Live to Tell

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  No. Lauren is actually looking forward to her outing in the city. She’s exchanged her usual shorts and flipflops for a little black dress she found in the back of her closet last night. She’d worn it years ago, for someone’s wedding, but a couple of kids later, had been unable to squeeze into it again.

  It fits now, though. It’s even a little baggy. But at least it’s presentable.

  While she was browsing through her closet, she found countless outfits that are suitable for the tag sale. She’ll get back to filling boxes later, or tomorrow. It was cathartic.

  “Can I call Ian?” Ryan interrupts her thoughts.

  “Mom already said no,” Lucy reminds her brother. “Why don’t you stop asking?”

  He shoots her a glare and turns back to Lauren. “Mom, this is so stupid. We’re sitting here wasting a beautiful day and Dad’s not even going to show up.”

  He has a point. The sun is shining in a brilliant blue sky, and the heat wave has broken—for now, anyway. The temperature is in the low eighties and a refreshing breeze stirs the white ruffled curtains at the windows.

  “Anyway, how do you know Dad’s not going to show up?”

  “I just do, okay?” Ryan tells his sister.

  “No, you don’t.”

  The phone rings, putting an abrupt end to the bickering.

  “Daddy!” Sadie exclaims, as Lucy answers it with an anticipatory “Hello?”

  Lauren sees her face fall immediately.

  “Oh, hi, Aunt Alyssa. Yeah, she’s right here. Hold on.” Lucy glumly hands the phone to Lauren.

  She lifts it to her ear. “Hi.”

  “Why aren’t you on a train?”

  “We’re still waiting for Nick, so…”

  “Where the hell is he?”

  “I’ve been wondering the same thing.”

  “I’ll change the reservation again. Do you think two-thirty is safe?”

  “No, just go ahead without me. Even if he shows up now, there’s no way I can catch a train in time to meet you.”

  “Three?”

  “No, seriously, Lys, forget it for today.”

  “This is so unfair of him to do to you, Lauren.”

  Never mind me…what about the kids?

  She hangs up, unsettled.

  “I want to do something with my friends, Mom,” Ryan says promptly. “Please? I haven’t seen Ian all summer and—”

  “Okay, okay. Go ahead and call him.”

  Ryan makes a beeline out of the room.

  “Thanks, Mom,” Lauren calls after him.

  “Thanks, Mom,” he calls back, footsteps pounding up the stairs.

  “Why did you let him go?” Lucy asks, turning on Lauren.

  “Because he’s right. He hasn’t seen Ian all summer, and it’s a beautiful day.”

  “But what if Daddy shows up and Ryan’s not here?”

  “We’ll deal with that when it happens.”

  If it happens.

  Where on earth are you, Nick? Are you okay?

  “Hey, Mom! I need a ride to Ian’s,” Ryan calls from the top of the stairs.

  It’s Lucy who responds, clearly exasperated. “How about asking and saying please?”

  “You’re not Mom!”

  “I am,” Lauren calls, “and how about saying please?”

  She can just see Ryan rolling his eyes before offering a perfunctory “Please?”

  “Okay.” Lauren turns to her daughters. “Come on, we’ll all go. We can drop off Ryan at Ian’s and go to the mall to buy some back-to-school clothes.”

  “Yes!” Lucy fist-pumps the air as Sadie looks up from her Goldfish crackers, stricken.

  “I don’t want to go.”

  “Sure you do. We can shop together,” Lucy tells her little sister. “Won’t that be fun? I’ll help you pick out some new big girl shoes for school.”

  “I don’t want new shoes.”

  “Come on, Sadie, everyone needs new shoes for kindergarten. And nice new dresses, and—”

  “But what about Daddy?”

  “Daddy couldn’t come today, sweetie,” Lauren tells her gently. “But Lucy and I want to take you shopping.”

  Sadie looks down, saying nothing.

  Lounging beneath an umbrella, his toes buried in hot sand, Garvey watches Caroline paddle back into the breakers on her surfboard.

