Between Husbands and Friends

by Thayer, Nancy

  “About what?”

  “You know what I mean. The men … those first summers here.”

  “That was a long time ago, Lucy.”

  “Yeah, well, so was Chip’s infidelity. And mine.”

  “But you were my best friend, Lucy. That makes a difference.”

  “I know. And I’m sorry. But you still need to talk to Chip.”

  “Why? Because it suits you, because you want to get everything out in the open?” Her voice grows angry. “I’m sorry about Jeremy, but don’t use his illness to hide your shit.”

  “Kate—”

  “I’ve got to go. Call me if you want me to come get my kids.”

  Max doesn’t phone me, so I call Stan, who has friends who work at the newspaper.

  “What’s up?” Stan asks lazily.

  I start to tell Stan about Jeremy and find my throat blocked. If I tell Stan, that will somehow make Jeremy’s illness more real. Will bring it closer. Jeremy doesn’t even know about it yet, it doesn’t seem fair to give this information to someone outside our family. Besides, I don’t deserve the comfort of Stan’s sympathy.

  “Max and I have had an argument, Stan. A big one.”

  “So Max is depressed?”

  “Very. Could you just kind of keep an eye on him for me? Phone me if you hear rumors that they’re worried about him at work?”

  “Can do.”

  “How’s Write?/Right?”

  “Everything’s cool. You seen a doctor about those anxiety attacks?”

  “You know, Stan, they haven’t been occurring lately.”

  “Great. Maybe you don’t have anything to be anxious about.”

  “That must be it,” I say drily.

  “Take care of yourself, lady,” Stan says warmly.

  “Thanks.” Unexpected tears sting my eyes.

  A few days later, I receive an envelope in the mail with the Write?/Right return address on it. Stan has sent me Max’s editorial from this week’s newspaper. It’s all about CDA. Max declares that in the beginning he didn’t know that Paul Richardson, the owner of the paper, was also a shareholder in the corporation that wants to build offices on the land, but he knows now, and he stands firm on his position: The land should be built on. It will be beneficial to the town. He’d be glad to debate this with anyone. I’m glad Max has taken this stand. I’m glad to know he’s working, just as if his life has not been shattered.

  I read the editorial to the children and talk with them about this, the issues of the town, the more private matters of fighting for what one believes in.

  Margaret asks, “When is Dad coming back to the island?”

  “I don’t know,” I tell her truthfully. “Why don’t you call him and find out?”

  It’s after seven. He doesn’t answer at home. He doesn’t answer at the office.

  “We’ll try later,” I tell her.

  We do, but we still can’t reach him.

  It is probably the most beautiful August I’ve ever spent on the island. We go to the beach every day. The sun beats down, spangling the ocean with diamonds. We all swim, build sand castles, play Frisbee, search for shells. We turn as brown as filberts. Jeremy doesn’t cough. At night we sit around the dining room table playing noisy games of Clue and Monopoly and poker.

  A week goes by like a dream, the only reality the flash-fire thought—Jeremy has cystic fibrosis—that wakes me in my bed at night and assaults me all through the day, flaring over my head, or exploding in my chest like a gunshot. There is nothing I can do, no way I can change things, but I can hope, I can pray, that when the tests come back, they will prove that Max is Jeremy’s father, even if it means—terrible thought, I’m a traitor whatever I wish. Because of me, there’s a 50 percent chance that Margaret carries the CF gene. It’s so odd, not having anyone to talk to, not Kate or Max. It’s lonely, and I hold the ache of loneliness close to me, pressing it against me like a sliver of glass or a razor, using it to punish me for what I’ve brought upon us all, knowing that as a punishment it is not nearly sufficient.

  Thursday night I take the four children to see a comedy at the Dreamland Theater. About a thousand other families want to see this movie, too, but we take our place in the long snaking line and wait patiently, progressing by inches to the box office where we’re at last rewarded with tickets. Matthew steers the Littlies in to get seats for us all; Margaret and I wait in line at the concession stand to buy candy and popcorn for everyone.

