One Week In December

by Holly Chamberlin

  Nora hid a smile. The irony of her own words was lost on her granddaughter. Cliff had cheated on Lily and yet she was pining for his return—while at the same time condemning her grandmother’s reunion with her cheating husband. Perspective was an interesting thing.

  “Really, Grandma,” Lily went on, “how could you have stayed with him once you found out? How could you have trusted him again after he lied to you so badly?”

  “Because I loved him and I believed that he loved me. That made our continued life together possible. That, and time.”

  Lily made a face. “Are you trying to tell me that time heals all wounds?”

  “Something like that,” Nora conceded. “Time passed and we grew comfortable together again. Our relationship was different, but relationships are always changing, anyway. Especially long-term relationships like marriage.”

  “But, Grandma, weren’t you furious with him?”

  There was no point in lying when she’d come this far, Nora thought. “Yes,” she admitted, “I was, for a time. But the anger was mixed up with other emotions. And of course I had to face the possibility that I was partly responsible for, well, for having driven him into the arms of another woman, if you’ll pardon the expression.”

  Lily laughed in disbelief. “I don’t believe for one minute, Grandma, that you were responsible for Grandpa having an affair. You can’t blame yourself for someone else’s bad behavior.”

  “Oh, I’m not blaming anyone,” Nora explained. “Not the other woman, and not even your grandfather. Until you’re in a marriage, or any long-term relationship for that matter, you just don’t know how easily things can fall apart. You just can’t imagine how easy it is to drift away from each other. All I’m saying is that along with feeling angry with your grandfather, I also felt conscious of my responsibilities to him and to the marriage. And maybe, just maybe, I’d been negligent, without even realizing it.”

  Lily didn’t want to believe this. More, she simply couldn’t believe it. “So you never even thought about getting a divorce?” she asked.

  Nora sighed. “There was an awful lot of stigma attached to divorce back then. Not like it is today. Today it’s almost too easy to give up on a marriage. But back then—”

  Lily abruptly got to her feet. “Don’t say ‘things were different in those days.’ That’s not an excuse for—”

  “For what?”

  Lily felt uncomfortable. “For . . . for forgiving Grandpa.”

  Nora raised an eyebrow, a little skill of which she was oddly proud. “Didn’t you mean to say for being a fool?”

  Lily dashed to where her grandmother sat, and hugged her thin shoulders. “Grandma! I would never call you a fool.”

  “Of course you wouldn’t. But you might think I’m one. It’s perfectly all right, Lily. I don’t expect you to understand my motives—right away. I do hope that someday you’ll understand.” Nora paused, then sighed dramatically. “Though I suppose there’s a good chance I’ll be dead by then.”

  Lily laughed, which was what Nora had hoped she’d do. “Grandma, really! You’re awful. You shouldn’t talk about dying.”

  “Why not? It’s inevitable, isn’t it? And it can’t be that far off.”

  “Maybe so. But that doesn’t mean we have to talk about it.”

  “All right,” Nora said. “I’ll try not to mention the subject again.”

  Lily sat heavily on her grandmother’s bed and picked up a length of discarded wool, which she then began to twist around her finger. She seemed to be thinking hard, if her frown was one of concentration and not merely unhappiness.

  Nora watched her, and waited. She saw in her granddaughter the rigidity of the young and idealistic. Situations were black or white; shades of gray were ignored or disdained as excuses or prevarications. They were seen as evidence of cowardice. The young thought they were noble, but nobody untested can be noble. To persevere in the face of disaster, that was bravery. To forgive in the wake of betrayal, that was nobility.

  Nora knew, of course, that the concept of compromise was one that came to a person only with the accumulation of experience, with the experience of joys as well as of disappointments.

  “Do Mom and Dad know that Grandpa had an affair?” Lily asked suddenly.

