Gavin closed his eyes and nodded.
Zoe stared at Gavin’s face until he opened his eyes again. They held each other’s eyes for a moment, then Gavin looked down.
Zoe sighed. “Oh Gavin, for so many years we’ve been stuck in this purgatory between being friends and being lovers, at times wanting one thing, at times maybe wanting neither. But if I was Tess, our relationship—whatever the definition de jour—would have been a needle in my side too.”
Gavin leaned forward, listening attentively.
“For a long time I didn’t care what Tess thought—hell, I wanted to needle her,” Zoe said. “I blamed her for coming between us.” She shook her head as he started to say something. “Don’t comment; I know it’s not true. I know you and I were never ideal. The point is, I don’t really know how to fix this,” she waved her hand between them, “but I think we should try.”
She inched up on her pillow and grimaced again. “You need to go back to Tess and Juliette. We both know if you don’t do that, you’re going to regret it for a long time. It’s where you belong.”
Gavin rubbed the stubble on his chin.
“I’m going to go away for a little while. A little family spa called rehab.” She smiled feebly. “And maybe when I come back,” she bit her lip, “we won’t make it a point to get together and talk about old times.”
Gavin nodded. He was mute with fatigue. And surprisingly relieved at what Zoe was saying to him.
“Obviously we’ll see each other when we all get together, that’s unavoidable. But we can handle that, right?”
“Absolutely.” He watched her close her eyes, lay back on her mound of pillows. It looked like the couch was swallowing her up; she looked tiny.
Zoe’s eyes stayed closed as she said in a steady voice, “Gavin, go back home and make it right with Tess. Don’t lose her.”
He was still for a moment, then he pushed himself out of his chair and walked towards the door.
“Gavin.”
He turned around.
Zoe looked straight at him. She bit her lip; then set her mouth in a straight line. “It really was Bob’s baby.”
Gavin couldn’t breathe in. His knees wobbled as he forced himself to walk to the door, step out into the long hallway, close the door behind him. Click.
He leaned against the elevator bank and started to cry.
Chapter 12
Journal Entry #12
May 5, 2001
Some of the best, and certainly most provocative dramas are the ones in which the denouement lifts up the sheet on our assumptions and in one shocking revelation, forces us to reconsider the whole story. In a world where theaters empty as though someone has yelled “Fire!”, there is no mass exodus after a movie or a play in which a secret is laid bare in the finale. The lights may brighten, but the unsettled audience lingers, mouths agape, struggling to squeeze the puzzle piece of extraordinary information into their foregone conclusions.
And so I am just sitting in the theater after almost 30 years of a reality that I now know is wrong. I can fully appreciate people’s disbelief and fear when they discovered the world was round, after they had always, always walked on flat earth. Or the disorientation of hearing you’re adopted, when all your life you had assumed, without consideration, that you were the biological offspring of your beloved mom and dad. Or the utter devastation of learning a spouse is cheating, has had a lover for a number of years, and you’d never had cause to doubt that your favorite-sweatshirt marriage was anything other than faithful and preferred.
Most of our basic assumptions about the people in our life and the history we’ve lived through become indelible and self-evident over time. Like the permanent features of our face, they just are; they are our truth. We then build our lives on these assumptions, on this truth, on this face of ours. The many marks of wisdom and maturity pile on—the warm freckles of life-lived, the deep wrinkles of heartfelt expression, the soft gray of worry and courage and risk. But what if one day, you wake up, slog into the bathroom to brush your teeth, and when you glance into the mirror, a different face, a fun-house distortion of yourself gapes back—your eyes are a different color, your skin a different tone, your nose a foreign shape. Shock and terror rocket through your body as you try to grasp that the familiar “you,” the truth you have always trusted, is gone.
When this happens, when a fundamental truth of your life is shattered, do the unique characteristics that make up who you are—the freckles, the wrinkles, the gray of your life—lose their meaning as well?