  The movie’s funny and brilliantly bright. When the lights come on everything around us seems slightly dim, as if we’ve faded or our vision has. This is exacerbated when we make our way with the crowd to the exit to find the dark night teeming with rain. Sharp needles of cold rain blow sideways in the wind; I pull Jeremy back into the shelter of the foyer.

  “Wait a minute!” I call to Matthew, Margaret, and Abby, who are being swept by the crowd out the front doors. Stripping off my sweatshirt, I yank it on over Jeremy’s head.

  “Mom!” he fusses. “Don’t!”

  “I don’t want you to get a cold, honey.” I squat down to his level, surrounded by an army of knees and feet and legs, shoved and buffeted by the general movement of the crowd.

  “I won’t get a cold! I don’t want to wear your stupid sweatshirt, I’ll look stupid!” For a small boy, he’s determined; as fast as I can pull it down, he struggles to pull it up and off.

  “No one will see you.” When had he become so stubborn? Finally: “Jeremy Maxwell West!” I snap, iron in my voice. “We are not leaving the theater until you wear this sweatshirt, do you understand?”

  A woman my age looks down at me, alarmed by my tone of voice, then understands the problem and gives me a sympathetic smile.

  “All right.” Jeremy gives up and goes limp, so that I practically have to drag him by the hand through the crowd and out the door.

  I parked the Volvo on Oak Street, next to 21 Federal. With Jeremy’s hand tight in mine, I run across the street and up the sidewalk, open the car door, and usher him in.

  Matthew and Margaret are already in the backseat.

  “Where’s Abby?” I ask.

  “We thought she was with you.”

  My heart explodes in my chest. “You had her! Damn! I don’t believe this!” I scan the streets. Clusters of parents and children stroll or run through the rain to their cars or into Yogurt Plus, but no small girl with braids is anywhere in sight. “Jeremy, you stay in the car with your sister. Matthew, come help me look.”

  “I can look, too,” Jeremy offers.

  “You stay right there!” I scream, and he flinches, hurt by the shrillness of my voice.

  I race back to the movie house. It’s empty now. Only a few people stand in the entrance to the movie house, looking up at the sky, waiting for the rain to cease.

  “Abby?” I call. “Abby!” I rush into the theater, which is empty except for a man picking up discarded popcorn boxes. “I’ve lost a little girl.”

  He looks around him, holding out his arms. “She’s not here.”

  “Oh, God,” I murmur, turning back to the street and the rain, “oh, God, don’t do this, please don’t do this, it’s too much, I can’t bear it …”

  “Lucy?” Matthew’s standing by the entrance, his hands on Abby’s shoulders.

  “Where have you been?” I shriek, falling to my knees, grabbing the little girl, embracing her. “Where did you go?”

  She’s soaking wet. “A man had a puppy—”

  “A man had a puppy!” I cry. “Don’t you know better than to talk to strangers? Where did you go?”

  “I didn’t go anywhere. He was standing right there, with his baby, waiting for the mommy and his little girl.” Abby points, and there, materializing before my eyes, is a slender young man with a baby in a Snugli and a blond cocker spaniel on a leash and a woman with soft brown hair and a child in her arms.

  “We’re sorry,” the man says, coming forward. “We saw that she was separated from her family. We wait
ed … we would have called the police if you hadn’t come back.”

  “Thank you, thank you,” I babble. “So nice of you, such a crush, wasn’t it, it just gave me such a scare, we’re all getting soaked in this rain, we’d better go, thank you again …”

  Matthew, Abby, and I run to the Volvo and climb in.

  “Where did you go?” Jeremy asks, and Abby answers, but all at once I can’t hear their voices. A white mist rises up around me, and the roar of the ocean fills my ears. I lean my head on the steering wheel. I’m aware that I’m making a terrible moaning noise, but I can’t seem to stop until Margaret asks in a terrified voice, “Mom? Are you okay?”

  “No, I’m not okay!” Turning, I glare at Matthew. “Don’t you ever lose sight of your sister in a crowd like that again, do you hear me? I thought you had more sense.”

