It’s okay, I wanted to say. But I couldn’t and it wasn’t.
I’m okay, I wanted to show him. But I couldn’t and I wasn’t.
Phelps pulled away, gripped my shoulders with his big hands, and finally looked me in the eyes. I looked into his. The same baby blues framed by new wrinkles. The same long lashes, the same eyebrows, wonderfully unkempt, threatening to touch. He ran his fingertip under my eyes, stopping the snaking mascara like he always did.
“Your canthus,” he said. Every night before bed, he taught me the silly scientific name of another body part. This was one of our favorites.
“My canthus.”
“Waterproof would’ve been prudent on a day like this,” he said, and smiled.
A hand on my waist. Sage walked up behind me, threw his arm around me, pulled me close. I gripped his sweater.
“This is Sage,” I said to Phelps. His blond still hid behind him.
Sage held out his hand and Phelps grabbed it between both of his and shook. The exchange seemed genuine. This wasn’t how I envisioned their first meeting; I pictured a testosterone-propelled fistfight. At the very least, a thrown beer. But instead: civility. The boys in my life were acting like men.
“This is Phelps,” I said. As if Sage didn’t know.
A few too many moments passed before Phelps introduced the blond. God, she was skinny.
“This is Carter,” he said. “My wife.”
“Congratulations,” I said, that easy word escaping me before I could orchestrate some better ones. “You didn’t tell—I didn’t know.”
“It all happened very fast,” Carter said, and smiled, extending her hand toward me. And her words are still crisp in my mind. It all happened very fast. Even in the haze of grief and longing, her words struck me as odd. Is marriage something that just happens? She uttered these words and her right hand came at me, but my eyes stayed fixed on the left. On the modest but brilliant diamond that rested on her bony finger.
“Well, congratulations,” Sage said, his smile the biggest.
“Yes, congratulations,” I said. Again.
Sage left us. He and Michael walked with Mom to the front of the chairs. The service was about to begin.
Carter excused herself too. She said she needed to use the bathroom.
“She pees all the time,” Phelps said. And then turned red.
“Good to know. Well, you’re not wasting any time. Let me guess: no heart-shaped tub on the honeymoon? What’s next? Cheetos-eating towheads?”
Phelps smiled.
And we stood there for a while without speaking. Shrouded in an unrelenting, rich silence.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I said.
“I don’t know.” Again that honest, lackluster trio of words.
“She seems nice,” I said.
“She is,” he said. Carter walked toward us, her navy skirt shifting in the breeze. And then he put his lips to my ears, the ears on which he used to nibble, and whispered: “But she’s not you.”
I smiled. And as I walked away from my past to find my future, a hand grabbed me.
And Phelps bent over and whispered something in my ear. Something I thought he’d maybe forgotten.
“Happy birthday, baby,” he said.
Chapter 18
For two and a half years, I’ve waited for this day. And dreaded it. Sage and I are going home. To Savannah, to his childhood digs.
I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of time imagining his house (Georgian of course, spotless windows, enveloped by a perfect little garden) and how his mother decorates it (ging-hams and chintzy florals, lots and lots of pillows, perpetually fluffed). In my visions, it is always clean and quiet and the lawn is permanently mowed and sweet-smelling. I picture friendly neighbors, all blond—authentically blond—with perfect matching teeth thanks to the same town orthodontist. Neighbors who, depending on the season, drop by with muffins or pies or roasts.
It’s Saturday morning and what would have been Sage’s brother’s twenty-fourth birthday. Sage and I motor through LaGuardia Airport, dodging screeching toddlers and motorized carts that beep ominously and tote old people, trying to make our flight. Outside, the sky is gray and a summer storm looms.
Sage wears that symbolic sport coat, the one he wore on our Paris trip. The one from his mother.
“I still don’t understand the sport coat,” I say, “on a Saturday in ninety-degree August heat?”
He smiles and shrugs and shoves our boarding passes in the front pocket of said coat. I choose not to make fun of the fact that he stayed up last night ironing it.
