Garrett wasn’t the kind of person you had to check things with. She knew he’d be fine about that.
I might take you up on the invitation, Alan said. I make a Christmas pudding every year, first week in October, so it has plenty of time to age, let the rum really sink in. I’ll bring it.
I never had Christmas pudding before, she said. My dad always made a buche de Noel. My other dad, I mean.
At Garrett’s house, you wouldn’t have known the holiday was coming.
I’m not so big on all this Christmas hullabaloo, he said. Christmas was still a week away, but he was complaining that he couldn’t turn on a radio anymore without hearing carols.
You shouldn’t be such a grinch, Carolyn told him. Maybe your daughter would like to get a tree.
That’s okay, Wendy said. Maybe we could just put a few lights on one of your cactus plants.
She sent a package back home to Brooklyn. For Louie she had bought a bunch of little things—Silly Putty and a really great bubble-blowing wand, and a baldy wig and three Matchbox trucks. She got Josh a book Alan had recommended about a jazz singer named Billy Tipton, and a shirt Carolyn helped her pick out at an imports store in Davis, with hand-embroidered designs around the neck and sleeves and wooden buttons. Drawing them a card, she realized that this was the first year there would be no family Christmas card photograph of the four of them.
Violet was going to spend Christmas with her mother.
She stopped over last week, Violet said. She brought a sleeper suit for Walter Charles. She was nicer than I expected.
That’s really great, Wendy said. I couldn’t believe she’d just let you disappear out of her life like that.
She thought Wally was cute, Violet said. It turns out I had that same way of wrinkling my nose up when I first got a taste of the bottle, like he does.
So you’re going to have Christmas dinner at her house? Wendy asked.
Don’t get the wrong idea, Violet said. It won’t be like your old hometown, Neverland or anything. We’re going over to her boyfriend’s place. They like watching all the parades on big-screen TV.
What are you giving her? Wendy asked.
There was this pendant I saw in Long’s. A heart shape, with fake diamonds and a fake ruby in the middle. Twenty-nine ninety-five, but you only get one mother, right?
Four days before Christmas, Amelia called. Listen, she said. I wasn’t sure if I should tell you this or not, but if it was me, I’d want to know.
It would be about her mother. They’d found something. One of the red shoes. Or worse.
I went over to your apartment the other day, she said. My mom and I wanted to drop off some Christmas cookies for Josh and Louie. It was kind of early in the morning, because we were on our way out shopping.
Listening to her, Wendy felt a creeping sense of dread.
Josh came to the door, Amelia said. You could tell he’d just gotten up. He hadn’t shaved or anything, and he was in this bathrobe. I asked if I could see Louie so we could give him this special gingerbread man. He told me Louie spent the night at Corey’s house. I said that was good news, remembering how you’d told me before he wasn’t doing that for a while. Figuring he must be feeling better.
I was asking him some other things. How you were doing in California. What his plans were for the holidays. But you could tell he wasn’t in the mood to do a whole lot of talking.
He’s probably having a rougher than usual time right now, Wendy said. He loved Christmas with my mom.
That’s what I was thinking, too. Okay, I said. I’ll just copy down the address really quick. That’s what I was doing when she came out of the bedroom. In your mom’s robe.
Who? Wendy said. But she knew.
Kate.
Carolyn, she said. I know you’re probably busy. But I was just remembering how you told me that time if I felt like it, I could talk to you.
I was just going out for some fencing wire, Carolyn said. Why don’t I stop by? We can go get ourselves a cool drink.
Carolyn and Wendy sat in the diner drinking lemonade—Christmas carols playing, the two of them in T-shirts. In New York that morning, Amelia had told her, it had been snowing.
So, Carolyn said. Let’s review the situation.
Back in September your dad got his heart ripped out of his chest and torn to pieces, right? She was talking about Josh.
You don’t have any doubt he loved your mother, right? From the sound of it the man was nuts about her.
Yes.
So he loses the woman he loves more than anything. And if that isn’t enough, you go away, too. Then he’s got this four-year-old to take care of and for a while there it’s almost like he’s losing him, too.
He tries to do the right thing. Take care of his son. Leave you to do what you need to sort out your own problems. Earn a living maybe, while he’s at it. But as far as he’s concerned he might as well be dead himself. Only what’s worse is, he’s not. He’s got another fifty, sixty years of living to fill up on this planet, and at this stage I’m guessing one day feels pretty unbearable.
He said he wished he could die, Wendy whispered.
Of course he did. For a while.
The thing is, he’s not someone who gives up on life forever. Any more than you are. This is a guy that plays music for his job and goes around riding roller coasters with you guys and making all this great food. He loves life way too much. He just hasn’t quite figured out how he’s supposed to keep on living either.
Same as me, Wendy said.
Another cactus person from the sound of it, Carolyn said. Stick one in the middle of the desert where there’s not a drop of water for a hundred miles. Not only does the plant refuse to die, it keeps growing. May even throw out a bright red blossom now and then, who knows?
Listening to her, Wendy began to feel a little calmer. She took a sip of her lemonade.
So there’s this woman, Carolyn said.
