My mother was looking up at me.
She caught my eye and smiled uncertainly, and for the first time in my adult life I asked myself if I had been unfair, if I had done her a terrible injustice all these years.
"What is it, Mal?" she asked, her blonde brows puckering, a spark of concern flickering in her hazel eyes.
I cleared my throat and took a moment to answer. At last I said in a carefully modulated voice, "Nothing, Mom. I'm fine. Listen, I've just washed all the lettuce. It's draining. Could you put it in the fridge in a few minutes, please?" It seemed important to me at this moment to speak of mundane things.
"Of course," she answered.
"What can I do to help, Mal? Should I fix the salad dressing?" Diana asked.
"Yes, please, and then perhaps the two of you could take out the hamburger meat and start making the patties."
"Done," Diana said, immediately jumping up and going into the pantry.
Looking at my mother again, I said, "I'm going to go and set the tables."
She nodded, smiling at me, and this time her smile was more sure. She turned back to her potato salad, mixing in the mayonnaise.
Pushing open the kitchen door, I went outside into the garden with Trixy at my heels, leaving the two women alone.
I paused near the door and took several deep breaths. I felt shaken inside, not only by the memory but by the sudden knowledge that all the years I was growing up I had been terrified my father would leave us forever, my mother and I, terrified that one day he would never come back.
CHAPTER EIGHT
It was very hot and airless in the garden, and within seconds my T-shirt was damp and clinging to me. Even Trixy, trotting along next to me, looked slightly wilted; wisely, she flopped down under one of the trestle tables when we reached them.
Late last night Andrew and I had placed the tables under the trees, and now I was glad that we had.
The maples and oaks which formed a semicircle near my studio were old, huge, and extravagant, with thick, gnarled trunks and widely spreading branches abundant with leaves. The branches arched up to form a wonderful, giant parasol of leafy green that was cool and inviting and offered plenty of protection from the sun. We were going to need such a shady spot; by one o'clock it would be a real scorcher of a day, just as Nora had predicted to me on Friday.
Early this morning I had carried red-and-white checked cloths and a big basket of flatware out here, and now I began to set the tables. I had almost finished the largest table, where the adults would sit, when I heard someone calling, "Coo-ee!"
I recognized Sarah's voice at once and looked up. I waved; she waved back.
She was wearing a white terrycloth robe and dark glasses. Her jet-black hair was piled up on top of her head, and there was a mug in her hand. As she drew closer, I could see that her face was woebegone.
"God, I feel awful," she moaned, lowering herself gingerly onto the bench in front of the smaller table.
"I'm not surprised," I said, "and good morning to you, Miss Parfait." This was one of my affectionate nicknames for her.
"Good morning. Little Mother," she answered, using one of her pet names for me.
I grinned and tipped the remainder of the knives and forks out onto the table.
"Oh, please, Mal," she groaned, "have a heart. Hold the noise down. My head's splitting, I feel positively ill."
"It's your own fault, you know, you really did tie one on last night."
"Thanks a lot, friend, for all your sympathy."
Realizing that she wasn't overdramatizing for once, I went and put my hand on her shoulder. "Sony, I shouldn't tease you. Do you want me to get something for you? Headache pills? Alka-Seltzer?"
"No, I've already taken enough aspirin to sink a battleship. I'll be okay. Just move around me very, very carefully, please, tiptoe on the grass, don't clatter the tableware, and talk in a whisper."
I shook my head. "Oh, Sarah darling, you do punish yourself, don't you? Thomas Preston the third isn't worth it."
Sarah paid no attention to my last comment, saying, "I guess it must be the Jewish half of me, the Charles Finkelstein half… that's what I inherited from good old Dad, a penchant for punishing myself, a tendency to treat everything like an ethnic drama, lots of Jewish guilt, and dark looks."
"Dark good looks," I said. "And have you heard from Charlie Boy lately?"
