The Repeat Year

by Andrea Lochen

“You’re a terrible judge of character. You like everyone.” She sat down on a stray chaise longue and stretched out her legs.

  “I’m an excellent judge of character. I chose you, didn’t I?” He sat at the edge of her chair and began tracing small circles on her bare thigh.

  “You chose me? I thought fate brought us together. Fate, some apples, and a defective paper bag.”

  “Maybe this sounds cliché, but today I could tell that Harry really loves your mom. The way he talks about her and the way every little thing reminds him of her. And he’s doing everything he can to get you and Christopher to like him. He asked me all about the ICU, what you do, and if you like it. He really cares, Olive. I think it hurts him that you guys are so indifferent to him.”

  “Honestly, I don’t care.” She felt a twinge of meanness and fought to justify it. In her mind’s eye, she saw the Richmond library branch and her mom and Harry in the deserted Derleth Reading Room, leaning together much too close across a wooden lectern. “I’m doing all I can right now to support my mom. I don’t have the energy to get all buddy-buddy with Harry.”

  The high tide lapped almost as far as the stone wall, gliding stealthily under the chaise longue. Phil lifted his feet and then moved to another chaise longue and faced her. “You act like those are different things. Supporting your mom and approving of Harry.”

  “They are to me! I can’t like Harry. He represents too many bad things to me. He’s everything my dad wasn’t. Don’t you see that I’m doing the best I can?”

  “I do. But what you don’t see is that Harry’s doing the best he can.” His tone was resentful.

  “Why are you getting so mad at me? You’re supposed to be on my side.”

  “I’m always on your side, Ollie. I guess I just . . . Maybe I’m just jealous. Your real dad was great, and now you have a potential stepdad who’s bending over backward to make you happy.”

  Olive dangled her feet over the edge of her chair. “Well, although Charlie will never win the Father of the Year award, he’s trying, too, Phil.” She curled her toes into the wet sand.

  There was a long silence. The sun had moved behind the island, so they couldn’t see it touch the horizon. The clouds left behind were orange and ragged.

  Phil straightened up in his chair. “I haven’t heard from him since late March. I’ve tried calling him, and his number is disconnected. I called his sponsor, Maryanne, and she hasn’t heard from him in months, either. I even looked up the number for his trucking company, but they said he no longer works there. I think he’s fallen off the wagon again.”

  “Oh Phil, I’m so sorry.” She reached out to squeeze his arm, but he had turned away from her, toward the sunset, and she couldn’t reach him. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  “I don’t know. You didn’t ask, and—”

  “I’m so sorry. I should’ve.”

  “That’s not what I meant. It just didn’t come up in conversation, and I didn’t want to make it out to be more important than it really is. He’s a drunk and always will be. What more did I expect?”

  “Maybe you didn’t expect him to change, but you hoped,” Olive said.

  Phil laughed bitterly. “I’m an idiot for letting him back into my life. What a waste of time.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re a good person. A forgiving person.”

  “A fool.”

  “He has an illness, Phil.”

  “I don’t want to hear it. I am so sick of all the excuses. It’s simple: If I were worth it to him, he’d get his act together. But if I wasn’t worth it to him at age eight, I’m certainly not worth it to him now.” He closed his eyes and pressed his thumbs into his eyelids.

  “Of course you’re worth it. The first thing he did when he became sober was contact you. He loves you. He’s just a man with a serious addiction.”

  “That’s not love, and I can’t put up with it anymore. I’m done with him now.” His voice was hard and uncompromising, the way he’d sounded last year when he’d told her good-bye. Olive involuntarily shuddered.

  The cloud scraps reflected on the water, resembling large, golden fish.

  He was in his own world now, and she wanted him back. “This reminds me of the docks,” she said. “How we used to watch the sun set together and you would quiz me on drugs. And almost every time, you would tell me that same story about your childhood. How you thought the sun set only in your backyard.”

