The Remedy for Regret

by Susan Meissner

  When we finally leave the restaurant it is nearly ten o’clock. We get home and spend an hour or so chatting in the living room. I give Shelley a pair of summer pajamas I bought for her at the Peabody the morning we left Memphis. Zane tells me about his baseball games so far and lets me know there is a home game tomorrow. I tell everyone about how Blair, Jewel and I found Tim. Shelley asks about Simon and I make a concerted effort not to look in my dad’s direction as I tell her he is doing much better and has gone back to work.

  Zane starts to yawn and we take the cue from him that it’s time to call it a night. We head upstairs, Zane to his bedroom, my Dad and Shelley to theirs, and me to my old room which is now the guest room and I can’t help feeling like nothing has really changed.

  I fall asleep wondering who am I to think I can start changing things now.

  Twenty-two

  In the morning when I awaken, I lie in the bed that used to be mine and consider when I should talk with my dad. The later in the day, the better, I think. I don’t want to have to fill the hours between the time I talk with him and the time I leave with ordinary small talk. I have a gnawing suspicion that we will both feel a little uncomfortable afterward. Maybe more than a little. Perhaps I should tell him just before I get on the plane. Maybe we can leave a little early for the airport tomorrow. I can offer to take him out to breakfast. We can find a place that has seating outside, a place where there is relative privacy—where there is just enough outside world around it such that neither one of us will say or do something we will later wish we had not.

  When I come downstairs, Dad is gulping down a glass of orange juice. He has a stubby racquet in his hands and is obviously dressed for a game of racquetball. Shelley is standing next to him holding out a toasted English muffin.

  “’Morning, Tess.” He sets his glass down and takes the muffin from Shelley.

  “Sleep well?” Shelley says to me, smiling.

  “Yes. Fine.” I watch my dad rushing to get out of the kitchen.

  “I’ll be home in time to take everyone to Zane’s baseball game,” he says, giving me a peck on the cheek like he did in the airport. Short, sweet and obligatory.

  “Okay,” Shelley says and I can tell she senses it, too: My dad is anxious to get away. I am sure she doesn’t know why. She is obviously confused as to why her husband seems leery of being in the same room with his only daughter. I am not confused. My dad is afraid any prolonged conversation with me will lead to the one he had with Simon. Better to avoid deep conversation altogether. My eyes follow him out the door. And Shelley’s eyes are on me.

  “Are you going to visit any of your friends today?” she says, clearing her throat. Clearing the air.

  “No, I don’t think so.” I walk to the coffee pot and pour myself a cup. “Most of my closest friends have all moved away. And I am only here until tomorrow morning. I’ll just spend it here with you guys. If that’s okay.”

  “Of course it’s okay. Why don’t you and Zane and I go to the mall this morning. He needs some new summer clothes and we can have lunch out. Sound like fun?”

  “Sure.” I am only biding time anyway.

  It actually ends up being a very enjoyable morning with Shelley and my brother. Zane doesn’t seem to mind shopping for clothes with me and his mom, which surprises me, and he and I have a great time picking out some outrageous summer outfits he has no intention of buying or wearing. The stiff, constricted air that seemed to fill the kitchen is not present as we shop and later enjoy Chinese food in the food court.

  As we eat I realize that the older I get the more I like Shelley. I wish I could think of her as a mother figure, but that feeling has always eluded me. Even when she was planning her wedding, back when I was fourteen and she, twenty-six, I had wanted to see her constant attempts to draw me into the planning—like making me a bridesmaid instead of a junior bridesmaid—as the beginnings of a mother-daughter relationship. But it felt more like the beginnings of a girl-to-girl friendship. And I didn’t want another friend. I wanted a mother. No. I wanted my mother—the one who bore me, the one whose body sheltered mine, the one whose face resembled my own.