  “That’s far enough,” he calls, but his daughter can’t possibly hear him over the pounding waves.

  Marin, in a chair beside him, looks up from her book. “She’s careful. Don’t worry.”

  Don’t worry.

  Yeah, right.

  Worrying about Caroline comes as naturally as breathing for Garvey. You don’t live through the horror of almost losing a child without becoming hypervigilant.

  Garvey sits forward in his canvas chair, shielding his eyes with his hand.

  “Did you come out here just so you could keep an eye on her?” Marin asks.

  “No,” he replies truthfully. “But now that I’m here…”

  “I’m just glad you are.” His wife reaches over and squeezes his hand. “That was the best surprise ever.”

  She’s referring to last night, when he showed up, unannounced, at the Cottingtons’ big, gray-shingled beach house. Still wearing his black tuxedo, carrying a hastily packed overnight bag, he arrived close to midnight. The girls were asleep, but Marin and Heather Cottington were sitting on the deck polishing off a bottle of pinot grigio. Garvey suspected it wasn’t their first when Marin swayed to her feet and threw her arms around him.

  “What are you doing here?” she kept asking.

  Providing myself with an alibi.

  Imagine if he had told her the truth. All of it, right then and there.

  He would never do it, of course…but he can’t stop thinking about how Marin would react if she knew. A part of him wonders if she might not just understand what happened all those years ago, and why he would go to such great lengths to see that it stays buried.

  She is, after all, his wife…

  And the mother of his children.

  Ah—the great irony in that. Marin’s maternal role is the one reason she might be able to forgive him—and the one reason she might not.

  That’s why he’s never told her. He never will.

  And should anything not have gone as planned yesterday—should there be any kind of mess, despite his instructions—he’ll be in the clear.

  Such a shame that anyone had to die.

  But really, just look at all the lives that will be saved in the grand scheme of things. Yes, when Garvey takes office, health care will be at the top of his agenda. That will more than compensate for this weekend’s unfortunate casualties.

  I just have to focus on the greater good.

  I have to do whatever it takes to make this go away.

  “I just wish you could stay.” Marin is still holding on to his hand.

  “So do I.”

  The morning flew by—breakfast, church, and now this sun-soaked respite before he hits the road.

  He looks at his watch, then glances up at the Cotting-tons’ house above the dunes. Heather’s up there preparing a lunch he’s told her repeatedly he can’t stay to eat. He has to get back to Manhattan for a late afternoon rally, a photo op, and a dinner.

  “Ten minutes,” he tells Marin, “and then I’ve got to go.”

  “Are you sure you can’t wait until Annie gets back?” Their younger daughter went off with Chelsea Cottington to visit a friend down the beach.

  Garvey shakes his head. “I have to be back for the—”

  “Excuse me,” a voice cuts in, and a shadow falls over Garvey’s outstretched legs.

  He looks up to see a woman standing there. She’s wearing a gauzy white cover-up that whips around her in the sea breeze, and a large sun hat she’s holding to her head with a tanned hand. Her face is almost completely concealed by a pair of movie star sunglasses.

  “You’re Garvey Quinn, aren’t you?”

&nb
sp; With an inward sigh and a campaign smile, he tells her, “Yes, I am.”

  “I knew it!” She gestures at a pair of chairs a few yards away, where her companion, clad in boardshorts, sits watching them. “I told my boyfriend that was you, but he didn’t think so.”

  “Well, if you made a bet, you won.”

  She laughs delightedly—then goes on to tell him, in excruciating detail, about the proposed housing development that will infringe upon her wooded backyard in Nassau County. Garvey listens dutifully and gives her all the appropriate feedback, ever conscious of the ticking clock, Marin’s impatience, and his baby girl out in the Atlantic trying to catch a wave.

  At last, the woman makes her way back to her boyfriend.

  Marin sighs. “It never ends.”

  “You know that it—”

  “I know, I know. It goes with the territory. Sometimes it’s exhausting.”

  “Sometimes?”

  She squeezes his hand. “I just wonder if it’s worth it.”

