The Family Tabor

by Cherise Wolas

  * Talk to Dr. Jin about university underwriting, access to resources, grants, assistance from current master’s or PhD students.

  A smile blooms on Camille’s face. For just this moment, she will relish remembering what she’s about and congratulate herself for recognizing something of serious professional interest. There is strength in her still. And the future, how much brighter it seems than yesterday on the final leg of her trip home. How wonderful to feel she has options, that she doesn’t have to draw lines through anything, and that time, which has felt like her enemy, has returned as the friend she recalls.

  How miraculous that the great things in her life are not behind her, but ahead of her.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  CAN CAMILLE BE RIGHT? That their father’s journey is about seeking the truth?

  If she is, then Phoebe should be worrying that there is a genetic component to secret keeping, and that she inherited it from him. The evidence certainly points in that direction. She can’t fathom her father’s secrets, but she knows her own, and she would like to be free of the lies, free of her deception about Aaron Green. Maybe there is no one for her, but better to walk alone forever with a clean soul than to keep on as she is.

  Her nieces, asleep together on a lounge chair, are brown as berries, but she gently presses each of their arms, to make sure they aren’t burning. Lucy opens her eyes and says, “Hi, Auntie Phoebe,” then snuggles closer to Isabel and is asleep again.

  The sky is a weightless blue, without a single cloud. She was only six when they moved here, but she often thinks of the Connecticut sky, its low ceiling, its alabaster clouds, the feeling she had of being safeguarded and protected. The sky here is so large, so limitless, as if everything one wants in life is out there, but so far away it’s impossible to capture.

  She must stop thinking she is waiting for things to happen. She’s in charge of living the life she wants, and that means living honestly.

  She wishes Camille were sitting with her, their mother, too. She would say to them, “I’ve broken it off with Aaron. I’ve been considering it for a while. His constant travel means the relationship is always starting and stopping. I need someone who is really here, present all of the time.”

  It would be the truth.

  Not exactly the truth.

  Not the truth at all.

  But they wouldn’t need to know she’s ending her relationship with a figment of her own creation.

  Yes, she will tell her them she’s broken it off with Aaron. She will come clean, or clean enough for her purposes, her needs, her sense of holistic peace and well-being. A simple statement without embellishment.

  She imagines her mother saying, “Sounds like a very wise decision. You’re entitled to want someone who is really here. Someone who is present all of the time. Trust me, my sweet, it will happen. I promise you that.” And Phoebe would wonder if her mother already knew the truth. And if she did, what would she advise? “The energy we put out into the world returns to us. Happiness equals happiness. Sadness equals sadness. Mistrust is matched with mistrust. If you keep your heart open, if you find satisfaction in who you are, if you don’t manufacture another false love, then absolutely, love will find you.”

  That’s exactly what Roma would say.

  Phoebe finds her phone and returns to her step in the pool, dialing Raquel to see how Benny is doing without her, to see if Raquel will care for him the next few days.

  “HE’S FAB, TOTALLY FAB,” Raquel says. “No prob. We’re besties now.”

  And Phoebe wonders if Raquel has moved Benny to her own apartment, is spending hours with him on her lap, tickling him under his chin, stroking the soft fur of his ears. If she did, if she is, Phoebe hopes her little love isn’t fickle, will understand Raquel is only his temporary caretaker, will not sleep on top of Raquel’s head.

  “Everything there A-OK?” Raquel asks.

  Phoebe hadn’t decided whether she would explain to Raquel her reason for staying.

  Listening to the girl’s chirruping, her ceaseless happy nature bouncing from satellite to satellite, she offers a different confidence in exchange.

  “I broke up with my boyfriend, so I’m staying for some extra mothering.”

  “Oh, Phoebe, I’m so sorry. I know how rough it can be. You’re lucky to have a mother to help make you whole again. Mine died when I was young and I still miss her so much.”