And how do you assimilate this new face, this new piece of information into your carefully constructed life? Does it radically alter who you are, who you’ve been? After a month or so to digest all this, I think not. It may alter where you’re going. But who you are? Who you’ve been? I don’t think so.
What happened with my mother will continue to be powerful and haunting; but it’s just one of countless experiences that have been accumulating over time, building up a fatty cushion around that piece of my life, diluting its influence with the sheer volume of alternatives. So the crush of this news, this truth, is well buffered. It has changed my perceptions, shifted my outlook and my insight in ways I can touch, and I’m sure in ways I can’t guess at. But I do know this: it hasn’t negated everything I am. My reflection has been changed forever, but the splintered one will come into focus again; this strange image will become lived-in as I weave this piece of history into my story.
And it is my story. The poetry of life is that I’m the author. Of course, life dumps out a bagful of incredible and sometimes horrible characters and subplots that must be included. But I have the luxury of interpreting each new scene, establishing my own cadence, and arranging all of my life chapters into my own unique epic. And if one life episode is particularly heinous, I have the prerogative to assign its symbolism, and perhaps, to surround it with beautiful prose. And of course, I have the power to determine its significance—is it a paragraph or the whole story? Yes, it is a piece of my experience, but I am the one who decides how it fits.
The truth is subjective. You see and understand what you want to see or what you’re capable of understanding. I think about all the dinners I’ve had with Dana’s or Megan’s family, times when their parents will recycle favorite family stories, the ones they think are especially adorable and representative of their children. “For Dana, even lemonade stands weren’t impulsive; he had a whole marketing scheme mapped out weeks in advance… ” or “While I cooked dinner, Megan would sit on the counter next to me to make sure I followed the recipe exactly… ” Both Megan and Dana listen to the hundredth retelling of these loving anecdotes and laugh along, humoring their parents because they know that to argue their truth would be fruitless, they would only receive a puzzled look and a “Where were you when this happened?” (“Well Mom… actually, I was there.”) Afterward, when their parents are out of earshot, they will roll their eyes and quickly set me straight on how it really was. But all of them believe their own stories, and they are sticking by them.
And sticking by them adamantly, as my family did with each of our versions of what happened to my mother and why. My mother obviously had her own edition. My father’s guess as to what that was… well, he finally told me that night at his house that he now believes Eva killed herself because she loved us, and because she was so afraid of hurting us, so terrified that she might lose control again. And again. She believed she was damaged and refused to pass that on.
My father said to me, “I’ve spent so much of my energy analyzing, guessing, and re-guessing. Of course the other explanation that haunts me is that I failed her. Maybe she thought that if I couldn’t rescue her that night, or worse, if I didn’t want to rescue her, then she might never climb out of the darkness. And then that begs the question, for me at least: if I couldn’t pull her out of the abyss, what was I good for? That was why she chose me, th
at was our dynamic. She fell; I picked her up. That last time she fell, I failed her.”
I can still hear his intake of breath, deeply weary, age-old. “The first scenario is obviously easier to live with, although I was stuck in the more grisly, self-lambasting explanation for years and years. Isn’t that just the thing? The explanation that pollutes our life the most is sometimes the easiest to believe.”
I don’t know what Kevin or Paul believed, although I’m guessing from the theme here, that they blamed themselves, viewed themselves as failing in some way too. My father said that Paul knew the truth. No wonder he pulled away from Kevin and me. What a toxic secret to hold.
My own understanding of my mother’s absence—that she walked out on us for something better—had a hefty “hence” attached to it: hence I wasn’t worth her staying put. This belief, along with my desperation to bring her back, to prove to her that she was wrong (and maybe to prove it to myself too), drove me a certain way in my life. When she didn’t come back, or when life just weighed me down, it confirmed she was right. I was not worth it.
