by Anita Shreve
From Jeff, she had heard nothing. From Ben, she had heard nothing. From Mrs. Edwards, Sydney sometimes picked up, like a sudden word amid a sea of static, a distinct if muted sigh of relief.
Sydney wakes to a dog nosing at her foot, and instinctively she snatches her leg away. She sits up, barely conscious. She shields her eyes from the sun and squints in the dog’s direction.
“I let him off the leash,” a man says.
Sydney feels her body stiffen even before she is fully alert. She can’t see the man towering over her, his face backlit by the sun, but she knows well enough who it is.
“Hello,” Ben says. “What are you doing here?”
The family never stays after Labor Day. Never.
“What time is it?” Sydney asks, trying to disguise her confusion.
“Eleven-thirty.”
“I’m late,” she says, standing. Tullus, moving like an agitated horse, bobs around her legs.
“What are you late for?” Ben asks.
“A conference. At UNH. The first presentation is at noon.”
“Offhand, I’d say you won’t make it.”
Sydney bends and scratches Tullus’s ears, buying time. Her heart is hammering.
The dog seems satisfied and lopes away. When Sydney straightens, she sees that Ben’s white T-shirt is stained with sweat. He appears to have been running. His body is much the same, fully muscled and therefore covered.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, a not entirely illogical question. It is, after all, mid-September. The beach, apart from a few souls out for a walk, is empty.
But Ben seems reluctant to answer her.
“Sydney,” he says finally and pauses.
Sydney tilts her head. Why the deliberate use of her name, the unnatural pause, suggesting a pronouncement? “What?” she asks, already beginning to be afraid of his reply.
“My father died.”
The news hits her at the back of her knees. Her hands float in front of her, unoccupied. “Oh, Ben,” she says.
Ben glances at her and then away. “He had a series of strokes. A meteor shower of strokes really. They left him largely incapacitated. The decline was very fast.”
“When?” Sydney asks.
“June.”
As if in slow motion, her arms like kites collapsing, Sydney sits in the sand. She draws up her knees and presses her forehead against them. She wraps her arms around her head. Of all people, this should not have happened to the man she will always think of as Mr. Edwards. The man whose letters she did not even bother to answer. The man who was never anything but unfailingly kind to her.
“We’re here to clean up the house,” Ben explains above her. “My mother sold it. The closing is next week.”
“I’m so sorry,” Sydney says, a sentence more true than he knows. Or perhaps he does. Ben always had her number.
Sydney cannot keep the cuffs of her black pants from filling up with sand. She stops from time to time to adjust them, rolling them as tightly as she can all the way to her knees. Ben carries her briefcase. In it, she has her computer, her files, her cell phone—inanimate proof that she has made a life elsewhere. Sydney holds her shoes, black pumps with small heels, her trouser socks balled inside. Absurd clothing for a beach.
“Your mother,” Sydney says.
“She won’t care. Well, she might care, but only for a minute.” Ben pauses. “It would make Julie so happy to see you.”
When Ben asked Sydney to walk back to the house with him, she considered saying no only briefly. She had asked one question.
“Kenya,” Ben had replied. “Except for the funeral, Jeff’s been there for a year.”
Sydney thinks about the time she suggested in the garden that Mr. Edwards and she one day go to the museum to see the painting he was curious about—the one by the man who had sent three sons to war. She imagined she would be Mr. Edwards’s daughter-in-law by then. Why did she not simply call him and do it anyway?
“It happened over several weeks, really,” Ben is saying beside her. “At first, we didn’t notice. Last Easter, when we were all in Needham, we saw that he seemed to have trouble getting up from a chair. I guessed arthritis, but then I noticed that he also had difficulty walking, as though something were wrong with his mechanics. After that, it was all there for anyone to see: he had trouble eating, he made involuntary gestures with his arm, he couldn’t see properly. But you knew my father, Sydney. He would never have let on if he could have helped it. He was always trying to make us feel better.”
“And your mother?”
