Indiscretion

by Charles Dubow

  We chat some more about her life.

  “How are you, Walter? And Maddy?”

  I tell her. About Maddy, about what has happened in the years since the accident. How our lives have changed. Our marriage. Florida. But not about the book.

  Lunch comes. I have the Baker soup followed by a rare steak. I indulge myself when I can. Claire has only the salmon, most of which she leaves on her plate.

  “So why did you want to see me?” she asks. “I can’t believe you simply called me up out of the blue after all this time and all that happened back then just to chitchat.”

  Now I tell her about the manuscript—and that I am the only person who has ever read it. About how good it is and that I read it every year. I also let her know it left me with more questions than answers. Was that what it was really like? Was that how it really happened? There are too many gaps. Can she help me fill them in?

  “It was a long time ago, Walter,” she says. “I was so young.”

  But I press, and in the end she relents. We talk about their love affair, about Paris, about the thrill of the beginning, about the anguish at the end. There are tears welling in her eyes as I pry deeper. I want details that are often painful.

  “I haven’t thought about any of this in such a long time,” she says. “I’ve tried not to.”

  She gets up and excuses herself to go to the ladies’ room. When she returns, she looks more composed. Her makeup is retouched. “Sorry,” she says. We order coffee. “Did they ever find out what happened, about the crash, I mean?” she asks.

  “The reports were inconclusive.”

  She nods her head. “What do you think happened?”

  This is a question I have asked myself many times. I even hired private investigators to review the medical records and the NTSB reports. “I don’t know,” I reply finally. “I will tell you what I do know. Contrary to what some of the newspapers reported at the time, I don’t believe Harry did it on purpose. The book was going well. He adored Johnny and would never have done anything to hurt him. And he still loved Maddy, and he told me he was going to try to win her back. And, what’s more, I think she would have taken him back. From what I can tell, there was no reason why he would want to kill himself or Johnny.”

  “So where does that leave us?”

  “Well, it’s possible there was pilot error, but that’s unlikely. Harry was too good a flier. It could have been a blocked vent. Or they could have hit a bird. The NTSB did not find any indication of technical malfunction, but the plane had been so badly damaged it was impossible to tell. Of course, the manufacturer sent their lawyers to argue that it couldn’t have been the plane’s fault and waved a sheaf of reports testifying to the safety of the plane and its design. No, it’s a mystery.”

  “I’ve often thought about it too,” Claire says. “I’ve never been able to think of a good reason either. At first, I thought it was God’s way of punishing me for sleeping with a married man, but then I realized it wasn’t me who was being punished.” She laughs mirthlessly. “Isn’t that just typical? When we are young, we think it is all about us.”

  We cross Vanderbilt Avenue, and I say good-bye to her at the entrance to the station.

  “You know, it happened ten years ago this week. I thought maybe that’s why you called me.”

  “Yes, I suppose it is. Ten years is a long time.”

  “But it’s funny how things work out, isn’t it? I mean, you’ve gotten what you’ve always wanted, haven’t you?”

  “I can’t say I look at it like that.”

  “Oh no?”

  “No, I would much rather that Harry and Johnny were still alive.”

  “But then you wouldn’t be married to Maddy. You wouldn’t have had her all to yourself.”

  “I never wanted her all to myself. I love her. I always have. All I have ever wanted is her happiness. But she doesn’t love me, not the way she loved Harry.”

  “Well, she is very lucky to have you.”

  I find her attitude maddening and slightly offensive. “And you don’t feel in the least bit culpable?”

  “Culpable? Me? For what?”

  “For what happened, for the pain you brought about.”

  “That I brought about? No, I don’t think you understand.”

  “What don’t I understand?”

  “I am blameless. I was young, and I was in love.”

  “So it was Harry’s fault?”

