On his colossal loss of income, Rebecca often said: I think this could be a good thing.
But Rebecca didn’t have children yet. And didn’t even the most ascetic sorts of people change their tune about money and personal comforts when children came along? (I’m not remotely ascetic! she’d yelled at him once. Where do you come up with these insane ideas? Have you taken a good look at my shoes? Loeffler Randall, Daddy! I’m not proud, but, believe it or not, I have a clue what it’s like to live beyond my means.) Even though she’d remained stubbornly unattached for years now, Ed allowed himself to picture his daughter coming to her reclaimed childhood home with her own children one day.
He wasn’t sure when he’d transferred wanting more children into wanting grandchildren, but he knew he’d made the leap—he wasn’t delusional about his age, not to mention his current precarious situation—somewhere along the way. He tried not to nudge Rebecca about any of it—the going on dates, the getting out there, the unconceived babies—but he was also acutely aware of the fact that his only daughter was closer to forty than thirty. How was this possible? Even though he was no less than stern with her if she ever waxed nostalgic about Gabriel (if he said anything on the subject, it was how she needed to snap out of it and get over him), Ed was certain that he and his daughter shared an unspoken understanding that letting Gabriel get away had not been her finest moment.
The truth was, he was crushed when they’d split. Ed had really liked—even loved—Gabriel, who was raised in Belfast until he was twelve and was fiercely ambitious, who was of the opinion that since there was no way in hell he was going to remain a Catholic, he’d be happy to raise any future kids Jewish, if that’s what Rebecca really wanted. Gabriel didn’t approve of religion, but he loved the law and liked the tradition of the Talmud. He liked how Ed’s rabbi had told him that should he choose to convert to Judaism (he did not intend to) and still not find a way to believe in God, then he would find himself in good company, because theirs was a religion based on the act of doubting. Ed loved that Gabriel was happy to say such things aloud and that he had a genuinely photographic memory and so could easily discuss articles Ed felt the need to foist upon him about Israel or the stock market, even though Gabriel wasn’t all that interested in either topic.
It had, in fact, taken every last reserve of Ed’s self-control not to call Gabriel when he moved out of the apartment he’d shared with Rebecca for several years (another source of bitter fighting with Rebecca: Why hadn’t they gotten married before they’d moved in together?). It had taken all Ed had not to tell Gabriel he’d never find a better woman than his daughter, who was brilliant and gorgeous and loyal and who needed—Ed agreed!—to get her head on straight and figure out what she wanted out of life. But Ed was being sued by the justice department at the time and thus had not gotten involved. And after quitting her highly coveted, well-compensated position at a top-tier Manhattan law firm because she’d been (she claimed) anxious every minute of every day, and for what, and for whom?, Rebecca sulked around for a while before going off to Africa to work with—or rather for—Hugh Shipley.
Had he worried? He had worried. But his daughter had returned seeming, if anything, nicer. Also, she had a renewed—if gravely altered—sense of purpose. She’d immediately started to apply for fellowships and internships, dead set on working with the most underserved populations in the city. Ed hadn’t allowed her to visit him in prison—seeing her there would have been worse than not seeing her for a year—but during a rare phone call, when Ed had brought up how she could likely do more good taking on pro bono work at one of the bigger firms and had braced himself for a furious response, she’d only responded—with remarkable composure—that she was certain now, absolutely certain, about the work she wanted to pursue.
So Ed had not gotten involved about Gabriel, he had not gotten involved, and shortly after the breakup Gabriel had taken up with someone else and—though never marrying (what was it with this generation?)—immediately had a baby. Which Ed knew only because, during another precious phone call, Rebecca had cried, and when he asked what had happened, she told him, but only after he agreed not to ever mention Gabriel again. He’d stuck to this and never did mention Gabriel, or not unless Rebecca did so first. It wasn’t like he didn’t know a thing or two about holding on to someone long after they’d—to put it politely—let you go.
