After the service, we stayed and talked to various cousins and second cousins. Paul is so good at this sort of thing; he likes people, and they feel it and respond in kind. By the end of the afternoon, he was exchanging e-mail addresses with half a dozen men. If anyone remembered Paul’s past or my break with my parents, they didn’t let it show. I don’t think they cared anymore. Most of the adults were around Paul’s and my age; middle-class, hardworking, well-meaning. Their parents were dying off and with them all the old grudges and grievances. There were other worries now. Mortgages. Home equity loans. Escalating property taxes. All the new houses going in.
“I couldn’t afford to buy here now,” one of the men said, and a few others nodded.
“Who could? I feel lucky to have inherited our house from Pam’s folks. But where are our kids going to live? That’s what I worry about.”
“It’s the same where we are,” Paul told them. “I work construction so I see firsthand the money that’s getting poured into these places. People putting twenty-five thousand dollars’ worth of granite countertops in the kitchen, then having us rip it all out because they decide they don’t like the color! Multimillion-dollar mansions overlooking some old cow pond.”
“Yeah. It’s crazy, isn’t it? You know, Paul, you should bring your kids over at Christmastime when we have the big Fedderson family party. I’ll make sure you get the e-mail about where and when.”
It had snowed while we were indoors. We drove home under a pearly gray sky, the white hills hushed and ghostly in the cold failing light.
“That was nice, don’t you think?” Paul asked me. “Aren’t you glad we went?”
“Of course,” I said. “But it seems like such a waste in a way, doesn’t it? All those years of not speaking? It just seems so stupid to me now.”
“Do you have any idea how angry you sound?”
“No, I don’t. I’m not. I just find it really, really sad that he could sit there by himself day after day, when he had three wonderful granddaughters he never even knew or wanted to know!”
Paul was smart enough to keep quiet after that. I didn’t believe that what I felt was anger, because I’d worked so hard over the years to tamp down my bitterness toward my parents. Especially my father. I was determined not to be like him. Dribbling away his days, pawing through old hurts and disappointments, like a miser with his gold. But as the days grew darker and Christmas approached, I found myself dwelling more and more on the past. On my father’s failures: to keep the hardware store, to stand by Paul and me when we were down, to get beyond his own limitations and disappointments. To be a better, stronger human being. What a waste! I kept going back to that: he’d missed the opportunity to know us, to share in our happiness and love.
Two nights before Christmas Paul drove us back to Great Barrington, to the home of Tim Reidel, who had married one of my Fedderson cousins. The Colonial-style home was ablaze with Christmas tree lights when we pulled up, the driveway and curb lined with cars. I was still nursing Lia then. She was asleep when we got to the party and I told Paul, Rachel, and Beanie to go ahead without us; I’d nurse her and we’d join them in a little while. I climbed into the backseat, but I just sat there after they left, thinking about my dad. He’d loved Christmas the way I do, and, I imagine, for much the same reasons. He was a homebody, happiest in his own living room, and so many of the Christmas rituals—trees, gifts, wreaths, candles, stockings—seem best enjoyed there.
Then, for a brief moment, I felt that he was with us in the car, in the front seat, turning around to face me at last. And I found myself asking him, Why were you such a stubborn old fool? What the hell was wrong with you? Why couldn’t you manage to love me—at least a little bit more than you hated yourself? But just as quickly, he was gone. Truly, finally, gone. He wasn’t there to hear me anymore. He’d turned a deaf ear at last to all the insults and criticisms I’d been flinging at him over the years. Because that’s how I’d been dealing with his absence, I realized now: by debating him endlessly, silently, somewhere deep inside. Yes, he was the one I’d been proving myself to, whose good opinion and approbation I’d been seeking all along. I thought I was all grown-up, moving ahead with my life. But a part of me had stayed a child, crying out for attention: See how well we’re doing without you, Daddy? Look what a beautiful new baby I have in my arms. Yes, we’ve bought a home, the old Anderson place out on County Route 198. The truth was: I hadn’t stopped begging for his approval since I’d walked out of his house. Just as he’d never stopped withholding it. He’d been my silent adversary. The door I beat my love against; the heart that wouldn’t open. And it had been this exhausting, ongoing, one-sided argument that had kept him alive for me all that time.