  “Yes. It was something he chose to do. I didn’t know what I was doing. I look back at myself then, how naïve I was, and it seems so long ago. The irony is that I won in the end. At least in a way I did. But there were times when I didn’t think so.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She smiles and puts her hand on my arm. “I loved him, you see. I will never know if he really loved me or not, but I know that he loved his family more. Now that I’m a mother, I understand why he chose the way he did, but I couldn’t back then. And, of course, we never had a chance to find out what might have happened. But I have tried to make up for it. And I’ve been very lucky to find someone who loves me for who I am in spite of everything.”

  She then looks at her watch and says, “I’m sorry, but I have to go. My train is about to leave.” She places a quick kiss lightly on my cheek. “Thank you for lunch. It was lovely seeing you again.” She turns and stops, taking an envelope out of her purse. “I wasn’t sure if I was going to give this to you. It’s been so long, you see. I had no idea what it would be like. But I think it’s all right. I hope you’ll understand. You can tell Maddy if you think it’s a good idea.”

  She hands me the envelope. It is normal letter size, ecru. My name is written in ink on the front.

  “Good-bye, Walter,” she says. She squeezes my hand. I stare into the deep brown of her eyes, and for a moment I am reminded of the girl she had been and why we had all been so dazzled by her.

  I watch her descend the grand marble staircase and then walk briskly through the milling crowds to her track.

  I walk back to the club and up to the reading room on the second floor. In the after-lunch pall, the space is nearly empty. A few older members like me are dozing in their armchairs. The younger members, squash-fit and keen, have already returned to their jobs. I take a seat by the window. A waiter appears and asks if I want anything. I think about a Scotch and soda but instead ask for a coffee. I still have to drive back out to the country to see Maddy.

  I take the envelope from the inner breast pocket of my jacket and slide my thumb under the flap. It opens easily; the gum had been only lightly licked. The paper is heavy, expensive. The lining marbled. An address in Old Greenwich is embossed on the back flap. Inside are three photographs. They are of different ages and sizes. I shuffle quickly through them. I have not seen any of them before. The first is of the seven of us—Claire, me, Maddy, Harry, Johnny, Ned, Cissy. Taken on the beach. Harry stands in the middle, his arm around Maddy. They are both laughing. Their hair windblown. Johnny is on his other side. I am next to Maddy. Claire, in a bikini, is next to me. I can’t believe how young we all look. Even I, who never truly felt young, am struck by the comparative firmness of my muscles and smoothness of my face.

  I remember that day. We asked someone passing by to take the photograph. It is a jolt. I haven’t seen a photograph of us all together in years. I had put away whatever we had for fear of upsetting Maddy. I stare at it for several minutes, dumb with memory. Wishing I was back there again.

  The waiter returns with my coffee, disturbing my reverie. I sign the chit and then look at the back of the photograph. There is a date and the words Georgica Beach written in black felt marker, but nothing more.

  I pick up the second photograph. It is of Harry and Claire. They appear to be in Paris, and I silently congratulate myself when I turn it over and see the words Basilica Sacré-Coeur written on the back. They stand side by side like honeymooners. The lawyer in me rises. This is the proof, the smoking gun, if you will. Not that I ever d
oubted it, but here at last is the physical evidence that it all really happened.

  The last photograph is actually a Christmas card. On it is a portrait of a happy family. Claire and her husband are sitting on a green lawn with two boys and a golden retriever. The husband is dark, like Claire, handsome, slender, white teeth. He looks sinless, like the kind of person who does triathlons. His hand is on the shoulder of the smaller of the two boys, a copy of the father in miniature. The other boy, considerably older, is on the other side of his mother. Unlike his brother, he is fair, his eyes blue. There is something familiar about him.

  How old did Claire say her oldest son was? I do a quick mental calculation. It adds up. Had she even known she might be pregnant that day of the funeral? And yet, through all the years, she had said nothing, asked for nothing. I put the photographs back in the envelope and replace it in my pocket.

