The House on Primrose Pond

by Yona Zeldis McDonough

  “There’s going to be yelling, isn’t there?” he asked.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because I know you’re mad that Cally won’t come home.”

  “I’m hurt by her behavior,” Susannah said carefully. “And yes, I suppose angry too.”

  “See?” Jack looked at her imploringly. “Yelling. Don’t make me go, Mom. I really don’t want to.”

  “You don’t have to. Will you be all right here by yourself?” She knew he still didn’t like to be left alone.

  “Sure.” And after a pause, “Maybe Corbin could come over for a while. You know—we could hang out.”

  “He’s busy today.” She wanted to get off the topic. Jack had clearly bonded with Corbin and was going to miss him. So, she had to admit, was she. In fact, she missed him already and more than once had replayed the night they’d spent together in minute and lacerating detail. But then she thought about him stumbling around drunk outside her house and, even worse, driving in that condition, and decided she could move beyond those memories.

  “I’ll be okay.” He picked up the clarinet. “I’m going to practice for a while. And later I have a science project I should be working on.”

  “Okay, but if you change your mind, you can always walk over.” She lingered in the doorway for a moment, but he picked up his instrument. She’d been dismissed.

  • • •

  When Susannah arrived at Alice’s, she found her as gracious as ever, ushering her into the living room and offering her a drink, which Susannah accepted. A good glass of wine might take the edge off the conversation that loomed. When Calista came tripping downstairs—even her tread seemed so much lighter here—Susannah stood. Her daughter was wearing a gray knit jumpsuit with silver buttons the size of bottle caps running down the front; her narrow waist was cinched by a claret-colored suede belt. Susannah did not recognize the garment and wondered if it had come from Alice.

  “Doesn’t she look marvelous?” Alice said. “Geoffrey Beene, late 1970s. It was too big—of course—but Calista was able to take it in herself.”

  Susannah’s intuition had been correct. “It’s great,” she said. Calista’s own quirky sense of style was definitely being honed and polished by spending time with Alice. She took another sip of the wine.

  As they sat down in Alice’s dining room—she had changed the tablecloth to a blue and white paisley and added several tall white candles in crystal holders—Susannah tried not to look at the framed pictures of Dave. What if one of those photographs showed him wearing the red bow tie? She would not be able to concentrate on anything else.

  While Alice served the salad and passed the bread, Calista had been dispatched to the kitchen and brought in a bowl of ratatouille, which she set on the table. Emma looked up briefly but then settled her long, tapered snout back on her paws again.

  “We made it together,” she said. “But she really did most of the work.” Alice looked fondly at Calista. “I think your daughter has the makings of a superb cook; soon she’ll be as skilled in the kitchen as she is with the sewing machine.”

  “That’s because you’re such a good teacher.” Calista sat down and shook out her napkin before placing it on her lap. “Mom, can I serve you?”

  Susannah nodded. This display of mutual admiration had sucked the words clean out of her and she bent over her plate, trying to concentrate on the food. The delicately seasoned meal might have been lumps of papier-mâché for all the enjoyment she had putting it in her mouth, but she tried to feign an appropriate response.

  “It’s been wonderful having Calista here with me,” Alice said as she dipped a bit of bread into the sauce. “I hadn’t realized how little I liked being alone—until I wasn’t any longer.”

  “And I love being here, Mom. It’s like being in a museum or something. Alice has the most amazing collections—she’s been teaching me all about them. Crystal, paintings, porcelain, silver . . .”

  Alice laughed. “Nothing here is museum quality, not by a long shot. But Dave and I did a lot of traveling and I was always picking up something in a flea market or an out-of-the-way little shop. We did have fun . . .” She paused. “And it’s so nice to have someone to share it with again. In the summer, I often drive to estate sales—not that I need anything, but I still take delight in the hunt. I’m hoping I can take Calista with me sometimes. Maybe we’d even get to do a Paris trip, though summer is not an ideal time to be in Paris. I’m thinking the countryside would be better—Provence, or the Loire Valley.”

