“Cute.”
“Sure,” she said, starting to laugh. “Okay.”
“You finally got married,” said Rebecca.
Vivi nodded, her laughter trailing off. “I’m going to go take a bath.”
By the time everyone was dressed and the mimosas were flowing, Hugh was on the lawn and at his best: one or two drinks in and doing impressions for several of Vivi and Brian’s friends about his recent trip to the club. “Let’s just say they did not make it easy for me,” he said, swilling the remainder of his mimosa. “I said to the fellow, I would like to purchase some alcohol; this isn’t exactly water from a stone. He looked appalled.”
“How’d you convince them?” asked Marion Childs, the one friend of Vivi’s whom Rebecca truly (still) could not stand.
“Quite a bit of tap-dancing,” he said. He started counting people.
“What are you doing?” Brian’s cousin asked.
“Almost everyone here is married,” Hugh said. “And I’m not.”
“Quelle horreur,” said the dreaded Marion, clearly flirting. She was wearing the kind of dress that looked simple and almost tentlike but likely cost at least six hundred dollars. Her husband was a few yards away, speaking urgent Spanish into a cellphone. “Many of his clients are in Mexico City,” she explained. Rebecca couldn’t tell what Marion felt about this—pride? resentment? embarrassment?—though it was clear that she felt something.
Brian’s best friend, Joe, and his band set up. “Is this too loud?” the singer inquired into a microphone, but no one answered. “Is this too loud?” she repeated again, and this time everyone said yes.
“Be my date?” Hugh asked Rebecca, as they both watched more and more people arrive. “Just let me—you know—stay beside you. I’m not very popular with some of the guests,” he said. “As you might imagine.”
“And why would that be?” Rebecca asked. Hugh suddenly seemed … distasteful. The thought of him tap-dancing for alcohol at the club he so detested, the thought of how he’d screwed God only knew how many women during his marriage to Helen—the sun was too bright to contemplate all the reasons she felt as she did.
“Fine,” he said lightly. “Don’t be my date. I don’t deserve you anyway.”
“Glad you got that straight,” she said with a smile. And then she thought: What the hell are we talking about? She turned away from Hugh and Marion and the growing cluster of guests and was annoyed to feel that her face was flushed.
“Let me know when your dad shows up,” Hugh called out, but Rebecca only raised her hand in some vague acknowledgment that she would—sure thing!—let him know and also that she was walking away.
Her heels dug into the grass, and she tried not to trip as she walked by the croquet set, where Brian was cautioning a Lukas-led pack of kids not to go down to the water. She walked past them, past the slope of lilac bushes that obscured the generator where Vivi had—the summer after her graduation from high school—hid their jointly bought envelope of psychedelic mushrooms. Rebecca climbed the dilapidated stairs to the side entrance. In the corner of the railing, a spider was in the final stages of an elaborate web. And as she heard the sound of her father’s arrival—the too-loud voice proclaiming his own name—she had an urge to poke a finger through it.
Later, while Rebecca watched Hugh play the piano from the mossy shade of the side porch, she saw her father, too, right behind Hugh at the front of the crowd, gripping a lyric sheet with both hands. He kept his eyes trained on that piece of paper as if he was really trying. It was this kind of quotidian effort from him that never failed to interest her; he truly believed there was a right way to do every last thing. Though she’d never seen Hugh play, she was unsurprised to learn that—though he avoided eye contact with his crowd and added unnecessary flourishes to every number—he was a natural piano man. She could imagine him living a parallel life in a small town somewhere—Ireland? Maine?—boozily gathering tips at the end of the night, going home with widows.
By the time she came in from the porch, the crowd had dwindled and her father was nowhere in sight.
“My wife left me for Obama,” declared Vivi’s cousin J.K., who was talking too loudly and drinking from a can of Budweiser.
“You just love saying that,” said Hugh.
“She loses her job, so I suggest she does a little campaigning and, what do you know? She has a knack, she loves it, so she hits the campaign trail. Do I object?”
