“Do I have a choice?”
“Were you planning to address a few words to your mother to be read after …” She grips the arms of the rocker so tightly her knuckles rise into ridges. “I mean, were you going to include me in that document?”
A message from the grave directed to Ursula has never crossed Annie’s mind. She tries to remember a few Ursula references in the manual: suggestions for a loan, selling her gifts on eBay, the usual complaints about her mother’s domineering personality. Nothing Ursula—or anybody—would wish to read about herself. She studies her mother’s brave, hopeful, drenched ruin of a face. Her heart softens. “Of course,” she amends.
Ursula turns ruminative. “Isn’t it a shame,” she states, “that on a day of such joy, I am tragically forced to receive such shattering news.”
Here we go. Plus ça change … No matter what, it’s always about Ursula. Should Annie point out that the “shattering news” came from prying into private property? Should she mention whose fault it is that the day ended in tears? She decides on the high road. “I can’t imagine getting sick ever comes at a good time,” she says.
“Of course not, darling,” Ursula exclaims. “Whatever was I thinking? Too much food and wine. I was never able to drink a great amount.” Ursula rises from the chair and walks over to Annie. She holds out her arms. She is about to embrace her daughter when she seems to notice Annie’s nearly imperceptible cringe. Maybe her finely tuned and much-touted observation skills kick in, because she reaches for Annie’s hand instead. “Please, Arabella, let me be a mother. Let me take care of you.”
* * *
It all happens so fast.
After the Niagara of tears and “my poor baby” lamentations, Ursula switches into full action mode. Within the hour, the late hour, Ursula has bought Annie a plane ticket and arranged for an appointment with a world-class cancer specialist, one of her admirers, whose unlisted home phone number is shared only among a select circle of intimates.
“But I already have an appointment on Thursday in Portland,” Annie protests, “the biggest honcho in oncology.”
“I’m sure your Maine physician is more than adequate, darling. Big frog in a small pond, as they say. However, compared to Manhattan”—she makes a moue of distaste for the Pine Tree State she has just so lavishly praised—“James is a genius,” she marvels. “Cancel,” she orders.
Annie calls Dr. O’Brien’s office. When she explains, with apologies, that she’s consulting someone in New York, that her mother insisted, that she’s really sorry but … the receptionist interrupts. “No problem,” she assures Annie. “Dr. O’Brien’s fourth child is due earlier than expected. She pops them out like a Pez dispenser, that one,” she chuckles. “Your visit would have to be postponed anyway.” Annie hears the click of computer keys, no doubt deleting her. “Good luck,” the receptionist adds, before she hangs up the phone.
* * *
Now Annie is packing a bag for New York. “Just the basics. We can get you whatever you need later,” her mother instructs.
Annie assumes the basics don’t include her extravagant new underwear, which is now folded, strewn with her mother’s lavender sachets, and tucked into the drawer shrouding the reassembled manual.
“Like you, I always conceal anything unsuitable for snooping eyes at the bottom of my own collection of dessous féminins,” Ursula confesses. “That’s territory men won’t venture into.”
For a second, Annie wonders what secrets lie beneath Ursula’s satins and silks. Better not to know. She sticks a pair of blue jeans into her suitcase, removes them and substitutes black trousers, then adds the jeans again. She turns to her mother, who sits on the edge of the bed, uncharacteristically ignoring Annie’s wardrobe selections. “What do I tell Sam?” Annie asks. “He’s just texted that he’ll be home in half an hour.”
“That your mother has discovered a rare opening in her calendar and is taking you on a-spur-of-the-moment, whirlwind mother-daughter bonding trip to New York. Sam will understand.”
“I don’t think so. He’ll need me in the shop.”
“He can hire temporary help. According to the mayor—charming man—the unemployment rate in Passamaquoddy is frightfully high. Sam will be doing a good deed.”
“Still, he will have to pay wages he hadn’t counted on.”
