by Susan Rieger
“How are you doing it? Turkey baster?” he said.
“None of your business,” she said.
—
Sam insisted on celebrating September 18 every year. He and Susanna would go out to dinner. He’d bring her a lavender rose for each year. Susanna went along in bad humor, not seeing the original event as a night to remember. “It’s like America celebrating the Bay of Pigs,” she said.
On their seventeenth anniversary, Sam took her to Balthazar. She had had her fill; she gave him a box of monogrammed lavender stationery from Mrs. John L. Strong, one hundred cards and envelopes. “They cost four hundred and ninety-five dollars,” she said. “OK,” he said. “We won’t do this again.” Susanna ordered steak au poivre, the most expensive dish on the menu. “I’d like a Barolo,” she said. “You might like the crow.”
Sam took a deep breath. “Crow may be just the thing,” he said. “More than you know. We should order a bottle of Barolo.” He then told her about Harry’s clash with his mother over the Wolinskis.
Susanna didn’t get angry, as Sam had thought; she was quiet. “What?” he said. Susanna shook her head.
“If you’d told me this earlier, I’d have wanted to put a hit on Harry as well as Vera. Now I don’t know what to think. I think Harry’s onto something. I think your father knew Vera at some point but…” Susanna stopped.
“But what?” Sam said.
Susanna shook her head again. “I can’t believe he would have two babies with another woman. Maybe one, an accident. Even that’s hard to believe. It must be awful for everyone.” She stopped again. Sam waited this time. “Harry shouldn’t have said that to your mom, that she knew. Even if he thought she did, even if she did. He must be a mess.”
“We’re all pretty much a mess, except Jack and Mom, though you can’t tell with Mom. She never lets on, not to us, at least.”
“What do you expect? You’re all blaming her, if not as savagely as Harry. You all still act like babies with her and with each other,” Susanna said. “Me too.”
Sam ordered a second bottle of Barolo.
“So,” Sam said, “where are you in your baby-making plans?”
“Moving along,” Susanna said.
“Would you marry me if I were free?” Sam said.
“No,” Susanna said. “Why would I do that?”
“You love me,” Sam said.
“I see,” she said. “A Rock Hudson husband.”
“Would you let me be the baby’s father?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “Andrew.”
“I’m going to split with him anyway,” Sam said. “I want a baby and I’m going to have one, one way or another.”
“We can raise them together. They can be friends,” Susanna said.
“You don’t believe me,” Sam said. “Wait and see.”
“I’ve waited, I’ve seen,” Susanna said.
“How can you be so coldhearted,” he said. “You know we should be having a baby together.”
“I woke up one day and realized I wanted a baby more than I wanted your baby,” she said.
“Are you mad at me?” Sam asked.
“Oh, Sam,” Susanna said. “I’m thirty-six and eleven-twelfths years old. We’ve been talking about this for two years. I can’t wait for you any longer. You’ve had a life with Andrew for fourteen years. I’ve been alone. I’ve given up on a husband, but not a family.”
Sam complained to his mother. “I think Susanna’s going to have a baby,” he said. “Without me.”
“Yes,” Eleanor said.
“Aren’t you sad? Disappointed?” he asked.
“Are you?” Eleanor said.
“Yes,” he said. “She won’t wait for me to work things out.”
“Sam,” Eleanor said in a voice that made him sit up straighter. “What is the matter with you? You’re married, or the next closest thing, and Andrew doesn’t want a baby.”
“I didn’t know I wanted a baby,” he said.
“That’s your problem, not Susanna’s.”
“She could wait a bit longer,” he said.
“No, she can’t. She’s almost thirty-seven.”
“There’s IVF,” he said.
“When did you become so egoistical? I don’t remember you like this,” she said.
“I was always like this. I seemed a bit nicer than the others because I got my way most of the time. All the time, really,” Sam said. “Oh, I paid attention and I listened without taking sides, but I think that was the gay boy’s wary watchfulness and ingratiating posturing. It also helped me get my way.” He paused. “Ask Andrew. He knows the darker side. He thinks I’m a narcissist and an egoist. So there.”
“And here, we all thought it was Harry taking up all the oxygen in the room,” she said.
