“No, sweetheart. He’s still in intensive care. I’m not even sure he’s awake yet.”
“How long is the recovery?” I asked, wondering if my mother might bake him cookies again.
“It all depends. The doctors think that if things continue to go smoothly, he might be home in less than two weeks,” my mother said.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll try you tonight after you’ve had a chance to visit with him.”
“Actually”—my mother cleared her throat—“I have plans.”
It wasn’t often that Malabar was alone and available in Boston, an easy drive from Plymouth, so Ben had made an excuse to be in the city, and he and my mother had a date. I could tell from her voice that she regretted the decision, that it had been a miscalculation on her part, but I also knew that she would never cancel on Ben. Malabar would slap on a dress and a smile and suppress any problematic emotions.
That lonely feeling comes from not feeling known.
“I’ll keep you updated, sweetie,” my mother promised.
* * *
On October 20, just a few days after his surgery, Charles suffered a massive stroke and died alone in his hospital room. My mother was with Ben at the time.
I arrived in Boston the next day and found Malabar weeping harder than I thought possible. It was as if a lifetime’s worth of emotional chutes and trapdoors installed for self-protection decades ago had malfunctioned in a spectacular way. She couldn’t avoid her feelings of sorrow and guilt. My mother’s despair over Charles was beyond anything I could have imagined. Even though his death was the eventuality she had been waiting for, a prerequisite for the better life she imagined she’d have with Ben, the immensity of her grief took her—all of us—by surprise.
“He didn’t deserve to die alone,” Malabar said as we lay in her bed together. “Charles was so good to me, Rennie. And look at how I treated him. I gave him the worst of me.”
It was true, I thought. She had.
Part II
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
—SøREN KIERKEGAARD
Fourteen
When I first got back to college, and less than two weeks after Charles’s death, I learned that ocean salvagers had chipped a thick layer of corrosion off a bronze bell found within sight of the shore of a Wellfleet beach. Beneath the hardened gunk—two hundred and seventy years of sand and debris pressed into rock—the past resurfaced to reveal an inscription that identified the wreck: THE WHYDAH GALLY 1716.
I wept that Charles hadn’t lived to see the headlines, proof of a pirate ship whose fate had been the object of his wonder for years. My stepfather had been nothing but good to me. He was a gentle soul whose humor and generosity had lifted our family. I went through the winter wrapped in a heavy blanket of pain. I avoided people, slept much of each day, and ate constantly, adding a protective layer of padding.
I realized I’d made a mistake that long-ago summer by signing on with my mother with such fierce purpose. I’d not felt so much as a pinprick of foreboding or dark premonition about what lay beyond the curve of time. Now that Charles was gone, I couldn’t stop thinking about him, how kind he’d been and how I hadn’t deserved that kindness. I began to understand that I’d crashed into something when I agreed to help my mother in her affair. I was grounded on shoals invisible from the surface and perpetually exhausted from taking on water.
* * *
My mother was also consumed with guilt and regret. During our phone calls, she cried and cried, blaming herself for being impatient and short-tempered with Charles during his final years, for her betrayal. What’s more, his death had not granted her the life with Ben she longed for. As long as Lily was alive, my mother would be in second place; she’d be the other woman. And although she’d always have an annual income from Charles’s trust, she worried constantly about money and her future.
Then about a year later, regret left as suddenly as it arrived, and the old Malabar was back.
That my mother’s career was thriving certainly must have helped. In 1986, Malabar’s first cookbook composed of original recipes, Do-Ahead Dining, was published and dedicated to Charles. My copy was inscribed For my sweetest, dearest guinea pig/aide/therapist and friend. The subsequent book, Do-Ahead Entertaining, published one year later, appeared to be dedicated to her parents, Peter, and me. But it was a ruse. My mother’s father and Ben happened to share initials, albeit differently ordered, which enabled Malabar, by using initials instead of names, to dedicate the book to Ben. A misprint, she could say. A typo.
