I just had no idea that it could still be happening to a sixty-year-old.
I shook my head again. “So what are you going to do?”
She sighed heavily again. “As twisted as it is, I think it’s going to work.”
“What is?” Mom asked.
“This ridiculous little game Lauren and Kyle are playing.” Sally shook her head. “I want to be with Doug and be happy—”
“But you can’t,” Mom said.
Sally shook her head and, in a near whisper, said, “I’m so desperately in love with Kyle.”
In spite of the terrible circumstances, I smiled. It made me happy to know that, even after all these years, Kyle could make Sally feel like a desperate schoolgirl in love. Because I never wanted that feeling to end with Ben.
I had always thought of my aunt Lauren as the villain of our family and, trust me, I thought what she was doing was evil. But maybe her intentions were the purest of all of us. Instead of letting Sally hem and haw and finish off her life unsettled and unsatisfied, she was pushing her to choose the man she knew had been first in her sister’s heart all along.
I looked at Mom, “Did you know about this?”
She shook her head.
Then, to Sally: “Did Lauren?”
Sally shook her head. “I’m assuming that Kyle told her.”
“Seems like a pretty risky move,” I said.
Sally’s face was suddenly wrought with horror. “Oh my gosh,” she said. “She does know, right? I mean, they aren’t actually dating? This is just a game.” She looked down at her hands and whispered, “Isn’t it?”
Mom reached over and patted her hand reassuringly. “Lauren is tough. No doubt about that. But the thing about her strength is that she uses it on those who are trying to hurt the people she loves. She would never turn on us.” She paused. “We’re sisters.”
I shook my head. “Seems like a pretty risky move all the same.”
Then, as my phone beeped with yet another text from Holden, Mom said, “You, of all people, should understand the crazy lengths people will go to for love.”
Lovey
Rather Serious
July 1951
No matter how you feel, when a man takes you out on a date, you act polite, gracious and warm. Sometimes, following Momma’s advice took more effort than others. All I could think about that night, in the most perfectly manicured garden that one could ever hope to see in real life, surrounded by women in summer dresses as colorful and full as the flowers, was how socially inept Ernest Wake was. At that summer party on the farm, studying Ernest’s red hair and pale, freckled complexion, I thought, not for the first time, that he wasn’t particularly good-looking. He wasn’t particularly anything, come to think of it—except for rich. He was the heir to a banking fortune that my mother had prayed for every night since I was born. And, at twenty-five, I was way past my prime, well on my way to becoming an old maid who had a better chance of becoming president than finding a suitable mate. According to whispers around town, Ernest was my last chance. I would by lying if I said I didn’t feel the pressure. But I’d also be lying if I said my heart wasn’t over the ocean with the boy who had stolen it first and held on to it with the perfect grip for all those years.
That night, celebrating summer surrounded by gloriously manicured acres of farmland, in a yellow floral dress with just the right amount of crinoline underneath and a pair of pristine leather pumps that I still had from the contest, I sipped my punch demurely, holding the arm of Ernest, trying to sort through whether I was sickened or excited over the rumors that tonight would be the night he asked me to be his wife.
All I could think of was Dan, the man I had kissed good-bye two years ago, the man I had received sporadic letters from—as he was at sea with little access to mail. I had promised to wait for him, but I couldn’t predict when the Cold War would be over. I couldn’t predict whether that war would turn from cold to hot. I couldn’t predict, I thought, with a lump in my throat, whether he would even make it back. The thought turned my blood to ice water as I said, “Oh, I agree that the new theater downtown is positively marvelous.”
I had seen the grieving widows and mothers sobbing into their black lace handkerchiefs, pouring themselves over the pine boxes, crying, “And all this for what? For war?” If this Cold War turned hot, I thought again, and that was going to be the end for the greatest dream of my life, I wished we had married before he’d left, his father’s wishes be damned. Then I could mourn in public for as long as I liked; I wouldn’t have to worry about hiding my emotions in my bedroom, where they were appropriate.
I took another sip of my punch and decided that I had had too much to drink. As a sailor in naval whites breezed through the door, I smiled, thinking that he resembled my Dan. Of course, every tall, lean man in a starched uniform has a similar look. I peered up at Ernest and felt that familiar panic that this dull man with all his money was the rest of my life, coupled with the disdain that my Dan had had to go, while Ernest’s family’s considerable assets had conjured a way out for him. I didn’t know much about sex—besides what Katie Jo had described, of course—but I couldn’t stomach the thought of ever having to undress the man whose arm I was holding.
When the sailor reached the gate and removed his hat, scanning the crowded yard, I gasped. “Dan,” I whispered under my breath.
He couldn’t have heard me, but, at that moment, his eyes locked on mine, and I thought my heart would burst with joy. My arm slipped out of Ernest’s, and I wanted to run to Dan. But my feet were still glued to the moist yard, as if they were unsure whether what I was seeing was true or a figment perfectly shaded by my champagne imagination.
Dan sauntered over, his shiny patent leather shoes glistening in the late evening sunset. He took my hand in both of his. A display of affection larger than that would have been inappropriate.
“You’re here,” I said.
“For you.”
