CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Principles
TOM
I STARE INTO THE AIRPORT, but my vision is messed up, like I can’t remember how to read. I’m looking at the signs above baggage claim and I can’t seem to remember what flight we were on, what city we came from, the name of the airline. Tourist billboards are plastered on every wall, the castles, the green hills, the mossy cliffs. Patrick’s outside, I guess, smoking. I look around for the shoulder bag he brought on the plane because, knowing Patrick, he probably left it on a bench somewhere, but then I realize that it’s hanging from my shoulder, along with my computer bag. I can’t think! What else did I have with me? Aer Lingus, that’s it! Where the hell is the Aer Lingus counter? Upstairs, likely. Where the hell is Patrick, smoking an entire pack? Oh God, Dad. My father, a heart attack. Oh God, Dad.
And Mary’s there. Of course she’s there. She’s there taking care of my parents and I’m way the hell over here with my brother instead of her. I’m hurting, God, I’m hurting, but I didn’t need to be such a bastard to Mary. Hurting was what I fed on, but that cold hardness with her was just gluttony. It wasn’t necessary. I stuffed myself on meanness, and now Mary’s there, taking care of my parents. Of course she is.
How do you measure what’s real, what’s true? How do you stack up all that’s pure against all that’s evil? Even if I want to, how do I forgive Mary for crushing my heart? How the hell do we get beyond this?
Patrick’s walking toward me. I can smell the Camels before he’s even near me, thanks to some pocket of air traveling in front of him.
“Where’s our luggage?” he asks.
“I don’t have a clue,” I say. “I’ve been on the phone with Mary.”
“Kids okay?”
I clutch Patrick’s biceps and tell him the news. I tell him that Dad had a heart attack, that he’s going to be all right, that Mary thinks I should stay for a day. I tell him everything I know and when I’m finished, Patrick asks, “How does Mary know all this?”
“Because she’s there, Patrick,” I say, and even though I would expect nothing less of Mary, the fact that she’s there and I’m here lodges a boulder in my throat.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Offend Thee
NIGHT FALLS AND SEAN SLIPS back into sleep. Colleen and I are playing a game of Scrabble and she’s kicking my butt, coming up with words like SQUIRES and ZOOLOGIST on double- and triple-point squares. Tom called earlier in the night and said yes, hesitantly, he would stay and do the presentation tomorrow and then he and Patrick would hop on a plane. I promised that I’d let him know if anything changed with his father’s condition.
I call home and Mom puts the phone on speaker. “Nana’s teaching us how to make biscotti,” Sally says.
“And she let me paint my fingernails,” Emily adds.
The boys brag that Pop let them pound nails into a board, just because! The kids scurry back to their business, forgetting that I’m listening. I hold the phone to my ear and absorb the sounds I craved for so long and cherish every day. My children: happy, secure, confident. Thriving individuals whose hearts are not only whole but strong, the muscle fortified with an abundance of love’s nutrients. “We’ll talk to you later, hon,” Ma says. I nod, clear my throat, croak out a pathetic “Okay, Ma. Thanks.” I hold the phone to my ear until they hang up.
A day and a half later, I’ve sent Colleen home to catch a shower and a few hours of shut-eye. I’m sitting with Sean, slumped in one armchair, my feet propped onto another. With a pen poked behind my ear and the local paper’s crossword puzzle in hand, I ask my father-in-law, “A four-letter word for a Greek god, starts with E?”
“Where’s my Sally when I need her?” he says.
“I think it’s Eros,” I tell him, remembering Sal telling me the story about Aphrodite and Ares, Eros’s mother and father. I stand and stretch, hold the water cup with a straw for my father-in-law to take a sip, adjust his pillows. “How ’bout this one, a four-letter word for an extinct bird,” I say, sitting back down.
“A dodo,” a voice says.
I turn and see Tom standing in the doorway. My heart plunges. He looks as rumpled and disheveled as I know I must, after his days of travel, but adorable, too, in that just-off-the-mountain type of ruggedness. I wonder what he thinks I look like, still in my jeans and T-shirt from two days ago.
