The Secret Women

by Sheila Williams

  “I don’t want Bobby mad at me,” Marie told her, her pretty face marred by a frown. “You go on now.”

  “It’s fine, Mom,” Elise said, waving off her mother’s concern. “He can manage.”

  “I don’t doubt that he can,” Marie said. “But you should go home. I don’t need a babysitter.”

  The words stung, but just a little. Elise knew that her mother still had some dark moments, nights when she couldn’t sleep because she would have a dream about Owen, days when, even five years after his death, her eyes would well up and she’d reach for tissues.

  Mom took care of me, Elise reasoned. Now it’s my turn to take care of her.

  “Best friends forever.”

  Then came the day when her brother Bill called and Elise realized that her charmed new life with her mother included a ghost.

  “Hey, you.” Bill’s Barry White–like baritone was unmistakable.

  “Hey yourself. What’s goin’ on?”

  “Just wanted to hear your voice and . . .” Elise heard her sister-in-law’s voice in the background. “I’m getting to that,” Bill shot back. “So pushy, that woman!”

  Elise giggled. Her sister-in-law was the least pushy member of her extended family. “So what is it that you have to get to? What’s Liz talking about?”

  “Buzz and the kids are coming,” her brother said, referring to his son and grandchildren. “Liz’s having a ‘do’ here and wants to make sure that you and the Bob come.” Elise was available, but maybe now wasn’t the time to tell her brother that she and “the Bob” had separated. It would extend their conversation by two hours.

  “Do you want me to bring anything?”

  “She wants to know if she should bring something!” he yelled into the receiver.

  “Oowwww! Billy!”

  “Sorry.” The bass timbre of his voice couldn’t mask the tone of the boy he once was, her bad “little” brother. Elise heard Liz’s voice again. “No. She says she’s got it covered.”

  “Okay,” Elise said. “I’ll let Mom know.”

  “Mom knows. She’s coming,” Bill commented. “She and George.”

  Elise’s heart skipped. “George?”

  “George, George Bridges, you know. Played in the golf league with Dad. He and Mom have been hanging out a bit.”

  He and Mom. Hanging out.

  The phone felt like lead in her hand.

  “Right. Mr. Bridges,” Elise said slowly, the only name she knew him by. Okay. Now she remembered. His wife had passed a couple of years ago. What was her name? She and Marie had played cards together on Thursdays at Aunt Edie’s.

  “Uh-huh,” her brother confirmed. “Listen, I gotta go. Lizzie’s on me to light the grill.” This time Elise did understand her sister-in-law’s words: “Don’t call me Lizzie!”

  “Okay, uh, talk to you later.”

  She set the phone down quickly, as if it was hot. And it was as if she was having a near-death experience; the scenes of her life over the past few months began to flash before her eyes. She and Mom had been inseparable, except that they hadn’t. And suddenly she realized that there had been a subtle and gradual un-pairing.

  The Sunday her mother said she didn’t feel like going to church. The renewed interest in the fitness facility close to her home, where she was taking a swimming refresher class. The day Elise found her mother cleaning the golf clubs that had been in storage for a couple of years. The evening that Elise called and Marie seemed eager to get off the phone, giving her “the bum’s rush,” as her dad used to say. Elise had thought it was a little odd, her mother brushing her off like that, but then too much togetherness could be “too much,” and anyway, Mom was entitled to private time. Except . . . except Elise had not even considered that the private time her mother had been carving out for herself had anything to do with seeing another man. With . . . dating. She felt her stomach flip.

  Because there’d been no odd phone calls, no unfamiliar jacket left behind or socks on the floor or under the bed (an image she quickly suppressed). No one had said to Elise, “I saw your mom the other day at Starbucks with some man.” Not some man—he had a name: Mr. Bridges. Nothing like that had occurred. But now that she really thought about it, there had been, well, something. Something that had triggered a small flashing CAUTION light in Elise’s brain. A ghost. She had sensed its presence, felt that the atmosphere had shifted a bit. It was like seeing something out of the corner of your eye. When you turned to look at it, there was nothing there. Little things that she’d had no context for: Marie’s expression changing when certain topics were mentioned—Elise could not remember which. A throwaway comment about a film or travel destination that Elise had not seemed interested in, had not mentioned before. Nepal! That was it—Marie had said something about seeing the ancient Buddhist temples and nature sanctuaries in Nepal and Bhutan.