  The best part of the Russells’ old farmhouse was the backyard. It faced the west with miles of rolling green fields and red barns and silos as far as the eye could see. The sun would disappear neatly between the cradle of the hills as if it slept there every night. As a little boy, Phil had thought they were the only ones with a view of this spectacle, that the sun set only over their land. When he was six years old, he’d stayed overnight at a friend’s house and witnessed the same sun setting as he perched at the top of a jungle gym at the neighborhood playground. He’d been so distressed that he’d fallen off but was too embarrassed to explain the real reason for his fall. He said it was the first revelation that he’d ever had.

  “I love that story,” Olive said. “I never really knew what you meant by ‘revelation,’ but I still love it.”

  Phil clasped his hands over his knees. “Just what every kid learns at some point, I guess. That people and things don’t exist just for us. They exist for other people, too. They exist in their own right.”

  Olive’s own similar revelation, she supposed, had come when she realized her parents had names, that their names were not simply Mom and Dad. She had overheard them talking in the kitchen one morning as they made pancakes. “It looks like we’re out of syrup, Kathy. I guess I’d better run to the store.” “Hang on, Greg! I have some frozen berries and cream we can use instead.” It had been like finding out her parents had secret identities.

  It was hard not to think about Sherry’s claim that motherhood meant giving up your dreams, giving up a secret part of yourself. She tried to imagine this secret part of her mom. A dark corner of her that loved opera and had a passion for trying new foods. A shadowy space devoted to loving Harry. It saddened her to think there was any part of her mom to which she didn’t have access.

  Back in their room, Olive stepped out of her sundress and untied her bikini top. Phil sat on the bed behind her and rubbed aloe vera onto her shoulders and neck. The aloe vera felt cold against the heat of her sunburn. She felt like she was freezing and burning up at the same time. She collapsed into him, gritting her teeth against his handsome jawbone, digging her fingers into his warm flesh, relishing her physicality and his closeness.

  Chapter 15

  It was Saturday, June 25, the day of the wedding. The morning unrolled in an identical fashion, as if last year had been merely a dress rehearsal. Olive’s mom called at eight forty-five to remind them of the nine o’clock meeting with the resort’s wedding consultant, Rowena, to go over the details of the afternoon’s ceremony. They met in the lobby, which bustled with arrivals and departures. Luggage was packed and unpacked from white shuttles idling on the cobblestone driveway. Rowena’s turquoise blazer was familiar, as well as the room she led them to, with its crystal vase of sweet-smelling plumeria and shelves and shelves of silver-framed brides and grooms hand-in-hand on the beach. Olive felt claustrophobic.

  She knew the wedding was central to her year, one of the major sticking points she needed to straighten out, and she’d gotten this far without majorly blowing it; she just needed to hold on a little longer, but she was exhausted and on edge from the previous day’s catamaran cruise to Soufrière. Repeat year, okay, but for a really neat trick, how about a pause button? A few days off from Harry, from her whole family. She and Phil could camp out on the beach. She’d let the sun drench her skin, drug her into a stupor, and erase her memory of Sherry’s unwelcome gossip. She’d read novels, doze, and move only enough to ta
ke sips from a strawberry daiquiri. Rejuvenated, she could endure her mom’s wedding to Harry a second time cheerfully and graciously. But alas, there was no pause button, and she was already five minutes late for her appointed time to help her mom get dressed for the ceremony.

  Whistling a half-familiar tune, Harry was just leaving the honeymoon bungalow when Olive arrived. He wore a white linen tunic, matching drawstring pants, and leather sandals. Phil was going to keep him company until the wedding. Harry bowed deeply. “My lady’s lady-in-waiting.”

  Olive stared back, unsure how to respond. Was she supposed to curtsy? Call him my lord? But he was already ambling down the walk. She slapped her forehead and shook her head, and then hoped her mom hadn’t been looking out the window.

  She kicked off her sandals and found her mom in the bathroom, wrapped in one of the resort’s oversized white terrycloth bathrobes. Her face was pink and blotchy from the shower, her hair tangled in clumps around her face. She looked less like a blushing bride and more like the woman Olive had tried to console in the days following her dad’s death.

