The Pursuit of Happiness (2001)

by Douglas Kennedy

  Instantly I went over and lay beside him on top of the covers. I put my arms around his shoulders and drew him close to me.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ethan. I’m sorry.’

  But Ethan didn’t reply. He just stared straight ahead at the cat-and-mouse fight on the screen. His silence said it all. Though we’d never given him false hopes about a possible reconciliation, an ongoing fear of mine was now confirmed. The fear that, ever since he had been aware of his parents’ separation, he had been convincing himself it was merely a temporary situation; that, one fine morning, Daddy would move back in with Mommy, and Ethan’s once-secure world would be restored to him. But now, the reality had finally hit. As I held him tighter in my arms, I couldn’t help but think that, thanks to the combined efforts of both his parents, Ethan had just been given a premature introduction to one of life’s fundamental truisms: when it comes to giving you a sense of security, people always fail you.

  Ethan didn’t bring the subject up again for the rest of the trip. We spent the next day exploring Vieux Quebec’s back streets. We took a cab to the rural outskirts of town and went on a horse-driven sleigh ride through snowbound woodlands. Early that evening, we attended a children’s puppet show in a tiny theater. It was Peter and the Wolf, in French (naturellement), but Ethan knew the story by heart (he had the CD at home), and delighted in being able to follow it in a foreign language. We ate dinner in a restaurant that featured a wandering accordionist, playing what I gathered were old Quebec favorites. The music was deeply resistible, but Ethan seemed to enjoy the novelty of it - especially when the accordionist approached our table, asked Ethan what French songs he knew, and then serenaded him with Frere Jacques.

  All in all, it was a good day. Ethan never appeared glum or preoccupied (and, believe me, I was monitoring his moods carefully). He fell into bed that night tired, but reasonably happy. He kissed me goodnight and told me he wished we could stay another day in Quebec.

  ‘So do I,’ I said, ‘but Allan-Stevenson might object if I keep you out another day.’

  ‘You could tell them I got sick.’

  I laughed. ‘My boss might also get a little grumpy with me if I didn’t show up on Tuesday. But hey, Easter’s not far off. And Easter means

  ‘DisneyWorld!’

  ‘You’ve got it. Now get some sleep.’

  As soon as Ethan had conked out, I picked up the phone and called Meg.

  ‘Where the hell are you?’ she asked.

  I told her.

  ‘Quebec in the middle of January? You must be a masochist.’

  ‘Hey, why should old habits die hard.’

  She laughed. ‘You sound a little better.’

  ‘We had a good day. And since “good days” have been in short supply recently …’

  ‘I hear you …’

  ‘I also managed to see Mom’s lawyer yesterday.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well, the trust didn’t turn out to be depleted.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘In fact …’

  And then I told her the exact sum involved.

  ‘You’re kidding me,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Jesus Christ. You’re certainly buying lunch the next time.’

  ‘It’s quite something, isn’t it?’

  ‘Quite something? It’s unbelievable.’

  ‘Yes. I guess it is.’

  ‘I tell you, sweetheart - your mother was some operator.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said quietly. ‘I suppose she was.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re unhappy about this windfall?’

  ‘I’m just … I don’t know … just bewildered. By everything.’

  ‘I know. But don’t be bewildered by this. It’s good news.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it is … though I do feel kind of strange about Charlie …’

  ‘Fuck him. You were the one who was there for your mom.’

  ‘But he was the one who lost his father.’

  ‘You did too.’

  ‘But, unlike Charlie, I never knew my dad. And unlike Charlie, Mom never made me feel as if I had stood in the way of …’

  ‘Hang on,’ Meg said. ‘She really did love Charlie.’

  ‘I’m sure. But did she ever like him?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Face fact: if Charlie hadn’t come along, she would never have married Jack Malone. And her life may have been happier.’

  ‘Don’t count on that. Your mother did have a talent for martyrdom.’

  ‘Tell me about it. All that money sitting there, and she still had to nickel-and-dime herself.’

  ‘She never got over it, Kate. Never. It was the great tragedy of her life.’