  I drive out to the country that evening, arriving before dinner. Maddy is in the library staring at the television when I walk in. A half-empty vodka and soda is in front of her, the condensation from the ice forming a little puddle beneath the glass. There are old ring marks now all over the table. I switch on the lights and place a coaster beneath her glass. It’s still cool in the evenings, and I light a fire. She says nothing.

  This is a bad time of year for her. We rarely talk about it, but I know the anniversary of the crash always weighs heavily on her. Aside from making sure we have plenty of vodka, cigarettes, Prozac, and Ambien in the house, there is not much I can do for her. Despite the pain she feels, she refuses to go anywhere else. Year after year I suggest we stay in Florida, but she won’t. It is important for her to be here, to be as close as possible to the place where they were last alive.

  As usual when we don’t go out or order in, I cook, something I’ve never been any good at. But Maddy doesn’t care. I could serve her anything—filet from Lobel’s or cat food—and she would eat it with the same degree of disinterest.

  “How was your lunch?” she asks, cutting an overcooked lamb chop.

  I appreciate her asking. It is an effort on her part. Her doctor has been encouraging her. I know she couldn’t honestly care less how I spend my days. Of course, in this one particular instance, if I had told her where I really had been and with whom, she would have cared a lot.

  “Fine. It was an old case. Tying up some loose ends.”

  “Hm. Oh, good.” She has already lost interest. We eat in silence at the old kitchen table with the waxed yellow cloth, where Genevieve and Robert used to sit lifetimes ago, having decided that the formal dining room, the one with the Zuber wallpaper, was too formal.

  I look over at her. She is older now, more careworn, but she still takes my breath away. As always, I want to tell her I love her, but I cannot. It would only upset her. It is painful for her to think about love. And so I simply breathe the words to myself, offering them up like a silent grace.

  After dinner, Maddy goes to bed as usual, and I wash the dishes. Then I pour myself a brandy, open the windows, and put on Verdi. Wearing a coat against the cool April night, I go out to the back lawn, carrying my snifter, to take a seat in one of the Adirondack chairs that face the pearlescent water of the pond. It is a beautiful evening. There are millions of stars overhead.

  The strains of La Traviata caress the air. This is one of my favorite times. My mind is free to explore, to commune with my memories. My eyes play over the familiar view. The otherworldly, nocturnal brightness of the pond. The shadowy shapes of the trees rise up like old friends, rustling gently in the breeze. I love this somber fugue of colors, all the purples and silvers and blacks. The tree nearest me, maybe fifteen feet away, is well lit by the lights from the house. It towers above me, inclining slightly as though it, too, is listening to the music. I look at how the branches mount into the canopy of new leaves. I am struck by how tangled the boughs are yet at the same time how beautiful, the filigree impossible to follow, as complex, and yet as simple, as a shower of diamonds. How tall, how graceful, how noble are these trees, how long they took to grow so high and yet how easily they can fall.

  A strong wind, an ax. Man or nature. It doesn’t matter. I could call my gardener tomorrow and have them all chopped down and turned into mulch. We are all of us vulnerable. For a long time I think about the photographs, about what Claire wanted me to know. It is more than I can do.

  I carry my glass back inside and remove the envelope from my suit jacket draped over one of the kitchen chairs and walk into the library. The fire is still going, and I stoke it with a poker. Verdi fills the room. The flames leap higher. I take the photographs and the envelope and toss them all into the fire. I stand there waiting until every trace of them is gone, making my silent apologies.

  That was years ago. I still think about Claire. About Maddy. About Harry and Johnny. They are never far from my thoughts. In my mind, they are still there, laughing, young, untainted. Maddy and I are old now. She is slowly dying in the next room, breathing on a respirator, a shrunken figure curled up on the bed, attended by round-the-clock nurses, the curtains drawn. She never could quit smoking. There was no point in arguing. She asked to come up here from Florida to die, and I consented. It was the last thing I could do for her. So I hired an ambulance to drive her the whole way while I followed behind in a car.