  Susannah put her fork down and looked from one besotted face to another. Cooking, sewing, trips to France. What a charming little lovefest was going on here. What an absolute blast. “I can see how you’re enjoying this interlude together. But I think you’re forgetting that it really is an interlude.”

  “Does it have to be?” asked Alice.

  “Yes. Calista is my daughter and I want her to come home—sooner rather than later.” Did she really not get it? Or was she taunting her? Susannah truly could not tell. She turned to her daughter. “I know you were upset about Corbin. But you won’t be seeing him much. You might not be seeing him at all.”

  “Oh, I heard about the other night . . .” murmured Alice.

  “What did you hear?” Susannah was aware of how harsh she sounded, but really, Alice’s comments were so inappropriate, so invasive.

  “That he’d had too much to drink and foolishly drove over to your house. He’s very lucky he wasn’t hurt.”

  “That’s not the point.” Susannah was sorry she’d even brought him up. “I just know Calista was upset by seeing him and I want to let her know that isn’t going to be an issue—at least not now.”

  “But I still want to stay here,” said Calista. “It’s not even about Corbin anymore.”

  “Calista, I’m still your mother; you belong at home with me.” Susannah saw a look that passed between Alice and Calista, a look that excluded her with all the finality of a door slamming in her face. She averted her gaze, which settled on a picture of Dave. She was not going to focus on that now.

  “Of course you’re her mother—no one is disputing that,” Alice said. “But it’s also fair to say that Calista and I share a special bond, a bond that might even be equal to—or surpass—the biological one.”

  “If you had any children, you wouldn’t say that—you’d know better.” The comment, flung like a grenade, created a short, stunned silence. Then both Alice and Calista started talking at once.

  “I’m sorry if I offended you—”

  “Mom, you’re being so mean—”

  “Your mother doesn’t intend to be mean,” Alice said. “This is all so new to her; she doesn’t really know how to respond. Sometimes it takes someone outside the nuclear family circle, someone with greater objectivity who can—”

  “Just stop!” Susannah pushed her wineglass away; it toppled, but fortunately it was empty and merely rolled across the table. She righted it and stood up. “I’m fed up with your acting so enlightened and superior—”

  “I don’t feel superior. Far from it.” Alice remained seated. And calm, which made Susannah even angrier. “I’m just saying that an outsider might be able to see what an insider is blind to, that’s all. It’s a matter of perspective.”

  Instead of answering, Susannah went over to where the photographs were grouped. Red, red, where was the damned red one? She did not see a single photograph in which Dave was wearing a red bow tie; could she have been wrong? But there were other photos in this house, scads of them, and she marched into the other room, scanning the framed snapshots on the end tables, credenza, and mantelpiece.

  “Mom, what are you doing? Are you crazy?” Calista’s voice came from the other room.

  Susannah ignored her and just when she thought she really was crazy and had invented the whole thing, she saw it. Dr. Dave, in a crisp white
shirt, dark blue blazer, and vivid red bow tie. The photograph was eight by ten, considerably larger than many of the others, and when she snatched the thing up from the shelf, she could even see the suggestion of the pattern woven into the silk—just like the tie she had found in her mother’s overnight case.

  When she turned around to go back into the dining room, she saw that Calista, Alice, and even Emma had followed; they were clearly confused and waiting to see what she would do next. “You think you know everything,” Susannah said. “That you’ve been blessed with such extraordinary vision. But did you know—did you even have a clue—that your husband, your beloved, sainted Dr. Dave, was having an affair?”

  “What on earth are you talking about?” Finally Alice seemed flustered and Susannah took a spiteful, even savage pleasure in having pierced her infuriatingly intact armor. “That is pure and unadulterated nonsense. He adored me; we adored each other. What other woman could have turned his head?”

