“Complications from lupus—that’s what it was.”
“What did it actually say?”
“ ‘Acute overdose of Seconal. Took own life.’ That’s what they have to call it, everywhere except the aid-in-dying states.”
“Oh.”
“Who cares, though, right? She sure as hell didn’t.”
“But Addie does.”
“She thinks someday Simmi will look it up.” Terrence gestured dramatically with his right hand. “So she looks it up. And we tell her her mother was dying, and she was in pain. Simmi will be an adult then, and you know—she’s already like her mother. They’re not sentimental.”
I laughed. “No. I would sometimes want to watch a stupid movie—like, a thriller or something, just to relax. But Charlie would want to analyze it.”
“Right,” Terrence said. “She could never just chill. Used to drive me nuts.”
“And you think Simmi’s like that.”
But whatever reserve had lifted for a moment suddenly returned, and Terrence didn’t answer. I probably should’ve stopped there, but I’ve always had trouble letting a question drop.
“But they couldn’t think that you convinced her to do it that way?”
“Who knows what Carl or Addie thinks? They think somehow I got the drugs for her, from my brother, Ray—which is a joke. He’s been clean thirty years. The doctor who gave it to us, you know where he went to school?”
Terrence didn’t wait for me to guess.
“Tufts. The same diploma that’s on the wall in there.” Terrence looked toward the corner of the house, where Carl had his office with its own entrance. I knew exactly where Charlie’s father’s diplomas hung, above the leather couch where Charlie and I once sat drinking airline bottles of peach schnapps and Baileys Irish Cream, before sneaking out to the clubs on Lansdowne Street. Charlie sitting in the Eames chair, asking me questions in a sonorous voice:
What’s the first word that comes to mind when I say the word “mother?”
“Father.”
Hmm, interesting. What did you dream last night, Helen?
I don’t remember my dreams.
Tell me about your earliest memories.
Watching two boys throw a cat back and forth in the alley behind our apartment. It was terrifying.
Charlie tipping her head back, taking another syrupy swig in the dark.
You are deeply fucked-up, Helen. I honestly don’t know if I can help you.
And then the two of us laughing and shushing each other, in case her parents could hear us through the wall.
“Like I just got tired of taking care of her,” Terrence said suddenly.
“That’s absurd.”
Terrence shook his head slowly. “No, it’s not. I did get tired of it. She was all cheerful and fine in the mornings, before Simmi went to school. But then as soon as she left, she would barely talk. Just sleeping and reading all day. Like, you know you have a few months to live, and you’re reading a book?”
“What was she reading?”
Terrence gave a frustrated sigh. “Who knows? The point is, I was there. But I could have been some health-aide robot. Until Simmi came home, and then she was all over her, kissing her, cuddling her. But if I tried to touch her—”
“Maybe it was too hard.”
“To give me a hug?”
“Because she loved you.”
“She didn’t love me half as much as she loved Simmi.”
“I’m sure that’s not true.”
Terrence didn’t bother to respond to that. He took his phone out of his pocket. “You better get home to your sitter.”
“I’m glad it’s going to work out,” I said. “With the apartment.”
“Yup.”
“I didn’t expect the kids to get along so well. I mean, apart from the other night.”
“He’s a great kid.”
“Thanks.”
“He’s his own little dude, you know—not a follower.”
“I think he’d follow Simmi anywhere.”
“I like him a lot better than those people tonight.”
“You mean Neel and Roxy.”
“She’s cool,” he said. “But that guy…I’m sorry, but I’m surprised you’re still friends. No offense—but he kind of disrespects you.”
“That’s just his manner.”
Terrence raised his eyebrows. “How long were you together?”
“Just a year, officially. Then we went to grad school in different cities. We worked together as postdocs and afterward, but we weren’t dating then. And then it was mostly just email—a lot of email—until I had Jack.”
“Uh huh.”
“Also he was a little high tonight.” Why did I feel the need to defend Neel to Terrence? I’d never had any doubt that Neel respected me as a scientist. But Terrence didn’t know anything about science, and so that couldn’t be what he was talking about.
“I can’t picture him and Charlie hanging out.”
“It was mostly just that time in Gloucester.” If I thought that would prompt Terrence, I was mistaken. He remained stubbornly silent. What had she told him about that weekend? Had she told him it was when she’d given up on Oxford, decided to move to L.A.? Had she said what had forced that decision—that in a way, it was the reason they’d met?
“And Neel’s not cool, if that’s what you mean,” I said. “Most of us have kind of given up on that.”
“No kidding.”
I couldn’t help feeling a little offended. “The work’s what’s cool.”
“Black holes are cool,” Terrence admitted. “I just question the resources involved.”
“That’s fair,” I said. “It’s not efficient, at least economically.”
“If you could do something with them, then maybe. Like put all the garbage in there.”
For some reason this is an idea a lot of people have with regard to black holes, in spite of the glaring practical hurdles.
“I’m sure Charlie would agree—about it being sort of esoteric.”
Terrence smiled. “No way. Charlie would love it.”
“You mean LIGO?”