“Excuse me,” Ernest interjected. “I’m Lynn’s date. And we’re rather serious.” He raised his eyebrows. “Don’t you have a boat to get back to?”
It was so rude that I nearly smacked him. But, though the rumors around town were that my mother had spent twenty-five years grooming a spinster, she had at least taught me manners. “I am here with Ernest,” I said, rolling my eyes the least bit so that he would understand. “Maybe we could catch up later on?”
“We could,” Dan said. “But I’ve waited long enough.”
With that, I heard myself squeal with delighted surprise as he leaned over and threw me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. I put my hands behind my back to keep my skirt from flying up, and, as Dan ran down the dirt path and to the road, Ernest hollering, “Put her down right now,” we were both in the kind of hysterics that make your stomach hurt.
When Dan finally dropped me at the edge of the road, he fell into the tall grass, wiping his brow and feigning exhaustion.
“That was quite an entrance,” was all I could manage through my giggles.
I sat beside him on the grass, and he said, “Some pompous shrimp isn’t going to tell me that I can’t see my girl.” He kissed my hand. We stared at each other a long moment, and I could see the horrors of war written in the fresh lines of his skin. They started when he was fighting, but the anxiety of the what-ifs of the Cold War had deepened them. But that light in his eyes, that love burning like a kerosene lamp when he looked at me, was still the same. “I’ve been counting down the hours until I get to ask you this,” he said. With that, he propped up on one knee, put his hand in his pocket and produced the most beautiful diamond with baguettes flanking it. I couldn’t imagine where he had gotten the money to buy it, knowing that this was decidedly against his parents’ rules, but if he had proposed with rolled-up tinfoil, I would have been short of breath all the same. He picked up my left hand. “I first held this hand fift
een years ago, when I was just a kid. And all this time later, every time I see your gorgeous face, the life and love that springs from my bright and beautiful girl, I feel like that same restless boy trying to reel in the catch of his life.”
I could feel the ecstatic tears coming down my face.
“You are the only woman in the world to me. Life isn’t worth living without you by my side.”
I gasped, wiping the tears from my eyes, and said, “Well, ask me already.”
He sighed. “Before I ask you, there’s something you need to know.” He paused and took a deep breath, and I could feel my heart racing with fear. I had heard the stories of soldiers coming home with love children in foreign countries or marriages made out of the desperation of war. So when he said, “I’ve already asked your father,” I laughed.
“Well, of course you have,” I interjected. “You’re a perfect gentleman.”
He shook his head.
“No, Lynn, you don’t understand.” He furrowed his brow. “He said no. He said he’d already promised your hand.” He rolled his eyes. “To Ernest.”
I put my hands on his shoulders, shifting to my knees in front of him, and sighed. “But, all the same,” I whispered, “I’ve already promised my heart to you.”
He smiled. “Please marry me, Lynn. You’re all I want forever.”
As my lips met his, urgently, passionately, I made a deal with God, one that I’ve kept all these years: If He would just let me marry this man—if, this time, He wouldn’t take him away, I would stand faithfully by Dan’s side until my last breath.
• • •
When you make a decision, you have to stick with it. Being wishy-washy hasn’t ever gotten anyone anywhere. But, though I tried, I wasn’t as resolute as my momma.
“I never should have done this,” I said to the nurse that second week in the new assisted living apartment. “I think we need to go back home.”
Every night since we had been here, Dan had tried to get out of bed, convinced that the house was on fire and he had to get the children. “You get Sally and Lauren,” he’d shout. “I have Louise, Martha and Jean.”
I’d try to soothe him, but he was so much stronger than I was, so out of his head, and unaware that his legs, if he tried to get up, would fail him like an injured mare. And then where would we be? Head injuries and broken hips would race through my mind as I pushed the call button, thankful to be on the second floor, only steps away from the night nurses.
“You know what, honey,” the nurse said to me, her hot pink scrubs seeming too cheerful for my downtrodden mood.
“What?”
“I think that Ativan we’re giving him to calm him down is keying him up.”
“You think that could be it?”
She nodded. “Sure do. We’ll try something else tomorrow night.”
I sat down on the edge of the bed and stroked Dan’s hand.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m here. And remember what you said? You said that anywhere we were together, we were home.”
Dan had been looking at me the entire time since he calmed down, but it finally seemed like I was coming into focus.
“So, the girls . . .”
“The girls are fine, sweetheart. The girls are grown and gorgeous and doing splendidly.”
He exhaled deeply. “I’m so sorry, Lynn. I’m so sorry.”
I shook my head and stroked his cheek, dually thankful for and confused by these middle-of-the-night moments of lucidity. The calm after was almost worth the storm of these hallucinations that no neurologist in the country could seem to diagnose or cure.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. You can’t help it.”
“That’s not what I’m sorry for,” he said, turning his head away from me, toward the bed we had shared for decades before he had been relegated to this one.
I felt my heart sink, a painful truth rushing back, a secret that, in the midst of caretaking and the fear and uncertainty of the day-to-day that is old age, seemed to ebb a bit.
“Do you remember our house in Bath?” he asked.
