Unstrung

by Laura Spinella

  “Did you really ever throw glasses at one another?”

  While it sounds like a request for a clarification on exaggeration, I believe the counselor is asking a direct question. “No . . . Never really at one another, not that I recall.”

  “That said, you may be right about you and Rob. It may be unfixable.” I feel deflated by the obvious. “But as for being the same woman Rob’s handled . . . I don’t think so. Erratic, volatile Liv . . . It’s what you want people to see. What’s sadder is you still want them to see it.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  A hum rings from her throat. “I hear there’s an anonymously funded city-wide orchestra that’s made it all the way to a state competition.” My gaze darts to hers. Sasha smiles. “Rob let that one slip on purpose. Which ‘Liv’ do you want people to see, my friend? More importantly . . . Why?”

  I ignore the mind-boggling part of her question. “Friend?” Sasha holds out a coffee cup. I accept. I pop open the lid and sip perfectly brewed coffee—black, two hits of artificial sweetener. Not a hint of poison. Friends it is. “I, um . . . I’m sorry, Sash. I’m sorry I thought you and Rob . . . My recent behavior, it’s not exactly what the dating service promised all those years ago, is it?”

  “They also didn’t say there wouldn’t be bumps. It’ll make for a grand story on our fiftieth anniversary. Other than that, I don’t know how to respond.”

  “Because you don’t want to hear it?”

  “Because as much as I appreciate it, conciliatory and contrite isn’t your best look.”

  I glance at the legal documents that served as her ruse. “Do you want me to sign those?”

  “Maybe you can sign them over dinner tonight.”

  “Like a date?”

  “If you like.” She pauses. “Though understand makeup sex is not going to happen.”

  “Right. It’d probably be the last complication you need between Jeremy and Zowz.”

  “Actually, I’m a free woman on that front. Jeremy was offered a stipend and six-month stay at some writers’ colony in Florida. Key West—though I’ve no idea what that has to do with writing.”

  “Hemingway—never mind,” I say. “Did he accept?”

  “He was orgasmic about it. He left last Monday.”

  “And Zowz?”

  She shifts her slim shoulders. “Not quite the same result. Burned itself out about a week before Christmas. I think the idea of us exchanging gifts was too much reality. But it ended on a friendly enough note. So, dinner?”

  “You seem oddly anxious.”

  “If I seriously have to wait one more day to hear everything there is to know about the whole Theo McAdams story, I will burst.”

  “So this is no more than a desire to hear tawdry details, the high of salacious gossip?”

  She widens her eyes. “Is there any other kind worth hearing?”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Olivia

  For such a rambling place this house has packed up quickly. Movers have been here for two days straight. Three days ago, while clearing out the back of a bedroom closet, I came across a violin case. The instrument inside belonged to my grandfather—the one he played during his Nazi imprisonment. I hadn’t forgotten it; I could just never make peace with how it fit into my life. It sits now balanced on a cardboard box—one of dozens. In fact, the whole place is permeated with the odor of corrugated wood. I open the case, running my fingers over the dinged, crude, life-saving instrument. The gap between my grandfather’s gift, his love of music, my father’s perpetual disappointment, and mine—there’s such discrepancy.

  Finally, this seems to be changing. Theo made it change; I made it change. It’s my plan to give the violin to Theo. No matter any right things I have done, it feels more earned for Theo and for David McAdams. I will tell Theo the story. How the simple violin saved his great-grandfather’s life—and mine, ultimately his. How if you peer high enough into the branches of our family tree, it allowed Theo to be David McAdams’s son. I think it’s the kind of story he’ll appreciate.

  I hold the violin with far more reverence than I do the Guarneri. Picking up the tattered bow, I draw it across rigid strings. It’s a fairly woeful noise. I keep playing anyway. From behind me there’s a rush of cold air, then a voice. “Jesus, tell me your skill set hasn’t deteriorated to a point where even I can’t recognize it?”

  I spin around. Rob is in the doorway of the brownstone. “You’re here.” Yesterday, I left a message on his cell, asking if he’d come by. He didn’t return the call. I didn’t know if he’d come.