  “My mother, that’s who!” spat Susannah. “Your husband was having an affair with my mother. I don’t know for how long, and I don’t know why or when it ended. But I know it happened.”

  “I’m sorry to say this, especially in front of Calista, but I do think you’ve gone off the deep end, Susannah. Maybe it’s your anger at me, your grief over your husband, or your disappointment over Corbin, but you’re totally unhinged. Dave and your mother? Not possible. Simply not possible.”

  “Does the name Le Chat Noir mean anything to you?” Somewhere inside was a voice telling her not to reveal what she’d learned in front of Calista, but her fury—and her hurt—were so much louder; together, they drowned the voice out entirely.

  Alice looked confused. “No. Should it?”

  “Le Chat Noir is a restaurant in Quebec. I’ve got proof that my mother was there with a man, and that man was your husband.”

  Alice looked blank and then suddenly her face went ashen and her mouth dropped open slightly; for a second, Susannah thought she might have caused her to have a stroke. Then she seemed to recover, at least enough to speak. “Calista, darling, I am going to have to ask you to go back home with your mother now.”

  “Why?” cried Calista. “Please don’t make me go with her! She’s crazy—you even said so!”

  “No, I’m afraid I was mistaken. Deeply mistaken. You can come back again tomorrow. But tonight I need to be alone.”

  Calista whirled around to face her mother. “Why were you saying all that stuff about her husband? You didn’t even know him.”

  “I’ll explain later.” Gently, Susannah set the photograph back down. “Right now, you need to come with me.”

  “I won’t!”

  Alice crossed the room and put her arm on Calista’s shoulder. “Please, dear. Do it for me.”

  Calista’s eyes searched the older woman’s face. “All right,” she said finally. “But you have to promise I can come back tomorrow. Do you promise?”

  “I promise. Tomorrow.” Emma trotted obediently behind her while she got their coats and walked them to the door. Susannah could not even look at her and walked out of the house without saying good-bye. The night was black and still, and the only sound she heard was the crunch-crunch-crunch of Calista’s purple Doc Martens as she followed silently behind.

  Once they were back at the house, Calista marched up the stairs to her room, where she slammed the door loudly. No point in engaging with her now; Susannah decided to call Polly instead. Maybe there was some wildly entertaining morsel of gossip happening back in Brooklyn that would take her mind off the mess of her own life.

  But Polly had no juicy gossip with which to distract her. And after commiserating about the high drama involved in raising teenage girls in general and Calista in particular, she asked, “Are you still pursuing this thing with your mother?”

  “Yes.” She waited, and when Polly didn’t say anything, she added, “I know you told me to let it go—”

  “But you can’t.”

  “No,” said Susannah. “You’re probably right—this crazy hunt is filling some void left by Charlie’s death. But knowing does nothing to change how I feel. It’s like a mission.”

  “I hope it’s not a suicide mission,” said Polly. “You’re dragging other people into it now—you think your mother was having an affair with Alice’s husband?”

  “I know she was.”

  “And you felt compelled to tell her because . . . ?”

  “Because I wanted to hurt her,” Susannah said. “And I did.” The admission made her feel ugly and small.

  “Well, I get that,” said Polly. “But still, maybe this whole thing is a distraction—so you don’t have to think about Corbin.”

  “That’s over.”

  “Over! What are you talking about? I thought you told me the night you spent with him changed your life. That it was like some do-over from that summer.”

  “It did, but it’s still over. Polly, he’s an alcoholic. Or recovering one. He showed up here falling-down drunk. He’d actually gotten in his car and driven. I just can’t deal with that.”

  “Maybe it would be better to deal with a guy who’s battling with his demons—and loses sometimes—than with some dead guy who may or may not have slept with your mother.” Susannah didn’t say anything, so Polly kept talking. “You said you’re sure this doctor, this pediatrician, was the one. Can’t you let it go?”

  “No,” Susannah said. “I can’t. There’s one more person I have to talk to. Then maybe I can back off.”