A heart can only be broken so many times. At some point, you learn to self-protect. I realize now that the ways I tried to protect myself, to keep Dana from finding out the truth as I knew it—that I wasn’t worth it—just pushed him away. And as he stepped back, my truth was confirmed.
The sad irony is that yes, a deep moat around your heart keeps you safe, but it also keeps you alone.
But maybe I can change that. After all, I can decide to cower behind my moat all by myself, or dare to put my drawbridge down.
May 2000
New York City
“Sorry guys.” Tess eased into a chair at the table for four and smiled, “Although it looks like I still beat Megan.”
Allie chuckled. “You’re not going to win any awards for that.”
“No, I guess not. What are we drinking?”
“Vodka tonics,” Zoe said.
Tess’s eyes darted to Zoe’s tall glass.
“Just kidding, everyone relax. It’s San Pellegrino.” Zoe smiled. “See, I don’t have to be drunk to have fun.”
The waiter came over and hovered by the table.
Tess hesitated.
“It’s okay. Have at it,” Zoe said.
Tess ordered a San Pellegrino.
Zoe’s eyes softened, and all three women were quiet. Then Zoe smirked. “Don’t tell me you’re pregnant.”
“I better not be,” Tess said. “The new house is a handful enough. Although I guess ‘new’ is not the operative word.” She turned to Allie. “You didn’t tell me renovating would be so much work. I keep telling myself I’m going to love the finished product, but I’m not sure there’ll ever be one.”
“It’s like childbirth, if people told the truth, no one ever would do it.” Allie smiled. “What are you working on now?”
“We just finished our bedroom, so that’s where we’re all camping out for a while.” Out of habit, her ears pricked towards Zoe, expecting a snort or a sarcastic comment. She was so surprised she didn’t hear anything that she almost forgot what she was saying. She continued, “We’re saving the kitchen for last. Maybe we’ll throw a party when we finally rip out all that avocado green laminate. Although I’m worried that Gavin’s becoming attached to it. He’s started cooking.”
“Gavin’s cooking?” Zoe’s mouth hung open.
“So far just paella and blueberry pie, but both are pretty damn good.”
“Paella?” Allie said.
Tess shook her head. “You got me.”
They all laughed.
“What’s Megan working on these days that’s keeping her tied to her desk?”
“I haven’t talked to her in, wow, about two weeks, which is a little weird.” Allie looked at Zoe.
“Don’t look at me, I haven’t talked to her either.” Zoe shrugged.
“Here she—” the last word of Tess’s statement died away, and all three women looked towards the door. Their banter and cheer crashed to the floor like a tray full of glasses. It was obvious that something was very wrong.
Megan—once the unofficial “borrower” in college—now had the salary and the fashion sense to never leave home without some gorgeous and trendy outfit, usually culled right from the pages of the most recent Vogue. Tonight however, she was approaching the table in jeans and a long-sleeved tee; her belt loops were empty and no funky accessories hung off of her. Her long red hair, usually neatly pulled back somehow for work, was loose and looked as if a brush had been raked through it out of habit, not out of a desire to actually detangle it. She looked so pale and bedraggled that Zoe’s eyes darted to the window to see if the weather had turned stormy. No one uttered, “it looks like it’s been a bad day,” as it had too obviously been that. They waited, concerned, for Megan to offer an explanation.
She deep-sighed her way onto her chair and sagged back against it. “Maggie’s sick,” she said to her captive audience. “She has leukemia.” Tears trickled down her bare cheeks. She made no move to wipe them away.
There was a collective sharp intake of breath around the table. “Oh my God,” Allie exhaled, and reached for Megan’s hand.
Zoe, who was sitting on her other side, gave Megan’s shoulder a squeeze. “I’ll get you a drink,” she said, and moved to signal the waiter.
“No, no. I’m only staying for a minute.” She reached for Allie’s glass with a shaking hand and drank deeply.