“Tom,” I say, my eyes welling. I look away, as if taking a precaution against staring into the sun. “Look, Sean!” I say. “Tom’s here. I imagine Patrick’s not far away.”
“He’s outside,” Tom says, leaving out the obvious: smoking a cigarette or two before facing this situation head-on.
Tom approaches his father hesitantly, places a careful hand on his shoulder. “Hi, Dad,” he says. “How are you?”
“Better than new, son,” he says. “New blood vessels and all.”
“Look at all this stuff,” Tom says, pointing to all the machines.
“This is the heart monitor,” I explain.
“Mare watches it like a hawk,” Sean says, and Tom’s mouth smiles, but his eyes are sad.
“This is his blood pressure, his oxygen level,” I go on. “The IV is just saline, to keep him hydrated. A little bit ago we ate some applesauce and Jell-O, didn’t we, Sean?” I look over at my father-in-law and rub his shoulder. It’s been hard to see a strong man like Sean reduced to a feeble, childlike state, even temporarily. The thought of my own parents turning the corner into old age and diminished health nearly kills me. It’s frightening to see how easily pillars crumble.
I stand up and take Sean’s water cup to the sink. Rinse it, fill it again, poke through a fresh straw. “Drink,” I tell him. “He’s a good patient,” I say to Tom. “Sometimes a little obstinate, but I guess that runs in the family.”
Tom sits in the chair I had been in, leans into his father. “Good God, Dad,” he says. “You scared us all to death.”
“Thank God for Mary, here,” he says. “She’s a tough little cookie. Watching over the doctors and nurses, making them check the medicine twice before they shoot it into me. Poor doctors probably haven’t answered so many questions since they took their boards.”
“Well,” I say, a mix of pride and embarrassment, “you hear horror stories.”
“What’s next?” Tom says to his dad. “When do you head home?”
Sean looks to me to answer. That’s how he’s been these past couple of days, unsure of his footing, deferring to me or Colleen most of the time. “A few more days,” I say. “Then he’ll head home and start a whole new life of healthy living, right, Sean?”
“Broccoli and water,” he snorts.
“And a shot of whiskey on your birthday,” I add. Sean and I have made up a calendar of ten days during the year when he’ll indulge in a glass of whiskey. His birthday, St. Patrick’s Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas topped the list, along with a handful of holy days of obligation.
“How was your trip?” I ask Tom. “And the presentation, did you pull it off?”
“It went well,” he says. “They’re definitely on board.”
“Good,” I say, morbidly thinking we need Tom to be successful at work, we need him to bring home a big bonus at the end of the year, especially if his anger is interminable. If he never forgives me and one of us needs to move out, we’ll have two households to support. I’m assuming Tom would continue to support me as well as the kids. Maybe just the kids. Maybe I’d be forced to hit the pavement, looking for a job, competing for a first-year associate position against twenty-five-year-olds fresh out of law school. How would I fare compared to the new lawyers who know how to use iPads and smartphones and who are willing to work until midnight on weekdays because they don’t have to monitor homework, confront a new mound of laundry each night, and put four kids to bed?
After a while, Tom says, “Well, Mary, I’m here now. Do you want to head back home? Get back to the kids?”
“Oh! Yeah, well, sure,” I stammer, feeling entirely ki
cked out of the show I’d been running for the last forty-eight hours. It hadn’t occurred to me that I’d leave immediately. “I guess I could do that.”
“Mare, honey,” Sean says, winking at me when Tom’s back is turned, “do you think you can stay another night? That night orderly is a little rough on the old man. He’s liable to yank my cords out if you’re not here to monitor him while he changes the sheets.”
“I can do that,” Tom says. “I’ll be here, Dad.”
“Oh, son, that’s true. But Mary has a way with these guys. Wait’ll you see her in action. And she’ll get me an extra pudding with dinner, too.” Again Sean winks at me, like he wants to be sure that I get what he’s up to; that forcing me to stay another night will bring Tom and me back together.
“I’m happy to stay,” I say. “If it’s okay with Tom.”
“Whatever Dad wants,” Tom says, sounding as though he feels slighted, like he flew all the way across the Atlantic—twice—just to be relegated behind the woman who ruined his life.