However unlikely it sounds, the friendship my mother had cultivated with Ben and Lily as a couple while Charles was alive continued following his death. The mechanics of how this threesome worked elude me to this day, but Ben and Lily helped my mother cope with the loneliness of widowhood, and she, in turn, must have provided something essential to them, even if it was only distracting them from their strained marriage. They visited each other regularly and took the occasional trip together. Ben and my mother still saw each other on the sly, meeting in New York at the InterContinental. Whenever possible, I joined them for a power pack in their room or at the hotel bar.
Then, during my junior year of college, my mother got the idea that she would bring the two families together, kids and all. Determined to orchestrate a joint family getaway, Malabar found a large house on Harbour Island in the Bahamas that was available for two full weeks that included Christmas and New Year’s. According to her, the Southers loved the plan; they hoped that an all-expenses-paid trip to a tropical island would entice their two children, Jack and Hannah, both in their early thirties, to spend the holiday with them. It did. My mother invited our extended family and even encouraged Peter and me to bring our significant others. In my case, this was Hank from the clam bar; he’d been my boyfriend since August, when I encouraged him to extricate himself from his relationship with Sally. Malabar planned to show Ben Souther exactly what she could pull off with a family vacation. She figured she’d string together so many memories—exotic meals and ocean adventures—that the Southers would talk about their trip to Harbour Island for years to come.
* * *
I met Jack Souther in the Miami International Airport, where the first tranche of our vacation crew—flying in from Boston, New York, and San Diego—had arranged to converge for a meal in the terminal. The rest of our group would arrive in dribs and drabs over the coming week, but for forty-eight hours, it would be just five of us: Malabar, Ben, Lily, Jack, and me. Jack had full lips, a shag of light brown hair, and an athletic build, the result, I would come to learn, of a rigorous daily regimen of sit-ups, pushups, and squats. The way he stood, relaxed with his arms crossed, exuded confidence and conveyed a certain kind of easy masculinity. He was a decade older than I was, could speak knowledgeably on a range of topics from international politics to the environment, and addressed people—his father included—as “pal” or “pally,” which sounded either affectionate or condescending, depending on the circumstance. Over dinner at the airport bar, I noticed Jack eyeing my shrimp cocktail. “Here, have one,” I said. I dunked a large shrimp into horseradish sauce and placed it directly into his mouth, surprising us both.
The next morning, we flew to Nassau, and from there, we were taken across a clear blue ocean by a water taxi and deposited on a dock near a town dotted with pastel-colored homes and boutique hotels. After some quick wharf-side negotiations with the locals, we procured a golf cart that we loaded up with luggage and drove to the large yellow house that would be our home for the next two weeks.
Once we’d all unpacked our suitcases, Ben and Jack took off on a snorkeling adventure and Lily meandered into town in search of a good book on the island’s history. My mother and I organized the kitchen, no small feat as Malabar had planned two weeks’ worth of dinners. She had brought an enormous Styrofoam cooler full of frozen meat and had shipped a case of wine and a box of culinary necessities like basmati rice, Italian p
asta, spices, and extra virgin olive oil. And she never traveled without her own pepper grinder.
After everything was put away, my mother suggested that we unwind and catch up out on the veranda, where fuchsia climbed the latticework and bell-shaped yellow elder shrubs released a pungent perfume. She excused herself to change while I brought out two glasses of iced tea. When my mother emerged, she was wearing a chic sun hat, oversize sunglasses, and a boldly patterned bikini beneath a sheer shift. She stretched out on the chaise longue, knee bent just so, looking as though she were posing for an advertisement for this very vacation. She sighed in contentment at her surroundings. The place—both the house and the island itself—had exceeded her expectations, and now, after weeks of planning, she just needed to allow the vacation to unfold.
But I could tell that my mother wasn’t fully relaxed. She fingered the fringe of her cover-up, smoothing it over her thighs again and again. There was a lot to orchestrate here—all these people and meals—and I understood that the stakes were high. Malabar wanted to show everyone a good time, but Ben in particular; she hoped to provide him with a vision of how harmonious and fun she could make his family life—if she was at his side, his children would clamor to come on every vacation. But for that to happen, she would need to make a good impression on them now. I knew she was especially curious about Jack, the mysterious son who’d moved far away from home and who rarely returned. Ben’s daughter, Hannah, would be arriving in another couple of days, but my mother was less interested in her. Men were Malabar’s focus.
