‘I’m really sorry that you’re dead, Daddy,’ he says in his high, sweet voice.
Andrea gasps, Mark winces and Wendy places her arm about her son’s narrow shoulders.
‘We’re all sorry, Donny, honey,’ she murmurs.
And then, having admired the new bench, inhaled the smell of the wood, passed their fingers across the carpenter’s skillful carving of Adam’s name, they busy themselves with spades and trowels. Donny plucks up a few weeds and tosses them away just as Daniel walks up to them.
He greets Andrea and Mark with a nod, smiles at Wendy.
‘Ready to go up to Franconia Notch, Donny?’ he asks, and grins as Donny nods eagerly, waves to his grandparents and his mother.
‘Here are the directions,’ he tells Wendy. ‘We’ll see you there later.’
‘Of course,’ she assures him.
She watches them walk off, the tall man slowing his stride to keep pace with Donny, inclining his head to better hear the boy’s excited chatter.
‘How are they getting there?’ Andrea asks suddenly.
‘On Daniel’s motorbike.’
‘Is that safe? Don’t you care that you’re placing your child in danger? Wasn’t it bad enough that you left him alone during that awful storm so that you could be with your lover? Now you allow him to ride off with that man on a motorbike.’
Andrea’s voice is strident, accusative. She covers her mouth with her hand as though to silence herself. Her color is high as though her own words have shocked her. Lover. That man. However accurate they may be – and she believes that they are accurate – she should not have uttered them. She flinches from the disapproval she sees on Mark’s face. She has not maintained her dignity, a great offense in his eyes and her own.
Wendy sets down her trowel, her eyes ablaze with anger, her heart beating rapidly. The unspent fury of years of silence washes over her in a massive wave and she struggles for breath, seeks to soar above it, but she knows that it will not ebb. Words spew forth in a voice that she does not recognize.
‘I have never placed Donny in danger. And Daniel Goldner is not my lover. How dare you, you of all people, talk to me about endangering my child? Who are you to pass judgment on me? Do you know why we are here today, dutiful guardians of a grave? Do you know why Adam died?’
Andrea trembles and leans against her husband, who holds up his hand warningly, as though to silence Wendy, but she ignores him. She moves closer toward them, her rage replaced with sorrow. She speaks softly now, as though a harsher tone might shatter the brittle and dangerous words so long unsaid.
‘It was because you were such lousy parents, because you didn’t give a damn about Adam when he was alive. You, both of you, might as well have been behind the wheel of his car because in the end it was you who killed him.’
Tears streak her cheeks but she can breathe. It is as though a crushing weight has been lifted from her heart. Andrea and Mark stare at her, Andrea very pale, Mark’s cheeks mottled, his arm raised as though at any moment he might move to strike her. Instead he looks hard at Wendy and when he speaks his voice is dangerously calm.
‘You are saying terrible, unforgivable things, Wendy. I cannot imagine what you are talking about. You have no right to speak to us in such a manner.’
‘Then I’ll tell you what I’m talking about,’ Wendy says, the evenness of her tone matching the calm of his. ‘I am sure you know, Mark, that Adam was drunk when he died, that he lost control of the car because his alcohol blood level was sky high. And he was drunk because drinking was what he could do best. He learned the secrets of clever, secret drinking when he was still in grade school. Don’t you think he watched you, Andrea, filling your small crystal glasses with vodka and, occasionally, even daring to use a water glass? How fortunate for you that vodka is colorless and that it doesn’t stink. So Adam learned that one way to deal with misery, one way to deal with loneliness and fear, is to simply get numb, to drink and drink until it doesn’t hurt any more. After all, that’s what you did, and if it worked for you it could work for him. Adam remembered being all alone in that big house, that well-kept beautiful home. With you sprawled on the bed, too drunk to drive him to play dates, to after-school activities, but never too drunk to miss a hairdresser appointment or your facial in Portsmouth on the last Thursday of the month. Adam remembered that. And you were never too drunk to drive to New York and play the role of the perfect hostess when Mark needed you. Adam knew that his father, the venture capitalist, money manager to the monied, had to be the picture of propriety and stability.’
