Just holler? Ken’s folksy goodwill beamed me to Beaver Junction.
“Ken? The luggage?”
He lifted their bags. “I’m ready for that little bit of bourbon you meant to offer.” He winked. “Not too much, now.”
When they disappeared, Adam and I stood shaking our heads. “Your mother must be a Tijuana whore in bed or she made a pact with the devil to keep that man.”
“She is beautiful.” Thank you for talking to me.
“No one’s that beautiful. I’ll tell the kids they’re here.” He threw the words over his shoulder like a bone. Detente over.
“Some dinner, Isabelle.” Ken rubbed his sizable paunch. “Stuffed me like a turkey.”
The man had consumed three helpings of homemade cheese manicotti. After eating a dry salad, my mother nibbled the forkful of pasta she’s allowed on her plate. I worked at not finishing the entire bottle of Merlot.
“What’s for dessert?”
“Mom made her special Christmas cake,” Henry said.
“What’s that?” My mother took a tiny sip of her wine.
“You ate it before.” Molly reached for a second serving of manicotti. “Triple layer chocolate-espresso, remember, Grandma?”
Babs flinched.
“Oops. I mean, Maman.” Molly’s adorable smile looked as fake as her error.
I stood to clear the plates. “I’ve made it every Christmas since I turned fifteen, Mom. Don’t you remember? I always put a snowman on it?”
“Sounds like a thousand calories per bite. You’re quiet tonight, Adam,” my mother said. “How are you?”
“Business doing well?” Ken added.
“He has a practice.” Babs pushed away her plate. “Not a business.”
Adam scraped his chair closer to the table. “Business is fine.”
“Last year he was on the Boston Magazine ‘best of’ list.” I gave Adam a proud-wife smile. He sent back his you’re-a-cheating-whore look.
“So why so glum, chum?” Ken asked.
“Are you glum, Daddy?” Henry looked alarmed.
“Daddy’s just tired,” Molly said. “Mom, let me help you clear the table and get dessert.”
Molly’s offer touched me. We toted armloads of dishes and backed through the swinging door to the kitchen.
“When are they leaving?” All traces of smiles left.
I turned up the water to cover our conversation. “Tomorrow.”
The door swung in, stopping our conversation. My mother carried a water glass. “Your skin is gorgeous, Molly. Like silk. Thank goodness you’re not plagued with the problems your mother had at your age.”
“I had the same pimples every teenager gets. Nothing bubonic.”
“Your brother never had one.” She wouldn’t let the word pimple touch her tongue. “I want to speak to your mother, dear. Would you mind leaving so we can talk?”
Molly jutted out her chin. My mother received the gesture without a blink.
“That was rather rude,” I said when Molly left. “You haven’t seen her in what, a year, and that’s your conversation? You don’t have pimples? Leave so I can talk to your mother?”
“I told her she had gorgeous skin.” She went to the sink and washed her hands. After lightly patting them with a paper towel, she pumped out lemon hand cream from the bottle on the counter.
“You remember what I taught you? Always put lotion on damp skin. You hydrate by sealing in the water.”
“Your talents are wasted, Mom. You could be the Ann Landers of beauty. Write a column.”
“Laugh all you want, but skin doesn’t take care of itself.” She came closer, rubbing the lotion into her perfect delicate hands. She took a tiny pair of fold-up reading glasses from her pocket and put them on.
“I could drive a truck through your pores. Thank god I brought you Creme de La Mer for Christmas—you’re parched as the desert.”
“And that’s why you gave me the sea?” I grabbed the bottle of wine from the counter.
“My always-funny daughter. Only alcohol ages a face more than smoking.” She looked at me pointedly. “What’s going on with you and Adam?”
“Nothing.” I poured a fresh glass.
“Really? The chill is quite palpable.”
I removed the cake from the fridge.
“Something’s going on. Let me tell you this: Do you remember what I went through? Raising children by yourself is no picnic.”
My hands shook as I carried the cake to the counter.
“Nothing’s wrong,” I said. “Look, I have to get the dessert on the table.”
