by Rona Jaffe
She and Alexander went up to the country the night before, to be sure everything was ready for guests. Chris was going to do the cooking herself. That morning, in the crisp autumn air, she and Alexander went to buy firewood together, and flowers, and then the food, comfortable and happy in each other’s company as they hadn’t been for a long time. It was doing things, she realized, that saved them. Activities, plans; the fabric of their marriage. They were loving companions, but that was not enough and never would be, for her at least. Yet it was better than some other marriages. She would try not to think about it.
Their guests arrived on Thanksgiving morning. There was a fire in the fireplace, and Alexander had mixed a pitcher of Bloody Marys. Chris had put fresh flowers in their bedrooms and all over the house, piles of new books and magazines lay beside comfortable chairs, and the delicious smells of holiday food emanated from the kitchen. The young woman was named Kimberly, Kim for short, and she was one of those Muffy Buffy whitebread girls. She was even wearing penny loafers. She had that accent Chris remembered from Daphne the Golden Girl at college, but she wasn’t nearly as attractive as Daphne had been. James, the squash partner, was cute, and just saved from being whitebread by something Chris couldn’t put her finger on. She decided she liked him.
As soon as the couple had deposited their overnight bags in their respective rooms, they came down and everyone had drinks together. Then Alexander showed them around the grounds while Chris attended to the dinner. James came into the kitchen after a while to ask if he could help with anything.
“No,” Chris said, “but you can sit there and talk to me.”
He seemed quite pleased to do that. He seemed anxious that she like him, and she found it appealing. He was only thirty-one, but he said Alexander was a good squash player and the age difference didn’t matter. He was relatively new at the firm, having been there nearly a year, and he told her how hard it had been to find his Sutton Place apartment, which was a sublet in a co-op and cost a great deal more than he had wanted to spend. Alexander came in after a while and opened a bottle of champagne.
“Where’s Kim?” James said.
“Running.”
“Oh God,” Chris said.
James cast her an innocent, curious look. “Is there something wrong?”
“No,” Chris said. “It’s just the thought of all that energy.”
“I know,” he said, and smiled at her. Alexander handed him a glass of champagne and they looked at each other, James and Alexander, and James smiled his thanks, and suddenly she knew. Her heart felt like an icy stone and she stood there staring at them for what seemed like a long time but she knew it was just an instant, just as the look that had passed between the two men had been only an instant—but she knew.
James and Alexander.
It was a look of love, on the face of the man she loved who claimed he loved only her, and he was bestowing it and everything it meant on someone else. Alexander and James. She wondered if they even played squash at all.
The rest of the day passed in a mist of shock. Chris managed to get the dinner on the table, not burned, and made conversation. She drank more champagne than usual but did not get drunk. She ate almost nothing, not because she was pretending but because she thought if she ate she would gag. She remembered that other November, so long ago now, in Paris, when she had finally found out that Alexander was gay, and she wondered if the Thanksgiving season was destined to be for her a time of horrible revelations. All she knew was that she would manage to get through this weekend somehow, and on Monday, which was “squash night,” she would go to James’s apartment building and hide outside and wait to see.
Perhaps it was bizarre to spy on them. Another woman might simply have confronted her husband and asked. But Chris knew Alexander too well to do that. He had said he was no longer interested in sex with anyone. He had not said he was in love. She knew she could have weathered the discovery that he was cheating, because she was used to it and had accepted it, but love was different. It had never occurred to her that he could fall in love with someone else … with a man. She could survive anything, but she didn’t know if she could survive his being in love.
Who was this obese, middle-aged woman hiding in the shadows, at five forty-five of an autumn evening, staring at the house across the street? It was she, Chris; still young, still slim, still desperately in love. Nothing had changed. Only exteriors changed, but her heart remained the same. She remembered how years ago, when she was first pining after Alexander, Max had tried to tell her she was too young to throw her life away, and she wondered what he would say to her if he were still alive. That she was too old to behave like a fool? All of that was nonsense. She had never gone along with the herd, and she never would. It was cold, and she was shivering, more from emotion than chill. She waited …
A cab pulled up to James’s building, and James and Alexander got out. The doorman nodded at them familiarly. And when the doorman turned away again towards the street, so they were unobserved except by her, Alexander looked at James with that look of love that broke Chris’s heart. Then the two of them disappeared into the lobby.
She stood there for an hour and a half, waiting and remembering when it was she whom he loved. That drab room where Alexander lived at college, and that night when at long last he invited her there … herself standing looking at the photos on the wall, and Alexander coming up behind her and kissing her on the back of the neck, a gesture she found so sexy and romantic she could hardly breathe … and then he turned her around and kissed her on the mouth for the first time … that miracle that ended with the two of them in bed together, and then finally … no, not finally their lives together. Never a happy ending. Only the hope of one, the period of bliss and trusting, and then the betrayal. Betrayal yes, but never the ultimate one of being in love. Chris held her breath and prayed to die.
Finally Alexander came out alone. The doorman hailed a cab for him and he disappeared on his way back to his happy home where he expected her to be waiting. Chris walked to the next block and found a taxi and went home too.
