February 27, 1993
Watched the Nissan Open. He didn’t make the cut. After the first and second rounds he was four and five strokes over; a ball in the water here, a putt blowing by the cup there, it adds up. Watching is nerve-racking. He rarely makes it anywhere near the top half of the leaderboard. Still staking out the hinterlands, he says with only the barest hint of disappointment. But I’ve never heard him say a word about anything else he’d want to do, career-wise, or how low he’d go before throwing in the towel. I think he honestly feels lucky to do what he loves to do and be able to pay the rent. More or less.
March 15, 1993
Bertha’s gone. So sad. Poor girl’s legs gave out completely. Dave said she hasn’t been able to walk herself outside for days, so we took her to the vet. He told us that she’s had a long life for a dog, let alone a Newfoundland, but enough is enough and it’s time to let her go. He gave us the choice of doing it now or bringing her home for one more night, and Dave said No, we need to do this. We shouldn’t prolong it.
Dave stood on the threshold of the vet’s office door, rocking on the balls of his feet and looking down at the ground. I wanted to give him his peace, so I walked over to poor Bertha sedated a little on the table and put my hand on her massive head. The fleshy red parts of her lower lids were even puffier and runnier than usual, overworked it seemed from the effort of staying awake. Her breathing quickened a bit as she rolled her eyes toward the doorway and stared, then looked up at me. I turned back to the doorway, and Dave was gone.
I thought he must have stepped out to the bathroom, or maybe even to his car. Maybe he needed a minute alone. I stroked Bertha’s head, ran my thumb down her long, wide nose. Fifteen minutes later he still hadn’t come back.
The vet came in and asked if we should proceed. When I suggested we wait for Dave, he explained that Dave had already left a credit card and signature at the front desk. His long silence then, full of something besides awkwardness. Disappointment. Sympathy, maybe. You can either stay or not stay, as you wish, the vet said.
I looked back down at big old Bertha, rubbed her wide black forehead, working her silky ears between the thumb and forefinger like I’ve seen Dave do. She continued to look toward the doorway, though whether she was watching for him or if that was just the path of least resistance for her eyes, I couldn’t say. I stayed until the injection was finished and her breathing slowed to nothing. Her eyes stayed on the doorway until they lost their shine.
I went back to his apartment but he wasn’t there. I waited awhile, then left, and then called later, but got no answer. When I called the next day he didn’t even explain himself—why he’d left, where he’d gone.
Are you okay? I finally asked. That was such a strange way to leave.
He was quiet for a minute until I wondered if he wasn’t going to talk about it at all. Then he said, I just couldn’t, Liz. I don’t do sickness very well.
I didn’t say what I wanted to, which was, Well, hon, we’re not often given the luxury to choose to “do” sickness or death. It just happens. I also didn’t say the other thing that was on my mind, which was, What if I wasn’t there? Would you have just left her there on the table, alone?
But instead the New Softer Liz said, I know it’s hard. But we did the humane thing. Come over tonight. But he said he wanted to be alone, he’d catch up with me tomorrow before he left for Florida.
I know this should be telling me something important, something I should be noting carefully. My mother’s voice is echoing in my head with something about community versus isolation and the importance of pulling strength from others when you are lacking. And my own inner voice behind that: It’s about responsibility, it’s about what you owe to someone you love who is in a bad way, a pact that you make when you enter into a relationship—yes, with a pet, too—to see her out of this world as she saw you through it. But the poor guy lost his dog, and it’s not for me to tell him how he should have done it better. Even if it seems as if he did choke in the clutch.
The next morning Kate woke early. Pale light filtered through the filmy curtains, and the birds had already recognized the start of the day. She crawled from bed, picked up the journal she’d been reading, and carried it out to the family room.
In June 1993, Elizabeth turned thirty. Dave surprised her with a flight to Maui to join him in an off-tour pro-am tournament. One of her clients was among the sponsors, so her boss told her to bring her laptop, make a show of double-checking promotional literature, and call it a work trip. I love this job, she wrote. They will need to pry me away from this place with a crowbar.
