“For the most part, we avoided nursery rhymes in this household. They appear innocent, but do you know that most of them are very subversive? They say Ring Around the Rosie’s really about the Black Plague.”
And I find myself wishing that nose-pecking blackbird were standing by.
And I don’t ask her about another precious nursery rhyme that plays in my head.
Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack
All dressed in black, black, black.
With silver buttons, buttons, buttons
All down her back, back, back.
She asked her mother, mother, mother
For fifty cents, cents, cents.
To see the elephants, elephants, elephants
Jump over the fence, fence, fence.
They jumped so high, high, high
They reached the sky, sky, sky
They never came back, back, back
Till the Fourth of July, July, July.
But suddenly this simple string of childhood words isn’t so simple. No, suddenly, this song is an ominous warning about mothers and money and fences. But I keep my observations to myself. Of course I do. I don’t tell her about her cameo in my dream. That in my reverie she didn’t wear innocent pastels, but all black with those subversive buttons all down her scrawny back.
When the pie is in the oven and the pork chops are warming, we sit there at the dining table. She shines it. Checks her pearl watch.
“The ring looks nice on you,” she says, suddenly grabbing my hand.
“Thanks,” I say. “Thanks for helping Sage choose it.”
Playing it safe.
“I will never stop helping my son,” she says. “That’s what mothers do.”
I nod.
“Well, the boys won’t be home for a bit. That’ll give us some time to talk.”
I nod.
“Follow me,” she says.
And I do. Just like I’ve been doing all day.
She glides up the stairs. Down the hall. Into Henry’s bedroom. “You know I’m the only one who comes in here anymore?” she says.
“Is that so?”
And for a moment, I foolishly think I’ve underestimated this woman. In here, in this bittersweet haven, she will open up to me. Tell me about her lost son. How everything has changed. She will apologize for clinging so tightly to Sage. Show me pictures, old yearbooks.
But no.
She leads me into the bathroom. Points to a stack of freshly washed towels. “I bought you a few things in case you forgot them.”
A few things = a razor, a bottle of the perfume she wears, lotions, emery boards, ring cleaner. I wonder if I should remind her that we are just staying the night.
On the way out of the room, she pauses. “One more thing.”
She walks to Henry’s desk, pulls out a drawer, reaches in, and fishes out a bottle of white wine and a stack of little Dixie cups.
“Nothing wrong with a little cocktail while the boys are away,” she says, flashing a sad smile.
And just like that we’re making strides.
Mrs. McIntyre moves Henry’s teddy bear to the night-stand and we sit side by side on his bed, feet dangling to the carpet below. We sip wine rapidly, with shared urgency, and keep refilling.
“Isn’t Sally a lovely girl?” she says.
I nod. “And what darling kids.”
“I always thought Sage would end up with her.”
Silence.
“Is that so?”
“Maybe once you have kids, you two will come back here?” she says, pinning me with a look of hope.
“Maybe,” I say.
Not a chance in this tarty Savannah Hell.
“You should start soon,” she says.
“Start?”
“Thinking about kids,” she says.
“I just started my career,” I say.
“Well, you never know. Sage’s father and I didn’t have an easy time. I miscarried several times. It’s terrible to keep losing your children.”
I nod.
“And I can tell my son’s homesick,” she says. “He might be happier here than in that city.”
Dixie cups are not big enough.
“He’s happy,” I say lamely, uncertainly. “We both are.”
She nods, holds out her soggy little cup, and like a good daughter-in-law-to-be, I fill it up.
“Quinn,” she says softly, placing her hand on mine. “I know you are a go-getter. I know you have a couple of fancy degrees. I know you thrive in the cutthroat world of New York City. But I do have some advice for you.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t be foolish and turn this into a competition, dear,” she says, shaking her head, pursing her lips, “because you’re not going to win.”
A car pulls into the driveway and Mrs. McIntyre swigs the last of her wine and hands me the cup. Straightens her apron. “Would you mind?” she says, pointing to the bottle we’ve finished.
“Not at all,” I say, gathering the evidence. “I’ll be down in a minute. I’m going to freshen up.”
In the bathroom, I spritz her perfume. It smells like peach.
Downstairs, Mrs. McIntyre is on fast forward, scurrying around the kitchen, wearing her evening smile. She looks at me with glassy eyes and winks.
Sage comes up to me, his face tanned. Kisses me on the cheek. “You smell good, Bug,” he says.
After dinner, we eat blackberry pie.
Mr. McIntyre chews with his mouth open.
Sage stabs his slice delicately, deep in thoughts he won’t share. Now. Maybe ever.
Mrs. McIntyre pushes her slice around her dainty dish, black blood running from smashed cancer-fighting fruit.
No one mentions Henry. That this was his favorite pie. That he is why we are all here, together, looking down, not at each other.
But I am no different.
Here I sit. Drowning in thoughts of my own. Thoughts of family dinners, artfully strained. Thoughts of rooms filled with the clanking chaos of dishes, and that breed of quiet heavy with all the things left unsaid. Thoughts of childhood, and its precarious aftermath, of silly nursery rhymes and the words that stick with us. Of blackbirds singing in a pie.
