“I didn’t give it up.” Laurel smiled and revealed that little bridge of flesh. “I just got busy with other things.”
I couldn’t bear the thought of that beautiful cello going unplayed. How many hours had I sat in our living room studying while the cello’s mournful voice drifted down from upstairs? Once, on a shadowy October afternoon, I was lying on the couch reading a book about the Pleistocene era—those colossal sheets of ice churning down from the North Pole, those half-human creatures about whom we know so little except the shape of their bones—and I looked up from the page, past the rippling silver spine of the radiator, to the backyard, where the dried cornstalks in my mother’s garden quivered in the wind, and the sound of my sister’s cello was the sound the wind made rustling through those cornstalks, the sound those Cro-Magnon men and women heard as they crouched shivering in their caves.
Laurel’s music teachers had encouraged her to make the cello her career. But even then, in high school, she didn’t have the patience. She wanted to learn to dance. She rode horses. She skied in Switzerland. She explored an underwater reef off Australia. “Don’t you want to leave something behind?” I asked her once. And she answered: “Who cares? I won’t be here to see it.” Still, she had kept up her passion for dance. She had started ballet at six, and she kept taking lessons all through college, where she enrolled in a course called Physical Expression. She met some boys in that class, all of them beginners, and they worked up a routine. That being the early seventies, they took their friends’ encouragement as a sign that they ought to drop out of school and start their own dance troupe, which they named Six Left Feet. The one time I saw them perform, they were so awkward and pretentious I slipped out before the end, to save myself from having to lie to Laurel.
My father wasn’t pleased that his younger daughter was exhibiting her body on a stage. He gave her money to travel, and Laurel accepted it because he had plenty to spare and she thought she didn’t have the time to earn it herself. No matter how often I reminded her that she had a fifty-fifty chance of escaping the disease, she remained certain that she would die even younger than our mother. I was working as much to save my sister, to prove she didn’t have the gene for Valentine’s so she could stop wasting her life, as I was to save myself.
Now, as we ate, Laurel told us about the time she had spent in Germany. She described what it had felt like to drive down the autobahn and see a sign for Bergen-Belsen, or to stand at the gates of Dachau. What she said was quite moving. But her life seemed a sort of scavenger hunt. She had brought back her knowledge of the Holocaust the way she had brought each of us souvenirs: a rare chardonnay for our father’s birthday (I had been foolish enough to take him at his word that he didn’t enjoy receiving expensive things he didn’t need); an Hermès scarf for Honey (how had Laurel known to buy a gift for a woman whose engagement to our father hadn’t yet been announced?); and a beautiful linen nightshirt from Belgium for me. When it came to Willie, Laurel rummaged through her handbag and pulled out a cassette, which, she explained, was one of only two copies of an original composition by a composer whose name I didn’t recognize but caused Willie to nod his head. The composer had written this piece for Laurel. “We’ll be giving a concert in Boston on Christmas Eve,” she told us. “It’s the first time I’ll be choreographing my own pieces. I hope you all can come.”
Willie slid the tape into the breast pocket of his shirt. How could you? I thought, as if I were the only woman who had a right to that spot. “Always on the lookout for an excuse to visit the big city.”
Laurel smiled and said she hoped he wouldn’t be disappointed. She described how difficult it was to choreograph a dance. Willie’s face seemed a spotlight shining only on her. What could I expect? My sister had more interesting things to talk about than how to kill a mouse.
Only Honey seemed impatient. I saw her shuffle crumbs from the tablecloth to her palm, then hesitate, as if she weren’t sure where she might deposit them. Glancing down, I was startled to discover she had taken off her shoes. Honey saw me staring and slipped them back on. Her hand fluttered to the vase and plucked a withered bloom. When the centerpiece was perfect, she raised her knife and tapped her glass.
“Everyone! Herb and I have an announcement. Don’t we, Herb? You young people might think we’re just a pair of old fools, but we’ve decided to take the big plunge.” She looked around the table, but none of us responded.
“Ahh,” my father said, “what she means is, when I hit sixty, she started to worry she’d been letting me shtup her for nothing. She was afraid I was going to drop dead without leaving her a dime.”
