by Susan Wilson
A voice chimed in above the din and clatter of china dessert plates being distributed. A high-pitched unfamiliar one, laden with abrasive Cranston vowels. Eleanor's voice. I realized that Alice was coming to me as I stood immobilized in the archway. The look on her face was a blend of regret and stubbornness. I could tell that this was not her idea, but that she had capitulated to Sean's demands as she always had when it came to the favored only son, and would defend her right to do so.
“Why didn't you tell me she was here?” I might have been speaking to Alice, facing me, or Sean, still behind me. Neither one said anything. I knew then that Alice had sent Sean out to warn me and he had lacked the guts to do so. Picking a fight instead, so as to ratify his contention I was hateful. “What did I do to deserve this?”
Alice had taken hold of my wrist, as one would a naughty child. “Cleo, come have dessert with us.”
I shook her off with a wrench of my arm. “At the very least they should have been out of here before there was any chance I would arrive.”
“Cleo. Sean is my son. He doesn't have to leave at all.”
I felt as though I'd been slapped. “No, but Lily and Tim are my children, and they do.” I pushed past Alice and walked past the table, now terribly silent. I did not look at any of them, I strode past as if I were walking through an empty room into the big front parlor, which was set up as the children's dining room. I caught my children by their hands and sent them to fetch their coats. It was an interminable five minutes. I smiled at the gathered innocents, the myriad cousins, assuring them they bore no fault. I loved them still.
Not one of the adults spoke, just kept their eyes on their empty dessert plates and their hands on their wineglasses. They had never been shy about entering into each other's marital arguments before, but somehow something had shifted. A daughter-in-law is no match against an only son.
As we made for the front door Alice did come to me and repeated, “Stay, Cleo. Please. Have dessert with us.” Sotto voce, a more gentle hand on my arm, she said, “They'll be leaving in a few minutes. Stay.”
I shook my head, not trusting my voice, opened the front door, and walked out, one child gripped in each hand. Lily started to protest but I shushed her with enough vehemence that even she knew not to whine.
Not since the beginning of this drama had I felt so wrenched. I could almost hear the tearing of my emotional fabric. My ties to the family had been sundered and now I stood on the other side of the chasm.
Forty
Sean came to the house the next day. I saw him coming, my pie basket-in his hand. He knocked on the back door and I was slow to unlock it.
“Can we talk for a minute?”
“Come in.” I took the basket from him and set it on the table between us. We were forced to look through the tall fixed handle, and I was reminded of a confessional. Sean moved the basket.
“My mother is very hurt by your walking out yesterday.”
“Your mother is hurt? How does she think I feel?” I stood up, outraged at Sean for putting forth such a patent lie.
“Look, I know it was a bad idea to be there when you came, but my mother had nothing to do with that. We would have left in a few minutes anyway.”
“Your mother sat that woman down at her table and fed her. In my mind that means she's accepted her.”
“What if she has?”
I had no answer for that. “Just leave, Sean.”
“Can I see the kids?”
“They're still in bed. Come back later.”
“No. Cleo, listen to me. Eleanor is in my life. I don't know if it will last, I just know that I'm trying as hard as I can to make this easy.”
“Easy for whom? Certainly not me. Certainly not your children. Easy for you. As always, Sean. What's best for Seannie is best for everyone. Even for your mother. It's easier to turn on me than make you leave your doxy at home.”
“My mother loves you . . .”
“She has a funny way of showing it.”
“Cleo, she does. She always will.”
“You once said you would always love me. Love changes, doesn't it?”
“I can't talk to you.”
I pressed my hands flat against the wooden surface of the table-top. “It's over, Sean. We both know it. We should never have prolonged the dying with futile efforts at life support.” Even as I spoke them, the words made me think of Talia Brightman and Ben's nearly year and a half of watching her die.
Sean got up from the chair. He hadn't removed his tan overcoat and I noticed a grease stain near a buttonhole. He looked fat and rumpled and a little remorseful. “Shouldn't we wait until after Christmas?”
“No, I'm giving you your freedom and for Christmas giving you to Eleanor.”
“And what do you get?”
I smiled, feeling suddenly empowered and in control of my life. It was a kind of bliss, knowing that, as painful as the next few weeks might be, as contentious and difficult, I had asserted my own will into this situation and I was now free. “Sean, I get my life back.”
Even as I closed the door behind Sean, I felt comforted by knowing-that Ben and I had reconnected. By freeing myself from the confines of this blighted marriage, I was launching myself into new waters, at once still, deep, and unknown. Ben was to me in this moment like the raft, midway between shores. A safe place to rest.
I knew it was only a matter of time before Alice came to see me. She didn't knock. I was in the office, thumping on my laptop. I heard the back door and knew without a doubt Alice had arrived. “I'm in here!” I saved my work and got up from the desk chair.
“Cleo, you can't give up now.”
“Alice, it isn't giving up, it's acknowledging the end.” I led her back into the kitchen and put the kettle on. “It's a dead issue. He loves Eleanor. Although my money says he'll eventually cheat on her, too.”
Alice sat on the chair Sean had used and kept her hands folded as she leaned her arms against the table. She didn't say anything, and when I turned around I saw that she was weeping.