She smiled and made a moue. "No, I'm afraid I haven't. He's got a new wife, yet another WASPy blonde like my mother, so I'm the last thing on his mind. I'll call him next week to see how he is, and I'll make a date with him and Miranda. I don't want to lose touch with him again."
"No, you mustn't. Not after he's finally forgiven you for taking your stepfather's name. And a WASPy name, at that."
"Forgiven my mother, you mean!" she cried, her voice rising slightly. "She was the one who changed my name to Thomas, not I, when I was seven and not old enough to understand or protest."
"I know she did," I murmured, walking to the far side of the smaller table, which I now began to set for the children.
Sarah took a long swallow of her coffee, then put the mug down. After taking off her sunglasses, she placed her elbows on the table and rested her head in her hands. Her dark brown velvety eyes followed me as I moved about.
"How many are we going to be for lunch, Mal?" she asked.
"About eighteen. I think. Let's see, there's my mother and Diana, you and the twins and Jenny, plus me and Andrew, which makes eight. I've invited Nora, Eric, and Anna, bringing us up to eleven. Then there're three couples, the Lowdens, the Martins, and the Callens, making seventeen, and two more kids. Vanessa, the Callens' little girl, and Dick and Olivia Martin are bringing their young son, Luke. So I guess that makes nineteen altogether."
"All I can say is, thank God we don't have to do the cooking."
I laughed at the expression on her face. "I know what you mean. Luckily, Andrew has everything under control, and he's roped in all the men to do the barbecuing. Nora and my mother and Diana will help me to fetch and carry."
"I'm hoping I'll feel better by lunchtime, that I'll be able to pitch in."
"It's not necessary, Sash. Just relax. And in any case, I'm setting up a buffet table here. It'll hold most of the other food, such as the salads, the breads, the baked beans, baked potatoes, and corn. It's only the hot dogs, hamburgers, and chops that'll have to be brought over from the barbecues on the kitchen patio."
Sarah nodded but didn't say anything for a few minutes. She sat staring into space with a reflective expression on her face. Eventually, she said slowly, "Your mother looks like the cat that's swallowed the canary this morning."
"What do you mean?"
"Her eyes are bright and shiny, and she did nothing but smile at me when I was having my toast. And I couldn't help thinking that it was a very self-satisfied smile. Even a bit smug."
"I guess I can tell you," I began, and then I hesitated.
"Sure you can, you've been telling me everything since the day you could talk."
"It's supposed to be a secret."
"So what, you've always told me your secrets, Mal. Yours and everybody else's, actually."
"Well, so have you too!" I shot back.
"I bet it's to do with a man." Sarah grinned at me and winked.
"I'm impressed. How did you guess?"
She burst out laughing. "She has that look. The look, the one that says, 'I have a man and he's all mine.' A guy might not recognize it, but every woman does."
"My mother's getting married."
"Golly gee whiz! You've got to be kidding!"
"No, I'm not."
"Good for Auntie Jess. Who's the man?"
"David Nelson. I think you've met him once or twice when he's been at my mother's."
Sarah let out a low whistle. "He's quite a catch, I'd say. Very good-looking and successful, and younger than her."
"Are you sure he's younger?"
"Yes, I am. My mother said something to
me a few months ago about Aunt Jess and David, and she mentioned he was about fifty-eight."
"Oh, only four years, that's not much. Anyway, my mother looks a lot younger than he, don't you think?"
"Yes, she does."
"I can't imagine why she wants to get another face job, though. She doesn't need it, in my opinion."
If Sarah was startled by my comment, she did not show it. She said, "No, she doesn't, but she may feel insecure, worried about her age. That's the way my mother is now that she's turned sixty, always attempting to look younger. A lot of women think that's a milestone, I guess."
I shrugged. "Maybe. On the other hand, sixty's not old. In fact, it's considered young these days. This morning, when my mother mentioned she wanted to have a little nip and tuck, I tried to convince her she didn't need it. But she'll do what she wants. She always has."
"I wonder if she's told my mother? About getting married."