We’re not talking about some kind of husband-stealer. This is your mother’s best friend. Someone else who happens to be missing your mom pretty badly and feeling this big, awful empty space of her own.
Kate and my mom talked on the phone every single day.
And all that time Kate and your mom were friends, did you ever get the feeling Kate wanted to take Josh away from her? Let alone wish she was dead.
No.
It gets to be December, said Carolyn. Three months have gone by with the guy, your dad, alone in that bed he used to share every night with your mother. It’s coming on Christmas to top it off—the time when it seems like everyone in the world but him is hunkering down with their family.
Kate’s been coming by now and then to help out with your little brother, and he really likes her, right? She’s the one familiar thing that didn’t go away. So when the friend’s over, he can feel like that even though things aren’t normal, they’re not so bad anyway.
And just like you out here, brave enough to move forward with your life instead of throwing in the towel, that’s what Josh and Kate are doing. It doesn’t mean they didn’t love your mom or miss her any less badly, any more than you being willing to give it a try out here with Garrett and me is some kind of indication you didn’t really care about your mom. When you get down to it, that’s about the best way you can honor a person you loved that died. To keep on with your life and do the best job you know of living it.
Then there’s this other part, she said quietly.
You’ll probably have to be a little older to understand this. But it has to do with physical affection.
Maybe you don’t even have to be older, come to think of it, she said. Because it’s not even about sex so much, is my guess. It’s about something you’ve experienced plenty of times, which is just how good it can feel when a person puts their arm around you now and then. Particularly when you’re having a hard time. The simple ordinary comfort of having this other warm body lying in the bed next to you.
Wendy did know about that. She t
hought of Anne Frank, and how she’d written about lying on the bed in their little prison of an apartment with the boy, Peter—how happy it made her just to have his face next to hers. Louie, climbing into her bed in the mornings. How she and her mom used to go Rollerblading along the West Side Highway, arm in arm, pretending to be Ice Capades Girls. Josh’s big bass-player hug, when she came home that night after the memorial service for Billy Flynn. My God, I was going crazy. She remembered the feeling in the fitting room at Macy’s when she and her mother had just stood there in nothing but their bras and underwear, holding each other.
What would I do if I didn’t have you for my daughter? I’d have to kidnap you.
Sometimes you just want someone to put their arms around you, Carolyn told her. Even Garrett, who grew up never getting that kind of thing and sometimes has a hard time giving it—even someone like him needs it. Sometimes I think a person could give up food more easily than affection. Maybe that’s why cactuses have prickers all over them and people don’t.
Do you think now they’ll get married? Wendy asked her. What would she be then? My stepmother?
Oh, God, I don’t know, Carolyn said. I’ve never even met these people. Though if I were guessing I’d say it wasn’t likely. There’s a kind of mending that happens from deep inside that probably takes years. These people are just getting through the days for a while, then getting through the weeks and maybe one day finding out they’ve managed to get through a year, which at this point would be about as far as anyone would try to look ahead under the circumstances.
This might be a lot to ask of you, Wendy, she said. But the day may even come when you could manage to feel a tiny little bit of happiness for Kate and Josh. Not like how it was when Josh and your mom got together and everyone was probably throwing confetti or rice or some damn thing over their heads and dancing around all over the place. Not the ten-piece band and the full moon and the sky lit up like Disneyland.
Just a small scrap of something good is all. This is more like a harmonica tune and one small star shining down on them. You’ve got two good people who’ve had a crushing load of grief lately, and if they can find some way to give each other a little comfort one of these days, who’d begrudge them?
A telephone call came for Garrett from a hospital in Greenwich. Didn’t like delivering news this way. Fairly routine procedure. Complications. His mother had died that morning.
The surprising thing was how he took it. Wendy might have thought from the way he was with his mother back at Thanksgiving that it wouldn’t be that bad when she died, but he sank into the chair, weeping. Now it’ll never be any better, he said. As long as she was around I could always hope things might change someday, and now I know they never will.
He wore a suit jacket and one of the shirts she’d given him, for the trip back east. Before he left he stood in front of the bathroom mirror and cut his hair. No more ponytail.
So it turned out to be just the two of them, Carolyn and Wendy, for the visit of Carolyn’s son and his future wife. Wendy tried to locate some sadness about her grandmother, but mostly who she was sad about was her father. Driving off in his truck that afternoon he had looked a little like Louie staring at the TV that wasn’t on, or Alan’s son Tim staring at the clothes dryers. Blank and haunted at the same time.
All day Wednesday, Wendy and Carolyn cleaned the house in preparation for the visit of her son. Wendy made brownies, the Josh method. They’re not exactly a traditional Christmas food, but they’re so good, she said.
If he’s really my son, he’ll love chocolate.
Carolyn got her hair done. She had been hoping to drop a few pounds, but with all the stress about his coming she couldn’t stop eating chips, she said.
They had written they’d be at the house around ten o’clock that morning, the twenty-fourth. At exactly ten o’clock the car pulled up. A tall, thin young man got out and came around the side. The young woman stepped out very slowly, feetfirst, in lace-up Hush Puppies, followed by the rest of her, which was pregnant. She looked as if she might give birth any minute.
