After getting out of prison he moved to an SRO hotel. His tiny, windowless room in a no-name neighborhood in Philadelphia has the feel of a cell, the single bed neatly made, books and magazines arranged in perfect stacks, posters and pictures taped to his cinder-block wall. The posters and pictures are all of his son; the magazines all feature stories about him. In a scrapbook, Landis has newspaper clippings charting Andy Landis’s history as a runner, beginning in high school. Over the years, Landis Senior says, friends sent them to him in prison. He is proud of his son, but has, he says, no desire to get in touch. “It’s too many men who come out of the woodwork when their children make something of themselves,” he said, mentioning Shaquille O’Neal’s father, who’d abandoned his son as a six-month-old baby, who’d disappeared into addiction, then prison, only to finally come forward, brandishing a birth certificate, looking to be taken into O’Neal’s fold after his son became a star.
“I don’t want Andy to think I’m after his money, or that I deserve any credit for his success. Everything he did, that’s all him.” And if he could send a message to his Olympic-winning son? Landis Senior doesn’t even have to think about it. “I know I wasn’t his father, but I’d tell him I was proud.”
Andy stared at the words. He wondered which friends had sent his father clippings about him, and then pictured Mr. Sills, carefully cutting out each story. Maybe writing a note. Had his old friend felt guilty, that it was his own son’s fault, and maybe somehow his, too, that Andy’s dad was in prison?
Inside the magazine’s pages was an envelope from the Grim Rieper. This is your father’s address and phone number. He asked me to pass them along. Andy studied the note for a minute, trying to imagine the reunion, the ex-con father meeting his infamous, tainted son. He looked at his phone, but instead of reaching for it he grabbed the vodka, adding another dollop to his Red Rage. That night, for the first time in his life, he drank until he passed out.
He might have stayed in that room forever, eating, drinking, sleeping, then waking to do it all again, except one day his cell phone had started ringing. He’d seen 215, the area code for Philadelphia, and, on a whim, he’d answered it.
“No comment,” he’d said instead of hello. The words sounded a little slushy. Oh, well.
Instead of a volley of questions, his opening sally earned him a wheezy laugh. “Andy Landis,” said a familiar voice that had gotten fainter over time. “Is that any way to say hello to your old friend?”
Andy, who’d been lounging on the couch with a go-cup full of Blue Crush and vodka balanced on his chest, sat up so fast that the drink spilled all over his shirt.
“Mr. Sills?”
Another wheezy laugh. “You can call me Clement now, remember? I make it a policy for all my friends who’ve won gold medals.”
The familiar searing, scalding shame rose through his body, making him flush and squirm with the desperate desire to outrun what could never be outrun. Disgrace was now his shadow, and he couldn’t ever leave it behind.
“Your friend who cheated.”
Mr. Sills sighed. “Now, I’m not saying you didn’t do wrong. But name me someone who goes through life without making mistakes. I know you,” he continued. “You’re probably sitting in the dark, not talking to anyone, beating yourself up.” Looking around, Andy realized that he hadn’t turned any lights on that night or, he suspected, most nights. “You’ve still got a long time to live, and there’s plenty of good you could be doing. Lots of boys out there could use a helping hand. Maybe even a coach.”
“Who’d hire me?” Andy hated that he sounded whiny, in addition to drunk. “Nobody’d want a cheater coaching their kids.”
Mr. Sills was relentless. “Do you know that for sure? Have you asked anyone? I’d bet you a whole stack of National Geographics that if you went back to Roman Catholic, went to the coach, said, ‘I’d like to help out,’ he’d have you doing it in a minute.”
Andy, who wasn’t so sure, said nothing.
“But that’s not why I called,” his friend continued. “Truth is, I haven’t been doing so well lately. I’ve got that emphysema, you know.”
Andy hadn’t known.
“I’d sure like a visit,” Mr. Sills had said. “Maybe you could come down here, we’d have some breakfast, maybe visit a few junk shops.” Junk shops, Andy remembered, had been Mr. Sills’s name for the antiques shops and the vintage and resale stores that they’d frequented. “I don’t drive anymore . . .”
