The Most Fun We Ever Had

by Claire Lombardo

  Rob fucked his TA, Violet had said. He fucked his TA and he left me and now I’m late. Utterly convincing. And why shouldn’t it be?

  You’re a goddamn sociopath, Violet had said to her more recently, during their last substantive conversation.

  She was blown away by the expansive cruelty of this act, not just that Violet had slept with her ex-boyfriend—that, in itself, hurt, of course, though she’d moved on by the time it occurred; she’d unequivocally identified Miles as her intended—but that she’d allowed Wendy to become so intimately acquainted with the fallout, that she’d let the fallout become a part of their shared history, that it had sparked so much more than either of them ever could have anticipated. And all the while, Violet had had her eyes on the prize, knowing the details, knowing their magnitude, knowing that with Wendy’s aid she’d be able to land steadily on her feet.

  She felt the need to sit, though she was already seated.

  Because Violet—fucking Violet—had always known how to save face.

  2013

  Things had been stable for almost two years when the fever happened. Miles was teaching again, one class a week, and taking his daily walks to the lagoon by the Museum of Science and Industry. He’d been in remission for so long that Wendy had started to relax, loosen her shoulders, dare to think about the future. Finally, some luck, in among the rest of it.

  But then one evening—she’d been running numbers for an upcoming Misericordia auction—he called to her from the living room: “Isn’t the capital with the dense one, Scout?”

  She felt the hair stand up at the back of her neck, and she rose and found him lying on the couch, face shiny with sweat. “Sweetheart,” she said.

  “If she sparkled the other one, you can’t see her—”

  “Miles.” She knelt next to him, and she flinched when she felt how hot his forehead was.

  He smiled thinly, eyes elsewhere, rolling upward.

  “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck, fuck.” She ran for her phone. “No, no, no.”

  The doctor confirmed what she already knew. She half-listened as he explained the difference between recurrence and progression.

  “We’ll keep on fighting till the end,” she sang under her breath in her Freddie Mercury voice, when the doctor finished talking, and he looked confused, and she laughed, and then she dipped her head down to her husband’s arm and cried and cried.

  * * *

  —

  Violet had invited Wendy to join her at Matt’s parents’ lake house on Mercer Island primarily because she thought her sister wouldn’t come: Look at this inconveniently located olive branch I’ve extended; don’t feel bad if you can’t reach it. But her sister, as she was wont to do, surprised her by accepting at the last minute. She’d been alone there with Wyatt for the better part of the month, Matt flying in for long weekends, and she couldn’t remember a time she’d felt more relaxed, waking with the sun each morning in a place where the air felt different, spending full days on the beach with her two-year-old, working her way through novel after novel, napping liberally. She worried about nothing beyond Wyatt’s well-being, that he was fed and rested and not getting sunburned. Wendy’s arrival threw a wrench into this system.

  “Please tell me those are not Matt’s sunglasses on the counter,” she said. She’d just arrived and they were making lunch. Violet glanced over. There was a beat-up pair of black frames by the toaster; Matt had sensitive eyes and a terrible mind for keeping track of things.

  “I’m sure they are,” she said. “He picks them up at yard sales. He can’t spend much time in the sun without them.”

  “Those are Prada sunglasses. Your husband bought himself Prada sunglasses.”

  “From a garage sale. Jesus, Wendy, lay off, okay?”

  “Someone’s pissy,” Wendy said.

  “Long day,” she replied with less hostility, not wanting a fight. “You look wonderful.”

  “Thanks,” Wendy said. “God, you look like hell.”

  She chewed, literally, at her tongue, containing all of the acidic responses she had stored in her brain. She was trying to maintain her zen. “Thank you. Is your hair different?”

  “One of Miles’s friends gave me a Turkish spa workup as a gift. Which ended up being far less relaxing than it sounded. All of the people, you know? Naked bathhouse. Communing. Total nightmare. So I felt like I needed a week when I got home just to recover.”

  “Naked bathhouse?”

  “I’ll just say that I saw a stranger’s literal vagina and I almost died.”

  “The life you lead. We drove to town yesterday and I considered that a huge victory.”

  “Becoming one with nature?”

  “Sort of,” she said. “Wyatt’s gone crazy for swimming.”

  “I was reading about radioactivity in freshwater not too long ago.”

  “Well, if he’s survived this long, I’m not too worried,” she said, and then she realized her word choice and paled. This was what got her; this was what sucked her, every time, back into the nauseating stratosphere of being Wendy’s bitch: this unplayable card, this awful, looming iceberg whose existence you could conjure without even realizing it. Wendy studied her, assessing the level of intent with which she’d made the statement. Then she stood up.

  “Speaking of environmental toxins,” she said, “let’s go to the beach.”

  They went down to the shore for lunch. When they finished eating, Wyatt leapt up to resume work on his sandcastle but she stopped her son and beckoned him over to her, propped up on her elbows on a beach towel.