  “It will be.” He looks at his watch. “I have to go.”

  “I know you do.”

  He can’t see her eyes behind the sunglasses, but her mouth is taut.

  “I’ll see you and the girls back in the city tomorrow. Don’t forget, we have that dinner at—”

  “I won’t forget, Garvey.”

  “Tell the girls—”

  “I will.”

  He stands and checks to see if Caroline is anywhere near shore so that he can wave her over for a hug.

  No.

  Casting a gaze out at the water, he doesn’t see her there, either.

  For a moment, his heart stands still.

  Then her head pops up amid the breakers.

  Garvey watches her for a few more seconds, until he’s satisfied that she’s okay. Then he reluctantly turns his back, forces himself to walk away.

  Over the years, he’s found comfort in the familiar Bible verse he learned years ago, in Sunday school: “Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin.”

  Now that his past is closing in, Garvey can’t help but wonder…

  What about a child who would not be alive at all, but for her father’s sins?

  Shopping with the girls, Lauren almost managed to put Nick’s absence out of her head.

  Almost.

  Every so often, she stepped away from the girls to surreptitiously check her cell phone, just to make sure she hadn’t somehow missed a return call from him. She hadn’t.

  Now, arriving back home in the late afternoon, she sidesteps a barking, tail-wagging Chauncey and goes straight to the phone to check the voice mail and caller ID log.

  No Nick.

  He obviously got confused about the day, or forgot, or…something.

  Fear threads its way through her once again. Nick might be forgetful—and, okay, a jerk—but he should have called to check in by now.

  Lauren listens impatiently to a message from her mother, wanting to pick a date for the visit, and one from a boy named Josh, looking for Lucy.

  “Daddy didn’t call?”

  She looks up to see Lucy behind her, paper shopping bags in hand and an expectant expression on her face.

  “Sweetie, I’m sure everything’s okay. Oh, and someone named Josh called looking for you.”

  “Really?” Lucy perks right up at that. “What did he say?”

  “To call him back.”

  “Great! I’ll do it upstairs.”

  Lauren should probably ask her who Josh is, and why she’s so happy to hear from him, but isn’t it obvious? Lucy likes Josh. Josh—hopefully—likes Lucy. And anything that gets her mind off her disappointment in Nick is probably a healthy thing.

  “Why don’t you go put your new clothes on hangers before they get wrinkled? And here, maybe you can help Sadie do the same thing with her dresses.” Lauren offers Lucy the bags from Gymboree and Gap Kids.

  Sadie didn’t want to shop for new clothes; she didn’t want to try anything on; she didn’t even want to carry the bags into the house.

  Now, however, she grabs at the purchases. “I can put them away myself.”

  “But you can’t reach the hangers,” Lucy points out. “Let me help you.”

  “No, I can do it!”

  “Fine.” Lucy disappears with a shrug.

  Lauren sighs, not in the mood for a tantrum. “Sadie—”

  “I don’t want anyone in my room!”

  “Why not?”

  “I just don’t.”

  “Sadie—”

  “No!”

  Pick your battles, Lauren reminds herself. She looks her youngest child in the eye, both admiring and dismayed at the spark of determination she sees there.

  “Okay, sweetie, you’re right. You’re a big girl. Go ahead and hang up your own clothes.”

  Sadie takes the bag from her and marches out of the room.

  Frowning, Lauren watches her go. She doesn’t look back.

  Concern over Sadie gives way to renewed concern that something might have happened to Nick. Lauren picks up the phone again and dials his cell phone, hoping to hear a “Hey, what’s up?”

  Instead, she’s greeted by the usual recorded greeting. This time she opts to leave a message. She hasn’t in a few hours.

  “Nick, it’s me again. The kids are upset that you didn’t show today. They’re worried, and I…so am I. Please call me back, okay? Please. As soon as you get this.”

  “I don’t understand why you let Garvey get away with so much, Marin.” Heather Cottington pokes at her salad with a polished silver fork. “You really need to let him know that it’s unacceptable to come sailing in here out of the blue, and then sail right back out again.”

