The Wide Circumference of Love

by Marita Golden

  Sean scanned his father periodically, ensuring that he hadn’t unlocked the passenger side door or wiggled out of his seat belt or wet himself. Long, tender silences settled between them as they drove around the city. But he couldn’t trust the silence. He hoped the cerebral backlog of memory didn’t set his father on edge, agitate him, or fill his eyes with tears.

  On the corner of Ninth and H Street N.W., Gregory looks up at the twelve-story building that has greedily taken possession of the width and length of the entire block. The cold efficiency and pompous grandeur of the structure makes him dizzy as he stares up at it. Why is the building here? Where is Doggett’s rugged gravel and earth parking lot? Where is Security Bank? The sensation of bewilderment and waste descends. Emotions and thoughts that never find a solid place to land strangle him. In the grip of this terrible sense of loss and bereavement, he cannot tell this one beside him, the one who acts like his son and calls him Dad, although Gregory knows they are, in fact, the same age. He can never tell any of them—not the woman who calls him Daddy or the woman who was something important to him, which he feels deep inside but can no longer recall. He has learned how to deceive them as they came to him, diplomats from a region beyond reason or dreams. He won’t ask the young man what happened to the bank, the parking lot, the liquor store. He sits wondering as he does every day how he will find Mercer, how Mercer will ever find him.

  As they drove past a construction site on Massachusetts Avenue, Sean told Gregory, “Dad, a man fell into a hole there last week and died.”

  His father had always told him that the men and women who actually did the work that transformed his drawings into buildings worked fourteen- to sixteen-hour days. Stamina, strength, and courage was required, he said, and yet most people saw them in their hard hats, their jeans, and looked quickly past their sweat-drenched faces and grimy hands. The pedestrians who passed the construction sites, unaware that craftsmen and artists were at work, could not imagine the intelligence, delicacy, and precision of thought required to mount and work a crane, to work sixteen stories high, to check the wiring in a building with three hundred units.

  The din of construction on the site of the National Museum of African American History and Culture on Fifteenth and Constitution Avenue drove Gregory to place his hands over his ears to block out the sounds that once he had loved because, as he had told Sean, it meant a building was being born. Circling the area teeming with tourists, Sean found a parking space a block away and he and Gregory sat in the shadow of the museum. Each story of the structure, designed like an inverted crown, leaned outward, the burnished grill and iron squares, protruding like molded sunbeams. Sean still preferred his father’s design, which had arched boldly skyward.

  “Dad, that building is where our history will be told. One day, I came here and watched them lower a Jim Crow train car, the whole thing, onto the lower level.”

  Gregory folded his arms at his chest and pointed to the structure. “I made that,” he said proudly, narrowing his eyes in studied assessment. So the hundreds of hours Caldwell & Tate had spent on their design, their bid for one of the world’s most prestigious architectural projects had not been forgotten. His father had gotten it all wrong but, in a manner that made Sean smile in satisfaction, he had gotten it right.

  On days like this, Sean gave his father all he had. And he took all that his father was, a fractured husk of a man. Valerie had dared him to “love what was left” of his father. That’s what he was trying to do.

  When Sean parked in front of his parents’ house, Gregory peered out the window and said, “Home,” a lilt of indecision in his voice. Gregory stood for several moments leaning on the car and looking at the house.

  Camille Baker, their next door neighbor, hurried down her front stairs and exclaimed, “Why, Gregory, it’s so good to see you. Diane told me where you are now. I’m so sorry I haven’t had a chance to visit you. You look good, you look so well. I saw Diane leave a few hours ago. Sean, I’m so glad to see you are taking such good care of your father.” This torrent of words drove Gregory to cling to Sean as though dodging an assault.

  “Thanks, Camille. Let’s go inside, Dad.”

  In his mother’s bedroom, Sean placed a stack of his father’s lightweight clothing in an overnight bag. Gregory inspected the bedroom with benign curiosity, then used the toilet. When Gregory came out of the bathroom, he wandered over to the bedroom door and stood, his hands rubbing the place that still bore evidence of the lock Diane had installed.

