The Birthdays

by Heidi Pitlor

  “I should probably just slip out before everyone else gets up,” she said, slowly pulling away.

  “No, don’t go yet,” he said. “Say goodbye to them before you head out. There’s no need to make everyone worried about why you left so quickly.”

  Thankfully, she agreed.

  *

  “What’s going on?” Jake said, when Daniel explained the change in plans. Jake stood above him in the kitchen, a mug of coffee in his hands. “Shouldn’t you two be together right now?”

  “It’s what she needs,” Daniel said. He knew he sounded curt, but he couldn’t help it.

  Jake opened his mouth, then closed it. Maybe he was finally learning that he couldn’t always have a say in everyone else’s business. He meant well, Daniel knew he did, but sometimes it seemed as if Jake had been born without any innate sense of when to keep his mouth shut.

  Daniel headed back to Brenda. He would see her again in a couple weeks, of course he would. He helped her separate their clothes and set hers back in their suitcase. “I’ll just throw mine in a plastic bag or something when I leave,” he said.

  “All right.” She glanced down at their things. “I’ll put this somewhere safe for now,” she said, gesturing toward the container of ashes.

  He nodded. “Put it where you think it won’t hurt too much to look at.”

  “I will,” she said, and he began placing his clothes in a stack on the easy chair, wishing she’d said a little more just now, though what precisely, he wasn’t sure.

  Evidently Jake explained the situation to his parents, for about ten minutes later, when Brenda’s cab pulled into the driveway (she’d insisted on avoiding any awkward goodbyes near the ferry), everyone seemed to know that she was leaving by herself. She gathered her bag and jacket and said goodbye to the loose group that stood before her in the living room. She thanked Jake and Liz politely for their hospitality, and Daniel followed her outside and pulled the door closed behind him so he could see her off alone. The plywood slipped beneath him, and his left wheel dropped onto the gravel before the right one did. She walked silently beside him as they crossed the rough gravel toward the cab. He reminded himself again that this was the best thing he could do for her. “Call me when you get home today,” he said when they finally stopped on a grassy patch. “And after London, we’ll see.” He sat as straight as he could despite a sudden pull of gravity. “We’ll just see how you’re doing at that point, all right?”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  He hoped she did see at least a small change in him. After all, he could have said, Can’t you see how hard this is for me? Look at what I’m doing here: I’m giving you a gift. I’m trying to do what’s best for you, even though it’s making me want to burst right now.

  She stood there, looking down at his feet, maybe trying to think of exactly what to say. The taxi driver drummed his fingers against the steering wheel.

  “Goodbye for now,” he finally said, and she said, “Thank you again for this,” and her words made him realize that, yes, she appreciated him right now. He was indeed doing the right thing, and later today and tomorrow and the next day, she could think of him with some degree of gratitude.

  As she slid her bag into the back seat and climbed into the taxi, Daniel held his breath. She pulled the door shut, and he slowly lifted his hand and waved goodbye.

  The air was cooler today, the sky covered by a scrim of clouds. He squeezed his knees. Even now, the nothingness beneath the skin there amazed him. Not a single pinch or chill. Sometimes it was infuriating, other times just strange. How could he lose so much and continue onward even for a minute? How could he continue on as an artist and husband and almost become a father in the face of this nothingness? It seemed impossible to comprehend, and in a way, it was unbelievable that he had.

  —

  Ellen could no longer stand to see Daniel sitting in the driveway by himself, so she went outside. “Come back in,” she insisted. “Come and be with us before we head out,” and kept a hand on the back of his chair as he turned himself around.

  The others sat in a circle in the living room, eating their breakfast. “Here, have something,” she said, and rushed to the kitchen, where Liz had set out fruit salad and bagels. Ellen fixed him a plate and returned to the living room. “You’ll stay here until Brenda comes back from London?”