  “Unacceptable to you?”

  “Of course not. You know my door is always open for houseguests. Lord knows I have the room.” Heather waves her empty fork toward the house, silhouetted against a twilight sky.

  From this perch on the wooden deck amid the dunes, the home looks even grander than it is. Light spills from windows on all three levels. Marin’s girls are inside, along with Heather’s three teenagers and a large group of friends.

  “I just think it’s hard on you and the kids when he comes and goes like this,” Heather goes on.

  She should talk. Her own husband, Ron, isn’t here. He’s away on one of his many golf weekends.

  But Marin isn’t about to bring that up. What does it matter? They’re not talking about Heather’s marriage. They’re talking about hers.

  Why? Why does Heather have to bring this up again? Didn’t they have this same discussion earlier today, over a lunch that Heather kept saying she prepared just for Garvey—who, she knew all along, couldn’t stay to eat it?

  It makes Heather feel better to criticize other people’s marriages, given the state of her own.

  Or maybe she has a point, Marin admits reluctantly—but only to herself.

  Aloud, she says, “We’re used to Garvey coming and going on the spur of the moment.”

  “I think that’s sad.”

  “It isn’t. Not to us. And it goes with the territory.”

  Ignoring her friend’s dubious expression, Marin sips from her lime-infused Perrier, glad she opted not to join Heather in another bottle of wine tonight. Last night, they overdid it—Marin did, anyway. She woke up queasy this morning and it lasted, along with a headache, all afternoon.

  Heather, who drank twice as much wine as Marin, appeared no worse for wear—which speaks volumes about her tolerance level. She’s the embodiment of the 4Bs—Marin’s private nickname for a certain type of woman: blond, bejeweled, boozy, and bone-thin.

  Women like that populate her social circle back in Manhattan. Marin supposes that she herself fits the bill on a good—or bad—day, depending on how one looks at it.

  Funny, because she never wanted to become one of those women.

  But you aren’t.

  She m
ight have the physical trademarks, but she’s different.

  You just keep telling yourself that.

  But it’s true! Marin is much kinder, and softer, and she lacks the overbearing sense of self-entitlement…

  If you’re so different deep down inside, then why do you spend so much time with women like that?

  Because they’re there.

  It’s that simple. She doesn’t meet a vast assortment of women in her everyday life. Neighbors, private school moms, charity volunteers, political wives—they’re all of a certain ilk. 4B ilk.

  Like she just told Heather—it goes with the territory.

  “It’s campaign season,” Marin points out. “After the primary, and the election—”

  “Garvey will be governor of New York State. Don’t think for one minute that your lives will settle down.”

  “Sure they will. We’ll be living in Albany, remember?” she can’t resist pointing out, and waits for Heather to wrinkle her surgically perfect nose.

  It doesn’t take long. “Don’t remind yourself. Or at least don’t remind me.”

  Really, the snob factor is astounding—even to Marin, who’s been party to it for years now.

  You’d think she’d just told Heather they’d be moving into a cardboard box on the Bowery instead of the New York State governor’s mansion.

  Wait—do people even still live in cardboard boxes on the Bowery? Or has that neighborhood, too, been transformed, like so many Marin frequented in her brief bohemian past?

  “I just think Garvey takes you and the girls for granted,” Heather informs her.

  “He loves us more than anything,” Marin replies, shaking her head. Maybe she should have had wine tonight. She’s feeling more tightly wound by the second—in direct contrast to Heather, who dismissively waves a bare, salon-tanned arm.

  “Nobody said Garvey doesn’t love you…but is that enough?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I saw the look on your face when he said he had to head back early today. You were disappointed. And the girls were, too.”

  “Garvey is an excellent father and husband, Heather.”

  “I’m not a constituent, Marin. I’m your friend. You don’t have to feed me the party line. He’s already got my vote.”

  Marin can’t help but laugh at that. “Heather, you co-chaired a Planned Parenthood fund-raiser. Garvey will have the right-to-life endorsement. I don’t believe for a minute that you’re going to vote for him.”