She walked into their apartment silently, no cheerful call of hello. Alexander was in the den pouring himself a glass of wine, acting as if nothing had happened.
“How was your game?” she asked.
“Great.”
I’ll bet, she thought.
“And who won?”
“He did.” Alexander poured her a glass of wine. “He always wins.”
“Does he?” Chris said. “Does he always win? Is he going to win this time?”
He stood there looking at her, still holding the glass of wine she had refused to take, and then he put it down on the bar very carefully. “What do you mean, Chris?”
“What you think I mean. I know about you and James.”
She watched his face change almost imperceptably, as if he wanted to lie and then changed his mind. “How did you find out?” he asked, finally.
“Do you mean are people talking? Do you mean you might be caught? You don’t have to worry, Alexander. Nobody knows but me. I only want to know whether I still count.”
“Oh my God, Chris.” Alexander’s face was ashen. He drank his wine in one long gulp as if it were water. Then he looked at her with such open terror that she began to be afraid, not for herself but for him. “I’ve ruined everybody I ever loved. I ruined your life, all these years. I ruined Max’s life—he died because of me. Don’t you understand, if I hadn’t cheated on Max, made his life so unbearable that he couldn’t stay with me anymore, he wouldn’t have been living the life he did. He wouldn’t have gone to that bar, he wouldn’t have taken that psycho home with him, he wouldn’t have been killed. He would have been home with me. I killed Max. Don’t you realize I’ve always known that? And you … look at you. Look what I’ve done to you.”
“I don’t look in mirrors much anymore,” Chris said.
“And I ruined my own life,” Alexander said. “The one person I didn’t love.”
Chris felt the chill and began to shiver again. “And what about James?” she asked.
“I love him,” Alexander said, very softly. “I don’t know what to do about it. Maybe he’ll ditch me. He’s younger than I am, he’ll get tired of me. That’s all I hope—that he’ll want to get rid of me—because I can’t …”
The chill had entered her body and mind completely now. It was not like the old days when she had been sick with conflicting emotions, wanting to throw up, wanting to cry, alternately angry and melting. All the old anger was long gone. The knowledge that Alexander would always be the center of her life was still there, and she could do nothing about it. “I suppose I’m to wait,” she said coldly, knowing she would.
Alexander’s eyes filled with tears. “I love you,” he said. “You’re my life … my life. You’re my love and my best friend. I love our son, you know I do. I’ll never leave you. Please don’t leave me. You should leave me, you should escape. I don’t deserve you. But please don’t go.”
“You want me to wait until he falls out of love with you. You never said ‘until I fall out of love with him.’ Does that mean you think you’ll love him for all eternity?”
“What a terrible thought,” Alexander said.
“Yes,” Chris said. “Isn’t it.”
And so, in the end, it was not resolved. They sat through dinner for Nicholas’s sake, although he knew everything was wrong. Again, Chris could hardly eat. And even while she was mourning what was happening to her marriage, a thought started coming up in the back of her mind. Her magazine had often run articles by that famous diet doctor … what was his name? Dr. Michael Fields. He was right here in New York. He believed in sound nutrition and no drugs or pills. He was said to be kind, sensible, and supportive. She would call his office tomorrow and make an appointment.
Maybe when she was back to her old self she would have an affair with Cameron; maybe not. But one thing she knew now: she was through being a coward. She loved Alexander and she would never leave him. But she was going to go on a real diet and she was going to succeed at it.
And then she was going to have a life of her own.
Chapter Ten
It was almost four months since Jonathan had hanged himself; four months of denial, realization, anger and grief. Daphne did not know which was worse, the times when the other boys were away at school so she could pretend they were all away, or when they came home and she knew that now and forever more there were only three. No, not “forever more.” She could never believe in her safe little world again, that world where children grew up and did not die.
Richard didn’t want to discuss it anymore. He wanted to forget, to hide. Her friends pretended nothing had happened, never asked her how she was feeling, never talked about the disaster, because they felt uncomfortable and were afraid to cause her any more pain. No one knew how to treat her. She didn’t even know how to treat herself.
There were other teenage suicides that winter, and someone wrote a feature article for the Sunday Times about children from affluent, suburban families who inexplicably chose to end their lives. Some of them had been withdrawn, depressed: Jonathan had not. Others had been seeing therapists: Jonathan had never seemed to need to. A few had been upset over broken romances: not Jonathan, who was popular but not in love. And there were even the ones who had seemed perfectly normal, like Jonathan. His name was in the article even though she had refused to talk to the reporter. He had spoken to people who knew Jonathan at school, who were willing to tell everything they could remember. Her son had become an anecdote.
The article upset Richard a great deal. He seemed ashamed, which was typical. Daphne read it with the eye of a detective, trying to find some clue to solve the mystery of her loss. But there were no answers. And that was perhaps the worst thing, to have someone you loved kill himself without ever giving any reason, so that for the rest of your life you could only wonder why.
