Lady in Waiting: A Novel

by Susan Meissner

  I didn’t mind, though. The train’s gentle rocking was soothing to me. As was the ring’s touch on my finger.

  At first the thought of the ring’s actually being three or four hundred years old had unnerved me, so I had casually suggested to Wilson that maybe the ring had been placed in the lining of the book a mere twenty or thirty years ago.

  “Is that what you think?” he had said, a gentle challenge in every word, and I had answered that I did not.

  Wilson was able to read the inscription, without any trouble, within seconds of my handing the ring to him along with a magnifying glass. He’d taught Latin back in the 1980s to high schoolers who, as he said it, hadn’t a modicum of respect for anyone or anything.

  He’d held the ring up to the gooseneck lamp on my desk and squinted as he read the words. Stacy and I stood next to him and waited.

  “Vulnerasti cor meum, soror mea, sponsa,” he said. “I believe this is a verse from the Canticle of Canticles.”

  “The what?”

  “Song of Solomon,” Stacy said. “The love poem in the Old Testament.”

  “‘You have captured my heart, my sister, my bride,’” Wilson recited.

  “It’s like an engagement ring!” Stacy exclaimed. “I think it’s so fabulous that your name is on it, Jane. I mean, how cool is that?”

  Wilson handed the ring back to me. “The band is exceptionally small. The lady who wore that must’ve had exceedingly slender fingers.”

  “Or she could have been young,” Stacy said. “Didn’t they marry young hundreds of years ago?”

  “Nobility certainly did,” Wilson replied. “You really should have that appraised and insured. If it’s as old as I think it is, well, I can’t even imagine how much it is worth.” Then he frowned. “It’s dangerous for you to carry it around like you found it in a box of Cracker Jack.”

  “I know. I promise I will take care of that, Wilson,” I said. “But I’m not … I’m not sure I should keep it.” I put the ring on my pinkie and stared at it.

  “What do you mean?” Stacy asked.

  “Whoever Emma bought these boxes from couldn’t have known about the existence of the book or the ring. What if it has been in the seller’s family the last three centuries? It would be like stealing if I kept it.”

  “It most certainly would not,” Wilson said. “And if it had been in their family decade upon decade, what possessed them to stow the prayer book and the ring in a rusty old box and maroon them in the rafters of a machine shed or whatever it was? I’ll bet it’s been a couple hundred years since anyone has known about the book or the ring. Besides, you bought the ring fair and square. When you paid for the boxes, you paid for the books. And when you paid for the books, you paid for the ring.”

  “I know it’s not technically stealing, but I feel like I need to at least inquire about the ring.”

  Stacy nodded. “I think I would too.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Wilson said, switching off the lamp. “I’d have it properly appraised and insured, and then, after I’d admired it for a little while, I’d donate it to a British museum. That’s where a ring like that belongs. And the prayer book for that matter. Not in the hands of people who’ve no respect for their own history.”

  “Well, one thing at a time, I think. I’m taking it home with me this weekend to Long Island. The man I worked for in high school specializes in antique jewelry.”

  Wilson had sniffed. “I seriously doubt a Long Island jeweler has ever seen a ring like this one. You’d be better off taking it to the Metropolitan and having a curator look at it.”

  “I suppose,” I murmured.

  “What’s to suppose?”

  “I don’t know, Wilson,” I said, the reason formulating, even as I told him I didn’t know what the reason was. “I just want it to be mine for a little bit longer, I guess. If I take it to a museum, they will want to keep it.”

  “Well, of course they will. That’s the best place for it.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Well …,” Wilson began, but he didn’t finish. The door to the store jangled, and he looked relieved to have a reason to excuse himself.

  Stacy turned to me. “Such a pretty ring.” She reached out her hand. “May I?”

  I handed it to her. She placed it on the top half of her ring finger. She could nearly slip it over her knuckle.

  “I wonder if they ended up happy,” she mused. “The Jane who wore this and the man who gave it to her. Want me to find a ring box for you?”

  “Sure.” I slipped the ring back on my pinkie. The right one this time.

  My phone had beeped at me as I slipped the ring back on, reminding me I had an appointment with Dr. Kirtland. I’d gotten lucky. A cancellation in his schedule had allowed me to see him three days after I’d nervously called his office to make an appointment.

  Half an hour later, I found myself in a sea of chairs upholstered in navy blue, inside Jonah Kirtland’s counseling group office in Midtown. I’d given the woman at the front desk my name and taken a seat amid half a dozen other people who also waited. No one looked up at me as I settled into a chair, and I appreciated that. I decided I would remember that for the future; to respect the anonymity of those who’d found their way to that office like I had.

  I set my purse down by my feet and looked about the room. A nautical theme permeated the décor. Brass fixtures. Wide-beamed wood paneling on the walls. Framed pictures of seascapes with easy coastal tides—the kind that bring shells and seaweed to the shore, not broken timbers of wrecked ships. An antique skylight binnacle stood in one corner with a gleaming compass atop it, and I itched to go look at it but didn’t want to draw attention to myself. I also wasn’t quite ready to stand up. The room gave me the distinct impression I was aboard a swaying ship.