  “Why would you want to go there?” Elise had asked her mother, thinking but not saying aloud that it was a stupid idea. “I mean, it’s cold. And the altitude. Mom, you’ll have to get clearance from your doctor.”

  “I know that,” Marie had snapped back, prompting Elise to look at her. But her mother’s gaze had shifted back to the travel brochure in her hand. “I’ve already emailed her. I have an appointment in a couple of weeks.”

  There was no more mention of Bhutan, Nepal, or any other place, and Elise had thought nothing more about it. Until Bill and Liz’s invitation. Because then the ghost began to reveal itself. Himself. And the ghost had a name.

  George Bridges.

  Her mother had a boyfriend.

  Chapter 24

  Elise

  Elise met George officially at the cookout at Liz and Billy’s house and remembered, as she took in his lanky build and long legs, where she had “met” him before: a post-concert reception after the symphony when her dad was alive. Her parents and Mr. Bridges and his wife had chatted amiably as they sipped wine; they were playing golf the next week, and Elise, after exchanging hellos, had wandered off toward the bar and gotten a glass of wine too. His wife, she remembered . . . what was her name? Irene? Inez? She had been petite, like Mom, with a reddish-brown complexion and short, startling ebony-colored hair with a silver streak across the top that had made her look like a chic, friendly Cruella de Ville.

  “Hello, Elise,” George said giving her a friendly toothy grin as he took her hand into his large paw. “We’ve met, but it’s been a long time and you wouldn’t remember an old fart like me.”

  This provoked laughter from Marie and Bill, and for some reason Elise was annoyed. “It was at the symphony . . . afterward, actually.”

  He paused for half a second. The smile’s wattage dimmed a bit. “Two years ago when Ilena, my wife, was living.”

  She heard her mother’s admonition in her head: Remember your manners.

  “Yes, yes, hello, I do remember,” Elise said. “And I was sorry to hear about your wife.”

  George nodded. “It happens.” He glanced down to his left, where Marie was standing. “But . . . life marches on. So they say.” He gave Marie’s shoulder a squeeze, and she beamed up at him.

  Elise thought she was going to throw up.

  She murmured her excuses, ignored her mother’s pointed look in her direction, and sauntered off toward the grill, where her brother was holding court.

  Five slabs of ribs rested in glory across the grates of the grill. They smelled heavenly.

  “Whaddya think?” her brother asked, coming up behind her with industrial-size tongs in his hand and wearing his favorite DON’T F—K WITH THE CHEF apron. “Ready for sauce?”

  Elise leaned in to get a better look and shook her head. “No. Not yet. A few more minutes . . . maybe ten.”

  Bill nodded in agreement, then closed the lid and glanced over to the side yard, where Marie, George, and a few other guests had congregated.

  “Nice, huh? Mom and George? She’s enjoying herself again.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It�
�s great to see her getting out more. You know they play golf together on Mondays, then go to dinner. Mom says they’re thinking of doing a golf vacation to Myrtle Beach.”

  “Really.” Elise had picked up a wooden spoon and was gently stirring the homemade barbecue sauce that Bill had set on the side burner to warm.

  “He sent her a dozen roses on her birthday.”

  Elise felt her head buzzing as if she was about to pass out. “How sweet.”

  This time her brother said nothing. But he took the wooden spoon from her, picked up the pan of sauce, and began ladling it onto the meat.

  “Billy! It hasn’t been ten minutes yet.”

  “No, it hasn’t,” he said brusquely. “Elise. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know goddamn well what I mean. I’m talking about Mom and Mr. Bridges, and you’re giving me these smart-ass, snide answers: ‘How sweet.’ Give me a break. You sound like a snot-nosed teenager.”

  “I need to smack you,” Elise said, not joking.