I felt sorry for Honey. But maybe my father’s jokes were like the calluses on Dusty’s feet, something rough she could take satisfaction in smoothing away. “Herb!” she said. “The children know you’re joking, but a visitor might believe the ridiculous things you say.”
My father turned to Chuck, who was patting his lips to conceal a smirk. “Think it’s funny? Think you’re rich enough and handsome enough you’re going to be shacking up with beautiful young girls forever? Girls you have no intention of marrying?”
Chuck began to stand, as if he intended to ask my father to settle their dispute outside.
“Chuck,” Laurel said. “That’s just my father. That’s just the way he talks.”
Since this was true, I wondered why she felt compelled to bring her boyfriends home to meet him. Chuck stared at her, as if reminding himself of what he would lose by disagreeing. He flipped the hair from his eyes, and our father made a face that conveyed his disappointment that Chuck hadn’t thrown the first punch.
“Excuse me.” Honey cleared her throat. “In my day, when a couple announced their engagement, someone wished them good luck.”
Willie stood and raised his tomato juice. “To our parents,” he said. “May you enjoy many years of joy,” at which my father gave Honey such an unabashed kiss I felt happy for them both. After she got over being flustered, Honey told us her plans for the wedding. She would fix up the house in Mule’s Neck to accommodate a “modest lunch.” The reception would be held in the sunny backyard where my mother’s garden used to be. Laurel smiled absently, as if when these events came to pass, she wouldn’t be here to see them. Chuck whispered something in her ear, and Laurel pushed back her chair.
“I’m sorry, everyone,” Laurel said. “One of Chuck’s friends runs a skydiving school, and I’m supposed to take my first lesson in an hour.”
I imagined her falling through the clouds, her hair flying in all directions. In place of a parachute, she wore only that tattered shawl. “But you promised,” I said. “You told Mom you would never do it.” Years before, Laurel had gotten it into her head to take skydiving lessons. When our father reminded her how much things like that cost, our mother interrupted. Laurel, she said, promise me you won’t even think of jumping out of an airplane until after I’m dead.
“I kept my promise,” Laurel told me now. “You know, Jane, I kept it.”
I nearly slapped her for thinking she could get away with saying that. She had always been rash. With our mother so distracted, I had been the one to keep Laurel from getting hurt. With my help, she had survived a bout with a hornets’ nest and a near kidnapping by a stranger whose car she climbed into because that seemed easier than giving the man directions. I had cared for our mother for that entire awful year before she died. Yet my sister never acknowledged how much she owed me. “I borrowed a sailboat,” I said. “I wrote you. You said you were looking forward to being on the river again. To going sailing.”
“Jane,” she said, “I’m sorry. I forgot and made other plans.”
Anyone else might have believed this version of events. But my sister cultivated this aura of being flighty to provide a cover for getting out of what she didn’t want to do. I knew that she was avoiding me. I had always been the good one. The one who stayed in college. The one who was doing something useful. When our mother had grown too feeble for our father to
take care of, Laurel had hitchhiked home to help. She spent one week in Mule’s Neck, then called me at midnight, sobbing, and said: Please, Jane, I can’t. You’re the responsible one. I’m not. I can’t stand to see her dying.
“I’ll be back in Boston later this summer,” Laurel said now. “We’ll go sailing then, I promise. We’ll do whatever you want to do.”
I told her that it wasn’t only a question of what I wanted. Didn’t she think our father wanted to spend time with her? And what about Honey? Didn’t Laurel think her new stepmother would want to get to know her?
My father waved away my anger. “Go on,” he said. “Honey and I understand. We have to be starting back anyway.”
I knew this was nonsense. My father wanted to be with Laurel as much as I did. But he never rebuked her. “You need some money?” he asked, and Laurel shook her head, although I knew he would send a check anyway, or slip it in her purse. “Be careful,” he said. “That’s all I ask.” He jabbed a finger at Chuck. “And you. Anything happens to my girl, I’m pushing you out of a plane.” Chuck started to defend himself, but Laurel shushed them both. She clasped her shawl to her chest, leaned forward, and kissed me. She rubbed her cheek to Honey’s. Then she surprised me by brushing the hair from Willie’s ear and whispering something until he laughed.