I knelt beside her and took her hands. “Alice, Ma, it doesn't have to mean we can't be friends.”
“No, Cleo. That's not it.” Abruptly she pulled away from me and reached for a paper napkin. She blew her nose. “I'm just sorry I didn't have the courage you have. I slapped Francis across the face when I found out about him. I told him I must never catch him cheating again. But I knew, I knew he was doing it. I was the laughingstock of our parish. For the sake of the children I stayed. I could have left. But I stayed.”
“Alice, where would you have gone?”
“I had relatives who would have taken me. There was only me and the first two girls then. My sister would have done.” As she spoke, Alice regained her composure and waved me off to mind the boiling kettle. “Of course, if I had gone, I wouldn't have my others. They were and are more precious to me than anything.”
“You were right to make your decision the way you did. But I need to keep to mine in my way.”
“You don't love him at all?”
“Not right now. I'm very angry with him.”
“But you still wear your ring.” Did she imagine that this oversight meant something, that there was some subconscious hope left for this marriage?
I looked down at my left hand and stared at the wide gold band as if I had never seen it before. It had never even occurred to me to remove it. I did so now, tugging a little against the snug fit. I set the ring down on the kitchen table and rubbed the vacated finger. “Not anymore.”
Forty-one
Alice had agreed to have the kids come to her house on the second Tuesday of December. I was nearly honest with her, I was meeting a friend in Boston. We would have lunch and I would be home by seven. I was a tyro liar and the effort not to blurt more detail was difficult. I thought it very obvious, my avoidance of any pronoun to describe this “friend.” It was a mark of her regard for me that Alice didn't ask who it was I was meeting. I left the impression that the l
unch had something to do with publishing. My work was a mystery to Alice and I counted on her not to ask questions.
The kids were unconcerned with their mother's day away. Any day they could go somewhere besides home after school was a good one. Lily did lobby for going to a friend's house instead, but lately her selection of friends had bothered me and I said no. She sulked but got over it.
I hadn't waited for Sean to join me to tell the kids we were moving-ahead with the divorce. The three of us were eating a pickup dinner of canned clam chowder, squeezing in a family moment before homework, when I simply told them.
“You need to know that Daddy and I are getting a divorce.”
“Is that like the Separation?” Tim always made it sound like a proper noun.
“Not exactly. It means that Daddy and I aren't married at all anymore.”
By this time both kids had had enough counseling and easy-reader books on a “Children's Guide to Divorce” to understand intellectually what was going on. And I had enough instinct to know they'd need more reassurance of our love for them than ever. To that end I gathered them into my arms and told them that none of this meant they weren't the most important thing in our lives.”
“Except for the new baby.” Lily had, as always, pulled away from me, and she faced me to deliver this bomb.
“What new baby?”
Adding to the potency of her revelation, Lily folded her arms across her chest. “I saw the test thing in Eleanor's wastebasket.”
I wasn't going to ask when Lily had been in Eleanor's bathroom. “How did you know that's what it was?”
“TV.”
“So what color was it?”
“It wasn't a color, it was an X.”
“Do you mean like a letter X, or a plus sign?”
“A plus sign.”
I felt a slow heat rise from my waist to my armpits to my neck. So classic. “Do you suppose Daddy knows?”
Lily shrugged.
I kept trying to figure out how Eleanor's pregnancy would affect our divorce. Primarily it assured me that it would happen. Secondarily, I knew that I needed to get certain financial and territorial considerations locked in. I called my lawyer immediately and she was on the job. My second call was to Grace—there was no way I could keep this tidbit to myself.
“Cleo, if this wasn't so serious it would be funny. Sean's kids tell his first wife his mistress is enceinte. Too bizarre.”
“I have more bizarre for you. I'm going to Boston to meet Ben next week.”
“Is that a smart thing to do?”
“Just for lunch, Grace.”
“I repeat. Is that a smart thing to do? He's being pursued by paparazzi, you don't want to be on the cover of the Enquirer, do you?”
“Might boost book sales.” I wasn't going to let Grace cast a shadow across the only thing which had been keeping me from despair in the past week. “Besides, the press is tired of all that. It's blown over.”
“Be careful. And tell Ben hello for me.”
“I will, Grace.” I was grateful that she hadn't lectured me further. I wouldn't let the doubts about the wisdom of this meeting gain any foothold. I had only allowed the sweet anticipation of it to grow.
“And, Cleo . . . despite what I maybe have said about him, Ben is a good man, and you deserve a little fun.”
I smiled into the phone and could barely get out my goodbye.
Eleanor's pregnancy was like the sound of a handful of dirt on a casket. Although I had declared the marriage over, news like this, whether true or not, rattled me. Sean had yet to tell me about it, and I swore the kids to silence. Lily might have been mistaken. To myself, I acknowledged that Eleanor was playing what she thought was her trump card. Her timing was good, though, even if her imagination was limited. At four in the morning I wondered if Eleanor's attraction for Sean was that she was young and fertile. Had I damaged my marriage in some way by refusing to have another baby? Had that decision somehow been construed as a primal punishment? In the dark hour before dawn I wondered if that had been my way of getting even with Sean. I had made that choice, thinking that it would prevent him from wandering. Awake and cold in my uncompanioned bed, I probed my intentions for some subconscious malfeasance in making that choice.
