But now Marta wondered. Had Mike ever resented his wife for not contributing to the family’s finances? He had never even hinted at feeling dissatisfied or put-upon. But Mike was a good guy. Maybe he had been hiding his discontent so as not to hurt her. Maybe he’d had second thoughts along the way, after Troy’s birth, for example, when Marta’s energy level had hit an all-time low and he had been compelled (he would not have said forced) to help out more at home; even with Marta’s mother stopping by every other day to do some light housekeeping, Mike had been strained.
Maybe, Marta thought, he had even talked about his unhappiness to the colleagues with whom he worked such long and exhausting hours. Maybe he wasn’t alone in his situation, either. Maybe one or more of the other men or women at the firm were in a similar position, stuck in a deal made long ago, a deal that no longer worked as well for the breadwinners as it did for the stay-at-home partners.
Marta frowned. There was no way she could ask such questions of Mike and expect to receive an honest answer. Mike was no liar, but above all his concern was to protect his wife and his children from any undue stress, and telling Marta that he was unhappy would absolutely cause her stress. Which in turn would cause Mike stress. What a ridiculous nightmare of a situation, Marta thought angrily.
And there were still the children to tell about the pregnancy. Marta suspected that Sam would be the most displeased. Sam was mature enough (wasn’t she?) to have sensed that her mother hadn’t been pining for the presence of an infant. She might very well guess that her mother’s pregnancy was an accident (unpleasant word; better to say unintentional). Maybe, Marta thought, she should come right out and tell Sam the whole truth. On the one hand, why not? Sam was a young woman and needed to understand the complexities of an active sexual life. On the other hand, did Sam need to hear details of her parents’ sexual life? Most definitely not.
Here was another thing. Sam had always enjoyed being the only girl. If Marta should give birth to a second daughter, would Sam be mature enough to share the spotlight? Being a successful adult was largely about knowing when to let the spotlight shine on someone more deserving—like your kids or your spouse or your aging parent or your baby sibling. Marta frowned. Adulthood was exhausting, no doubt about it. Selfishness was so much less taxing. Too bad she didn’t have a talent for selfishness.
What about Leo? Of all three kids, Leo, with his roll with the punches attitude, would best adapt to a new member of the household. No, Marta wasn’t worried about Leo.
As for Troy, it would take some skillful parenting to ensure that he didn’t feel ignored, while at the same time making him understand that the new baby was as important as he was.
Marta sighed. What a mess. And who was she kidding? Her nascent plans for her future had been more fantasies than anything. All they had consisted of was the thought of one day making enough money on her own through her as yet to be determined career to buy herself presents without guilt (she thought of Bess’s vintage aquamarine ring), to feel independent, to spend time on her own or with other women in business, to grab back a part of the person she had been before becoming a wife and a mother.
But those days of “me time” were now so very far away....
A deeply unpleasant thought occurred to Marta as she sat in bed next to her lightly snoring husband. Could she have, on some unconscious level, wanted to get pregnant again? Could she have been so fearful of the state of independence she had envisioned that she had taken steps to ensure it wouldn’t come about? Marta shivered. No. Sometimes things just happened. And there was never any wisdom in blaming the victim.
She had sex and got pregnant, so let her suffer.
He smoked and got lung cancer, so no pity for him.
She met her friends for cocktails one night and was raped on the way home. What did she expect?
That sort of attitude was smug and cowardly, and Marta had always loathed and despised such shabby thinking.
Suddenly, Mike tossed wildly in his sleep. The light must be disturbing him, Marta thought. She reached for the cord on the bedside lamp and then slid down under the covers. Sleep would come eventually.
Chapter 21
Allison sat crossed-legged on the lawn a few feet from the gnarled tree, her sketch pad balanced on her knees. The tree was proving a great source of inspiration and comfort to Allison on this visit to Maine. In a way, it was a perfect companion, comfortably silent but always listening. Sympathetic without being curious.
