The Real Mother

by Judith Michael

  “Ben, no, I love—”

  “You do not. And I don’t love you. Whatever love we had has been gone for years; it is a farce to pretend anything else. I’m sorry for you, I have great admiration for what you are doing now—I’m sure it’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done—but no two people can build a life on that. You have to build your own life; I am not going to do it for you.”

  “You’re my husband! You have a responsibility to me!”

  “I did. Not anymore. You killed all possibilities of it in a dozen ways. I am divorcing you, as I should have done years ago, and if you refuse to cooperate, it will be messy and end up hurting you much more than it does me. If we do it together, I’ll be as generous as I can, and help you as much as I can, but if you fight me I will not do one damn thing more than I absolutely have to.”

  “It’s that other woman—”

  “I’m talking about us, about the end of our marriage. It has nothing to do with anyone else. It has to do with your life and my life, separate lives and how we shape them. I will no longer be part of your life and I will not have you in mine. I will not have you take part in anything I plan or arrange or think about, or regret. I want nothing to do with you.”

  “That’s mean. You’re a cruel man, Benny.” She had shrunk back into the chair as if beaten down by hammer blows. “I tried so hard for you. I haven’t had a drink—and it hurts, damn it. I’ve gone to hundreds of people for facials and hairstyling and massages and nutrition classes and exercises …even yoga, for God’s sake. I’ve worked hard, to please you. And you haven’t even noticed. I wanted this to work, and you don’t care.”

  “No.” He stood up. “I don’t care. I agree with you: that’s cruel. But it’s the truth.”

  “I don’t want the truth! What good is the truth if I can’t have what I want? What good is it if I lose?” She took a breath. “I do love you, Benny, whatever you say. I want to live with you and sleep with you and cook for you and polish your shoes… whatever a good wife does. I haven’t been a good wife, I know it, I know it, I know it, I know it…” She broke down in shuddering sobs. “But I would be, if you’d let me.”

  Reuben shook his head. “It’s too late.”

  “Please, Benny, please, please give me a chance! Please…I can prove it to you, I can be everything you want. You wouldn’t want anybody else, you’d have me.” She thrust up her chin, suddenly defiant. “I’ll start drinking again if you kick me out. It’ll be your fault, on your conscience!”

  “I’ll live with it. If you throw your life away, the only one you can blame is yourself. I told you: what you make of yourself is up to you. I can’t help you. If you get professional help, I’ll pay for it, but that decision is in your hands; all the decisions from now on are in your hands. Not mine. Not ever again.” He turned away. “I’m calling the airline; you’d better pack.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Then I’ll pack for you or send your things to you later. You choose. You have to get used to that.”

  “You’re a monster. I hate you.”

  He nodded. “That’s a good start.”

  She let out a piercing scream as he went to his study. “Come back here!”

  He picked up the telephone, searching for the number in his file.

  “I’ll kill myself!”

  He dialed the number and swiveled his chair away from the living room, ashamed of her, ashamed of himself.

  “Damn you, damn you!” Ardis rushed into the library and snatched a stiletto letter opener from its holder. “Monster! I hate you! I hate you!” She stabbed at Reuben, embedding the blade in the leather chair a few inches from his neck. “Oh, God!” Sobbing, she wrenched it out to try again, but Reuben grabbed her wrist, twisting it, and she dropped the knife and crumpled. “Oh God, oh God, oh God …”

  Reuben picked up the letter opener from the floor. It was a replica of an Italian Renaissance stiletto, its handle worked in small gold houses. And it was a gift from Sara. How small a world we live in, Reuben thought hopelessly; we keep bumping into people, and, too often, hurting them.

  He helped Ardis to her feet. “I’m sorry; I went too far. I let the worst of me take over. I’m sorry, Ardis; I am sorry.”

  She ignored him. Unsteady on her high heels, she tottered from the room. “I’ll go pack.” She paused. Over her shoulder, she said, “Can I keep the bracelet I bought that day downtown? I mean, it was your credit card…”

  “Of course.”

