by Bill Clegg
Listening to Lolly and Will whisper and giggle outside, she imagines them swinging in a golden seat atop a Ferris wheel. She lets the image linger. She has not opened any of the mail spread out before her on the table. She pictures London that night, a maze of light stretching glamorously in every direction. She sees Lolly there, above it all, laughing. She pushes around the bills and letters, absentmindedly arranging them by shape and color. Then she hears Lolly, calling to her from the still-open front door to come and unlock the wagon. It is chilly and she puts her linen jacket on and, when she does, feels in the left pocket the card Luke borrowed earlier to get cash to pay the kids he’d hired to fix up the lawn. She grabs the keys from the brass tray she usually tosses them in and goes out to the driveway to open the car for Will. When they return, Lolly is barefoot on the front mat in her ratty sweatpants, elegant blouse still on from the evening, waiting for the two of them to come back inside. She is laughing her goofy laugh. When she sees June in the floodlight beams in front of the house, she calls out Mom! ridiculously, without thinking, like a teenager with an easy relationship with her mother. The top of the Ferris wheel is a giddy and thoughtless place, June thinks, and so briefly enjoyed. When she gets to the front step, she hugs her daughter for as long as she will let her.
They go inside and Luke makes chamomile tea. The four of them sit on the screened porch talking about the rehearsal earlier and the chili and deviled-egg dinner. Will is teasing Lolly about being late to the church the next day, losing the ring, and flubbing her vows. Feeling unusually playful with Lolly, June chimes in about how as a kid she’d been in the bathroom when she was meant to make her one, brief appearance in Babes in Toyland, the school play in eighth grade. The talk is jolly, the teasing gentle, but gradually Lolly becomes quiet, as if she’s suddenly realized she’s dropped her guard and forgotten to maintain a safe distance. She recedes, and the talk moves on to Will’s upcoming second year in law school, what he’ll do once he’s graduated—internships, clerkships, jobs. After a while and out of nowhere, Lolly asks Luke if he is going to ask her mother to marry him. All talk stops. No jest is in her voice, no play at all. Luke meets her eyes and her tone. I have. But your mother doesn’t take the question seriously. Or me seriously. Hard to tell which. At first I thought she blew it off because of you, but now that you’re older and out of college and practically married, I’m beginning to wonder. Lately I’ve been hoping all this wedding stuff would rub off on her, but it hasn’t. So the answer to your question is yes, and the answer to mine, asked twice, is no. This isn’t the response Lolly expects. No one does, including, by the look on his face, Luke. The only sound is the dishwasher humming in the kitchen and the impenetrable sound of the cicadas, which has graduated from an electric buzz to a droning roar. After a few uncomfortable seconds, Lolly stands and pulls Will with her. They leave the porch as Will apologetically says good night for both of them. See you in the morning, he calls from the top of the stairs, before Lolly’s bedroom door slams shut. They are gone.
A long flatbed stacked high with sheets of plywood bangs loudly by. June is walking against traffic, head down, past the Arby’s, the Taco Bell, the Exxon. She sees Luke’s shoes, the brown, buckled ones he bought from one of her mail-order catalogs just for the wedding. They are shined perfectly, but on them she can see drops of tomato that must have fallen when he was cooking dinner. Tiny thatches of freshly mown grass whisker from the edges of the soles. A small clump falls on the bluestone as Luke nervously kicks at the leg of the wicker coffee table. Neither has spoken since Lolly and Will went upstairs to bed. Luke continues to fidget and she can see white gym socks peeking out from his khaki trousers. His hand moves to her leg, his thumb begins to rub her thigh before she pushes it off and gets up to leave. He reaches for her hand, and in smacking it away, she grazes his cheek with her nail just below his left eye. He winces and pulls away. She does not apologize, does not stop to see if she’s drawn blood, does not hesitate as she steps from the porch into the kitchen.
Over the sound of passing cars, she hears someone calling. Lady! LADY!!! She knows she should stop but the feeling is far away.
She is at the sink filling the kettle with water to boil for more chamomile tea. Her hands are shaking. She wishes she could return to how it was earlier in the day. Everything until now had gone on without incident. Even with Adam, who arrived in the morning from Boston, alone and without a girl, thank God. June had at the last minute tried to persuade Lolly how much easier it would be on everyone if he stayed at the Betsy, where Will’s family and others were staying, but her response was instant and volcanic, and despite June’s delicate approach and stated worries, Adam was installed in the guest bedroom upstairs. Still, he’d been friendly to Luke, which was out of character and surprising given how he’d behaved when they met last year at Lolly’s graduation from Vassar. Adam refused to acknowledge Luke, and all afternoon muttered cradle robber and cougar under his breath. Regrettably, June responded on his level and reminded Adam that he’d been raiding the nursery long before their marriage was over. She remembers how quiet Luke became and how only later that night did she see the afternoon through his eyes: two middle-aged, bitter exes pointing fingers at each other for dating younger people. It was humiliating. She swore she’d avoid this kind of squabbling at Lolly’s wedding, and to her surprise, so far, it had required no effort. Adam had been respectful. No barbs, no bite. The last person she expected to upset the applecart was Luke. But by letting Lolly rattle him as he had, he’d opened up a can of worms she believed, or at least hoped, had been closed.