  She’s not been kind to Raquel, at least not in her heart; she summed her up, and wrote her off, without thinking that perhaps Raquel keeps reaching out because she’s alone. And Phoebe’s touched that when heartbreak is the topic, Raquel expresses herself in whole nouns and verbs.

  “This might make you smile a little,” Raquel continues. “Someone sent you flowers yesterday. A huge bouquet. I hope it’s okay that I brought it into my apartment. Just until you’re back. It seemed so sad for those flowers to be sitting alone, not enjoyed. And Benny eats leaves, doesn’t he? I thought it was better he couldn’t get at them.”

  So Benny is in his home, on his heating pad and his pillow, drinking his tap water, eating from his bowls on the black and white tiles, stretching out his small body in a square of sunlight. And Phoebe is touched again.

  “Raquel, you keep the flowers and enjoy them. But was there a card?”

  There was a card and Raquel reads it to Phoebe: “‘To the woman at the Shell station this morning. I don’t actually think you’re French, but I’ll forgive that little white lie if you’ll have dinner with me. By the way, you forgot to pull your gas receipt from the machine.’ It’s signed Marc Weiss, and he included his telephone number and his email. Kind of cool, Phoebe.”

  And it is kind of cool, and it is also kind of stalkerish, that he retrieved her receipt from the machine and used it somehow to track her down, and she wonders if she will agree to a date, and if she does, how that date would go, and she wonders if Marc Weiss is Jewish, and she says to Raquel, “That’s a surprise.”

  Has she been too dogmatic? That’s her thought when she and Raquel hang up. She’s wasted time wanting love before children. That life she’s longed for hasn’t materialized, so why not table love for now, bring the baby she wants to the center. Figure out how to become a mother first. Maybe then love would follow.

  She will abandon her expensive weekends away and instead come to Palm Springs for long weekends, come for a month. Spend more time with her own mother and father. She would like that. She will do that. And she gives a little prayer of thanks that the choice is hers because her parents are alive and her father will be home soon. Because the worst thing in her world hasn’t happened.

  THE GLASS DOOR OPENS and there is Camille, with a hat on her head, and one for Phoebe, and a pitcher filled to the brim, the ice clanking.

  “Please tell me that’s not another vat of Arnold Palmers.”

  “Just lemonade,” Camille says.

  Phoebe takes the offered hat, sticks it on her head, finds empty glasses for Camille to fill, then sits again on their regular step in the pool.

  When they are sitting side-by-side Phoebe says, “Maybe you’re right. Maybe anger isn’t the right emotion now that we know where he’s headed.”

  Camille’s genuine smile shocks tears into Phoebe’s eyes. She forgot about the purity of comfort that comes from being with her sister, someone who’s known her for all but two years of her life.

  “I want to tell you something, I’ve ended it with Aaron.”

  Camille nods, then touches her glass to Phoebe’s.

  She forgot this, too, about Camille, that her sister doesn’t care for superfluous talk, that she takes those she loves at face value, that she would never ask for details, or offer up the trite, like how sorry she is, or that she’s sure someone better will come along.

  “I’ll tell you something, too. I’ve decided to get rid of everything I’ve ever bought at a flea market, charity shop, garage sale, that’s ever been handed down to me from another. Any supposed treasure I picked up off the s
treet. It’s time that whatever I own, whatever I wear, holds only my own essence.”

  “I think we’ll both be much happier,” Phoebe says.

  “Can we play the swimming game again?”

  It’s Lucy, standing naked behind them.

  On the chaise, Isabel is still asleep, next to Lucy’s yellow bathing suit.

  Camille puts down her lemonade and wades into the water. “Come on, Lucy. I’ll time you.”

  “You have to play, too, Auntie,” Lucy says to Phoebe.

  Her niece resembles Phoebe more than she does Simon or Elena, the long curls they both have, though Lucy’s are nearly black, the golden gild of their skin.

  “Of course, I’ll play,” Phoebe says, and splashes out into the middle of the pool.

  “Are you ready to leap, Lucy? One. Two. Three—”

  And Lucy leaps into Phoebe’s arms.