  “I couldn’t get in.”

  “She loved you, Dad. It wasn’t you she was afraid of. It wasn’t really you.”

  Today her husband would meet her lover.

  Even as she so neatly thought of what was about to happen, Diane knew that this day was fraught with possibilities for closure and confusion. She never used the word lover when she talked about Alan. Yet in her mind, she played with the word. Lover. A word that was so much more generous and complicated than the sexual overtones it evoked. She felt beloved, respected, and cared for. The damning emotional isolation had been replaced by a personal revival.

  Alan was in her life and an integral part of it. They had met each other’s friends; she had attended his high school reunion in Paterson, New Jersey. He and Sean had attended a hockey game, and Paula, Lauren, Sean, Valerie, and Cameron had joined them for a birthday celebration dinner for Diane that Alan hosted at a Cuban restaurant in Silver Spring. They talked every day, and she regularly spent weekends at his house. She had met his neighbors, who smiled knowingly as they walked down the stairs some evenings toward Alan’s car.

  That this day would come, had to come, was an unspoken expectation rooted inevitably between them. She relied on Alan for advice, yet had long sequestered what they had from whatever was left with Gregory. This zone they had created was a fortress, but one that camouflaged a fragility she did not want to test. His mother had died of Alzheimer’s-related complications. He had been to the hell, so her reports from her own purgatory were unnecessary. She had given Gregory so much, and the prospect of giving more loomed large and dark on her horizon. To invite Gregory into what she and Alan had felt like a betrayal of them both. Still, if Alan wanted her in his life, her husband would have to come with her.

  Alan stepped through the door into the hallway and hugged Diane, who rested in his customarily extravagant embrace. Each meeting between them had the feel of a reunion, and Diane longed for a simpler greeting, one that signaled more confidence that what they had would last.

  “Come on back to the kitchen. I made iced tea and I have some empanadas, those small meat pies. We can have a quick bite before we go.”

  Alan removed his jacket and cap and tossed them on the living room sofa and then wandered into Gregory’s study, its walls covered with plaques, trophies, and framed newspaper articles about the buildings Caldwell & Tate had helped design and build.

  “He was a real trailblazer. I’m intimidated whenever I come in this room.” He laughed uneasily. This confession unsettled Diane, and so she reached for Alan, slipping her arm through his and leading him back to the kitchen.

  “What’s all this?” he asked, pointing to a stack of textbooks.

  “I’m choosing books for the courses I’ll teach in the fall.”

  Alan stood thumbing through them. “You sound excited.”

  “I am.”

  “Thank you for inviting me along today. I’ve wanted to see Gregory again. Of course, not like this, but you know.” He reached for the pitcher and filled a glass that Diane handed him.

  Diane placed three empanadas each on small plates, one in front of her and one in front of Alan.

  “Remember when I told you that Gregory thinks a woman at Somersby is his wife?

  “Yes, I do.”

  “A week ago I discovered that it isn’t just something in his head. She, this woman, she’s having sex with Gregory.”

  “Well, good for him.”

  “Yes, it is,” she said w
eakly

  “You don’t sound convinced.”

  “I am. I am.” The declaration rushed out.

  The evening Diane had discovered Wallis and Gregory in bed together remained an offensive jolt in her memory. As she’d approached Gregory’s door she heard the muffled moans, deep and throaty and began walking faster, fearing that Gregory was in distress. Reaching for the doorknob, the other voice, a gritty murmur, morphed into a high-pitched, ecstatic squeal. Gently opening the door, she’d seen a woman’s bare, fleshy back and the outline of the woman’s broad hips, straddling the figure beneath her. Gregory’s hands, grasping in the shadowy darkness, slithered around the woman’s waist. She knew the woman was Wallis. A tremor of quiet laughter filled her throat at the sight and the idea of these two wayward, lost souls engaged in intercourse. The laughter was overtaken by a literal spasm of anger that brutally cleared her head.

