren’t you trying to talk, you smart little girl?” Margaret was totally in love.

  Abby was a good baby. She slept through the night. She never had colic. She looked out at the world with calm navy blue eyes that seemed to understand and approve of all she saw.

  “Coffee’s ready.” Kate came into the room. She wore shorts and a loose white shirt that buttoned up the front, beneath which her proud, formidable breasts were anchored in a nursing bra. She was barefoot and her hair was pulled up into a sloppy ponytail, but in her ears she wore her one-carat diamond studs; she’d worn them ever since Chip gave them to her, a present at Abby’s birth.

  “Great.” I rose and went into the kitchen. I poured myself a mug, added sweetener and milk, and stared at the selection of doughnuts, croissants, and muffins on the table. Since Abby’s birth, Kate and I had spent very little time together. I found it hard to be near her baby; she understood. One night in June we went to a movie, just the two of us. By the time we drove home, her blouse was wet with milk. I dropped her at her house and drove home, my face wet with tears of grief and envy. But three months had passed since Maxwell’s birth and death. I needed my friend. I missed her. I had to recover my sense of balance and my sense of humor as well if this Nantucket August were to bring us together again.

  I returned to the living room to find Kate seated on the sofa next to my daughter and Abby. I sank into a chair across from them. “Gorgeous day.” I pulled my feet up beneath me and settled back.

  “Yes,” she said. “Makes me feel lazy.” She traced a figure eight on her daughter’s belly. Abby burbled.

  “I feel lazy, too,” Margaret said, looking up at Kate with starry-eyed adoration.

  “I got it!” Matthew came thudding down the stairs. His short chestnut hair stuck out in a series of cowlicks. He wore a red basketball jersey that hung down to his knees. He carried a bottle of nail polish in his hand.

  “Lovely,” Kate said. “Pull that footstool over here. No, I’ll put my feet there. You can sit on the floor.” She smiled at me. “Matthew’s going to paint my toenails for me. It’s too hard to do it myself.”

  “Want me to do it?” I asked.

  “No!” Matthew was definite. “I’m going to do it.”

  Abby made an airy noise and everyone laughed.

  “Abby belched,” Margaret announced proudly.

  “She’s a good baby,” I said. “Slept all night.”

  “I know. She’s a little doll.” Kate leaned over her baby and cooed, “You’re a little doll, aren’t you, Abby? Mommy’s little doll.”

  Abby gurgled and shivered with glee.

  Kate looked at me. “You’re not having a croissant?”

  “I’m not hungry right now.”

  “I’ve already had one. It’s delicious.”

  “You can have the other, if you want.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Sure.”

  Kate started to rise, then looked down at her right foot, propped on the footstool. Matthew was biting
his lip with concentration, carefully slipping cotton balls between her toes. “Guess I’ll wait.”

  “I’ll get it,” I said.

  “No, I’ll get it!” Margaret cried urgently. She looked up at Kate. “You hold Abby.”

  “Thanks, sweetie,” Kate said, and lifted her daughter into her arms. “Who’s the most beautiful girl in the whole wide world?” she asked, nuzzling kisses into Abby’s face.

  Margaret raced to the kitchen, returning with a croissant on a plate and a napkin. “Here, Kate.”

  “Thanks. Let’s see. Put the plate on the sofa on this side, then you sit next to me on this side and hold Abby again for me so I can eat, okay?”

  Margaret gladly obeyed. Abby was perfectly content to be transferred from arm to arm. Kate sighed and nibbled on her croissant. Her son sat at her feet, carefully brushing polish onto Kate’s toes.

  I said, “So, Margaret. Let’s have breakfast, then we can go to the beach.”

  My daughter shot me a cautious glance. She edged a millimeter closer to Kate. “Are you going to the beach?” she asked Kate.

  “Not today.” Kate yawned. “It was such a commotion yesterday, getting here. I’m wiped out.”

  I ran my finger around the rim of my mug.

  “I’m wiped out, too,” my daughter said. She bent over the baby, wagged her own head from side to side so that her curls tickled the baby’s face, and chanted, “Aren’t you tired, too? Tired, too? Tired, too?” Abby waved with glee.

  “But don’t you want to go to the beach?” I asked Margaret.

  She didn’t look up at me. Her shoulders shrugged beneath the pink-and-white nightie. “I can go later.”

  “Matthew? Want to go swimming?”

  Matthew bent over his mother’s feet. “No, thanks.”

  Abby was beginning to fuss. Her face flushed and little catching sobs broke into her gurgling. Kate’s face took on a radiance.

  “I’m going to have to feed her soon.” She stuck a finger into her daughter’s diaper.

  “She’s still dry. I need a diaper for my shoulder.”

  “I’ll get it!” Margaret exclaimed.

  “Upstairs, near her crib. Bring me the Handi-Wipes, too. I’ll be needing them sometime soon.”