“I can get you a book and show you pictures,” said Diana. “The important thing to remember is that you don’t have to worry about any of this until you’re much, much older.”
Lizzie helped herself to one of the biscuits she’d baked. “Can we move on to someone else’s life?”
“Absolutely!” said Selma, and pointed one gnarled finger across the table. “Diana, honey, what’s new with you?”
Gary, who’d just taken a gigantic bite of turkey, started coughing, and Milo thumped him on his back.
“Are you two getting divorced?” Selma asked.
“Grandma!” Lizzie hissed, and cut her eyes toward Milo.
“What?” Selma asked. “Divorce isn’t such a tragedy. A tragedy’s staying in an unhappy marriage, teaching your children the wrong things about love. Nobody ever died of divorce.”
“Sunny von Bülow?” Ceil piped up.
“They never got divorced,” Selma said. Sylvie glared at her mother, and Selma lowered her voice incrementally. “Claus just tried to kill her. See, if they’d gotten divorced, it could have worked out better for both of them.”
That, of course, was when the doorbell rang. Diana sank back into her seat. Gary, who’d finally stopped coughing, stared miserably, longingly, at his wife. “Can I get anybody anything?” asked Jeff, who was probably wishing he’d made the trip to Arizona.
Sylvie walked to the door … and there was Richard, hair combed, freshly shaved, in a sports coat and tie, with a bakery box in his hand; Richard, tall and commanding, familiar and dear. She felt, as she supposed she always would, the atmosphere change when he was near her, as if every cell in her body had subtly shifted, trying to get closer to him. It took a conscious act of will to keep from leaning against him or reaching for his hand. All she wanted to do was throw herself into his arms, close her eyes, and say, Fix this. Make this right. Instead she said, “Hello, Richard,” and allowed him to kiss her cheek.
Sylvie led him into the kitchen, feeling him look at her. She wondered what he was seeing, what he was thinking. Instead of her usual suit and heels, she’d chosen loose cashmere pants and a cowl-necked black cotton top, with wool socks and a pair of Lizzie’s embroidered clogs. She’d pulled her hair, now streaked with gray, back in a headband made of cranberry-colored velvet. The only jewelry she wore was a simple gold cuff bracelet that she’d bought at the craft fair on the village green two weeks before, with Tim. Her fingernails were unpolished and clipped short, and her wedding and engagement rings were, presumably, in her jewelry box back in New York, where she’d left them.
Richard looked at her, his eyes warm, before straightening and launching into a speech. “Sylvie,” he said. “I can’t thank you enough for letting me come. I missed you …” He swallowed hard. “More than I can say.” He thrust the box into her hands. Sylvie was unsurprised to see that it was from Simmons’s. “I hope it’s all right,” Richard said. “I stopped at the place in town.”
Wordlessly, she set the box on the counter, next to the two Simmons boxes Tim had brought. She was trembling all over, her knees shaking, her lips quivering. She hoped he couldn’t see it.
“You look beautiful,” he said, and reached to touch her hair before pulling his hand back with a rueful smile. “If I’m allowed to say that.” He took an appreciative sniff. “Smells great. That’s a nice change. Where’d you get the food?”
“We cooked,” she said. “The girls and I.”
He stared at her again, this time in shock. She turned, serenely (she hoped), and led him into the dining room. Everyone at the table looked up at him, everyone except for Gary, whose gaze was still fixed on his plate. Tim Simmons got to his feet.
“Senator,” he said. “I’m Tim Simmons. Sylvie and I are old friends.”
Richard appeared bewildered to find a strange man at the table, but his politician’s instincts kicked in. He stuck out his hand. “Richard Woodruff. A pleasure to meet you. Are you a Fairview native?”
When he was through charming Tim, he made his way down the table, to where his daughters were waiting. “Lizzie,” he said, pulling her into a bear hug. His voice was a warm rumble. “You doing okay?”
“I’m good,” she said, blushing—and, Sylvie saw, undeniably pregnant—as she stepped into her father’s arms.