The poor dead tree did not question why she had followed Chris to Chicago after graduation, even though it had meant leaving her beloved parents. It accepted the fact that at the time only Chris’s desires had mattered. It did not scold her for having wanted what she had wanted, which was to be with the person she loved more than anyone else. It did not give her false hope when she wondered if it was too late to begin a life based on her own needs and wants.
The side door of the house opened. (It was unmistakable, the only door that squeaked.) Allison looked over her shoulder to see Nathan striding toward the drive. A moment or two later she heard a car crunching toward the road. She turned back to the gnarled tree.
In Nathan, Bess had found her Prince Charming. In Chris, Allison had found hers. At least, she thought she had. But maybe she had been wrong about Chris from the start. She had always believed that together they could see any of life’s many challenges through to the end. Hadn’t they made vows at the altar? While it was true they had married in a church more as a matter of form than one of belief, didn’t it still mean something that God’s name had been invoked as they were joined as husband and wife? Maybe the belief of others was enough to sanctify her own union.
But maybe not. Chris had left her to bear the pain of their loss all alone. Such an action was unprecedented in their relationship. He had always been so solicitous of her feelings, so tender and caring. More like a father at times than a husband. The thought was disturbing.
Allison quickly got to her feet, stowed her pencil in its case and the sketch book under her arm, and joined Bess and Marta on the porch. There was a stack of paperback romances on one of the small side tables; on another sat a book of crossword puzzles. She sank into one of the white wicker chairs and stretched her legs before her.
“I just made the lemonade,” Bess told her, indicating a frosty pitcher on another of the small tables scattered across the porch. “It doesn’t have much sugar so it should be nice and tart. But if you want more sugar I could—”
“I’m sure it’s fine,” Allison said quickly.
“Nathan went to buy a few bottles of Prosecco,” Marta noted. “He suggested we start tonight’s festivities with Prosecco and yet more oysters. You’re a lucky woman, Bess Culpepper.”
Bess laughed. “Don’t I know it!”
“I’m not really surprised that you’re marrying someone significantly older than you,” Allison said, after a sip of the lemonade. It was very refreshing.
“Why?” Bess asked. “Frankly, I haven’t given our age difference any thought.”
Allison shrugged. “It’s just a feeling I have that the age difference will work for you. I can’t explain it. But what do I know? You’ve dated older guys in the past and some of them were just downright bad for you.”
“Bess doesn’t need to be reminded of her mistakes,” Marta said. “Like that sixty-something fitness instructor who turned out to be suffering from an eating disorder. Didn’t he dump you, Bess, because you refused to stick to some weird starvation diet he swore would halt the aging process?”
“Hey!” Bess cried. “I thought you said I don’t need to be reminded of my past—um, experiences. Anyway, Nathan is as active as I am and his parents were healthy until well into their eighties, so I’m fully expecting us to celebrate at least thirty years of marriage.”
“Ever the optimist,” Allison said, with an abrupt laugh. “How nice for you.”
Bess looked as if she had been struck across the face.
Allis
on put her glass down and leaned over to put a hand briefly on Bess’s arm. “I’m so sorry, Bess, really.”
Bess managed a smile but said nothing.
Allison, ashamed, rose from her chair. “I’ll see you later,” she said. As she climbed the stairs to her room she felt a great sense of weariness overtake her. Sometimes lately she didn’t recognize the person she had become, mean-spirited and jealous. It would not do. She would get herself in hand immediately so as not to ruin Bess’s wedding. That would be unforgivable.
Chapter 22
Poor Allison, Bess thought, sitting at her desk in the den, scanning her e-mail in-box. She was clearly so unhappy and though her sarcastic remark had hurt Bess, it had hurt for only a moment. After all, Bess was the lucky one. In less than two weeks she would be married to the man of her dreams.