  The question didn’t surprise Nora. She guessed that Lily would have a lot more questions as she came to terms with her grandmother’s secret. “No,” she said, “I’m almost certain they don’t. Your father was fifteen years old when it happened. Just starting to date. It was your grandfather’s wish that his son not know the truth. He was ashamed, you see. In fact, I’m not sure how he’d feel about my telling you now. But I guess I just had to. I thought the knowledge might help you in some way, help you to accept the fact of an affair and to move on.” Nora paused. “But maybe I was wrong. Maybe the secret was weighing on me too heavily, after all these years. Maybe my telling you was selfish. Maybe I just wanted someone to share the burden I’ve been carrying alone for so long.”

  It was true. One did need to tell one’s story. And Nora was old, almost ninety.

  Maybe it had just come down to this: She had wanted to pass on an important truth of her life so that she could be remembered, at least by one person, as who she really was, not as who she was perceived to be.

  But what if it had been a mistake, unburdening herself to her granddaughter? Maybe instead of helping Lily come to terms with her heartache, the knowledge of Nora’s secret would only serve to further confuse and pain her.

  Nora sighed. Well, what was done was done, what was said was said. Now she’d just have to wait and see what trouble her decision had wrought.

  “Lily, dear. Did you hear what I said?”

  Lily looked up from the piece of yarn she had now twisted into a knot. “Yes, Grandma,” she said. “I heard. I don’t mind your telling me. It’s—it’s weird, but you kind of never think about your parents or your grandparents having gone through stuff like you’re going through. You kind of never think of your parents and grandparents as—well, as real people.”

  And the older we get, the more real we’ll become, Nora thought, with our aches and pains and failing memories. So real that we’ll make you long for the days when we seemed perfect and untouchable and uncomplicated.

  “Yes,” she said. “Each and every one of us is a real person, in all our tarnished glory. Now, let’s talk about something more pleasant. Would you like me to show you that new stitch I was telling you about?”

  Lily said that she would.

  21

  “Steve?”

  The older man turned from his primary worktable (he had several worktables in all; photographers, he had learned, even amateurs, needed an awful lot of equipment) and smiled. “Alex, come in.”

  “Am I interrupting?” he asked from the doorway.

  “Not at all.”

  Alex came into Steve’s studio—which was a hell of a lot neater than his own—and closed the door behind him. Immediately he noted the looming presence of Henry Le Mew. He sat on a high stool next to Steve’s worktable, eyes fixed on his friend. Could a cat, Alex wondered, be obsessed with a human? When it came to Henry Le Mew, anything seemed possible.

  Family members had been asked to stay away from the studio in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Steve had told them that he was working on a special gift he wanted to be a surprise. It was a unique sort of family portrait, a photomontage that included an image of his deceased father. Often while working on it Steve had ruminated on the notion of family; he thought about its inherent strength—and about its inherent fragility.

  Alex, not being a member of the family in the strictest sense, was a welcome and frequent visitor to the studio. He enjoyed spending time with his neighbor. He saw in Steve a man he would someday like to be—only not so bowed. Alex had nothing against hard work, but he preferred not to have to spend much time at a desk. Alex wasn’t comfortable in offices and he owned only one suit. He wasn’t even sure it still fit. He
hadn’t had occasion to wear it since a function at Barner College of Art, where he taught courses in sculpture and art history. That had been over a year ago, and since then he’d been consuming an awful lot of the Rowan women’s warm meals.

  He watched Steve for a few minutes, in silence. There was something about his bearing, something—tense—about the set of his shoulders. Alex sensed that his friend was troubled. He didn’t like to pry. On the other hand, if there were something Steve wanted to talk about, as a friend Alex owed him the opportunity.

  “Everything okay, Steve?” he asked, casually, he hoped.

  “Sorry?” Steve looked up at Alex as if startled. “Oh, yes, fine, thanks, Alex. Maybe you could give me some advice on this montage. I’m having trouble with this passage here. . . .”

  Alex made a suggestion and looked on as Steve followed it using his Photoshop software.

  “Much cleaner,” he pronounced when Steve was done. “But there is one more thing. . . .”

  Steve looked up. “Out with it. I can handle criticism.”