  “Happy wedding day,” Olive said and hugged her.

  “Thanks. Your dress is just darling. I made the mistake of trying mine on last night, and it’s a little tight across my stomach. I wish I’d bought a larger size, or better yet, said no to the dessert table this week.”

  “You’re going to look beautiful.” Olive began untangling her mom’s wet hair with a wide-toothed comb. “Let me know if I pull too hard.”

  “You’re very gentle.” She picked up a jar of face cream and smoothed it under her eyes. “Can you believe I’m nervous? I’m fifty-three years old. God knows what I have to be nervous about.”

  Had she said this last year? Olive didn’t think so. She rubbed some styling product through her mom’s hair and wiped her hands on a towel. She tried to remember their exact words, but she could only remember the general impression of an offense-defense match. Olive’s mom had raved about the elegant setup on the beach; Olive had asked her how it compared to her first wedding. Her mom’s rebuttal had been to ask what Olive would one day like for her own wedding. This had led to a discussion of whether a person had just one perfect soul mate and if marriage was necessary for happiness. And so on until Olive declared that her mom loved Harry more than she had ever loved her dad.

  The loud whir of the hair dryer made it unnecessary to speak for the next few minutes. Olive busied her hands spreading out the contents of her mom’s makeup bag on the counter and trying to ignore her appraising look in the mirror. The hair dryer clicked off.

  “What is all this stuff?” Olive asked. There were tubes, bottles, and plastic squares of creams, glosses, and powders in every color. She held up a vial of bronze-colored liquid. “I don’t know if this is for your eyes, your lips, or your skin.”

  Her mom squinted at it. “I don’t know, either. You know I don’t wear much makeup. I bought it from one of those department store ladies who gave me a makeover. She said it would all come together quite nicely. Here—this looks like foundation.” She handed Olive a triangular bottle.

  “And I put this on with what?”

  “The lady did it with a sponge. There’s a pack of them around here somewhere. Do you think we should call Verona? She always looks so put together.”

  “No,” Olive said quickly. She found the pack of wedge-shaped sponges under a blush compact. “We can figure this out. It’s not rocket science.”

  “Okay, good.” Her mom sat down on the toilet lid. “Is Christopher still having a difficult time?”

  Olive knelt before her on the robin’s-egg blue tile. “I think he’s starting to come around. We both love you so much; we just want to see you happy again.” She dabbed the foundation on her mom’s face with the sponge. “If Harry makes you happy . . .”

  “That means a lot to me. He does make me happy.” She lifted her chin for Olive, stretching her slender neck, and then grinned at the ceiling. “Who woulda thunk?”

  Olive bristled at her mom’s use of one of her dad’s favorite expressions. She swiped the sponge along her mom’s jawline and tried to think of something to say. Something about the drive-in-volcano they’d seen yesterday in Soufrière or a funny memory from her childhood. Something benign and appropriate for the occasion and maybe even sweet. Instead, she found herself saying, “But you must’ve suspected that when you met him, right?”

  Olive’s mom accepted the sponge and mirror from her and touched up a few spots around her eyes. “Harry? Well, not at first, no.” She turned the hand mirror from side to side, critically studying her reflection.

  “How did you meet again?” Olive asked, standing up. She looked away from her mom and pretended to be engrossed in twisting open a makeup brush that fanned out like a palm tree. She held her breath, scared to hear her mom’s answer. She didn’t know if she was more nervous about her mom lying to her again or telling her the truth.

  “Yoga at the Y. In our whole class, Harry was one of only two men.” Her mom set the hand mirror facedown on her lap. “What’s next? Blush?”

  Olive bit her lip. Her hand shook as she twisted the makeup brush again and its bristles disappeared. “That was the first time you met? You didn’t meet earlier . . . at the library?” She risked a glance at the mirror and saw her mom staring back at her reflection. Their eyes met, and Olive saw that Sherry hadn’t been lying.

