After Melanie

by Gloria Goldreich

  ‘Judith!’ David’s arms were about her, his body supporting hers as he led her into the living room and sat beside her on the sofa. Gently, he loosened the parsley from her grasp and then, oddly, popped it into his own mouth. ‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘Why were you crying?’

  ‘Later. I’ll tell you later.’

  She slipped free and returned to the kitchen where she added garlic to the gazpacho and thrust a baguette into the oven. They ate in silence and it was only after she prepared a pitcher of iced coffee and filled their glasses that she told him about Rosalita’s death.

  ‘A little girl. Three years old. A three-year-old girl should not die,’ she said and her voice broke.

  ‘No child should die.’ His words echoed hers. His sadness twinned her own.

  She felt the heat of his tears upon her fingers and knew that her cheeks were wet. As one, they mourned Rosalita, a child they had never met, and, at last, bonded as they were in sorrow, they grieved together.

  They slept in the same bed that night, although they did not speak, nor did they touch, only listened to the rhythmic rise and fall of each other’s breath until the break of dawn when he placed his hand gently upon her head.

  TWENTY-NINE

  David left the house before Judith awakened the next morning. He thought to leave a note of explanation for her but then decided that he would call her from the city.

  The deadline on both of his projects had to be met by the end of that day. The amount of work that remained overwhelmed him. He hoped against hope that Nancy would return to the office in time to help him, but there had been no word from her. He worked throughout his commute and sprinted to his office from Grand Central. He switched on his computer and cursed at the number of emails that would have to be answered. His fax machine was spitting out documents and he glanced at them briefly as he harvested them. He would manage, he told himself grimly as he shoved them into a file folder which immediately slipped from his hand.

  ‘Goddamn it,’ he said, angered by his own clumsiness.

  He was on his knees, gathering them, when his office door opened and Nancy Cummings entered, stooped and collected the fallen pages, her silver hair curtaining her face. Relieved, grateful, he smiled and opened his arms wide. She stepped into them.

  ‘Am I in time?’ she asked.

  ‘Just in time. I’ll have my messages transferred to your extension,’ he said. ‘Amanda is taking the morning off. A dental appointment, a doctor’s appointment. She always arranges them on a deadline day.’

  ‘We’ll manage without her.’

  Their laughter mingled and, still laughing, they carried files and laptops into the conference room and braced themselves for the long day ahead.

  Judith was not surprised that David had left so early. She knew that he had more than one deadline imminent and she understood how concerned he was about meeting them. She was briefly irritated that he had not left her a note, but then he had probably raced out to catch an early train. It was not important. He would call later in the day, she thought with new and comforting certainty.

  Sipping her coffee, she remembered she had promised Suzanne that she would open the shop that morning. She felt a nagging reluctance. A lazy day without obligations would have been nice, but that was not an option. And where, after all, did she want to go on such a heat-heavy morning? What did she want to do? Shrugging, she dressed swiftly and drove to the shop, where she hurried through the ritual of turning on the fans, opening the windows and filling the water pitcher. Customers drifted in. Lois and Libby arrived and immediately suggested an early closing.

  ‘So damn hot,’ Lois said, and Libby shook her head vigorously.

  ‘Let’s wait and see,’ Judith said.

  They did not have to wait. The phone rang. The executive director of the synagogue advised her that the entire building had to be closed. A structural problem. There would be no electricity, no water.

  ‘The damn heat. Everything is on overload according to Con Ed. But it’s just as well. They’re predicting a major storm, so it’s safer for everyone to get home in advance of it,’ he said.

  ‘Of course,’ Judith agreed.

  The few customers completed their purchases and left quickly. Lois and Libby saw the closure as a gift of time. They spoke happily of a dash to a new café, iced cappuccinos, cold salads.

  ‘Come on, Judith. You deserve a break,’ Lois said.

  She hesitated but shook her head. ‘Thanks, but I have a million things to do.’

  They hurried out and she locked up, then stood outside, jangling her car keys. Church bells sounded and she remembered the wake for Rosalita. No, she would not attend. The family would want privacy. She certainly understood that.

  The empty hours stretched before her. She thought of her unfinished essay, of the syllabus yet to be organized, of calls she should make. Her dishwasher needed a small repair. There was a leak in the downstairs bathroom. She shook her head. She did not want to sit at her computer. She did not want to deal with plumbers.

  The question she had asked herself earlier recurred. Where did she want to be? What did she want to do? She knew. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed David’s office. She would suggest an early dinner in the city. A simple enough plan. Spontaneity reclaimed. She thought of the restaurants they had once favored, wondered if she could squeeze in a facial. Her spirits lifted as his phone rang, rang again and went to voicemail.

  ‘You have reached the office of David Mandell. If your message is urgent, I can be reached on extension two-four-two, Nancy Cummings’ line. Otherwise leave a message at the beep.’

  Judith’s brief exuberance faded. Her heart sank. She did not leave a message. She did not dial extension 242. Nancy was back then, but David had said nothing about her return. A strange omission. Or perhaps not so strange. Her optimism had been premature.

  She went to her car, turned on the ignition and the air conditioning, and sat quietly for a few minutes. Then she flipped her phone open and made another call.