  She brushed away her tears. “Just tell me what time the plane is, so I can be ready. You know, be at my best.”

  Reuben contemplated her for a long moment. His hand hovered above the telephone. And then he picked it up and deliberately punched in the number.

  ELEVEN

  Abby saw Sean coming toward her, and held her breath. She had not seen him all summer, and even before summer vacation, he had never even come near her. But today, the first day of school, with everyone milling about on the sidewalk and the wide steps leading up to the main entrance, he was there, he was walking in her direction, and he was looking straight at her. Abby felt dizzy, her breathing rapid and shallow. She had dreamed of this moment for months, but as the weeks passed without a telephone call or even a sighting of Sean’s dark, handsome face, she had sunk deeper into the bleakness of knowing it would never happen, that she would die old and unmarried, without ever feeling his arms around her again.

  “How was your summer?” he asked casually, relaxed and— maybe?—a little amused at the expression on her face.

  “Oh. Fine.” She tried to stop a sneeze, but could not, then sneezed twice. “Something in the air,” she said apologetically. “You know, I get…well, maybe you don’t remember, but I’m allergic to something that’s worse in the fall. It wasn’t too bad this summer, I mean I was outside most of the time, I was a counselor at Doug’s day camp, and…” Her voice ran down. “It was fine.”

  “Great. And now you’re a senior. Happy to be getting out of this place, right?”

  “No! I mean…” She tried to undo the fact that she had disagreed with him. “It’ll be fine going to college, I’m excited about it, but…” Then honesty took over. “I like it here. I mean, I can be glad about college, but not in a hurry… Don’t you like it here?”

  He shrugged. “It’s for kids. Which movie shall we see tonight?”

  “Movie?” Abby clenched her fists. She had forgotten how Sean always made her feel slow and inadequate, trailing a few steps behind him. But his voice made her shiver, and his closeness was overwhelming; she felt jumpy inside, and had to force herself to stay still. “I can’t. It’s a weeknight.”

  “Sara still keeping the clamps on? You’re a senior; you’re all grown up, chonai croi.”

  “What?”

  “Gaelic for sweetheart. It’s time you learned a little Gaelic. Good for the soul. So, which movie?”

  Abby was in turmoil. “Couldn’t we just go for a walk or …some-thing?”

  There was a pause, then Sean shrugged. “We’ll walk over to Armitage; there’s a new bar I want to check out.”

  “I’m not twenty-one,” Abby said faintly.

  “I know that, you’re still in high school. You look it though, you could pass. Anyway, you’re close, right? Nineteen?”

  Abby shook her head. “Not for…” She hesitated. Sean liked older women. “Four years from September 20,” she said miserably.

  “Four years? Jesus, you’re only—? Okay, okay, forget it. We’ll find some other place tonight. A chocolate soda? What will it be?”

  Abby laughed, relieved and wonderfully happy. “A latte. With chocolate almond.”

  He shuddered. “The lady has exotic tastes. But…you got it. I’ll be in front of your house at seven. Will you all be done with dinner?”

  “No, but I can leave.”

  He nodded. “See you.”

  And that was all. But it was everything. They were together. Forever. The sun was shining, the world was beautiful. A
bby danced into school with her classmates, smiling benevolently at everyone, loving them all, even the ones she had always disliked.

  “It was wonderful,” she said to Sara that evening, standing beside her in the kitchen, absently whisking tarragon sauce for the salmon. “It was wonderful to be back, my teachers are wonderful …it was wonderful.”

  “And what else happened?” asked Sara, smiling.

  “What else?”

  “To make it all so wonderful.”

  “Oh. Nothing special. Just being back.” She whisked more vigorously. “Oh, I almost forgot. I’m going for a walk after dinner, with Sean.”

  Sara put the pan of potatoes into the bottom oven for browning, and stood still for a moment, her back to Abby. When she turned, she said, casually, “That’s quite a change.”

