Second Acts

by Teri Emory

  On the third weekend of this drill, after a particularly strenuous session with the physical therapist, Mom was fast asleep by mid-afternoon Saturday.

  “She’s probably out for the night,” her nurse said. “You can see her tomorrow. Why don’t you try to get home before the snow gets too bad? They’re saying we’re in for a few inches.”

  Gabe and I drove across the Williamsburg Bridge as the storm was picking up. By the time we reached Yorkville, our neighbors were already salting the front steps of their brownstones.

  “Are you up for some bistro food?” Gabe asked. “I’ve been wanting to try that new French place on First Avenue.”

  “Let’s call and have them deliver to my house. What would you like?”

  “Anything that goes with pinot noir. I’ll let you off, get the car into the garage, and meet you back at your place with some wine and a movie. Old or new flick?”

  “Something old, please. With great scenery and costumes and bona fide movie stars.”

  “Sounds like a Lawrence of Arabia night to me.”

  “That’s an awfully long movie.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. Are you?”

  __________

  We were curled up, platonically, on my bed, finished with our frisée salad and steak frites and most of the pinot noir. I was transfixed by the sight of Peter O’Toole, as T.E. Lawrence, trekking across the desert. Gabe grabbed our empty plates and headed for the kitchen. “I’ll just put these in the dishwasher,” he said over his shoulder. “Be right back.” I gave him a small wave without taking my eyes away from the movie. My favorite moment was beginning.

  Without flinching, Lawrence steadily holds his hand above a candle flame. A companion tries to do the same thing but immediately pulls his hand away, cringing in pain. “Doesn’t that hurt you?” he asks Lawrence.

  “Of course it hurts.”

  “Then what is the trick?”

  “The trick,” Lawrence replies evenly, “is not to mind.”

  I sighed loudly and turned away from the TV to see Gabe staring at me from the doorway.

  “Why don’t you pause the movie for a minute,” he said.

  I pressed the pause button. “Why?”

  “You didn’t even notice me watching you. The look on your face was . . . You seemed so far away. I thought you were about to cry.”

  “It’s a powerful scene.”

  “Can’t you tell me what it is?”

  “What?”

  “The thing you’re trying so hard not to mind, even though it hurts like hell.”

  “Gabe, please . . .”

  “What will make you trust me? What else can I do to show you how I feel about you?”

  “I know how you feel about me. I’m just numb. Chronically tired and frantic about Mom. Thinking that I’ll be old soon, too, and I don’t have a daughter who will look after me. My life seems hard and sad at the moment, and I don’t have the energy for . . . “

  “For what? For love? For sex? For me?”

  “I don’t mean that it’s hard work to be with you, but a new relationship takes energy to get going. I’m worn out right now. Empty. Even after things with my mother are, um, resolved, let’s say, a part of me is thinking that it’s too late for me to get involved with someone the way I think you’d like to be. Then again . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Then I think about how remarkable you’ve been from the moment we met, and how handsome you are, and, even drained as I am, I have to admit to a remote hormonal summons. But I force myself not to respond.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to be fair to you.”

  “You think it would be unfair to sleep with me?” he said. “I don’t understand.”

  Of course he didn’t understand. The statement was ridiculous on its face, and especially unbelievable, though Gabe couldn’t know why, coming from me. Sex had always been the easiest part of my relationships with men. I couldn’t figure out why I was complicating matters with Gabe. I was attracted to him, and I sensed that both of us would enjoy ourselves as lovers. But he was so starry-eyed about me, he seemed frangible; I was afraid of wounding him with my hard edges. For the first time in a long while, perhaps for the first time in my life, the idea of sex seemed inexorably linked to a mysterious pool of shivery, tender feelings—his feelings. And I was reluctant to dive in.

  Gabe inhaled deeply. “Maybe that’s just a diplomatic way to say you’re not attracted to me,” he said.

  “God, no, that’s not it,” I said. “I promise. But you’re in love with me, and . . . “

  “You won’t sleep with me because I love you?”