Each time Elizabeth described her work, Kate felt as if she were reading about another person entirely. She’d written about designing logos and advertisements with the obsessiveness that Kate and her culinary school friends shared for rare ingredients; the journal was filled with details like the shape of a recurring geometric motif, the selection of fonts, choices of colors. But she’d never said such things aloud.
Although Dave had been to Maui any number of times, he behaved like a tourist with Elizabeth. They bodysurfed in Lahaina and watched the sun rise from the top of Kilauea volcano, a moonscape of brick-colored rocks backlit in orange. They trespassed in a sugarcane field and tasted some just to say they had, gnawing on stalks stringy and sweet, like a candied asparagus. Her fears of traveling together—that she’d be claustrophobic amid so much togetherness, or be lost in an orgy of golf—proved unfounded. She had time to herself. He respected her privacy. And though he was absorbed in the tournament, he was not consumed by it.
On the night of her birthday he brought her to a restaurant in a converted general store set in the middle of an old pineapple plantation. As they sipped passion-fruit margaritas, he slipped a small velvet box across the table. Her heart seized. My first thought was Oh no, then had a parade of images—mortgage bills, poopy diapers, boredom. But when I flipped up the lid it was the most beautiful pair of diamond earrings, small perfect octagons with starry refractions from the candles and water glass. In the card he wrote, You’re my rock.
Kate heard a step behind her, then felt a hand on her shoulder. “Hey.” Chris walked past the couch to the kitchen. “You’re up early.”
Kate rested the notebook in her lap. “The birds woke me up. They were like something out of Hitchcock.”
He rubbed his head and reached for the cabinet where the cups were kept. “You make coffee yet?”
She glanced at the table beside her where a mug would be. “No.” Once she’d opened the notebook and begun to read, it hadn’t crossed her mind.
Chris filled the water chamber on the coffeemaker and emptied old grounds from the filter basket. Outside, the sun glowed pale on the long lawn.
“What got you up?” she asked.
“I have to write something up on Southeast Asia,” he said, rubbing his face. “There’s a hotel there that might be going on the market.”
He opened the refrigerator and took out a cup of yogurt, and added a handful of fresh blueberries from their cardboard pint. Then he leaned against the counter lost in thought, the container brimming with berries held before him like a gift.
When Chris had asked her to marry him, it had been a surprise to her. They had been together just under a year. Kate had been working in the restaurant that night—she worked most nights—when the maître d’ strode into the kitchen with one of her crème brûlées, apparently sent back by an unsatisfied customer. “Just look at this mess!” he said, gesturing disgustedly at the broken crust. She took it in her hands, brows tight. Sticking out of the middle was a diamond ring, gleaming in the caramelized sugar.
In that instant, the vision of her life rearranged itself as effortlessly as cellular division, their togetherness expanding in the crevices of her free time, his belongings reproducing in the small space of her apartment. Unlike Elizabeth, she hadn’t automatically equated marriage with children or debt or suburbs, but even if she had, those things would not have be
en unwelcome. She hadn’t thought beyond the two of them together, living together, planning and saving together—all things she trusted would happen, one step at a time.
Chris ate large spoonfuls of the yogurt and blueberries, staring unfocused across the room, his thoughts on hotels half a world away. She itched to open the notebook, but of course it would be rude.
“I thought the kids might like a jeep tour this afternoon,” she said.
He looked at her like a man awoken from sleepwalking. He had no idea what she was talking about.
“Off-roading on the peninsula,” she said. “They loved that last year.”
He nodded. She could see him doing the math, the number of hours he’d need to get his work done in order to go, the constant tallying of how much of a time commitment was absolutely necessary and what could be reduced in small pinches. He wanted to come. But his time here was not really his own. This is the way their arrangement worked, and there were sacrifices.