Ursula emits an exasperated sigh. “I will gladly cover any and all costs.”
“We would never …” Annie starts to protest. But they already have. Or Sam already has. She tries another tack. “He’ll be lost without me at home. As you yourself have said, he’s not the most competent …”
“Only because you’ve barely given that poor husband of yours a chance. No wonder his skills at independence are rusty.”
“Not true. He always welcomes my advice.”
“So I gather. You’ve certainly left him plenty in that book of yours.” She pulls a lace-edged handkerchief from the sleeve of her robe and blows her nose. “He may surprise you, how well he will thrive when you’re gone.” She catches herself. “When you’re away in New York, that is.”
“I doubt it. We’ve barely been apart before.”
“Then it’s high time. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. As exemplified by Ambrose and me.” Ursula pats Annie’s knee. “Look at it like this. How would Sam feel, once you decide to tell him, if you just stayed in this backwater and, out of inertia, or fear, or ignorance, settled for its provincial medical care and never made an effort to investigate other treatments?”
“I would have. Dr. Buckley did suggest …”
“Suggest but not insist? Ambrose is a wonderful doctor and a splendid man; however, he is of a certain age …”
“Your age.”
“Not exactly.”
“Younger?”
Ursula scowls. “Not younger. Which is to say, he is probably not up-to-date on the latest medical innovations. And, while extraordinarily gifted, he is hardly a specialist.”
“He sent my report to a specialist in Portland,” Annie protests, “who suggested the doctor I just canceled.”
“No insult to this glorious state and the site of my just-received award. But really! No, only in New York can one find medical geniuses. Maybe Boston, but my contacts there are minimal. Besides, how would Sam react if you didn’t do everything possible to deal with this—this unfortunate situation?”
“Hopeless situation, you mean?”
“Nonsense! I can’t believe a daughter of mine would just throw in the towel before exploring every possibility.”
“Except when it’s clear that … Except when the X-rays …”
“X-rays! What could be more old-fashioned? You cannot even begin to imagine the up-to-the-minute technology a major teaching hospital can provide.”
“I’ve had scans and MRIs …”
“Not in New York, you haven’t.”
“Which might turn out to be yet another exercise in futility.”
“Arabella! Mon Dieu! This is a matter of life and death. Or so I understand from that sepulchral guidebook of yours.” With a tsk of distaste, Ursula pushes a high-necked flannel nightgown onto the floor. “Though, I hasten to concede, the one thing you did right was not to inform Sam about all of this misfortune.”
Startled, Annie stares at her mother. “Dr. Buckley, the gifted Dr. Buckley, doesn’t think so. At every single appointment, he begs me to spill the beans to Sam.”
“Only because honesty is part of his job. A doctor must always promote the truth. I’m sure it’s documented in the Hippo … Hippo …”
“… cratic,” Annie supplies.
“… Hippocratic oath. But women know otherwise. It’s appropriate that this is a confidence shared only between mother and daughter. Men can’t handle these things.”
* * *
Annie shuts the suitcase. “All packed.”
“I am starting to feel much more optimistic than I did earlier,” Ursula admits.
“I wish I could say t
he same.” Annie sets the suitcase on the bench at the foot of the bed. She checks the clock. It’s almost midnight. She wants only to crawl under the covers and forget everyone and everything. Has this been the longest day of her life?
From downstairs, she hears a key turn in the lock, then the front door creak open. “Hello! Hello! Where is everybody?” Sam calls.
Ursula looks at Annie. She grabs her wrist. “He’s home.”
“We’re in the bedroom,” Annie shouts back.
Sam’s feet make slow thuds on the stairs, a sign he’s as tired as Annie. She knows he will not be happy to see Ursula sprawled on the bed he’ll want to jump right into. He will not be happy, either, to spot the battered suitcase, which is distinctly not Ursula’s.
He stands in the doorway. He points at the bench. “What’s that?” he asks.