Christmas passed in shades of gray. I felt bone-tired. I was almost grateful when I caught a stomach flu somewhere and Paul insisted that I spend a few days in bed. He had a touch of something, too, but nothing ever seemed to stop him. Nicky Polanski had him working ten-hour days on the new condo complex at the ski resort above Vandenkill; cookie-cutter time-shares slapped together on the cheap with Sheetrock, Tyvek, and molded plastic fittings. And Polanski really knew how to put the screws on. Paul hadn’t taken a real break in over a year.
Rachel was off from school for the holidays, and as I drifted half awake through the afternoon, I could hear her and her friends rattling around downstairs, watching rented videos and making popcorn. The acrid smell of burning butter filled the house; I heard Lia crying and I knew that her diaper probably needed changing. The cries grew louder, more plaintive and demanding. I turned over, trying to find my way back down into sleep.
“Mommy?” It was Rachel, standing in my bedroom doorway. “Mr. Polanski’s on the phone. Daddy’s in the hospital.”
I dove for the extension on our bedside table:
“What happened? How is he?”
“We don’t know,” Polanski said. His voice had none of the oily flirtatiousness I’m used to from him. “The crew told me he just curled up and started moaning. He’s conscious, but in a lot of pain. I’m at the ER in Harringdale. I’ll be waiting for you.”
I didn’t trust myself to drive; Bob took me. Kathy came over and picked up the girls. We followed the same route we used to take when Bob and I visited Paul in prison: back roads through silent little towns, the desolate highway, the wintry rural landscape giving way to the wide, mostly empty thoroughfares of postindustrial New England. Harringdale was starting to make something of a comeback, the old downtown attracting an eclectic range of new businesses—a reference publisher, a candy producer, an insurance brokerage—by offering some hefty tax breaks. A theater company was rumored to be moving into the old Hatfield Athenaeum. But it was the influx of retirees and the concomitant need for more and better health care that had really pulled the failing local economy back up on its feet. The Harringdale Medical Complex had burgeoned over the last five years and was now considered the best-equipped hospital in the region.
Polanski was on his cell phone when we got to the waiting room at the ER. He clicked off as soon as he saw us. He shook hands with Bob and put his arm around my shoulder. He’s usually such a tough, demanding, foul-mouthed man; his politeness terrified me.
“It’s okay. He’s going to be okay. They think it’s an ulcer. A bleeding ulcer. He’s probably been walking around like a fucking time bomb for Christ knows how long.”
I knew Paul took a lot of aspirin, but then he had a lot of aches and pains. He had a physically demanding job, after all, and a couple of old sports injuries that were always kicking up: a trick knee and a torn ligament in his left shoulder that had never healed right. He usually popped a couple of Advils or Bayers when he got home from work at night, and sometimes a few more before he went to bed. I had no idea how dangerous this could be until the doctor told us.
“Long-term use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs is the second most common cause of ulcers, and that rate is only increasing. Most people get away with it. You’re one
of the unlucky ones. We’ve done an endoscopy. That’s effective in controlling bleeding in most cases. And we’ve shot some epinephrine into you just to hedge our bets. But I’m sure glad we got you when we did. And I don’t intend to let you go for a while.”
I liked and trusted the doctor. I don’t think what happened was his fault. But the first endoscopy didn’t stem the bleeding after all and somehow, during the second, there was a perforation of the intestinal wall. It was a risk; it said so in the fine print of the document Paul signed and I witnessed. Whoever or whatever was to blame, suddenly two days into the new year Paul was undergoing major abdominal surgery.