“What happened?”
“Ah, well, you know, I never could parallel park, and then it just seemed like everyone on the road was so angry, honking all the time. I got friends who take me places now, and I get Meals on Wheels for lunch and dinner.”
“I’ll come,” Andy heard himself say. He was moving through the kitchen by then, pulling out a trash bag from the box on the counter, scooping up pizza boxes and half-full Chinese food containers and dozens of empty plastic Red Rage bottles and sweeping them inside. It was unendurable, the thought of Mr. Sills stuck home alone, eating Meals on Wheels, while he sat here like a petulant prince with more money than he needed. “I’ll come tomorrow.”
“No need to rush,” said Mr. Sills. Then he started coughing again.
“Tomorrow,” Andy had repeated, pouring the rest of the vodka down the kitchen sink. He’d spent the night cleaning, doing laundry, packing what he needed. He was waiting at the car dealership when it opened, grabbing the first salesman he saw, pointing at a car, cutting off the other man’s speech with a curt “Just give me the keys and I’ll write you a check.” By noon, he was pulling off the exit for Allegheny Avenue.
He’d gone straight to see Mr. Sills, whose apartment had grown, if anything, even more crammed with the collages of pictures and paintings now covering the walls entirely. After Athens, Andy had offered to buy him a house, a condo, something in Center City, so he could walk to the museums and the restaurants, but Mr. Sills had shaken his head and told him, “I lived here with Mrs. Sills. This is home.”
“Son,” Mr. Sills had said, struggling to his feet. The man who’d once seemed like a giant to Andy was smaller all over; shorter and thinner, with a clear tube running across his cheek and up into his nose. Beside the corduroy-covered armchair that Andy remembered sat an oxygen tank, like a small, faithful dog.
It made him think of Rachel, and all the mistakes he’d made, all the bad choices, and he wanted to bang his head against a wall until the shame subsided. Instead, he made himself hold still as Mr. Sills said, “It’s good to see you,” and gave him a hug. In that instant, he hated himself more than he ever had; hated himself for all the people he’d disappointed, all the ones he’d hurt or left behind.
I’m sorry, he thought. He knew that if he tried to talk he wouldn’t be able to get the words out . . . but it seemed, somehow, that Mr. Sills had heard them anyhow. “There, there,” he said, patting Andy’s back, the way a mother might have soothed a crying baby. “There, there.”
They’d visited all afternoon. Mr. Sills showed Andy his latest treasures—an oil painting of a parrot (“It really brightens up the place,” he’d said), a Spode tea service, and a real silver tray. “A genuine antique!” he’d pronounced, and told Andy how many times he’d had to go over all the vines and curlicues to clear away the tarnish. He asked after Maisie, and Andy told him briefly that Maisie was gone. As the day wound down and the sky began to darken, Mr. Sills asked, “Did you ever think to look up your daddy?”
Andy shook his head. Mr. Sills smiled.
“Talkative as ever. You suppose that’s something you might want to undertake?”
Andy shrugged. “Maybe someday.”
“Maybe someday,” Mr. Sills repeated. He settled into his chair, glanced at the tank beside him, and said, “I know that you are hurting. Only thing I’d say is, don’t wait too long.” He’d smiled, crinkling his cheeks, making his glasses ris
e. “None of us live forever.”
He’d given Mr. Sills a long hug goodbye. Then he had gone home to his mother.
“You can stay as long as you want to,” Lori told him, leading him up the stairs to where the guest room sat in readiness for a visit that, so far, had never come. The queen-size bed had a blue-and-red bedspread; the dresser displayed a dozen photographs of Andy through the years. Fresh towels sat at the foot of the bed, and there was a new toothbrush in the bathroom. That was Lori. She’d hardly hug, she’d never kiss, she’d rarely say I love you, but when you showed up at her door unannounced, the bed was made, the freezer was full of Stouffer’s French bread pizzas, and there was a fresh tube of the kind of Crest he’d used when he was a boy.
Andy walked into the room and set his bag on the dresser. Lori stood in the doorway, playing with her hair.
