Mercury

by Margot Livesey

  “Since before Mom’s birthday. He pulls them out.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “I didn’t think it mattered. You and Mom have been so busy.”

  Walking beside her, I couldn’t see her face, but I knew from her tone that she felt blamed. “No busier than usual,” I said. “And it probably doesn’t matter. At certain times of year birds lose their old feathers to make room for new ones. It’s called molting.”

  “Isn’t that in the spring?” She stooped to pick up an acorn. “Busier in your heads. There’s a kind of buzzing around you, like the fridge.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Sometimes you just need to shake me. Will you do that?”

  She reached for the sleeve of my jacket. “Like this?”

  I can date our conversation to November 5, the four hundred and fifth anniversary of Guy Fawkes’s botched attempt on Parliament and the first anniversary of the killing and wounding of more than two dozen people on a Texas army base. Merrie had brought me the news of Fort Hood between patients. We’d both remarked how lucky we were to live in Massachusetts where guns were harder to come by.

  That evening, after Viv left for her Pilates class, I went to the computer and opened the folder labeled “Finances.” For several years she and I had kept our money separate, writing checks back and forth, but after we bought our house we had opened a joint account. Only our credit cards remained separate and private. I was the one who paid our bills, mostly online, yet still I felt oddly stealthy as I clicked from account to account. I had insisted, on principle, that we couldn’t afford $30,000 a year. Now I found abundant evidence that this was true. Among our nonnegotiable expenses were the mortgage, property taxes, insurance, groceries, utilities, the children’s various lessons, summer camp, college funds, and retirement savings. And there were always surprises. Last year the roof had leaked. This spring my car needed a new catalytic converter. When Marcus broke his leg, we had paid for tutors and extra physiotherapy.

  As I studied the figures, I could hear my father quoting Mr. Micawber: “‘Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.’” I shut down the computer and telephoned my mother. Since my father’s death we had met less often; now she seemed pleased by my suggestion of lunch. After checking her diary, she said she could manage Monday. I hung up with the sense that my problems were already solved.

  The glorious weather that day seemed to confirm my optimism. In the autumnal sunlight even our shabby main street had a kind of splendor. When I stepped into the windowless bar, I stood blinking for several seconds, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the merry underworld of bottles and TV screens. My mother was already seated at a corner table, with a glass of wine.

  I bent to kiss her cheek. “Sorry I can’t join you,” I said. “My patients might rebel.”

  “Is one clearer? Or two? Or don’t you give a toss?”

  She began to talk about her new account with a chain of bowling alleys. I bided my time, waiting to bring up Greenfield. But when our sandwiches arrived, she said, “I want to tell you something, and ask you something.”

  The eye is the fastest-moving part of the body, beyond the control of the brain. Who knows how many saccades my pupils made as they tried to avoid my mother’s next sentence?

  “I’m seeing someone.”

  Of course: the waiter, our fellow customers, the football players, me.

  “I never thought it would happen,” she went on. “I was devoted to Edward. But Lawrence—Larry—is a lovely man.”

  I was as shocked as if she’d thrown her drink in my face. Despite my glimpse of her in the restaurant and my subsequent comment to Steve on the tennis court, I had banished any thought of her replacing my father. “Are you trying to tell me,” I said, “that you’re getting married?”

  “No.” She laughed. “But I’d like to ask him to Thanksgiving.”

  I studied a crack in the table and said she was welcome to bring him. My mother, still Scottish after thirty years in the States, did not comment on my frosty manner. “Another man to keep you and Marcus company,” she said. “He’s looking forward to seeing you again.”

  For a moment I thought he had spotted me in the street. Then she explained she had known Larry for years; his wife had Parkinson’s. “The four of us used to play bridge. You met them one evening when you were dropping off groceries. Larry had to put Jean in the home last year. He keeps saying he wished they lived in Oregon, where he could honor her wishes.”

  “And get into your bed.”