  Jeffrey Kahn answered on the very first ring. Yes, he was at home. Yes, it would be wonderful if she drove up that afternoon. It was so good of her to call. He would be happy, really happy to see her.

  Yet again she felt that guilty frisson of pleasure. A man was waiting for her. A man who would be happy to see her. She smiled ruefully at the adolescent frivolity of the thought and drove to the small gourmet shop which stocked the brie Jeffrey favored. It was the courteous thing to do, she told herself. She was simply being thoughtful. Her cell phone rang. Brian. An unlikely hour for him to call.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked. The question was reflexive and immediately regretted.

  ‘Nothing’s wrong. Why should anything be wrong?’

  She heard the too familiar annoyance in his voice. ‘Sorry,’ she apologized.

  ‘I just wanted you to know that Denise and I are on our way to New York. It got too hot for us in New Hampshire and our apartment will probably be no better. Is it OK if we crash with you and Dad until this damn heatwave is over?’

  ‘Of course it’s OK. You know that,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t wait up for us. We’re going to stop en route and they’re predicting a storm. We probably won’t get there until pretty late.’

  ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Give your father a call and let him know.’

  He hesitated. ‘I’ll do that.’

  She heard the annoyance in his voice and she knew he was wondering why she herself did not tell David. She wondered that herself. It would have been easy enough to call him on Nancy Cummings’ extension. What an odd game they were playing, she and David, the rules undefined, absences and silences unexplained, sleeping together, sleeping alone, missed calls and half-truths darting across the chessboard of their marriage. Ridiculous.

  ‘Drive carefully,’ she cautioned and was relieved when it was Denise who took the phone to reply.

  ‘Can’t wait to see you,’ Denise said, as always ready to tamp down any
tension.

  ‘Yes. It will be great to see you both,’ Judith replied.

  She wondered whether she should cancel her visit to Jeffrey but decided that there was no need. Brian and Denise would not arrive until well after dinner. Their room was made up. She would stock up on small treats for them at the gourmet shop, the dates stuffed with walnuts that Brian loved and the miniature quiches that Denise liked.

  Entering the shop, she was surprised and pleased to see Suzanne at the counter. During their last conversation, Suzanne had been despondent. Things were not going well, she had confided. Maybe her fault. Maybe Eric’s fault.

  ‘I guess I’ve lived alone for so long that I’m finding it hard to share my space. Not that I’m not relieved, grateful, so grateful, to have him back in my life, to know that he’s all right, making progress. But things are tricky. I feel as though we’re balanced on a tightrope. One false step and we plummet. I watch every word I say. I’m afraid if I ask him to hang up his bath towel or put his laundry away, he’ll explode and be off. Still, I’m trying, and so is he,’ she had said.

  ‘It will get better,’ Judith had assured her. ‘Everything gets better. Peace comes.’

  The lie had fallen easily from her lips. She knew that things did not always get better, that, in fact, they often got worse, much worse. Peace had not come to her marriage. Not yet. Hope curdled into sadness. Too many words remained unsaid, too many feelings remained unshared. She was a woman buying cheese to be eaten in odd intimacy with a widower beset by loss and loneliness.

  But today it seemed Suzanne’s situation had indeed improved. Smartly dressed in a white skirt and a rose-colored shirt, she waved cheerfully to Judith who noted that the straps of her sandals were braids of rose and white leather. Suzanne must be feeling a great deal better to pay attention to such a fashion detail, Judith thought maliciously.

  Suzanne was not surprised to hear about the synagogue closing. ‘It’s just as well. There are alerts about a storm heading south through New England, but they’ve been saying that for a week. They want us to think that this damn heat is coming to an end. In any case, we have to see about air conditioning the shop. We don’t want next summer to be like this one.’

  ‘You’re absolutely right,’ Judith agreed. She would not tell Suzanne that she could not think of the summer to come any more than she could plan for the next week or even the next day. ‘How are things going with Eric?’ she asked.

  ‘Better. Much better. He’s seeing a wonderful therapist, never missing an appointment. And he’s moving out of my condo. Stan found a program at a community college up county, got him a conditional acceptance and wangled a dorm room for him for the fall semester. Eric’s apprehensive but excited. And I’m apprehensive but excited. You know how it is.’

  Judith nodded, although she did not know how it was, did not want to know. She shook her head when Suzanne suggested that they have lunch at the salad place. ‘Sorry, I can’t,’ she said. ‘I have to get things ready for Brian and Denise and I want to complete some research.’

  ‘OK. I’ll be back at the shop next week. We’ll do it then.’

  Suzanne shoved her credit card across the counter, thrust her purchases into her canvas tote and left. Judith added a jar of olives to her order and wondered why she had not simply said that she was driving up to Jeffrey Kahn’s. A stupid evasion. She had nothing to hide, nor did she have anything to reveal.