“And I still don’t understand the cookies,” he says, pointing to the white box I’m carrying. “Don’t you think they have dessert in Savannah?”
“Black-and-whites are very New York,” I say. “I wouldn’t dare show up empty-handed and I thought it would be nice to bring a little city to your parents’ house.”
“Look at you,” he says, flashing a mischievous grin. “You’re nervous.”
“Guilty as charged,” I say.
“You’re wearing a polo shirt,” he says. “A green one.”
“A mint green one,” I say. “A mint green Lilly Pulitzer polo your mother gave me.”
“Well, you do look good in color,” he says.
“I still think it’s weird that you’ve never invited me home,” I say. “Kayla thinks it’s a red flag.”
“I think Kayla’s a red flag,” he says. And then he grabs my hand, kisses it.
“It was very nice of your mother to invite me this year.”
On the plane, I clutch Sage’s arm and order a Bloody Mary. As we climb into a slate sky, Sage’s mood dampens and he grows quiet, losing himself in the pages of an American Airlines catalogue.
“Anything interesting in there?” I say.
He looks at me, and then my drink, bloodred, melting fast. Then looks away.
Now his sadness is palpable, present in glossy eyes, suddenly distant, and in his uncharacteristically parted hair. In the way he squirms and sweats inside that sport coat he refuses to shed.
“So, he would’ve been twenty-four today?” I say.
He nods, but doesn’t look up.
“What do you think he would be doing?” I ask. “Do you think he would have beaten us to the altar? Do you think he would be banking too?”
He shrugs.
“Are you okay?” I now ask him, grabbing his arm.
He nods, flips a page, and studies a mechanized self-flushing litter box on sale for ninety-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents.
“Well, I wish you would talk about him more,” I say, sipping my drink. “It’s not healthy to do this.”
He looks up from the magazine, finds my eyes. “I wish you would drink less. It’s ten in the morning. It’s not healthy to do this.”
And so we dance.
For the remainder of the flight, he talks even less.
And I drink even more.
At the airport, his mother perches by a pillar at baggage claim. She is darling and diminutive as ever, clad in pale peach; her smile is vast and her arms, outstretched. Those skinny arms swallow her much-taller son whole. She studies him. “Handsome as ever,” she proclaims.
She plants a delicate kiss on my cheek. “What a lovely shirt, dear.”
“Thanks,” I say.
Sage escapes to find our bags. And I hand his mother the box of cookies. She peeks inside the box. “Black-and-whites?” she asks. And in her wispy voice, I detect a shred of accusation.
Or I’m being utterly paranoid. It’s a distinct possibility.
“Yes,” I say. They are cookies, for God’s sake. Not an invitation to debate race relations.
“You shouldn’t have,” she says. And I wonder if she’s being literal.
Sage musters a smile.
We ride in her car, a white Range Rover with tan leather interiors. Celine Dion whines faintly. Sage and his mother sit in the front seat and I have the backseat to myself. I study the backs of their
heads. Their hair is the same sandy shade and they have the same gentle waves. They speak to each other in fractured words I can’t hear very well over Celine, exchanging smiles.
We pull into the driveway. The house is just as pristine as I imagined it. Bright white. Big, but not offensively so.
As we unload our things, I can’t help but study the perfect lawn, mowed and sweet-smelling just as I envisioned. And there it is: the spot where the grass meets the road. The meticulous white picket fence. And though it’s a hot morning in August, I can see it now. That night. The barren trees, the trickle of Christmas lights along the road.
Inside, I am overwhelmed by the generic smell of baked goods I can’t identify, the shimmering of silver frames and crystal chandeliers, and the gentle hum of central air-conditioning.
“Sage, honey,” his mother says. “Why don’t you show Quinn to her room?”
My room? In any other setting, the laughter would be immediate and loud. But here, on her turf, I manage uncharacteristic deference and decorum and trail my thirty-year-old fiancé up a set of grand stairs to the home’s second level.