What do you know? said Carolyn, watching them come up the path. I’m going to be a grandmother.
Their greeting reminded Wendy of when her dad’s mother had gotten out of the elevator in the Fairmont Hotel, and for about one second Wendy had been getting ready to give her a hug, but it turned out the idea was a handshake.
Pleased to meet you, he said. I’m Nate. This is my fiancee, Sharon.
We were only expecting two visitors, Carolyn said. Looks like we might end up with three.
We would have gotten married before now, but it’s important to us to have the ceremony in our church, and our pastor believes in a six-month counseling period first.
Make yourselves at home, Carolyn said. This is actually my boyfriend Garrett’s place. His mother died and he had to go east for the funeral.
Sorry to hear it, Nate said.
This is Garrett’s daughter, Wendy, she told them.
They sat in the living room. They had put his fishing tackle away and the pile of old towels he kept out on the floor for Shiva to lie on.
So, she said. How many hours does it take to drive from Bend?
We stopped in Springfield to attend a youth ministries service, he told her. If we were driving straight through, eight or nine.
It’s great you came, she said.
We were coming this direction, Sharon told them. My parents live in Newport Beach. We’re getting together with both our families for Christmas.
You two looked like Joseph and Mary getting out of that car, Carolyn said. Only there’s room at the inn. Wendy had never heard Carolyn’s voice sound like this. Higher than normal and when she said that she made a laughing sound.
We can’t stay that long, he told her. We still have a long drive to make, and I’m stopping off in Glendale to see my mother’s cousin.
Wendy looked at his face, trying to see a resemblance to Carolyn. His red hair and the freckles on his arms, that was about it.
I’ve got to tell you, said Carolyn. When Sharon called, it was like a dream come true. I never would have forced myself on you, but I was always hoping the day would come when you’d want to find me.
It was Sharon’s idea, Nate said.
Not that I’d expect anything, Carolyn said. You have parents. I just hope they gave you the love you deserved.
My folks are wonderful people. I was raised with faith.
How about brothers and sisters? she asked him.
Two brothers and one sister. My brothers are doing missionary work at the moment and my sister’s a computer programmer back east, but they’ll all be out here for the wedding this spring.
Wendy waited to see if he was going to suggest that Carolyn come, but he didn’t.
There’s a reason I was so anxious to locate you, Sharon said. She reminded Wendy of an insurance salesperson who came to their apartment back in New York one time. Who spent a minute asking Josh about jazz and then, just like a timer went off at the sixty-second mark, switched over to actuarial tables.
We felt we should find out if there were any genetic abnormalities to look out for, she said. With the baby coming.
Carolyn looked blank for a minute. At Wendy’s suggestion she had brought over from her place a couple of her rarest and most interesting cactus plants to show them, and a set of tarot cards in case they turned out to be interested in a reading. She had gathered up a collection of pictures of her mother and sisters from back in Iowa for Nate to look at—his grandmother and aunts. She hadn’t been thinking about genetic abnormalities.
You mean like my blood type and so on? she said slowly.
More along the lines of medical problems that might run in your family, Sharon said. Mine doesn’t have any, but I told Nathan I wanted to know what we were in for with yours. Mom and Dad Lowry understood and agreed it was worth getting to the bottom of all that.
Something changed in Carolyn’s face.
I
get sunburned real easy, she said quietly. But you probably already figured that one out, didn’t you, Nathan?
He told her he didn’t spend that much time in the sun.
Other than that I can’t think of a damn thing, she said. Wendy wondered if she said the damn part on purpose, but more likely it was one of those times where the one word you knew you shouldn’t say in front of certain kinds of people was the very one that popped out.
Well, that’s a load off my mind, Sharon said. Wendy got the feeling she would have liked to get up and leave right then and there but she knew to be polite they should stick around another few minutes.
I made brownies, Wendy said.
Thanks, said Sharon. But our families are likely to have a big meal waiting for us.
They sat there for a moment. Wendy imagined all the crazy things she could say here. Hey, want Carolyn to read your palm? Look on the bright side. You should see my friend Violet who kept her baby. He cries a lot, so she keeps hitting him on the head with a straw. Oh, Carolyn. When is it that your three autistic nephews are due to show up for Christmas dinner? Is that before or after your uncle who never grew any eyebrows?
I just wanted you to know, Carolyn said. I can understand, now that you’re about to have a baby yourselves and all, how it must be for you, imagining me giving you away like that. But it didn’t mean I didn’t want you. I was trying to do the best thing. Nothing else I ever did in my life was as hard as that.
Only God can judge, he said.
You could tell she’d been thinking about saying this for days. She spoke as if every word mattered so much.
After they took you away, she said, I felt like running out of the building and chasing after the car. I wanted to say, Wait a minute. I can’t go through with this.
Well, it was good you weren’t one of those people who kill babies, Nate said.
Carolyn looked blank for a moment.
Abortion, said Sharon, as if just speaking the word was more than she liked to do.
The Usual Rules Page 29