  “I know. We started talking…oh, Sara, he’s so wonderful.” She whirled about the kitchen, once, twice, then threw her arms around Sara. “He is, you know, he’s just…wonderful. And when he smiles… well, you know, you feel that way about Reuben. Oh, I’m sorry …I forgot you broke up. That must be awful; you were so happy with him. But anyway you know how I feel about Sean, you understand, you do, don’t you? He’s so…wonderful. When you know him better, you’ll love him, too.”

  Briefly, Sara was amused by the self-absorption of almost-sixteen, but then Abby’s words cut into her—you feel that way about Reuben… you were so happy with him—and she turned away until the pain receded. “Are you sure he’s so wonderful, Abby? He hurt you so badly before.”

  Not wanting to be reminded, Abby turned back to the stove. “That was a long time ago. He’s had a whole summer to think about it.”

  “Is that what he said?”

  “Sure.” Abby hated lying to Sara, but sometimes Sara just forced her into it.“It was all so… natural. You know, like nothing had ever happened. He wanted to go to a movie, but I said I couldn’t on a school night, so we decided to go for a walk, and he called me sweetheart. In Gaelic.”

  Sara was silent, worried but reluctant to push, held back by Abby’s shining face.

  “It’s all right, isn’t it?” Abby asked. “It’s only a walk, you know, and ice cream or coffee or something; I won’t be late.”

  “Yes, it’s all right.” Sara slid the pan of salmon into the upper oven. “But, Abby, please be cautious. Don’t leap into a great romance; let it build slowly. If it’s really good, it will last. If it’s not, you’ll know it before you get hurt, not after.”

  Look who’s talking. What right have I to give advice about caution in a love affair?

  The right of someone who was too trusting. Foolish. Even careless.

  But learned her lesson.

  Abby’s face had tightened, the brightness was gone from her eyes. She doesn’t believe a word I’m saying, Sara thought despairingly. I didn’t handle it well. I didn’t use the best words or the best timing or whatever would have convinced her, at least made her listen and maybe remember later on. But I don’t know how to do that.

  She looked at Abby’s averted head, and suddenly felt drained and exhausted. What could I have said to convince her? What would have been the right words? Oh, I am so tired of trying to be a real mother, and not knowing any tricks or secrets that would help. How do people ever learn them?

  But perhaps there was nothing she could have said that would make an impression on Abby. Would she have believed anyone who warned her to go slow with Reuben, not to be in such a hurry to go out with him, to think of him when they weren’t together, to sleep with him?

  I wouldn’t have listened. I was sure of myself, and so is Abby.

  And Abby could well be as wrong as I was.

  She bent down to take the potatoes from the oven. “Just don’t be too late.”

  “I told Sean I couldn’t be late. I know that without being told. I know what time I have to get up for school.”

  Sara nodded. “Yes, you do. You’re very good about that. Would you get Doug and Carrie? We’re ready.”

  Unmollified, Abby stamped out, and, for the first time that she could remember, Sara found herself dreading the time spent around the dinner table. But Doug carried them along on the ebullience of his chatter about the first day of school and his show, opening in three nights. “They’re always on Friday, the artists’ openings, and they have wine and stuff and everybody comes and lots of people buy, it’s like a party, well, it is a party, you know, with everybody telling the artist how good he is and all that.” He stuffed salmon in his mouth, the green tarragon sauce dribbling down his chin.

  “Ugh,” Carrie said, “you look like a demented creature from outer space.”

  Doug made a pass at his face with his napkin and lunged with his fork to spear potatoes. “Frank, that’s the owner of the gallery, he says I’m the youngest artist he’s ever had and he probably won’t have another one like me for a long time if ever, but he’s really cool, you know, he knows how to fix the lights so they show everything just right, and then he moves these little platform things around, you know, like pillars? And my pieces sit on them and the lights shine on them and it is so cool. They never looked that good in my room or at school.”

  “You’ll be famous,” Carrie said. She looked at her plate. “I guess I won’t be, ever.”

  “You will,” Doug said loyally. “You’ll get your stories published. Mack said.”

  “But he hasn’t done anything. He was probably lying, just so I’d like him.”

  “You already like him.”