  “He’s already in my bed,” said my mother, not so Scottish after all. “Fran says I’m going to set my grandchildren a terrible example and live in sin.”

  That she had told my sister first only deepened my vexation. I took a too-large bite of my sandwich and was still chewing when she asked what I wanted to talk about. I swallowed, drank some water, and described Viv’s sudden infatuation with private schools: how I didn’t think we should separate Marcus from his friends, how I was anxious about the fees.

  “Edward and I had the same argument,” my mother said. “He worried we were shortchanging you and Fran, sending you to public schools.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  She raised her shoulders to suggest there was much that I didn’t know. “We weren’t really arguing about schools,” she said thoughtfully. “Edward, after being very keen to stay here, suddenly got cold feet, but he didn’t want to say so. And I had this great job, so I didn’t say anything either. We struggled through the year, arguing about everything except the thing we were really arguing about. Then, suddenly, he was happy again. Maybe you and Viv are fighting about something else?”

  If she had pressed me about the “something else,” what would I have said? My wife is in love with a horse? I can’t live without my father? But she didn’t. I got out my credit card.

  I knew that not one person in fifty would share my disapproval of Larry, and not one person in a hundred, including me, would understand it. When Viv had remarked that if Peggy were a man, women would be lining up round the block, I had staunchly agreed. I prided myself on being a man who opposed the double standard, who valued character in women over youthful beauty. Yet now my disapproval was a dish I kept eating even as it grew cold and stale.

  That afternoon Viv was scarcely through the door before she started exclaiming: how wonderful, Larry sounded great. “Peggy said you were grumpy,” she added.

  “No.” I was at the stove, stirring spaghetti sauce. Some onions had stuck to the bottom, and the spoon kept snagging.

  “Now is the winter of our discount tents,” said Nabokov, stepping smartly back and forth on his perch. It had been one of my father’s favorite jokes.

  Still holding her jacket, Viv approached the stove. “But you’re not pleased,” she said. “You’re not glad that your fabulous mother, who took care of your father for a decade, has someone else.”

  Her dark green sweater was dotted with white marks, which I had assumed were toothpaste. Now that she was closer, I saw that moths were to blame; her shirt was showing through the holes. “You should darn your sweater,” I said.

  “No one darns nowadays. Perhaps”—her head was cocked at the same angle as Nabokov’s—“you’re finally coming to terms with your father’s death. Someone’s stepping into his shoes, so he really must be gone.”

  “I know he’s dead,” I said shortly. “Larry’s wife isn’t.”

  “And he takes excellent care of her, according to Peggy. But she’s no longer his wife in anything but name.”

  “My mother stuck with my father through thick and thin.” I kept stirring and stirring. A spot of sauce landed on Viv’s sweater, between two moth holes, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  “She was amazing,” she said. “And I’m thrilled for her.”

  She paused as if about to say something more. Wou
ld she finally acknowledge how abandoned I felt? How absent she’d grown? But she said nothing. In the face of my unfaltering stirring, she stole a slice of pepper and offered it to Nabokov.

  8

  ONCE ON A PLANE I read a quiz in a woman’s magazine: “How well do you know your partner?” Brief scenarios were described, and the respondent asked to pick among possible answers. After a lovely dinner the waitress forgets to put the second round of cocktails on the bill. Does your partner (1) Pay and sneak away? (2) Point out the error? (3) Point out the error and ask for free desserts? Until a year ago I could confidently have answered such questions about Viv. She was impetuous, ambitious, staunch in her left-wing beliefs, and devoted to animals. Here is my evidence, four examples so specific that, despite everything, they still stand firm.

  1.The June after we met, Viv and I were walking to a restaurant near the seaport in Boston when we spotted the ferry to Provincetown. Before I could protest, she was pulling me up the gangway. Everything will work out, she insisted. And it did. We found a hotel, bought underwear and toiletries, and had a sunlit day and starry night.

  2.When Marcus was only three months old, she had gone back to work and taken on an extra project to secure promotion. The following year, to maintain her visibility, she attended conferences in Scottsdale, Cincinnati, San Diego, and Montreal.