"I don't know. But don't say anything, Sash, just in case she hasn't. As I said, it's a secret. Mom hasn't even informed my father yet, nor has she talked to her lawyer about a divorce. She just made her mind up in the last couple of days… at least, that's the impression she gave me."
"I won't tell a soul, I promise, Mal. And I'm really glad for Auntie Jess, glad she's happy."
"I am too." I paused, staring at Sarah without saying anything for a moment, then I flopped down opposite her.
"Is something wrong?" she asked, frowning slightly, pinning her beautiful dark eyes on mine.
I shook my head. "No. I had a sort of… well, a sort of revelation earlier. My mother was fussing with the potato salad, and I suddenly found myself remembering an incident with a potato salad that happened on another Fourth of July morning. When I was five. I'd buried it deep and forgotten all about it. Anyway, the memory came back, at least a fragment of it, and I started thinking about my parents and their relationship when I was little, and I suddenly felt rather sorry for my mother. It struck me she must have suffered greatly when she was a younger woman."
Sarah nodded in agreement. "Looking back, she probably did. She was always alone. You two were always alone. At least that's the way I remember it."
I was silent for a moment, before murmuring, "I had the most awful feeling inside this morning, Sashy…"
"What kind of feeling?"
"I felt sick at heart. I suddenly understood that I'd been unfair, that I'd probably done my mother a terrible injustice-and for years."
"What do you mean?"
"I blamed her for their marital problems, but now I'm not so sure it was always her fault."
"I'm certain it wasn't. Anyway, it takes two to tango, Mal." Sarah sighed under her breath. "Your father was hardly ever in this country, the way I recall it. The normal thing was for him to be sitting on a pile of rubble in the Middle East, examining bits of old stone and trying to ascertain how ancient they were, which millennium they came from."'
"He had to be away a lot for his work, you know that, Sarah," I said, then realized I sounded defensive.
"But he never took you and your mother with him. He always went off alone."
"I had to go to school."
"Not when you were little, you didn't, and when you were older you could have gone to a local school wherever your father's dig was, or you could have had a tutor."
"Going to a local school wouldn't have been very practical," I pointed out. "I wouldn't have been able to speak the local language, for one thing. After all, I was a little kid, I wasn't fluent in Arabic or Urdu or Portuguese or Greek. Or whatever."
"You don't have to be sarcastic, Mal, and look, there are ways to make unusual situations work. Many ways."
"Perhaps my parents couldn't afford a tutor," I muttered.
Sarah was silent.
I studied her for a moment, then asked, "Are you blaming my father?"
"Hey, I'm not placing the blame anywhere, on anyone!" she exclaimed. "How do I know what went on between your parents. Not even you really know that. Jesus, I didn't understand what was happening between mine, either. Kids never do. But it's always the kids who suffer. Ultimately."
When I said nothing, Sarah continued, "Maybe your mother felt it was better, wiser for you to be brought up in New York, rather than in some broken-down, flea-bitten hotel somewhere in the middle of the Arabian desert."
"Or maybe my father simply preferred to leave us behind, to go off alone. For his own personal reasons." I stared hard at her again.
"Come on, Mal, I never said that, nor did I even remotely imply it!"
"I'm not being accusatory or trying to put words in your mouth. Still, it might well have been so. But I suppose I'll never know about their marriage, what went wrong with it."
"You could ask your mother."
"Oh, Sarah, I couldn't."
"Sure you could. There'll be a moment in time when you'll be able to ask her. You'll see. And I bet she won't bite your head off, either. In fact, she'll probably be glad you asked, relieved to talk about your father and her. People do like to unburden themselves, especially mothers to their daughters."
I doubted my mother would feel this way, but I said, "I hope so, Sash. You know only too well that she and I have our differences. But my mother does love me, and I love her, even though she can be exasperating. And today I felt something else for her, something different-a rush of genuine sympathy, and a certain kind of… aching sorrow. I realized that she probably hadn't had it easy with Daddy. It was at that moment it occurred to me that I was being unfair, unjust. I think I've always been somewhat blinded to reality because of my adoration of my father."