“Or we can save it for another day, if another day would be better,” she said. She didn’t want to go without him. It was more fun when he was around, and it was also easier. That was the economics of parenting; together, each could relax his or her vigilance by half. What happened when there was only one parent? she wondered. Did Dave Martin have to operate at 100 percent all of the time? Did he ever feel entirely at rest?
“No, let’s do it today. In the afternoon,” Chris said, and walked back into the bedroom, where his laptop and briefcase were waiting.
January 1, 1994
Dave’s coach threw a blowout bash in Hilton Head, and we flew down for it. Big golf world muckety-mucks, including a Titleist exec who thinks Dave should give up the tour and come work for them. Gear manufacturing, testing, promotions, whatever. Both of us had too much to drink and when we were by ourselves in a corner of the room, I told him it was not a bad early-retirement option. He laughed, but it was bitter. You been talking to my father?
Soon afterward he was jovial Dave again, working the room and getting a woman from Cartier to talk seriously about sponsoring him. I was on my own for a while and found a spot near the bar and talked with another player’s wife. She was pretty in the typical photographed-alongside-the-putting-green way, long blond hair, but an edge—a triple ear pierce and irreverent about golf. They have a toddler, and she’s pressing her husband to leave the tour because he’s never home. But she doesn’t want to nag because, as they say, a drag at home drags down the playing. “Game face, right?” she said. “We all have to do game face.” Then she said with a sly smile, “Come on, let’s go outside.”
Before I could respond, I looked across the room and saw Dave watching me, wholesome Dave Martin. ELIZABETH DEEEE, he called out, like a pronouncement or a crowd introduction at a sporting event.
I knew then that it’s not true anymore that my choices are open.
Unless you want to breach every expectation, live life with no boundaries or limitations. There are repercussions.…
Choices, repercussions. Kate got up and poured herself a cup of the coffee Chris had made, stood in the kitchen, stirring. It was a strange way to think of dating—a limiting of your options and lifestyle because you’d chosen one type of partner over another—though it was technically true. It was true of most decisions. The effects of your choices might not be clear at the moment they were made. But if you turned back to see where you’d come, there they’d be, the ghost of the path not taken leading to the places you would never go.
Piper wandered into the room asking for pancakes, vacant eyes suggesting she was still half in her dreams. She curled up on the couch fingering her blanket, feet curled beneath Kate’s left thigh. The cold toes made Kate shiver, but she pulled her daughter’s feet in closer and rubbed them to warmth. It became automatic so quickly, that impulse to do things to ensure your child’s comfort, even as it sacrificed your own.
Kate stretched out alongside her, scooping her in close with an arm around her waist. Piper’s hair smelled of verbena shampoo, though Kate always told her she smelled like pennies and carrots, since her hair was the same pale coppery shade as Chris’s. Kate reached to lay the notebook on the floor, but before she closed it, she read the last few lines of the entry.
… At 11:59, Dave found his way back to me. Happy New Year, Miz Drogan, he said. There was general mayhem as the ball dropped on TV, and everyone sloshed champagne around like we’d won the Super Bowl. He kissed me long and hard, then pulled back like he was sizing me up. In a heavy mock-Georgia voice he said, I think this is gonna be a big year for the last name Drogan. It’s a-goin’ DOWN.
On the children’s last day of farm camp, Kate came back to the house after swimming to read on the patio. She poured a glass of iced tea and put it opposite the notebook, as if she were having a drink with a friend. The pages representing the early months of 1994 flew by. Elizabeth’s subtle resistance to Dave melted. The glass of iced tea warmed in the sun, forgotten.
In March, Elizabeth and Dave traveled to Georgia for his father’s sixty-fifth birthday. The Martins’ huge Greek Revival home was unlike any she’d seen, plantationlike on acres of oak and magnolia trees. The family’s camaraderie was similarly impressive and overwhelming, Dave’s brothers so exuberant that sometimes she’d slip away to the bathroom to sit quietly alone. His parents could not have been more unlike her own. His father runs the show and has to have the last word on everything, as one Scotch turns into four. On his birthday he was giving Dave the business about failing to make the cut in Hawaii, and kept at it long after it stopped being funny. Dave’s mother is the most tranquil, agreeable person I’ve ever seen. She seems medicated.