  “Not yet, sweetie. Come sit with Mama for a few minutes before you go play. Let your tummy gobble up some of that peanut butter first.” She felt Wendy’s notorious side-eye and chose to ignore it. She, too, frequently hated how she sounded when speaking to her son, but she thought it was better than the alternative—her mother, for instance, who had talked to them all like tiny bureaucrats the moment they exited the womb. Wyatt, who’d skipped a nap, consented with ease, crawled into her lap and rested his damp head against her shoulder. “I’m pregnant,” she said. It wasn’t how she’d planned to do it but she was spurred by Wendy’s silent judgment and by the shield of her drowsy little boy. Wendy was quiet for what felt like a long time.

  “Oh,” she said finally. “Well, I guess there have been more surprising announcements.”

  It was early to be telling people. As soon as she said it she wished she hadn’t, was seized by an irrational fear that Wendy would somehow supernaturally ruin things.

  “I wondered, actually,” Wendy said. Her voice was clipped; she wasn’t looking at Violet as she spoke. “You have that sort of puffy, sickly Jane Austen antiheroine thing going on.”

  “Just what every newly pregnant woman wants to hear,” she said lightly, though the remark had hurt her feelings.

  “Perfect timing,” Wendy said. “As ever.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Was it an accident?”

  She touched her belly, protective of her percolating person. “No.”

  “Well, you’re nothing if not predictable.”

  She felt like a kid again, not in a good way.

  “Remember when you didn’t want kids?”

  “Jesus Christ,” she said, smarting from the impact of Wendy throwing it in her face so offhandedly. “God, Wendy, that was a—” It seemed like an especially unkind thing to say in front of Wyatt, even though he was dozing against her, even though he wouldn’t know what it meant. “I was at a different place in my life,” she said. She never got anything back from Wendy, not obviously, at least, and that was what made it so difficult. So draining. Because with your sister, it would have been nice every once in a while to hear an affirmation when you said, I love you or I missed you or I was thinking about you today. To feel some sisterly validation, some so
rt of sustenance when it counted. Congrats on the new baby.

  “So Miles’s cancer is back,” Wendy said. “And we’re done. Maybe six weeks, maybe six months. No more than that, probably.”

  She felt like she had been punched. Not this. Not now; not ever, but especially not now. She looked up at Wendy slowly.

  “He insisted that I come here for a break, but I’m going to leave first thing tomorrow.”

  “Wendy. Jesus. Come here.”

  Surprisingly, Wendy complied, scooted indelicately off of her towel.

  And that was what broke her heart and brought her to life: the image of her stoic sister doing something as undignified as scooting, being in a low enough place that she would finally accept comfort. She took Wendy’s hand. “That is some fucking bullshit,” she said.

  Wendy glanced up at her. “Right?”

  “Complete bullshit. I’m so sorry.” She put an arm tentatively around her sister’s shoulders. “They’re sure?”

  “It’s spread,” Wendy said. “Quickly. There has never on the earth been a time when it’s less helpful to have a bazillion dollars. There’s nothing they can do.”

  “I can’t even imagine,” she said, which was true.

  “Bad fucking genes in that family,” Wendy said. “Not like ours.”

  At this they both ventured to laugh.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  It was ludicrous, of course, to be avoiding a baby, but he had his reasons, and once he’d put his foot down with Marilyn he felt the childish impetus to keep it there. He felt weak and geriatric. He knew he’d let Liza down by not coming to the hospital. He knew his cast excuse was a flimsy one. But he didn’t want his granddaughter’s first encounter with him to be like he was now. Feeble and dependent and hindered by his own mortality.

  He was in his study, trying to rekindle his interest in honey fungus. He’d grown tired of the view from the guest room window. He’d felt himself to be fusing with the easy chair. He still couldn’t read books one-armed. The computer seemed a logical outlet, a step up from daytime television, which he was resisting with a vengeance.

  He heard the jingle of Loomis’s collar, then footsteps.

  “Dad?” In the doorway, again: Liza, this time with a baby in her arms. A baby, still at that tiny, perfect stage of babyhood, barely larger than a rabbit.

  “Oh,” he said. He rose from his chair. “Oh, Lize. Hi. I wasn’t…”

  “Mom around?”

  “No, she’s running errands.”

  “Well. I’ve got someone here who very much wants to meet you.”

  He was struck by how much Liza looked like her mother. He had a sudden image of Marilyn shortly after Wendy was born, standing in her bathrobe with the baby in the kitchen on Davenport Street, golden-haired and radiant with fatigue.

  “Oh, I— You didn’t have to come all the way here with—”

  “I had this notion,” Liza said. “Utterly ridiculous, but hear me out; this notion that you might be uncomfortable meeting her when you’re not feeling quite like yourself.”

  He wasn’t sure when the tears in his eyes had arrived, only that they were there now.

  “So I figured I’d drop by. Because she’s not allowed to become a fully legitimized person until she meets you, and she’s getting kind of impatient.”

  “Lize, I—”

  “I’m so sorry this happened to you,” she said. “And I’m so glad you’re okay.”

  “I just didn’t want to—with the cast; she’s susceptible to all kinds of…”

  “Dad. Is that genuinely something you’re worried about?”