“Sure,” he said. “Of course I will.” Chuck led Laurel from the restaurant without even thanking our father for brunch.
I looked around the table, the shock and loss as visible as if a genial thief had lightened us of our wallets, then walked off without anyone attempting to stop him. I laid my napkin across my chair and ran after her.
Luckily, Chuck had gone to get his car and Laurel was still waiting inside the lobby. “Please,” I said, “I don’t care if you go sailing with me or not. But you can’t jump out of an airplane. Who is this guy, anyway? You barely know him. How do you even trust him, let alone trust this friend of his who runs a skydiving school?”
She glanced out the door, no doubt hoping that Chuck would drive up and rescue her. “Listen, I’m really sorry I forgot about the sailing. It was sweet of you. Very thoughtful. But Chuck rented the plane. And it’s not that dangerous. You make it sound as if I’m jumping without a parachute.”
“That’s exactly what you said that time you went climbing in Alaska. ‘Dad,’ you said, ‘it’s not as if we’re not going to be wearing ropes.’ And you know what it did to him when he got that call? Do you know what it must have cost him to pay for you to be airlifted off that mountain? You can’t keep doing this. You can’t keep living as if you’re sure you’re . . . Listen, I know, all we talk about is Valentine’s. But we’re doing it for you. We’re doing it to—”
She cut me off. “Shh,” she said. She put her finger to my lips. “I know why you’re doing it. And I appreciate it. Really. But I wish you would stop. I didn’t ask any of you to do any of this. Not you. Not Honey. Not Dad. You’re wasting your life one way, Jane. And I’m wasting my life another way. But at least I’m having fun.”
The trouble was, I didn’t believe her. She didn’t love Chuck. She didn’t really care if she went skydiving, or climbed a mountain. She was sure that she had the gene, and she was determined to die young, before she could come down with the disease. As irrational as this was, I was equally sure that she didn’t have the gene. I wanted to give my sister back her life while she was still young enough to stop throwing it away.
“I haven’t seen you for nearly a year,” I said. “And you’re just going to run out on me? You don’t care that Honey and Dad are getting married? You’re all I have. I don’t want to lose you, too.”
“Oh, Janie.” She spread her arms and wrapped me in that shawl. “You ought to know you can’t keep from losing someone. This way, you’ll only miss me less when I need to go.”
I felt smothered in that shawl, as if she were wrapping me in the darkness of her thoughts, in death itself. A horn honked. She removed her arms. “Good-bye,” she said. “I really do love you.” And she hurried out so quickly the doorman had to rush to do his job.
When I got back to the dining room, my father was stubbing out his Lucky Strike and calling for the check. Honey said something to console him. I couldn’t make out what it was. If someone had said the wrong thing to me then—Don’t worry, she’ll be all right—I might have started crying. But Willie came up behind me and repeated his offer to drive me to New Hampshire for the weekend. Since he didn’t pose this as a question, I didn’t feel inclined to turn him down. I couldn’t remember the last time I had taken a walk in the woods. “Sure,” I said. “Why not.” It occurred to me that his cabin wasn’t very far from the Drurys’ trailer in Pittsfield. “Do you mind if we stop at the lab?” I asked. “There’s something I need to pick up.”
“Of course,” he said. We waited until our parents had checked out of their hotel, then he drove me back to MIT. We couldn’t find a parking space, so he stayed in the Jeep. I could tell he was worried I might not come out. In truth, if he hadn’t been sitting there, I wouldn’t have gone in. I darted in the lab to fetch a few syringes and was startled to find that Achiro’s bench was bare. I didn’t dare ask what had happened to him, any more than the inmate of a nursing home asks why a friend hasn’t come down to lunch.
“Hi, sweetie.” Maureen pushed the lever on her wheelchair and spun it in my direction. “What happened with that cute boy I saw you dancing with last night?”
I collected some test tubes. If I told Maureen the truth, we would be there all afternoon arguing about why I hadn’t told Ché I would see him again. “He asked me out for doughnuts,” I said. “I told him I couldn’t go because my sister was coming to town.”