There were pictures of Dave’s sister, Dani, everywhere in the house, beautiful, frozen in time at thirty-one. Her widower, Zack, was there with the two children, and around them, Dave was the uncle everyone wishes they had: fun, patient, indulgent. He spoils them rotten. Family members shared stories about Dani as naturally as if she were someone who simply happened not to be visiting that day. But not Dave. He never mentioned her, and when someone else did, he left the room.
Odd, Kate thought, that he would put up such a firewall against discussing her even with Elizabeth, who had lost a sister herself, as well as her mother.
Friday, March 18, 1994
Earlier tonight sitting alone with Dave on the porch I mentioned how nice it is that everyone keeps their memories of Dani going with so many stories, and that it’s probably good for the kids, too. We were on the porch swing and Dave was rocking it back and forth a little, heel to toe. The setting sun sank a good three inches behind the azalea bushes before he said anything.
Yep, I suppose, especially for the kids.
I knew I was going out on a limb but I gave it a try anyway, and asked if being back home made him miss her more. We both stared ahead at the sky as if the sunset were the most fascinating thing in the world, and after what felt like hours he said, Nothing makes me miss her more or less. I just plain do.
I thought about saying I had a sister too, but it felt all wrong. Not just because I’d be horning in on his grief, but because I can see his look: You’re telling me this now? …
Kate reread the last sentences once, then again. Elizabeth had never told him.
… I never have been able to think of the words to tell about what happened to her, can’t imagine saying it out loud. When you ride ahead of someone who’s barely eight, what happens behind you is still your fault. Especially if you’re being careless, and unforgivably if you were trying to get ahead because you didn’t feel like being followed, didn’t feel like being responsible for someone else. It screams out that such a person can’t be trusted around children.
Sunday, March 20, 1994
We’re leaving tomorrow morning, and I’ve enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Big families take on a life of their own, pull you in like a commune.
I had a curious talk with Zack last night while we were doing the dishes. He’s quieter than th
e brothers, and I get the feeling he likes to step away sometimes too. He was asking how Dave and I met and how long we’ve been together, and when I told him about a year and a half he said, That’s good. It was odd the way he said it. Not, That’s good, as in, That’s nice, but as in, That’s good for him.
I didn’t know what to say to that and we were quiet a minute. I was going to ask about how the kids were doing when he said, It’s nice that you guys are together. Dave seems happier than I’ve seen him in a long time.
I asked about Dave and Dani when they were younger, because he doesn’t seem to mind talking about her. He said they were practically like twins, that after college she spent time traveling with Dave on the mini tours. Then he said something strange—that he was glad to see Dave sticking with the tour. After a little silence he said it had started to seem like Dave wasn’t sticking with anything, like he was bailing on things before they could bail on him. He said he didn’t mean that as a knock on Dave, but it was like instead of making things seem more precious to him, losing Dani made things more expendable. He said, I’m glad to see that’s not the case anymore.
Unfair as it is, I couldn’t help thinking of Bertha.
Back in New York, their dating life was happy and uneventful for months. Elizabeth traveled to some of his tournaments, and any weekends he wasn’t traveling they spent together.
One day, Elizabeth received a phone call at work following a routine visit with her gynecologist.
Friday, June 10, 1994
The results from my annual appointment were abnormal. Bad cells. Cervical dysplasia. The doctor told me to come back in on Monday and we’d discuss treatment options, though none might be needed. Sometimes it disappears on its own.
I called Dave, caught him back at his apartment after the second day of the Buick Classic just over in Westchester. He made the cut and was headed out to dinner with a few of the guys. I probably should have waited to tell him until he got in later but I was feeling shaky and didn’t want to keep it to myself. He’s usually good at making me feel better, pointing out the upsides to things. But when I told him he didn’t say a word.
The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D Page 13