“Andy.”
He looked at her.
“When you told me you were sorry—you should know that I am, too. If I ever made you feel like you weren’t good enough . . .” She paused, then gave a rueful, shamed laugh. “If I always made you feel like you weren’t good enough . . .”
“Mom,” he said, but Lori kept talking, her face pale, and her hands gripping each other. “That’s why you did it, right? That’s why you wanted to keep running. You had a gold medal—you beat the whole world—and you still couldn’t let yourself stop. And it’s my fault,” she said. “I should have made you feel like I loved you, like I loved you no matter what, and I didn’t do it.”
“Mom,” he said again, or tried to say, because he could hardly talk and she was crying.
“All I thought of was myself, and just getting through the day, and how lonely I felt, and I put too much on you, and I didn’t give you enough, and I’m sorry, Andy. I can’t tell you how sorry . . .” Andy crossed the room to take her hands and she grabbed his and squeezed them hard.
“I was never ashamed of you. I was never anything but proud. You’re my boy,” she said, still crying. “And I’m proud to be your mom.”
Rachel
2014
Rachel?” There was a hand on my shoulder, and a sweet, well-meaning voice in my ear. I groaned. “Tired,” I said.
“Rachel, honey.” The hand jiggled me. I let my body wobble bonelessly on the mattress. Today was . . . I thought. A school day. Maybe a Wednesday. I could detect a Wednesday feel, a middle-of-the-week lassitude, the good intentions of Monday faded, the excitement of the weekend yet to come.
“Rachel.” The hand was not moving. The voice was getting more insistent. Not Brenda, this time, but Nana, who’d come all the way from Florida, the way she had after each of my daughters was born. “Come on, honey. The girls are going to be home soon.”
“Send ’em in,” I sighed, and forced myself to sit up and open my eyes.
If Jay had cheated, that would have been one thing. If he’d cheated and left me for his mistress, it would have been humiliating and sad, but I might not have been knocked down as hard as this. But what happened was so much worse. I’d lost everything—my job, my husband, what felt like my whole life—all in one terrible night.
I was at my desk in the office on a Friday morning when a reminder from OpenTable popped up on my calendar. “Don’t forget your reservation at Eleven Madison Park tonight.” I rocked back in my chair, frowning. That morning, in the midst of the usual scramble to get the girls washed and brushed and backpacked, Jay had been talking about something, and I thought he’d said Don’t forget about tonight—but I hadn’t caught the part about what I needed to remember, because I’d been staring into the freezer, hoping that more coffee beans would magically appear, while thinking about a client who needed a new phone so she could put a number on the résumés that she needed to start handing out to potential employers. With a minute left before they needed to go, Adele had gone running up the stairs in search of her recorder and Delaney had used the delay to start going through her lunch—“Mommy, why do you keep giving me wasabi seaweed? I only like sesame!” Jay had given me his usual businesslike kiss and herded the girls out the door.
On my way to the subway, I’d scrolled through my calendar, trying to see if we had plans for the evening. Adele had a recorder concert, but that wasn’t until Thursday, and Delaney’s move-up night at school, which parents were required to attend, wasn’t for weeks. The only thing I’d been intending to do that night was a five o’clock yoga class, until the reservation reminder arrived.
At work, I continued to stare at the screen. Our anniversary wasn’t for three months. It wasn’t his birthday or mine. When Eleven Madison Park had been written up in the Times a few months ago, with a foie-gras-stuffed chicken earning special praise, I’d sighed and said, “I’d love to get dressed up and go somewhere fancy.” Had Jay actually listened?
I texted our sitter to see if she could stay late, thanking whatever gods looked out for working mothers that Meredith had broken up with her girlfriend a few months before and now had most nights free. At lunchtime I took a cab up to Bloomingdale’s and found a flattering fit-and-flare dress on sale, which let me justify the purchase of some Kate Spade heels, which were not. The Drybar at my gym took care of my hair—I’d been planning on pretending that I’d worked out, but my stylist had been deep in conversation with the guy working at the next station and hadn’t even asked. Back at work, I popped into Amy’s office to ask if I could head out early for a special romantic evening that I’d somehow managed to not know about, or know about and then forget, but she’d left early, too.