Over the telephone, an expression he loathed: I’m going to let you go now. Not: I have to go. Not: Holy shit—look at the time! No:
I’m going to let you go.
Once, in an attempt to make his daughter feel better, he’d almost told her everything about Helen—how he’d never wanted anyone or anything as clearly ever again, how he’d felt the loss of Helen like a physical blow that was truly not unlike being punched in the gut during one of the few times he’d entered a real boxing ring, before becoming a Harvard man. Ed had almost told Rebecca about the night at the Y, how Helen had just been there, sitting in the dank, hot hallway, but thankfully he’d come to his senses about this kind of storytelling once he realized that his particular experience could impart neither wisdom nor comfort.
On the morning of the wedding brunch, Ed rented a car. He drove out from the darkness of the underground garage and into a dawn where the air was exactly crisp enough to announce the presence of fall. He made his way through the Bronx, onto I-95, and—indulging in a habit that began while visiting Rebecca at boarding school—he stopped at Dunkin’ Donuts for a half-dozen chocolate Munchkins and sweet dark tea, which he’d work through on the highway.
You look sharp, he imagined Helen saying.
Is that right? Ed would laugh—disingenuously, as he’d taken unusual care with his appearance this morning, doing serious battle with the nose-hair clipper and even (he would never admit this) blow-drying his hair.
He knew he should be wondering what she looked like, but he wasn’t. He was convinced he already knew: that she’d never cut her hair shorter than her chin, that she would always have the same essential shape with the same worried expression, which would always be softened by her coloring and by some ineffable youthfulness. Even if she went gray (which he doubted she’d allow, no matter how far into the bush they’d lived), he imagined the gray hair would be the soft kind. She had always been a study in softness despite a pronounced angularity, and he couldn’t imagine that these essentials didn’t remain.
Driving usually calmed him down like nothing else could, and yet, on imagining Helen and after the last of the chocolate Munchkins, he was hit with a jolt of not just sugar but also of serious nerves; in fact, he became almost foggy with the notion of seeing her. He gripped the wheel tighter, only to think about seeing Hugh. They were going to judge him. They both were. He’d spent a goddamn year in prison.
When he’d met Hugh and Helen, he was a rough kid who wanted to be a gentleman. And he’d done it; he’d become that gentleman, only to reverse all his accomplishments by landing himself in the can, by pissing all that polish away. Or at least he was certain that was how they’d see him. Who could look at him without imagining a prison cell? He shouldn’t even be showing his face today. He should not be running the risk of embarrassing Rebecca with the potential whisperings about him. But he also knew he couldn’t stay away. He switched on sports radio; the Red Sox had beaten the Yankees last night. He could count on baseball. Not to lift his anxiety—or at least not exactly—but to provide the sound—that constant hum—of every fall, spring, and summer of his life. Baseball on the radio; he was grateful for this, the ultimate white noise.
Nostalgia was besides the point. Yes, the ferryboat looked basically the same as it did in the early summer of 1963, and, yes, his heart fucking swelled when he stood on the deck, not even taking the time to look around and see if there was anyone he might have recognized on this ferry, on their way to this party, too.
NOSTALGIA—WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? He remembered this headline and the article: how, according to several studies, people who consi
dered themselves very nostalgic also had corresponding high levels of self-regard and sociability. So, okay, fine, he thought. Fine. Okay. And maybe that’s why he’d decided to come today? Nostalgia as a naturally occurring antidepressant? Because Ed had to concede that, among the many things he was right then, depressed was definitely not one of them. Nervous? Check. Ashamed? You bet. Agitated? Horny? Absofuckinglutely.
He’d read a big fat book on meditation when his personal fortune was first in the toilet, and even though he had never meditated, he found the explanations of the brain terrifically, even entertainingly, comforting. There goes my amygdala, he forced himself to think now, as the smell of potato chips and expensive perfume and saltwater came over him in brutal, ungentle waves. There go my almond-shaped clusters of nuclei, deep within those medial temporal lobes. There you go again—you limbic system, you—throwing yourself into it, rearranging my memories.