Attuned to her mood, I asked my mother what she thought about Jack, knowing that her first impressions of people were rarely favorable.
“I haven’t made up my mind about him yet,” she admitted, giving me a smile. “I certainly don’t like all that ‘pally’ business, but I plan to give him a chance. And you?” she asked.
I returned her smile. “Well, he’s a little cocky, for sure, but what’s not to like? He’s smart, funny, and good-looking . . . like his father.” I added the part about Ben for my mother’s benefit. Jack and his father did not, in fact, resemble each other, although they did share a certain rugged handsomeness.
“In any event, let’s just make sure Jack has a great time on this vacation,” my mother said.
A tail flickered in my peripheral vision and I turned to see an island gecko frozen on the exterior of the house. The lizard was so still that it didn’t look real until the thin shutters of its eyelids lowered and opened.
My mother noticed it too and groaned. “The island’s roaches.”
“They’re kind of cute,” I said.
“I guess, if you don’t mind cold-blooded.” Malabar glanced over her shoulder at the gate to the courtyard to make sure that no one was within earshot. “You know that they’re adopted, right? Both Jack and Hannah,” she said in a whisper, as if the subject were taboo.
Did I know this? I wasn’t sure I did.
“The problem was with Lily,” my mother said. “Of course, everyone assumed it was Ben’s issue.” She paused. “Such a horrible stigma for any man to endure.”
I knew then that, from Malabar’s perspective, the inability to produce a son for Ben Souther—whose own father-to-son lineage stretched like a paper-doll chain umpteen generations back to the decks of the Mayflower—was yet another example of Lily’s failings as a wife.
“What do you mean? Why did everyone think it was him?” I asked.
My mother looked baffled, as if the answer were so clear that she hardly understood my need to ask the question. “Come on, Rennie. Isn’t it obvious? People assumed a man with Ben’s bloodline would leave the marriage if his wife couldn’t bear him children. I mean, he is a direct descendant. You and I might think that it’s silly, but some people take that Mayflower stuff very seriously.”
She went on to point out how gracious it was that Ben had never outed his wife to correct this misperception, with its unseemly assault on his masculinity.
I was listening and not listening at the same time, basking dreamily in the sensory pleasures of the island. Two days ago, I’d been in cold gray New York City, cramming for exams. Now here I was, enveloped by warmth and color. Yellow and red hibiscus sprang from large pots scattered about the lanai. In the distance, I heard the muffled voices of families returning from the beach, the bell of a bicycle, songbirds. Overhead, palm fronds rustled, and fragrant smells, absurd in their sweetness, wafted on the breeze.
I became aware that, from behind her dark glasses, my mother was watching me.
“What I wouldn’t give to produce a proper heir for that man,” she said.
Even without being able to see her eyes, I knew the look she wore—Malabar had an idea percolating.
“Well, I suppose that is something you might be able to help with,” she ventured.
I pretended to whack her on the arm. “Seriously, Mom? Gross.”
My mother laughed. “What? You could be our surrogate, Rennie.”
I allowed myself to join in with her laughter, timidly at first and then a little louder, glad that we both understood this as a joke. “What would that make me? Mother to my baby brother or sister? Eww. That’s beyond creepy.”
“You’re right, it is,” she said.
I considered the proposal, though, and thought about what my mother was saying. Did she really want to have a child with Ben? Malabar was in her mid-fifties now, well past her fertility prime, and Ben was fourteen years her senior. No; it was impossible.
A long moment passed.
“I suppose Ben and I could make do with a grandchild,” my mother conceded.