Ben shakes his head. “She’s had a rough time of it,” he says. “After my father got out of the hospital, we came up here. My mother cooked and cleaned. She had to keep in motion. Sometimes I wanted to yell at her to sit with him, but I learned that each of us has to get through it in his or her own way. There’s no rehearsal for any of this.”
Sydney thinks about how there was no rehearsal for Daniel’s death, how shocking that was. She thinks, too, about the irony of having had a rehearsal for a wedding, but no rehearsal for the pageant that actually unfolded that July morning.
“He died at the house?” Sydney asks.
Ben wipes his forehead with the bottom of his T-shirt. “It’s where he wanted to be,” he says. “They couldn’t stop the strokes. He was surprisingly calm, though sometimes he grew agitated at the loss of his abilities. One day he would be lucid, the next day he seemed to float in a blessed fog. We had my father’s hospital bed facing the long windows out to the water. He kept turning his head toward the kitchen, thinking that Jeff was back. The last thing he said before he died was, ‘Is that him?’”
“Jeff didn’t make it?”
“He made it in time for the funeral.”
Sydney briefly closes her eyes. She wants to sit again in the sand. It is too much to take in. Weeks of a man’s dying compressed into a few seconds of telling.
“Julie was wonderful,” Ben is saying. “I think she couldn’t imagine death and so had no fear of it. She saw my father weakening, but she didn’t allow herself to take it in. It was a sort of blindness. The actual event was terrible for her.”
“Julie’s still with Hélène?”
“They rented a cottage not far from us.” Ben turns and looks for Tullus. “You know, it’s hard to clear the life out of a house.”
When they reach the house, Ben sets her briefcase on the bottom step. “I’ll go in and prepare them, tell them you’re here. Then I’ll come out and get you. I think it’s better that way.”
“Ben,” Sydney says. “I have questions.”
“About my father?”
“Yes, that, too. But. . .”
“I imagine you do. We’ll talk.”
“And listen,” Sydney adds, “if your mother doesn’t want me here. . .”
“I know.”
“Your father wrote to me, and I didn’t answer his letters!” Sydney cries out suddenly. “It’s awful when I think about that now. What would it have cost me to answer the man’s letters? None of what happened between me and Jeff was his fault.”
“He knew that.”
“I’ve missed him.”
“I think your wedding day was brutal for him. Not only to watch his son do that to you, but in doing so, to take you away from the family.”
Sydney waits on the bottom step, her briefcase on her lap. If she is not welcome at the house, Ben will drive her to her car, and she will return to Boston. She can’t imagine sitting through a lecture now, paying attention to a single word.
She waits for nearly twenty minutes, a time that embarrasses her. She hopes Ben has had the sense not to push the notion of Sydney’s visit, to let the idea go if his mother is adamantly opposed. But what else can it mean, taking all this time?
She watches a couple in blue windbreakers walking along the wet part of the beach, exposed when the tide is at its lowest. The breeze flattens the thin material to their bodies and blows their hair off their faces. She an
d Ben walked with the wind, and she didn’t feel it as much. Now, sitting on the step, she is chilled. She didn’t think to stick a sweater into her briefcase.
Each time Sydney tries to imagine Mr. Edwards’s death, her mind veers. She sets the briefcase down and puts her head in her hands. Would it have been so terrible to have called Mr. Edwards and invited him to meet her at the museum, a building so close to her own apartment she could have walked to it? What must he have thought of her refusal to reply to his letters? Her silence would have hurt him; Ben had as much as said so. How could she have been so callous?
She can feel Ben in the vibration of the wooden steps even before he appears on the deck.
“I’m sorry that took so long,” he says. “It wasn’t that there was any disagreement, I just couldn’t find my mother. The house is a mess. Well, obviously.”
Julie runs along the boardwalk shouting Sydney’s name. The strong girl lifts Sydney up and twirls her around. Sydney cannot help but laugh.
“Where have you been?” Julie scolds as she sets Sydney down. “Why didn’t you answer my letters?”
Sydney has no answer for the exuberant girl who would have been a magical tonic for a dying father.
Julie keeps her arm wrapped tightly around Sydney as they walk toward the house. Sydney would like to pause on the steps and collect her thoughts, but there is no time for that. Julie, dressed in jeans and a pink sweater, pulls her up the stairs. The girl is twenty-one now.