  “Good. Because I think you, ah, overdid it a bit with James’s teeth, over here. They glow. It’s kind of freaking me out. No offense.”

  Steve laughed. “None taken. I asked for the professional opinion. Now, what do I do to correct this—thing—I’ve created?”

  The men worked for a while on Steve’s project. When Steve had retired and was finally able to indulge in his passion for photography, he’d really gone all out in equipping his studio with gear. At one point, Alex had counted three camera bodies and a box of nine different lenses. In addition to the computer, printer, and scanner, the studio housed a tripod, a slide viewer (from Steve’s predigital days), shelves stocked with reference books, stacks of various sorts of papers, a paper cutter, a collection of precut frames, and a table on which framing could easily be done. On one wall Steve’s tools hung in precise order, unlike Alex’s own hodgepodge system of storage. For comfort, Steve had added a small fridge, a microwave that he’d bought at a garage sale, and a portable CD player Lily had abandoned a few years earlier. And of course, the studio had been insulated, which, however, didn’t mean that Steve could work in comfort without a space heater close by. Maine winters, as Alex had noted many times while working in his own rather chilly studio, could not be conquered entirely. They could be only partially tamed.

  “Have you ever thought about starting a family, Alex?”

  Alex was a bit taken aback by the question. First, it was random, having nothing to do with photography, at least as far as Alex could make out. (Could the montage family portrait have prompted Steve’s thoughts?) Second, it was a question usually asked by women, not by men. At least, that’s how it had been in Alex’s experience. His mother was the worst offender in this regard. His sister, Anna, was the second worst.

  “Uh, sure,” he said. “My former wife and I talked about having kids. For a while. But then things began to fall apart between us, and planning a family seemed like a pretty stupid thing to be doing.”

  “Yes,” Steve said, “there’s no good to be had by bringing a child into a fraught environment.”

  “That’s true. Unfortunately, not everyone has a choice about it.”

  Steve looked around at Alex sharply but said nothing. Again Alex sensed his friend’s anxiety or worry about—something. Better stick to a neutral topic, he thought. “You know,” he said, pointing to the screen, “you might want to lighten this background a bit, right here.”

  The two men continued to work until something made Alex look at his watch, a well-worn Timex on an even more worn leather band. “Whoa,” he said, “I should get back to my place. I set myself a schedule this morning and already I’ve blown it. Badly.”

  Steve thanked him for the constructive criticism—brutal as it had been—and the advice, and then asked Alex to join the family for cocktails that evening.

  “Say, six o’clock?” he suggested.

  Alex agreed. He wasn’t keen on intruding into other people’s family business and he’d gotten a clear sense that the Rowans, at least a few of them, were not exactly happy with each other at the moment. But he could admit to himself that he was a bit lonely—it was Christmas, after all, and a commission was keeping him from traveling to see his own family—and he could also admit, though it troubled him a little, that he was interested in knowing more about Becca. Sure, from what he’d seen in the past day or so, she wasn’t the most easily approachable woman he’d ever known. But there was something else there, something interesting, something worth finding out about, even if it meant putting up with a few rude remarks and an obvious lack of interest on her part.

  Besides, it was only cocktails, only an hour of his time. And Nora might be making her cheese puffs. He didn’t know what she put in those things—besides cheese—but he was addicted.

  “Sure,” he said gratefully. “And thanks.”

  22

  “Are you insane, Dad? What were you thinking asking a stranger into our home in this time of crisis?”

  Julie rolled her eyes. Olivia really had become ridiculously obsessed with the notion of The Family and it’s—it’s almost sacred nature.

  Steve looked embarrassed. Henry, lumped on his lap, glared at Olivia. “I don’t know,” he said. “I guess I hoped a guest, a friend, might help lighten the mood around here a bit.”

  “Well, I think it was a big mistake and if I were you,”—and here she pointed her forefinger at her father—“I’d call him and tell him he can’t come.”