  “Thank you for everything,” she wheezes. I sit holding her tiny hand in the darkened room, trying to be strong for both of us but knowing that she is secretly relieved to be finally released. I have done nothing for her, while she has been everything to me. “It’s all right, my love,” I whisper. “You rest. It will all be over soon. You will be with them again soon, I promise.”

  And I know in many ways she already is, on her mouth the faintest trace of a smile, welcoming the peace that has been denied her for so long. These last decades of her life had been a sort of hell for her, and not for the first time had I wondered how God could create someone as fine and pure and beautiful as Maddy, only to torture her. It was cruel. It made no sense. It was like the artists who were gassed in the Nazi concentration camps. All those poets, musicians, dancers, people who after years of study, years of sacrifice so they could spread hope and enrich life, were killed, cut down, their voices lost forever. Why? What is the point of having special gifts unless you are allowed to use them?

  Maddy had done nothing wrong, yet she was the one made to suffer. I know deep in her heart, she partly blamed herself. “If only I hadn’t gone to Mexico,” she had screamed countless times. I told her it was not her fault, that it had nothing to do with her, but she could not bring herself to believe me. Her doctors had attempted to do the same but with similar results. The human heart needs to burden itself, to take responsibility for its losses, otherwise it will explode.

  I scatter Maddy’s ashes over the pond too. There are only a few people in attendance. Ned and Cissy join me, but Ned is no longer able to carry the canoe by himself. I hire some young men to help with that, grandsons of friends. They paddle me out to the middle of the pond, and I weep silently while I gently throw the powdery remains over the water. I am surprised by how light and insubstantial they feel. These had once been the person I had loved most, her skin, her eyes, her hair. All reduced to powder. To nothing. Dissolving in the water. Gone. And yet I know this is where she wanted to be more than any other, and I am happy that I could bring them together in death at last.

  The next day I have her name and dates added to the cenotaph alongside those of her husband and son. I comfort myself to think that, if there is a heaven, they are reunited now. It is what I pray for, at any rate.

  I have lived with ghosts for years. The ghosts of Harry and Johnny, the ghost of my father, and, even while she was alive, the ghost of Maddy. They haunt me, unable to truly die because they are still alive in memory. They are my heroes, my North Star, and I have been trying to follow them my whole life. At the end, I am left with the pain of what might have been. We make so many right decisions in life, but it is the wrong ones t
hat can never be forgiven.

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank many people for their help in the creation, both directly and indirectly, of this book. First of all, I want to thank Sharyn Rosenblum, who was a good sport and agreed to read the unfinished manuscript more from common decency than common sense, and who then opened so many doors. I would also like to thank, in no particular order, Chris Herrmann, Joseph Lorino, Charlie Miller, Brendan Dillon, David Churbuck, Chris Buckley, and Bill Duryea for their friendship as well as their helpful feedback. I would also like to thank Margaret Douglas-Hamilton, who threw open her beautiful home in Lakeville, where I wrote much of this book. I have also been lucky in the people I have had working with me to make this book a reality, especially my agents, Britton Schey and Eric Simonoff at William Morris Endeavor, and, of course, my prescient, diligent, patient, good-humored, and wise editor, Henry Ferris at William Morrow.

  Last, I want to thank my mother, Isabella Breckinridge; my sister, Alexandra; my stepmother, Barbara; my late father, Arthur; my son, William; my daughter, Lally; and my beautiful wife, Melinda, for all their love and support.

  About the Author

  CHARLES DUBOW was born in New York City and spent his summers at his family’s house on Georgica Pond in East Hampton. He was educated at Wesleyan University and New York University. He has worked as a roustabout, a lumberjack, a sheepherder in New Zealand, and a congressional aide, and was a founding editor of Forbes.com and later an editor at Businessweek.com. He lives in New York City with his wife, Melinda; children, William and Lally; and Labrador retriever, Luke. This is his first novel.

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  Credits

  Cover design by Mary Schuck

  Cover photograph © E Duarte / Getty Images