  Matthew glares back at me, stunned and insulted. “I didn’t—”

  “Don’t say a word!” I snap. “Not one more word.” I start the car and with a shriek of the tires, peel away from the curb. “I don’t know how you can be so selfish. My God, she’s your only little sister, you saw that I was dealing with Jeremy, it’s not like you’re mentally incompetent, it’s just incredibly negligent and selfish of you to lose sight of her like that—”

  “Mom!” Margaret says, leaning forward and touching my shoulder. “Hey. What’s up with you?”

  Looking in the rearview mirror, I see that Matthew’s jaw is clenched and his face red with suppressed emotion, while Margaret’s face bulges with anger. Jeremy cows, wide-eyed, and next to me on the passenger seat, Abby weeps.

  “Oh, God, Matthew, I’m sorry. Kids, all of you, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Forgive me. I was just so scared. Abby, honey, I’m sorry to be so mean, I was just frightened. Matthew, I’m sorry.”

  The rest of the ride is in silence. None of the children will forget this night. They’ll never trust me again. They shouldn’t.

  The next day it’s still raining. I take all four children with me to the grocery store and we fill the cart with nothing but ice cream, fudge sauce, Marshmallow Fluff, sprinkles, candy, and Reddi-wip. We pick up videos with Jim Carrey, with Bruce Willis. We stop at the Hub and I buy junk reading for them all, violent comics for Matthew, Casper and Smurfs for the Littlies, romance novels for Margaret.

  At home we spread out our purely sugar buffet on the dining room table. We heat the butterscotch and hot fudge in the microwave, pour sprinkles into a bowl, and make sundaes of repulsive extravagance which we eat as we watch the videos. I fully expect someone to have a stomachache, even to throw up, but no one does.

  When the sun comes out, it slants differently, and that night a cool breeze drifts in. Ads for back-to-school supplies dance across the television screen. As she comes down the stairs, Abby stubs her toe and bursts into tears. When I try to console her, she continues to weep. God, I think, her toe is broken.

  “Hold my hand and hop into the living room,” I tell her. “I’ll get some ice to put on it.”

  “I want Mommy!” she sobs.

  I settle her on the sofa, dial Garrison’s number, and give Abby the phone. I can tell by her expression that Kate is refusing to come back to the island, even for a day.

  That night I call Chip. That weekend he arrives to pack his children’s things. I expect my own children to be sad and cranky when the Cunninghams are gone, but to my surprise, they don’t seem to mind. In the evening the three of us sit together on the back porch, watching the light flare and fade in the sky. Margaret asks me what it was like here when I was a girl. Jeremy lies with his head in my lap, eyelids heavy, insisting he’s awake. While I tell my daughter about my aunt and my childhood days in this house, I twine my fingers through my son’s gold-tinged curls.

  Max doesn’t answer the phone at our house, so late the next afternoon when both children are in their room, conked out into naps by the heat and humidity of the day, I phone him at the paper.

  “Look,” I say. “You have to talk to me. Are you planning to come back to the island?”

  “No.”

  “The children miss you.”

  He does not reply.

  “Did you have the test taken?”

  He does not reply.

  “What can I tell the children? You’re not being fair to them, Max. You’re punishing them more than me.”

  He does not reply.

  “Max, please. I’m so frightened. I’m so alone.”

  He does not reply.

  “I’m coming home this week,” I tell him. “It’s too hard on the children, being away from you for so long.”

  He does not reply, and I hang up the phone.

  Margaret and Jeremy help me pack. Always before I’ve had another adult to help me lug the heavy suitcases out to the car. Now I miss what before used to make me impatient: Max or Kate saying, “Did you throw all the perishables out?” “Are all the windows shut and locked?” I need another adult to help me with even the smallest things.

  Because we’re leaving before the end of August, we make it on standby on the last boat to Hyannis. The kids are wired about going home, and probably they’re nervous about their father’s absence. They squabble on the boat and in the car until they both fall asleep, leaving me to make the drive through the dark to Sussex with only my thoughts to accompany me.

  The Volvo’s headlights flash over our front lawn. Max’s van isn’t in the drive. I turn off the engine and sit for a moment in the dark night, hearing the late summer clicking of cicadas. Max often works late, but he doesn’t work this late.