  FIFTY-SIX

  IN THE BEGINNING, ROMA didn’t know.

  She left her family in the courtyard. She needed some quiet and rest. But her thoughts would not quiet. Her upset would not rest.

  So she unloaded the dishwasher.

  She stuffed pool towels into the washing machine.

  She made her daughters’ beds, and then the beds of her granddaughters, neatened the clothes around their sparkly suitcases.

  Then she retrieved Harry’s survivor cash from the high closet shelf. Its square, solid weight reminded her of a reliquary she had seen in an antique shop years ago, when she’d brought Phoebe and Camille into the city for lunch with their father, an outing that had excited the girls so much. She bought winter coats for them and wandered through stores, while Harry fed them hot dogs at his favorite stand, and showed them the trading floor, the men yelling, waving arms and tiny pads and pencils, and the girls had opened their mouths and yelled into the noise, then laughed because no one had heard. When she picked them up, they were spinning in Harry’s leather chair, talking to each other in their secret language. In the year before they moved, Phoebe would say, “No story, Mommy, but listen,” and then translate for Roma that secret language she shared with Camille.

  She opened Harry’s closet door, opened the safe, and replaced the package. It was when she heard the lock set that she knew.

  Not all of it.

  Not even most of it.

  Not at all how Max Stern fit in.

  But she knew suddenly and absolutely that Harry’s disappearance had something to do with that other money.

  And she knew suddenly and absolutely that Harry had not donated it as he swore that he had.

  She was on the floor of his closet, looking at the safe, at his shoes, at the suits he wore every day, at the garment bag imprinted with Luigi, at his swim trunks on the hook, and the clear drawers where his ties were neatly arrayed, her fury burning her up from the inside.

  She had threatened to leave him unless he gave away every corrupt dollar. She had trusted him when he said, “It’s done.” She had viewed his confession as a cleansing, a secret Harry had kept, then revealed. Doubt had not been part of their marriage before and doubt wasn’t part of their marriage after. But she should have doubted.

  She should have demanded evidence that the money was gone, had not accompanied them from their old life to their new; she should have asked additional questions; she should have probed so much harder, forced the truth out of him. If he had lied to her then, she would have seen it in his eyes, heard it in his voice, and she would have taken action.

  But she hadn’t. And because she hadn’t, he’d never needed to lie to her outright. All these years, his lie has been one of omission.

  Which meant she herself was not completely innocent.

  What now?

  Does her discovery constitute the destruction of everything?

  Is his disappearance an elegy for them, for this family they have created?

  Is there a statute of limitations on the commandment of honesty?

  Is there a statute of limitations for whatever crimes he committed?

  Should she turn him in?

  Should she execute her ancient threat and leave him, end a marriage she wouldn’t have thought of ending yesterday?

  This morning, she wanted their expansive future to continue, and whether it continues or not, that decision is now in her hands.

  And the money? Where is it?

  It’s never figured into their lives, but are there clues about its existence that she should have seen and missed?

  “MOM, WHAT ARE YOU doing in the closet?”

  Roma looks up at her son. He’s not the asp she imagined him to be, but it’s always the news-bearing messenger who first bears the brunt.

  “Looking for something.”

  “I want to talk to you about my plans,” Simon says, and holds out his hand.

  He leads her to the back patio, where she sits in the chair Harry favors during his solitary hour on Friday nights.

  Her son sits across from her once more.

  “I’ve booked a ticket to Tel Aviv for tomorrow. Elena’s packing up the girls. We’re going to drive back now.”

  Where is the money? They have never lived other than within their means. They arrived in Palm Springs with solid bank accounts, with the beginnings of college funds for the girls and retirement savings for themselves, and when they bought this house, real estate here was cheap, they couldn’t give away homes, and there was vacant office space on all the main avenues. Harry had earned substantial money, and she had sold her practice in Connecticut for a tidy sum.