“And Diana! Look at you!” Diana smiled faintly. She, too, looked different—no makeup, her hair loose and wavy, in leggings and her tunic, her body rigid as she studiously avoided looking at Gary. Sylvie wondered whether Richard, with his instincts, his sense of people, would pick up on the rift between his daughter and his son-in-law, or Lizzie’s pregnancy and her boyfriend, but what he seemed to be noticing most was the food.
“You made all of this?” he asked. “You really did?”
“My Sylvie is a very accomplished woman,” said Selma. “She can do lots of things. Dress herself, cook a turkey …”
Richard gave his mother-in-law a tolerant smile. “Selma. Good to see that not everything’s changed.” He gave Diana a hug, gave Gary a handshake, kissed Milo on the cheek, and introduced himself to Jeff, then settled into his chair. “Just tell me somebody saved me a drumstick.”
I can’t believe this, Sylvie thought, taking her seat as Richard filled his plate and started asking Tim about the Connecticut governor who’d been caught in some kind of kickback scheme. Her mind was racing. Lizzie pregnant! Her husband and her … whatever Tim was, in the same room! She lifted a bit of Diana’s cranberry chutney to her mouth, then set it down, un-tasted, knowing she was far too tense to swallow.
“So,” said Richard, looking around the table. “What’s new?”
Lizzie started laughing first. Selma joined in, cackling loudly. Diana managed another dim smile. Even Gary looked a little amused as Richard looked more and more puzzled.
“What?” he asked, as the laughter grew louder. “What am I missing?” It was Milo, grave and stern-faced, who finally spoke up.
“Aunt Lizzie has a baby in her tummy from …” He paused, pointing at Jeff, having momentarily forgotten his name. “That guy.”
“Jeff,” Jeff supplied. He gave an embarrassed wave, then took Lizzie’s hand. Good for you, thought Sylvie.
“My mom and dad are having grown-up problems, but Bubbe says nobody dies of divorce.”
“True,” Richard managed, pausing to give Diana a concerned look. “Anything else?”
“I saved the best for last! We got a Wii! Can you believe it?” A smile brightened his face, and Sylvie felt herself relax—she’d been worried, she realized, that Milo would start talking about his fishing trip with Grandma’s special friend. “I thought I’d never ever have one. My mom is opposed to them.”
“Not Wiis, specifically. I just don’t want you having too much screen time,” said Diana. She reached out and smoothed Milo’s hair (he’d worn a hat downstairs, but Diana made him take it off before he came to the table).
“But my dad brought me one, and Tim and Daddy hooked it up, and now I have Wii bowling and Wii tennis and Wii golf …” A shadow crossed his face as he turned to his father. “We get to keep it, right? And take it back to Philadelphia? It doesn’t have to stay up here?”
“If your grandma doesn’t want to keep it …” Gary said.
“It’s all yours,” Sylvie said.
Milo jumped up and down, beaming. “Okay! All right! A-plus! Who wants pie?”
When dinner was over and the dishes had been cleared, Sylvie slipped out of the dining room and sat on the glider on the porch, pulling the cardigan she’d grabbed tight around her shoulders, breathing in the frosty night air. Her guests were still gathered around the table, finishing their coffee and dessert.
She thought she’d cry—all through dinner she’d felt herself on the verge of tears—but now, out in the cold, she felt calm, even confident. Whatever storms came, whatever happened next, whether she stayed with Richard or not, she could take care of herself and her daughters. Her time at the beach had taught her that. Sh
e thought Richard would come join her—Richard or Tim—but instead it was Diana, who wandered out onto the porch. She had a knitted ski cap on her head, red fleece gloves on her hands, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, and another one in her arms. She handed the second blanket to Sylvie and sat next to her mom on the glider.
“Hi,” she said, in a strangely muffled voice. Sylvie turned and saw a sight she hadn’t glimpsed in years: her daughter in profile, crying. When had she last seen Diana cry? She thought back through the years, finally remembering a volleyball game, a shot she’d failed to block, and how she’d sobbed for hours on her bed. Diana had been twelve at the time. Maybe thirteen.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Is it Gary?”
