Between Husbands and Friends

by Thayer, Nancy

  Fall 1998

  Kate and Max are lying on a blanket on the floor. Naked, they lie side by side, facing each other, Max dark, angular, and masculine, Kate blond and feminine, her hip swelling up from her slender waist like the lines of a cello, the two of them curved together, a living yin/yang symbol.

  They are not making love; they have finished making love. It was not spontaneous, accidental: both Max’s and Kate’s clothes are neatly folded on chairs. On the floor near their heads are two half-full glasses and a bottle of red wine. On several of the tables, candles flicker. Candles. I wonder who thought of this, this romantic touch, that makes the act seem not so completely about revenge, but about the two of them, together. Perhaps they have wanted to do this for a long time.

  They have been talking, it seems that they have been lying here after making love and talking.

  Kate looks up at me and smiles an oddly goofy smile, embarrassed and challenging at the same time and for a moment she looks just like Matthew. She doesn’t try to cover herself. She says, “Lucy.”

  Max doesn’t look at me but rolls on his back and brings his arm up to hide his eyes.

  I close the door. Good, I think. Good. This is what I deserve. This is the least I deserve.

  Back home, I walk through the dark house, checking on my children. Both sleep soundly.

  I take two sleeping pills and lie on top of my bed, because that’s what one does at night. I think: If Max was the one who brought the candles, then he’s not depressed. That’s not something a depressed person does.

  I search my heart for jealousy, knowing that I should not have to search. Jealousy always comes unbidden, like desire. Perhaps I’m just too full of fear for Jeremy to feel much else. In an odd way, I’m grateful to Max and Kate, as if their act will balance out some eccentric scale, making me less culpable, or at least more forgivable.

  On this thought I fall asleep.

  With children, so much of life is routine. You just have to keep going. In the early days of September we shop, as always, for school clothes. After the freshness of the sun and sea, the electrically modulated glare and air of the malls are exciting. Margaret brings friends, who attend to her serious deliberations with much squealing and discussion. Jeremy is simply patient; he hates trying clothes on, he doesn’t care what he wears, he just wants to get out of this store. He has gained weight and height over the summer. He has gone up a size in boy’s clothing. I stand in the boy’s section of Filene’s, holding a size 6 polo shirt in my hands, staring at the label, wanting to fall to my knees with joy. He’s growing normally. Perhaps they got the tests wrong, made a mistake, mixed up his results with another child’s. I’ve postponed our visit to Children’s Hospital for a week. He seems so healthy now; it’s as if he will be healthy if we can just keep away from that hospital, those doctors. It may be irrational, but it’s what I need to do, for now.

  “When’s Dad coming home?” Margaret asks as the three of us sit around the kitchen table, eating spaghetti.

  “I don’t know. I wish I did.” I have told the children the truth, or a version of it: Max is sleeping at the newspaper. He’s so busy, he doesn’t have time to come home.

  “I’m going to call him,” Margaret says, her face dark.

  “Please do,” I respond. “Maybe he’ll make time to talk with you. He’s always too busy to talk to me.” That is the truth. And Max should talk to Margaret. She shouldn’t be punished for what I’ve done.

  “Can’t we just go to the newspaper and see Daddy?” Jeremy asks. “Just drive down and surprise him?”

  Little boy. Jeremy has lost another tooth and lisps now when he speaks; it’s kind of cute. He’s insisted on wearing the one outfit he chose himself, something the kids will probably tease him about at school: a blue-and-white-striped button-down shirt and a navy blue sweater vest. He looks like a miniature copy of his father.

  Or, rather, his clothes are like his father’s. After our month in the sun, his hair is bleached almost blond. He looks much more like Chip right now than like Max.

  We should know any day now whether or not Max and Chip carry the CF gene. We should know who Jeremy’s father is. If Max is his father, then I believe Max will be able to get past all this, to forgive me, to come home, to help me tell Jeremy about his illness. But if Chip is his father …

  “Go ahead,” I prompt my children, letting irritation color my voice. “Call your father at work.”

