As Husbands Go

by Susan Isaacs

  I realized that by standing up, I’d become a one-woman receiving line for friends, relatives, and everyone else, from the long-retired coach of Jonah’s high school tennis team to a Baptist minister who’d sat with me on the board of the Nassau County Coalition Against Domestic Violence. All the heartfelt words that came my way—“So very, very sorry” and “I know nothing I say can ease your pain, but . . .”—were offset by Buddy Gratz, a local pharmacist who elbowed his way into a knot of neighbors and in history’s loudest recorded whisper confided to them, “Hey, can you believe the cops haven’t found that hooker yet?”

  Shudders passed through the room. But before the whispered “Oh my God’s” that would mortify me even more got started, there was a Distraction with a capital D—as well as Drama. As “that hooker” still echoed, every head turned to a spot ten feet behind me. Right on the borderline between the entry hall and living room stood a tall, slim exclamation mark of a woman. Something about her drew attention, like the giant horseshoe magnets in science class that pulled in all those iron filings.

  And there she was, Ethel O’Shea, my mother’s mother, a woman I’d seen only twice in my life. Grandly, she swooped into the living room on the arm of her lover, Felicia Burns, whom everyone called Sparky. Halfway over to me, Ethel came to a halt. As we all waited for her to speak, she lifted her liposuctioned chin. In a voice that made Buddy Gratz’s remark sound like silence, she declared, “Susie, dear girl! Grandma is here!”

  Chapter Fourteen

  For Babs, the blue-eyed rabbi became history. Like everyone else’s in the living room, her gaze kept racing from Grandma Ethel to me and back again. For those who knew my family history, here, in pants and a black Malo turtleneck, was the anti-mom, the dreadful woman who’d walked out on her eight-year-old child. Heartless. But hey, did she look fabulous.

  For the rest—showtime! There was the new widow greeting a woman who was practically her clone. Except the clone had called herself Grandma, so she must be, what? In her late seventies? Amazing, because the clone was simply not an old lady. She had fabulous hair, astoundingly lush for someone her age, deep gold and platinum—colors from a treasure chest. She wore it twisted into a soft knot pinned with careful casualness on top of her head.

  Their thoughts were so loud I could hear them. Look at her and Susie! The same long arms and legs. Necks that came close to qualifying for swan status. Straight noses that Jonah once swore no plastic surgeon could replicate. Cheekbones like that of Mrs. Genghis Khan. And those mesmerizing eyes, so pale they were barely on the green side of white.

  Seeing Ethel O’Shea was seeing the future me. Thankfully, since I was a superficial person, it was not a nightmare vision, though it didn’t make me think, Hey, I can’t wait till I’m seventy-eight!

  I kissed my grandmother on the cheek, inhaling the Gardenia Passion I’d smelled the other two times we’d been together. I kissed Sparky, who was scentless. I’d met her about five years earlier, when she and Ethel had come to New York and Jonah and I had taken them out for dinner. My grandmother had introduced us by putting her arm around Sparky’s shoulders and saying, “This is the love of my life.” Sparky had grinned and said, “Ethel’s got that line down pat.”

  “Susie, I am so, so sorry,” Sparky began. She was a civil liberties lawyer. Every word she spoke, probably even “with milk and Splenda,” came out loaded with passion and conviction. “Jonah was a wonderful guy. I only wish we’d had the chance to spend more time with him.”

  “He was beyond wonderful,” Grandma Ethel corrected. “A total doll.” Those in the audience close enough to hear her lines nodded in agreement. “You couldn’t help loving him. He didn’t hold back, you know what I mean?” Sparky nodded. Since she was the expert on how to handle my grandmother, I decided nodding was the way to go. “You know what was remarkable about Jonah? None of that ‘Let me see if you’re worth my while before I’m nice to you’ crap. He was so decent. To everyone, even the waiter. Remember? Also, there wasn’t an ounce of that bullshit gemütlichkeit successful men use to show they’re not the arrogant putzes they actually are.”

  Compared to Grandma Ethel’s greeting and what I’d come to recognize as her brassy talk-show-hostess style, her remarks were soft-spoken. Still, that didn’t stop her magnetism. She didn’t have to shout to draw all the attention in the room, even from those out of hearing distance. Babs, along with everyone else, was probably reflecting on the triumph of nature over nurture, as in: The two of them have the same taste in clothes! Look at them. Black slacks, black turtlenecks, diamond stud earrings. True, the grandmother has about ten gold bangles on her right wrist, while Susie’s wearing a wide gold mesh cuff. But that’s more a generational thing than a different fashion sensibility.