No matter. At seven o’clock I Uber’d a town car, gave the address, and scrolled through the review on my phone. I had figured out which appetizer and main course I wanted when I reached the maître d’s stand, five minutes before our seven-thirty reservation. “Party of two? Kravitz?” I said. The hostess looked at her book, frowning.
“I’m so sorry, ma’am. The reservation was for two, and both parties have already arrived.”
Huh. “Let me see if I can figure out what’s going on. It’s my husband,” I said, giving her a conspiratorial, you-know-how-men-are look. She smiled politely and led me to the table, and there was Jay, in one of the sharp new suits he’d bought the month before and a dark-blue shirt that picked up on its pinstripes. He didn’t see me coming. He was leaning forward, speaking intently to the woman in the other chair, who was petite and shapely, in a black dress with lacy black sleeves, with jet-black hair pinned up in a twist. Rage and terror rose inside of me. My knees started to shake so that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to close the distance, but I made myself keep walking. I was almost at the table when Jay finally looked up.
“Sorry if I’m interrupting,” I said. Then I looked down and saw that his dinner companion was Amy, unrecognizable out of her work uniform of a crisp white shirt and trousers.
“Oh, thank God!” Weak with relief, I almost collapsed into the third chair that a waiter had whisked over. “Do you know that for ten seconds I thought Jay was having an affair?”
Jay just stared at me, mouth open, eyes bulging slightly, like a fish. Amy bent her head, staring down at the gold-rimmed charger. And then I knew. “Oh,” I said, feeling so faint that if I hadn’t been sitting I would have collapsed. “Oh, no.”
I should have noticed, I told myself when I was in a cab, heading home alone. In September, when Delaney had started full-day kindergarten, we’d cut back our sitter’s hours, and had a little more money and a little more free time. Jay joined a gym and began exercising five days a week, after he’d walked the girls to school. In a depressingly short amount of time he’d shed twenty pounds and an absurd percentage of his body fat. He bought a fancy bike with a titanium frame and joined a cycling club, coming home late three nights a week freshly showered, glowing with exertion and good cheer. He’d hoist Delaney up over his head as she shrieked in mock terror, and listen patiently to Adele’s lengthy recounting of her day at school, and
who’d snubbed her in the lunchroom. I hadn’t paid much attention when he’d bought new suits and shirts and even new underpants—boxer-briefs, Calvin Klein, not the stodgy baggy cotton boxer shorts that I’d been getting him for years. He was thinner; of course he’d needed new clothes, and if he wanted to buy them instead of texting me a shopping list, that was just fine.
Three months went by; three months of me noticing nothing. Three months of doing the laundry and helping with homework and making beds and making dinner; three months of doing the dishes and sweeping the floors, so busy that it didn’t seem to matter that Jay and I hadn’t really kissed, let alone said “I love you,” in a long time and that when we had sex it was predictable and fast. We’d send each other texts during the day, mostly about the girls’ schedules or whether we’d left money for the cleaning lady, and adding an ILY to the message seemed meaningless, like a waste of time. When we finally did get to bed, we were both too exhausted to even touch each other. Sleep was all we longed for; the voluptuous embrace of linen and down the only touch we craved.
Amy and Jay. Of course we’d all spent time together over the years—Amy and her husband had been guests at the girls’ naming ceremonies, and at every one of their birthday parties, and we’d gone to their house for the elaborate feasts that Leonard would prepare after he took up cooking as a hobby. There’d been impromptu get-togethers, summer afternoons in our little backyard, where we’d downed pitchers of sangria and watched the girls run through the sprinklers as Jay tried manfully to light the grill—but, as far as I knew, Jay and Amy had never had much of a connection. They’d dated for just six weeks in college, and Jay had been typically vague when I’d asked why they’d ended things. “She’s a little pushy,” he’d say, and all my boss ever said about my husband was “He’s a great guy.”
Who Do You Love Page 29