“I’m taking my daughter away on a little trip,” Ursula explains.
Sam frowns. Mustard splatters his shirt; a residue of flour dusts the knees of his pants. Dark circles rim his eyes, and his shoulders slump with exhaustion. The timing isn’t great, Annie realizes, but when is it ever? “What’s going on?” he asks.
“Arabella is coming back with me to New York. Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow!” Sam turns to Annie. “Is this true?”
Annie nods.
“But why?”
“Your wife needs a vacation,” Ursula clarifies.
“I would love nothing better than for you to join me, Sam,” Annie says. “But one of us has to mind the shop.”
“And this all has been decided? Tonight?” He looks at his watch. “All between ten and twelve?”
Annie nods again.
“I assume this is Ursula’s doing. And that you’re just going along with her wishes?”
“Not exactly, Sam. I think it might be nice …”
“Nice!” Sam exclaims.
“Well, fun … I mean …”
“On your own?”
Ursula takes over. “She won’t be on her own. I haven’t spent much time with my daughter, as you yourself are completely aware, Sam. The opportunity arose, and I was able to make the arrangements.”
“How long?” Sam asks Annie.
“Not long,” Annie consoles. “If you don’t mind …”
Sam sighs. He shrugs in resignation. “Sorry I reacted so abruptly. My stomach’s a bit upset. Besides, it’s late. I’m bushed, and you sprang this on me.”
“It was spur-of-the-moment. I was as unprepared as you.”
“If this is what you want. If this is your own decision.”
“I have not twisted your wife’s arm, if that is what’s bothering you,” Ursula interrupts.
Annie adds, “It is what I want. It is my own decision. Though I’m sorry I’ll be leaving you in the lurch.”
Sam relents. “Don’t worry. Maybe Megan will agree to more hours. If I need to, I’ll get extra help.” He brightens. “Hey, you can check out sandwich shops in New York, take photos with your cell, get some ideas we can use when we expand.”
“Are you intending to expand?” Ursula asks. “Everyone at tonight’s ceremony was just raving about your hors d’oeuvres. I myself, alas, couldn’t eat a morsel—terrible stage fright, even a touch of posttraumatic stress. You would think that after all these—”
Sam cuts her off before the floodgates open on dressing room nerves and preperformance rituals. “Any changes we make to the shop will happen in the future. Annie and I have our plans … Future plans.”
“Of course you do,” Ursula says.
Sam turns to his wife. “Frankly, you’ve seemed down in the dumps lately. Tired. Maybe it will be good for you to get away.” He kicks off his shoes. “Just make sure you come back. Promise?”
“I promise, Sam.”
* * *
In bed, Sam pulls her close. He unbuttons her flannel nightgown. He lifts it over her head. Gently he moves on top of her. There is something so comforting and so comfortable about long-married sex, Annie marvels, with its choreography perfected by practice, with its familiar moves, familiar sighs, familiar smells. How wonderful to know somebody’s body as well as your own. Better than your own, she corrects, since her once-recognizable body seems lately to belong to a stranger.
Now she nestles her head under Sam’s chin. He tucks her hair behind her ears. “I’ll miss you,” he says. “Have we ever been apart since we got married?” He pauses. “Except for—”
“—that weekend you were at the food convention,” she cuts in.
“Motel 6. It was horrible.” He rolls onto his back. “Well, we’ll find out whether absence makes the heart grow fonder.” He laughs. “But after twenty-four hours with your mother, you could be on the next plane home.”
* * *
In the morning, before he leaves for work, Sam agrees to let Dr. Buckley drive Annie and Ursula to the airport. “For the sake of Ursula’s budding romance,” Annie argues. Since Ursula arrives at the breakfast table early enough to fetch the newspaper from the front stoop, their good-byes are not the kind of passionate farewells wives give soldiers departing for a war. Annie hopes he doesn’t notice she’s holding him a little tighter, clinging to him a little longer, depositing a few more kisses on his cheek.