I leaned back and shut my eyes. The afternoon sun beckoned dormant freckles, and beads of water slid down our tall iced-tea glasses. My mother continued to gossip about the Southers and I listened without much interest, wishing I’d accompanied Ben and Jack on their dive. Adopted or not, Jack resembled his father constitutionally. He was self-assured, athletic, interested in all aspects of the world he inhabited, and he had a voracious appetite for action. There was something about him.
“They’re not close, you know,” my mother said of Ben and Jack. “It pains Ben so. I’m sure he envies the relationship you and I have.”
I wondered if something in particular had come between them or if their estrangement was simply a gradual drifting apart, the natural outcome of separate lives on opposite coasts. After graduating from college in Colorado, Jack had moved to San Diego, where he’d been living ever since. He now worked full-time as a lieutenant in the city’s large lifeguard department; his trips to the family home in Plymouth were rare.
My mother speculated that the rift had to do with Lily’s lack of natural maternal ability. As evidence, she told me about Lily’s collection of parenting books, still prominently displayed on a shelf in their library. “Honestly, Rennie, if you need a book to teach you how to be a good mother,” Malabar said with disdain, “you’re probably not up for the job.”
On cue, the front gate squeaked and Lily pushed through. She’d been to town and had returned with a papaya, a long-flapped canvas hat to protect the back of her neck from the sun, and a thin book on the island’s history and many attractions.
“Malabar,” she said, holding up the book, “conch recipes!” Her voice, which had been in steady decline since I’d known her, was now set at a hoarse whisper.
“Another book, Lily?” my mother teased. “Really? You need to explore this island, not read about it.”
Lily shrugged. If she was offended, she didn’t show it. She never let Malabar get under her skin. She pulled a lounge chair into a shady spot, donned her unattractive hat, opened the book, and lay alongside my mother, Melanie Wilkes to her Scarlett O’Hara.
* * *
Ben and Jack had been tasked with finding live conches on the sandy ocean floor around the island’s coral reefs during their snorkeling expedition. My mother’s culinary goal for her stay on Harbour Island was to make the perfect conch fritter. The men did not
disappoint, returning with two large beauties whose glossy orange-pink interiors were protected by tightly clamped brown doors. The burning question became how to coax the large snails from their shells. Although Jack had had experience with abalone, and my mother and Ben had handled all sorts of East Coast mollusks, no one in our small group had ever tackled conch.
Lily suggested that her book might have the answer.
“Oh, Lily, but where would be the fun in that?” my mother asked.
We had moved inside. Malabar poured final splashes of rum into goblets already full of rum punch, then garnished each drink with a wedge of fresh pineapple. She wore a brightly colored island kaftan with a plunging neckline.
Lily lifted her glass and toasted. “Skoal.”
We all joined in—“Skoal”—our glasses clinking merrily against one another’s.
The sweet drinks slid down our throats with an icy burn. A few sips in, my mother and Ben flung themselves into one of their riotous mock fights. “What these fellas need is some heat,” my mother declared, holding up one of the conches. “A brief dip in a steam bath should do the trick. It will relax their muscles and they’ll release their hatches. Then we’ll be able to slide their innards out.”
“Wrong,” Ben said. “Cold is what is called for. Ice. At least fifteen minutes in the freezer.” He tapped his index finger on my mother’s sternum. “Then I’ll be able to slip a knife behind the operculum and pry them out.”
“Impressive vocab, Dad,” Jack said, chiming in from the living room. “I suggest a sledgehammer.”
Game on.
I no longer remember which method won the day, but by the time we’d finished our second rum cocktails, the slick tenants had been successfully evicted and Malabar had created yet another memorable moment.
In short order, soused and bearing knives, Jack and I formed an assembly line, chopping conch meat, onions, garlic, and parsley to Malabar’s precise specifications. She seasoned our mix with cayenne, salt, and pepper, then folded the meat concoction into a batter of flour, eggs, and milk. When the oil was hot enough, she lowered in rounded tablespoons of batter, which bobbed and spat furiously. She nudged them around with a wooden spoon, turning them over until they were an even golden brown. We ate the fritters piping hot with a spicy lime-mayonnaise dipping sauce.
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