The kettle is full but she can’t move it from beneath the faucet. It is overflowing, but the gushing water, the weight of it in her hand, is soothing. She has no idea what to do next, so she does nothing. She feels cornered and angry and wrong. She wishes she could return to the front walk just an hour or so ago, hear Lolly call to her when she saw her step into the beams of the floodlights. Mom! She wishes she could start the evening over from there, steer it away from where it is. She watches the steady flow of water from the faucet, how it spills from the top of the kettle and disappears down the drain.
Cars whiz by, horns wail. She is walking faster, but the voice is closer. LADY! What on earth?!? She begins to run and soon someone grabs her arm. STOP, the voice shouts. What the hell are you doing? it asks, more bewildered than angry. She looks at the source—the beard, the flannel shirt, the white head of hair—but she does not see the man who helped her earlier. I’m sorry, she says, but not to this man. She is looking at the loose water, her trembling hands. Oh, God, I’m so sorry, she says again, dropping to one knee and then the other. For the first time, far enough away and next to someone she does not know, she cries.
George
I’d leave in the morning and the room would be a mess—sheets and blankets twisted in knots, clothes and towels on the floor. But when I’d come back at night after a day at the hospital with Robert, the place would be impeccable. The bed made, my clothes neatly folded on the dresser. Even the cap on my toothpaste would be screwed back on and my razor and comb lined up neatly on a folded face towel next to the sink. I’m not a messy person, normally, but when I look back on my time at the Betsy, I can see that I let myself slip. I had lost control of everything—my wife’s health, my boy, my business—and in this one space, this little New England motel room, the problems that existed could be fixed by someone else. That someone else was Lydia. I didn’t meet her in those first two weeks. But I did feel her; in the moments before opening the door to that motel room, I would anticipate the clean room, the restored order, the lemon smell of wood polish, and in those days it was the only thing that gave me anything resembling relief.
Robert was in a coma for three days. He aspirated his own vomit when he was unconscious, and they think he was oxygen deprived for as long as three hours before the police discovered him in that barn. I sat by his bedside until he came out of it. I know it may sound perverse, but a part of me misses those
hours with my son. My role, what I could do for him, had never been so clear. I had to be near him. I told him about his sisters and his mother, our dogs and the ugly house being built across the street in the woods where he used to play. I held his hand, which was something I’d never before done and have not done since. I wonder sometimes if it’s like this with other fathers. What I know is that for me, having a son has been a difficult riddle, an awkward tiptoe between too tough and too easy. I never got the hang of it. Not like with my daughters, who were uncomplicated to be around, to love. The rules of engagement were much more obvious. Robert never liked sports. I think sometimes it was because when he was very young I was too busy with work and Kay and the girls to put a basketball in his hands and get him on the court. He liked his elaborate fantasy world of Dungeons & Dragons and the books he made, and he liked Tim, but he didn’t have any interest in anything I knew about. When Kay was alive, she’d tell me it wasn’t his job to be interested in me, it was my job to be interested in him. If she was right, and I expect she was, I failed at the job miserably. By the time he left for Harkness I had convinced myself that Robert was better off without my meddling, that he was self-sufficient and would navigate the world of boarding school and college just fine without knowing how to play basketball or a father who knew his way around the castles in Dungeons & Dragons. I can see now how self-serving that was.
After he came out of the coma, Robert remained in the ICU for nine days. He was conscious but vacant, and his speech was impaired. I sat with him like those first three days but I did not hold his hand. Of all the things to remember, it’s hesitating with my hand that morning when he was newly awake and frightened, stumbling with the simplest words. That is a moment I would do differently if I had the chance. There are many. What could I have possibly been worried about? Everything is the answer. I was worried about everything. It’s painful to admit, but when I remember that time, I see myself as a skittish fool, wringing my hands over every little decision and getting most of them wrong. Why is it only later that things begin to make sense? Mostly, I’ve made my peace with the mistakes I’ve made, but every so often I bump into a memory and it will sit me right down. Not swarming my boy with attention and love in those early years, not grabbing his hand and pulling him toward me as much as I could have, letting him disappear to boarding school because it felt at the time like one less thing to worry about. These are the regrets that slip and drop down, and when they do, there is nothing to be done, no action I can take to make it better. I just let them come for as long as they will.