“Harry’s got a big personality. All his emotions are big. But he’s really a better, kinder man than I.” Sam laughed. “He’s like Freud, a grandiose inductionist. He thinks everyone thinks the way he does. But he doesn’t hold a grudge.”
“Not so fast there,” Eleanor said. “Lately, he’s been less awful to me but he can’t forgive Dad. He’s rewriting his entire life up until yesterday.” Eleanor paused. “How come the rest of you aren’t mad at Dad?”
“Why should we be, when we can be mad at you?” Sam said. “Kidding. Sort of.” He shook his head. “We don’t know what to believe. We’re all behaving according to script. Will says it doesn’t make a difference to his life. I know Dad loved me. Jack thinks it’s cool Dad had another family. Tom wishes he’d grown up with the Wolinski boys so he wouldn’t have been the youngest. Kidding. Tom refuses to believe it. Harry, of course, is enraged. He didn’t plan it that way.”
“I never thought I’d say this,” Eleanor said. “It was much easier when you all were small.”
—
Sam moved out two weeks later. Without saying anything to Andrew, he paid off the mortgage on the apartment, three hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, and had his lawyer make over his interest to Andrew. It was a large two-bedroom on West Sixteenth. “If you need support,” he said to Andrew, handing him the deed, “let me know.” To Andrew and almost everyone they knew, Sam had moved with eye-popping speed. Sam didn’t care. If he acted now, he might still persuade Susanna to let him be her baby’s father. His mother and brothers were stunned. Andrew was stunned, wounded, and furious.
“Who are you?” he asked Sam, as Sam was packing his suitcases. “Henry the Eighth?”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t see this coming,” Sam said. “You’ve made it difficult for me to see Susanna for the last dozen years, turning me into a liar and a sneak. We’ve been arguing about a baby for months. You gave me an ultimatum. You said I had to choose. I’m choosing. I want a baby.”
“You’re giving me no warning,” Andrew said.
“It’s no use, Andrew,” Sam said. “I can’t stay. The apartment’s yours. The furniture’s yours, and the books, plants, pots, everything. You can have the friends too. I’m done here.”
“Where are you going?” Andrew asked. “West Sixty-Seventh?”
“I’ve taken a place on East Twenty-Second, Gramercy, a rental,” Sam said.
“I see,” Andrew said. “A better neighborhood.”
“If you don’t want the apartment,” Sam said, “you can sell it.”
“You’re a bastard, a complete bastard,” Andrew said. “I don’t know you anymore.”
Sam called everyone in the family, resisting the siren song of email.
The first divorce, Eleanor thought. “Just like that?” she said to him.
“Not ‘just,’ ” he said. “You must have seen it coming.”
“I’m surprised,” she said.
Eleanor, Will, and Tom called Andrew to say how sorry they were. Harry was indignant.
“We don’t do divorce,” he said to Sam. “We stick it out; we work it out. We fight it out if we have to. We don’t leave.”
“Do you hear my eyes
rolling?” Sam said. “You’ve basically disowned Dad, ex-postmortem, making a huge family rift, bigger than the one I’m making. I want a baby and I’m not going to sneak around.”
“You can’t have everything,” Harry said.
“I know,” Sam said. “I made a choice. You don’t like it. I thought maybe you’d especially understand, with your feelings about family. Can’t you understand why I might want children?”
“This is all because of Dad and the Wolinskis,” Harry said.
Eleanor wondered if she’d ever see Andrew again. She realized she didn’t care. She wouldn’t miss him. She had little feeling toward him that wasn’t derivative. Sam had seemed happy with him, or happy enough, until he wasn’t. That was her bottom line with in-laws, and with Andrew, it had been her top line too. She shared the general family feeling that Susanna and not Andrew belonged at family gatherings. Everyone loved Susanna; no one, except Sam, loved Andrew, and even Sam’s attachment to Andrew seemed tepid compared with his love for Susanna. From the beginning, Andrew knew their preference and blamed Susanna. At the family parties they both went to, he would become aggressively withdrawn, flattening everyone’s pleasure, reminding Eleanor of holidays with her parents. She thought he had bad manners. She wished Sam would speak to him. Sam would make excuses for him. “Package deal,” he’d remind his mother. I don’t like anything in that package, she thought. She did not stop inviting Susanna but Susanna often made excuses. When she didn’t show up, they all blamed Andrew.