  Rob doesn’t respond. His attention is fixed on the boxes, the obvious state of moving. “Liv? What have you done now?”

  For a second, I can’t speak. My heart thumps as inexplicable and jubilant as “The Mystic,” Holst’s last movement in The Planets. It’s exquisitely hypnotic and impossible to explain. You simply have to listen, allow yourself to be taken in by the lure of the beautiful thing being offered to you. I take a deep breath and reach for bold courage. “I sold the brownstone.”

  “You . . .”

  “Sold the brownstone. It was on the market for four hours—three bidders. Selling it took all of twenty-four hours. Sasha’s working with the realtor to finalize it. I, um . . .” I stop and think, having attempted to employ good business strategy. Time is of the essence. “I didn’t take the highest offer. I took the one that was a guaranteed cash offer.”

  “But you love the brownstone.”

  “I do. Oddly enough, I also took my mother’s advice, though burning it to the ground seemed counterintuitive.”

  He peels his gaze off wall-to-wall cardboard. His blue-eyed stare lands on mine. “Eugenia,” he says. “She said she’d burn the Wellesley house to the ground if it meant one more day with your father.”

  “She did. I . . . I’m hoping for more of a long-term plan. As for the brownstone,” I say, glancing around. “It will repay your debt and then some. The Wellesley house is spared.”

  “So you sold it for me, to settle the golf course deal.”

  I shake my head. “I sold it for us.”

  “That’s quite something, Liv. Generous to say the least.” He draws a deep breath. “But let me guess. We’re to never speak of it, no one is to know. Is that why you called, what you wanted to tell me?”

  “Uh, no. Not exactly. Not at all really.” The other things I have to tell Rob, they’re proving harder than I anticipated, and I am quiet, tears welling.

  “Us?” he says. It’s as if my explanation is just hitting his ears. In reply, at least he’s not turning for the door; instead, his face softens. “Us . . .” he repeats.

  “Us,” I say back. “Last time you left here you were angry, very angry.” He doesn’t disagree. A fear I’ve never felt shivers up my spine. “Are you still that angry? Are you still in the same place emotionally as the last time you left here? I need to know, and not just because I’d like a forwarding address.”

  “I had a lot of things to be angry about. Things you’re not even aware of, Liv; things I’ve been doing my best to make peace with these past few weeks.” I nod small, prepared for Rob to leave, to let him go if that’s what will truly make him happy. He draws a deep breath. “But the fact that I’m here . . . It tells me a few things. Maybe things I couldn’t even admit to myself until now.”

  “You . . . you want to be here?”

  “Yes.” His gaze bumps over the plethora of boxes. “It’s not the homecoming setting I anticipated, but less the small stuff . . . like, I don’t know, somewhere to sleep or put my rowing machine . . .” He looks back to me. “I want to be here.”

  “Could we . . .” I motion to the stairs. “Do you want to sit? I have some things to tell you.” We settle in, hip to hip on the riser of one narrow stair and for a moment let the quiet settle in. “The first thing is about me. The second,” I say, raising a brow, “is all about us.”

  “Sounds cryptic.” He smiles nervous
ly; I don’t smile at all.

  “These, uh . . . these last few months, for whatever has happened, it’s also led me to a realization. No matter . . .” I breathe deep in the face of raw honesty. “No matter who a person is, it’s almost impossible to see past . . . get past what they’ve been told their entire life. That their cumulative worth is based upon the success or failure of one thing. It’s amazing how a person can end up despising that ‘one thing.’”

  “That being a violin?”

  “That being the person with the gift to play it.” From the corner of my eye, I see Rob nod. “A lifetime of living like that . . . It costs. It’s enough to make that someone want to hide, shun anything that can be construed as good.”

  “Like a huge charitable effort or the infant she gave away . . . Maybe even the grown person that infant turned into.”