  “I vowed a long time ago that I’d never let myself fall in love again, and I’ve kept my word.”

  “Just like that. You have complete control over your feelings. How’s that working for you, huh?”

  “I’ve managed all right for more than twelve years. Before that, I let myself lose control, and it was a mistake. When I was younger, I hurt some very nice men who loved me and wanted to marry me. Then it was my turn. I had my heart broken into smithereens. I figure the score is even now, no need for another tournament.”

  “You think you’re the only one whose heart has been broken?”

  “Of course not. But I feel too old to risk it again. You’re probably starting to think I’m way too much trouble.”

  “Not really.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think you have a bitter wound, an old one, that won’t heal, and like Lawrence with his hand on the flame you’ve tricked yourself into not minding. But the wound is still there. And I think I need to know about the humdinger.”

  “Who?”

  “That’s what Celeste called him that day in the hospital in Florida. The Southerner whose name she couldn’t remember.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “What happened with him that made you give up on bashert. On the true love you were meant to have. And why you can’t let go of the memory of him.”

  I turned away from Gabe and looked towards the window. The fire escape was already blanketed with several inches of snow. There was snow on the ground the day I returned from Savannah. The air felt so crisp and dry after the dampness there. It hurt to breathe.

  “Miriam? Where are you? Are you with me?”

  “I’m here, Gabe.”

  “Nothing you tell me about your past will change how I feel. Do you believe me?”

  “Maybe I’m afraid of just that! I’m not in the habit of love anymore. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “I hear you. But love is a great, healthy habit. And I don’t believe you’re past the possibility of re-acquiring it.”

  “I’m not sure I even have the words for what you want to hear from me. I’ve never told anyone the whole story—not even Sarah and Beth.”

  “Just start. The words will come, I promise. And then maybe we’ll be able to see what possibilities lie ahead for us. Tell me, who was he? What made you love him?”

  I picked up my wine glass and held it for Gabe to fill. I took a deep breath, and then a sip of wine. Gabe lay down next to me on the bed. “His name was Peter,” I said. “He was wildly creative, deeply romantic, and emotionally hollow. Passionate, fascinating, and dangerous. Are you sure you want to hear this?”

  “Every word,” Gabe said.

  I began with Violet’s party, then my birthday weekend in Savannah.

  “Like getting struck by lightning,” I said.

  “If you remember, Miriam, that’s what I said about meeting you.”

  “I do remember. In the diner, the morning I got the call about Mom. I didn’t know how to respond. I have to admit, I felt something for you too at the party. I tried to push it away, make it disappear. You made me nervous.”

 
“What scared you?”

  “The way you looked at me. I felt an emotional jolt that reminded me of feelings I never wanted to feel again. Because I know where those feelings lead, eventually. To disappointment.”

  “Tell me about Peter.”

  I described my move to Savannah.

  “I’m surprised. Doesn’t sound like the person you are now,” Gabe said. “How impulsive! I mean, leaving New York, your job, your mother . . .”

  “I was on sabbatical, so I could pretend I didn’t have a job to worry about. Twelve years ago, my mother was in good health and still hoping I’d finally get married. She was happy to hear I was in love, even if it meant the possibility of my leaving town. You’re right, I was a different person then. I’d broken several engagements because I thought being married meant inevitable, terminal boredom. I was looking for excitement. I found it, all right.” I swallowed the last gulps of wine, and I finished my story—how I came to understand that Peter could never really love me. How I felt when I returned to New York.

  I was amazed that I managed to get through the whole, sordid tale without stopping, or crying. Hearing myself say what I did left me with a kind of exhilaration. I didn’t feel foolish or naked. I felt relieved.

  “Finally, I’m getting to know you,” Gabe said.

  I kissed him on the cheek and I took his face in my hands. “You’re the first man I’ve met in a long time who’s cared enough to ask so many questions about my past,” I said.