‘I think you’ve said quite enough.’
Mark turns his back on her but Wendy will not be silenced.
‘Mark, you had to know it wasn’t enough to breeze up to New Hampshire every couple of weeks with expensive toys, with sweets and treats, just so that you could con yourself into believing that Adam was OK with the crazy life you and Andrea had worked out. You had to realize how sad and alone he was. How he had to find a way out of that sadness.’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Andrea hisses. She clutches Mark’s arm. Her cheeks are flushed and red hives of anger dapple her neck. ‘Adam was fine. A terrific student. High school with honors, Harvard with honors. A novel published when he was only two years out of college. His life was on track. Until he met you. Until you tricked him into marriage like the manipulative little bitch you are.’
She is relieved to have at last given voice to that firm conviction, unarticulated over all these long and silent years. Adam’s death was Wendy’s fault; it is Wendy, that little nobody from nowhere, who is to blame for the loss of her son. That ungrateful bitch who lives in her house and cashes her checks. Exhausted, she sits down on the bench, her head resting against the deeply etched letters that spell out ADAM.
Wendy reaches into the basket of bulbs, selects one and places it tenderly in the earth before replying. Her voice is calm, her tone regretful. But she will speak. This is the hour of truth-telling.
‘He wasn’t fine. He wasn’t all right. A boy who lives in silence, in isolation, is never all right. That’s another lesson he learned from you. How to pretend to be fine. How to put on a show. He even pretended to himself. He wasn’t an alcoholic, he told himself. He just liked a drink. Every now and then, until every now and then became every hour. You’d taught him the secret of very small glasses. You’d taught him the secret of vodka so he could pretend the way that you had pretended, the way you still pretend. And he sure as hell pretended to me.’
‘You must have been singularly naïve,’ Mark observes dryly.
‘I was. Singularly naïve. Who was I? A scholarship student from a small Midwestern town. I was barely twenty years old. What did I know? What could I know? But I learned pretty quickly. I had married a writer who didn’t write. He didn’t know how to live in a family because he’d never lived in a family. He drank. He blamed everyone for everything that went wrong in his life, but he especially blamed you. And then he began to blame me, and I told him that I couldn’t live like that. I couldn’t live with the drinking; I couldn’t live with the anger. Finally, I gave him an ultimatum. He’d have to do something or I’d leave him. I said that at about two o’clock on that August afternoon when Donny was playing with building blocks on the living-room floor. Adam was already drunk; he’d already dropped a glass and a shard of glass just missed Donny’s eye. I didn’t want him to blind our son. I didn’t want him to destroy our lives. “Get help or get out,” I yelled. He was scared because there was blood on Donny’s cheek, scared enough to realize I meant what I was saying, scared enough to look hard at me and say that he’d do just that. He talked about rehab, about therapy, and then he said that his first step was going to be to drive up to New Hampshire and confront the both of you. He knew you were there, Mark. Your usual monthly visit. He wanted to tell you how you had screwed up his life. I told him not to go. I told him he was too drunk to drive and then I left because I had to take Donny to the doctor.
I even took the car keys with me, but of course he had another set. When you called later that day, I let the phone ring three times, four times, because I knew what you were going to tell me. I knew that there had been an accident. And five minutes later I knew that Donny’s father was dead and I was a widow.’
Tears streak her face. Her throat is dry. She does not look at Adam’s parents who sit huddled together on the bench, Andrea blinking like a small child who has just walked out of the darkness into sudden and searing light.
‘How dare you speak to us like that?’ she asks, her voice broken now. ‘After all we’ve done for you.’