I smiled. “Remember it? Why of course I remember it. I brought all my babies home there.”
He turned to look at me again. “All of them,” he agreed. “You were so brave, Lynn. So strong. I’ll never forget you saying, ‘This is the only way this can happen. Either you’re in or you’re out.’”
I remembered. But I didn’t smile. That had been one of the worst nights of my life, leaving that house in Bath.
“Oh, Lynn, I’m so sorry,” he said again, noticing the change in my expression.
“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” I said. “This is my life, and I wouldn’t change any of it.”
I thought, Well, maybe this part. I couldn’t help but feel like life had stolen something so irreplaceable from me, left the foundation but blown over the home with all the memories inside. “They were good years, weren’t they, Dan?”
“They were all good years,” he agreed. “Even the bad ones.”
He smiled at me.
I turned away for a moment, thinking of all the things I wanted to say to him. In the day-to-day living, the breathing in, the breathing out, the one-step-in-front-of-the-other things, I had counted on him more than I could ever thank him for. But in the crisis moments, in those instants when the reins had to be taken, the emergency brake pulled, he looked to me. I wanted to talk about it more, sensing that this could be my last opportunity. But, when I looked over, he was snoring again, the straining and sweating and wild-eyed abandon of a half hour ago replaced by the innocence of dreaming.
What he was dreaming of, I couldn’t be sure. But, in my heart of hearts, I hoped beyond hope that it hadn’t all been for naught. I prayed that the dreaming was of me.
Annabelle
A Dot on the Radar Screen
You should never worry about moving to a new town with your husband, according to Lovey, because, in reality, your husband is the only friend you need. That was a lovely sentiment, but, as I was learning, maybe not a totally true one. I loved Ben madly. But I needed friends.
It bugged me that, though I had made loads of acquaintances, I still hadn’t formed any great, call-you-on-the-phone, let’s-grab-lunch kind of friendships with a single person in Salisbury. All my life, through school and college and summer camp, I had been a people collector. They liked me, I liked them, and I formed instant bonds easily.
So, while I wasn’t thrilled about spending my Sunday afternoon getting primed, pressed and primped for what was going to undoubtedly be a very boring baby shower, I was going to go. I was going to smile and be chipper and politely sip champagne and toast a mother-to-be that I had met exactly once.
“So, how do I look?” I asked Ben, twirling in a pale pink dress with a pleated skirt that I thought looked very shower appropriate.
Ben raised his eyebrows at me. He stood up, put his arms around my waist and pulled me in for a kiss. “I don’t think I like that,” he whispered, his forehead resting on mine so that those lips, juicy and delicious as hot Krispy Kreme, were right in my line of sight. “I think you better let me take it off so we can find something else.”
I was ready to ditch the party altogether, when I heard the three soft raps on the French door that meant Emily was ready to escort me.
Ben gave me a downtrodden expression and whispered, “Tell her you can’t go.”
I shook my head and very, very reluctantly pulled away from him. “You better be here, ready and waiting, when I get home,” I said.
“Ready and waiting for what?” Emily asked when I opened the door.
“Um,” I said, “the mail.”
“It’s Sunday, love bug. The mail doesn’t come.”
I tapped my palm against my forehead in faux aggravation with my silly memory. Emily, quite predictably, was wearing one of her
flowing skirts, a fitted T-shirt over it and a belt wrapped around her waist. She was carrying a present wrapped in fabric.
“What’s that?”
“Cloth diapers,” she said, “wrapped in a reusable burlap sack.”
“How lovely,” I said, thinking of the sterling silver teething ring in the pink toile paper under my arm.
I was afraid I had misjudged the shower, my gift, and the attire, until we pulled up to the hostess, Kimberly’s, home. It was a large, two-story brick house with a circular driveway that held nearly all of the guests’ cars. A sprawling backyard connected with the enviably green golf course, and they blended so seamlessly I wondered if the greenskeeper was also their yardman. The front door was decorated with the largest pink bow I had ever seen, a labyrinth of different shades and textures so fine that I was certain it had cost more than my gift. The front urns, instead of being filled with small boxwoods, were overflowing with long, pink stems of every variety imaginable. I tried not to be impressed. And we hadn’t even opened the door yet.
“Hello, lovely girls,” Kimberly said, opening the door, handing us each a glass of champagne with a satin ribbon tied around the stem and tiny pink cranberries floating in it.
She kissed us, and I noted that even her home smelled pampered. Instead of cooking smells or cleaning products floating in the air, it was a blend of restful relaxation, notes of flowers and chocolate, like even the house didn’t have to do anything but look and smell beautiful.
I looked around the high-priced baby shower, realizing that it was obviously given by a childless friend. I smirked at how totally inappropriate the theme was: exotic cheeses with wine pairings. I wondered if she didn’t realize that a pregnant woman could have neither. One look at her face, though, told me that this soiree was a stab, as understated as the linen tablecloths, at her friend for betraying her—and, by extension, nights of drinking on the patio until sunrise—for motherhood. I took a bite of my Blythedale Camembert and said to Emily, in a tone that she would understand, “This really is so lovely.”
Lies and Other Acts of Love Page 14