Here I sit. Next to a boy. And on his other side is a woman. A mother. One who can’t let go. Of the son she’s already lost. Of the blackberry pie neither he nor the rest of us can honestly taste or enjoy. Of the boy she still has, the one who lives and breathes and hopes and dreams. The one who believes he is growing up by giving a ring to a girl. As if it is that simple. The one who perhaps intends to let go, but might never have the heart to stop eating that childhood pie.
“Another slice, son?” Mrs. McIntyre says sweetly.
And two words fill the Savannah silence: “Sure, Mama.”
Chapter 19
That night, I hole up in Henry’s bathroom. I scrub my face with lavender wash until my skin stings. I drop my ring in the little plastic jar full of chemicals that smell toxic and good. A few minutes later, the ring comes out sparkling.
And I stare at that ring. Study it. And my mind takes a delirious, poetic detour. If only there were relationship cleaners like there are ring cleaners. If only you could take a good relationship, one that is in fact quite beautiful and robust, but dulled in spots (because of a lost brother or father, or a meddling mother) and just drop it in and wait. And then it would come out glittering and new. Because real life tarnishes even the most stunning gems. If only.
I climb into bed, Henry’s bed, and in no time I am asphyxiated by panic and peach perfume. The room spins.
I stand up. And wander aimlessly around the small space.
I sneak over to Henry’s desk, flip through the graded papers, the yearbooks.
I pull my BlackBerry from my bag and sit down again. I read about pregnant celebrities and drug busts and terror alerts. I scroll through my address book. I land on the only number I ever had for Dad—at the office where I’d call him, and his chipper and ancient assistant
Val would say the same thing every time: “Kindly hold for your old man,” after which Dad would hop on and say his crackly and singsong “Hi, hi.” I loved that I never just got one “hi.” It was always two.
I stare at that string of numbers and hit delete. I will not be like Mrs. McIntyre.
I will let go.
I banish my Berry to my bag.
I will let go.
I stand again and go back to the desk. I open another bottle of wine from Mrs. McIntyre’s secret stash and take a swig. I part the curtains and look outside at the grass, at that lonely white fence standing guard. At the parked car and scattered stars.
I keep drinking and scan Henry’s shelves. And there they are: the books I loved as a kid, the Choose Your Own Adventure series. Mom loved these books, she would later tell me, because they were written in the magically gender-neutral second person. She would sneak the simple language of cause and effect into our daily lives.
If you decide to drink your milk, you will grow up to be big and strong.
If you decide not to drink your milk, you will be short and stumpy and go to bed early.
But I loved these books for far simpler reasons, reasons that had nothing to do with superior literary points-of-view or academic theories of free will and causation. I loved them because you never knew what would happen next and it was up to you. Michael and I could read the very same book and it would end differently for each of us.
But to a child, the variety of possible endings wasn’t alarming.
Some endings were happy.
Some endings were tragic.
Other endings were satisfactory, blah, ambiguous—neither perfectly good nor perfectly bad.
Sometimes, a set of choices would send “you” into a loop where “you” would repeatedly end up on the same page and the only option would be to start over.
I pull out my favorite one: Inside UFO 54–40, a book about the quest for a utopia that no one can actually reach. Buried in the book is a single page that describes “you” finding that dream world, that sought-after paradise, and living happily ever after. But the thing is, none of the choices in the book actually led to that page.
I remember Mom explaining this one to me. And I remember not quite getting it. “You can only reach the perfect ending,” she said, “by ignoring the rules, by flipping through the book at random. And when you get there—to that perfect ending—you are congratulated for realizing how to find that paradise, that happy ever after.”
Could it be that happiness, true happiness, can only be reached by aimless wandering? That paradise will only welcome those who live their lives without it as a destination? That the path to happiness about which we are all consciously or unconsciously preoccupied is not a linear set of prudent choices, but a smattering of random decisions, a haphazard adventure?
Or is it that ultimate happiness doesn’t exist?
The only thing I know is that without choices, without decisions, without actions, there are no stories and there are no endings, good or bad or perfect.
So what do I do? I make a choice. I stop playing it safe.
I choose my own adventure.
I open the door a crack and tiptoe into the hallway. I sneak into Sage’s room. And there he is, a boy of thirty curled up in his childhood bed, feet dangling off the end.
I sit next to him, and his eyes open.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey.”
“My mother’s going to hear you,” he says, sitting up.
“We are engaged,” I say. “What’s she going to do? Withhold Grandma’s Spode?”
On his shelf, I notice Sage and Sally’s prom picture.
“What’s the deal with Sally?” I say, plucking the picture from his shelf. His hair is long and shaggy and his smile is goofy and young. But even as an awkward teen, he looks good in a tux. He will wear a tux at our wedding, I remind myself. In the photo, Sally is as skinny and blond as ever, wearing a powder blue dress at least a size too big. She clutches Sage’s arm.
“Huh?”