‘You did what you had to do,’ Wendy replies. ‘Donny is your grandson. You gave him a home. You bought your way out of guilt. But you won’t have to make payments for much longer. I’ll be able to support my son.’
She turns away from them, picks up the trowel and carefully, methodically, she sets the young plants in place. The nursery owner has already rooted the small conifer and she encircles it with tulip bulbs. Mark and Andrea do not move from the bench, their faces frozen into masks of grief. Her work done, Wendy stands and looks at them, pity and sorrow heavy upon her heart.
They drive back to the inn without speaking. It is quite possible, Wendy thinks, that they will never speak again. The charade of their relationship is over. Andrea and Mark leave the car at the entry to the inn without saying a word to her and she drives away without looking back. She wants to reach Franconia Notch in time for the picnic lunch. She is, quite suddenly, ravenously hungry.
Jeff Edwards, seated alone on the lawn, waiting for the phone call from the hospital, watches the Templetons enter the inn, watches Wendy drive off. An hour and a half later, he watches as the village’s only taxi pulls up and Mark and Andrea Templeton, dressed for travel, emerge from the inn. Andrea wears the same silk mauve pant suit she had worn when she arrived and Mark has dressed carefully in his trademark beige linen jacket and well-pressed slacks. The driver hoists their suitcases and garment bags and drives away. The distinguished-looking, silver-haired elderly couple sit far apart on the rear seat of the cab and Jeff notes that they do not look at each other.
Franconia Notch does not disappoint. It is a wild wonderland of jagged mountain peaks standing vigil above patches of forest. Ancient rock formations jut their way out of sere earth to abut majestic pines. Mount Haven Inn vacationers split up to follow different trails and passes, each approach lined with trees, the sheltering canopies of leaves already laced with the early scarlet and golden borders of autumn foliage. Overhead flocks of Canada geese scissor their way south through the clear sky. Their wings beat their way through lazily floating white clouds gilded by sunlight.
Most of the hikers dutifully trek after the earnest forest ranger who conscientiously explains the geological origins of the rugged range. Susan barely listens. She keeps pace with Matt, who clutches her hand tightly as though the pressure of his touch might assuage the sadness he perceives in his mother’s face. She remembers a camping vacation during the early days of her marriage, probably when Jeff was still an intern, when they had fearlessly hiked mountain trails. Jeff had led the way, now bursting into song, now pausing for rest on a sun-drenched boulder. She is sad that he is not with them. This is his kind of day. But he had little choice. She knows that his first responsibility is to his patient. She should have told him that she understood that much. She sighs and Matt tugs her hand.
‘Don’t be sad, Mommy,’ he says.
‘I’m not,’ she lies and wonders why it is that only Matt, of their three children, is sensitive to the tension that has shadowed this vacation.
Perhaps it is because Annette and Jeremy have already plunged into the emotional whirlpool of their own yearnings; their parents are no longer the anchors of their lives. The dynamics of their family have changed, the dynamics of their marriage shifted. She should be neither surprised nor disheartened. Not after the months she has spent translating LeBec’s portrait of a marriage and the novelist’s reluctant, almost clichéd conclusion. Plus ça change, tout c’est la même chose. Everything changes, everything remains the same. Every marriage is fragile. Change, LeBec had emphasized, does not mean dissolution. Fragility does not mean divorce.
Susan bends, kisses the top of Matt’s head and watches as her daughter and Paul Epstein veer off on to a narrow ridge, separating themselves from the rest of their group.
Pleased to be alone on this rough pathway, Annette and Paul walk hand in hand. Brittle, wind-tossed leaves flutter to the ground and a small heart-shaped crimson maple leaf settles in Annette’s hair. Paul plucks it loose and puts it in his pocket.
‘To remind me of you. In the winter,’ he says, blushing at her gaze.
‘I won’t need a leaf to remind me of you,’ she says softly.