“What’s wrong,” Diana said, in a choked voice. “Everything’s wrong.” She took a gulping breath. “I almost killed a little girl. I wrote the wrong dosage on her prescription, and if one of the nurses hadn’t caught it, she would have died, and I did it because I was distracted. I was in love with someone else.” Her voice was tiny as she wiped her fist against one eye, then the other. “But he doesn’t want me.”
“Oh, Diana …” She was stunned. If she’d had a lifetime’s worth of guesses, Sylvie would never come up with the double whammy of incompetence and infidelity. She would have sooner guessed that Gary was cheating. Not that he seemed to have that kind of energy—sexual or otherwise—but Diana? Moral, judgmental Diana, Diana the absolutist who saw the world in blacks and whites and had no patience for shades of gray?
“I was lonely,” said Diana, and wiped impatiently at the tears as they spilled down her cheeks. “I know it’s not an excuse, but I was. I was very, very lonely.”
Sylvie knew she should say something, make some comforting gesture, except Diana had never been an affectionate child and she’d grown into an adult who didn’t like being touched … although, Sylvie supposed, if she’d fallen in love then she’d been getting touched by someone. She placed a tentative hand on Diana’s arm. Her daughter buried her face in her hands and cried, and Sylvie sat there, at a complete loss for words as she tried to separate her own experience with infidelity from what Diana had done, and what had prompted it. She’d been happily married when her husband had strayed, and Diana … had Diana ever really been happy with Gary?
Her daughter’s sobs were tapering off. Sylvie had to say something. “Sometimes,” she began. “Sometimes the worst thing that happens to you, the thing you think you can’t survive … it’s the thing that makes you better than you used to be.”
Diana’s voice was muffled, but not so much that Sylvie couldn’t hear every word when she asked, “Is that what you told Dad?”
Sylvie didn’t answer, even though she thought that what she’d told Diana might have been as true as anything else she’d blurted, or screamed, or cursed at Richard in the heat of the moment and the shock of discovery. These things happened, God knows they did, and sometimes, couples even survived them. And she was better now; better than she’d used to be.
“I’m a terrible person,” Diana cried.
Sylvie said, “Oh, no. No, you’re not.” She opened her arms and let Diana collapse against her. She held her as she wept, patting her arm and murmuring soothing words: don’t worry and you’ll be okay and I love you, and your father loves you, too.
Finally, Diana wiped her face and said, “I never wanted to get divorced. Never. It’s one of the reasons I picked Gary in the first place. I wasn’t, you know …” She paused, staring off into the darkness. “I decided to marry him because I saw …” Again, she paused. “You were always so in love with Dad, and I thought …” Sylvie waited, dreading her daughter’s judgment. “You lost so much of yourself,” Diana said. “Every decision you made was about him—what he wanted, what he needed, what was going to be best for his image. I didn’t want that. I wanted a marriage of equals, not where it would be one person who mattered and one who didn’t.” She looked at her mother. “I’m sorry if that sounds terrible.”
“No,” Sylvie said. It hurt to admit it, but it was true. “You’re right.”
Diana gave another bitter laugh. “And look at me. I thought I was so smart, arranging my own marriage. Didn’t see this coming.”
“The other man,” Sylvie said. “Are you in love with him?”
“He’s … I don’t know. Maybe I could have been. Him, or someone like him, if I’d given myself the chance.” She sat up straight, shaking her head as if to clear it. “Milo’s the main thing,” she said. “I’m going to make some changes. I want a different kind of job. I want to slow down. Be home with him more. I want … oh, I don’t know what I want. Just for things to be different, I guess.”
“Where will you live?” Sylvie asked. “Will you stay in the house?”
“For now, at least,” said Diana. “Gary’s got a place. I’ve been thinking about asking Lizzie to come back and stay with me for a while. She’ll be able to see Jeff, and help out with Milo.”
Sylvie nodded, thinking how that part of it, at least—the two girls together—sounded good.
“And what about you?” Diana asked.
“What about me?” Sylvie said.
“Are you going to go back to New York?” asked Diana.
“I don’t know,” said Sylvie.