  I even tried to manufacture the feeling but it backfired in my face. About a month after the wedding, after Shelley had moved in and her things began to lie around the house like mine and my dad’s, I got caught looking in her purse. I didn’t hear my Dad and Shelley came into the kitchen from the garage where they had been staining a dresser. I looked up from my snooping to see them staring at me.

  My father was appalled, embarrassed that his fourteen-year-old daughter would invade someone’s privacy like that, or worse, that I might actually steal from his new wife. I was merely satisfying my own curiosity about Shelley, trying to clothe her with motherliness by checking out the contents of her purse. Shelley, I think, must have known that I wasn’t thinking of stealing anything from her, that I was trying to get to know her better but in a rather tactless way. She looked surprised, but not offended.

  “What do you think you are doing?” my dad had demanded and I remember thinking then, as I still do, that that was a very thoughtless question.

  My face was afire with shame and I could not answer him.

  “Maybe you were just looking for a tissue or some gum?” Shelley had said, trying to soften the heavy air around us.

  I could not tell either one of them what I thought I was doing. It barely made any sense to me.

  “I was just looking for some lip balm,” I said, wishing my face didn’t feel so hot and that my feelings didn’t feel so raw.

  “You should have asked first,” my father had said, his eyes still shining with anger. Or maybe just ordinary shame. I was his daughter after all.

  “It’s okay, Mark,” Shelley had said. “I think I have an extra Chap-Stick I can give you, Tess. It hasn’t even been opened yet. Okay?”

  She had motioned for me to follow her into the room she now shared with my dad. And I followed her, walking past my dad and willing him to look upon me with eyes that said, “I understand why you did it. It’s okay.”

  But he didn’t look at me at all.

  I didn’t speak to him the rest of the day. Or maybe it was that he didn’t speak to me.

  After lunch at the food court, Zane announces he wants to go to a music store but he tells Shelley and me that he really wants to go in alone. This I can completely understand, and I think Shelley does, too. We sit under a fake potted palm to wait for him as he goes inside the store.

  “Tess, is there anything I can do for you?” Shelley says as soon as Zane is out of earshot. “You seem like you have a lot on your mind.”

  I smile weakly as I tell her she is pretty smart. I do have a lot on my mind.

  “I know I can never replace your mother, and I have stopped trying to, but if there is anything I can do…”

  She stops there because what else can she say?

  “It’s not your fault, Shelley,” I say quickly. My throat feels thick and weighted.

  “What’s not my fault?”

  “You have always been wonderful to me. And you’ve been wonderful for my dad. He’s as happy now as I have ever seen him.”

  She can see that something is coming and she simply looks at me and waits for it.

  “There is something wrong, but it has nothing to do with you. And no matter what happens, I want you to know that.”

  A look of alarms splashes across her face. “What do you mean, ‘no matter what happens’?”

  I take a big breath to help control my racing thoughts and it occurs to me that she may be able to help me after all.

  “I need to talk my dad about something we should’ve talked about years ago. We should’ve talked about it before he even met you. He’s probably not going to want to and he might even be really angry with me afterward.”

  Shelley’s eyes are wide with concern.

  “But I can’t live the way I have been living anymore, Shelley. I have to talk to him. Even if he won’t l
isten, I have to talk to him.”

  “This is about your mother, isn’t it?” she whispers, and her eyes look misty. The way mine feel.

  “I think he blames me for what happened to her,” I say. “I don’t think he wants to or ever intended to, but he does.”

  Two tears slip down her cheeks. “I think he does, too,” she whispers.

  Two tears slip down mine.

  “Tess, what are you going to do?”

  Despite her empathy for me as the wounded, she is concerned for the man she loves. She is afraid I will wound him back.

  “I am going to tell him I forgive him. I won’t live with bitterness. Not after seeing what it did to him. What it did to me.”

  She wipes her eyes and nods.

  “All these years I wanted to say something, do something,” she says, not looking at me. “And I never did. I thought he hid it so well. If I had known you knew—”

  “I didn’t. I didn’t know until a week ago that I felt the way I did because of him. Up until then I really thought it was my fault.”

