by Nancy Geary
“I wanted to speak with you before you and your mother left,” Bill said. His tone had changed, and he spoke with a deliberate cadence. “Much as I still think of you as my little girl, you’re not. You’re about to be married and living on your own. I’m proud of you and I want you to be happy.”
What do you really want to say? she wanted to scream, but she kept her mouth shut. She’d seen this ritualistic dance before—once when he’d disapproved of her continuing to see Dr. Frank and again when he’d wanted her to end her relationship with Carl. He had a predictable way of approaching what he considered hard topics, father-daughter differences, and she could always tell when the explosion was about to occur. Then his tone would change to an artificial sweetness, a transparent friendliness, as he forced himself to remain in control.
“I think you’re aware that the Cabots want you to sign a prenuptial agreement. Jim called me a second time last night. I want to make sure you understand what the document is and why it’s important to them.”
“Jack and I have discussed it. He doesn’t want it and neither do I.” She felt relieved. If this was the issue, this conversation could end quickly. She glanced at her watch. In forty minutes they’d be leaving for Boston for her bridal shower, another unwelcome ritual hosted by her half-sister. But anything was better than prolonging this discussion. Or almost anything.
“That’s not the point.” He puffed again on his pipe and then removed his tortoiseshell glasses. “I want you to sign it,” he said with a particular emphasis on “I.”
“Why?” She stared at him. According to Jack, the Cabots had imposed the prenuptial as a way to control them both and to keep her in line, as if she cared about his money. If she’d learned anything in the last year, it was that the things that mattered had no price, high or low.
“Because the Cabots don’t want you to marry without one. I think under the circumstances we should abide by their wishes. And quite frankly, I don’t blame them. You’re lucky to still have Jack after your stint with that fisherman.”
“Carl is a lobsterman,” she said, knowing it hardly made a difference. To her family, Carl was a blight, regardless of his occupation.
“That’s not my point. What I am trying to explain to you is that given your foolishness, your recklessness, whatever it is you want to call that… that…,” he stammered.
She wanted to defend her relationship with Carl but knew she couldn’t. That he brought her pleasure in a way she’d never imagined possible, that she could escape reality by losing herself in rapture, were attributes she couldn’t admit even to herself. And she also knew that despite the joy of an hour here or there, a moment stolen with him where she could feel transported, the relationship filled her with nightmares. Feeling his arms around her could just as easily evoke the darkest, most hateful moments of her life. Continuing involvement with him meant eternal damnation. The circumstances of her life had to change, but it didn’t mean the end didn’t hurt.
Bill stood up abruptly. He walked to the fireplace and stood with his back to her. “Your mother and I have tried to impart our sense of values to you. We’ve had high aspirations for you. We’ve wanted you to belong to this community, this society, to continue our heritage. Our friends have worked hard to accomplish a great deal. While they and we have succeeded, we haven’t become gaudy. Our community isn’t ostentatious, and that’s important. Modesty, a commitment to philanthropy, an understanding of history, we’ve wanted you to appreciate that.” He turned and stared at her. “The Cabots are part of this society. Jack is precisely the type of man you should marry.”
“Jack thinks the prenuptial is unnecessary,” she repeated.
“His parents just want the certainty that you’re not going to run off, abandoning their son and taking his money, too.”
Where would I go? she wanted to ask. Certainly not home. “I would never do that.”
“You and I know that, but they don’t know you like I do.” He walked over and touched the top of her head, running his fingers along her scalp. It sent a ripple of repulsion through her. “Just make them happy. This marriage is in your best interest. You don’t want him to change his mind. So I think you should accommodate whatever conditions are placed upon it. You’ve been raised in privilege. You don’t know what it’s like to worry about money. As Jack’s wife, you won’t have to. Don’t jeopardize that.” She thought she heard him sigh as he walked to the bookcase, unstopped a crystal decanter, and poured himself an ounce of Scotch. “If you’d stayed with Carl, it would have killed your mother. Me too. We couldn’t bear to see you with someone so unworthy, someone beneath you.”
Kill him? If only it had.