“They can wait. We need to talk about other things.”
I set my face to stone. “What?”
“One, you’re not getting any younger. Two, romance is a man’s market. Three, men cheat. It doesn’t mean a thing.”
“Great wisdom. Thanks. Is that it?”
She looked around. “I see you painted the kitchen. It looks nice.”
Coffee dribbled into the carafe. I waited as though it was heroin, and I was the arm.
Ken entered as I tipped milk into a mug in anticipation of my caffeine. He’d never been a late sleeper. Maybe he needed those hours before Babs woke to breathe and eat.
“Coffee?” I lowered the radio to a low hum.
“Thanks, hon.” He put his large arm around me and squeezed. Irish Spring and Colgate scented the air. He sipped the coffee and smiled. “Perfect. Not many women can brew it good enough to drink black. Home-cooked morning grub? What’s available?”
Ken could annoy me, but except for Henry, he was the only one who gave me an inch of appreciation that day.
“You name it. Pancakes? Scrambled eggs? Toasted bagel?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“All of the above?”
“You betcha. Tell your mother I had bran flakes. She’s after me to bring the old gut down.” He slapped his belly with the affection my mother withheld.
“No problem.” Hell, frying cheese in lard would be my pleasure if he wanted it.
“So how are you doing, sweetheart?”
“Okay.” I reached into the back of the freezer where I kept small batches of homemade pancake batter.
“Really?”
What had my mother told him? I could only imagine.
“Totally,” I answered. “How about you? How’s your family?”
Your real family. Even now, I was jealous of Ken’s kids. Babs raised my brother and me as though we were unwelcome and not quite housebroken puppies. Ken’s children were the klieg lights of his life. When he married my mother, he plunked her right in the middle of all his adoration, but Thomas and I were too old, and too marginalized by my mother, for Ken to include us in his family. He was kind, but he never cherished Thomas or me.
I loaded Ken’s plate and set it before him and then gave myself a bare-bones version.
“Damn good, breakfast,” he said after one bite. He tapped the chair beside him. “Sit. Talk to me.”
I poured him more coffee and then heated up my cup.
“Listen, Sugar, I’m not gonna pry into your affairs. What you or Adam does is your business, but I’m damned concerned. You know I love you like a daughter, right? We worry about you, way out here, so far from us.”
I nodded, wishing I could say ‘big, fat, liar.’
“Mom told me what’s going on.” He drizzled syrup over the remaining pancake and stuffed it into his mouth whole. “Sugar, sometimes men screw up. We’re not as dainty or virtuous as women.”
Ken seemed to take my silence for my gentle sensibility. Perhaps he thought I was like my mother: a dainty piranha.
He wiped his hands with a napkin and then stood. Casual as could be, he extracted a folded check from his wallet. “Take this.” He closed my hand around the check. “A little walking-around money. Not that you’ll need it, but having something in your back pocket always helps. Our secret. No need to tell your mother.”
I stared at my hand. He gave me
a wink. “Great breakfast.”
I tried to press the money back on him. “Thank you. But I’m sure I won’t need it.”
“Of course you won’t, honey.” He held up his hands, refusing to take it. “But you deserve it. Nobody else makes me pancakes, eggs, and those famous Jewish bagels.”
He squeezed my shoulder once more and then left to start the process of waking my mother for their limousine to Connecticut. If this were a movie, what music would be swelling behind me? The theme from Rocky? Suicide is Painless? It was time to see the price of an unfaithful husband in Texas.
I took out the check.
Texas appeared to be a decent market for cheating.
“What do you think Ken’s net worth is?” Adam and I were in the study. I wrapped gifts; he sorted through the piles of paper we accumulated like dirty dishes.
“Are you thinking of asking him for money?”
“Why would I do that? I was just—”
“Look, money will never be a problem. Whatever happens, I’m not going to let the kids or you do without.”
You read words like speechless and dumbfounded, but you never know the meaning until your husband says something so much like a roundhouse punch, that you lose your hold. Suddenly Ken’s ten thousand dollars seemed important.