  Margaret eyes me suspiciously but takes up the phone and dials. She hands it to Jeremy.

  “You ask, Germ. He’s always nicer to you.”

  “That’s not true!” Jeremy and I protest together. Then Jeremy goes quiet, listening. After a while, he says, “Dad? This is Jeremy West, your son. When are you coming home?” He clicks off, hands Margaret the phone. “Just the answering machine,” he tells us.

  I rise from the table. “All right, I’ve got some work to do in my study. Margaret, you rinse the dishes and stack the dishwasher, okay?”

  “Mom, you haven’t eaten anything.”

  “Oh, sweetie, I ate tons at the mall.” I kiss the top of her head and hurry from the room.

  School starts, and I’m grateful. Both children are preoccupied with thoughts about teachers, friends, schoolwork; they don’t have time to worry about whatever idiocy their parents are up to.

  Tuesday morning I watch Margaret and Jeremy run through the rain to the school bus, then turn back into the quiet of the house. Usually morning is a luxurious time for me, like a drift of new age music after a rock-and-roll opera. But this will be the first time in two weeks that I’ve been in the house without the children to protect me from my thoughts.

  I take a mug of coffee into my office. Since I’ve been home, I’ve managed to sort through the month’s mail and pay the necessary bills, but I haven’t called Jared Falconer yet; my thoughts clog up whenever I consider such a decision. I could start thinking about Write?/Right. I could call Stan. I should call Stan. But I’m seized with a restless energy, like we feel on the island when a storm approaches. When we can see the black clouds rolling toward us. When we feel the shimmer of the air. When the leaves on the trees rustle nervously.

  I want to board my windows, bolt the doors, and hide my family in the depths of the house.

  But I am the one who caused the storm. I have brought the danger into the center of my family’s life.

  The doorbell rings.

  “Chip!” My heart stops. “Come in.”

  Meticulously he shakes the rain off his umbrella, folds it, and sticks it into our umbrella stand. He looks so judicial in his beautiful gray wool suit and wing-tip shoes. I’m in sweatpants and a loose blue cotton shirt.

  My heart hammers. I lead him into the living room. “Would you like to sit down?”

  He sits. We look at one another.

  “The test results came back positive.”

  I lick my lips. “I see.”

  “I carry the CF gene.”

  I feel myself flushing violently from head to toe, as if just now, right now, I’ve been caught in some embarrassing act. “Well.”

  “Have Max’s results come back yet?”

  “I don’t know. He won’t talk to me.”

  “It seems pretty unlikely that he’d carry the CF gene, too.”

  “Unlikely, perhaps, but not impossible.”

  “Kate’s moved out of the house. She’s living with Garrison. She talks to the kids on the phone but she hasn’t seen them for two weeks. I had to take them shopping for school clothes.”

  “Garrison is dying, Chip. This won’t last forever.”

  “Yes, well, when he dies, I’m sure she’ll take on some other hopeless cause.”

  “Why does that make you so angry? It’s a wonderful thing Kate is doing. These people really need her help.”

  Chip takes his time, considering my question. “I suppose it makes me angry because she needs them as much as they need her. You’d think that having a husband and a home an
d two great kids would be enough to fill a life, but no, she’s got to go be Florence Nightingale.” He runs his hands through his blond hair. “It’s like we’re not enough for her.”

  “Perhaps no one person is ever enough for anyone. We’re all so complicated.”

  “I want you to tell me about Kate’s sexual infidelities.”

  “For God’s sake, what can it matter now?”

  “I think it matters a lot.” Chip leans toward me, fixing me with his steady blue gaze. “Lucy. If she had an affair, affairs, then that somehow makes me feel less guilty, but more important, it’s a sign that our marriage isn’t strong, not as complete, as I’d thought. It means that you and I—”

  I stand. “Don’t do this, Chip.” I’m shaking and I lock my arms around my body, hugging tight. “It’s enough, what I’ve done to Jeremy, to Max, to all of us. Don’t ask me to do any more damage to your marriage than I’ve already done.”