  Finally, I sensed the Oy! and Good grief! reactions to the resemblance had gotten played out. Almost everyone in the room, Babs included, lost interest in me and got busy assessing the dynamics between Grandma Ethel and the woman whose arm she was holding. That is definitely not the way an old-fashioned lady would take the arm of a hired companion or a good friend—not with her boob brushing the other one’s upper arm.

  As for that other woman, mid- to late fifties. She’s wearing a pantsuit. Wait, call it what it is: a suit that probably had GENTLEMEN’S CUSTOM CLOTHIER on the label. Tropical wool, winter white. Worn with an open-necked white shirt. She looks like a sugar magnate in pre-Castro Cuba, minus the mustache, of course. She is definitely not masculine.

  Not that she’s feminine, either. Though she, too, is wearing diamond stud earrings, hers are major, close to three carats each. By the time she gets to be the grandmother’s age, her earlobes could resemble a beagle’s. She isn’t wearing a stitch of makeup, but she’s good-looking in that “dark brown hair, sparkly brown eyes, tanned skin, pug nose” way. She could belong to any group that fell under the heading Caucasian, from English in a sunny climate to Sicilian with a nose job.

  I glanced through the knots of visitors and watched my mother-in-law rising from her chair. Though only five feet three, Babs had that head-held-high posture that demanded deference: I get introduced first. She saw me looking at her and smiled a little—sadly, of course. Still, it was enough to tell me my social quotient had risen with the arrival of a stylish lesbian grandmother (carrying a Prada clutch under her arm). If, in the past, Babs had formed any mental picture of Ethel the Abandoner, it probably had been a crone version of my mother, Sherry Rabinowitz: Mrs. Potato Head but much more wrinkled, wearing a T-shirt that said don’t call me sweetie . . . it’s bad for your teeth.

  “My grandmother Ethel O’Shea and Felicia Burns,” I began, using the Spanish/Miami pronunciation Felicia preferred—Fee-lee-see-a. “This is my mother-in-law, Barbara Gersten.”

  Since shiva was not just a sad occasion but a religious tradition with its built-in formality, there was no follow-up of “Please call me Sparky/Babs.” Grandma Ethel took Babs’s hands in hers, closed her eyes for a moment as if searching, searching, for the perfect words. “Oh, Barbara. I am so sorry we have to meet on such a terrible occasion. But what a first-rate man Jonah was! Trust me. I’ve been around the block many, many times in my life, and I never met a better man than Jonah.”

  She was right. Throughout our entire marriage, I did believe there was no better man than Jonah. Still, I knew there was a 97 percent chance my grandmother’s tribute was full of shit. Not that she didn’t think positively about him—doctor/charming/Gen X non-homophobe/nice pecs, not flabby tits—but that was probably as far as her enthusiasm went. Nevertheless, my mother-in-law, so wise in the ways of social fakery (having the ultimate insider’s view), appeared genuinely moved by Grandma Ethel’s words.

  “He was wonderful,” Babs agreed. “The best.” She could barely get the words out because she was so choked up. “Thank you for saying so.”

  “I just met him once,” Sparky spoke up. “But I knew right away, this guy is the real deal. I’m sorry that you, your husband, Susie, your whole fa
mily have to suffer a loss like this.”

  “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your kindness,” Babs said. “Coming up here from Miami in the middle of winter.”

  “How could we not?” Grandma Ethel demanded. “We’re family.”

  As Babs and my grandmother went back and forth, I watched them with something between disbelief and awe. Grandma Ethel had spent twenty-five years hosting Talk of Miami. Even in the bit of it I’d gotten to see, in a single week, she could run the gamut of emotions from A to Z, then back from Z to A—depending on if she was interviewing a celebrity chef, a victim of ethnic cleansing in Rwanda, or a sixty-something actress who had written a memoir claiming simultaneous affairs with Adlai Stevenson and Grace Kelly. I couldn’t decide if my grandmother felt all those emotions, or any of them. But she’d definitely acted as if she did.