But once inside the door, as if understanding that Sydney might now need a moment to herself, Julie lets her go.
The white sofas are covered with large black trash bags. A note has been pinned to one of the bags: Salvation Army. On the floor are piles of household items—appliances, paintings, books. Sydney tries to discern an order to the piles. Perhaps each is meant for a member of the family. Which is Julie’s pile? Sydney wonders. Or Ben’s?
The sense of emptiness is palpable. Discolored oblongs dot the wall where paintings and maps once hung. Lamps have been disconnected, stacks of magazines tied with string. Slipcovers have been removed, rugs rolled up. A broom is propped up against a wall. A bottle of Windex sits on a sill, and, beneath it, a roll of paper towel has unraveled nearly to the center of the room. The last time Sydney was in this house, ribbons and bows decorated a stairway, and bowls of roses sent up a celebratory perfume. The last time Sydney was in the house, champagne and people waited for a wedding.
In the periphery of her vision, Sydney can see Mrs. Edwards standing by the counter in the kitchen. Sydney says hello, and Mrs. Edwards says hello back to her. The woman is astonishingly gaunt. She has cut her hair short and has lost all the weight any woman could ever wish to lose—worry and grief an immensely more effective diet than counting carbs. Sydney guesses there are few normal meals now. She walks to the counter. “I’m so sorry,” she says.
“Why should you be sorry?” Mrs. Edwards asks, taking up a sponge and wiping the granite.
Over Mrs. Edwards’s shoulder, Sydney can see through the window to the rose garden, or what is left of it. Single blooms bend from mostly leafless stalks. Where there are leaves, there are black spots. An entire garden of rose hips and rotted blossoms moves in the breeze. Part of the decay is due to the time of year, but most, Sydney can see, is simply from neglect.
The contents of a kitchen drawer have been laid out upon the counter above it. On a table in the dining room are cartons marked Dishes. Tablecloths, not yet put away, sit in a neat stack. Sydney recognizes the oilcloth used for lobster dinners, the damask napkins—old Emporia finds. Ben opens the refrigerator and takes out two bottles of water. He hands one to Sydney.
“We were just about to eat lunch,” Julie says. “Are you hungry?”
“I’ll just take a quick shower,” Ben says.
Bread, ham, mayonnaise, tomatoes, and lettuce have all been arranged on the granite counter. The spread reminds Sydney of the sublime confections Mr. Edwards once put together in the panini maker. Sydney fixes herself a plain sandwich and is glad for it. She hasn’t eaten anything since an early breakfast.
She sits with Julie at the kitchen table. Instinctively, Sydney looks for the crack in the wood on which she used to catch her sweaters.
“How are you?” Sydney asks. “How are you really?”
Julie’s face and nose immediately turn red. “It’s so hard!” she blurts out.
“I know,” Sydney says, though, of course, she does not. Not entirely. Both of her own parents are still alive and apparently healthy, still speaking to each other, though not particularly friendly. Daniel happened, but that was different, over before Sydney even knew about it.
Julie takes a paper napkin from a loose pile and blows her nose. “I’m okay,” she says. “Most of the time. Hélène’s been coming on weekends. Oh, I’m having a show.”
“That’s great,” Sydney says. “In Montreal?”
“In a suburb near the city. It’s a group show. I’ll have three paintings in it. I should have brought slides.”
“I’d love to see the show. When is it?”
“In January.”
“Then I’ll come.”
“Would you?” Julie asks, her face alight. “There’ll be a party. Hélène’s sure there will be a party.”
“I’ll definitely come,” Sydney says, only just then realizing how hard it might be to visit Montreal again.
Beside her, Julie folds and refolds a new napkin. Sydney is reminded of the blue handkerchief now in a drawer in her apartment. “I can’t believe he’s gone,” Sydney says. She can see so clearly the package of Gummy Lobsters in Mr. Edwards’s hand; the spots of lobster juice on his pale green polo shirt; Mr. Edwards holding his stomach and bemoaning the doughnut he had at breakfast.