  Chip rises, too. “Lucy, you’re looking at it the wrong way ’round. We did what we did because of something missing in our marriages.”

  “No, Chip. Stop. I mean it.”

  He moves toward me, as if to hold me. “Lucy. You and I—”

  I shake my head once, decisively: no. “Please go. Please.”

  He studies my face and something like pity softens his gaze. “All right.” He walks to the door, then stops. “You’ll call me when Max finds out his test results.”

  “Of course.”

  When the door is shut, I rush to it and turn the lock. Chip carries the CF gene, I think. This is overwhelming. This is almost more than I can bear. I make my way to the sofa. Burying my head in my hands, I sit as stunned as if suddenly just hit by a car. I can’t think. I can’t feel. I’m numb.

  The sound of knocking on the front door rouses me.

  Stan sweeps in, shaking the rain off his poncho like a puppy. His long-strapped briefcase hangs from one shoulder; his gold-rimmed glasses and all his metal rings and studs glitter against his pale skin.

  “What’s up with you?” he replies. “You look like shit.”

  It feels good to smile. “Thanks a lot.”

  “I left a lot of messages on your machine …”

  “I know. I’ve just been so busy. How are you? Have you had breakfast?” Stan is so normal I could hug him.

  “I’ll have a Coke if you’ve got one.”

  I lead him into the kitchen. “I’ve got that, and some bacon and eggs, too. Or English muffins. I’ve brought back some great wild beach plum jam.”

  “Lucy. Forget the food. What’s up?” He drops his briefcase on a chair with a thud.

  I close the refrigerator door. I fight for composure, then turn to face him. “They think Jeremy has cystic fibrosis.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “The physicians at Children’s Hospital.”

  “Why do they think that?”

  “They did a test. A sweat test.”

  “Is it an accurate test?” Stan’s a great believer in all things scientific.

  “Yes.”

  Stan looks at me. “That sucks, man. Is there a cure? Can anything be done?”

  “No cure. Lots can be done, depending on the case. The only hopeful thing is that it’s one of these weird diseases that can be mild or severe.”

  “And which is Jeremy’s?”

  “They think it’s a mild case, but really they don’t know. They can’t predict. We can only wait and see.”

  “How’s Jeremy taking it?”

  “I haven’t told him yet. There are some other complications …” I’m dizzy. I sit down, suddenly, in a chair.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Not to be unkind, but have you looked at yourself in the mirror recently? You look like some kind of vampire has been at you.”

  I touch my head. “My hair …”

  “You’ve lost a lot of weight, Lucy, and your face is drooping down like a bloodhound’s.”

  His concern undoes me. I wonder why Margaret didn’t tell me that I look so bad; she’s always my worst critic. My laughter gets out of control, turns to weeping.

  “Hey, Lucy.”

  “Everything’s gone to hell, Stan, and it’s all my fault.”

  “Okay.” He pulls up a chair on the other side of the kitchen table and folds his hands on top of the table. “That’s a start. What’s the rest?”

  I take a deep breath, and tell him. My affair with Chip. Jeremy’s illness. Max’s anger, Kate’s anger, the confusion that is about to fall over our children. When I’m through, Stan shakes his head. “Man. This is kind of biblical.”

  “Yeah,” I snort, “Old Testament version.”

  “You know, you ought to come with me to AA.”

  I blink. “What?”

  “AA. You know what AA is.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not an alcoholic yet. Although, give me time …”

  “Or ACOA. Adult children of alcoholics. They’ve got some really good ways to help you straighten out your thinking.”

  “Like ‘Let go and let God’? I don’t think so, Stan. I’m not feeling like God and I have a great working relationship these days.”

  “You might want to develop one. I mean, it seems to me, you’ve lost your best friend and your husband in one fell swoop—”

  “You think I’ve lost them for good?”

  “You can’t predict the future. But you’ve lost them for today and probably tomorrow and you need some help. And you know what else? You should focus on work. Write?/Right is part of your life. Besides, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that Max and you will get divorced, that Write?/Right will become crucial to you financially.”