“You do not,” said Hugh, in a way that made it clear that Hugh and J.K. were friends, that Hugh had, in fact, known much of this family tree, with all its gnarled and complicated branches, for most of his life.
“Goddamn Barry Obama,” said J.K., knocking back the rest of his beer. “At least the bastard won.”
“Rebecca, do you see this man here?” Hugh put his arm around J.K. “You have never seen a cuter kid than J.K. as a youngster.”
“Bet you can’t believe that,” said J.K., and because J.K. was a good thirty pounds overweight and sunburned and losing his hair, and because Rebecca knew that he’d been in and out of rehab for as long as she’d known Vivi, the moment was uncomfortable.
“Do you know what?” asked Hugh. “You two have something in common,” he said.
“What’s that?” asked Rebecca.
“You both came to see me in Dar,” he said. “You both needed a change of scene.”
Rebecca froze. She didn’t want him to talk about that trip, and certainly not like this.
“Those were some times,” said J.K., a bit creepily. “Those were some goddamn different times.”
“Yeah, well, I’m going to leave you two to take a stroll down memory lane,” Rebecca said, backing away, wondering where everyone was. “Gonna leave you to it.”
When she retreated to the side porch again and saw that most of the party had migrated down to the dock, she wanted to go upstairs to her room and lay her head down. Maybe she’d take a peek at her cellphone. She was about to give in and do just that, when Hugh came outside and they nearly collided. She backed up—shot back, actually—and he said, “I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “For what, exactly?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he tried to hug her.
She didn’t really want him to, but she also didn’t want to make more of something by refusing a simple hug. Did she have to be so rigid? She saw he realized he’d made her uneasy with his reference to her visit, that he’d been careless with her most secret and awful memory. And so she let him.
He was familiar—his tallness, his potent earthy tobacco scent, his calloused hands missing two fingers at her back—and not at all unpleasant. But then she realized that he wasn’t letting go, and … “Hugh,” she said, gently at first, but when he still didn’t release her, she felt her heart start racing. Where were they? Could anyone see them? Probably not—they were hidden from the lawn, to one side of the door—but she broke out in a sweat, had a sense of being trapped, and did not know what else she felt besides the fact of him pressing into her, and she could not breathe and she wrested herself free, crying out “Hugh,” in a hushed angry way that, if anything, created the very scene that she would have done anything—really and truly anything—to avoid.
“Excuse me,” uttered Helen, who was of course of course of course standing on the threshold, holding the screen door away from her body.
And, in that awful moment, Rebecca thought her mind might shut down from the noodle-y piano riffs that would not stop their loop.
“Hugh, what are you doing?” Helen demanded. She stepped out onto the side porch, letting the screen door slam behind her. Though Rebecca knew that—after a terrible struggle—Helen had quit smoking years ago, she immediately smelled cigarette smoke and was flooded with sympathy. Something must have set Helen off today, something bad enough to break her will.
“I—” Hugh looked off balance, Rebecca noticed, as if he might literally fall down. “I was giving Rebecca a hug,” Hugh said. Even to Rebecca’s ears he sounded guilty, as if
this was a familiar scenario and he was simply saying his lines.
“You were giving Rebecca a hug.”
“Helen, he hugged me,” Rebecca confirmed. She tried her best to toss this off, to laugh even.
“Why?” Helen asked bluntly, although it obviously didn’t matter why. Her face looked as if she’d cast off a previously imperceptible mask of inhibition. “Why?”
Rebecca stared at the screen door, watched it blur and unblur and blur again.
“I’m sorry,” Helen stumbled, “but did you need a hug, Rebecca? From the looks of it, you were struggling to break free.”
Without any warning, Vivi opened the screen door and stepped onto the porch. She immediately asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Really,” said Rebecca quickly, ignoring Vivi for the moment, “I think he saw that I was upset about something—I’ve had a strange week—and, look, he’s had a lot to drink and it’s an emotional day—an emotional weekend—and—”
“Rebecca,” said Helen, who was biting her lower lip and clasping her hands together. “Did he hit on you?”