“You may put blinders on to the way the world works, but your life would’ve been ruined. You would be ostracized from the community you know and relegated to a life of hardship. You may think you could have survived on love alone, but you can’t. That’s unrealistic. Romance ends quickly, I can assure you, and if you don’t have shared values, a shared social life, and a mutual interest in establishing a household, it’s over. You and Carl had none of that, but you and Jack have it all. You’ll be friends long after the honeymoon’s over.”
What did her father know about marriage? She’d rather be alone than in a relationship like that of her parents.
“Hope, you’re a dreamer. But it’s time I gave you a lesson in practicality. Jack is the best thing that’s ever happened to you. You’ll be very lucky to be his wife, and you can’t forget that. Not for a moment. He’ll take care of you.”
She heard the subtext of his comment: You’re damaged. You’re complicated. You have secrets nobody knows or should know. Take what you can, because you may end up with nothing. He wanted to pass her off safely and quietly to Jack to live happily ever after as pillars of society. She could think of all she wanted to say but couldn’t force the words from her mouth. Once again she’d failed to defend herself. She was weak, emotionally paralyzed, and she deserved to be the sacrificial lamb. “You care more about Jack than you do about me,” she said quietly, wondering if she would faint.
“Don’t be absurd.”
She stood and walked over to him. His face was flushed, and the lines around his eyes had deepened. He suddenly looked older. You have to accept who I am. It’s not who you want me to be, she thought. “If Jack had asked me to sign it, I’d feel differently. But he didn’t.”
“Jim and Fiona are going to call off the wedding.”
“Then we’ll just live together.”
“Over my dead body!” he shouted, raising his hand. She closed her eyes, flinching in anticipation. They were silent. She stood frozen, waiting for the sound of a slap, the burning sensation on her cheek; but they didn’t come. He had moved away from her, lived up to the deal he’d struck to remain in control. When he spoke again, his voice was low and firm. “You’re going to do what is required of you to see that this marriage happens. Do I make myself clear?”
She stared at him, realizing that she wanted never to be fearful again. Despite his words and his temper, she couldn’t let herself be terrorized. That period in her life was over. She didn’t have to obey.
Penelope Lawrence’s hands trembled as she placed the last platter on the table. The pile of thinly sliced, lightly toasted, crustless sandwiches, each with a minuscule slice of salmon, a dollop of cream cheese, and a piece of watercress, was one of more than a dozen delicate snack foods arranged on sterling trays around a centerpiece of white lilies. Several bottles of champagne chilling in silver coolers, a glass pitcher of orange juice, and a three-tiered white cake with butter cream trellis and roses adorned the sideboard. In the bay window, gifts wrapped in white, pink, and gold paper with oversize bows were stacked three boxes deep. The perfect bridal shower; how lovely of you to do this for your half sister, she could hear the guests say. As if she’d had a choice. Her mother had made it clear in no uncertain terms that she was to give the party. “That you’re making this effort means the world
to Hope,” she’d added disingenuously.
The whole idea of a bridal shower seemed absurd. Hope and Jack had invited more than three hundred people to their wedding. They had received dozens of gifts already, more sterling, crystal, porcelain, toasters, carving sets, guest towels, and 310-count linens than any couple could ever use, plus so many duplicates that anything they might need could be gotten with the exchange. Yet Penelope had spent her entire week getting ready for this gathering of women to bring more presents. They would pass the day cooing over one another’s selections, laughing at Hope’s staged reactions, drinking too much, and lavishing the bride-to-be with praise and attention she didn’t deserve. She wanted to scream.
Her eyes wandered around the room, the high ceilings and detailed molding of the single space that served as living and dining rooms in her Marlborough Street apartment. She’d bought the two-bedroom floor-through on the sunny side of the street in Boston’s Back Bay two years before, when her bonus for billing nearly three thousand hours covered her down payment. It was a good investment, a prime location between Arlington and Berkeley Streets just steps from the Boston Public Garden. She liked urban living but occasionally wondered whether her money would have been better spent on new construction, something with an office, a separate guest bedroom, and a backyard for her two cats to explore, a home in an affluent western suburb along the Massachusetts Turnpike with an easy commute. She wouldn’t consider the towns along Cape Ann. Too many bad memories. There were times when she felt as if she’d barely made it off the North Shore with her sanity and judgment intact. Visits home were more than enough to remind her of why she’d left.