While Tom sits with his father, I run home to Sean and Colleen’s house. Colleen is just slipping into her car to head back to the hospital, looking fresh and revived in a salmon-colored twin set and white linen pants.
“Tom’s with him,” I say.
“Mary, dear,” Colleen says, reaching her little peach of a hand to my cheek. “I don’t want to pretend that there isn’t an eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room. I admit I’m not happy about your situation with Tom.”
I begin to cry like a child because being admonished by a parent—any parent—is crushing.
Colleen reaches her arms around me. “But I believe that you love Tom.…”
“I do!” I blubber. “More than anything. Colleen, you have no idea how sorry I am.”
“I do,” she says. “Suffice it to say that I’ve seen such sorrow in the eyes of my husband before.”
I’m split down the middle because being grouped with Sean isn’t exactly what I was hoping for, but then again, at least Colleen is extending an olive branch.
“I have the most luxurious bubble bath under my sink,” Colleen says, making it clear that our heart-to-heart is over. “The tub was just scrubbed. Get yourself a glass of wine, light some candles, pour in the bubble bath, and take a well-deserved rest.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Persons Harmed
I DO AS COLLEEN RECOMMENDED and soak for a good hour in the tub, under a foot of lavender bubbles. I sip from my glass of chardonnay and try, try so hard, to breathe and relax. But relaxing is a luxury, a pleasure reserved for deserving people, and at the moment—even five months later—I still don’t feel that I deserve much in the way of pleasure. I’ve hurt Tom on so many levels: the most basic—I was with another man when I was committed to him. A level deeper—I carried, delivered, and passed off as his own a child who wasn’t his. Sink lower—I kept my infidelity a secret for the entire duration of our marriage. Hanging by my thumbs—I never came clean; the truth was revealed as the unfortunate side effect of a stupid photo, not from my stepping up. I had ten years to find the courage, to do the right thing, and never did.
I think of Tom, what he said that day. I’d love to know what you’re most sorry about: the fact that you slept with Landon when you were engaged to me. Or is it the fact that you got caught? It was a crappy thing for him to say, a mean thing. But now I wonder about my motives, whether there was any purity to them or just selfishness. There are two types of contrition, Mom taught us: perfect and imperfect. Perfect, stemming from our love for God, for our sorrow for having offended Him. And imperfect, arising from other motives, such as the loss of heaven or the fear of hell.
If I’m honest, I have to admit that my contrition was the imperfect kind: the fear of being caught. I believe that I’ve been a good wife and mother, that I’ve made my family a happy home, but it was a house built with stolen bricks. A charity funded with drug money. A test aced by cheating. I had ten years to make my contrition perfect, but lying was the steroid that kept me in the lead. A position I wasn’t willing to give up.
When I dry off, I see that Colleen has laid out some clothes for me. They’re actually mine, an outfit I’d left in the dryer the last time we’d visited. I gather my clean undies from my bag and pull on the capris and T-shirt that Colleen left. Then I return to her bathroom. I rummage through her top drawer, knowing that she always has samples from Clinique and Estée Lauder during their free-package period. I find a new mascara, some blush, and a rose-colored lipstick. I blow out my hair until it’s smooth and find my toothbrush, then brush until my tongue and cheeks feel raw.
As I look in the mirror, I gaze into my own eyes and think, Please, please, please, Tom. Love me again.
By the time I get back to the hospital, Sean’s room is filled with visitors. Patrick is on one side of his dad, Tom is on the other, and Colleen is holding court for her two sisters, who have just flown in from Albany, explaining the triple bypass procedure in exacting detail. Sean roars when he sees me, “There’s the best nurse in this whole hospital!” He goes on to regale Colleen’s sisters with the same stories he told Tom, how I keep the doctors hopping, how I score him extra pudding.
I examine the aunts and smile oddly because I’m unsure what Colleen has told them about me. It seems they are oblivious to my and Tom’s problems, so when we all settle in for a visit, they ask the obvious. They want to know about the kids. I look at Tom, and he smiles and shrugs, urging me to give the aunts the lowdown.
I prattle on about the girls, how Sally is playing travel soccer, is the tallest girl in her class, and is a voracious reader. “She has the vocabulary of an adult,” I say. “Currently her favorite word is extraneous. In her estimation, most of what I say is extraneous, like an unnecessary and annoying bother.”
