This Is My Daughter

  It was still too early to get up. Emma tucked herself tightly into a muscular egg, drawing her legs close to her chest and lapping one bare foot over the other for warmth. Her stomach felt deeply anxious. It was normal to be nervous on your wedding day, she told herself. You couldn’t help it. She wondered if it were normal to be twice as nervous about your second wedding day.

  What it would be like, this life with Peter? How could you be sure you had made the right choice? What were the most important things? Peter had such energy, and he was bright and interesting and funny. He was generous. He loved her; he would be kind to Tess. She trusted him; he did not lie. And then he was wonderful in bed. Was that enough? Were those the important things? Because on the other hand he could be tense, fussy, demanding. He could turn pompous and judgmental. He frightened Emma when he was angry. He was touchy about his parents, and about money. And he played squash: would she have to spend her weekends in those cramped galleries, staring down at the tops of people’s heads and a ball whizzing about like an insect?

  There might be other things about Peter that should alarm her, things she didn’t even know about, or things she knew about but which she didn’t know now were important. Those things might turn out to be disastrous. How did you know?

  She would never know what his life with Caroline had really been like. All she knew was the small raised spine of that continent, the narrow rocky range of unhappiness that Peter had exposed. The rest of it was vast, submerged, dark, and shared by Caroline. It was everything else: the decisions they had made about painting the hall, choosing a car. The quarrels they had had in airports, or at breakfast, or in other people’s guest rooms, trying to keep their furious voices down. The unforgivable things they had said to each other, later forgiven. The times when they had laughed helplessly out loud in a public silence, or the times when they had both been angry at someone else, the man at the hotel who refused to acknowledge their reservation. The times they had been frightened, moments when they were suddenly afraid for their lives, or for Amanda’s. All those things—sex, late at night, dry mouthed and desperate among the tangled sheets, missed planes, awful meals, wonderful ones—Emma would never know. She would never know these things even when she and Peter shared their own continent. The things from the first marriage would be concealed from her, first from loyalty, then from indifference and finally from forgetfulness. And no matter what Peter told her now, he had once loved Caroline. And that was good, she must remember that, no matter how painful it was, it was good that her husband was a loving man.

  She hoped she was doing the right thing, she believed she was. You turn your choices into the right ones, you live them into being the right ones, by faith, by commitment. Looking back and agonizing was self-indulgence. You denied yourself that, it was useless and damaging. Conviction: she held to that thought. Emma closed her eyes and tucked her head down, under the covers, pressing her forehead against the domes of her warm hard knees. She was doing the right thing.

  Certainly she no longer wanted to be divorced. Divorced was different from unmarried; unmarried could be voluntary, but divorce was failure. No matter who asked for the separation, it was your marriage that had failed. Divorce held a faint, indissoluble stigma, an ancient stain, like blood on a sheet. She hadn’t realized how much she had wanted to be married. She wanted once again to feel that she was within society’s fold. She wanted Tess to have two parents. She wanted to be part of a whole, something shapely and symmetrical. She didn’t want this unnatural, lopsided, truncated form, the single-parent family. She felt its awkwardness constantly. She felt her own responses to Tess uncurbed, unconfirmed. There were times she lost her temper, when a husband would have calmed her and sheltered Tess. There were times she lost her nerve, when a father would have held firm against Tess’s tyrannical demands. The task required two, for balance. She wanted to restore that for Tess. She hoped she could restore it for Amanda as well. Poor anguished Amanda: consoling her was Emma’s task, her penance.

  Emma lay rolled up tightly beneath her covers. The clock shifted again, without warning. Another minute, fallen away. Emma wondered if there were a chance of her getting back to sleep; she concentrated on breathing, tried to relax. She drew in a long breath, held it within her, and let it slowly out. She thought of the breath, of air flowing out of her lungs, all the small, soft, irregular, honeycombed hollows collapsing peacefully into themselves as the air left them, membrane meeting membrane, the deep red sea-creature cavities emptied. She felt the air from those moist caverns drawn into a warm stirring column, rising through her chest and up her throat, a current from the interior, passing, with a soft whisper, through her nostrils and at last dispersing outside her body, filling the close musky cave under the covers with her own vaporous essence. Emptied, Emma lay motionless, trying to coax herself to sleep.

  The Wedding was lumbering toward her. Emma opened her eyes.

  It was to be small and quiet, in a nearby church. The reception would be larger, at the Knickerbocker Club. Emma thought of Francie and Rex and her parents, and closed her eyes again.

  She had finally gotten up her nerve to talk to her father, but when she called, it was her mother who answered the phone.

  “Hi,” said Emma cautiously.

  “Oh, hello dear,” said her mother.

  “I’m calling about the wedding,” said Emma.

  “Oh, yes, good,” said her mother. “In September.”

  “I know when it is,” said Emma.

  “I know you know. I’m just saying it to remind myself.”

  “Okay,” said Emma. “Right. Well, I’m really calling about Daddy.”

  “Your father?” Her mother’s voice changed slightly; tension entered it.

  “Well, and Rex.” Now Emma felt tense.

  “Your father and Rex?” Her mother sounded baffled and alarmed.