“Mom!” Vivi cried.
“Christ, Helen,” hissed Hugh.
Helen’s eyes were steely—many stages past shock. “Just … did he?”
“No,” answered Rebecca, as clearly as she possibly could. “Absolutely not.”
“Why would you ask her that?” cried Vivi, astonished, who looked too beautiful in her silky dress of all her favorite underwater colors to be stressed and seized by this embarrassing situation. She came to her father’s side. “Mom,” she whispered with hushed force, before eventually breaking into yelling. “I know you’re divorced, I know you have your own opinions, but what is wrong with you? What are you even saying? Papa isn’t like that. He hasn’t—”
“Yes, he is. Shit,” blurted Helen. “Shit.” She avoided looking at any of them. “I really don’t want to have this conversation now.”
“Then leave,” said Vivi cruelly. “Stop yourself now and get out of here.”
“I just—I have to—” For a moment Helen looked back nervously at the living room—miraculously free of guests—and, when she faced them again, Rebecca thought she might fall apart. Instead, she seemed to revive. “I know this is your day, sweetheart. And I wish more than anything that this was not happening, but I came outside to look for you. I came to say goodbye, and what I saw—”
“You’re angry with him,” said Vivi. “Look, I know he’s an alcoholic. No one’s ever come out and said that, so there you go. It’s said.” She turned to Hugh with exaggerated formality. “Papa, you’re an alcoholic and not easy to live with. And, Mom, I know it was worse for you. He wasn’t easy, but—”
“Rebecca,” said Helen sharply. “Look at me.”
But Rebecca was looking at Hugh; though still standing, his head was in his hands.
“Was my ex-husband hitting on you just now?”
Rebecca swallowed the shame. At this moment she imagined it would remain a part of her always, something like her very own inoperable growth—permanent if not cancerous—to carry around forever. This was, without a doubt, all her fault. “No,” she answered. “No, of course not.”
Rebecca could feel Helen assessing her. She understood that Helen wasn’t sure whether or not she was telling the truth. Maybe Helen even suspected she had done something to provoke Hugh’s attentions or—worse—that something had actually happened between them, but Rebecca could also see that Helen was going to hedge her bets; she was going to use this as an opportunity.
“Vivi, your father …” Helen started.
Vivi wouldn’t acknowledge she was speaking.
“Just—Vivi, please—”
She remained impassive, her gaze far away.
But when Hugh simply walked away, down the stairs of the side porch and—predictably—toward the bar, Vivi didn’t follow him.
“Think about it,” Helen said gently, after they all watched him go. “For one second. How can you not already know?”
“How can I not already—what kind of bullshit is that?”
Helen repeatedly ran her hands through her hair but didn’t have an answer.
“Answer me,” cried Vivi. “What are you even talking about?”
“Your father was never faithful,” Helen blurted. “Ever.”
“What?”
“Your father—”
“Well, were you?”
Helen looked briefly insulted but quickly recovered. “Once we were married, yes. I certainly was.”
“What do you mean, once we were married?”
“What I mean is that, once your father and I were married, I was faithful to him.”
“But there was someone else?” Vivi asked.
Rebecca could swear she saw the slightest smile pass across Helen’s face, but it was gone in an instant. “Yes,” she said. “But I chose your father. For all kinds of reasons, that’s the choice I made.”
“Look, do you mean he had an affair? Or affairs?” asked Vivi, obviously grasping. “Because—I mean—over the course of a long marriage, a lot of people do.”
“That’s true,” Helen said, obviously trying to control her mounting frustration with Vivi’s insistence on incomprehension. “But this wasn’t—” Helen stopped abruptly, as if to remind herself to keep it simple. “This was something of a different order.”
“Okay,” Vivi relented. “Okay, fine. But why are you telling me this now? I mean right now? At my wedding celebration?”
“I shouldn’t have,” said Helen, her voice cracking. “I’m so sorry.” She went to take Vivi’s hands, and Rebecca was surprised to see that Vivi did not, in fact, yank them away.