Andrew hadn’t gone to Princeton for his undergraduate education, only for his PhD. He’d gone to Penn State. He was lucky to have gone to any college. His parents didn’t believe in college any more than they believed in homosexuality. In their minds, the two were linked and they believed Andrew would have been straight if he had stayed home in Pittsburgh and worked construction or some other manly job. At Princeton, Andrew had a chip on his shoulder. Quick to take offense, he gave it even more quickly, setting people right. “I don’t have wingtips. I don’t own a tuxedo. I can’t afford a computer.” He was sensitive to the slightest slights.
“I’d never have gotten into an eating club,” he told Sam.
“Would you have wanted to?” Sam asked.
“That’s beside the point,” Andrew said.
“Well, it’s all speculative. You didn’t go here as an undergraduate.”
“I know that. Why do you keep saying that?”
In the beginning, Sam had thought Andrew was like his father, coming from nowhere. He even found Andrew’s anger attractive. It had none of Harry’s self-righteousness but bristled with working-class resentment. As the years went on, these charms waned. Andrew was nothing like Rupert and he was no longer poor, but upper middle class, complaining about co-op prices, like everyone else who lived in Chelsea. Sam was tired of hearing how indulged and spoiled he and his brothers had been.
“Andrew likes my money,” Sam said to his mother. “And he likes insulting me about my money.”
“I think you’re rewriting your past,” Eleanor said. “You loved him. Now you don’t.”
“I thought I maybe loved him, in the beginning. He loved me. He probably still does. He’s a romantic. He thought I was the most wonderful person he’d ever met. It was irresistible, once upon a time,” Sam said. “You know the feeling. Dad adored you—I saw it in the way he looked at you.”
“It’s so interesting hearing my sons’ view of my marriage,” Eleanor said.
“We’re still not willing to see you and Dad as people who exist separate from us. We all had this fantasy of our family life—until the Wolinskis. Now we’re trying to reclaim it.”
“Why don’t you start with Bup? Take him back to your new apartment.” Eleanor nodded toward Limbo. “Would you like a case of Black Label?”
—
Sam began to court Susanna. He started by not apologizing. “I’ve been selfish. I am selfish. That’s not going to change. But I love you and I think we’d be good parents.”
“I used to think so, but not anymore. And the way you dumped Andrew was chilling,” she said. “Gone in sixty seconds.”
“No, no,” Sam said. “It was at least a year in the making. You know that. I kept thinking I could bring him around to a baby.”
“I knew he’d never want a baby, especially my baby. He wanted you all to himself.”
“I was used to getting my way,” he said.
“How do I know you won’t dump me and the baby? You might meet some cute guy at a bar one night and decide the two of you should live in San Francisco. On the water. You have too much money.” She shook her head. “If Charles piked off, it would be OK. He’s first-rate genetic material and a decent person but not someone I care for especially.”
Sam was slow to answer. Susanna’s scenario was not so outlandish it couldn’t happen. “I think I’d love the baby and want to stick around to see him grow up.”
“What if the kid turns into a thirteen-year-old goth with violent tendencies? Where will you be? It’s not enough to pay for Austen Riggs. Are you going to stick around then?”
“My mother and brothers would never speak to me again,” Sam said. “I’d be leaving their grandchild, their niece or nephew.”
“You’re so attached to Team Falkes. They’re the only ones who ever really matter. A baby is not going to make up for your dad’s…” Susanna trailed off, not knowing how to say what she thought. “Be a better son, a better brother.”
“I didn’t know you had such a low opinion of me,” he said.
“I love you, Sam. I always will, but I don’t think that I can count on you for the next twenty-five years.” She looked at him, then away, blinking back tears. The thought she might cry made her angry.
“Have I let you down?” he asked.
“Yes. You sidelined me. Andrew always came before me, between us. We had our dinners, our movies, but I could never drop by, I could never call you spontaneously to go for a drink or meal. You never came to any party I gave, not one.” She shrugged. “And now you’re telling me you’re always going to be selfish. Not exactly a selling line. A Darcy proposal.”