The aunts laugh, remember their own children as they went through the know-it-all stage, nod and laugh and wipe tears from their eyes. “It goes so fast,” they lament.
I tell how Emily is rehearsing for The Wizard of Oz, still singing in the church choir, and is on a spiritual quest for “truth and beauty.” “When she’s older she’ll either break my heart by moving to New York City to be an actress or running off to the hills of India with her poet boyfriend to seek transcendence.
“And the twins,” I say. “They’re still so little, but they think they’re big. They just beam with pride when they do things themselves.”
“You’re blessed,” Aunt Elaine says. “God smiled on you and Tom with that wonderful family of yours.”
“I agree,” I say, looking at Tom and offering him a sad smile.
Then the aunts ask Tom about Ireland, what he was able to see in his one-day trip.
“I saw the inside of the hotel and the inside of the conference room where I made my presentation,” he says wryly.
Patrick tells of his one-day excursion through Dublin while Tom was working.
“You’ll go back,” Aunt Deirdre says to Tom. “Next time you’ll take Mare. And you’ll visit County Clare and see the Cliffs of Moher and sleep in a castle.”
Aunt Elaine looks at me, her eyebrows raised high in excitement for us.
“Definitely,” I say. “I’ve always wanted to see Ireland. Hopefully, that’ll be in our cards someday.” Again I look at Tom, gauge his reaction to see if he believes our cards hold a future.
Then Sean launches in, telling stories about his time in Dublin, and breaks out in a croaky rendition of “Molly Malone.” We’re all laughing, and before you know it the childhood stories come out. Colleen tells of when Tom and Patrick were kids, the stunts they’d pulled playing Evel Knievel and TV heroes like those in The Six Million Dollar Man and The Incredible Hulk. Soon, Tom’s laughing and I want to cry because I haven’t seen him laugh in so long and he has the best laugh, the kind of roar that emanates from his belly, a smile that transforms his face, a joy that forms crinkles of diamonds in the corners of his eyes. He wipes at his eyes, remembering the carefree times as
a child, when he and Patrick were just two boys, before the alcoholic DNA in Patrick’s body had coiled around him, before Tom flicked on the television one day to find out that his wife was a liar and a cheat and a thief.
Visiting hours are just about over. For Sean’s benefit, I give a stern talking-to to the night orderly who is preparing to change his sheets. Then I turn my back to Sean and give the orderly a wink and a smile and a ten-dollar bill, mouthing the words Thank you. Colleen and her sisters are talking about a Chinese restaurant not too far from the hospital one of the nurses said was decent. Patrick says he’s starving and could go for some kung pao. Tom agrees. I hang back, unsure if unredeemable me is invited to the party.
“Ready, Mary?” Colleen says.
“Maybe I’ll just grab something in the cafeteria,” I say, because among this crowd of Tom, his brother, his mother, and her sisters, who really wants me along?
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Colleen says, looking at Tom with raised eyebrows, as if urging him to get on board. “You’re coming.”
The aunts look at Tom for an explanation for my hesitation. “Maybe she doesn’t like Chinese?” Aunt Elaine says, and I smile because it’s obvious they don’t know what I’ve done.
Tom looks at his aunts, his mother. “Of course, Mary. Come have dinner.”
Tom and Patrick had taken a cab from the airport, so they’re without a car. Colleen says she has room for her sisters plus one. She slings her arm around Patrick and tells me and Tom that they’ll meet us there. She is being far from sneaky, trying to play cupid with us.
We walk to the car in silence. As I’m pulling out of the lot, Tom says in his careful, formal voice, “Thank you again for coming. That was good of you.”
“Of course I came,” I say.
“Not, ‘of course,’ ” he says. “You didn’t have to come. It wasn’t your family. And it was big of you that you made the effort.”
“I didn’t do it for points,” I say. “And just so you know, they are my family. Just because you and I are on rocky ground doesn’t mean I no longer love your parents. They may not be my blood, but I consider them my family nonetheless. I don’t need the DNA to match up.”
Acts of Contrition Page 21