  And then there was my mother-in-law. Babs’s life was dedicated to convincing women around the world that by laying out seventy-two dollars for a jar containing a buck’s worth of petroleum jelly and chemicals, they would soon look like a million. She and Grandma Ethel shared two dualities: an ability to manipulate other people and a powerful ambition to be a somebody. Most likely, they also shared a common ruthlessness. What felt weird was watching my self-centered grandmother trying so hard to make my mother-in-law feel better—and my snooty mother-in-law reaching out to someone from my family, of all people, for the comfort and healing no one else seemed able to provide.

  Just as I started to worry about what to do after their conversation ran its course, Sparky put her hand on my grandmother’s shoulder. “Eth, honey, let’s see if we can find a quiet spot so we can spend some time with Susie.” She offered a brief, regretful smile to Babs, who offered her an Of course I understand nod. As Babs retreated, Andrea teleported over, and Grandma Ethel managed to simultaneously charm her and brush her off with a “Heard so much about you/loved meeting you” goodbye.

  Sparky, definitely a take-charge type, herded my grandmother and me toward the piano bench and commanded, “Sit there.” The living room was packed with people, and there was no seat for her. Glancing around, she decided Cousin Scott the tax examiner didn’t need the chair he’d carried in from the dining room for himself. She had him bring it over and place it beside us, then gave him a thank-you that conveyed, without words, Get out of here—which he did.

  “Is that nerdy man a relative of mine?” Grandma Ethel asked.

  “No,” I said. “He’s a Rabinowitz. He’s a semi-decent guy, actually.”

  “‘Semi-decent’ is not a ringing endorsement. Does your father wear hideous ties like that? What made someone think green and black ought to be combined into a houndstooth pattern?”

  “My father’s ties are hideous in a different way. He’s into random splotches.” I took a deep breath. “In case you’re worried about my parents being here tonight, you can relax. They’re not coming.”

  “I know,” Grandma Ethel said.

  “You know?—”

  Sparky cut in, “We came up the second we heard about Jonah. But then Ethel thought our coming here might set off your mother, which would be rough for you, and—”

  “We didn’t want to give you any more grief,” my grandmother said. “You have enough. So I looked up their number and called it the next couple of nights. No one answered. What’s with them that they don’t have voice mail? In any case, I called tonight, and she answered.” I couldn’t find the words to form a “And what did you say?” question, but she answered it anyway. “Naturally, I wasn’t going to talk to her. I hung up. But at least I knew the coast would be clear for us to come here.” She pulled back her head and gave me a haughty look. “What was there for me to say to her? ‘Hello, little Sherry, this is your mother’ would be awkward. And am I supposed to say ‘I’m sorry I walked out and left you with that loser Lenny’?”

  “What would be wrong with that?” I asked, amazing myself.

  “Ethel’s too ashamed,” Sparky said, aligning the cuffs of her jacket. “And probably scared shitless.”

  “I am not!” Grandma Ethel snapped at her.

  “Of course you are. The only thing in the world you’re afraid of is your own child.”

  “I am not afraid! Except of being bored. When we had dinner with you and Jonah, Susie sweets, and you brought those pictures from your wedding, I took one look at Sherry and said—I think I said it to myself—that kid grew up to be one heavy piece of furniture. You know? Something in the middle of the room everyone wishes wasn’t there but can’t move.”

  “You just said you don’t want to give Susie any more grief, Eth,” Sparky snapped, “so why don’t you zip it up about her mother?”

  “Fine,” my grandmother snapped back. She slid back on the piano bench to see me better, but we were still pretty close. Looking into her eyes was like seeing my own eyes in a magnifying mirror, except all the skin around them was covered with fine wrinkles, like a veil on an old-fashioned ladies’ hat. “I wish there was something I could do for you, Susie,” she said to me. “I mean it.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Is there something?” I shook my head. She went on, “I wasn’t kidding about what I said about Jonah, you know. Not my customary crapola. Good guy. Emotionally developed. Not your typical surgeon. And he was crazy for you. You know that.”

  “I thought so.”

  “Listen, sweet one, I’m an expert. I can smell a lousy marriage a mile away. Anyone’s, not just the three stinkos I wound up with. But yours, it smelled like a rose. An antique rose, like you said the first time we met, when I wanted to know why roses didn’t smell anymore and you told me about . . . antique and something else.”