But the houses she’d looked at in Wellesley and Weston reinforced that she was alone. Only married people moved to the suburbs. They wanted good school systems, safe neighborhoods. They wanted a house with a family room. Even the Realtor seemed apologetic when she showed her house after house with kitchens that opened into a casual living area. She didn’t need her old maid status thrown in her face more than it already was.
The doorbell rang.
She glanced at herself in the mirror. She’d been told she’d inherited the Pratt family’s handsome features—chestnut hair, dark eyes, and full eyebrows. “You’re exotic,” Adelaide had said, trying to be comforting, but the comment had hardly ameliorated her feelings as an adolescent that she didn’t fit the norm. Manchester was filled with blond girls with button noses and complexions that looked radiant in pale pink. Even though she’d grown accustomed to her reflection over the years, she’d never adjusted to the real import of Adelaide’s comment, her implicit suggestion that she was the lesser daughter. While she could tell her that she loved both girls equally, in the words of George Orwell’s pigs, Hope was more equal than she. Whatever she’d accomplished—her magna cum laude law school degree, her appointment to head the corporate law section of the Women’s Bar Association—seemed inadequate to elevate her status. She wasn’t born with Bill Lawrence’s genes, and nothing could change that simple fact.
She forced a smile of welcome and opened the door.
Her living room was filled with just the sorts of women she’d imagined when she’d sent out the invitations to a guest list that Adelaide supplied: There was the older generation, friends of Adelaide and Bill’s, who’d known Hope her whole life, women with bleached, immobile hair that seemed to stand up off their foreheads, wide gold necklaces and wrists engulfed in bangles, legs encased in flesh-toned stockings despite the summer weather. These women wore bright pink lipstick and cardigan sweaters. Then there was the flock of Hope’s friends, preppy, thin girls in capri pants or Lilly Pulitzer wrap skirts with a single strand of pearls around their necks, girls who wanted to know every detail of Hope’s big day. She was one of the first among her peers to marry and so was showered with all the pent-up attention of twenty-somethings anxious for their own walks down the aisle.
Four bottles of champagne had been drained and most of the food consumed, but not a single compliment had been thrown Penelope’s way. They seemed to take for granted the preparation, flowers, monogrammed paper napkins, all the trappings on which she’d spent time and money. In fact, she’d been made to feel as if her presence were irrelevant. She hadn’t been asked a single question about her legal work, her recent election to the firm’s associates committee. Nobody seemed to care that she was scheduled to close on a $200 million deal to develop a mixed-use parcel on the South Boston waterfront, a deal that had been more than three years in the making and had required so many late nights that she’d used her own money to buy a couch to sleep on in her already cramped office. All the news she would have been so proud to share went unspoken.
Matters worsened when she overheard Fiona remark with some degree of disdain in her voice that the decor was “clearly contemporary. Not what we’re used to on the North Shore,” she said, her laughter causing a slight snort to escape through her nose. The other woman, whom Penelope didn’t recognize, glanced around the room at its neutral tones, sisal rug, and embroidered throw pillows and nodded in agreement. She’d wanted to defend herself and her choice of understated furniture. It was meant to highlight the eclectic art and sculpture that she’d gathered on her travels—treks in Nepal, Patagonia, wherever she could go with an organized tour that had space for a single woman. Interior design isn’t only about chintz and English antiques, she’d wanted to shout, but such an outburst seemed futile. Instead, she sank farther into her chair.
“Penelope…” Her mother’s stage whisper broke her musings. “I think you should know that your behavior isn’t going unnoticed. At least not by me.”
“I’m not sure what you mean. If consumption is a benchmark, everyone seems to be having a wonderful time.”