  “Mom, have you remembered anything more about Max Stern, about what he might have been doing at Carruthers that sent him to prison?”

  The money Harry used to found CST, it had belonged to them both. She saw the checks for the purchase of the building, for paying personnel here and abroad, what he paid himself. In those first years, she was privy to all the financial information—the large payments made to CST by countries effecting political relocations, the payments made by families already here and wanting to bring out relatives left behind, donations made by individuals and corporations wanting to help. From its inception, CST had a stable of certified accountants. Tax returns filed, taxes paid. The inflow and outflow of funds managed to the penny. It expanded. And expanded again. Its mission: to save people. But the organization was not a charity; it was profitable from the start.

  “I don’t know anything else about Max Stern. Everything I know, I’ve told you.”

  “Are you sure, Mom?”

  About that, Roma is sure, and she says so, matching Simon’s interrogative tone with a finality in her own.

  “What do I say to Dad when I find him? The father I thought I knew would never run off this way.”

  She teaches her patients how to assess their own actions and those of others. To gain balance, to accord the proper weight to their upset, to put everything into the proper perspective. She teaches them what Tatiana taught her—that a person’s actions do not sum him up, that seeing the whole of a person is an impossibility. When Tatiana told her story, Roma was twelve and viewed the world simply. Tatiana had said, “What I did was wrong, but it was also right. You will grow up and come to recognize that every negotiation between human beings, every aspect of human reality, consists of a range of colors, all of them shades of gray, all those shades representing the truth, and the many variations thereof.” She has lived sixty-eight years thus far, and she knows from her own experience that Tatiana was right.

  “Simon, a person’s actions do not sum him up, seeing the whole of a person is always an impossibility.”

  Every aspect of human reality does consist of shades of gray, so where on that spectrum should she put Harry’s moral failure thirty-plus years ago? Where should she put his failure, when he had not stolen money from another, but instead used information to create it, when his actions were disgraceful, but had not deliberately harmed another, when he has nurtured, helped, aided, and transformed so many lives since then?

 
; And where does she put her own failure, her long-ago silence?

  “If it’s true that your father is headed to find Max Stern to seek his forgiveness, isn’t seeking forgiveness the very definition of a light shining in the world? Attempting to right the wrong? This is what Baba Tatiana would have said: forgiveness can be granted or not, mistakes can be fixed or not, but if one is lucky, those streaks and stains and holes can be cleaned up, buffed out, filled in, and life can go on.”

  “So we’re supposed to look at this as something noble Dad is doing?”

  “Who among us is ever as good as they can be, as they want to be? And isn’t the effort what’s most important, the pursuit in that direction, that the good we discover in ourselves we claim, or reclaim, and use wisely and well, and spread it around, pass it on?”

  “You sound biblical, Mom.” And then her son is crying, tears like small gems glittering in the sunlight, and Roma pulls him up and hugs him as hard as she can.

  If she had only questioned Harry all those years ago, as she always has with her patients, with her children, they might not be where they are today. But this is where they are.

  And this is what she knows: however different life will be when Harry returns, she will not leave him, and she will not tell their children the truth. Harry can, if he wants to, but she will not be the one to puncture their belief in him, their faith in his virtue. For now, it will have to be enough that she knows what Harry did, and what he failed to do, and the role she herself played.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  YESTERDAY, A MONTH AGO, since last summer, Camille would have felt a prick of pleasure that Phoebe’s relationship with Aaron Green is over—love ever the stumbling block, the sole malfunction, in her sister’s perfect life. But that envy has lost its power.

  So what if Camille’s most important possessions could fit into one box? So what if that box would hold only the groundbreaking ethnographies written by the once-upon-a-time stars who founded and dominated her field, their work, lives, and deaths of little interest to others who aren’t Camille, or nascent anthropologists? So what if the first editions she searched for in antiquarian bookstores over the years, since Margaret Mead entered her life, could probably now be found on Amazon, some third-party seller asking seven or eight bucks, plus the ubiquitous $3.99 for shipping?