  “Well, I—”

  “Because I trust you. I’ll leave, if you really think she’d be at risk.” She watched him steadily from the doorway with her mother’s frank inquiry.

  “Well, if you’ve come all the way here. I’m sure a couple of minutes wouldn’t hurt. If she’s swaddled.”

  “You’re in luck. Have a seat.”

  “Right—here? In the office?”

  “Would you rather go somewhere else?”

  “I— No, I suppose this is fine.”

  Before he sat down, she came and hugged him, hard, both of them one-armed.

  “Thanks for coming over, Lize.”

  Her eyes were shiny as she smiled at him, another face so like her mother’s.

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s see this kid. But you should probably spot me.”

  There was a flicker of apprehension on her face.

  “Your mother and I did have four of you, Liza-lee. I can hold a baby with one arm.”

  She lowered the baby into his unbroken arm and he was struck by the featherweight familiarity. “David, meet Kit. Kit, David.” She perched on the edge of his desk.

  “Hello,” he said, throat full. Perfect peanut. Tiny dollface. Already growing into her features. “Wow, Lize.”

  “She’s something, isn’t she?”

  “To be sure.”

  The feeling he’d get holding his daughters when they were this small: it was like being drugged. He bowed his chin to smell the crown of her head and the act brought with it sparklers of synapses. Nights in bed with his wife, the babies between them. Walking with a fussy Wendy around the block at sunrise, trying to let Marilyn get some extra sleep. The way he could feel the tiny forming plates of Liza’s skull beneath his lips as he hummed to her.

  “Liza-lee,” he murmured. “Look at this person you made.”

  “Isn’t it wild?”

  “The wildest.” He glanced up at her. “Lize, I’m sorry I didn’t— I should’ve been there with you.”

  “It’s okay.” She smiled. “I had a tag team.”

  He had also been not quite able to envision what it had looked like for Marilyn and Gillian to be together for all that time, in such intense and intimate circumstances. He cleared his throat, looking down at the baby again. “Liza, Gillian mentioned something to me a few months back. I’ve been—debating whether to ask you about it.”

  “I’d wondered if she told you.”

  “I’m so sorry if you ever thought—”

  “I was distracting myself,” she said, cutting him off. “I was looking for— I don’t know. Evidence of something. Evidence that things weren’t perfect between you and Mom.”

  “Of course they weren’t. Aren’t.”

  “But they’re closer to it than they are for most people. And yet my point is that I don’t care anymore. It was instantaneous when Kit was born. I can’t believe the things I thought were important.”

  In his arms, the baby mewled, yawned, punched him good-naturedly with a tiny fist. He smiled. “Hey, honey, is Ryan— Has he…”

  “We’re talking,” she said. “He’s coming to meet her this weekend, actually. He really wants to be here for her, but it— We don’t want to rush it, because things are actually going really well in Michigan, it sounds like. He’s on new meds; he’s got a new therapist; he has a group of friends out there now that are—I guess they’re able to be there for him in a way that I wasn’t because I had so much else going on, with my job, and—well, our family. I think we both wish he could be in the picture now, but I also know we’re going to have to ease our way into things. Whatever things might look like. Neither one of us was—at our best, during this last year.” Liza colored but neglected to further explain. “We’ve got a lot to figure out, I guess. But he sounds—good, actually. For the first time since…before we moved here.”

  “More importantly,” he said, “how are you?”

  She shrugged. “I’m taking it as it comes. One thing at a time.” She fussed with Kit’s blanket. “Some times are easier than others.”

  “My daughter, the wise young mother.”

  Liza laughed. “I just realized that I haven’t actually referred to myself that w
ay yet. As her mom.”

  “You’ll have plenty of opportunities,” he said.

  The baby shifted in his arms, infinitesimally, as her mother had done so many years ago.

  * * *

  —

  Last week he’d been halfway across the country in a stolen car but today he was hers, this awkward young man wearing shiny new Converse high-tops. In the car, they were silent. Jonah stared dispassionately out the window.

  “How’s school?” Violet asked. With Wyatt and Eli, this question was unfalteringly met by a steady stream of chatter, news of tiny nemeses and class gerbils named whimsically after historic figures.

  Jonah simply shrugged. “I got a C in chemistry.”

  “You and me both,” she said, though this was not actually true. He didn’t smile. “Do you have a favorite subject? My mom tells me you’re a pretty avid reader.”

  “Not really.”

  She inhaled slowly, gliding to a stop at a red light, and she recalled the dog park where her mother used to take them, the big grassy expanse where they’d spent hours as children with Goethe, chasing around shih tzus and pugs and huskies, reveling in their fur and their lack of inhibition. “How hungry are you?” she asked, flicking on her turn signal.

  “Not very.”

  “Want to make a pit stop?” She glanced over to ensure he was warmly dressed.

  “Whatever,” he said, and she used it as an opportunity to flex her maternal muscles as her mother must have done all those years, accepting lackluster teenage feedback with the deluded enthusiasm of a clown.

  “Let’s get some air.”

  Out of the car, he followed her shufflingly. The dog park had been turned into a playground for the nearby elementary school, a rambling space-age structure.