  “Are we home?” In the passenger seat, Margaret stirs.

  “We’re home, baby. Here, you unlock the door. I’ll carry Jeremy.”

  The moment we enter the house, I know: Max hasn’t been living here. The air is hot and stale, oppressive. I carry Jeremy up the stairs. Margaret pulls back his sheets and I gently lay my little boy in his own familiar bed. I untie one sneaker; Margaret unties the other. We slip off his socks. He smacks his lips together and whimpers, but doesn’t wake. I pull the sheet over him. Let him sleep in his clothes for one night.

  Margaret helps me carry the luggage into the front hall, and then I say, “That’s enough for tonight, honey. Go on to bed.”

  She looks at me, her dark brown hair a whirled shaggy mess, her eyes old. “Mom, where’s Dad?”

  “He must be working.”

  “Mom. I’m not a complete idiot.”

  “Honey—”

  “What’s going on? Look, I won’t tell Jeremy. But come on!” She can be so fierce, a tiger of a girl.

  “It’s complicated, Margaret. And I’m too tired to tell you about it tonight.” She looks at me, relentless. I have to tell her something. “Your father and I have had an argument. But things are going to be okay. I promise.” How can I promise that? When do I stop lying?

  She doesn’t believe me. She still stands in front of me, obdurate.

  “It’s late, Margaret. I’m exhausted.”

  She glares.

  “Please, honey.”

  “I hate this.”

  “I do, too.” I reach out to hug her, but she wheels away from me, storms into her bedroom, and slams the door.

  In the kitchen I discover that the cats’ bowls are completely empty. When did Max feed them last? I wonder. While I put out dry and canned food, Midnight and Cinnamon meow and rub against my ankles. They eat ravenously. I watch, pleased by this sight of satisfied hungers.

  The answering machine has sixteen messages, some for Write?/Right, some for Margaret, one for Jeremy, some for Max. All can wait until tomorrow.

  I open our bedroom windows to let fresh air in and it comes, cool and dry, bearing the scent of apples, and with that scent the sense of autumn brushes over me, making me shiver. This is such an unsettled time, still as soft as summer, knife-edged with fall.

  I slip beneath my sheets and try to sleep. Can’t. Sitting up, I try to read, but the words seem smudged. I pad around the house, looking in on
my sleeping children. I heat a pan of milk; it tastes awful. I pour a glass of wine and set it down untouched.

  I know where my husband is. He’s sleeping at the office, he’s hiding from me.

  I change into a pair of sweatpants and a loose T-shirt, slip my feet into sandals, grab up my keys. I scribble a note: “Went to Dad’s office; be right back; xoxox Mom,” and leave it on my daughter’s bedside table, just in case she wakes.

  It’s after midnight when I pull into the parking lot at the newspaper offices. Max’s van is parked in front.

  Kate’s Mercedes station wagon is parked in the shadows at the side. My heart lurches, races.

  They could simply be talking, I think. They could be sharing a bottle of wine and talking about all this, trying to figure out what the best thing is for both families.

  My knee hits the set of keys hanging in the ignition and starts them chiming. Through the large picture window at the front of the building, I see the ghostly room, empty desks illuminated by one lonely light. They must be back in the staff lounge.

  I have the key to this building. I want to know. I need to know.

  Heat flares up my face, as if my heart is a fiery caldron. So it’s true, that cliché, my blood boiled. My hand is shaking so hard I can scarcely get the key in the lock. I feel frightened and furious, and oddly enough, guilty. This is a shameful thing I’m doing, close to voyeurism. I feel like that awful-sounding word, that snakelike creeping thing, a sneak. I am sneaking. I am literally sneaking as I softly shut the door behind me and stand in the dark offices. Enough light shines in from the street to illuminate the various hulks of computer-laden desks and a soft gleam of lamp in Max’s private office shows that the room is empty.

  I walk back toward the staff lounge. The door is closed. My heart drums loudly in my ears, as if geysers of hot blood are shooting up my neck. It is a sickeningly uncomfortable feeling. I force myself to stop and take a deep breath. I put my hand on the doorknob.

  I open the door.