“Separate rooms?” I say softly. “She knows we live together, right?”
Sage ignores me, huffing audibly as he wrestles my suitcase, embarrassingly large for an overnight stay, up to a place where she can’t hear us.
I follow him down a hallway, dimly lit by mirrored sconces, walls blanketed in familiar black-and-white photographs of two blond boys. Sage stops at a door, opens it, and pauses before going inside.
“She’s redecorated five times in the last ten years, but she won’t touch his room,” he says. “Or mine.”
So, my room is Henry’s room.
The room is dark. I look around. At the twin bed in the corner, dressed in eighties plaid. At the tattered teddy bear reclining on the pillow. The baseball posters. The bookshelves filled with encyclopedias and trophies. The small window with curtains drawn.
We head downstairs. Sage’s mother sets platters of pastries on a massive dining table more suitable for a board of directors than a family of three. Sage’s father sits in the living room, muttering to himself between sips of fresh lemonade, cursing at some golfer who has apparently missed an easy putt.
Sage grabs my hand and walks me toward his father. “Guess they can’t all be Tiger,” he says, standing. “Good to see you, son.”
Sage and his father shake hands like business partners. Which is exactly what Mr. McIntyre hopes they will be. He owns a local bank and continually hints about having his only son join him one day.
“Welcome, Quinn,” he says, putting his hand on my shoulder.
“Hi, Mr. McIntyre.”
And I pause there. Discreetly, I study this man whom I hardly know. This man who has bequeathed to Sage his ski-slope nose, his skin tone, his love of baseball, and his quintessentially male inability to excavate emotional soil.
I wait for Mr. McIntyre to say something else. I haven’t seen him since my dad died. I haven’t seen him since his son proposed to me. I half expect him to take me into his arms, to tell me I still have one father. To spout some combination of those well-meaning platitudes I’ve ingested in excessive quantities. I expect words like “condolence” and “sympathy” and “thoughts” and “prayers.”
But no.
Instead, this is what I get: “Have you tried my wife’s lemonade? It’s tart as hell.”
But brunch is lovely. We nibble on scones, spoon egg salad onto mini baguettes. His mother pours chamomile from a blue-and-white pot. “My mother’s Spode,” she says, and waves a manicured finger our way. “If you two behave yourselves, you might have this set someday.”
I smile. “Lucky us,” I whisper.
But I think: I might be here to win something, but it’s not your mother’s Spode.
We talk about work. Sage’s father has been busy starting up a new branch of his bank in West Virginia. “West Virginia of all places,” he says, guffawing, a renegade dollop of egg salad escaping the corner of his mouth. “But people need banks there too.”
He stands, tosses his napkin down on the table, and walks to the kitchen. “Sage, son,” he says, his deep voice bellowing from the other room, “I got you something.”
And naïve me thinks: An engagement present. Something heartfelt, meaningful.
But no.
Mr. McIntyre comes back into the room clutching a plastic bag. “You’re going to love this one,” he says, pulling a blue mug from the bag. “West Virginia: We’re One Big Happy Family…Really!”
We all find smiles.
Suddenly, I have a flash of our future kitchen cabinets: silly mugs with offensive slogans mingling with heirloom Spode.
“Isn’t that just precious?” Sage’s mother says, eyes smaller now. She gently steers the conversation to something equally irrelevant: her flower garden. Apparently, the lilacs have had a good season. And the deer have been extra pesky this year.
Then we talk about the weather. How a thunderstorm is predicted.
We talk about everything that doesn’t really matter.
Everything but Henry.
Sage and his father take to opposite sides of the couch, and mumble about golf. I follow his mother into the kitchen. I help her wash dishes and collect crumbs from the table.
“While the boys are golfing, we can have a girls’ day,” she says. “I’ve been looking forward to it.”
When Sage and his father leave, Mrs. McIntyre perks up. “Let’s go blackberry picking before it gets any hotter out there.”
She disappears and returns with two big hats and two pairs of gloves.