  “You’re a beautiful, intelligent woman. For some men, that’s enough. You know all the jokes about how men don’t like to talk about their feelings. The Mars-Venus thing. But I’m surprised you didn’t talk to a therapist. I thought New Yorkers were required to have shrinks. Especially after failed romances. I’ve known several.”

  “Several failed romances, or several shrinks?”

  “Both. You didn’t go to therapy at all?”

  “Beth recommended someone for me. But I didn’t see what I was experiencing as a problem for the couch. I was just terribly sad, and I figured that eventually I’d feel better. And I did, even if I had to harden my heart a little to protect myself.”

  “And now?”

  “You mean, right this minute? I don’t know if it’s the wine, or all the talking I’ve done, or the coziness of being together with a storm outside—look at that snow, will you?—but for the first time in weeks I feel relaxed. And in spite of all that’s going on with my mother, I feel a kind of creeping happiness.”

  Gabe smiled. “Creeping happiness? Is that a good thing? I’m not sure I know what it means.”

  I leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth, biting his lower lip. “It means, Gabe, that I want more than anything for you to make love to me.”

  __________

  The clock radio awakened me in the morning. A female voice was breathless with news that the city was covered with almost a foot of snow, and it was still coming down. I reached across Gabe to lower the volume. He slid his hand up between my legs.

  “We never saw the end of the movie,” he said, his eyes still closed.

  “Is this a case of lover’s remorse?” I said, lightly slapping his wrist. “You’re welcome to turn the movie back on if you feel you missed something last night.”

  “You have the softest skin on the planet,” he said, stroking my thigh. He opened his eyes. “And the most responsive body. Look at you, what gives you the right to look so gorgeous first thing in the morning?”

  “Enough!” I laughed. “You’ll run out of compliments by noon.”

  “Not possible,” he said. “Every time I touch you, I’ll think of something new.”

  “You said the right thing,” I said, tracing the outline of his lips with my index finger. “For which you will be rewarded. And then, I’ll cook you breakfast.”

  __________

  Mom had been at Glenwilde for a month when the second stroke hit. Not a TIA, nothing mini about this one. The attack was sudden and fierce, and the doctors were blunt: no more could be done. Just a matter of time.

  A week later, at three-thirty on a bitter cold Tuesday morning, the nurse’s call awakened me.

  “You’d better come,” he said—more a solicitude than an order. “I think it’s time.” Forty minutes later I was at Glenwilde, being led down the bright, fluorescent-lit hallway to Mom’s room. “She’s waiting for you,” the nurse said.

  “I called a friend,” I said. “She’s on her way. Her name is Sarah Roth. Will they let her in at this hour?”

  “I’ll bring her to you when she gets here,” he said, patting my hand.

  Despite attempts to soften the antiseptic look of the place with oak furniture and soothing colors, it still looked like a hospital room. Mom was lying in a bed with side-rails, hooked up to an array of faintly beeping equipment with flickering monitors. IVs dispensed medication and nourishment.

  Her eyes fluttered when I spoke. “It’s Miriam, Mom.” I pulled a chair next to the right side of her bed and reached for her hand. The entire left side of her body had been paralyzed for weeks. I gently stroked her arm, bruised up and down from a month of steady assaults by injections and IV lines.

  The tape player and tapes I had brought to her weeks earlier were on the night table next to the bed. I had rounded up tapes of the kind of music she liked from the albums that played on the old phonograph in our house when I was growing up, when my father was alive. Frank Sinatra, Johnny Mathis, Broadway show tunes. The nurses had been good about seeing to it that there was music in Mom’s room most of the day. They said she seemed more responsive when the music played.

  I flipped open the slot on the tape player. The last tape she had listened to was the score from My Fair Lady. I switched it on, turning the volume low enough so patients in other rooms wouldn’t be disturbed.