  She paid, left the store and was immediately overwhelmed by the heat that seemed to have intensified and assumed an almost corporeal force. She felt that she was pushing against a fiery wall as she rushed to her car, sweat dampening her clothes and streaking her face. Struggling for breath, she fumbled for her sunglasses and shielded her eyes against the glaring brightness of the noonday sun. Driving faster than usual, she headed north with the air conditioning on high and the radio tuned to the station that played the ballads of her younger days. Once again ‘Greenfields’ came on and she switched to a news station.

  Now and again, newly relaxed, she glanced out of the window. As on her previous trips, she enjoyed the changing scene of the northern road as the suburban towns disappeared and were replaced by large expanses of well-manicured but as yet undeveloped acreage. The grassy verges were neatly mowed, the trees pollarded, the hedges trimmed. Now and again, at a comfortable distance from the road, houses could be glimpsed, quiet exurban retreats nestled in the sylvan landscape. Here, Judith thought, was the serenity, the refuge, that Sylvia Kahn had sought, that Jeffrey had granted her. She thought of how Jeffrey spoke of his daughters, concerned about Amy who worked too hard, about Beth who was single and might be lonely. His voice lifted when he confided that she was in a new and promising relationship.

  He, like all parents, was riding on a merry-go-round that never stopped. She thought of Suzanne so brave in her white skirt and rose-colored top, her news of Eric optimistic, but her tone wary. Suzanne, Judith thought sadly, would spend the rest of her life poised for disaster, hope and dread uneasily balanced.

  That, at least, Judith thought, she and David had been spared. Brian, stable and self-sufficient, loved by Denise, loving Denise, was fine and would always be fine. And Melanie was safely dead.

  The absurdity of her own thought shocked her. She bit her lips in self-inflicted fury and struggled to negate it, summoning up memories of Melanie, their Melanie, alive before death had snatched her from them.

  ‘Our Melanie.’ She said the words aloud, remembered David whispering them to her as they sat side by side at a school play in which Melanie played a princess.

  ‘Look at our Melanie,’ he had said, his face bright with pride and pleasure.

  She remembered how he had taught her to ride a bicycle, how he had run beside her and called to Judith, ‘Look at our Melanie. She’s a natural, our Melanie.’

  The memories converged, continued. She parked the car and allowed them to sweep over her. She forgave herself for the thought that had come unbidden. Those memories were chapters, she realized, chapters in both her daughter’s brief life and in the longer chronicle of her marriage.

  How odd it was, she reflected, that she who had been trained in the art of the narrative, who taught others to understand the impact of sequence and the significance of metaphor, had never thought to apply that skill to her own life. Yes, she remembered speaking to David of marriage, all marriages as sequential chapters in a novel. But she had not told him that the endings of novels had always both eluded and intrigued her. She had never wanted a story to end. That had been the joy of critical reading. Would Emma Bovary die? Would Jo March find love? For her, from childhood on, every book had been an excursion into mystery, every conclusion an unexpected revelation. It should not surprise her now that the next chapter of her marriage eluded her even as she hurtled toward it.

  She sighed and, in search of a distraction, switched the radio on and found a news station. International news, national news, local news, all uniformly bad, followed by the somber voice of a meteorologist warning that a dangerous storm threatened.

  She opened her window and peered out. The sun still blazed and the air remained heavy. But the ominous warning droned on.

  ‘High winds and torrential rains are anticipated. Listeners are urged to take precautions.’

  Briefly, she thought of turning around and driving home. She could call Jeffrey and tell him that, in view of the weather, she would not be coming. But she knew she would not do that. She drove on. She was, after all, almost there. Within minutes, she drove up the gravel driveway and was startled to see a U-Haul van parked in front of Jeffrey’s garage.

  Puzzled, she looked over at the herb garden and saw that beyond its marigold-fringed border, in the shaded area, a picnic table had been placed and chairs arranged. Four chairs. The number was unsettling. Jeffrey had set the table for guests. Another couple, obviously. It was a presumption that angered her. She took the bag that contained the wheel of brie from the car and stared coldly at Jeffrey who approached
her, smiling happily.

  ‘A surprise,’ he said.

  Emily, cradling her baby, came forward, holding hands with a slender, fine-featured young man who was surely her husband, James. The young couple bent their heads in shy greeting.

  ‘Are you pleased?’ Jeffrey asked. ‘I was going to tell you that they would be here when you phoned, but then I thought it would be a nice surprise for you.’

  ‘I am surprised,’ Judith said. ‘And pleased. But I’m not sure I understand.’

  ‘It’s simple enough. An apartment for a research assistant became available and I offered it to young James here. He was delighted, of course, but worried about furnishing it. They’ve been living in student housing, one room with just the basics – their bed, a crib for the baby, a table and two chairs. So I told him my basement was crammed with all the furniture from my daughters’ college rooms and their bachelorette apartments. Couches, beds, chairs, tables, lamps. All sorts of kitchen equipment. I asked him to bring his Emily here so they could choose what might suit. We settled on today because the lab is closed. And then you called and I thought we could all have lunch. A picnic party.’

  He smiled the happy, satisfied smile of a man delighting in his own kindness and generosity. He had, Judith realized, on this sun-bright day, emerged from the long shadow of mourning. He was hosting a picnic, welcoming young people into his home, into his life. A new chapter of his life was beginning. Chapters. Every life a novel.