Guests of August

by Gloria Goldreich

  ‘It’s a dangerous game,’ Andrea murmurs.

  ‘Life is dangerous,’ Wendy replies flippantly and helps herself to a generous portion of the casserole. ‘It’s actually very good,’ she says, tasting it. ‘Even though there are more noodles than tuna.’

  ‘Well, we don’t come here for the food,’ Mark says wryly.

  ‘Why exactly do we come here?’ Wendy murmurs as Adam’s parents leave. She wonders if they heard her and decides that she does not care if they did.

  ‘I think Louise is trying to economize,’ Daniel tells her. ‘Things are a little tough for her.’

  It does not surprise him that Louise has not joined them for dinner. Polly called to say that her mother was ill and Louise, unable to find a replacement, rushes from table to table, her cheeks flushed, her hands laden.

  ‘You spoke to her?’ Wendy asks.

  ‘I did.’

  He is pleased that she does not ask him about their conversation, that she understands that there are confidences that must not be betrayed. He eats slowly, without pleasure, and concentrates on finding an answer to Donny’s probing question about where JK Rowling gets her ideas.

  ‘Like how does a writer know what he’s going to write?’ Donny asks.

  ‘It’s a mystery, actually,’ Daniel acknowledges.

  ‘You know my dad was a writer.’

  Wendy looks at her son in surprise. Donny so rarely refers to Adam.

  ‘I guess my mom likes writers,’ Donny adds and dashes away from the table.

  Matt and Cary have finished eating and the three boys dash to the pinball machine jangling their quarters.

  ‘He’s right,’ Wendy says softly. ‘I do like writers.’

  ‘I’m glad.’ His voice is husky with pleasure.

  She drops her napkin; he picks it up and for a long moment their fingers are linked.

  Tracy, Richie and Jeremy saunter over to announce that they are going into town for burgers.

  ‘Want to come?’ Richie asks Paul, pointedly ignoring Annette.

  ‘Nope. I’m into noodles,’ Paul says good-naturedly. ‘I’m thinking of becoming vegan.’

  ‘Of course you are,’ Richie says. ‘Go to Oberlin, eat tofu and play your guitar. You like tofu eaters, Annette?’

  She ignores him but Paul shrugs indifferently. His stepbrother’s taunts cannot upset him; he is inured by his memory of the morning’s tenderness, when Annette’s lips were so soft upon his own. Screw Richie.

  Simon pulls out a twenty and hands it to Richie. The rivalry between his sons both amuses and troubles him. He wants to speed Richie on his way.

  ‘That should be enough,’ he says.

  ‘Yeah. Thanks. And hey, Dad, Mom called today. She may be stopping by some time soon. She has a shoot at some resort in the White Mountains.’

  ‘That’s good.’ Simon is non-committal and now it is Nessa who swiftly fills the awkward silence.

  ‘It’ll be great for you and Tracy to spend some time with Charlotte,’ she says.

  ‘Yeah. Great,’ Tracy responds, her voice flat.

  Susan and Jeff watch the interchange in silence. Tracy’s sullenness and Richie’s aggressiveness are not lost on them. The children of Simon Epstein’s first marriage are casualties of his very amicable divorce. That is what she and Jeff would say to each other if they were in fact saying such things to each other, if they were not locked into the silence of anger and regret. Susan thinks back to her translation, of Pierre’s warning words to Jacqueline. Tout les marriages sont fragiles – all marriages are fragile. She had rejected LeBec’s words even as she translated them but now, with a heavy heart, she is reconciled to their truth.

  They are all relieved when the meal ends, when they are free to abandon the dessert dishes on which sour scraps of rhubarb pie have congealed (although Daniel, loyal to Louise, fearful of hurting her feelings, has dutifully eaten his share) and they can retreat to the rec room. Paul and Annette return to their puzzle of American presidents. They sit very close to each other wearing expressions of great seriousness, of great concentration, as they search for the small pieces that will complete Teddy Roosevelt’s moustache, while Susan, Nessa and Jeff play Scrabble and Michael and Liane, Helene and Greg supervise the game of darts with Matt, Cary and Donny.