  Bristling with an outrage she could not fathom but only feel, Diane searched the quiet halls for Lynette or any of the other certified nursing assistants, determined to report what she had seen. But had she witnessed a crime? Calling Lynette, frantically searching the hallways, the den, and the TV room, she nearly knocked the woman down as she turned a corner.

  “I heard your call, Mrs. Tate. What is it, did something happen? You look upset.”

  At the sight of Diane’s face, Lynette placed a steadying hand on her shoulder and Diane heard herself stammer, “It’s, it’s nothing, Lynette, nothing at all.” What could she say that was neither shameful nor demeaning to her sense of pride? Was she angry because she had found her husband having sex with another woman or was she angry because the man involved in that act was lost to her in all the ways that had once sealed their love?

  “Are you sure?” Lynette had asked, clearly unconvinced.

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  In the parking lot, she had tried to catch her breath. How long had they been spending nights together? She told Paula, who had laughed and asked, “Aren’t you relieved? In all the sadness of this thing, here at last, is something to be grateful for.”

  Now she told Alan: “I felt horrified, stunned, puzzled, a little bit of every imaginable emotion when I opened his door and found them making love.”

  “Come on, you call that making love? You make it sound like what we do. Remember, my mother had Alzheimer’s. For them it’s an act that’s more biological than emotional.”

  Diane sat across from Alan chewing the empanada and suddenly had no appetite. “They’re not animals.”

  “We’re all animals.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Do I? Tell me about this woman.”

  While she had lost her appetite, Alan sat chewing on a meat pie, before reaching for another as he waited for her answer.

  “Her name is Wallis. Wallis Peebles. She’s seventy-eight years old but looks much younger. She used to be a milliner and she latched on to Gregory as soon as he arrived. She has more speech and abilities than Gregory. She cares for him.”

  “Gregory could be like a toy or a teddy bear to her. Do you think it registers with Gregory who he’s having sex with? He no longer has any way of processing that.”

  “Stop. Stop.” This clinical explanation that Alan clearly thought would comfort Diane instead reminded her of all that Gregory was not and all that he could no longer understand. “You don’t need to remind me of all my husband’s lost, of all he does and doesn’t know.”

  “I’m just telling the truth. It’s not the same as what we do, so don’t say it is.”

  “Why are you being so hostile?” This was their first argument.

  “I’m not hostile, I’m honest. What did you do when you saw them?”

  “Ran. Ran because I didn’t want to see it. But now I’m relieved. Alan, he may not know what love is anymore, or the multiple meanings of sexual experience, but I know it gives him something. Something he needs.”

  She had read that although Gregory forgot the visits from family and friends shortly after they occurred, if the visits had been positive, the good feeling they invoked could last and impact his immune system for hours. Each visit in some way extended his life. Was that a good thing? But what other choice was there? Did sex with Wallis Peebles bring Gregory satisfaction? Joy? Health?

  “Are you jealous?” Alan asked.

  “For a moment or two I was. It made no sense. I mean, of course there was the residual sense of—of …”

  “‘He’s my man,’ and ‘Bitch, what the hell are you doing?’” Alan laughed cynically.

  “Sort of.”

  “Well, he’s in a different world. His world. Their world.” Alan reached across the island and held her hand. “You have to accept that.”

  “I have. Alan, what do you think the last couple of years has been about? I’ve earned a PhD in accepting things I can’t control.”

  “Have you?” The question sounded like an interrogation.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I think we’d better get going.”

  Diane knocked gently on the door before entering, a new practice since the night she found Wallis and Gregory together. Gregory was not asleep but lay resting on top of the quilt on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He barely stirred when they entered.

  “Gregory, hello, dear,” Diane said, leaning over to squeeze his hands as they lay folded on his chest.