“Where is she?” Maureen turned her head stiffly. “I thought you were spending the day with her.”
The tears came. “I was.”
Maureen pressed her fingers to my hand. “Listen,” she said. “Why don’t you take me sailing? A few pointers and I’ll be casting off the poop deck with the best of them.”
I rubbed my eyes and laughed. “I don’t know the first thing about sailing.”
“Then we’ll do something else. That guy I met last night, the one with the beard? He’s a lawyer, but on weekends he takes people on these wilderness things. He said he could teach me to row a kayak down a waterfall. I’m sure he’d take you with us.”
Why was everyone trying to throw away her life—or throw away my life? I told Maureen my stepbrother was downstairs waiting.
She cocked her head toward Vic’s office. He was sitting at his desk, reading a journal, but I had the impression he had been staring at me. “Does Vic know about this stepbrother of yours?”
I kept telling Maureen there was nothing between me and Vic, but, like Susan Bate, she never quite believed me.
“Jane?” Vic called. “Do you have a minute?” He was standing in the door, holding out the latest issue of Cell. “Have you seen this yet? Fred Dike’s thing on retinoblastoma?”
Maureen spun back to her bench. I grabbed a pack of needles and a tourniquet, then I told Vic I was sorry but I had found this new family and they were only around on weekends, so I had to hustle and draw some blood. If he left the paper on my bench, I would talk to him about it Monday morning after group meeting. Then I gathered my supplies and left.
Willie and I stopped at my apartment to pick up a toothbrush and a change of clothes. This time, he parked the Jeep and came upstairs. He looked around the room. “Nice flowers,” he said.
I had forgotten they would be there, all those bouquets wilting in their beakers, the ripe tomatoes, the bunches of basil and thyme, the delicate white wafers the storekeeper had given me for Laurel. Once, when one of Maureen’s dates stood her up, I told her that anyone who would stand her up wasn’t worth crying over. But Laurel wasn’t a boyfriend. If you broke up with a boyfriend, you could always find another.
Willie tossed a tomato in the air and caught it. “This reminds me of all the times my son, Ted, told me
he would come to visit, then didn’t show up. Or the times he would come, and after five minutes he would say, ‘Jesus, Dad, isn’t there anything except these dumb trees to look at?’”
“It’s my fault,” I said. “All of us, all we talk about is Valentine’s.”
He took a big bite of the tomato, then wiped the juice from his chin. “Doesn’t mean she has to make you feel bad.”
That thought had passed my mind. But it was another thing to hear someone outside the family criticize my sister. “She wouldn’t be like this if it weren’t for Valentine’s. She wouldn’t have dropped out of college. She wouldn’t be running around with all these awful men. She wouldn’t be avoiding me.”
“People are people.”
No, I thought, they aren’t. Knowing you might die from the terrible disease you watched your mother die from made you a different person from who you otherwise would have been. My sister would have been a flighty, narcissistic person no matter what. But she was talented, warm, and kind. If not for watching our mother die, if not for thinking she would die a miserable death herself, she might have been an accomplished musician, a loving, devoted wife, and a doting mother.
“You can’t save someone.” Willie licked his fingers. “You can fix them. The way my mother likes to fix them. But it’s dangerous to think you can save anybody.”
“So you’re fixing me,” I said, “not saving me?” I tried to smile, but I had never felt so serious.
He slipped the tomatoes in a bag to take with us. “You don’t need saving,” he said. “You’re great the way you are. You just need to take a little time off and rest.”
7
Even from this distance, I can’t figure out why I let myself fall in love with the man who was statistically the worst possible choice I could make. Even for a scientist, numbers and statistics have less power, less reality, than another person’s mouth pressed against your own. Or, like Vic experiencing that conversation with God, I got tired of believing I was on my own. Of calculating all the odds. Of controlling everything I did with science. Maybe, like someone who has a terrible fear of crossing bridges, I got so exhausted by my own terror of falling off that I found the highest bridge and jumped straight off. At least I would rid myself of my fear. I could relax and enjoy the fall. Or maybe what I did was to find the one person who feared bridges as much as I did so I could grasp his hand and we could take the great plunge together.
A Perfect Life Page 7