She knows that this summer, these August days, will be her precious legacy through the weeks and months to come. Always she will remember this season of her awakening to tenderness, to the power of gentle touch, of a boy’s soft voice, his hand resting upon her own as they stood together in a wilderness of berry bushes.
Paul says nothing. They have no need for words. Instead he stoops, picks up an acorn and hands it to her. She smiles and puts it in her pocket. Years later, probably, she will find it in the bottom of her jewelry box, a mysterious souvenir of these magic August days.
They return to the picnic area where the rest of the group has already assembled.
Energized by their hike, their faces ruddied by wind and sun, they all help Louise and Evan set out the food. Greg surveys the area and settles on a tree at a remove from the picnic tables. He hammers the dart board into place, checks the wooden box of newly sharpened darts and, satisfied, turns to Cary, Matt and Donny who have trailed after him.
‘Ready for the big contest?’ he asks.
‘Aren’t we going to wait for my mom?’ Donny glances nervously toward the road leading to the parking area.
Daniel stands there, leaning against his motorcycle. He too is waiting for Wendy and they both smile as her car makes its way up the road. She gets out and Daniel notes at once the pallor of her face, the newly etched worry lines about her eyes. He waits as Donny rushes forward to hug her, to talk excitedly about the hike to the gorge, how he and Matt and Cary collected really cool rocks, how this was the greatest place he’d ever been. She listens, smiles and watches him dash back to his friends. Only then does Daniel go up to her.
‘Did something happen?’ he asks. ‘Was it bad?’
‘Yes. Something happened. And it was bad.’
‘Perhaps not as bad as you think.’
‘I told them the truth. A very dangerous thing to have done.’
‘Are you sorry?’
‘No. I’m relieved. It was time that they understood what it was like for Adam; time that they understood how wounded and vulnerable he was. I wanted them to know what it was like for me, for us and, I’ll be honest, I think I wanted to punish them. I wanted them to acknowledge their responsibility. I broke their code of silence and talked about her drinking, about Adam’s drinking. And I didn’t let myself off the hook. I told them about the threat I made that very last day of his life. They will not forgive me for that and they know now that I have never forgiven them for how they failed him over the years. So it was sad. Very sad. Sad for me. Sad for them. And the end of our pretending to be a family. The masquerade is over.’
Her voice is calm but he sees that she is shivering although her pale-blue shirt is stained with sweat. He takes off his cardigan and drapes it over her trembling shoulders.
‘You’ll be all right,’ he says.
‘I know. I know.’
Together, but not touching, they walk back to the group at the picnic table and, without asking, he pours a cup of hot coffee from Louise’s huge thermos and gives it to her, watching patiently as she drinks it down.
As the drink warms her, she looks up at him and sees the concern on his face.
This is what
it is like to be cared for, she thinks as he takes his handkerchief and wipes a drop of coffee from the corner of her mouth. A man offers you a hot drink and watches as you drink it.
The picnic spread is ample. They are ravenous and they consume Louise’s sandwiches and pastries with abandon. Evan is the jovial host, producing a carafe of newly fermented sparkling cider and toasting his wife and their guests.
‘To next year,’ he calls out, lifting his glass.
‘To next year,’ they echo.
It is their pledge, renewed each year, an oath of allegiance to these August days when memory and hope are magically commingled.
‘Your in-laws didn’t come with you?’ Michael asks Wendy.
‘I think they were tired,’ she replies but she does not meet his eyes.
Liane looks at him with concern but he places a reassuring arm on her shoulder.
‘It’s all right,’ he says and wonders if he is reassuring her or himself.
‘Of course it’s all right,’ Simon Epstein interjects, his voice authoritative. ‘Every kink’s been worked out. Mark is going to back you. He’d be a fool not to. Hey, the check is in the mail. And if he doesn’t kick in someone else will. I guarantee it.’
Michael laughs, embarrassed by his insecurity, and Liane smiles. No need to worry. They are no longer adrift on the waters of uncertainty. They have landed on safe shores.
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