He’d half-expected Kitty Ordway James (or whatever her name was now) to be waiting for him in the parking lot in a yellow Mercedes, but there was neither Kitty, nor Rebecca, nor anyone he recognized. After sitting in the car for a good ten minutes and flipping the mirror down, up, then down again, in order to stare at his fairly jowly—though September-tan and astoundingly not bald—sixty-nine-year-old self, he turned the key in the ignition and began to follow Vivi’s directions.
The rolling hills were not as green as in his June memories (some of the trees had even started to lose their early fall leaves), but the hills still made him feel twenty-two years old, and, oh, how he wanted to speed, to clear these hills like someone he’d never been, not even at twenty-two—especially not then—because his experience of youth went against the accepted truism. He had never felt invincible. Not even close. He’d felt completely out of control: a ball of nerves coiled tightly, rolling down the steepest hill. It was unfathomable how he’d spent a weekend here in this lush and heady setting and had still managed to conceal—even to himself!—the extent of his feelings for Helen.
Because, in retrospect, he’d been totally focused on her.
He remembered that her sister had been a knockout and that she’d overtly flirted with him one night at dinner. And while he certainly remembered feeling excited by the attention, what he recalled most vividly was Helen’s expression as it was happening. He remembered Helen’s face—that finely etched study in agitation—and this notion: She’s jealous. And though he’d dismissed this budding thought before it could properly flower, Helen’s agitation had been so much more exciting to him than the many glimpses of her sister’s stupendous cleavage.
He had been focused on Helen—her gestures and her hips and her family and every one of her nuanced reactions to each and every moment.
Or at least that was his memory. It wasn’t easy now, after so many years, to remember how he’d loved Hugh, too.
Ed had seen a shrink for a while after his divorce, and though this shrink had been irritatingly vague—never answering when Ed asked what he thought about Jill’s behavior, never answering any remotely personal questions, such as if the shrink himself was Jewish—he had come right out and asked if Ed harbored any sexual feelings for Hugh. After all the pussyfooting around this shrink had done about his anger, this insane question had arrived as a strange sort of relief. Because he could feel properly indignant. Because he could say with great certainty: No. Because he’d never wanted to go to bed with Hugh Shipley. If only all desires could be reduced to a simple roll in the hay.
But it wasn’t as if desire of a different kind hadn’t played a part. Desire always did. And he’d desired the proximity to Hugh: the always slightly faraway gaze, the reassuring physical presence—reassuring not only because Hugh was squarely from the then-mysterious world of privilege but because, man, was he ever tall and handsome. To this day, Ed was certain that all those years ago they had each taken a deep and, yes, partially explicable solace from each other. But while Hugh—a Shipley from Boston—conferred upon Ed—a Cantowitz from Dorchester—a certain kind of confidence, and while Ed had presumably been something of a curiosity for Hugh, a budding anthropologist (plus the fact that he’d credited Ed for getting him out of bed for nearly a month), these were only the most obvious aspects of their friendship. For as far back as they could remember, they’d both felt like outsiders. That they’d shared this feeling—that they shared anything—was surprising to both of them. Surprising and tremendously comforting.
Chapter Twenty
The Wedding, 2010
If there was an ideal time to see your recently single ex-boyfriend, the night before you leave for your best friend’s wedding was probably not it.
Especially if your father was going to be at the wedding celebration.
And especially if the bride’s father had—until several years prior—been the (secret) object of your ongoing obsession.
Also not an ideal time to see the recently single ex-boyfriend? After 9:30 on a Thursday night.
Even if—as determined by the flurry of brief and logistical messages left for each other during the course of that Monday—this was the only time that either of you could meet until the end of the following week? Even if, after a year of no dating and then several years of what one might conservatively call a healthy dating streak, you were fairly certain that this recently single ex-boyfriend was, in fact, still the only man to whom you could imagine coming home?