  “Oh, God,” Shelley says, shock filling her eyes.

  “But it wasn’t,” I tell her, and I take her hand because her pain moves me, just like Corinthia said was true of me. “It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t kill my mother. It wasn’t my fault.”

  There are people walking past us in every direction and a few of them can’t help but look at the two women crying and talking in quiet voices in the middle of a shopping mall.

  We dry our eyes and try to gain back our composure.

  “When are you going to talk to him?” Shelley says.

  “Tomorrow morning I want to leave early for the airport. I want to take him out to breakfast. I may need your help with this. When I suggest it, he may want you and Zane to come, too, and you will have to decline. Can you think of a way to do that?’

  Shelley nods her head.

  “We’ll find a place where we can talk but it won’t be so private that it will make him uncomfortable. I’ll arrange it so we will only have twenty minutes to talk. If we are both wishing we had more time when it is time to get me to the airport, I will call the airline and ask for a later flight out. But… I don’t think that will happen.”

  Again Shelley nods her head.

  “He might be upset or distracted when he gets home,” I continue. “He may not want to talk about it. He may say absolutely nothing at all. I don‘t know if you can think a certain way for twenty-eight years and then just change your mind about it in twenty minutes. Especially when you’ve been in the wrong.”

  Shelley is rubbing her forehead and shaking her head.

  “I’m afraid for you, Tess,” she finally says. “I mean, I am incredibly proud of you for not reacting in anger or resentment, but I am afraid he will not accept it.”

  “I know,” I say. “But that will be his burden to live with if that is what he chooses. I am done living with it.”

  “You are very brave,” she says, looking at me intently.

  But I say nothing to this. I don’t feel brave. I feel desperate.

  “I wish you could stay a little longer,” Shelley continues.

  “I think it’s better to leave for a while. Besides, I want to mend some other fences. I am leaving for England on Monday. I am going to try and find my mother’s brother and his family.”

  Shelley looks wide-eyed at me. “You are?”

  “I’ve never even met them, Shelley. It was all a part of that dark thing called bitterness that I grew up with. Dad never talked about my mother’s family, never called them or wrote to them and whenever I would ask about my British relatives he would always tell me to leave lifeless things buried.”

  “I am so sorry, Tess,” Shelley says. “I should’ve intervened. I could tell something wasn’t right.”

  “It wasn’t your responsibility. He probably never wanted to talk with you about it either.”

  There are a few moments of silence between us.

  “So do you have an address for Martin? Do you know where to go?”

  “No. I am hoping I can get a little information out of Dad before I tell him all that other stuff.”

  “So he doesn’t know you are going?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I know where Martin’s address is,” Shelley says softly, looking down at her shoes. “I can get it to you later today. It is old, I don’t know if Martin still lives there. But I know where in the desk I have seen it. You might want it just in case, Tess. In case he pretends he has no idea where Martin is.”

  I sit in stunned silence and Shelley raises her head to look at me.

  “Thank you,” I say, wanting to say more, but unable to.

  “You are welcome,” she says and the care and concern on her face reminds me very much of what I used to imagine a mother’s face would look like, looking down at me. I see her purse resting by her feet and I can’t help but remember that long ago day.

  “Shelley?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember that day, after you and Dad were married, and you guys caught me looking in your purse?”

  “Yes.”

  “I wasn’t looking for lip balm.”

  She pauses a moment and then asks, “What were you looking for?”

  “I was just looking to see what was important to you. When I was little I used to think a mother’s purse was like an extension of her; that it carried all her wonderfully scented secrets and treasures. I just couldn’t explain it to you then.”

  Shelley smiles at me as she understands what I am trying to say. She reaches down, picks up her purse and places it in my lap. Her eyes say Have at it!

  I start to giggle and so does she. Zane comes out of the store to find us laughing and wiping our eyes and with his mother’s purse on my lap.