Her cell phone beeped. Bess glanced at the screen; the call was from her sister Ann. Bess looked away. She wasn’t in the mood to talk to Ann—to any of her family—at the moment. She let the call go unanswered and then played the message Ann had left on voice mail.
It’s me, Ann. Your sister. Just calling to see if there’s anything I can do for you now that the wedding is almost here. I hope you’re not having jitters but if you are, call me. Maybe I can help. Bye.
Sweet, generous Ann. If this was the first time she had reached out to her oldest sister in this way, it was still a nice gesture. Bess wondered. Was it really too late to involve her family in the wedding? Maybe not, but the truth was that she didn’t want to give any of them a significant role. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her family—she did!—it was just that she had never felt all that close to them, particularly her sisters. It was no big surprise why, really. Bess had been ten when Mae came along; eleven when Ann was born. With Mrs. Culpepper burdened with the full-time care of two sick and elderly relatives who lived a few miles down the road, Bess was required to be more of a nanny than a sibling. It had been Bess who changed diapers and gave bottles and baths after school, who put the babies to bed when Mrs. Culpepper had to be gone, who soothed the girls when they were teething and rocked them back to sleep when they woke with a bad dream. There was little doubt in Bess’s adult mind that those few years of maternal duties, undertaken when she herself was still a child, had largely decided her against having children of her own one day. If she pretended incompetence when it came to child-rearing, so be it. In the end, it was easier than trying to explain her reasons for keeping her distance from children.
There was something else, as well, that had contributed to the growing distance between Bess and her younger sisters. With Ann and Mae not quite a year apart they had behaved almost like twins, content with each other to the exclusion of Bess, as well as of other children their age. By the time Mrs. Culpepper’s duties to the elderly relatives had come to an end, and Bess was relieved of most of her duties, Ann and Mae were inseparable. By the time Bess was in high school, her sisters had come to feel almost like strangers.
Almost like strangers. Bess frowned as memories of the shower her colleagues had given her at the Top of the East came back to her. Finding her mother and sisters there had been a total surprise, and not an entirely pleasant one. They had never, not once, visited her in Portland. An uncomfortable thought had occurred to Bess. Was it only because she was becoming one of them—a Married Woman, someone who mattered—that her family was finally ready to show some real interest in her?
Not that Bess needed their interest. She wasn’t jealous of the close bond Ann and Mae shared with each other and with their mother. She wasn’t. At least, she hadn’t been jealous for a long time.
Bess had pasted on a smile and welcomed her family along with the rest of the guests. Mrs. Culpepper had been dressed plainly if respectably. Ann had worn a dress she had bought at least ten years and twenty odd pounds earlier; the fabric was strained across her middle and there was a small but obvious stain on the collar. Money was an issue for Ann, but not a drastic issue; it was more that Ann just didn’t spend any time or energy on her appearance. Bess often wished that she did.
Mae, who was proud of her pretensions to style, was dressed in a black skirt that was far too short and a red sequined sleeveless top too heavy for the season. Mae kept yanking on the hem of the skirt and wriggling inside the top as if the lining was scratching at her. Her nails were painted a truly awful green. Most disturbing to Bess was the fact that Mae didn’t seem in the least self-conscious.
Bess remembered thinking that Mae should feel self-conscious, as should Ann. She remembered being embarrassed by her sisters.
What sort of person was embarrassed by family members whose only fault—if it could be called a fault—was a poor sartorial choice? A lousy person, Bess thought, snapping closed the lid of her laptop.
Bess had come home from the party with a crashing headache that had only gotten worse when Mae sent her a text saying what a great time she had had and wanting to know when she could come back into Portland and hang out with Bess and her girlfriends. (This, too, was a shocking first.) Her mother had then called to say she hoped Bess had gotten enough to eat at the party. (Not a surprise. For Mrs. Culpepper, food equaled love.) Finally, there had been an e-mail from Ann in which she had so profusely thanked Bess for having been included in the festivities that if Bess hadn’t known better she would have suspected her sweet sister of bitter irony.