  Daniel nodded. And would he and Hilary be able to take care of themselves here, let alone each other? Would Hilary be able to handle getting Daniel in and out of bed, helping him in the bathroom if he needed it, all of this by herself? Ellen sat on the sofa, took her plate in her lap and moved a square of cantaloupe around a grape.

  Joe soon appeared in the hallway carrying several bags in one hand and the cage in the other, his glasses perilously resting on the tip of his nose.

  “Oh, I’m not ready. I hate to leave,” Ellen said, and went to fix his glasses.

  “We’ll see you again before too long, Mom,” Jake said. His eyes were pink—he was undoubtedly hungover and now regretful of having polished off a bottle (was it more?) of wine last night. This weekend had crushed them all. “Maybe the next time we see you will be when Hil has her baby?”

  Ellen glanced at poor Daniel. Of course he knew the others would still have their babies, but she wondered whether he’d have the strength for it.

  “Ell,” Joe said in his let’s-get-things-moving voice. “We don’t want to miss the ferry.”

  “I know, I know, but hold on a moment. We need to say proper goodbyes. Daniel,” she said, and leaned down to him, “you’ll let us know if you need us. You’ll let us know when Brenda comes back and if you need us to help out or do anything, do anything at all, you know, grocery shopping or cooking for you, whatever you need, cleaning or decorating. Because I’m thinking that what we need is to get you some beautiful new …” There was no stopping the words that trailed from her mouth, though what she really wanted was to ask him when Brenda planned to return—would she even come back? She would, of course she would, how could she not?

  “Mom, I’ll be okay,” Daniel finally said.

  Joe squeezed Jake’s arm. “I loved all that you did for me this weekend, and the gifts. Your gift. I won’t forget it.”

  Ellen was glad that Joe thought to say these things. Sometimes such niceties escaped him and she was left to compensate for his frugality with tact.

  Liz helped them carry their bags outside and Joe toted Babe’s cage behind her, and before Ellen could stop to enjoy one last moment with her family, they surrounded her and Joe and said their farewells. They all stood beside the cab that Liz had called. Ellen had suggested it, since Liz and Jake would take the next ferry and were in the middle of packing up their car. Soon, too soon, Ellen found herself sitting beside Joe inside the moving cab, Babe to his right, the island rushing past them on all sides.

  “I can’t stand leaving them,” Ellen said. “I never can.”

  “I know.”

  “Can you?”

  “Ell,” he said quietly, and rested his hand on top of hers. She waited for him to say more, but it occurred to her that of course he would not. He never did. But he did keep his large, soft hand on hers for the duration of the ride, until the cab had finally stopped and they could see a few people moving up a gangplank, onto the small ferry that rose and sank on the dark gray water.

  They found two empty seats next to the engine room, though the blare here was deafening. The boat lifted anchor, and Joe fiddled with Babe’s cage on the floor in front of him. The turtle snuggled into his wood chips. He had become like another child to Joe, and Ellen was suddenly grateful for it.

  She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the roar of the engine. Soon she would see MacNeil again at the Gardner. She pictured the Tapestry Room lit with candles and lanterns, throngs of people piling in and walking toward their seats. “You know,” she said loudly, and nudged Joe, “the opening night of the Gardner was on New Year’s Eve. Fifty members of the Boston Symphony pla
yed Bach and Mozart, Chausson, Schumann. Can you imagine it?” It felt like a cruelty at first, speaking so admiringly of this world to Joe. But it was not, she reminded herself. There was nothing wrong with adoring a place.

  “It must have been something,” he said into her ear. The engine droned behind them.

  “Back then there was a two-story concert hall. Now the Tapestry Room is what the upper floor used to be. Isabella hung lanterns from the balconies and candles from the arches and windows. She filled the hall with flowers, every sort available. Think of the scent! And there were fountains everywhere. It makes me happy to think about. I know it’s silly, being so enamored of a museum and a woman, but it does.”

  “It all seems otherworldly, doesn’t it?”

  “Mm,” Ellen said, unsure what he was referring to.