  “What are you guys laughing at?” he says.

  But neither Shelley nor I have a clue how to answer him.

  We spend the afternoon at Zane’s baseball game. He plays well, earning four RBIs but his team loses in the final inning. Zane takes the loss well. I think he is just pleased I saw him play and that he didn’t make any errors. After the game we go to a pizza restaurant Zane is fond of and when we return home, Shelley challenges Zane and I and my dad—who declines—to a game of Monopoly. I have the feeling she is keeping Zane up late on purpose. It is nearly midnight when we all start yawning. Shelley and I declare Zane the winner and she asks my Dad to tuck him in while she and I put the game away.

  As soon as they are upstairs, Shelley gets to her feet and tells me to keep putting the game pieces away, that she will be right back. When she returns a few minutes later, she hands me a small piece of paper. I glance at it quickly before I put it in my pants pocket. It reads: Martin Bowker, 14 Tanglewood Close, Oxford.

  Twenty-three

  Sunday morning dawns bright and sunny. I wake with the sun but I do not get up right away. I lie under the covers and contemplate what the day holds for me and I attempt a prayer for help. Corinthia would think it’s the smartest thing I have done in a long time. But I’m not seasoned at it and I am not sure I am making any sense. I think it must be enough to simply say “Help me say it, help him hear it,” because that is about all that escapes in whispers off my lips.

  At seven-thirty, I get up. The house is quiet. I shower, dress, dry my hair and head downstairs. Shelley is in the kitchen in her robe making coffee.

  “He’s coming downstairs in a few minutes,” she says quietly. “He suggested I make pancakes.”

  Shelley says nothing more and starts to load dishes from the ice cream we ate last night into the dishwasher.

  I hear my Dad coming down the stairs. He seems startled to see me.

  “Well, you’re up in plenty of time,” he says, smiling. But it is a nervous smile.

  Shelley keeps her back to us, fiddling with dishes in the sink.

  “I’d like to take you out to breakfast before I have to leave, Dad,” I say.

  “Oh. You don’
t have to do that, Tess. We can eat here.”

  “Yeah, I know we can. But I just thought it would be nice for you and me to do this together. I am sure Shelley doesn’t mind.”

  “Me?” Shelley says. “Not at all. Sounds like a great idea.”

  She turns back to the sink.

  “Well, maybe we should all go,” my Dad says.

  Shelley turns slowly around like she is pretending it might be a good idea but she then she acts like she is quickly changing her mind. It is all part of the ruse.

  “Actually, I don’t think Zane will want to get up this early. We kept him up pretty late last night. You two go. I’d rather stay here and read the Sunday paper in my pajamas anyway.”

  She turns again to the sink.

  “Then it’s all settled then,” I say. “I’ll just quickly go and give Zane a kiss goodbye and then tell him to go back to sleep.”

  “Oh, I’m sure that would mean a lot to him,” Shelley says cheerfully. “Mark, do you want to go get Tess’s suitcase? I’ll put some coffee in a travel mug for you.”

  Shelley turns to the coffee pot and I leave the room before my Dad can say or do anything different. As I take the stairs to go to Zane’s room I hear him ask Shelley if she’s sure she wouldn’t like to come also.

  I head to Zane’s bedroom door and listen for a few seconds. There is no sound. I slowly open the door. He is sound asleep, his face toward me in the bluish light of his room. I walk over to his bed and brush a few stray hairs off his forehead. I cannot think of anything that has happened in his life that would bring him the kind of sadness I have known. And I am glad. It is funny that I have never really been jealous of Zane in a pathetic kind of way. It has been more like I have always envied his easy happiness, but I don’t wish he didn’t have it and that I did. I lean down and press my lips to his forehead. He opens one eye.

  “Hey,” he says sleepily.

  “Hey yourself,” I say back. “I gotta go. I just wanted to say goodbye.”