  Olivia stormed out of the kitchen, where her parents had been enjoying a cup of tea. Rather, where they’d been trying to enjoy a cup of tea until their oldest child had appeared.

  “It probably wasn’t a good idea, was it?” Steve asked his wife.

  “Maybe not. But it didn’t call for finger pointing.”

  “Maybe I should call him and make some excuse—”

  Julie got up from the table and took their cups to the sink. “No, no,” she said. “Everything will be fine. After all, no one’s mad at Alex. And you’re right. Maybe a diversion is what we all need.”

  Steve certainly hoped so.

  An hour later, Alex arrived at the Rowan house. Julie greeted him with her usual warm manner but . . . but something was wrong. He didn’t consider himself the most sensitive guy to have ever lived, but he’d have to be a block of stone not to feel the tension in the Rowan household. Olivia, the oldest sister, wore an expression that resembled a thundercloud. Lily, usually as bright and lovely as her name, looked sad. Becca sat in a straight-backed chair, and while she wasn’t exactly glowering, she also very clearly wasn’t in a holiday frame of mind. Alex wondered what the hell he had walked into.

  Rain, he was told, was out with the boys, sledding on a good-sized hill the locals liked to refer to—not very originally—as Dead Man’s Hill. For a second he was tempted to bag the cocktail party in favor of a few runs with the youngest Rowans, but politeness got the better of him. After all, he’d promised Steve he’d be his guest that evening.

  Plus, true to Rowan hospitality, there was plenty of food and drink, and for a guy who couldn’t cook more than pasta and scrambled eggs, this was a big enticement. Nora had, indeed, made her cheese puffs, and Alex spotted a platter of scallops wrapped in bacon on the coffee table. Bowls of mixed nuts were strategically placed around the room. Good, Alex thought. There was sure to be plenty of cashews. He’d think about his weight after the holidays. Maybe.

  Playing bartender, Steve was offering alcoholic and nonalcoholic eggnog, Brandy Alexanders, and for those less inclined toward the creamier holiday drinks, scotch. Alex asked for a glass of scotch—he couldn’t afford the good stuff and knew that Steve bought only the best—and felt no compunction about accepting his host’s generosity.

  Alex glanced at Becca and saw her murkily through the bottom of her glass. Neither, it seemed, did she have a problem accepting her host’s generosity. If she kept knocking back those Brandy Alexanders sh
e was going to have to be carried off to bed. And something told Alex that Becca Rowan would not take kindly to being carried off anywhere without her full and waking consent.

  Alex took a seat next to Lily just as her pocket began to ring. It took Alex a moment to recognize the tune. It was a pop love song that had been briefly popular a few years earlier. He knew this because one of his former students was always humming it in class. It had driven Alex mad.

  “Are you going to take that call?” he asked, assuming it was that idiot boyfriend who had been stupid enough to cheat on someone so genuinely nice and trusting.

  Lily shook her head. “No. It’s nothing important.”

  A moment later, the phone rang again. Ah, Alex thought, the idiot was cruel as well as persistent.

  “I’m sorry,” Lily said, aware that she was blushing. “I should probably just turn the ringer off.”

  Alex refrained from sharing his opinion that the person who was repeatedly calling Lily could be considered guilty of harassment. The phone rang again and Lily got to her feet.

  “Excuse me,” she said, and hurried off to a far corner of the living room.

  “And I’ll be right back, too.” Nora lifted the empty tray from the side table by Alex and gave him a warm smile. “There are more cheese puffs in the kitchen.”

  But before going to the kitchen, Nora joined her granddaughter. Lily was staring at the phone in her hand. “It’s Cliff,” she said, her voice uncertain. “He’s texting me now. He says he has to talk with me. He doesn’t want to leave another voice message.”

  Nora spoke quietly, though the others were too involved in conversation to hear. “And you’re not sure you want to talk to him.”

  “No. I’m not. Not anymore. I wish . . . I wish he would just give me some time. I’ve got a lot of thinking to do.”

  Good, Nora thought. That’s just what I was hoping to hear.