The headache—the guilt—had gotten much worse before it finally subsided.
At least Bess had done her duty by her sisters when they married. Nevertheless, she squirmed as she remembered feeling huge relief that neither had asked her to be maid of honor. The last thing she had wanted was to help orchestrate the weddings back in Green Lakes, only partly because she didn’t know either of her sisters well enough to plan a proper shower. Who were her sisters’ friends? What was Ann’s favorite song, her favorite color? What was Mae’s favorite flower or TV show? Shouldn’t a big sister know these things? But the three Culpepper girls hadn’t lived under the same roof for more than a few months in over ten years.
Still, Bess had twice accepted the role of bridesmaid, had uncomplainingly worn the unflattering, ill-fitting dresses, stood at attention as the minister blessed the union of man and wife, and posed for endless pictures with the other bridesmaids as well as with the groomsman with whom she had been partnered, in each case the same young man with sweaty palms whose attentions she had been dodging since puberty.
Disaster of a sort had struck at Mae’s wedding when Bess accidentally caught the bouquet. She was horrified as all eyes turned on her; though she identified as a romantic she did not believe a sign of such importance would come to her at an event at which one of the desserts was a gelatin mold studded with sliced bananas and canned pineapple chunks. For the remainder of the reception she had endured good-natured teasing from the guests. An elderly woman who was a member of the church the Culpeppers attended had asked Bess if the lucky young man had already appeared in her life, to which Bess had replied, “No, I’m waiting for my soul mate.” The woman had chuckled so heartily her false teeth had almost popped out of her mouth. When she had recovered her breath, and adjusted her teeth, the woman had said, “Oh, dear child, then you’ll be waiting a very long time indeed!”
Well, Bess thought now, the long wait had been worth it. She could have done without some of the interesting interludes along the way—like the aging fitness nut—but maybe those experiences had helped train her to spot the real soul mate when he finally came along.
The door to the den opened behind her. Only one other person used this room.
“I was just thinking of you!” Bess said brightly, turning to face her fiancé. All unhappy thoughts fled.
“In what way?” Nathan asked.
“I was thinking,” she said, rising to greet him, “that you were well worth the wait.”
Chapter 23
Marta opened the bedroom door, towel over her shoulder, her lightweight robe belted tightly around her waist. No
visible bump yet; just the usual tummy Marta had been carrying around for years. Should any of her friends see her before the door closed behind her, they would be none the wiser.
“You’re up,” Marta said to her husband, who was sitting in the comfortable high-backed chair in one corner of the room, reading something on his phone. Why did people feel the need to note the obvious, she wondered? It was a mystery for the ages.
Mike immediately put his phone in his pocket and smiled at her. “I’ve been thinking,” he began.
Marta, used to hearing this opening line from her husband to refer to anything from what kind of pizza he was going to order that evening to what bank account he was considering moving some money into, smiled back at him. “And?” she asked, running the towel over her damp hair one last time before reaching for the comb on the top of the dresser.
“And I was wondering if this isn’t the perfect time to share our big news. I know Bess wouldn’t mind if we stole a bit of the limelight. What do you think?”
“No,” Marta said flatly. She did not turn from the mirror over the dresser. She had not meant to sound harsh, but she was pretty sure that she had.
“Oh,” Mike said. “It’s just that . . . You’re sure?”
Marta turned to face her husband. “I’m sure,” she said.
Mike rose from the chair and came over to where Marta stood in her robe, the comb still in one hand. When he spoke, his voice was softer than it had been; he sounded almost cajoling. “I know you’re worried that because of your age . . .” he began. “But these are our dearest friends, after all. If we learn something bad or we lose this child, at least we’ll have the support of those closest to us to help us through.”
With great effort Marta controlled an impulse to—to what? To shout, stamp her foot, scream. “I said I’m sure.” There was a trembling in her voice. “I’m not ready to tell anyone. Please, Mike, don’t press me on this.”
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