  “Do you remember when you and Dad took me to see this show?” I said softly, as I heard Rex Harrison grumble that the English don’t teach their children how to speak. “It was my first Broadway play. We had ice cream sundaes at Rumplemeyer’s before the matinee and we sat in orchestra seats. Money was so tight in those days. How could you afford such a splurge? For a seven-year-old! I barely weighed enough to hold the theater seat down. My legs kept flying up and my crinolines were practically over my head. You finally had to put your coat under me to anchor the seat.”

  I think—no, I’m sure—that Mom tried to turn her head and open her eyes to see me. She knew I was with her. “That night when we got home you and Dad whirled around the living room, singing ‘I Could Have Danced All Night.’ I played the album a thousand times until I learned all the words to ‘Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?’ complete with cockney accent. I forced you and Dad to sit on the couch and watch me perform it every night for weeks. You applauded every time as if I were Julie Andrews.”

  The door to the room opened. Sarah had arrived, carrying paper cups of steaming herbal tea. She handed me one of the cups and pulled a chair up next to mine.

  “Beth is on her way,” she whispered. “Would you like me to call your brother?”

  “What time is it out there? Doesn’t matter, I guess. Here, take my cell phone. His number is stored.”

  “Beth spoke to Gabe yesterday. He said he thought you might hesitate about calling him, especially if—if you needed him in the middle of the night, but he wanted to be with you.”

  “You can call him, too, but later. You and Beth will be here with me. Why wake him?”

  “Because he loves you, Miriam.”

  “I know.”

  Sarah took my cell phone and went in search of an area where it would work. She was back in what seemed like seconds.

  “I spoke to Neil and Kathy. They’ll get on a plane today.”

  “Are they bringing the kids?”

  “They didn’t say.”

  “Their boys never got
to know Mom, not really. She’s always done what she can to be part of their lives, but it’s hard to be a long-distance grandmother. Once Neil moved away, he didn’t . . .”

  “—Miriam, don’t go down that road. Not now. Better to talk about happy times with your family. You know what I remember most clearly about your mother? The first time I met her, over Thanksgiving vacation freshman year. She was so beautiful. You look very much like her, you know. How old was she then? Not even forty yet. I spent a night at your apartment in Brooklyn, and Celeste made me feel like visiting royalty. She apologized for serving me turkey leftovers, as if everybody in America weren’t having the same meal that day. And then, remember how thrilled she was when she found out that I had the same birthday as her mother? ‘Kismet,’ she said. She’s sent me a birthday card every year since.”

  From the doorway of Mom’s room came Beth’s voice. “Celeste sends me birthday cards, too.”

  “Beth! How did you get here so fast? Thank you

  for . . .”

  “Don’t you dare thank me. I love your mother. And I love you.”

  “She’s always been crazy about both of you,” I said to them.

  We sat quietly, listening to faint strains of “On the Street Where You Live” against the hums and chirps of medical apparatuses surrounding Mom’s bed. I continued to stroke Mom’s arm and hold her hand. From time to time, Sarah or Beth would pat my shoulder or rub my back or share another recollection. I thought I saw tiny movements on the right side of Mom’s face, as if she were trying to open her eyes, but her body stayed motionless, and she was unable to speak. Her breathing remained calm and steady to the end.

  __________

  Neil and Kathy arrived in time for the funeral and stayed for the week. They brought my nephew, fifteen-year-old Matt, whom I hadn’t seen in three years. Their other son, Jeffrey, was still at home, unable to miss school because it was the week of achievement tests. Matt made no secret of how bored he was, and he spent every waking hour parked in front of the TV in Mom’s bedroom, complaining about the limited selection of shows on basic cable. I did my best to talk to him about the things that teenagers are usually interested in. I tried sports, movies, music, TV shows—topics that usually work even with my taciturn students—but nothing I said prompted Matt to make eye contact or respond in more than monosyllables. He was like a thousand kids I’ve known—not recalcitrant, but self-absorbed and hostile to adults. Unlike the kids I teach, though, my nephew has something else complicating his teenage years: affluent and over-indulgent parents. “I can’t believe there’s no computer in this house” was Matt’s longest utterance all week.