“He’d be glad you’re here,” Julie says.
“I wish I had known,” Sydney says. “I would have come sooner.”
“I knew you would have!” Julie cries. “Ben said no, but I was sure you would have wanted to come.”
“You thought of calling me?” Sydney asks.
“God, Sydney,” Julie says. “I only wrote you a hundred letters.”
At the counter, Mrs. Edwards is wrapping up the ham and the lettuce. She puts them in the refrigerator. Sydney senses a slight reproof for not having done so herself. She stands with her dish and glass and walks them to the sink.
“You won’t want your old room,” Mrs. Edwards announces.
Sydney, startled, turns. “Oh, I can’t stay,” she explains.
Though an invitation has hardly been delivered, Mrs. Edwards appears miffed. “I thought you were staying,” she says.
“Oh, stay!” Julie pleads from the table.
Sydney shakes her head. “I can’t,” she repeats.
“But surely you can stay for dinner,” Mrs. Edwards says.
And Sydney decides, glancing at Mrs. Edwards and then at the young woman who has so recently lost her father, Yes, I can stay for dinner.
Sydney, loading the dishwasher, feels as if she has unintentionally fallen into her expected role—something between a guest and a servant. Julie has gone upstairs to pack her room. Behind Sydney, Mrs. Edwards wipes the granite counter. Sydney thinks by now it must be nearly sterile.
“I’ve never liked you,” Mrs. Edwards says in a low voice. “I can’t pretend I ever did.”
Sydney holds a glass, someone’s glass, in her hand. Despite the truth of the statement, and the fact that it is hardly news, she cannot believe what she has just heard. She slowly turns toward the woman.
“I suppose I should be sorry about that,” Mrs. Edwards continues, not looking at Sydney, “but I can’t pretend to be someone I’m not.” The woman’s sleeves are rolled to the elbows; the veins on her forearms are raised. “I can’t pretend that I wasn’t glad when Jeff. . .when Jeff did what he did. Well, I wasn’t glad exactly,” she says, folding the rag she is using and wiping the same spot she’s been polishing. “It was embarrassing, and it was a tremendous has
sle. Of course it was. But there was relief, too. I won’t say there wasn’t.”
Sydney can think of no way to respond.
“I watched you leave the house,” Mrs. Edwards continues, “and I said to myself, That’s that.”
Sydney sets down the glass and wipes her hands on a sheet of paper towel. “I think I should go,” she says quietly.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, don’t go,” Mrs. Edwards says, as if Sydney has missed the point entirely. And only now does the woman look up at her. Perhaps she has been practicing this confession for months. “No, don’t go now that you’ve just got here. Ben and Julie are glad that you’ve come. It’s been hard on them. Especially with Jeff away. . .” Mrs. Edwards looks quickly up at the ceiling. “No, you’re welcome now,” she says. “That’s not what I meant at all. I just wanted to say that I know I was rude to you all that time, and I’m, you know. . .It’s too bad, that’s all.”
It is, Sydney thinks, an appalling confession. She searches for a reply, which Mrs. Edwards appears to expect. The silence draws itself out.
“Well, you wouldn’t know what to say, would you?” Mrs. Edwards says. “I expect this is all a shock to you. It is to us, too, even though we’ve had months to get used to it. But it doesn’t matter, does it? Time? There’s never enough time.”
Mrs. Edwards pauses in her cleaning, hand on the granite, and closes her eyes, like a woman trying to rid herself of hiccups. “I just miss him so much,” she says. She covers her eyes with her arm, the cloth dangling from her hand.
Sydney, not knowing what else to do, moves toward the woman. She lightly touches her elbow.
Mrs. Edwards flinches, as if she had been singed.
Sydney seeks refuge in an upstairs bathroom. She walks to the window, draws back the curtains, and looks out at the marsh, moss-green and russet in the afternoon light. The water has left deep trenches in the mud. A flock of birds soars, an air show over the grasses. The birds change from gray-winged to white and back again, making crazy eights in perfect formation. They do it for the fun of it, she thinks.