“I met her picking blackberries,” I say.
“Wonderful. And?”
“She has three beautiful children,” I say.
“So I’ve heard.”
“Your mom thought you’d marry her.”
“Yes, she did,” he says. “But I’m not. I’m marrying you. Don’t make me regret that decision.”
“While you boys were at the club indulging in a lovely round of golf, your mother attacked me, Sage. She said that I am the reason you aren’t coming back to this charming hamlet to bring the family back together…”
Sage succumbs to his pillow. “Quinn, my mother wouldn’t say those things.”
And those two words, those simple words “my mother” sound just like they did the night we met. But that night was just the first page of our story. That night, everything was brand new and unsullied. That night, it was sweet that he mentioned his mother.
Many pages later, things are a bit different.
“I travel to this place, this Stepford town, the Hostess City of the South. I say words like ‘lovely’ and ‘precious’ and ‘darling.’ I wear mint green for God’s sake. I follow her around in a freaking Kentucky Derby hat and debutante gloves in the blistering sun. Picking fruit for a pie for your dead brother,” I say. “Because I love you. And I’m trying. And what does she do? Your mother? She waxes poetic about that baby-factory ex of yours. Tells me how we should start thinking about having kids. How you are homesick.”
“Keep your voice down,” he says. “This place means something to me, Quinn. It’s my home. And did you ever stop to think that my mother is trying too? That dead brother you so nobly picked fruit for? Today was his birthday. And we loved him and he is gone. I would think you of all people would understand what that’s all about.”
“Don’t make this about Dad,” I say.
“Don’t make this about my mother,” he says.
“But it is about her. It’s about how she can’t let go. None of you can.”
“Don’t you tell me how to grieve,” Sage says. “Should I try your tactic of anesthetizing myself with alcohol?”
“It’s worth a shot. Has to be healthier than pretending he’s still around and having a birthday party for a boy’s ghost,” I say, glaring at him. “You know something? Your mother should do herself a favor and convert these little bedrooms into closets for her pastel wardrobe because your brother is not coming back here. And neither are you. And if you are, then you better tell me and fast because I’m not coming with you.”
“You’ve been drinking,” Sage says.
“Yes,” I say, standing, walking toward the door. “Yes I have. And not nearly enough. And so has Mama.”
“Bug,” he says, standing now and walking toward me, grabbing my wrists. “Tell me what you want. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
I think of Avery’s words of wisdom, that men need instruction manuals.
“I don’t know, but one of these days, you are going to have to grow up and be a man and stand the fuck up for me.”
He nods, a little boy scolded, and says words so diplomatic, so measured, so emotion-free, they at once pacify and enrage me: “We’ll talk about it tomorrow. We have plenty of tomorrows to talk about all these things, Bug.”
But I wonder if we do.
Defeated, boiling, scared, I retreat, almost tripping on his old baseball glove.
I tiptoe across the soft carpet. As I pull the door behind me, I look down the hall, past the blond bowl cuts and toothless grins, past the glittering glow of innocence and antique sconces. And peering out from her own room is his mother. I can’t tell whether I see a smile or a scowl, or a bit of both. But toward me, her words float faintly, sweetly as ever. But they’re unmistakable and dreadfully crisp, like that foul peach perfume we’re both wearing. Down the corridor, here they come as I disappear like a little girl well seasoned in the ways of hide-and-seek. Words loud enough for her beloved so
n to hear: “Good night, dear.”
And then the night is silent. A silent night indeed.
Chapter 20
And that silent night is followed by a silent morning. And a silent plane ride home. And a silent week.
Sage and I avoid each other. This is not exactly a tough feat when working twelve-hour days. At home, we take turns in the bathroom and sip our morning coffee in silence. We share custody of the cat.
There’s no mention of our thorny trip to Savannah. There’s no mention of his mother. And there’s no mention of the fact that we are supposed to marry in a little more than two months.
Couples, perfectly healthy couples, have these mini cold wars, I tell myself.
Another New York summer threatens to slip away. Kayla and I leave work early, hop into one of the countless waiting Town Cars, and head down to the water for our firm’s end-of-the-season celebration, the Summer Sail, which will take place aboard a soiled and sad “yacht” named Destiny of all things, a boat that spends long days tooling tourists along the Manhattan skyline.
Those who’ve been around awhile call it the Summer Sale because for a few hours our focus is not on billable hours, but on selling this world, this life, to a bevy of optimistic, impressionable souls. It’s our job to make sure they accept the full-time offer they will each receive tomorrow morning as long as they make it through the night without sleeping with a partner’s wife or saying something terribly racist.
We wait to board when I hear him.
“Nothing beats an old school booze cruise,” Sage says, appearing by my side, grazing my cheek with a kiss.
I force a smile. “Nothing beats a surprise cease-fire.”
“Who said anything about cease-fires? I figured it was time I get a firsthand peek into your little lawyer world,” he says.
“Peek away,” Kayla says, putting her hand on his shoulder. “I just hope you’ve come prepared to drink.”
Life After Yes Page 18