  As the evening draws to a close, cars draw up to the inn. A cab brings Mark and Andrea Templeton back from Portsmouth and they see that Andrea, as always impeccably groomed, leans heavily on her husband’s arm as she makes her way unsteadily to the door. Wendy wonders how much vodka she drank before dinner and how much wine she drank with the meal. Not that it matters.

  Richie’s roadster roars up and Tracy and Jeremy get out but Richie turns the car around and speeds back down the drive. Simon frowns and then turns his attention back to the chess board.

  Jeff watches as his son and Tracy walk across the lawn and wander down to the lake. Like Simon, he frowns and, like Simon, he says nothing. He is very tired but he will wait until he is certain that Susan is asleep before going up to their room.

  FOURTEEN

  With the dawning of each new day the air is increasingly cooler and by the late afternoon the women drape light wool cardigans over their shoulders. They sip white wine and watch the fiery sunsets of summer fade into the melancholy pastels of encroaching autumn. Already they are teased by the tensions of the lives left behind, so soon to be resumed. Susan receives an email lauding her translation but asking for minor changes. Nessa’s editor has a new idea for the fairy tale series and calls to set up a meeting in the city. Simon dodges phone messages from the various boards on which he sits. Jeff receives a troubling report about a patient on whom he operated just before leaving for New Hampshire. But despite these small invasions the vacationers are intent on cramming as much pleasure as possible into these last days of leisure.

  Michael takes Liane out to dinner in Portsmouth, choosing a very expensive French restaurant recommended by Simon. They sit across from each other at a candle-lit table spread with an immaculate white linen cloth, inhale the scent of the pale pink rose buds in the crystal vase and lift their wine glasses in a silent toast. Michael has ordered champagne.

  ‘You remember that I promised you champagne,’ he reminds her.

  ‘Is it really happening then?’ she asks.

  ‘Mark Templeton is almost definitely on board. He’s been in touch with his investors and he promises venture capital, more than I ever contemplated asking for. Simon says that his investors are actually getting a bargain. My software design has features that no other anti-virus program has, especially important in this crazy economy.’

  He does not mask the pride in his voice, pride in his own work and pride in his ability to give her the things she has wanted since the day of their marriage. He no longer has to worry about losing her. He recognizes that she has changed but he has the additional assurance that she will be safely ensnared in the new prosperity that will soon be theirs.

  She smiles at him and he sees the new softness in her eyes. She reaches across the table and takes his hand. Her touch is as light as a butterfly’s wing. He marvels at how these vacation weeks have affected her. He wonders briefly, disloyally, if it is because he hovers so close to the material success she has always craved, but he dismisses the thought at once. It is enough that she looks at him with tenderness he had never thought to claim. His heart swells. He, the shy bespectacled boy, grown into the shy bespectacled man, stooped with worry, meekly petitioning for love, is, for the first time in his life, suffused with joy and gladness.

  ‘I’m happy for you,’ she says.

  ‘I’m happy for both of us. And for Cary.’

  ‘Yes. Of course. For Cary.’

  They reach for the oversized red leather menus, hide their faces from each other as they study the choices, each unwilling for the other to see the tears that burn their eyes.

  Plans are made for a final picnic at Franconia Notch. It is Evan, returned to the inn, proudly displayin
g a certificate validating his proficiency in international mediation earned during his summer seminar, who suggests the locale and volunteers to make the arrangements. Louise slides the certificate into a leather binder and displays it at the reception desk. Simon and Daniel smile at each other. They recall that Evan’s parents had displayed his high-school honor society plaques and his letter of acceptance to Dartmouth on that same desk. Louise is simply continuing the parental tradition. Daniel overhears Louise on the phone assuring a caller that Evan is not at the inn.

  ‘He is traveling somewhere, I believe. He’ll be away for several weeks. Yes, I’ll be sure to give him your message, Karine. I’ve written your name down. And your cell phone number. If I hear from him I’ll tell him to call you.’

  She hangs up, crumbles the slip of paper on which she has scrawled only half the numbers, spies Daniel and shrugs. He nods knowingly. She has made her peace. He will make his.

  Evan maps out the route to Franconia Notch, speaks with a forest ranger who will do a nature tour with their party, and consults with Louise about the food and drinks they will need. He discusses the equipment they will take. Perhaps a soccer ball, the badminton set. He nods enthusiastically when Greg suggests that they transport the dart board and darts. The rec room has only limited space while an open field will allow them to aim at their target from a considerable distance. Cary, Donny and Matt jump up and down at the thought of demonstrating their new-found skill in the vast arena of mountain and forest.