“Just the idea of a billion trillion suns. The chirp, and the—what do you call it—ringdown?”
I thought that in my twenties and thirties I would have defended pure science more vehemently. I certainly had none of the trouble arguing with men that some women I knew seemed to have. I didn’t know what had changed as I’d gotten older—it might have had something to do with having Jack—but now I could see Terrence’s point of view. What right did people like Neel and I have to spend our lives answering questions about the universe—questions that (at least so far) did nothing to alleviate suffering here on Earth?
“I can see how it seems expensive and useless.”
Terrence nodded. “She loved expensive and useless.” He gestured toward the house. “Look where she grew up.”
I thought that wasn’t quite fair. “The Boyces were really adamant about giving back, though. She said she spent her whole childhood volunteering.”
“Community service,” Terrence said drily. “We used to get some of that. Volunteers in the school. And presents at Christmas, one year. Secret Santa. We were supposed to send them a picture, so the rich people could be like, ‘Look at the poor kids we helped.’ But my mom just threw that stuff away. She might not have been rich, but she had dignity, you know? Next year we’d be off that list, and Ray and I would give her hell about it. Now I get why she did it.”
“Carl still works at that shelter, though. And Addie’s whole life is board meetings, after-school programs. They put their money where their mouth is. And their time.”
Terrence didn’t acknowledge that one way or the other. We sat there for a moment in silence.
Terrence nodded slowly. “I’m going to have some stuff shipped, if that’s okay.”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Not a ton—mostly Simmi’s things. The L.A. toys have gotten really important. We talk about it all the time, you know, like, ‘Is my stomp rocket still there? Is my play kitchen still there?’ ”
“That seems normal.”
“Yeah, well, the stomp rocket is a lightweight plastic toy, but the play kitchen is this heavy wooden thing, and so I’m like, ‘You don’t play with that anymore.’ And she just looks at me. And I remember that it’s what she used to do when she was little, when Charlie still cooked sometimes. She’d stand there next to her, pretending—she loved that thing.”
“It makes sense to let her keep it.”
“Yeah?” He looked unsure, as if he really wanted my opinion, and also as if he might leap from the car at any moment. I thought of all the decisions he would have had to have made, as soon as they found out she was dying. How much should Simmi’s regular routines be disrupted? When should a tantrum be calmed, and when encouraged? And what should she be allowed to save? Photos and jewelry, no question—but what about a T-shirt? A toothbrush? Hair from a comb?
Terrence’s arm was resting on the passenger door and he was fiddling with the lock. “I was thinking, maybe we’ll be able to help each other—watching them?”
I tried to sound casual when I agreed that exchanging childcare would be practical. It was further than I’d ever imagined he’d go. I thought we were admitting a particular vulnerability to each other, the one shared by all single parents asking for help, and it made me feel close enough to ask the other question I had, to which I was pretty sure I knew the answer.
“Did you ever find her phone?”
“No.”
“Couldn’t you explain to Addie that Charlie meant to write a letter, even if she didn’t have time?”
“I think she did write one.”
“To them?”
“Right. And if they want it, they should have their lawyer get it for them. It’d be the most useful thing that lawyer’s ever done.”
“But they won’t do that.”
“Because they don’t believe me.”
He had been staring straight ahead at the car parked in front of us—it was a Land Rover, with one of those decals that are supposed to represent their owners: two stick figure parents, three children with customized genders, a cat—but now he turned to me. His eyes were gray rather than green in the reflected light from the streetlamp outside.
“And none of us is really talking at the moment.”
“I’m sorry.”
Terrence shrugged.
I thought about the long Thanksgiving table, the garlands, and the bottles of wine. I thought of the producer seated to my left. I’d had an idea about Terrence—that Charlie had chosen him to piss her parents off a little. He represented, if not authentic blackness—he had, after all, grown up in a household with a single parent who was white—at least the world outside the privileged bubble where she’d always lived. Authenticity had never been important to Charlie, though; she’d never wanted to be part of a group. I thought now that it was more likely exceptionality, the feeling of not quite fitting in anywhere, that had united them.
I wanted to say something reassuring about Addie and Carl—how they were in the worst stage of grief, and would eventually soften toward him—but I couldn’t find the right way to frame it.
Terrence gave me a sort of pat on the arm. “Thanks for distracting me tonight,” he said. Then he got out and walked in his casual way, feet forward and shoulders thrown back, as if even his body were expressing its ambivalence, up the solid brick path to the house, his hands in his pockets.
6.
The last time I saw Charlie was a few days before Christmas in 2012. She, Terrence, and Simmi were in Brookline for the holidays; we had planned that she would bring Simmi to our house, where the nanny I employed then, Pema, would look after both children while Charlie and Terrence and I went out to dinner.