  Unlike Sara Smythe. It may have been her great tragedy too … but at least she came to terms with it. Or, at least, she learned how to live with it. My mom also ‘lived with it’, but it haunted her every move. I saw that now. Just as I also saw that I never really understood her. When did I ever see her courage in raising two children alone? When did I ever glimpse the mettle with which she coped with life? Never. She cut corners and wore twenty-year-old dresses and refused to recover her threadbare sofa and lived in a cramped apartment - all so, one day, I wouldn’t have to repeat her story … so the second half of my life would be comfortable, secure, well-upholstered. But I was too wrapped up in my own griefs; my own sense of having been betrayed by men, by circumstances, by life. Unlike my mother - who stayed silent for four decades about the betrayal that fractured her life and sent it on a difficult trajectory. No doubt, she also wanted to scream: me, me, me, me, me. But she never would have dreamed of articulating such a self-centered complaint. She remained silently stoical. Not realizing that, in her own undemonstrative way, she was heroic.

  ‘You okay, Kate?’ Meg asked, registering my silence.

  ‘I’m trying to be.’

  ‘You’ll be fine. I know it. And if you’re not, at least you can now be a rich, miserable pain-in-the-ass.’

  I laughed. And said, ‘I’m going to bed.’

  ‘Lunch next week?’

  ‘Of course. And this time, I really am picking up the tab.’

  Ethan and I both slept well. I was relieved to see that the threat of a snowstorm failed to materialize in the morning. We were on the road by nine a.m. Three hours later - just after we had crossed the border back into New York - Ethan turned to me and said, ‘I want to spend tonight with my daddy.’

  I bit my lip and said nothing, except: ‘Whatever you want, big guy. Let’s call him right now.’

  I reached for my cellphone and rang Matt’s office. His secretary put me through. We had a reasonably civilized conversation. Then I turned the phone over to Ethan.

  ‘Daddy, can I come and stay with you tonight?’

  They chatted for a few minutes, Ethan sounding really enthusiastic as they bantered away. Of course, I felt envy. Of course, I knew this was wrong - but when a child is shared between two parents, there is always this ongoing worry that your ex is showing him the better time, or relating to him more positively than you. No matter how you try to dodge it, a competitive climate develops between you and your ex. You’ve taken him to the circus? I’m bringing him to The Lion King on Broadway. You’ve bought him Nikes? I’m getting him his first pair of Timberlands. It’s grim, this aggressive game of who’s the better divorced parent? And totally unavoidable.

  Ethan finished talking to Matt, and handed the phone back to me.

  ‘You sure you don’t mind letting him stay with us tonight?’ Matt asked.

  Yes, I minded. But I knew that, somehow, I had to stop minding. Otherwise I would be flagellating myself forever.

  ‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘Honestly.’

  ‘Great,’ he said, sounding surprised. ‘Thank you.’

  We sped south. With a stop for an early dinner, we arrived in northern Manhattan just before eight. I called Matt again and told him to expect us in around twenty minutes. As I’d had Ethan’s school c
lothes cleaned at the Chateau Frontenac (and his bookbag was also in the trunk of the car), there was no need to stop by our apartment. Matt was waiting outside his building on West 20th Street. As soon as I’d stopped the car, Ethan was out the door and in his father’s arms. I went around to the trunk. I opened the duffel bag containing Ethan’s clothes. I transferred some toilet supplies and a clean set of underwear into his school bag. Then I lifted out the cleaned uniform (still wrapped in the hotel’s dry-cleaning cellophane) and handed it to Matt. Ethan took his school bag.

  ‘He’s got a change of socks and jockeys in his bag, along with his toothbrush. And here’s his school uniform.’

  ‘You know, he does have a spare set of all that stuff here,’ Matt said.

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that …’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said, then nudged Ethan forward. ‘Thank your mom for a great weekend.’

  I bent down. Ethan planted a kiss on my right cheek. ‘Thanks, Mom,’ he said simply.

  I stood back up.

  ‘Well …’ Matt said.

  ‘Well …’ I said, thinking how awkward we now were with each other. You meet. You couple. You get to know each other very, very intimately. You make a baby together. Then it all goes wrong. So wrong that it gets reduced to terse exchanges, terse handshakes, a child with divided loyalties.

  Matt proffered his hand. I took it.

  ‘That was a dumb argument the other day,’ I said.

  ‘Very dumb.’

  ‘It’s always been something of a specialty of ours, dumb arguments.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said with a light laugh. ‘We definitely have a talent for fighting. But … it happens, I guess.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said quietly. ‘It happens.’