"You might have been unjust, yes, but you can't change that now, honey. What's done is done. I'm glad you had this… this revelation, as you call it." Sarah cleared her throat, and looking me straight in the eye, she said, "Your father was never there for you, Mal. Your mother always was."
I gaped at her, about to protest, but clamped my mouth firmly shut. I realized that Sarah had spoken only the truth. Whenever there had been a crisis during the years I was growing up, my father had inevitably been abroad. It was my mother who had coped with my problems during my adolescence and teenage years and even when I was older.
I nodded. "You're right," I said at last, acknowledging the veracity of her words. Then with a twinge of dismay I realized this was the first time I had ever been disloyal to my father in my thoughts, let alone in my words. But he had most likely been as much at fault as my mother, when it came to the disintegration of their marriage.
She got up and walked around the table to my side, hugged me against her body. "I love you," she whispered.
"And I love you, Best Friend," I said, squeezing her hand, which rested on my shoulder.
Straightening, she said with a light laugh, "I'd better go inside and get dressed. I don't want to be caught in my robe when your guests arrive."
I also stood. "And I must finish setting these tables." As I spoke I picked up a handful of red-and-white checked napkins and began to fold them in half.
Sarah was a few yards away from me when she swung around and said, "It's going to be a good day, Mal. This Fourth of July is going to be the best you've ever had. I promise."
I believed her.
CHAPTER NINE
I could see them through the French doors of the sun-room, playing together on the terrace. My beautiful children.
And how glorious they looked this morning. They were like little Botticelli angels, with their sun-streaked blonde hair, the most vivid of blue eyes which echoed their father's, and rounded baby cheeks as smooth and pink as ripe peaches.
I drew closer to the glass, listening to them chattering away together. They were close to each other, quite inseparable, in fact. They were so alike, yet in many ways they were very different.
Lissa was saying, "Yes, Jamie, that's good. Give them a flag each. We've got a big flag on our house, so they should, too."
"I don't know when they'll see their flags," Jamie mut
tered, casting his sister a quick glance before turning back to the work at hand.
My six-year-old son was sticking a small Stars and Stripes into the top of the wall, trying to secure it between the cracks. "This one's for Tabitha and Henry. But they won't come out to look at it when there are lots of people here, and Mom's having a big lot of people for lunch. Vanessa and Luke are coming, too."
"Ugh!" Lissa made an ugly face. "How do you know?"
"Grandma Jess told me."
"Ugh," Lissa said again. Stepping over to her twin, she put her arm around his shoulders in a companionable way and gazed at the flag stuck on top of the wall. "Don't worry, Jamie, the little chipmunks'll see their flag tonight."
"Are you sure?"
"Oh, yes. They come out to play at night. They all do, the black snake and the bunny, as well," Lissa reassured her twin, sounding as self-confident as she usually did. My daughter was one of the most positive people I've ever met. "Now," she continued, "let's put the flag in the side of the wall over there, for Algernon. And another one for Angelica."
Jamie nodded and ran to do what she suggested. But almost at once the flag fell down onto the terrace. "It won't stay," he cried, turning to Lissa, as always seeking her guidance. She had been born first and was the more aggressive of the two; Jamie was often diffident, more sensitive about certain things, and he had inherited my artistic nature.
"Does Dad have any of that funny glue he sometimes uses?" Lissa asked. "Mom says it'll stick anything."
"Yes, it will," I said, pushing open the door and stepping out onto the terrace. "But I don't want you messing around with Krazy Glue this morning. It's tricky to use and dries very quickly, and it can stick to your skin."
"But Mommy-" Lissa began.
I cut her off. "Not today, honey. Anyway, I think I have a much better solution to your problem, Jamie. Why not use some of your Silly Putty? You can press a small mound of it onto the wall where you want to place the flag, and then stick the flag into the Silly Putty. I bet the flag'll hold very securely."
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