  “Rosa rugosa, probably.”

  “Right. Anyway, the two of you were the real thing. You had a marriage there. Not just a husband.”

  Finally, I said, “Then why did it have to end like this?”

  “You mean in his being killed?”

  “Not just that. I could have dealt with Jonah dying, even with him being murdered. Painful beyond belief, a wound that would never heal completely, but still, I’d keep going. But to have him stabbed to death there, in an apartment of someone like her. It’s too much.” Somehow I was able to speak those last three words quietly, even though they wanted to be shrieked.

  “It is too much,” Sparky responded. She said it like an established fact, which for some reason made me feel better. “Are you getting a lot of ‘You have to go on for the sake of the children’?”

  “That’s all I hear. ‘Terrible, terrible, but you have to go on for the boys.’ Like I don’t know that. I want to tell them, ‘You know, I was thinking of giving up and letting them raise themselves, but thanks to you, I’ll keep going.’”

  “People are shmucks,” Grandma Ethel said.

  “Some of them,” Sparky agreed. “But others understand the awfulness of the circumstances. I’m not trying to make chicken salad out of chicken shit. Say, three quarters of the people in this room are loving the schadenfreude thrill, wallowing in the pleasure of someone else’s misery; most of them also feel grief for you. Compassion, too.” Sitting on the piano bench in the corner, I kept glancing one way to my grandmother, then the other to Sparky, whose vivid personality and wide shoulders blocked off the rest of the room. I’d temporarily forgotten the house was filled with people I should be paying attention to, though I couldn’t think of a way to get up and say “Excuse me.” Also, I didn’t want to be with anyone else, just the two of them. “Listen,” Sparky went on, “I’m a civil liberties lawyer. By nature and profession, I’m cynical. I fight for causes most people don’t even want defended. But I’ve learned that too much cynicism can hurt you. If you let yourself be overly skeptical of other people’s motives, all you’ll do is isolate yourself.”

  “What Sparks is really saying,” Grandma Ethel broke in, “is that you might be . . . what’s the psychological term for what you’re doing? I forget. Transposing? Displacing? Anyway,
you’re putting what you’re thinking on to them. Like you’ve got it in your head, They’re laughing about Jonah—happy husband, ha ha—getting killed by a hooker. But you tell yourself it’s what they’re thinking because you can’t deal with the anger, embarrassment, whatever. That he was with someone like her.”

  “Fuck off, Eth,” Sparky said quietly. “That’s not what I was saying. And not at all what I was thinking.”

  “Whatever you say, Sparky.”

  “And you shouldn’t be talking that way in front of Susie.” As there seemed to be zero comprehension on my grandmother’s part, Sparky added, “She’s your granddaughter, for God’s sake. Act protective. No, excuse me. Be protective.” Her eyes got an angry crinkle on the sides as she spoke. When her gaze returned to me, her eyes didn’t exactly mist up, though they did soften into a sad benevolence. “She didn’t mean to hurt you,” Sparky said.

  “What? Did I leave the room so you can explain me to my granddaughter?” Grandma Ethel demanded. She patted the top of my hand twice. Then, sensing something more in the way of maternal warmth might be called for, she offered a third pat. “Susie, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “I know.” I took Sparky’s word for it more than hers.

  “The minute we heard about Jonah on CNN? I mean, it’s good I’ve got a heart of stone. But right then and there, I knew I had to be with you. Not that there’s anything I can do, but . . . I don’t know.”

  “I’m glad you both came,” I said. “I’m sorry I didn’t think to call you, so it’s extra meaningful that you just picked up and came on your own.” Sparky nodded. My grandmother did an aw-shucks shrug/head tilt—as if auditioning for a cowgirl role—and gazed down at her suede ankle-high boots. I continued, “You’re right about me being angry. Humiliated, too. I mean, God, Jonah being killed at a hooker’s. But, Grandma Ethel, I’m not taking my thoughts and sticking them in other people’s heads. I read expressions. I overhear remarks.” She looked up at me. I wondered whether her lashes had always been sparse or if she’d lost them with age. “Trust me: There are plenty of ‘What do you think was missing in their relationship that made Jonah need a whore?’ conversations going on. And comments like ‘Susie is all about appearances, and with a crappy economy affecting Jonah’s practice, he probably just wanted a nice, simple fuck without any pressure or demands.’”