“Six months until he’s really back on his feet,” the doctor told us after the operation, addressing most of what he had to say to me. “And even then he’s going to have to take it slow. No lifting! I’ll be seeing him for a follow-up in a couple of weeks.”
We got Paul onto disability, but it was less than a quarter of what he was bringing in through Polanski Builders. Far worse than that, though, was the fact that we didn’t have major medical; it was just so expensive for a family of five! And we’d justified our stupidity by telling each other we’d only really need it when we got older. The hospital bill came to over eighty thousand dollars. We took out a home equity line of credit, but the monthly interest-only payments hit us like body blows every month; and we couldn’t even think about dealing with the principal yet. Not surprisingly, Paul was not an ideal patient. He detested the soft, low-residue diet Dr. Reitz put him on. He hated feeling useless and “all cooped up.” It didn’t help that, along with everything else, it was winter and he was housebound. He seemed to always be in my way: opening the refrigerator when I was standing right behind him with two dripping ice-cube trays; cluttering the dining room table with the thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle he barely even looked at; sprawling on the couch, newspapers all over the carpet, while I tried to vacuum. We bickered a lot. I think we were both terrified that this was just the beginning of a more serious backsliding. I would wake up in the middle of the night and think about our debt load; it towered in front of me like a mountain. Insurmountable. And then I’d turn and see Paul awake beside me, staring at the ceiling.
“I saw a notice in the Starbucks in Northridge that they’re hiring,” I told him one night. “They’ve got health benefits and a kind of profit-sharing thing.”
“So?”
“Well, you’re well enough now to take care of Lia—and run the house. I think I should look into getting a job. I could always go back to waitressing.”
“I’ll be working again in another couple of months. I think we can hold on until then.”
“We’re going to strangle each other if we go on much longer like this. And we’ve got that loan to pay down. I don’t like getting so far behind. I hate the feeling that everything we’ve worked for is just slipping away.”
“It won’t. It can’t. I’ll never let it.”
“I know, but I’d just feel better if—”
“Listen, Mad, I don’t see the sense in you driving back and forth to Northridge every day for some minimum-wage, entry-level job. We’ll get through this. I was thinking that I could start to sort through some of the stuff in the attic and maybe post some things on eBay. At least that will get me out of your hair.”
But the overall sense of oppression didn’t lift. March roared in like the proverbial lion, the wind rattling the windows and the snow blowing sideways, forming three-foot drifts up our driveway. Ever since Paul’s operation, Bob had been coming over to plow us out. We never asked, he just did it without saying a word. And Kathy had been great, too, dropping by with homemade rice pudding and nutless brownies—the kind of things she knew Paul could eat. I was feeling too low to show much gratitude, I know. But we would have done the same for them; it’s what family does. At the end of that long, dark month, I was surprised to see a big green truck turning into our driveway with the signature gold “Polanski Builders” lettering running along the side. I was almost alarmed when Nicky Polanski himself jumped out of the cab. He never shows the least bit of interest in his employees’ personal lives. In fact, I believe he wishes they didn’t have any; I know from things Paul has said that Polanski hates dealing with personnel issues. Paul must have seen him, too; he came downstairs to greet him at the front door.
“Son of a bitch,” Polanski said, looking Paul over. “How’re you feeling?”
“Good. Come on in. Want some coffee or whatever?”
“No, thanks,” Polanski said. He wouldn’t let me take his coat. “I’m not going to stay. I just wanted to see how you were. I need you back, Paul. That fucking Janowski is poaching our guys and we got a backlog you wouldn’t believe.”
“I really can’t do much for another three, four months, Nicky. I’m sorry.”
Polanski looked down at his shoes.
“Yeah, well. A foreman doesn’t do much besides yell as far as I can tell. I don’t know why the fuck I have to pay somebody good money to sit around and mouth off all day, but there it is. I need you.”