Mrs. McIntyre drives us to Bamboo Farm & Coastal Gardens. She parks the car, balances a hat on her head. Pulls gloves on. I follow suit.
And soon, I am following her around, ducking and standing, examining berries, meandering through the branches.
“Watch out for the thorns,” she says.
“Thanks for the warning,” I say politely, gingerly making my way through the “bramble”—which is a word I never knew before. I don’t tell her that it’s not the stains and scratches I’m worried about.
“And pick the ones without the hulls. If the berries still have hulls, it’s too early to pick them. They’re immature and they’ll taste tart.”
She plucks a berry and marvels at it. “They say that blackberries are especially good at protecting us from cancer, fighting inflammation, and possibly even preventing a type of brain damage linked to Alzheimer’s disease.”
“Is that so?” I say.
“That’s what they say,” she says, and resumes plucking.
Too bad these little suckers can’t ward off a terrorist attack or a careening car.
Abruptly, she stands. All five feet, two inches of her, arms waving. And I wonder if she’s been stung by something?
She mutters one word over and over: “Sally!”
And I look. And there she is, across the bramble. Sage’s ex. Long-lost Savannah Sally. She’s tan and blond and wears a hat just like ours. Her smile is wide and her teeth are perfect.
She walks toward us, basket in one hand, and her other hand linked to a trio of toddlers, all blond and absolutely adorable.
Suddenly, they stand before us.
“My goodness,” Sally exclaims. “You must be Quinn. The Quinn.”
I smile. Extend a hand. She shakes it.
Her children look up at me, matching blackberry-stained smiles.
“I always tell them to wait to eat them until we get home,” she says. “But kids will be kids.”
“Isn’t that the truth?” Mrs. McIntyre says, fiddling with her hat. “Isn’t this sun positively ruthless, Sally?”
“Sure is.”
“Well, lovely seeing you and the little ones. We must get back to business. We have a pie to make.”
Sally nods solemnly. And I wonder how many of Henry’s pies she’s tasted.
“Lovely to meet you,” Sally says. “You’re a lucky girl, Quinn.”
And with that, Sally turns and walks away, her three precious ducklings trailing behind.
So while the boys are soaking up the sun on the other side of town, swinging clubs and sipping beer, here we are in what might as well be Easter bonnets and white gloves, delicately plucking black fruit from thorny branches, delicately making small talk with the girl who would’ve gifted Mrs. McIntyre with the grandchildren for whom she salivates, dancing around the one thing that might just unite us: We have both lost someone we love.
I want to ask her about Henry. What he wanted to be when he grew up. How often she thinks of him. If any of this truly does get better with time. Or whether that’s just something people say.
I want to ask her about Sage. What he was like as a boy. Why she didn’t let him eat the candy on Halloween.
But I don’t ask these things. Instead, I do something I’m very good at. I play it safe.
At home, we bake pie.
Mrs. McIntyre stands in the kitchen, reading the recipe from the back of a postcard. A postcard with a picture of Paris.
“We went to Paris on our honeymoon,” she says.
And it all makes sense.
“You have beautiful handwriting,” I say. “You should see mine. All of these years on a computer and I barely remember how to hold a pencil.”
“Penmanship is a lost art.”
I stand by, ready for orders.
I pull ingredients from the fridge, line them up along the counter.
“This reminds me of that nursery rhyme about blackbird pie,” I say.
“Oh?”
I don’t know where I muster the courage, but I start singing. “Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye…four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie…When the pie was opened the birds began to sing…Oh wasn’t that a dainty dish to set before the king? The king was in his counting house, counting out his money…The queen was in the parlor, eating bread and honey…The maid was in the garden, hanging out the clothes…When down came a blackbird and pecked off her nose!”
“That is a strange one indeed,” she says.
“My dad used to sing it to me. And I would laugh so hard at the thought of birds in a pie. Mom hated that one because she said it was subversive and sexist—the king was counting his money while the queen was eating bread and honey.”
Life After Yes Page 17