Sam went home to his empty apartment on Gramercy Park. There was no one to call. His mother and brothers would only jump in where Susanna left off. When had he become just a cad, not a charming cad? He loved Susanna but not with the same devotion he loved his mother, his brothers, his grandfather, his father. Andrew had said the same thing. “Team Falkes. Always Team Falkes.”
Sam poured himself a tumbler of Black Label and sank into an ancient armchair that had once been his father’s, the only piece of furniture in his living room, rescued from the West Sixty-Seventh Street purge. How had it come to pass, he asked himself, that at thirty-seven, he was fatherless, husbandless, childless, homeless, friendless? A wave of self-pity swept over him, followed almost immediately by a tide of indignation. He took a swig of scotch. It was Andrew’s fault he hadn’t grown up. He was only twenty-one when they moved in together; Andrew was thirty. Back then, unlike now, being thirty was being an adult. Andrew had taken advantage of him, robbed him of his youth. He’d been old young, like his mother. His mother too was to blame. Swamped by three boys under four, she had shunted him off to his father and grandfather. He’d never known a mother’s love, not the way his brothers had. His brothers too were to blame. Harry and Will had oppressed him. Tom was needy, Jack obnoxious. What were Andrew and Susanna talking about? Team Falkes was nothing to him, not anymore. He took another swig of scotch. The tumbler was half-empty. Or was it half-full? He couldn’t remember which he was, a half-empty or a half-full type. Tom was half-empty, no question, and Jack was half-full. Harry could go either way, depending on the circumstances. Will liked to refill his glass before it got too low. “Topping up, keeping it full,” he’d say.
Will might understand, Sam thought. He wondered if he should call him. He looked at his watch. It was only five thirty in L.A., too early to whine. Will would still be at work, brusq
ue and efficient. Sam sat back, imagining his conversation with Will.
Jesus, Will would say. You’re not even drunk yet and already you’ve thrown everyone overboard….Will would then pause, the Hollywood touch. Except Dad, he’d say softly. What about Dad? Sam tried to think what Dad would think. He could almost hear him say, Susanna’s a great girl. You’re lucky to have her in your life. That would be it.
What is wrong with me? Sam thought, I used to be a decent fellow, more decent than not. People used to like me, people relied on me. I’m worse than Harry. It’s Dad’s fault, dying before we were ready. It’s the Wolinskis. They’ve ruined everything. Sam emptied the glass and went to bed.
—
Sam was home nursing a scotch when Eleanor called. He hadn’t heard from her or Susanna in a week, though he’d called both. Eleanor told him Susanna had had a miscarriage that morning. She had been nine weeks pregnant. Eleanor had spent the day with her. “She’s heartbroken,” Eleanor said. “She has a D and C scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, three thirty. I said I’d go.”
“No, I will,” Sam said.
Sam caught a cab to the Vinegar Factory. He had the driver wait, promising an extra ten dollars. He bought two bottles of Arneis, eight ounces of smoked salmon, brown bread, poached salmon with green sauce, mixed greens, an avocado, a baguette, a fruit tart, bagels, and cream cheese. Flush with provender, he had the cab take him crosstown to Susanna’s at Ninety-Second and West End.
He gave his name to the doorman, adding, “She may not answer. She’s ill. I’m worried about her.” The doorman called up. No one answered. “Let’s go up and check on her,” Sam said. He sounded like his father. The doorman nodded.
The doorman locked the front door and went up with Sam to Susanna’s apartment. They knocked, then knocked again. No one answered. “Maybe she’s out,” the doorman said. “She’s ill. She’s at home,” Sam said, again sounding like Rupert. “I think you should get the key.” When the doorman had gone off to find the super, Sam called loudly through the door. “Susanna, it’s me, Sam. I’ve asked the doorman to get the key. I’ll make a scene if you don’t open up.”
After a minute, the door opened. Susanna stood there, the saddest person Sam had ever seen. He put down his groceries and clasped her to him. She burst into tears, burying her head in his shoulder. He was still holding her, by the door, when the super arrived. “I’ll take care of things,” Sam said. The super nodded. With his arm around her shoulders, Sam edged Susanna into the apartment.