Especially if.
Let’s repeat, she told herself. Not ideal. Really not.
And then she picked up the phone to call him back, to set the time and place.
By Friday morning she was on the train to New London, alternating between dozing and running her hand over her raw, stubble-scratched cheeks. She looked out the smudged train window and reassured herself that, no, neither of them had had more than that single glass of wine and that they hadn’t done anything more than talk over a wobbly table and make out on a street corner. There had been nothing promised, nothing at all. And yet she felt stubbornly certain that this was not just some kind of scratching a familiar itch. That she’d meant it when she told him she had some real regrets. That he’d meant it when he said, if hesitantly, So do I. And if she was unclear, exactly, to what extent he had meant this, it didn’t really matter when he’d followed it up with a flinty look and It’s so good to see you. They’d walked and walked. Neither of them mentioned their breakup or his subsequent failed relationship. The only conversational evidence of the past six years was the frequent mention of his son, Declan, of whom he had joint custody. He walked her over the Brooklyn Bridge, all the way to her apartment. Have fun at the wedding, he said. Then he put his arms around her and—sort of awkwardly, sort of beautifully—lifted her off the pavement.
But she came back to the facts that they hadn’t made any concrete plans for the following week and that, just because they had drunk some wine and shared some kisses, this did not preclude him from doing this with many other women all over New York City and beyond. These were facts. She made herself mouth these facts, repeat them as if she were once again studying for the bar. More facts: He was attractive and successful. He could bed and date and marry any number of not only gorgeous women in their twenties but also intelligent and successful and kind and gorgeous women in their twenties. Why would he return to her? Did they not make each other miserable? Was she not—if nothing else—smart enough to understand the chances?
But she was unable to refrain from sudden bouts of smiling and was too stubbornly happy about the previous night to be properly distressed about what she knew was the likely outcome.
She also made herself a promise:
She would not call Gabriel until she calmed way down.
Then she made herself another:
The Shipleys will not throw me.
She’d resolved whatever she’d needed to resolve with Hugh several years before. This was Vivi’s wedding and she would be there. She was on her goddamn horse and she wasn’t getting thrown.
By Friday after
noon she was on the ferry from New London to Fishers Island with Vivi and Brian and the children, juggling bags and snacks and running after Gisella—their youngest—who was at an age when all she wanted to do was nurse greedily or flee from everything and everyone familiar. Rebecca had not babysat as a teenager—even now she had a surprisingly small number of friends who had kids—but she’d spent a great deal of time with Vivi’s, and it was Gisella’s age—between one and two, when time was still doled out in months—with which she identified most completely. Gisella was so exhausting, but Rebecca understood her. She understood her interest in seeing exactly how far she could push any vaguely authoritative figure before they told her no. Which was funny—she reflected now, as the sea air made her sneeze—because every description of her own childhood revolved around how mature and self-possessed she was. She couldn’t help but think that either this was utter nonsense and her parents had been kidding themselves or maybe she should have been more out of control way back when.
She picked up Gisella and brought her back to her parents. “We’re sitting down,” she told her. Miraculously, though not without a bit of drooling laughter, Gisella complied.
“So let me get this straight,” Vivi said to Rebecca, picking up the thread of a conversation that had started about an hour before. “You and Gabriel. Last night. You didn’t do it?”
Rebecca glanced at four-year-old Sabine, who was ostensibly napping in her mother’s lap, and five-year-old Lukas, who was focused on the possibility of whales.
“It’s fine,” Vivi assured her. “Just don’t use any specific words. You’d be amazed at how much you can say without saying anything at all.”
“In general?” asked Brian, with his dead-serious expression that Rebecca could now instantly recognize as the face that meant he was being anything but. “Or …”
A Dual Inheritance Page 44