  “Take your best shot, big sister,” her brother fired back. “And take some advice from me while you’re at it. Be happy for Mom, okay? She’s having fun again, enjoying life, and she deserves that. Don’t be stupid about this.”

  “How am I being stupid? All I did was comment on what you said,” Elise answered, knowing for certain that even she didn’t believe what she was saying.

  Bill gave her a sideways look and turned his attention to the roasting slabs of meat on the grill, brushing them with a layer of the dark reddish sauce. Then he said, “Bobby out of town?”

  Elise felt her stomach muscles tighten. “No.”

  “Then why isn’t he here? If there’s anything that my favorite brother-in-law enjoys it’s a few dozen ribs.”

  “He, ah, he had something he had to do.” Elise grabbed the lid of the grill as Bill busied himself painting the sizzling meat. “Do you want me to close this?”

  “I have never known Bob to put anything—work or pleasure related—ahead of food. Especially ribs.” Her brother’s eyes bored into hers. “So. You guys really are separated.”

  Mercy. You can’t fart sideways in this town without forty people knowing about it.

  She avoided his gaze. “We are . . . taking a break.” How lame did that sound?

  “Taking a . . . what are you, an autoworker at Ford? Do you want to know what I think?”

  “Not particularly.” She knew that it wouldn’t do any good.

  “What happened?”

  “None of your business. It’s a private matter.”

  “I see.”

  “No, you don’t. You don’t see anything about me, about Bobby, or about Mom.”

  “I see a lot. I see that your marriage might be breaking up. I see that you’re mad at Mom for moving on with her life and you think she’s cutting you out. She’s healing. She’s seeing the world in a better light now. Hell, she’s almost eighty! Why shouldn’t she have some fun? While you . . .”

  “While I . . . what?” Elise paused for a moment and noticed that her mother was looking in their direction. She lowered her voice. “What? Spit it out.”

  It was as if they were eight and ten years old again.

  “You need to get your life back. Hell, you need to get a life! Now you can stand down from Mom. She’s good now. You’ve helped her through the darkness, and now she’s emerged on the other side.”

  “This sounds like a sermon from Reverend Pressley,” Elise told him, visualizing the televangelist marching from one side of his gargantuan stage to the other while several thousand adoring parishioners waved their open palms and said amen. “How to walk through the shadow of grief and find sunshine on the other side.”

  Bill shook his head. “Not bitter, are ya?”

  “I don’t need to ‘stand down’ from my own mother.”

  “Yeah, you do.”

  “Did Mom say that?”

  “She doesn’t have to,” Bill countered, opening the lid of the grill again. The aromas swirled out on light fog-like smoke. He tapped one of the ribs with his fingers and licked off the sauce, smiling.

  “Well, you’re wrong,” Elise snapped, turning her back on her brother, only to see a tableau of Marie and George standing in a huddle with her nephew Buzz and one of his children. George’s arm rested around her mother’s shoulders. “I just think it’s . . . undignified, you know? Mom and George. And disrespectful.”

  “Uh . . . disrespectful? Of whom?”

  “Of Dad, of our father! Don’t be an idiot, Billy.”

  “I’m not,” her brother answered, using the deepest register of his already generous bass voice. “And don’t call me Billy. You’re the idiot. And don’t try to make Mom feel bad about this either, Lisee.”

  She snorted at him. “Please. I’m not a kid. I’m almost sixty years old. I know how to behave.”

  Her brother’s expression was somber this time and opaque. “Yeah? Do you?”

  Chapter 25

  Elise

  “I think that’s sweet,” Dee Dee said after Elise finished talking. She absentmindedly moved her water glass around in a circle, leaving little rings of moisture on the table.

  After Elise’s meltdown, the women had bundled her into Dee Dee’s car and driven to a café two blocks over in Oakley.

  “I don’t think it’s sweet at all,” snapped Carmen, a frown line creasing her forehead.

  Elise looked in her direction with a thoughtful expression of gratitude.

  Dee Dee looked over at her and shook her head. “You would begrudge the woman the chance for happiness? For companionship? We’re not talkin’ hot sex here.”