“Wait—earlier—did you say you were leaving?”
Helen nodded. “I decided to head back a bit early.” She sounded defeated, but when she put her arms around Vivi, it was clear she wasn’t. Her grip was strong.
“I’m so sorry,” Helen whispered over and over; she continued to hold Vivi tightly.
Rebecca left them like this, before heading out on a search of her own.
Chapter Twenty-one
Fishers, 2010
Mrs. Ordway was ancient, gnarled and positioned in a wicker chair on the wide porch, looking out to sea. Ed took her frail hand in his, but of course she didn’t remember him. She’d grown nicer. He loved when that happened. Since his own father was always so mean, it had been shocking—disturbing, even—when, near the end, the home-care attendant noted that his father was such a sweet and gentle man. And Ed did not think she was simply angling for an excellent tip, because—amazingly—he’d witnessed it. In the last few months of a life consumed by fighting, Murray Cantowitz had finally gone docile, as if dying alone in that same miserable tenement in a neighborhood that was finally finishing up a decade-long crack epidemic was all that he’d ever really wanted.
You won, Ed told him, minutes before the very end.
You better believe it is what he thought he heard, but he couldn’t be certain; his father’s speech had been slurred for a long time by then.
“I remember your garden,” said Ed now.
“What’s that, dear?” said Mrs. Ordway.
“I was here many years ago, and I remember your beautiful garden.”
“Oh yes,” she said, “beautiful.” She smiled. “And what a bitch to maintain.”
“But you enjoyed it,” he insisted.
“Well, of course I did,” she said, and he realized she hadn’t entirely changed. “Who are you, did you say?”
“My name is Ed.” He smiled, too. “Ed Cantowitz.”
He looked out across the lawn and saw Hugh; he was heading for the bar. While preparing for this day, Ed hadn’t allowed himself to dwell on how he’d ignored several letters and messages from Hugh over the years, even two during the very last five. After Rebecca had left Tanzania, Hugh sent him a brief note in prison just to let him know what a fine person she was. Ed had told Rebecca about the note (she’d seemed oddly flat in
her response), but he hadn’t replied to it. Then Hugh sent another note comprised of two sloppily written lines:
Dear Ed,
What, exactly, did I ever do to you?
Helen’s left me.
—H.
He’d written back that time, but it was something equivocating and empty. As he saw Hugh now—in person, at a distance—he sustained what were today’s first—though surely not the last—stirrings of serious shame. And it occurred to him that maybe, in fact, he owed Hugh more than he could ever offer, more than he could possibly explain.
“Daddy!” he heard, and there was Rebecca, flushed and urgent in the way she was about greetings.
Hugh suddenly looked up in Ed’s direction but turned away before Ed could offer so much as a wave. But—Ed tried to reassure himself—he also wasn’t sure whether or not Hugh had even seen him.
“You made it,” Rebecca said, and planted a kiss on his cheek.
“This is my daughter,” Ed told the old woman, who nodded.
“Hello, Mrs. Ordway,” said Rebecca. “Do you have everything you need?”
“Every last thing,” she said. She clasped her hands together as if a game were about to begin.
Rebecca led Ed down to the lawn, where croquet was set up but no one was playing. Under a tall oak tree, two dapper fellows were playing a banjo and an upright bass; a woman was singing along.
I’ll see you in my dreams. And I’ll hold you in my dreams—
They seemed like ghosts from another party, one from before even Ed was born. The woman’s lipstick was bright red, and she was pretty and plump in the way women so seldom were anymore. She was wearing a lacy white sundress and what looked like high-heeled orthopedic shoes.
Someone took you out of my arms. Still I feel the thrill of your charms—
“How was the ceremony?” Ed asked.
“Lovely,” said Rebecca, and Ed could tell she meant it. “There was a lot of crying.”
“Hugh cry?” Ed asked, looking out to where a sailboat glided across the water.
“Big-time.”
They walked toward the bar, which was set up in the reedy place where the grass became the shoreline, and there was Hugh, accepting a drink from the bartender.
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