Adam kept sorting papers.
“I didn’t ask because of anything to do with us and money. We aren’t talking about that. I know we’re in trouble, but we’re not talking about that.” Agree with me. Please.
Adam rolled his chair around to face me. “I’ll stay for the holidays. For the kids.”
I gripped the edge of my desk, feeling the groove of warm wood. “This isn’t a good time to try to decide. We’re too raw.”
He raked his fingers through his hair. “My insides are torn. I keep picturing you with him, and I can’t take it. I can’t look at you.”
I knelt before him and placed my hands on his knees. “Don’t make rash decisions.” I put my head in his lap. He pushed stray strands from my face. I crawled into his lap and rested my head on his shoulder. As our tears fell, he tore down the neck of my sweater. I slipped it off, impatient to feel him on bare skin, the scratch of his midnight beard.
Adam fumbled open the button on my jeans, pushed me to my feet, and stripped the heavy denim to my knees. I threw them on the floor. He pulled me on top of him.
My mouth pressed into his, as I cradled his head with two hands. He twisted his head away as he came in deep angry groans.
We stayed entangled until, without a word, he put two hands on my upper arms and lifted me off his lap. Then he stood, dressed, and left the room.
14
Myth: Everyone has fantasies of cheating.
Truth: Nobody knows the extent of infidelity.
If we lie to spouses, why would we be honest
with statisticians?
Christmas morning, I shuffled in to light the tree as though heading to my execution. Henry, wrapped in his quilt, asleep on the couch, stirred and lifted his head.
“Hey, there.” I picked up his feet so I could sit and placed them on my lap. “Been waiting long?”
My baby shrugged. Presents spilled from under the tree. Adam, Molly and Henry’s stockings overflowed. Mine, always thin, this year had anorexia.
“Can we wake Daddy and Molly?”
“Of course. How did you wait this long?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Everyone seems so tired.”
“Tired doesn’t matter on Christmas. Wake them. I’ll make breakfast. By the time they come down, the matzo brei will be ready.”
As coffee brewed, I broke matzo into small pieces, soaked it in water, squeezed it out, and then beat in eggs. We loved this matzo dish: Crispy fried in butter. Sprinkled with salt. Dipped in sour cream. Adam allowed it twice a year. Christmas and Passover.
Breakfast done, a meal where Henry and I babbled to a silent Adam and Molly—we headed to the tree to open presents. Henry, probably up since five, bounced out of himself. Molly stayed as truculent as she could, while still eyeing the piles of boxes. I chattered like a crazed parrot. Adam worked at smiling.
“I’m giving everyone their stocking,” Henry said. “I’m first Santa.”
Adam and Molly sat like lumps.
“Hey, you’re always Santa. No fair. I’m next.” It seemed that I had to play sister as well as father and mother for poor Henry.
We dug into the bright red stockings, our names embroidered in green thread. Henry, Molly, and Mom were clumsily outlined, while Dad was so perfectly written that Adam’s stocking looked like it came from a catalog. We made them years ago, during a blizzardy December weekend, Adam, showing off his suturing skills.
“Yours is so skinny.” Henry handed me a limp stocking. “Not fair.”
“Mine is always the skinniest. You know that. Remember, I always get the most jewelry and the least tchotchkes.”
I wanted to reel back my words. There would be no diamonds under this tree.
Molly emptied her stocking fast, mumbling thanks, Mom, thanks, Dad, over her pen and mini-journal and nodding at every lip gloss, every pair of socks and the chocolate dreidel I threw in to show how non-Christian we were.
Henry ripped paper like a machine, piling up paperbacks, candy, and mittens, a virtual holiday machine moving nonstop till he hit the bottom of his stocking. “Thanks, everyone. Great stuff!”
“You’re welcome, champ,” Adam said.
Molly twirled a new pen.
Adam started on his respectably filled stocking, nodding curt thanks at me as he unwrapped handkerchiefs, Polo soap, and other manly items.