  “Or a man who sees what the woman refuses to acknowledge. She might be most careless and reckless with him, because she doesn’t feel she deserves him.” Rob remains quiet. He continues to sit with elbows on his knees, hands clasped. He’s still wearing his wedding ring, and my breath catches as he spins it around his finger. I brace for some sort of ceremonial removal.

  “I can’t disagree,” he finally says. “I would just say it’s rather amazing that you’ve realized it. I . . .” He stops spinning the ring. “Even so, even if we had a home to go back to . . .” He shakes his head at the packed-up surroundings. “We can’t go back to what we were, Liv. On the other hand, changing who we are together isn’t necessarily what I’m after. I like that we’re not the ordinary definition of a marriage . . . or even a relationship. It’s more about you making peace with yourself—with your gifts and your imperfections. Believing that it’s all good.”

  “Because you were able to make peace with all of me long ago.”

  He frowns, shaking his head. “No. Because I liked you and your imperfections from the start. You need to catch up.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?” he asks.

  “Why me? I mean, I get the attraction.” My knee bumps against his. “I get how our everyday lives complement each other. But why . . . me?”

  “Because the bigger the risk the more I want it.” Rob smiles. “You should know that.” His smile, it’s the kind of thing you’d miss terribly if it were to vanish permanently. It could be that I had this earmarked as future punishment for myself. “You make adrenaline pump in a way that has nothing to do with business, and everything to do with how a life should be lived. At least my life. That, um . . . that never happened to me before you.” He waits a moment. “And you?”

  This is the part where I retreat, to a violin, to anywhere that isn’t associated with reward. “Secretly, you’re the thing I’ve always wanted . . . needed most—somebody who appreciates my gift, but isn’t fixated on it. Someone whose damage isn’t greater than mine. Somebody . . .” I pull in a deeper breath. “Who I can I have this conversation with.”

  He clears his throat. “That’s a pretty big compliment coming from you.”

  “Can we do that?”

  “Do what exactly?”

  “Have more conversations like this?”

  In the tight hold of the stairs, in a house that is no longer ours, Rob curls his arm around my shoulder and pulls me closer. “We can try, Liv. We can definitely try.”

  “That’s . . .” I vacillate for a moment, contemplating the thing Rob doesn’t yet know. “That’s good to hear. It will make the rest . . .” I shift, antsy and unsure. “It will make the big part of what I have to tell you a little easier.”

  “Bigger than this?” He points to our cardboard-crated possessions.

  “Yes. Significantly bigger. Something you’ll be surprised, but I hope glad, to hear.”

  “What’s that?”

  I twist toward him in the narrow grip of the steps, holding his gaze. “I’m pregnant.”

  “You’re—”

  “Pregnant.” Rob’s jaw slacks, but at least he doesn’t pass out, which was on my short list of plausible reactions. “I know, right? Talk about coming from left field.” Unlike twenty-seven years ago, I find I am not fearful but joyful over the prospect. “At first I thought it was more like the change of life thing. It is—just not quite that change. It took a while for me to even consider the possibility; I mean, who would have thought . . . And I haven’t been paying particular attention to anything like that, I certainly wasn’t anticipating—”

  “Liv,” he says abruptly, leaning back in the tight hold of the space. “How long . . . I mean, when do you think this, um, happened? You and I . . . we haven’t slept together since . . . what? Sometime in November?”

  “About then, but we definitely did. Right before you went to New York and everything kind of came apart.”

  He continues to stare. “Right before the library gala.”

  “Well, yes. I mean, I can’t give you an exact date, but around then.”

  “Around the same time you spent the night at Sam’s hotel.”

  “I suppose. But I told you . . . Sam even said we never . . .” I stop. “Rob?”

  “Oh my God.” He says it in staccato beats, as if a period follows each word. Letting go of my arm, he scrubs his hand over his face. “It would be impossible.” He blinks into my eyes, his usual confident look downright dazed. “No. Actually, with you, Liv . . . I think it’s perfectly plausible.”

  I smile crookedly, thinking I should have asked the movers to leave his Macallan unpacked. “What, exactly, are you rambling about?”