  “I know, but maybe not enough to satisfy him.”

  Sara gazed at Carrie, amazed, as often before, at the insights she dispensed so easily, probably unaware of how perceptive they were. But there was nothing she could say. She had been wrong about Mack’s finding a gallery for Doug (how had he done that?); she could be wrong about his getting Carrie’s stories published.

  And then, once again, she would be on the outside, watching the two of them hang on Mack, as if he were not only big brother but father and friend…

  Oh, stop it. You’re just feeling sorry for yourself these days.

  And that was what she reminded herself as she smiled and smiled during the opening of Douglas Hayden Sculptures: New Works, at the Franklin Stoaner Gallery on Friday evening, from 6:00 to 8:00 P.M.

  Doug, wearing a new navy suit with a light blue shirt and red tie, grinned happily from his post beside the buffet of wine, cheese, and fruit, and drank one root beer after another. He sat on a painter’s high stool, to look taller, and shook hands with everyone Frank Stoaner brought forward. They all seemed taken aback by his age, which Doug translated as amazement that anyone as young as he could do such brilliant work (that was what Frank and Mack said). Mack was wandering around the room—“circulating,” he called it—and Doug kept looking his way, wishing he would stand next to him and help him talk to people. Lots of people stopped to talk, mostly the old ones, asking him how he worked and where he had studied.

  “They talk to him like he’s their kid,” Carrie whispered to Sara, who nodded, amused but beginning to be worried, as she saw Doug looking more downcast each time the door opened and shut on people who left without buying anything.

  Thirty pieces were arrayed about the large square room on white display stands: the terrified rabbit from their hike in Galena; the bear Doug had given his mother and retrieved just for his show; a group of dogs eating or leaping up to catch a thrown stick or curled up beside a pair of shoes; various other vaguely unidentifiable animals; and a dozen figures of children sitting at school desks, flying kites, eating ice-cream cones, making a bridge of LEGOs, racing with friends.

  “Quite remarkable for a ten-year-old,” Doug heard someone say. He scowled at him, a tall man with wavy hair standing a few feet away.

  “Very nice,” said the woman with him.

  “He’s got a future,” the man went on. “Maybe we should buy one, while prices are low.”

  “Oh, Kurt, don’t be silly. These are amateur.” />
  “Harbingers of things to come,” Kurt said stubbornly. “I want one.”

  “Fine. Buy it. But keep it in your office.”

  In the end, he did not buy anything. Doug watched them eagerly as they circled the gallery, then drooped in disappointment when they left.

  Sara stood beside him. “What a good crowd. It’s hard to get people to come out the last week in August; they’re still doing summer things. But you brought them out, Doug; this is a real success.”

  “Nobody’s buying anything.”

  “Maybe people don’t buy on the first night. Maybe they look at everything and then go home and see where they might put pieces they liked.”

  Doug brightened. “Really?”

  “That’s what I’d do.”

  “Sara’s right,” Carrie said, having refilled her own root beer in the small kitchen. “Nobody spends money without thinking about it first.”

  “Everything okay here?” Mack appeared and surveyed Doug. “You look good, buddy, suit and tie, terrific. Manly, mannish, and mannified.” He and Doug gave each other a high five. He kissed Sara on both cheeks. “Happy, sis? Great night for Doug; we’re all happy, right? Right, Carrie?” He bent down and whispered in her ear, “You’re next. Almost there. Prepare yourself for a starring role.” He straightened and gave a mock salute to Doug. “Gotta go, my man. Couldn’t miss this, though; great opening.” He waved and cut a straight line to the door, stopping for a few words with Frank. And then he was gone.

  But for all his grins and rapid talk, it seemed to Sara that he had been distracted: something else on his mind, nagging at him. His words had seemed automatic, as if he had plugged himself in, given his little speech, then escaped. They had seen less of him at home lately, and she wondered if he was in trouble.

  “Do you know what he said?” Carrie breathed to Sara. “He said I should prepare myself for a starring role.” She giggled nervously. “It’s my stories! He’s getting them published!”