  “Maybe?”

  “Maybe is the best you’re going to get from me.” There was no point lying to Polly. Or to herself. She had come this far in her search and she wasn’t about to abandon it now.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  As soon as the door closed, Alice walked over to the liquor cabinet to pour a drink. In recent years she had been partial to wine, but tonight she needed something stronger. She made herself a vodka martini, which had been Dave’s favorite drink. How he’d loved to mix a pitcher of martinis and bring it out to where they’d set up the chairs. “Here’s to summer,” he’d say, lifting his glass to the last of the evening light. “Here’s to you, darling, still the most beautiful girl in the world.” He’d meant it too. She knew he had. So then what to make of Susannah Gilmore’s astonishing—and preposterous—revelation? Except that somewhere Alice knew that, although the revelation may have astonished her, it really shouldn’t have. There were clues. More than one. But she had steadfastly chosen not to see them.

  She got up. The drink needed an olive—Dave had always insisted upon olives—and, to her amazement, there was a nearly empty jar of cocktail olives buried deep in the recesses of the fridge. When she had deposited the olive into her glass, she took a couple of dog biscuits from the jar; Emma deserved a treat as well.

  Leaving the unfinished meal and all the dishes on the table, Alice took her drink into the den, lit a fire, and settled on the love seat to watch the flames crackle and spark. Emma had followed her and after looking up to ascertain that, yes, this was where they were sitting, gracefully tucked her long limbs under her body and went to sleep.

  Alice supposed she had in some way deserved Susannah’s venom; Susannah would have seen her as a competitor for her daughter’s love, and she understood that even if she didn’t agree. And it would have been easy to dismiss her, and ascribe the intended barb of her words to anger and a desire to wound in return. But Alice knew there was something else there, something that once in a great while nipped at the edges of her consciousness. Generally, she pushed it away, out of her mind, out of existence. Tonight she could not.

  Alice had met Dave in the summer after her junior year at Smith; he was a few years older, and had just started medical school. It had been love at first sight for both of them, and it was only her mother’s begging that had kept her in Northampton for her senior year; she was that ready to w
alk away from college and her diploma to become Mrs. Renfew forever and ever. As it was, they married two weeks after her graduation and had a whirlwind honeymoon after which she embarked on the life of a doctor’s wife, throwing herself into the decoration and maintenance of their house in Eastwood, where Dave had taken over the practice of a pediatrician who was retiring.

  They’d been happy here; he was loved by everyone, not just in town, but in several neighboring towns as well. She helped out at the office when he needed her, got involved in charity work, and when her parents died and left her a sizable inheritance, indulged her love for fine clothes and went abroad for vacations—it was a charmed existence and lacked only one thing to make it perfect: a child. And when Lucy Delvaux had shown up, it seemed like that dream was finally within her reach. They would have their baby, with his penny bright hair. They would love each other always and bask in their love for him. Except it had not worked out that way.

  The months after Lucy left had been terrible ones. By mutual agreement, she and Dave did not try to adopt a child again; she did not feel she could face another disappointment. Dave was ever tender with her, ever solicitous. That was when he had surprised her with her first horse—Touchstone—since she’d loved riding while in college and had participated in several shows. He thought it would cheer her up, take her mind off the baby. It had helped, in a superficial sort of way. And he was very dear to have tried so hard.

  But maybe all that trying had tamped their passion. Because things had changed between them, and though their affection was as steady and strong as ever, they were less like lovers and more like brother and sister. They went from a couple that made love often to one who made love occasionally, then rarely, and eventually almost not at all.

  The fire had died down and Alice’s glass was empty. She wasn’t going to have another drink; she wouldn’t let herself. So she went into the dining room where the remains of the meal still sat on the table. She knew she ought to eat something, but she wasn’t hungry. She was tempted to throw all the leftover food down the garbage disposal, but that was wasteful, so instead she ladled it out into small plastic containers that she stowed in the freezer.