  “Like a dream, really,” he said, his lips now against her ear. His warm breath gave her a rush.

  He’d startled her, his face in the window of her parents’ car that day so many years ago. She didn’t know what made her roll down the window for him. Now no one would so easily talk to a stranger, but back then, she supposed, it was a different planet. Joe had leaned his face almost inside the car, asked, “You all right in there?” and looked down at her, and she’d been at once taken aback and exhilarated and ashamed of her unkempt state. “Sort of,” she managed. “You look good to me. What’s your name?” “Why do you need to know?” she said in her deepest voice, and she felt the warm rush of his breath on her cheek as he said, “It’s just a feeling I have, that it’s something I ought to know. I’m Joe Miller,” he said, and he smiled, and right then her parents approached from behind him and he pulled back, taking away his breath and his eyes that had looked her up and down so audaciously. “Goodbye for now, Joe Miller,” she said, and waved two fingers as she rolled up the window.

  She would cancel her plans with MacNeil and bring Joe to the Gardner; after all, the tickets to the concert were hers. So what if Joe didn’t like it there? She’d plead with him and find some way to convince him to go with her.

  Or she would go alone. She would call MacNeil and tell him that she’d caught a nasty cold. She would drive herself into the city, park beside the skinny river nearby and walk toward the great house by herself. She’d never been there alone, and it would be a completely new experience. She felt something inside her loosen, as if from a tether.

  —

  Jake drew a map of the circuit breaker box on a scrap of paper while Liz showed Hilary how to use the washer and dryer. His head throbbed from all the wine he’d drunk the night before. It was the oddest thought, leaving his house to his brother and sister, and Jake began to wish he could stay on with them, show them around the island, charter them a boat and have long chats with them in the evenings over dinner. But he had an annual meeting with the partners the next day and Liz had a doctor’s appointment the following day.

  He found Daniel sitting by a window in the living room, sketching something on a pad. Jake handed him the map of the circuit breakers. Daniel briefly glanced at it and set it aside. “This is just in case one of the breakers blows. We blow them more than we should. I need to get the electrician back in here.” He looked down at Daniel’s pad. “What are you drawing?”

  “I have this book jacket due soon. I’m just doodling some ideas. It’s for a novel set in Cuba.”

  “Ah,” Jake said. How different their jobs were. The next day, Jake would sit in a room with ten other men and discuss stock portfolios and bonds, the revenues of smaller financial firms, current trends in fiber optics and computers and entertainment conglomerates. The last time he sat down to draw anything had to have been at least twenty years ago, and it struck him as infinitely strange that his brother actually made a living this way. “You think that you and Brenda really will try to get pregnant again?”

  Daniel thought a moment. “Probably not. This might have been it for me.” He looked down at his hands. “This whole thing wasn’t easy. But I guess ask me again in a year or so.” He glanced up at Jake. “Who knows?”

  “You’re right. Who knows?” Jake said, and set his hand on the side of his brother’s chair. He didn’t know what more to say about the matter without smothering him in sympathy. “This weekend was nothing like I thought it would be.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  Jake moved his tongue around his mouth. “What was all that stuff Hilary was saying about MacNeil Burgess? It was ridiculous. Sometimes I think she would learn a lot from just being in a relationship for a while. And a job too, for that matter.”

  “She seems pretty happy to me.”

  Jake reluctantly agreed that his sister did seem more content than she had in a while. Pregnancy actually suited her. “Still, I think it’ll be tough for her to be a single mother.”

  “You’re in for something yourself with those twins,” Daniel said, and Jake wondered why no one in his family ever really agreed with him about anything. Except for his father, in his quiet, passive way. And as for Daniel—he was just protecting Hilary, who had no one to really protect her in the end. Though of course she’d brought this on herself, she always did. She’d made her choices.

  “I guess we are in for something.”

  “Hey, thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For letting us stay here,” Daniel said.

  “I’m happy to. Can I do anything else for you?”

  Daniel shook his head. “This is plenty. You’ve been so generous,” he said, as if forcing himself.