She turned to look through the window, back into the dining room. Her husband had planted himself at the head of the table. There was a plate in front of him, a bottle of beer at his side. He held his fork balanced in his long fingers and appeared to be having an animated conversation with Jeff and Tim and Gary. About politics, Sylvie figured, feeling a mixture of love and disgust rise up inside her. Always politics.
Diana leaned over to kiss her check. “I’ve got to check on Milo,” she said, then hurried back inside, bundled like a mummy in the blanket. Sylvie sat, waiting. In a minute, the glider creaked … and there was Selma, wrapped in her mink. Her four-pronged cane gleamed in the moonlight as she sat down with a grunt.
“Exactly what is going on with your family? I feel like I need a scorecard to keep up! Lizzie’s pregnant, Diana’s left her husband, except he’s here, you’ve got your husband and your boyfriend at the table. Oh, and you got a Wii. Whatever that is.”
“That about covers it,” Sylvie managed. “Poor Diana,” she said, because, even though Lizzie was pregnant, it was Diana who was on her mind.
“Diana will be fine,” Selma said briskly. “In fact, Diana might be happier than she’s been for a while.”
“She feels like she’s failed,” said Sylvie. She didn’t have to tell her mother, who’d known Diana since her arrival in the world, that her older daughter had never failed at anything before—not school, not work, not motherhood, and certainly not marriage.
“In Chinese,” said Selma, “the word for crisis is the same word as opportunity.”
Sylvie sighed as, below them, the wind churned the waves. Growing up, she’d heard that proverb from Selma more than once; more than once a day, it felt like sometimes … but in this case it might actually apply. Diana would go through hell, untangling her life from Gary’s, working out custody, and finances, and who would be living where, not to mention finding a new job and handling a son who already seemed predisposed to melancholy. But maybe, eventually, she’d build a happier life. Sylvie let herself imagine it: her daughter slowing down, from a sprint to a trot, selling her fancy car, leaving her makeup in the vanity drawer, letting her hair return to its natural color, which was, if she remembered, a pretty light brown.
“And what about you? What about you and Richard?”
Sylvie pushed her toes against the boards of the porch, setting the glider in motion.
“I won’t judge you,” Selma said. This was another one of her mother’s favorite lines, meant mostly as a joke, because how could a judge not judge? I won’t judge you, Selma had said when Sylvie told her that she was leaving her job to stay home with her girls and then, years after that, that she wasn’t planning on ever going back to
work. Selma had kept her promise not to judge insofar as judging involved words, but, between the raised eyebrows, the rolled eyes, and the way she pressed her lips together while humming “Mm, mm, mm,” Sylvie had felt judgment—specifically, negative judgment—exuding from her mother’s every pore.
“I love him,” she said, with her face turned toward the sea. That was what she’d felt, seeing Richard come through the door with that bakery box. Even after what he’d done, even after he’d hurt her, she loved him, and she would have loved him even if they didn’t have thirty-two years of marriage and two daughters and all of their history between them. Maybe it was chemical and probably it was pathetic, but she loved him, and she suspected that she always would, that no matter what happened, her first and truest feeling would be what she’d felt as a young bride, watching him descend into the subway every morning: My husband. Mine.
“I know you do,” said Selma. “But can you forgive him? Can you trust him?”
“I don’t know.” Sylvie felt as if she were being torn in half, love and loyalty pulling her one way and shame and betrayal tugging her somewhere else. And then there was Tim Simmons, who had been honorable and sweet. What to do about Tim?
“Let me tell you something,” said Selma, which was how she prefaced a great many of her thoughts and pronouncements. “Whatever you do, Sylvie, it’s nobody’s business but yours. Yours and his, I suppose, but you shouldn’t make a decision because you’re worried about what people will say.”
Sylvie nodded, smoothing the blanket around her legs.
“People will want you to behave a certain way, to make a certain choice because it reinforces the way they see the world. The feminists want you to leave him. They’re still pissed that Hillary didn’t dump Bill. The Bible-thumpers will want you to stay because that’s what Jesus wants wives to do, I guess, and ever since Jenny Sanford filed, they’ve got no one to put on their pedestal. Ceil’s going to have an opinion, and Lizzie, and Diana. But you have to do what’s right for you.”
Fly Away Home Page 35