  ‘I know exactly the tree where we can set the board up,’ Evan says.

  He is in his element – pleasure and fun are his forte – and Louise, the patient, forgiving mother-wife smiles and makes up her list of picnic provisions.

  Andrea Templeton receives a call from the proprietor of the nursery. The woodworker has completed the bench to be placed beside Adam’s grave and the earth has been turned so that the new plantings can be easily set in place.

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ she says. ‘We’ll go to the cemetery tomorrow just as we planned.’

  The next day is, of course, Adam’s birthday. Had he lived he would have been thirty-nine years old.

  ‘Thirty-nine,’ she murmurs, and fills a glass with vodka which she drinks very slowly.

  ‘Thirty-nine,’ Mark repeats. He goes to the window and looks down at the lawn where his grandson, dark-haired, dark-eyed Donny, is racing after his two friends, all three of them pursuing Paul Epstein.

  ‘We should get an early start tomorrow,’ Mark says to Wendy at dinner that evening.

  ‘Tomorrow?’ It is Daniel who asks the question, raising his thick eyebrows quizzically.

  ‘Yes. Tomorrow. Why should that surprise you?’ Andrea asks coldly. ‘We always go to the cemetery on my son’s birthday. But of course you would have no way of knowing that.’

  She does not like this New York novelist who spends so much time with her daughter-in-law, who has so inappropriately inserted himself into a very private family conversation. ‘Pushy,’ she thinks. ‘Very pushy.’ She does not mean ‘Jewish’. She is certainly not anti-Semitic.

  ‘Tomorrow is the picnic at Franconia Notch,’ Wendy says calmly. ‘Lots of activities have been planned for the boys. Donny won’t want to miss it.’

  ‘And I’m not going to,’ Donny says too loudly. ‘We’re going to have a dart contest. And climb a real mountain. And lots of other stuff.’ His face is very red and his eyes are dangerously bright.

  ‘I should think that showing respect to your father is more important than a picnic.’

  Mark speaks with practiced severity. It is the tone he used with great success to intimidate recalcitrant employees and reluctant brokers. It allows for neither negotiation nor compromise. Donny’s lip trembles and his hands tighten into fists.

  Wendy’s color is high but her voice remains calm. She pours a glass of lemonade for Donny and water for herself and Daniel before she speaks.

  ‘I do know that it’s important to you that Donny and I be there,’ she says. ‘But Donny really does not have to spend the entire morning there. He can come with us and then go on to join the others at Franconia Notch.’

  ‘And how will he get there?’ Andrea asks. ‘I assume you’ll want to help with the planting. It’s what you’ve always done. What we’ve always done. For Adam. In his memory.’

  Wendy stares at her, her mind an angry confusion of words she will not utter. Not yet. Not in front of Donny and certainly not in front of Daniel Goldner. Still, her thoughts gather in an angry avalanche that she can barely contain.

  ‘Adam is dead,’ she says. She does not share her cascade of angry thoughts.

  The flowers, the bench to be set into place, are for us not for him. These macabre birthday pilgrimages to his grave are an act of atonement, an appeasement for an unacknowledged guilt, my own, I guess, and definitely yours. But Donny is free of that guilt. He never harmed the father he barely knew. Surely he is exempt from this annual rite of penitence with trowel and pruning shears as we kneel in the shadow of Adam’s grave plucking weeds and sliding green shoots into the friable earth. She thinks all this as the silence between them thickens.

  She finds voice at last, places a calming hand on her son’s shoulder.

  ‘I’ll work something out,’ she promises.

  ‘I’ll pick him up at the cemetery and drive him to Franconia Notch,’ Daniel offers.

  His suggestion comes with ease, as though he had discussed it with Wendy, which he had not, and she looks at him gratefully.

  ‘That will be OK, won’t it, Donny?’ Wendy asks her son.

  ‘I guess.’ He drinks his lemonade, his eyes averted from his grandparents.

  ‘I’m not sure that’s an acceptable plan,’ Andrea protests, but Mark looks at her warningly and they are all grateful when Louise and Evan join them.