Driving into Boston, I realized how nervous I was by the several mistakes I made finding my way into the city. I knew where I was going, but suddenly nothing seemed familiar. I parked the car in the garage under the Hynes Auditorium and decided to walk to Copley Square rather than take the “T.” Despite being dressed as if going to meet an editor, black from head to toe, wearing my good wool coat, I felt as though I wore an aura visible to any passerby. Woman going to meet special man, see me glow. We were to meet on the portico of Trinity Church, that much we decided on Thanksgiving. After that we'd find a place for lunch. I imagined something intimate and quiet, we had so much to say to one another.
It was cold, a damp breeze against my cheeks hinted at snow later in the day. I had listened to the forecast last night with fear that the whole expedition would have to be called off because of the weather. When the day arrived cloudy but snowless, I'd seen it as a sign of God's blessing. I leaned back against the brownstone wall of the church and waited. I waited long enough to begin to worry that I'd mistaken the place, then long enough to worry that he wasn't coming. Sharp bits of snow began to fall. For the first time I wished that I carried a cell phone. I didn't dare leave the portico to find a pay phone in case he came along at just that minute. Anxious tears began to rival the sharp flakes stinging my eyes.
“Cleo!” Ben came striding up to me from across the square. “I'm so sorry I'm late. The stupid car quit on me again. I ended up on the bus.”
I stood where I was and watched him come. I felt the tears transform from anxiety to joy. Ben wore a green ranger's parka but no hat. He looked out of place in the city and wonderful to me. I hadn't intended on throwing myself into his arms like a schoolgirl, but he bear-hugged me like a boy. Everything was familiar about him, despite the winter clothes and strange setting. His scent, his spontaneous laugh, his keeping my gloved hand in his. When we finally settled down and I looked at him, I saw that he'd grown a goatee. “I like it.” I reached up and touched the short beard hairs.
“A feeble attempt at incognito.”
We headed for Newbury Street, moving quickly through the lunchtime crowd. We were lucky enough to find a table for two in a small coffee shop, although Ben hesitated just a little as it was in the window. “Oh, screw it, I've become just a little too paranoid.” He held my chair out for me and then went to hang up our coats. Coming back to me, he commented, “You look lovely and you've grown out your hair, I like it.”
“I suppose I have.” It wasn't really a conscious decision, but I had let my wavy hair grow out. For so many years I'd kept it short and under control.
We had so much to say, it was hard to begin. I saw Ben looking at my bare left hand and I nodded. And told him my marriage was over. I told him about Alice's reaction, about Lily's behavior and Tim's sleeplessness, I even told him about the baby. For a long time I talked, and I began to feel self-conscious, but Ben kept me going until I was depleted. At the end my sandwich was untouched as was his and I felt as if I had lanced a blister and all the poison had flowed out. I took a cleansing breath and laughed, “Ben, you shouldn't encourage me to use you like a father confessor.”
He was leaning against one fist, watching me as I talked, his collie brown eyes full of interest and concern and a little hint of amusement, as if looking at me was giving him pleasure. No man had ever looked at me like that. Not Sean, not really—he had looked at me with lust, or by habit. Not my father. He had never looked at me with interest, only with annoyance.
“Ben, will you tell me what's happening with you?”
“I grew a goatee.”
“Seriously, how bad has it been since the press found out?”
“Very invasive. I came very close to moving Talia out of the convale
scent home because the press were camped out on the lawn. Fortunately, it got cold and they gave up. What's difficult is that they've made this discovery just as she's reaching, well, for lack of a better word, the end. They know, just like vultures, that the end is near and it's worth waiting around for the big finale.”
“Ben, you sound so . . .”
“Cynical? Hard? Flip? I am. I'm at the end of my rope, Cleo. I envy you. You've come to a conclusion and it's over and done.”
“Not entirely.”
“You know what I mean. I never know from day to day how much longer my life is going to be on hold. I'm so fed up with the whole thing, I wish it were over.” He suddenly covered his face with his hands and then ran his fingers through his hair in a gesture so familiar to me. “I don't mean that. I'm just very tired.” He looked tired, his summer tan gone, and pale and faint circles lay beneath his eyes. I should have seen it immediately but I was so happy just to see him, I hadn't noticed.
I took his hand away from his face and held it, glad for the small table, glad to give him a moment to let down his guard. I knew what he meant, though. In some faint parallel way, I, too, had been waiting for a death. Now that the clock was ticking down on the life of my marriage, ticking toward that day when the courts would pronounce it dead, I understood the peculiar limbo of being not quite free. I didn't do bedside vigil, but every day some new reminder of its termination struck me. I could only equate my divorce with the loss of his wife metaphorically, but because of it I did understand his ambivalent feelings and his quiet cry from the heart that it would soon be over.
“Can I ask you something?” I still held his hand and the question which clogged my throat needed asking in order for me to reconcile what I'd heard on the television with what Ben had told me.
“Of course. Anything.”