After his time in the ICU, Robert was moved to the hospital’s Acute Rehab Unit to try to get him walking, talking, and problem solving again. There was brain damage, but with work the doctors assured me it was likely he’d be fully functional, both physically and cognitively. They worked with him for nearly a month, and in that time I flew home for a night or two but for the most part stayed at the motel and saw Robert for breakfast and at the end of each day for dinner. The doctors wanted him to focus on the various therapies during the day, so I stayed away, worked from the motel room and spoke with Kay and my mother and sister, who were driving her to chemo and helping with the girls. Kay would ask about Robert but deflected any questions I asked about how she was feeling. She tried to be cheerful, but I could hear her fading away a bit more every time we spoke.
I met Lydia the day Robert was moved to the rehab unit and his doctor asked that I come back at the end of the day. For the first time since I’d checked in, I’d returned to the motel before nightfall. I could hear the vacuum cleaner going as I put the key in the door, and for a second I hesitated before opening. I wasn’t sure I actually wanted to see who performed the daily magic of tidying the room and arranging my things so carefully. I enjoyed and imagined into the mystery, so before I turned the key in the lock, I stopped and listened to the hum of the vacuum, the sound of its being pushed along the floor and bumping gently into furniture. I must not have noticed it turn off because without warning the door opened, and suddenly there she was. In jeans and clinging white T-shirt, a pile of brown hair knotted loosely on her head, at least ten years younger than I was. Young. Beautiful. Lydia.
She rushed off that first day, and neither of us said more than awkward hellos. I came back the following morning after an early breakfast with Robert and she had not yet arrived. For some reason, I felt nervous. I began cleaning up the room and folding my clothes, which is what I ought to have done from the beginning. Her job was to clean the rooms, not pick up after the guests. I stopped short of making the bed and instead made sure the toilet was flushed, and I tidied a pile of hospital paperwork scattered on the desk. She turned up before noon and didn’t bother with knocking. I suppose it hadn’t occurred to her I’d be there, so she just used her key and came right on in. I was sitting in the chair by the bed and remained silent as she set her large plastic bucket with cleaning supplies down on the carpet inside the door. She was wearing the same jeans as the day before and again a T-shirt, but this time light blue instead of white. I said good morning and she screamed.
What happened over the next three weeks is not something I’m proud of, but it is not a regret. Not like so much else is. Lydia Morey was a sad young woman trapped in a bad marriage, and I was a frightened man who knew his wife would soon be dead. There was more—she was sexy. Young, healthy, and underneath those tight jeans and T-shirts, she had the curvy figure of a pinup. And though she was troubled, she was also tough in ways that let me know she’d be okay. That she’d figure her life out somehow and survive. I hope she did.
Mostly, we just talked. She told me about the father she did not know, her mother’s sharp tongue and how she bullied her to stay with her husband despite his teasing and his violence. She talked about wanting to run away. Driving to some town in the Middle West somewhere where no one knew her and where she could begin again. It was surprising and sad to see someone so young feel so hopeless. I listened but I offered no solutions, no advice. How could I? My life was in tatters and I hadn’t a clue what to do. She listened to me tell my tale of woe, and we were able to laugh at it all, even the overdose, even the cancer. Our lives felt unreal and far away while we were in that motel room. As if we were telling stories of other people’s lives to each other, not our own. Maybe it’s what we both needed then. I don’t know. What I do know is that it didn’t feel bad or wrong. I’d never been unfaithful to Kay in the eighteen years of our marriage. Never been seriously tempted, either. But before I left the Betsy, two days before I returned to Atlanta, I went to bed with Lydia. It started when she kissed me. First on my forehead and then on my lips. We had been sitting on the bed and there had been a long silence. I had just told her I was taking Robert back to Atlanta to a hospital where he could continue his therapy. There was nothing to say. We both knew I would never come back to Wells, Connecticut, and to the Betsy. Our days together were about to be over. So she kissed me. And I kissed her back.
To this day I remember those hours with Lydia Morey as some of the sweetest and most desperate of my life. I wonder if she remembers them at all.
June
There are barely any clothes in Lolly’s bag: one bathing suit, one sundress, panties, flip-flops, flats, two T-shirts, and a pair of men’s pajamas stolen from Adam years ago. There are more vitamin bottles and notebooks than garments.
The man who reintroduced himself as Brody had walked her back to the car and drove her to a Super 8 motel less than a mile down the road. When she said she had no ID, he checked her in with his credit card and driver’s license. He carried Lolly’s duffel bag into the room, scribbled his number down, and told June he’d take the Subaru to his friend’s garage nearby to put on a real tire and check the rest. He’d return it in the morning.
Right away, she collapsed. Curled under the sheets, the first she’d felt for more than a week, and slept until morning. She was awake when Brody came by to give her the car keys. She’d already been to the ATM in the lobby to get him
money for the tire and the motel room. It was only two hundred dollars, the maximum she could withdraw. When he pushed it away, she folded the bills and slipped them into his jeans pocket. You got more than you expected when I asked you for help, she said, more words than she’d spoken in weeks.