  Evan, of course, can be counted on to direct the conversation to himself, to the seminar he attended that summer, to the courses he plans to take in the fall. All discussion of the visit to the cemetery is tabled, Louise smiles and, like an attentive mother, fills her husband’s plate with the chicken breast he prefers and the baked potato she prepared especially for him because he does not care for the rice she has served to the other guests. Daniel frowns and looks away.

  The next day dawns crystal clear and everyone opts to go on the picnic. Even Louise decides to join them, a rare excursion for her. She and Evan fill the inn’s van with the picnic food and sports equipment. It is a strenuous effort that they accomplish alone because Polly is out again, caring for her mother who has developed a dangerous fever. The guests pile into their various cars. They are almost set to pull away when Jeff Edwards’ cell phone rings. His chief resident is calling from the hospital to tell him that a patient of his has developed complications and is being readmitted. What procedures should he follow?

  ‘Well you won’t know until you examine him and make an evaluation,’ Jeff replies irritably. ‘Call me after you’ve done that. I’ll be here.’

  The patient in question is an elderly man of whom he is particularly fond and the surgical procedure to correct post-operative complications is delicate and may be life-threatening. Jeff can think of no other doctor on staff whom he would trust with such a complicated operation.

  ‘You’re not coming?’ Susan asks him.

  ‘I can’t. I don’t know what kind of cell phone reception there’ll be up there and I’ll need the car if I have to travel home and get to the hospital to handle this myself. You and Matt go with Helene and Greg and I’ll catch up with you if I can.’

  ‘If that’s what you want.’ Her response is flat.

  ‘It’s not what I want. It’s what has to be done,’ he replies briskly, aware that Matt is staring at his parents with that worried look in his eyes.

  ‘All right then. Come on, Matt.’

  Susan is pale, her voice tight. Jeff immediately regrets the harshness of his tone. He hurries after her, thinking to kiss her in apology, thinking to re
assure his son, but she is already in Greg’s car, the window closed, and Greg is maneuvering his way down the driveway. It is Matt who presses his face against the car window and waves to his father.

  Jeff watches until the car disappears from sight. He drives his car back to the parking lot and finds a sheet of notepaper on Susan’s seat that must have dropped from her open bag. It is covered with ‘to dos’ – each one numbered. A list, of course, one of her inevitable lists. He scans it.

  1. Sunblock for Matt. Sunblock for Jeff

  2. Hair clips for Annette

  3. Film for Jeremy

  4. Souvenir gifts for Nancy and Sue Ellen

  5. Marcia’s birthday. Remind Jeff to call

  6. Call the plumber for September appointment. Upstairs bathroom

  He smiles. Nancy and Sue Ellen are his nurses. Marcia is his mother. This list does not annoy him; it shames him. He would have forgotten his mother’s birthday. He would have neglected his nurses. It reminds him of Susan’s vigilance, her constancy of concern that anchors the family. She is the custodian of their needs – sunblock, hair clips, a blocked sink. How could he have forgotten how caring and careful she is, how mindful of what needs to be done, what needs to be purchased? Ruefully, he presses the paper to his lips and thrusts the list into his pocket.

  He returns to the deserted lawn, alone and lonely. He realizes that he misses Susan, misses his family. It is a welcome realization. He will make amends. He and Susan will edge out of this inexplicable marital maze and find a pathway home. He takes the list out of his pocket and reads it yet again, this time with an appreciative smile.

  Andrea and Mark, Donny and Wendy stand before Adam’s grave. Walking through the cemetery, along the quiet pebbled paths lined with carefully pruned boxwood, they passed a stooped, white-haired woman kneeling and weeping beside a grave, her fingers fretting their way through a rosary. On an adjacent plot a young couple stood with their heads bowed before the very small marble footstone that surely marks the grave of a child. The man held a slender black leather-bound prayer book from which he read, his lips barely moving. His wife swayed and he reached out and held her close, continuing to read, his very soft voice matching the keening rhythm of her body. Wendy wishes that they themselves had the comfort of words of devotion, that there was something they could say that might assuage their grief, but they are not a family with such soothing resources. Instead, they stand together (yet separately) in silence, their heads bowed, Adam’s bereft parents, his widow and the son who does not remember him, dry eyed and heavy hearted. It is Donny who steps forward and places his hand on his father’s gravestone.