  “No I haven’t.”

  “You have. All weekend. I know Dad was touched.”

  Jake looked at him. “Well, thank you,” he said. “You know, you can stay here as long as you want. I like knowing that someone’s here.” He wanted to discuss what had happened to Brenda and to tell him how very sorry he was, how unfair it was to the two of them, who’d already been through so much. And he wanted to apologize for fighting with Hilary and ask his brother if he and Jake could start over and try to talk more frequently, visit each other more often and be more a part of each other’s lives, but Liz and Hilary walked into the room.

  “Jake, our ferry is waiting,” Liz said, and moved beside him.

  Hilary went to sit beside Daniel. “There’s a map of the island in the kitchen drawer. And a tide schedule there too,” Liz said. Jake looked at his sister and brother, a pregnant single-mother-to-be beside a paraplegic man—how had his family come to this?

  “We won’t have any parties,” Hilary said. “We won’t tear the place down.”

  “Ha,” Jake said.

  “Thanks again,” Daniel said.

  “Really,” Hilary added, looking at her feet. “Thanks for this.”

  For the first time in too long, Jake swore he noted a brief but definite fondness on their faces.

  *

  In the rearview mirror, he watched his house grow smaller and he tried to imagine what his brother and sister were talking about. Him? Liz? Their parents? He tried to estimate where Joe and Ellen might have been at this moment. He looked at his watch and figured they had to be in their car, driving home, sitting side by side quietly as they had thousands of times over the years, as he had so many times with Liz. There was nothing like sitting in silence next to his wife after a weekend on Great Salt, he decided. There was nothing to compare to that kind of solace.

  Liz ambled up the gangplank, as did Jake behind her, wobbly with all of their bags. He could hear her heavy breath, or was it his? Liz collapsed on a bench on deck and Jake took the seat beside her. He lifted her hand and set it on his lap. She’d leaned over and laid her head down and Jake watched her breathing slow. Her hand sat like a heavy sponge on his legs and he lifted it, but it dropped with the weight of a brick.

  “Hello? You there?” he said.

  “Mm. I’m tired. I’m spent. I’m not sure I’ve ever been so spent,” she said, and he wanted to pour gratitude upon her for all her work this weekend. And for more—for her be
ing willing to endure all the infertility treatments, the long bouts of sadness, the constant anxiety in order for them to have a family, and then he wanted to apologize again for the Kama Sutra and the magazine (which in the end she’d thrown away with the rest of the weekend’s garbage). But if he thanked her profusely and apologized as urgently as he felt he should have, she would prickle with irritation. She would cut him off and he would apologize again and none of it would ever really stop. This rhythm would continue to pulse beneath them even when they went about their business separately or held each other affectionately. Beneath the surface of everything, beneath the balance of his entire life was an unstoppable pendulum that constantly threatened to knock him off-kilter.

  He counted to three in his mind before he said anything. Liz began to lift herself and sit upright. “Got it?” he said.

  “Got it.” The ferry pushed away from the dock and the foghorn blew.

  “Do you worry about the babies? You know, after what happened to Brenda?” he asked her.

  “I did even before that,” she said.

  “This morning I was reading that medical book, and it said that this kind of thing is really rare, and that it almost never happens. I’m glad we have that book up here, you know?” They’d bought it at Books & Beans a year ago, along with several others about fertility and pregnancy.

  She nodded vacantly.

  “Our babies will be fine,” he said. “I really think everything will work for us. I have this gut feeling.”

  “You do?”

  “Don’t you?” he asked.

  “I suppose so. But to be honest, I’m trying not to think about all that right now. Right now I’m trying to think about sitting here on this ferry and then just making it home. I’m trying to ignore the pain in my back and the fact that I can barely keep my head up. I’m sorry, honey, I’m just a little out of it.”

  “That’s all right,” he said. “That’s perfectly fine. Liz?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I was pretty drunk last night, wasn’t I?”