At night she dreamed about Jonathan, and sometimes about her other children. Often now she dreamed about Elizabeth. Sometimes Jonathan and Elizabeth were the same age—not their real ages, but both of them about three. They would be running away from her in the woods, in a park, a playground; running into some unknown danger that paralyzed her with fear while she shouted after them in a voice that refused to come out of her throat. She would awaken with hot tears pouring down her face … she had no idea tears could be so scaldingly hot. And one morning, while she was lying in bed trying to compose herself so that she could go downstairs and face the world, Daphne heard a voice inside her head, probably her own voice, and it said: Children are not disposable.
It was then she knew she wanted Elizabeth back.
She had started to visit Elizabeth more often; twice a week instead of twice a month. Richard was absorbed with work and spending more evenings in the city. Daphne didn’t have to rush back to an empty house nor invent excuses. She knew she had to tell him eventually, but she wasn’t sure how. And as if it were part of some giant conspiracy to thwart her loving instincts, the home was reluctant to give Elizabeth up.
Her own child! Jane Baldwin, Elizabeth’s cottage mother, acted as if Elizabeth were hers. “She’s happy here,” Jane said. “She doesn’t really know you. This is a big responsibility. You have no experience with these children. She’s not as easy as she seems.”
“I’m her mother,” Daphne said.
“She doesn’t know that. She’s been here all her life—this is her home.”
“Are you telling me I can’t have my own child?” Daphne said, holding in the outrage and anger, acting cool and well-bred as always, a woman who knew she would win.
“Of course I’m not,” Jane said. “I’m only warning you. Start with a day trip, a visit. See how it goes. Don’t just uproot her. That would be cruel to any child.”
“If it’s so cruel, why do children always want to be adopted?” Daphne said. There was a long silence. “I’m taking her home for Christmas,” she said.
“That would be nice,” Jane said. “Christmas is fun.”
“I hope it will be,” Daphne said mildly. She did not add that Christmas was only going to be the beginning of Elizabeth’s new family life, and her own.
Richard was horrified. He thought Daphne had lost her mind from grief. He had never seen Elizabeth since she was an infant, and Daphne wondered if perhaps he would not be impressed with her progress at all, but only shocked at where she was now. It didn’t matter. Daphne was firm, adamant, unmoved by all his pleading and logic, and even, finally, his thinly disguised threat.
“This family can’t take any more stress,” he said.
“It’s only for Christmas,” Daphne lied. “Christmas is going to be so painful … this will be a distraction … like having a baby around. She’s so sweet, Richard. You’ll like her. You will.”
“And if I do say no, you’ll bring her here anyway, won’t you,” he said.
“How could you say no?” Daphne said gently, as if he were so good, kind, and loving that it was unthinkable.
“I think I’ll spend the Christmas holidays drunk,” Richard said. Daphne threw her arms around him and kissed him. She knew it was as close as he could get to saying yes.
She spent the next week in busy preparations, making Elizabeth’s old room into a haven for a little girl. She hoped Elizabeth would not be frightened sleeping alone.
“Why are you making such a big fuss if she’s just coming for a visit?” Teddy asked, passing by the room one day and glancing in. The boys were home for the holidays now. They were used to having four friends at a time all sleeping on their bedroom floors in sleeping bags.
“I thought it would be a nice thing to do,” Daphne said.
She had prepared them, but she didn’t think they really understood. The imminent arrival of a sister they could barely remember, who was “different” and would need special patience, was not of great interest to them. They had their social lives, and there was the tree to choose and deco
rate, the presents to buy. Daphne decided to bring Elizabeth home on Christmas Eve, when the giant tree was glittering with ornaments and tinsel, the holly strung up the stairs, the whole house looking like a wonderland. And also, because she was aware there would be problems with a baby in the house, she wanted the boys to be able to trim the tree alone together with her and Richard the way they always did, to have something traditional to cling to, because they would be missing Jonathan particularly during this season of alleged joy. She wanted Elizabeth to be a holiday visitor, not a distraction, and then gradually fit into the family.
Elizabeth was waiting docilely for her at the home, the little suitcase Daphne had bought her all packed. She was holding her favorite doll, but Daphne had brought a large shopping bag and put all her other dolls into it too. “I want her to feel comfortable,” she said in answer to Jane’s questioning glance.
“That was thoughtful,” Jane said. “Be a good girl, Elizabeth. Have a nice time with your mother.”
“Good-bye,” Elizabeth said pleasantly, and climbed into the car.
That evening, which had given her some qualms, went as well as Daphne had hoped. Even though Richard waited until the last possible moment to make his appearance, he behaved—if not like a father—like a gentleman. Elizabeth loved the Christmas tree, the packages piled under it, and the holiday music. Daphne unpacked her suitcase and arranged her dolls on top of the dresser. Elizabeth even seemed to like her pretty new room. At dinner she fed herself, spooning up the pieces of food Daphne had cut for her, drinking neatly from her cup of milk. She seemed to think she was at a party, and since it was Christmas Eve and her welcome home dinner, why not? Although Richard drank quite a lot he did not get drunk as he had threatened.
When dinner was finished Elizabeth yawned. “Home,” she said.