  Instead, I leafed through a Smithsonian as I waited, wondering with every page-turn if it was possible to get seasick while seated in a doctor’s office. My foot bounced up and down intermittently, and I worked to keep it still as the minutes ticked by. My phone trilled, and I fumbled to silence it, noticing that it was my mother who was calling me. I turned the power off and dropped the phone back in my purse.

  A few minutes later, my name was called. I followed a young woman down a carpeted hall to one of several tall doors of polished wood, grateful that as soon I’d stood, the dizziness ebbed. She knocked once and then opened it.

  The woman entered the office, and at first I couldn’t see the person behind the desk. All I could see was the woman’s back, the edges of a desk, more blue upholstery, more seascapes, more nautical antiques, and a glass-topped table by a window with a little wooden bowl at its center.

  “Dr. Kirtland, your three o’clock is here.”

  A man moved from behind the desk and came into view. I flinched.

  Dr. Kirtland didn’t look a day over thirty. He wore jeans, a red-striped button-down shirt, and russet Birkenstocks. Curly hair cut short, wide eyes gray as steel, a full nose, and the youthful, tanned skin of a man who perhaps still got acne from time to time.

  He walked over to me, extended his hand, and the woman stepped back so that I could clasp it. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Lindsay. I’m Jonah Kirtland.”

  I wordlessly shook his hand.

  The woman slipped past us and left the room, closing the door behind her.

  Jonah Kirtland smiled at me. “Please. Have a seat.”

  He motioned me not to the chairs opposite his massive and neat desk, but to the small, glass-topped table by the window. I folded myself into a chair, still unable to say a word. I knew then what it was Molly had started to say about Dr. Kirtland but then hadn’t.

  He’s young.

  Dr. Kirtland sat down in the chair across from me. He didn’t have a tablet or a folder or even a piece of paper with him, even though I had filled out paperwork and e-mailed it the day before. He crossed one leg over another, grabbed a handful of shelled pistachios from the wooden bowl, and then leaned back.

  �
��Pistachios?” He nodded to the bowl.

  “No. No, thank you.”

  “Don’t like pistachios?”

  “Uh. No. I mean, yes, I like them. I just … No, no thanks.”

  “So how’s your day been so far?”

  He tossed a few nuts into his mouth, crunched them and waited for me to answer.

  “Fine, I guess. They’re all pretty much the same right now.” I was staring at the bowl of pistachios, not even aware that I was.

  “Sure you don’t want some?” he asked lightly.

  I shook my head. I wanted to run. Tears were springing to my eyes for absolutely no reason.

  “You must like the ocean,” I sputtered, casting my gaze about the room, desperate to ease the tension inside me. There was a catch in my voice. I knew he’d heard it.

  “Actually, a decorator was paid to come in here and make our offices look friendly and inviting.”

  I bit my lip to quell the tears that had no business showing up at that moment. I nodded.

  “So did it work?” he asked.

  I jerked my head back to face him. “What?”

  “Does it feel warm and inviting here, Mrs. Lindsay?”

  I swallowed hard. “Actually, I … I am not a fan of the ocean. I don’t like open water. You can’t see the bottom. You can’t see where it ends.” I looked away from him to the window, where below us a busy world went about a reckless routine.

  “Have you always felt that way about open water?”

  I didn’t look away from the unyielding concrete below us. “Yes.” But then I turned back to face him, suddenly nervous about him knowing my oldest fear so early in the conversation and misunderstanding it. I wasn’t afraid of water. I was afraid of what lay beyond the water. Deep, dark nothingness. My childhood fears had nothing to do with what I was experiencing now.

  “Look, I’m not afraid of drowning. I can swim fine. I just like being able to see the bottom. I like being able to see where it ends. I don’t like not knowing. I don’t.” My voice fell away as images of dark seas and deep lakes filled my mind; bottomless places without any handholds or even a hint of where the unknown ended and safety began.

  It hadn’t struck me until that moment that my longstanding aversion to open water was in any way related to the reason why I now sat in the counselor’s office.

  Dr. Kirtland leaned forward in his chair. “Mrs. Lindsay, you’re not the first person to sit in that chair and wonder why they’re here. I know it took courage for you to come here. Let me put your mind at rest. You don’t have to worry about giving me any wrong answers. There aren’t any. I am not going to solve your troubles. You are. But I am going to help you. I promise you that.”

  He folded his hands in front of him and waited for me to say something. Framed documents hung on the wall behind him; rectangular evidences of his many accomplishments. A soft glare hovering on the glass covering his doctorate from Columbia University outlined his curly head like a pale halo.

  “Would you like to tell me what brought you here today?” His tone was patient. Several long, unhurried seconds floated by. He waited for me.

  “But you already know why I’m here,” I murmured.

  “I know what Molly told me. And I know what your file says. But you’ve told me nothing.” Still the patient tone. His eyes were locked onto mine. Soothing. Calming. Young. My gaze fell to his left hand. A gold band on his ring finger. Shiny. New.

  “I … I don’t think I can do this,” I finally said.