  3.In 2008 she spent every Sunday in New Hampshire campaigning for Obama, and several nights a week telephoning reluctant voters.

  4.Once, when we were having a drink on the porch of the apartment she shared with Claudia, a mouse had appeared and started running in slow, tipsy circles.

  “It’s sick,” Viv exclaimed. “Can’t you help it?”

  “With what?” I held up my empty hands. “Besides, I don’t know about mice.”

  While I sat down again, she bent over the tiny creature, murmuring, “There, there. You’ll be all right.” She called Claudia for advice and insisted on watching over the mouse’s last hour with an old towel and a saucer of water.

  So in answer to the question: An animal is in pain. Would your partner (1) Drop everything to help? (2) Say I’m not a vet and drive on? (3) Urge someone else to help? I would have chosen 1, unhesitatingly. But since Mercury’s advent, my sense of knowing Viv was under siege. A battlement fell here—Hilary. A turret there—Greenfield. A major stretch of wall fell when, not long after lunch with my mother, Viv asked me to go to the stables to help Claudia with Nimble; they were sending him to the vet’s to be euthanized. She had a doctor’s appointment, and the Brazilian men who worked at Windy Hill had a family birthday. “You don’t need to do anything,” she assured me. “Just offer moral support.” I rearranged my appointments and drove out to the stables. A trailer hitched to a faded black truck was standing near the indoor arena. As I got out of my car, Claudia appeared in the doorway of the barn, leading a gray pony.

  She thanked me for coming. Nimble nudged me, searching my pockets. Poor beast, I thought, showing him my empty hands. It was almost cold enough for snow.

  “Come on, Nimble,” said Claudia, leading him towards the trailer. It was surely no different from many others he had entered during his long life, but twenty feet away he came to a halt. Neither tugging nor coaxing would budge him. When Claudia changed direction, heading for the water trough, he limped along obligingly, but as soon as she turned back to the trailer, he stopped. I could see the whites of his eyes.

  “What’s the problem?” said Claudia, offering a carrot. Nimble ate the carrot but did not move. I felt the first drops of rain.

  A man wearing a shiny blue jacket got out of the truck. “Step up,” he said, and slapped Nimble’s rump. The pony gave a feeble kick. While Claudia went to fetch some oats, the man tugged at the halter and swore. Nimble—I was by now entirely on his side—put his ears back and stood firm. At the sight of Claudia and the bucket of oats, he nickered, but he knew better than to take a single step. Still swearing, the driver returned to the cab.

  I stepped over to stroke Nimble’s neck. “Can’t he stay?” I said to Claudia. “He’s not doing any harm. I’ll pay for his hay. Doesn’t he deserve a good retirement?”

  “Donald,” she said, “his kidneys are failing. Really, this is the kindest way.”

  “How can this be kind? He’s terrified. Let’s phone Viv. I’m sure she’d want him to stay.”

  Claudia put her hand on my arm. “The shot will calm him,” she said.

  Even as she spoke, the driver reappeared. With no preparation, he rammed a needle into Nimble’s shoulder. Nimble reared halfheartedly. Claudia hung on to the halter until he was again standing quietly. While she and the driver argued about vets, his head sank lower. I stood watching out of a sense of duty. At last Claudia declared him ready. Nimble lurched up the ramp, paused on the threshold, and stumbled into the trailer.

  All of this was harrowing, but worse, much worse, was Viv’s reaction when I described the gruesome scene. “He didn’t know what was happening,” she said.

  “He absolutely did. He knew that horse trailer was his death sentence. I felt like an accomplice to murder.”

  I would have bet ten thousand dollars, a month of my life, that my kind, animal-loving wife would agree with me, but like Claudia, she was adamant. Nimble was old, he was ill, he was fit only for dog food and glue. At some point the woman who watched over a dying mouse had disappeared. I had missed her departure.