The fact that Charlie and I had landed in each other’s hometowns was a coincidence, and it should have made it easy to see each other at least once a year. They always came to Boston for longer than Jack and I went to L.A., and so it made more sense for us to meet while they were in town. The Boyces were more demanding than my family, though, and much more socially active. When Charlie brought her family to Brookline for Christmas, there was always a slate of holiday visits and events on their calendar. Charlie had groaned about those obligations to me by text—once we were in the same time zone—but we often made plans that she canceled. When my phone rang that afternoon, I thought she was doing it again. Instead Charlie said that Simmi had a bad cold, and that she was going to leave her at her parents’ with Terrence, while just the two of us had a night out.
That evening when I opened the door she did her customary shriek and grabbed me. We rocked back and forth, hugging each other, until I felt it was reasonable to detach myself. It had been four years since I’d seen her in L.A., and we’d been in only sporadic touch.
“I think it worked out for the best,” she said, once she got inside. “I really wanted you to see Sims, but having Terrence at dinner would’ve changed the whole dynamic. My mom was dying to have you and Jack for the Christmas Eve party, but I told her you’d be in L.A.”
Charlie looked around my living room, which I’d been seeing through her eyes all day, with misgivings.
“This is so Helen,” she said. “It’s perfect.”
Charlie liked to read even more than I did, but she wouldn’t have installed built-in bookshelves in the living room. I knew without having seen the inside of her house that the furniture would go together in a complicated way I wouldn’t be able to articulate; that there would be a chandelier somewhere; and that at least one piece of furniture would be upholstered in toile. There would be a faux zebra rug, and especially nice bathrooms. She couldn’t possibly have admired the midcentury modern living room set I’d purchased from a vintage warehouse in the South End—not because I especially liked that period, but because it seemed like what people bought these days—or my grandmother’s threadbare Persian rug. Still, I felt that when she said “so Helen,” her admiration was genuine.
“I love these old Victorians,” she said, taking off her coat and hanging it over a wooden bench just inside the door. “I love that it’s blue.”
“It was blue when I bought it.”
“It’s cozy and whimsical.” She was wearing a pink sweater and navy, wide-legged wool culottes that buttoned up the side. Her boots were knee-high and black leather, with a round toe, and she had a set of gold bangles on one arm. Her hair was still short, but it was straight, and a fringe of long, highlighted bangs fell over one eye. She pushed them behind her ear; only the diamond studs were unchanging. Even by her own high standards, Charlie was well-dressed.
She saw me noticing. “This morning Terrence said I save my best clothes for when we’re at my parents, and I was kind of annoyed. But he’s completely right. I still want to impress my mom more than anyone.”
“I probably want to impress you more than anyone,” I said. “And this is still what I’m wearing.”
Charlie laughed. “You look great—you always look great. And thin.”
“You’re always thin.”
“Yeah, but only because my meds are completely nauseating.”
We could hear Jack and Pema playing in the bedroom. Charlie’s face lit up. “Is he in there? Can I meet him?”
I nodded. I was filled with the same kind of anticipation I’d had when my parents came to see Jack and me in the hospital.
Charlie toned down her greeting for Jack, m
aybe sensing that he’d respond better to a more reserved approach. Even so, Jack was shy. He gave a barely audible “Hi,” and scooted closer to Pema. They had built a zoo out of unit blocks, and were populating it with plastic animals.
Charlie got down on her knees, in spite of her outfit. “I have a little girl, and she loves these animals, too,” she told Jack. “She especially loves horses.”
“I love reptiles,” Jack said, adding an alligator, but he didn’t smile until Charlie reached into her capacious leather bag and pulled out a package in Christmas wrapping. “Sorry,” she mouthed to me, and I soon saw why: it was a remote-controlled car, the kind of toy I rarely buy him. It lit up in rainbow colors, played music, and could even do stunts; when Jack pulled the toggle toward him, it turned a flip, landed on its rubber tires, and squealed off to a tinny, electronic pastiche of the Star Wars theme.
“Thank you!” Jack said, his face exploding into a natural smile. He was suddenly his best self, bubbly and polite, and let Charlie show him how to do a wheelie.
Charlie had taken a cab to our house, and so I drove to the restaurant. On the way Charlie said: “I knew I would only have a few minutes with him, so I wanted him to like me right away.”
I didn’t take that as anything more than a comment on our hectic holiday schedules at the time.
* * *
—
When Jack was in preschool and Pema was still with us, I would go out at night once a week. Sometimes these were work events, and other times just dinner with a few colleagues. I also socialized with the mothers I knew through Jack, especially Vicky and Eunice, and every few months I saw my old friend from Harvard, Elaine, now a professor of medical anthropology at Tufts. When I go out with any of these people, I know what the conversation is going to comprise. With Vicky and Eunice, I talk about the children; with other scientists, I gossip about MIT. With Elaine, who doesn’t have children, I often have the most interesting conversations: about feminism and work, about politics and whatever each of us happens to be reading.
As Charlie and I drove to the restaurant, listening to the same station we’d often put on in college—they seemed to have given up on attracting new listeners, and were still playing the same R.E.M., U2, and Prince albums we loved back then—I thought about what was different from those other friendships. It was a level of intimacy that I’d never reached with another woman, not back then or once we became adults. I think that with most of our friends we choose how much of ourselves to reveal, and with a very select few it feels as if there is no choice.
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