  A slight smile between us, then the handshake ended. I bent down and kissed Ethan, saying, ‘See you tomorrow after school, darling. I’ll be home from the office around seven.’

  Ethan nodded, then turned with his dad and entered the building. I got the car back to Avis. Then I went home. The silence of the empty apartment was huge. But I reminded myself that it was just for tonight.

  The next morning, I returned to the office. I had such a backlog of work that I had lunch sent in. But I did set aside a few minutes to call Peter Tougas.

  ‘You feeling better, Kate?’ he asked.

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘Like I said last week, it’s going to take a lot of time.’

  ‘Doesn’t everything?’

  ‘You might have a point there. So … are we ready to proceed with the probate?’

  ‘Absolutely. But I first need to ask a question: as the sole beneficiary of the trust, I am free to do whatever I like with the money?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, sounding wary. ‘As I mentioned the other day, there were no stipulations in the will about the use of the funds.’

  ‘Good. Because I’ve decided that my brother should be cut back in.’

  ‘What?’ Mr Tougas said, sounding genuinely shocked.

  ‘I want Charlie to have half the trust.’

  ‘Hang on a minute, Kate …’

  ‘It’s what … ? Nearly seven hundred and fifty thousand? Give him three seventy-five.’

  ‘You don’t have to do this.’

  ‘I am aware of that.’

  ‘At least take a couple of days to reflect …’

  ‘I have taken a couple of days to reflect on it.’

  ‘Take a couple more …’

  ‘No. I’ve made my mind up. I want him to get half the trust.’

  ‘Kate … you know how he treated your mother.’

  ‘You’re right. I do. But he still gets half the trust.’

  ‘On what grounds?’

  I didn’t say. Even though I now knew the grounds, the reasons. My mother - the silent master strategist - had checkmated me. She’d set it all up: first getting Sara to tell me her story, then letting her lawyer floor me with the news about the trust. Nothing said, everything implied. Even though the implication was now clear as hell: when it comes to forgiveness, language may be important … but gesture is everything. Because gesture begets another gesture. Just as forgiving another allows you to forgive yourself. Sara and my mother didn’t speak for decades, but the gestures were made, the forgiveness rendered. Now, in death, my mother was doing what she always did. She was asking me a question: can you do the same with your brother? Even though you know he’s so wrong?

  ‘Please, just give me one reason …’ Mr Tougas said.

  ‘Because it’s what she would have wanted.’

  Long silence.

  ‘All right, Kate,’ Mr Tougas said. ‘I’ll prepare the necessary paperwork. And would you like me to phone Charlie and break the news?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘What should I tell him?’ he asked me.

  ‘Tell him to call me.’

  I hung up the phone. I went back to work. I left the office around six thirty. En route home, I made a fast stop at F.A.O. Schwarz, picking up a motorized Lego robot. Yes, I knew it was a useless piece of plastic junk. But Ethan had seen it advertised on television, and had been dropping hints for weeks that he wanted one. I had it gift-wrapped. Then I caught a cab north, arriving home just after seven fifteen. Clare the nanny was tidying up the kitchen. She gave me a hug (she hadn’t seen me since the funeral), and asked how I was doing.

  ‘I’m coping,’ I said. ‘How’s our guy?’

  ‘In his room, waging intergalactic war on his computer.’

  I poked my head into his room. He turned around from his computer screen. He caught sight of the F.A.O. Schwarz bag, and his face lit up.

  ‘Can I see? Can I see?’ he asked.

  ‘Don’t I get a “hello”?’

  He ran over and gave me a fast kiss on the cheek. ‘Hello. Can I see?’

  I handed him the bag. ‘Wow!’ he said when he saw that it was the Lego he so craved. ‘You knew.’

  Yeah. Maybe for a change, I did.

  He sat down on the floor and began to open the box, looking up at me to ask: ‘Will you come put it together for me?’

  ‘Of course … after one phone call.’

  ‘Mom …’ he said, sounding disappointed.

  ‘Just one call, then I’m yours.’

  I walked into the bedroom. I lifted the receiver. I took a deep breath. This was a call I had been postponing for days; a call I knew I had to make. I phoned Information. I got the number for a Smythe, S. on West 77th Street. I dialed it. She answered. I said, ‘Hi. It’s me. Kate.’

  ‘Oh, hello,’ she said, sounding surprised. ‘How very nice to hear from you.’