  “What you say makes sense, Stan. But right now … today …” I meet his eyes. “Stan, right now just doing this, sitting here, looking at you … it’s the best I can do. It’s all I can do.”

  Stan’s brow furrows with concern. His voice cracks when he asks, “How can I help?”

  “Just keep Write?/Right going. And give me some time.”

  “I can do that,” he says.

  When Stan leaves I feel more in control. There are things I must do to keep the house functioning like a normal home; gratefully I run a load of laundry and begin to clean the kitchen.

  It’s Jeremy’s first day of being in school until three o’clock; kindergarten classes were only half day. Will he be tired? Will he have picked up some viruses? Schools are swamps for viruses. I know I’ve got to be less cowardly about Jeremy’s condition. It’s just that I feel so overwhelmed right now, it’s all I can do to keep my head above water.

  I’ve got a basket of warm-smelling clean laundry in my arms when I see Max’s van pull into our drive.

  All right, I say to myself. All right. Breathe. I watch him slam out of the van and stride toward the house.

  His face is so grim that I know what he has to tell me.

  I open the door.

  Surprised, he flushes. “Are you going out?”

  “No. I just saw you through the window, and I …” We’re so awkward with each other.

  A sheen of sweat dapples his upper lip. “We need to talk.”

  “Yes. Would you like a beer? Some tea?”

  I’m so formal, acting like some kind of damned hostess, and it surprises me when Max walks past me, into our kitchen. He runs the cold water tap and fills a glass. He drinks.

  I stand in the doorway, looking at my husband’s back.

  His voice is rough. “I don’t carry the CF gene.”

  There is no good way to do this. And I have to do this. “Chip was by earlier. His results came back. He does carry the gene.”

  “Well, there you are.” Max slams the glass down on the counter. “Chip has two sons. I have none.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “It’s as true as black and white, Lucy.”

  “Max, will you sit down? Can we talk about this?”

  “There’s no point hashing it over,” Max s
ays. “We can’t change things. What’s done is done. We need to go on from here.”

  “Yes,” I say eagerly, leaning toward my husband. “Exactly. And we need to think of Jeremy—”

  “I’m filing for divorce.”

  “Max.”

  “I want joint custody of Margaret. All our assets split fifty-fifty, except of course you keep the Nantucket house.”

  “But what about Jeremy?”

  “What about him?”

  “Max, God damn it! He’s your son.”

  “Okay,” Max says brusquely, “I’m out of here. I really just stopped by to pack up some things. I’ll stay at the newspaper until I find an apartment. You’d better be prepared; we need to put the house up for sale.” He brushes past me, just inches away, as he goes by out of the kitchen and up the stairs to our bedroom.

  I follow him, torn between anger and disbelief. Max takes a duffel bag down from the closet shelf, tosses it on the bed, begins to fill it with underwear, shirts, socks.

  “Come on, Max,” I say softly. “You can’t stop being Jeremy’s father. Not just like that. Not like flicking a switch.”

  “But that’s exactly what happened,” Max replies, shoving his clothes in together ruthlessly. “And you flicked the switch, Lucy. You.” His face flushes as he speaks.

  “I know that. I know. And I’m so sorry, Max, I can never tell you how sorry I am that I’ve hurt you. But we’re still a family, and we’ve got to think about Jeremy first of all. He’s only a little boy. He’s going to have enough to deal with with this damned condition. You can’t desert him now.”

  “Yes,” Max says, “I can.” He pulls the zipper so fast it shrieks. He hoists it and turns to leave.

  I block the doorway. “Remember that summer, Max. Remember the things you said to me. You didn’t know if you loved me. You implied that you were going to leave me, because you wanted a son.”

  “God,” Max says quietly, his face bleak. “Isn’t it ironic.”

  A sob catches in my throat and tears course down my face. “Oh, Max. Please. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave us. We need you.”

  Tears rise in Max’s eyes. “Every time I look at Jeremy, I see living proof of the affair you had with Chip. You can’t expect me to live with that.”