  “Francie’s Rex,” said Emma. She started talking faster, as though this would aid comprehension. “Francie asked me to call you, actually. She says that Daddy was not very polite to him.”

  “Not very polite to Rex?” Her mother’s voice rose in denial, as though Emma were accusing her father of robbery.

  “When he was staying with you. Last spring. Didn’t he try to get Daddy to lie down upstairs?” Emma could not now exactly remember what she had heard. “With his clothes off?”

  “Rex took off his clothes?” Now her mother sounded horrified.

  “Not Rex’s, Daddy’s,” said Emma, rattled.

  “Rex took your father’s clothes off? Is that what Francie told you?”

  “No, Francie didn’t tell me that,” Emma began.

  “Well, then who told you? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t remember anything like that.”

  “It didn’t happen, Mother,” Emma said, exasperated.

  “Then why did you bring it up?” asked her mother crossly. “I thought you said someone’s clothes were off.”

  “No one’s clothes were off,” Emma said loudly. “Daddy was rude to Rex.”

  There was a pause.

  “Well, he might have been. But I don’t remember it,” said her mother. “I don’t remember anything like that.”

  “You told me Rex tried to get Daddy to do some sort of New Age exercises to get rid of his stiff neck. Francie says Daddy was rude to Rex. She says she won’t come to the wedding if he’s going to be rude again.”

  “I don’t think your father was rude to Rex. I don’t think he’ll be rude to anyone. And I don’t think we’re getting anywhere in this conversation,” her mother said abruptly. “I’m going to hang up now.”

  “Wait, Mother. Would you talk to him? Would you ask him to be friendly to Rex?”

  “Would I talk to him?”

  “Mother, don’t repeat everything I say. You make me feel as though I’m talking gibberish.”

  “I don’t think that’s how you should say it.”

  Emma closed her eyes. “I’m trying to say it the best I can.�
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  “I mean gibberish,” her mother said. “I believe it’s a hard g. Not jibberish.”

  “Okay,” Emma said. “You’re probably right. But do you think you could talk to Daddy about Rex? Francie won’t come unless you do.”

  “I don’t think your father is rude to anyone,” her mother said. “And Francie will have to make her own decisions. Now, I’m going to have to get off the phone, I have things to do. Good-bye, dear.” She hung up.

  Emma stared angrily at the phone and repeated, “Good-bye, dear.” She squeezed her eyes shut, chagrined.

  Now, lying in bed, Emma remembered the phone call, the infuriating blank wall that her mother presented. It had always been like that; her mother always took her father’s side, always told her daughters they were mistaken. All complaints were redirected back at them. It had always made Emma wild with frustration, as though she were invisible, mute. What she saw and heard was denied, not allowed to be true.

  But now, in her peaceful nest, it occurred to Emma that her mother might feel trapped between her husband and reality. Perhaps she could not help herself. Her silence and vagueness might be self-protection, she might not feel equal to the struggle between her husband and the world, her husband and her daughters.

  Emma remembered once coming into the big kitchen of the house in Cambridge. She had been eleven or twelve. Her father was at the table by the window. He sat very straight, his lunch on a plate before him. He was looking directly forward, eating his sandwich. There was something belligerent and challenging about his posture, and he did not look at Emma, or speak to her when she came in. Emma’s mother was by the stove, her back to them. Her movements were clumsy. She did not turn to greet Emma either.

  “All right then, Everett,” she said without looking at him. “Fine. Whatever you say. I’m wrong.” Her voice was low and dead sounding, and, horribly, it held tears. Emma had never seen her mother cry before. The voice was terrifying; the air in the room splintered.

  Mr. Kirkland did not move. “There’s no point in getting upset about it, Aline,” he said. “Politics is just something you don’t understand. There’s no point in crying about it.” He took another bite of his sandwich, facing straight ahead.

  “I’m not crying,” Emma’s mother said, and she turned, still without looking at her husband or at Emma, keeping her face away from them, lowered. But as she said the words her voice broke frighteningly: she was, she was crying. She put her hand to her face as she left the room, letting the swinging door rush closed behind her. Emma stood frozen, feeling the cold draft from her mother’s departure. The kitchen felt empty. Her father stayed at the table, unhurriedly finishing his sandwich. Emma watched the angle of his jaw as he chewed. He did not look at her, or speak. Emma could not move, it seemed: the air was filled with the glittering fragments of catastrophe, it would be dangerous to move.

  Now Emma thought again of that scene: her mother fleeing, her father picking up his sandwich. Her mother, with her vague gestures and her anxious eyes, her faded sweaters, her torn turtlenecks, keeping quiet. Her poor mother, Emma thought.

  The clock was moving things along. It was now four minutes past six. The Wedding was closer still, it was coming. At least the Chatfields would be benevolent presences. She imagined Dr. Chatfield at the wedding in his threadbare linen suit and dark blue sneakers. She had never seen him without the ragged leather strap of his binoculars around his neck, and wondered if he would wear them to church, in case he caught sight of a high shadowy flutter within the dim vault of the ceiling. She saw him, straight backed in the pew, leaning discreetly sideways, his head cocked for a better look. He whispered quietly but audibly to his wife, “Cedar waxwing, winter plumage.” At the reception Mrs. Chatfield would kiss everyone comfortingly, her high cheeks rosy with pleasure. She would wear a blue tweed suit and her pearls. And there would be other people, aunts and uncles, cousins, friends of both Emma’s and Peter’s, people who had known them before, in their other marriages, but who had not taken sides, who were generously ready to wish them well again.