So Paul went back to work, promoted out of the day-to-day heavy lifting, though hardly away from all the stress. He had crews reporting to him now, supplies to order and oversee, schedules to meet, owners and architects to deal with. Paul learned that one of the reasons Polanski was so busy was the partnership he’d recently formed with the new Realtor in Red River, a Nana Osserman, and the well-known local architect Frank Miles. They were putting up two luxury spec houses near the old Tucker Hill quarry.
“I think this Osserman woman is really the brains behind the whole deal,” Paul told me one night. I was worried that he was already working too hard. He looked pale to me, but his eyes were alive again. I also sensed that he’d stepped right up into his new position and that Polanski was impressed with his performance. “She’s a real operator. Talks a mile a minute. Walks around the site like a drill sergeant.”
And, as it turned out, she was looking for some help, too. Her agency was booming. And she needed someone to handle the phones. Typing. Filing. Simple office work. And, as she and the other two Realtors at the agency were relatively new to the area, she wanted to try to find someone who knew something about the county. The roads. The houses. Families who might be thinking of selling. Farmers ready to throw in the towel. Someone with local knowledge.
31
“… and the truth is, I never intended to get into this. I’ve been in television all my life. God, I lived and breathed programming, ratings, sweeps months, demographics for as long as I can remember. And honestly? I didn’t want to retire. I’d still be there today—happily—but Dan was given a gentle nudge at Dewey Ballantine. He’s a bit older than me, too. And he had a prostate scare. And then 9/11 hit. Well, it all seemed to make sense that we switch gears. Downshift. Except, of course, I couldn’t! I’m a doer. It’s just in my nature. So when friends began to ask if I knew of a good real estate broker in the area—and I had to tell them no because we had the most god-awful experience when we bought—well, I thought: why not? And, the truth is, I really love it! Also, knock on wood, I’ve been incredibly lucky in terms of timing. I mean, since 9/11, the market up here has just totally taken off. But, you would know that. Nicky tells me that your husband works for him.”
“Yes. He’s Mr. Polanski’s foreman at the Tucker Hill site,” I said, remembering to smile as I did so, though I didn’t get the feeling that Nana Osserman was actually paying much attention to my people skills. She’d looked me up and down when I first walked into her office at Red River Realty: the gray wool blend Talbot’s jacket, white cotton turtleneck, black pants, black heels, shoulder-length hair brushed back off the face in a black velvet headband. I could almost see the little checkmarks of approval in her gaze: practical, neat, nonthreatening. I thought that she, on the other hand, looked totally out of place in the middle of Red River. She was wearing a severely tailored Chanel-style suit in a green weave with bright pink braiding and a gold chain-link necklace
that must have weighed about ten pounds. Her hair was an auburn coiffed helmet, her face a mask of makeup and, I guessed, cosmetic surgery. Her hands and neck gave away what her wrinkle-free face would not: she was probably somewhere in her late sixties. However, I would quickly come to learn that Nana was just what she said she was: a doer, a dynamo, an ageless, aggressive, unabashedly self-promoting force of nature. And, yes, I was put off by her at first. That loud, carrying voice. The long lacquered nails, like talons. She was actually petite, shorter than me, but she seemed larger than life. She filled the room. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
“What I need is someone to free us up from all the damned office nonsense: phone, mail, word processing. That sort of thing. Heather, Linda, and I are just on the go all day long, in and out of the office. We need someone back here, holding down the fort.”
“What sort of software would I need to know?” I asked, as Paul had advised me to do. It was my biggest concern, but he had assured me that he’d be able to purchase and download over the Internet whatever system the office used and that I could practice on his computer at home.
“Oh, God, I have no idea,” Nana said, wrinkling her nose. “Linda can fill you in on that. I still have to ask her or Heather to print out my e-mail and the Hot List every morning. That’s the kind of thing you’ll be doing for me from now on. How does all this sound to you, sweetie? Do you think you might be interested?”
I was waiting for her to ask to see my résumé. Paul had spent hours helping me create it. Or quiz me about my office skills and experience. To counter the obvious fact that I didn’t have any, I’d prepared a little speech about my organizational abilities and willingness to learn.
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