  “Or maybe we are,” Elise piped in sotto voce. Her tears dried, she held the mug between her palms and stared off into space.

  Dee Dee chuckled. “Okay. Maybe we are, but so what? These people are seventy, hell, eighty-plus years old! If they want to have wild sex—”

  “Okay, that’s enough,” Elise interrupted, breaking out of her trance to set down her mug and put together a makeshift cross using a knife and fork, and held it up as if fending off a vampire. “I really don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

  “Really, Dee Dee?” Carmen’s expression translated to I am not amused.

  Dee Dee held up her index finger. “Okay, just listen. Hear me out. If—and that’s a big if—they want to have wild sex, travel, just hang out, to have someone to talk to, what’s wrong with that?”

  Elise sighed loudly and picked up a french fry.

  Carmen growled. “Sorry, you won’t get any votes from me. You forget. My father is seeing that dreadful Mrs. Reverend Doctor Oakes woman, she of the never-ending St. John suit collection in sherbet-hued pastels.”

  Dee Dee rolled her eyes.

  “What was George like?” asked Carmen, blowing across the top of her coffee.

  Elise smiled slightly, then said, “He was . . . is a nice man. He has to be over eighty-five now and frail; he fell last year and is still recuperating. I didn’t have anything against him. Not really. It’s just . . . I felt as if Mom had forgotten my father, that she was disrespecting his memory in some way by seeing someone else.”

  Carmen nodded and glanced at Dee Dee as if to say, See? She gets it.

  “Exactly. I know how you feel. It’s too soon. Like with my dad. Honestly, that woman.” Carmen rolled her eyes.

  Dee Dee sat back against the cushions and chuckled. “The two of you need your heads examined. Disrespecting memories, too soon? Just how long do you want your father to mourn?” she asked Carmen. “One year? Two years? Five? How old will he be in five years?”

  If looks could kill, Carmen’s glare would have been loaded onto an anti-aircraft missile.

  “That’s beside the point,” Carmen snapped, looking over at Elise as if to gather moral support.

  “No, that is the point. Life is short. And if you’re seventy plus or eighty years old, it’s even shorter.”

 
; “Dee Dee—” Elise warned.

  “No, I’m just tellin’ you. Think about it. Think about it practically, as if it was a situation at work. I mean, how much sense does it make? How long do you want your dad to sit alone in the dark grieving?” Dee Dee looked at Elise. “How long was your mom sitting around by herself? Huh? ’Cause I can tell you, it isn’t pretty and it isn’t healthy. My mom died young compared to your mom”—she looked then at Carmen—“and compared to Joan. And my dad didn’t date or even look at another woman after her. That’s a long time to be alone. And don’t forget. My mother was . . . so ill.” Dee Dee took a drink of water, swallowed slowly, then cleared her throat. “When Mommy was in and out of the hospital, when my sister and I were still in school, Dad was alone. Her family lived in San Diego. It was too far for them to visit often. He had no one. He had no life. He went to work, he came home, fixed supper, helped Deb and me with homework, then went to bed. The next day, he did the same thing. And this went on, day in, day out. He had to be lonely as hell. I wish . . .” Her voice broke.

  Elise bit her lip and wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. Carmen pulled a tissue from her cavernous tote and blew her nose.

  “Look. I loved Mommy to pieces. And I know that she loved us, Deb and me, that she tried so hard to fight back against those dark places. And that she was a brilliant artist and an amazing woman. But I’ll tell you a secret. Laura O’Neill was one of the most generous people on the planet. She and Daddy were high school sweethearts, but she would not have wanted him to cut himself off like he did, to sit at home night after night, smoking cigarettes by the light of the TV that he wasn’t even paying attention to. Mommy loved a party. She loved . . . love. And I know she would not have wanted him to be alone. I think it was his loneliness that made him sick.”

  For a few moments, the only silence in the café was at table 16, an island of quiet in the middle of the back dining room surrounded by a mélange of smooth jazz and 1990s club music, gabbing teens, fidgety kids, frustrated parents, and hustling servers carrying trays of food and drinks.