  Rachel would be there, Rachel who had become Emma’s friend again. They had found a new apartment, on Central Park West, and when Emma showed Rachel through it she had held her breath. The new place was bigger, the ceilings higher: there was more of it to clean. Emma hoped Rachel didn’t feel like baggage, carried here and there, from marriage to marriage. But Rachel’s change of attitude had been complete. She had walked calmly through the new apartment and exclaimed with pleasure. Rachel, tall and shining, would be a dark regal presence, reminding everyone of propriety. Or at least Emma hoped so. And Amanda? She thought of Amanda’s small pale frozen face.

  At seven o’clock, Emma gave up. She got out of bed and opened her closet to look at her dress. At her first wedding, to Warren, in the late seventies, she had worn a white pantsuit. Then she had wanted to look dashing and unconventional, but now she felt differently. For this, her real wedding, she had chosen a white silk suit with an ankle-length skirt. The jacket was close fitting and high necked, with long tight sleeves and tiny diamond buttons down the front. It looked, Emma thought, like an old-fashioned lady’s riding jacket, like something her grandmother might have worn. Wearing it herself, she felt demure, and serious, as though she would be received again into the bosom of the world. At the sight of the long white shape, soft and lustrous, her heart lifted: it was all about to happen.

  At noon, Emma went up to the Knick, where the reception was to be. She stood in the handsome high-ceilinged library, with its tall windows overlooking Fifth Avenue. Daylight filled the big rectangular room, muting the richness of the brown leather spines of the books that lined the walls, the Oriental carpet that covered the floor. On the mahogany table in the center of the room was a mass of flowers. The great risk of being married in September was chrysanthemums, with their fetid smell and rusty colors. Emma had ordered lilies and roses, white stock, fragile anemones. Now they stood in a lush mass, tendrils and vines curling through them, heavy green leaves petticoating the bottom. Everything was serene and orderly. Andre, the headwaiter, smiled and assured her that all was ready. There was nothing for her to do here.

  But still she felt butterflyish: the Wedding was approaching.

  They were to leave for the church from the apartment at three-thirty. At a little past two they all began the process of dressing, preparing themselves for the ritual.

  Tess wore a pink Liberty cotton, patterned with fragile interlocking flowers. Her innocent chest was crossed by rows of smocking—even, intricate puckers—topped by the starched white collar. The long sash was tied in back by the patient Rachel. Tess twisted her head, struggling to make sure the stiff bow was made properly, the loops symmetrical, the hanging tails even. Dressed, the frail white socks folded neatly over themselves, the black ankle-strap party shoes creaking with newness, Tess walked slowly and solemnly after Rachel, subdued by her own splendor.

  Rachel was dazzling in ankle-length orange silk, the color radiant against her deep chestnut skin. Her tiny braids were brought in a smooth swirl to the nape of her neck, and she looked powerful and serene.

  Peter sat in the living room, reading. He looked clean and nervous. He was in a deep blue suit with tiny pinstripes, very dark and very dressy. He had just had a haircut, and it was too short. At the back of his head the twin cords that reached from neck to skull were exposed, and the shorn plush looked surprised and vulnerable. In his buttonhole was a gardenia, white, tender, its scent ravishing.

  Rachel stepped out into the living room, holding Tess by the hand. Peter looked up at them.

  “Don’t you two look terrific,” he said. “What pretty dresses.”

  “And party shoes,” Tess said, pointing her toe.

  “Thank you,” Rachel said, giving him a wide white smile.

  Emma, who had started first, took the longest. She never went to the hairdresser, and had been afraid to go to one for her wedding. What if they did something awful and you hated it? What
if you hated the way you looked on your wedding day? She had washed her hair the night before, the way she normally did. Getting dressed, she looked at herself in the mirror. Maybe she should have gone to a hairdresser after all, she thought. But it was too late, and it would be all right. She pulled on the long slip, sliding it carefully up over her stockings. By three, Emma was finally dressed, moving her head carefully in the high tight silk, taking small steps in the long hobbling skirt. She loved the strange length and narrowness of the skirt, reminding her of this event, making it real, inevitable. The Wedding was approaching.

  At quarter past three, Amanda had not arrived. She had been expected at three. Emma asked Peter, “Do you think you should call?”

  “Already?” Peter asked.

  “Well, when do you think?” said Emma gently. He must be nervous too.

  “A few more minutes,” he said. They were standing in the tiny dining room. They had nothing else to do. Tess stared up at them. In one hand she held the bouquet she was to carry. With the other she twirled a curl of hair. They waited. Emma walked with tiny steps the length of the room, then turned.

  “What if she’s not here by three-thirty?” she asked.

  “Do you want me to call Caroline?” Peter’s voice was tense.