“You know exactly what I mean. You may have picked the finest strawberries Deluca’s had to offer, which I apprecíate, but you’ve exuded hostility from the moment we walked in the door. This is supposed to be a joyous time, and you are not being joyful.”
Penelope glared at Adelaide. How dare she? The efforts and generosity of the shower were the limit of her pretending. Her emotions couldn’t be scripted, too. As she looked at her mother’s pinched lips and stern expression, she felt a surge of rage, an anger born of living under such controlled pretense for years.
“Now pull yourself together and join in the celebration,” she said, moving away from Penelope through the crowd.
The bride-to-be looked serene in a loose linen blouse, cropped pants, and needlepoint loafers as she perched on an ottoman surrounded by wrapping paper. She opened a box from Victoria’s Secret and held the white lace negligee against her chest.
“Oh,” Adelaide exclaimed loudly, covering her mouth with her hand in feigned embarrassment. Several women giggled.
Hope blushed and put the lingerie back in its pink tissue.
“Jack will love that,” Penelope said, knowing her words were true.
It had been nearly two years since she’d slept with Jack, but she cherished memories of that summer. He and Hope had broken up when he’d discovered her infidelity. If she’d been honest with herself, she should have recognized that she could never take Hope’s place, but she’d welcomed the attention nevertheless. He’d bought her the only fancy lingerie she owned—a pair of silk French knickers with white lace in just the right places. For months after their breakup, she’d written to him, asking—no, begging—him to take her back. She’d highlighted the deficiencies of her younger sister, her vulnerabilities and neuroses, and outlined her own strengths. Even after he’d proposed, she’d sent several letters pleading for him to reconsider: She would make the better wife. She would never cheat on him. But he’d neither responded nor even acknowledged that he’d received them.
Penelope excused herself to no one in particular and then stood for a moment, wondering if someone might offer to help with the cleanup, the coffee preparation. Nobody appeared to notice her exit. She slipped into the kitchen and began to clear plates, wrap the few l
eftovers, and load the dishwasher. As she turned on the cycle, the sound of the water filling her Bosch reminded her of that day.
She’d been ten the summer Hope had her seventh birthday. The day before, Adelaide had errands to run, and they’d been left with some $2-an-hour baby-sitter. Why hadn’t the sisters gone to the Field and Hunt Club to play by the swimming pool, order grilled cheese and boxes of spearmint leaves, and pass the morning? Penelope couldn’t remember what had kept them from their likely destination. Instead, they’d gone to Singing Beach. They’d dragged their feet in the soft sand to hear the chanting sound for which the place was named. Penelope had helped Hope splash in the salty waves as their baby-sitter flirted at the lifeguard station.
Waiting on line at the Good Humor truck, Hope looked up and stared directly into her eyes. Penelope could still remember her slightly sunburned cheeks, the smattering of summertime freckles. “Mummy and Daddy love me more than you,” she’d said matter-of-factly.
“How do you know?”
“I can’t tell you, but I just do.”
Penelope hadn’t protested or been able to challenge her sister. Whether Hope had overheard her parents talking or whether she’d learned from some other source, Penelope knew the comment was true. She’d felt a sinking feeling, a weight so heavy that she couldn’t even nibble her toasted almond stick, then a wave of nausea and pressure behind her skull as her sadness had turned to anger.
After lunch, they’d climbed the enormous rocks at the far end of the crescent-shaped beach. Penelope had watched the waves break against the jagged stones and the thick patches of seaweed flow with the tide. Hope had scampered over the surfaces, looking for flat rocks to sit on or gulls’ nests to stare at, oblivious to the hurtful impact she’d made. As Penelope had struggled to keep up with her, her thoughts turned. A delicate seven-year-old could slip and easily fall, disappear below the ocean’s surface in a fleeting moment, the sounds of the waves obscuring any cry for help. A horrible accident, but one for which Penelope couldn’t really be blamed. If anything, the distracted baby-sitter would suffer the consequences. She’d imagined the fall, limbs flailing, perhaps a finger struggling to grasp hold of a crag on the way down. It took every ounce of her rational side not to set such a course in motion with a push.