  Alan pushed a rocking chair near Diane and she sank into it while he brought over the desk chair beside her and sat down.

  She was suddenly aware of the severe limits and artificiality of Gregory’s life. As they’d entered the memory care unit, she’d explained to Alan the number of rooms on each floor and told him about the activities for the residents. Yet showing it to Alan, she thought how hermetic, small, and encased it seemed. Alan kept murmuring, “This is nice, very nice,” but suddenly it all seemed meager. This was what was left of life for Gregory, and seeing it with Alan at her side filled Diane with a flash of guilt and shame.

  Looking at her husband, whose eyes revealed no glimmer of recognition, Diane could hardly breathe. The three of them filled the room to capacity. How would she introduce Alan, she wondered. What would she say?

  Alan reached for Gregory’s limp, elastic hand and shook it.

  “You don’t remember me now, Mr. Tate, but your firm built a school I was principal of back in 2002. It was the most beautiful school I ever taught in. The students, the staff, we loved that building and we all worked harder because it was the kind of building that required us to do more and be more to reflect its refinement. I had a lot of respect for you back then, how you asked me and the teachers and the students what we wanted in the new school before you started designing it, how you made the building about us. I know I wanted some things you said were impractical and we went toe-to-toe, head-to-head sometimes, but you usually won in the end. And when I looked at the building and started working in it, I’m glad you did.”

  Gregory’s eyes were a void that gave neither of them anything. He listened with a faux patience and then turned on his side, giving them both his back, curled in on himself, and drifted off to sleep.

  In the hallway, Diane told Lynette that she was worried. “I looked in his drawers and closets and it seems some of his socks and shirts are missing.”

  With a look of chagrin, Lynette said, “We’ve had a problem with some items being washed and returned to the wrong resident. They can’t always inform us of the mistake.”

  “But I labeled all his clothes, everything.”

  “I know, I’m sorry, Mrs. Tate.”

  At that moment a resident walked toward them wearing one of Gregory’s sweatshirts.

  “That for example, belongs to my husband.”

  “I’ll try to get it back.”

  “Try?”

  “The residents, as you know, are sometimes volatile and—”

  “So Gregory’s clothes just disappear and become the property of anyone else just like that?”

  Al
an held her shoulders and said, “Thank you. Come on, let’s go, Diane. It’s not the end of the world.”

  In the car she fumed. “For all the money I’m paying, you’d think they could at least keep track of his clothes.”

  “What’s really wrong?” Alan asked.

  “I feel so empty. I hadn’t told him about us, about you. I didn’t know how. I had hoped this visit would be one way to start that conversation. But even if I say the words, tell him about our relationship, what would it even mean?”

  “Is this what you want for the rest of your life? Don’t you want more?”

  “I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

  “Not even since we’ve been together?”

  “Alan, it’s only been a couple of months.”

  “Why do you always say that like weeks and months have anything to do with feelings?

  You can go forward. You can always go forward.”

  “I’m here with you. I call this moving forward.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  JUNE 2016

  Forward, that was the only place to go, Diane often thought. Forward. There was no way to tell Gregory about Alan and so she no longer tried to. Whatever he shared with Wallis Peebles, that belonged to them. Apparently they were content in the universe they had created. In the months that had passed after Alan went with her to Somersby, she formally retired from the bench. She was moving on. There was no place else to go.

  “Are you sure you’re up for this?” Diane asked Lauren one day. “We can stay here if you want.”

  Lauren and Diane sat on the backyard deck. The garden Diane had tended and coaxed filled the yard, vivid and simmering with color and life. Lauren sat with her arms resting protectively on her abdomen. She’d cut her locks and now wore her hair in a close-cut, natural style that exposed a face Diane sometimes thought she had never seen before.

  “I’m okay with the walking, Mom. Please, I wish everyone would stop treating me like an invalid. What did enslaved women do? No one can believe I still come into the office. What else am I supposed to do? I gotta support my baby.” Lauren giggled at her own insouciance.