“It’s just water,” Zoe said with a furrowed brow. “Let me get you a—”
“I just came because I wanted to tell you all in person, and honestly, I wasn’t sure I could do this on the phone three separate times.”
“How is she?” Tess asked, her brown eyes intense. “How are you?”
Megan chewed her thumbnail. “Me? I’m a wreck.” She pressed her lips together, perhaps in an attempt at a smile, and then she choked back a sob. “And Maggie, God, she’s such a trooper. She’s so sick, and she’s two, and she has no idea what’s happening to her, why she’s in the hospital, why all these worried faces are peering down at her. I try my best to be cheerful but,” she tried to chuckle but it came out as a snort, “you guys know how good I am at putting on a face.” She grabbed a white napkin and wiped her eyes. “She senses my tears just under the surface, I know she does.”
Three bodies inched closer to Megan, closing a tight circle around her, their faces a wall of solemnity.
“She’s just lying in this big white hospital bed feeling awful, I mean awful, being poked and prodded, with tubes coming out of her and poison going into her… ” She took a deep, ragged breath as she slumped lower in her seat. “I feel so helpless.”
“Oh, Meg,” Zoe said as she squeezed her shoulder again.
Megan twisted the cloth napkin in her hands. “I’m numb, and when feelings do break through, it’s terror or… agony.” She swiped at her eyes again with her napkin. “You know how in the movies someone always says ‘I wish it was me instead of her?’ I can honestly say that I get that now.”
“What do the doctors say?” Allie said quietly.
“The good news—isn’t that an oxymoron—is that it’s a kind of leukemia that has a really high cure rate, something like 70 percent. All we have to do is blast it all right out of her body with liquid Drano.” Bitterness spiked her tone. Then she breathed deeply, and feeling Allie’s grip on her hand, Zoe’s hand on her shoulder, and Tess’s soft brown eyes hugging her from across the table, she sat up a tiny bit straighter. “And she’s in what they’ve told us is a low risk group, so,” she looked at her friends, “we’re going to beat this thing.”
“Absolutely,” Zoe said. Allie and Tess repeated the word as if they were saying amen.
“How’s Jared?” Tess said.
“Hanging in there. Like me I guess; some days strong, some days not so strong.
He hides it better than me though. We’ve both been basically living at the hospital. Work has been great about giving me time. But they’re going to want me back at some point, and to tell you the truth, I really just want to quit. But we need the money, and now we definitely need the benefits.” She smiled wanly. “My penance as the breadwinner.”
“What can we do?” Allie said.
“Pray.” Her voice was grave.
Everyone was quiet for a moment.
“Can I come back to the hospital with you? Keep you company?” Allie said.
Megan’s big brown eyes, raw and rimmed in red, looked into Allie’s and held on for a few moments. Then the slight movement of Zoe and Tess leaning in broke the mental hug and Megan shook her head slowly. “No,” and she continued as Allie started to protest, “no, really, thank you. I just want to get back to Jared and Maggie. I can’t explain it, and it’s not that I don’t appreciate it, but I just need to be alone with Jared right now.”
“How about tomorrow?” Allie said. Even just for a little while to hold your hand?” Zoe and Tess nodded.
“That would be great.” Megan glanced at her watch. “I should go. Sorry.” She looked around the table as her eyes welled up with tears again. “You guys are the best; it felt really good to sit here, even for a few minutes.” She stayed in her chair for a deep inhale and then pushed herself up. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Allie, Zoe, and Tess leapt to their feet and rushed to each give her a long embrace and whisper words of hope through their own tears. They didn’t want to let her go and their hands lingered on her arm, on her shoulder, one last hug. Finally, Megan pulled away from them with an anguished whimper that she tried to chuckle over—it sounded like a hiccup—and started slogging across the floor as if it was thick mud. Then her shoulders straightened and her pace picked up as she strode out of the door and into the night.
Allie jumped up from the table, her white napkin fell to the floor. She mumbled something about being right back and sprinted after Megan.
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