  “It’s not like you think,” Olive’s mom said softly.

  Olive clung to the edge of the bathroom counter. Why had she pursued this? Knowing would not make anything better; it would only make things harder. For the first time since the early days of January, she wished she had not been given a repeat year. She wished 2011 were done and over with. Even if she’d been a bitch at the wedding, it still would’ve been better than hearing this. But a macabre instinct guided her—the same sick curiosity that made her unable to turn her head away when Phil said, “Don’t look,” at cats or dogs dead on the side of the road or particularly gory scenes in movies. She needed to face the worst.

  Olive squatted on the floor in front of her mom. “Tell me what to think, then.”

  She wouldn’t look at Olive. “Honey, I don’t think this is the time to talk about it. Verona will be here any minute, and the wedding . . .”

  “I agree with you. The best time would’ve been a long time ago.” Olive sat back on her heels. Was she doing this for her dad? What else could explain forcing her mom to confess only an hour before the wedding? She knew she was being cruel, but she couldn’t stop.

  Her mom gripped the handle of the mirror and turned it over and over in her lap. “Your dad and I had such a beautiful life together. He showed me so much love. I was never wanting for love. Even in the end.”

  Olive’s eyes burned as she blinked back tears. She set her trembling lips in a firm line.

  “It was wrong, I know. I punished myself for a long time, especially after your dad passed. I told myself it was my fault he hadn’t lived longer; my actions had made him worse. That I deserved the pain and suffering I was going through because I hadn’t appreciated him enough. It was awful. It made getting out of bed even harder. But as guilty as I felt, I still couldn’t make myself regret it.” Her mom carefully laid the hand mirror on the counter.

  Her admission was like a hammer to Olive’s memories of her parents’ happy marriage. The hammer swung and struck, and the memories exploded into thousands of sharp crystal shards. Her dad was gone, and now this, too.

  “I don’t understand,” Olive said. “You met at the library three years ago and you’ve been together since then? After Dad’s death, why did you hide it? Why wait so long?” With each question, her tone became more and more accusatory. It was easier to be furious than devastated, or even worse, sympathetic. With her slumped, defeated posture, her mom reminded Olive of herself the night she’d admitted her infidelity to Phil.

&
nbsp; “No, no. It wasn’t like that.” Her mom straightened herself and crossed her ankles. “We met at the library three years ago, that’s true. But I told your dad about him that night, about his goofy Middle English accent, and Greg said, ‘Gotta love the library dorks. I’m so sorry you have to put up with that.’ I didn’t think I’d ever see him again. Your dad was very sick then, and taking care of him took up most of my time. Not that I minded, of course. It was a privilege to care for him, when he had given so much of himself to me and our family over the years.”

  She took a deep breath, as if working up the courage to continue. “A few weeks after the reading, Harry stopped by the library and asked me out for coffee. I told him I couldn’t, that I was married, and he acted taken aback. ‘Two academics going out for coffee to discuss literature isn’t a date,’ he insisted.”

  Olive clenched her teeth at her mom’s imitation of Harry. It sounded so like him. So precise. So fussy. How manipulative he’d been. Of all the faults she’d disliked him for, she had never thought he was a scheming sleaze who’d chase a married woman.

  “I surprised myself. I went. And it felt so good to be somewhere other than the house or the hospital or the library. I was a woman in a coffee shop with a man who asked her questions she’d never considered before. And he took my answers seriously, like I was an expert. So I went again. And again. We went out for coffee or lunch every week, for about a year. But then your dad’s hospice care started, and I broke it off. I couldn’t—I just . . .”

  “Did you and Dad never have interesting conversations? Did Dad not take you seriously?” Olive pushed.

  “No, it’s not that. It’s hard to explain. Greg’s goal in life was to make me laugh, I think. He saw me as this serious creature who always had her head in a book. And though he loved that about me, I don’t think he ever understood it.”

  “So you never—” Olive paused, unsure how to ask her mom such a personal, prying question, but she knew she needed the answer. “You were never intimate?”