  “You don’t think you can tell me why you’re here?”

  “I … You … you seem very … I mean, I can see that you’ve got a PhD from Columbia, and there are half a dozen other documents on that wall giving me reasons why I should be able to talk to you, but you seem … Look. My husband left me after twenty-two years of marriage. And you seem very … young.”

  “I am thirty-four, Mrs. Lindsay.” He said it neither defensively or agreeably. He just said it.

  Only ten years younger. Ten years. When I was getting married, he was twelve. Did that matter? Perhaps not. I really didn’t know.

  But I knew I didn’t want to lie alone and awake anymore in the bed Brad and I had shared.

  His eyes never left mine. I eased back in my chair. “Can you please call me Jane?”

  “If you’d like.”

  I nodded.

  “All right, Jane. How about if we just start at the beginning?”

  “The beginning? You mean when Brad left?”

  “No. I mean the beginning. Tell me about you. I want to hear about you. Shall we start there? Can you do that?”

  “About me?” My eyes still shimmered with tears that threatened to slip over the edge. I felt them.

  “Yes.” His smile was gentle. He reached for a box of tissues on the windowsill between us and pushed it toward me. “Sometimes things get a little worse before they get better, Jane. But they will get better. I’m thinking you want that. Right?”

  Again, he waited—his breathing even and unhurried and his crossed legs still. I pulled a tissue out, and the fluffy sound of fragile paper scraping against stiff cardboard seemed to whisper the answer for me.

  Yes.

  Twelve

  My father called as my train pulled into Massapequa Park Station. He was stuck in traffic on Broadway. I told him not to worry; that I’d grab a cup of coffee and wait for him. I injected as much of a confident tone as I could as I told him good-bye, hoping he would pick up on it. My parents were going to want to talk about why Brad was really in New Hampshire, and I was not ready to have that conversation yet. My mother already hinted on the phone the night before that she and my father were getting the distinct impression something was up with Brad and me, and they’d rather not be in the dark about it—as if my marriage was a prized possession of theirs, on loan to me, and they needed to know the true reasons for Brad’s absence. Not his absence at Leslie’s party—I had a great excuse for that: Connor had a track meet that weekend at UMass, and Brad was going to cheer him on. That’s also why he had the car and I was taking the train.

  Only my parents and Leslie and her husband, Todd, knew about the job in Manchester. The rest of the extended family would think Brad was just gone for the day, being the supportive father that, of course, he was.

  It wasn’t the awkward moments at the party that I was half dreading as I settled onto a bench with a cup of coffee. It was the hour or two Sunday morning when I would be alone with my parents that I wasn’t looking forward to.

  As I sat in the late morning sunshine, I silently practiced the responses Dr. Kirtland encouraged me to use if my parents asked questions about Brad that I didn’t feel ready to answer. It hadn’t taken long in that first counseling session for the conversation to swing to my parents. Dr. Kirtland said sometimes that’s where the beginning of the journey is.

  I had said, “But I don’t want to talk about my parents. This is not my parents’ problem, it’s mine.”

  To which he said, “Yes, but we’re not talking about ownership of a problem right now. We’re not even talking about the problem itself. The problem of you not being able to sleep is actually not what we’re dealing with right now. It’s not even your husband’s leaving you.”

  “Well, what is it then?”

  “We’re going to focus on you. Not your marriage. Not your parents. We’re going to focus on how you see you.”

  “But you just said sometimes the journey starts with the parents.”

  “I think for you, it might. I think we’re going to need to understand to what extent you rely on your parents for part of your validation. When we’ve figured that out, we’ll spend some time figuring out why you’ve relied on your marriage for the rest of it.”

  Validation. The word didn’t sit well with me. I immediately thought of a parking stub. I wanted to tell him I didn’t like that word, but that just sounded childish in my head.

  Our session had been nearly over at that point anyway, and Dr. Kirtland ha
d quickly moved on to coach me on how to handle my parents’ questions. Before I left, he told me gently that I could eliminate this particular stressor in my life by just telling them the truth. Because then they would know. I mentally practiced his answers on the way home:

  Mom and Dad, I appreciate your concern about Brad and me, and when there’s something you should know, I’ll be the first to tell you.

  This is not something we need to discuss this weekend. This weekend is about Leslie. Let’s just keep it about her, okay?

  Brad’s checking out a job in New Hampshire. It’s a big move to make if he doesn’t like the job. We’re not rushing into anything.

  On the phone, the night before I left, Molly told me she thought the responses were perfect. And that I should practice saying them out loud.

  “What if they ask why I haven’t gone up to New Hampshire to see Brad?” I asked her. “Or why he’s only been down once to see me?”

  “That’s when you politely tell them that really isn’t any of their business.”

  “I could never say something like that, and you know it.”

  “Well, Janie, that’s why they keep intruding on your private life. You let them.”

  It had hurt a little, hearing that from her, even though I knew after just an hour with Dr. Kirtland it was partly true.

  “Do you think I rely on my parents for validation?” I asked.

  She’d laughed, but it was light and quick. She hadn’t been laughing at me. “Did Jonah tell you that?”