  He takes the kind of breath I’ve been living on since he walked in, off balance and unsure. “Liv, I, um . . . I hate to trump your big news, but you need to know something. Something Sam Nash confessed to me the day I went with him to the ER.”

  EPILOGUE

  EIGHT MONTHS LATER

  WELLESLEY, MASSACHUSETTS

  Olivia

  I am in the kitchen of the Wellesley house—the architect has just left. I’m not looking forward to the demo, but the kitchen screams 1997, the last time it was renovated. It’s a lot to take on in the whirlwind of changes that have come our way.

  A woman dressed in kitty-covered scrubs comes through a hallway door. The door leads to a cluster of first-floor rooms dedicated to my mother. She moved into them last spring, when Rob and I moved into the house. Amelia is her companion caregiver. Memory slips attributed to a shoulder-shrug of age spiraled quickly, most noticeably after my mother attempted to board a flight to Bogota instead of Boston on her return home from Florida. Her dementia diagnosis has presented a stranger end of life scenario than my father’s.

  “She’s napping,” Amelia says. “I’m going to run to the drugstore while I can. Her meds need refilling.”

  I thank Amelia, who goes on her way. No matter my relationship with my mother, it’s difficult to watch a woman, once so prideful and self-assured, succumb to something far worse than a trip to Vegas. It’s one of many reasons we hired Amelia. Eugenia Klein has gone from random forgetfulness to a steady decline of the woman we knew. In the past month, she’s taken to mistaking Rob for my father more often than not. More disturbing, she often hugs me, telling me how much she loves me—a piece of her brain desperate to mend our entire lives. I feel sympathy, though sadly my memories are too vivid, scars that cannot be erased at this late hour. The most I can hope to get out of this parent-child relationship is to learn from the mistakes—as noted, catharsis isn’t always the answer.

  Phillip’s recent visit seemed to land my mother in a time warp, continually asking if he knew when his father would be home. While we don’t know when, one day Southern-born Eugenia will slip beyond her cagey grasp on this life, like a spent magnolia flower falling silently from a tree of glossy leaves. But more likely she will be restored, reunited with my father on the other side, wherever married Jews and Christians go when they die, whatever the destination of two impeccably matched imperfect souls.

  But Phillip’s visit was not entirely od
d and unhappy. He came to meet his nephews—or remeet the one he said hello and good-bye to on a sweltering January day, and the one born on an equally scorching day last August. By the time I gave birth to Robert James Van Doren the third, Rob and I shared many of those deeper husband and wife conversations. They were necessary and telling. Rob has amazed me by stepping up and stepping in, his grandest moments coming after an amniocentesis test. It was a routine procedure for a pregnant woman of my age, though this particular test was anything but. Among the many things it revealed, it told us that the baby was in perfect health and that it was a boy.

  Days before the test, Sam had called. He’d relapsed again; he wanted to know if we would tell Theo. He was still trying to come to terms with what was likely a terminal diagnosis. While it was hard to hear, it gave Rob and me the perspective we were searching for, along with a roadmap as to how to proceed with our lives, Sam’s life, and the baby’s. A week after the test and Sam’s call, Rob traveled to California to see him. I wasn’t there—both Rob and I deciding the trip and stress was an unwise choice. I find it hard to fathom the conversation between Sam and Rob, even after my husband relayed the details. I suppose Rob’s cool MO and ability to navigate tight spots was a plus that day.

  Sam reiterated what he confessed to Rob in the emergency room on that late-fall Sunday afternoon: He lied to me about what happened between us in his hotel room, telling Rob that I wasn’t to blame. He lied, he said, because it was the kindest thing he could think to do in the moment. Sam insisted that night was the actions of a lonely man, who knew his fate was inevitable. He desperately longed for a connection that mattered, more so than memorabilia and being idolized by strangers—something Sam said he didn’t figure out until it was simply too late. It was that, and maybe a fortuitous feeling Sam had about what that night would produce. When Rob got to his point, telling Sam about the amniocentesis, he was stunned—by the result, by one last possible note of hope in his waning life. The baby was Sam’s, and, yes, this son was the half match that Theo was not.