  And I had missed something else, something even more crucial. I have never believed I was exceptional, but Viv secretly, passionately, believed that she was destined for greatness. When her attempts to compete on Dow Jones failed, when she found herself thirty-seven years old with two beautiful children, a devoted (if grieving) husband, a pleasant home, dear friends, and a job she loved, she felt as if her life was over. Everything tasted of ashes until Mercury arrived.

  9

  I MISSED MY FATHER ALL the time, but the major holidays, those days when I had reliably been in his company, were particularly hard. For the last few years we had celebrated Thanksgiving at Claudia and her great-aunt Helen’s house. Now, as I helped Viv make stuffing and cranberry sauce, I kept picturing him standing in their living room, reciting the Scots grace, using his walker as a prop in charades. How could we celebrate without him? How could my mother have already replaced him? But as soon as Larry came into the room, I could see that he was, as she had said, a lovely man. He went round greeting everyone. He endeared himself to Viv and Claudia by asking about the stables, to Helen by praising the house, to Marcus by talking about diving, and to Trina by describing the time he’d ridden an elephant.

  “I doubt you’ll remember,” he said to me. “We met years ago.” His lower teeth were endearingly crowded.

  “Of course,” I said, although I still had no recollection of our meeting. What had my mother told him about me? A wonderful doctor. Gave up surgery to care for his father. Devoted to his children. Or a less flattering description?

  But Larry was asking after Nabokov. He too had an African grey. “I remember your father telling me that Henry VIII owned one. We joked about what it might say. ‘Wife number three. Watch your head.’”

  My mother, once the introductions were past, behaved as usual, helping Claudia with the turkey, but something about her was different. In private she must often have bemoaned my father’s illness, but in public she always behaved as if she were glad to be married to this man who towards the end, could not button his own shirt nor finish a sentence. Watching her now, I remembered a long-ago afternoon, bicycling on Cape Cod. I had gotten ahead of the others, and when I turned around to wait, I saw her pedaling towards me, her face bright with happiness.

  Needless to say, Larry was good at charades and his baked squash was delicious. As I sat looking down the candlelit table, everyone talking and laughing, it was as if my father had never existed. Just then my mother tapped her glass.

  “Ladies and gentlemen.” Her gaze settled on me. “May I propose a toast? To absent friends.”<
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  It was the toast my father had made year after year. We raised our glasses.

  But the most significant event of the holiday was still to come. Viv and I drove home, put the children to bed, and went to bed ourselves. An hour later we were woken by the phone. I answered on the second ring, half expecting to hear my mother’s voice. A man asked for Viv Turner.

  I hovered, uselessly, while she said, “Yes,” “Yes,” and “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  The alarm had gone off at Windy Hill. The police needed her to check that no damage had been done and reset it.

  “Probably just a raccoon,” she said, as she pulled on her clothes.

  “This is Massachusetts,” I reassured her. “People don’t steal horses.”

  But we were both thinking about the break-in at the farm stand. She turned out the light, and I heard the familiar sequence: her feet on the stairs, the back door, the car door, the engine.

  When Marcus was four, he had gone through a phase of dreading sleep, sure that if he closed his eyes, some dragon or demon would pounce. As I lay there, alone in the dark, clicking back and forth on the abacus of my nocturnal accounts, I had new sympathy for his fears. My father was dead; my patients were dying (only one); my mother was changing (she had found happiness); my wife was obsessed with private school and a horse (she was an enthusiast); we were close to bankruptcy (not really). At last I pulled on my bathrobe and went downstairs. I still have the British belief that almost any situation can be improved by a cup of tea.

  The water had just come to the boil when I heard a car turn into our driveway. But as I heated the pot, measured, and poured, I heard nothing more. Thinking I had been mistaken, I opened the back door. There was Viv’s car in the usual place, and there was Viv, still sitting behind the wheel. Something terrible must have happened.

  At the sight of me hurrying down the steps, she jumped out of the car. “Don,” she said, “you’ll freeze.”