Calling my stocking skinny would be kind. I should have thought ahead and thrown some presents in for myself, so that Henry wouldn’t feel sad. I oohed over the one mini bottle of lavender scented lotion from Molly. When I saw the giant Chunky Bar from Henry, I tore off the wrapper, broke off a quarter for myself and passed chunks to Molly, Henry and Adam. Everyone stuffed the thick pieces in their mouths.
Adam had managed to put two things in my stocking: sugarless jellybeans in a neon-blue tin and a miniature bottle of chocolate liqueur, shaped like a windmill, wrapped in red holly paper. Both appeared regifted from patients, which told me everything I needed to know.
“Okay,” I said. “Stockings are finished.”
I put a gift in front of each of them, skipping myself. “I’ll sit this round out. Looks like I got quality over quantity this year.”
Adam thinned his lips. “Sometimes avoiding excess is the best path.”
By the time we got to the last round, I was narcotized by tension. I almost nodded out as I thanked Adam for the ugly blue polyester robe he must have grabbed off a sale rack labeled: Final-final-we-are-never-returning-your-money-if-you’re-stupid-enough-to-buy-this. I could barely touch the fabric, much less wear it and yet was pathetically grateful he went to even that much trouble.
Adam handed me a final present, a small box that made me nervous.
“That must be your jewelry, Mom.” Henry beamed.
Adam appeared blank as chalk. Molly stared out the window.
“Okay, everyone. This is it. I’m about to officially close Christmas morning.” I lifted a scotch-taped corner of the store-wrapped present with nervous fingers and ripped the paper off in one fast tear. I shook the small box gingerly and then slowly opened it. A sterling silver Swiss pocketknife, etched with the letter I’, was nestled in silver and blue paper.
I sat alone on the back steps, smoking a forbidden cigarette. In fifteen minutes, Christmas day would end. A week from now we would close the holiday season. What would Adam and I do for New Years’? How could we compete with today? Blow our brains out?
At the moment I felt mellow—drug-mellow. Greta gave me a few tablets of Xanax, her current drug of choice. Asking my doctor, who’d prescribed Ambien for me only three months ago, seemed impossible. But Greta had a stash. Her doctor likely considered her too delectably pretty to be an addi
ct.
Taking half a pill before dinner allowed me to function through the traditional Christmas dinner of Chinese food. The other half pill waited.
Dessert.
The door creaked open behind me. I threw my cigarette into the yard, praying I didn’t burn down the neighborhood on fire.
“Don’t worry.” Molly stood in the doorway. “It’s only me.”
She clomped down the stairs wrapped in her thick red robe, walked over to the glowing butt and stamped it out.
I made room on the step. “I thought you were in bed.”
“I can’t sleep.”
“What an awful Christmas, right?” I smoothed her rumpled hair and she almost inclined toward me.
“I don’t want you and Daddy to get divorced.”
“Neither do I.”
“Does Daddy?”
“I hope not. I don’t think so.”
I squeezed her hand in what I hoped was reassurance. She grabbed her hand back and spun around to look me in the eyes.
“How could you be so gross?”
“I’m sorry. I really am.”
She stood and retied her robe tightly around her small waist.
“Sorry really doesn’t change anything, does it?”
15
Myth: Most cheaters find their illicit partner more enticing than their spouse.
Truth: Few report their lover as more physically attractive than their spouse.
At some point, before the kids got home I had to get out of bed, but for now, what the hell. It was Sunday morning, Valentine’s Day, and I was free as a damn bird till six o’clock when Adam brought the kids home. Until then, I could do anything I pleased. So, there I lay, remote in hand, eating Cheerios from the box, surrounded by the coffee-stained Sunday Globe. Calling my nightgown musty would be a compliment. I hadn’t shaved my legs in four weeks.
Free as a fucking bird.
My goals were few since Adam left, despite Greta’s constant nagging about the subject. Number one, no matter what, shower before the kids came home. Number two? Not a clue.
19 Myths About Cheating: A Novella Page 9