“Off to make the doughnuts,” he says. “You two have a blast.”
“How could it be otherwise?” states Ursula. She is studying the newspaper, filled with photographs and paragraphs extolling last night’s stellar event—the reason for her untimely appearance at the breakfast table, Annie guesses. “I must admit I don’t look too hideous,” Ursula confides.
Annie leans over to admire a full page’s worth of images of her mother holding the plaque and turning her best side to the camera. “Beautiful,” she says.
* * *
The minute Ursula excuses herself to run a bath, Annie phones Rachel.
“You’re kidding!” Rachel exclaims when Annie delivers part of her news. “With Ursula? The Ursula you could barely endure for the twenty-four hours she was in town?”
“The very same.”
“But why?”
“She invited me.”
“And that’s your reason?”
“Well, it is New York.”
“True enough. There’ll be theater and shopping … how bad could it be?”
“My point exactly.”
“Still, I’m surprised. For how long?”
“I’ll be back in a week.”
Rachel clears her throat. “Forgive me for asking, Annie, but …”
“Yes?”
“… is everything all right between you and Sam?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Everything is fine, the same as always. Why would you ever think otherwise?”
“Because this is not characteristic behavior on your part.”
“I’m just going to New York. No big deal.”
“You’re right. Sorry. Though I can’t imagine how Sam will survive without you.”
“The very reason I called. Will it be too much trouble for you to check up on him?”
“Not hardship duty in the slightest. I’d be delighted.”
“And if you’re going to the movies or out to dinner or …”
“Yes, we’ll include him. Megan and I will invite him over. Megan can whip up quite the lasagna. Also, Sam and I have more due diligence to do on the refrigerator front.”
“Great,” Annie says. “Maybe you can find other stuff to do together. I’d really like the two of you to get to know each other better.”
“Come on; you’re not making sense. We’ve known each other forever.”
“But always with me.”
“Of course with you. What are you getting at?”
“Oh, nothing. Just rambling.” She switches the topic. “Though maybe you could encourage him to hang out with the guys from the shop?”
“Those codgers?”
“It’s good for him to make friends. He needs more of a social life. I’ll remind him to give Bob
Bernstein a call.”
“The lawyer who screwed up on your contract for the Bunyans?”
“Not really his fault. They could have a drink or something.”
“Don’t you think Sam’s capable of making plans for himself?”
“I don’t want him to feel lonely.”
“We’re not talking about a year abroad, are we?”
“Of course not.”
“He’ll be fine. I’m always happy to have a handsome man at my elbow. Even one on temporary loan from my best friend.”
“Speaking of men …”
“Don’t ask.”
“That bad?”
“That bad. You are so lucky, Annie. I hope you know this.”
“Oh, I do,” Annie says. “I do.”
* * *
When she goes upstairs, she hears Ursula in the bathroom, humming, off-key, “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.” She’s pleased she stocked up on imported bath salts and exotic oils and special soaps, no matter their outlandish cost. She can smell one of Ursula’s candles wafting the scent of jasmine from under the door—all guarantors of Ursula’s long tenure in the tub.
“ ‘Use your mentality, step up to reality,’ ” Ursula sings, as Annie tiptoes into the study and turns on the computer. She clicks on the manual. The Reason I Went to New York, she types, a title she’s picked after trying in vain for a more felicitous headline.
If you’re reading this now, Sam, then the trip wasn’t successful. Not that I ever thought it would be. But for once, I think Ursula was right, that I had to try, to exhaust all resources, to see the experts, to have the tests. I understand you are surprised that I sprung this on you so late at night and at the last minute. And maybe a little angry, too, though you were such a good sport, considering I was abandoning you to an empty house and fewer hands in the store. But as much as I longed to stay with you, I also wanted to make sure that I had done everything in my power to grow old with you. I needed to have no regrets. It’s important you know that I tried my best.
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