“It’s almost midnight, kid. Slow your roll.”
“Slow my roll?”
“Gracie said it earlier. Bit of disaffected youth-speak.”
“Well, call her in the morning, then. Will you? I think it’s a fabulous plan.”
It was sort of funny, if you thought about it, this poetic reversal of roles: his wife cycling off to work each morning at the hardware store while he spent his days swimming in the dull minutiae of babyhood. They weren’t so old after all, were they?
“You’re wonderful with the babies,” she continued. “It’ll be—I mean, tedious is an understatement; ask anyone. Ask Violet. Ask Lize. Ask me, if you don’t feel I’ve adequately briefed you over the last forty years. But it’ll be abbreviated. I’m guessing Lize is going to want to spend as much time at home with her as possible. And you’d be doing her such a favor, David; you’d be giving her such a gift.”
“Well, not a gift. Do you think thirty-five dollars an hour is a fair asking wage?”
“Don’t downplay this, honey.”
“Think I can handle it?”
She smiled at him. “There’s not a doubt in my mind.”
He found her confidence deeply touching. He thought of her desperation in those early days, her panic and her disappointment, the paint fumes in the kitchen.
“But it made you miserable,” he said without thinking.
Marilyn looked hurt. “No, it didn’t.”
“I mean, sometimes, didn’t it?”
She let go of his hand and turned onto her back. “Sometimes, sure. I was in over my head, and I was exhausted to the point of insanity, but I—I mean, of course I was. But it was also—immensely gratifying, sometimes.”
“I know this isn’t the same thing.”
She smiled faintly. “No, it’s not.”
“I didn’t mean to say you were miserable,” he said.
“Not hardly. It was a blast, day in and day out.”
His turn to smile. “I just know that there were things you might rather have been doing.”
“Is that ever not the case?” She sounded tired again.
“No, I guess not.”
“It would be a good thing for you and for Liza. And especially for Kit. I’m sure you’re wildly preferable to a daycare at a public university.”
“Gee, thanks.” He nudged her. “Did I offend you?”
She sighed. “Oh, a little. It’s silly, though. I know what you meant.”
“The girls and I are lucky to have you.”
“Yes, they all turned out so flawlessly,” she said. She sighed. “Jesus Christ.”
“I mean it,” he said.
She faced him again and kissed him. “Sweet man.”
He moved closer to her, slipped his hand beneath the back of her shirt and pulled her against him.
“Hey,” she said, moving back to look at him. “I’m proud of you.”
The word still meant so much to him, coming from her.
2014
Wendy had expected—hoped, perhaps—that Violet and Matt’s new home would be located in an undesirable part of Evanston, but the house in front of which the cab deposited her—to bring her car was to commit to sobriety, which she couldn’t bring herself to do, not when Violet was involved—was smack in the middle of a dense thatch of elm trees and mere blocks from the lake and stately and imposing and fabulous. Probably at least a couple million. It made her want to throw up. She considered slipping the driver a fifty and asking him to drive around for a few minutes while she smoked a cigarette, but then the front door opened and Violet appeared, ponytailed and smiling, kid on her hip.
“Thanks, Alan,” she muttered to the driver. “May the rest of your day suck less than mine.” He let her out and left her standing alone with Violet, who reached out with her free arm to hug her. Since when did Violet hug? She could feel her sister’s bones through the thin, expensive knit of her summer-weight cashmere. Eli was—what? Four months? Five? How was she so skinny already? She’d been keeping a low profile for months—God, since Miles had died, twenty-six weeks ago to the day—and she’d been avoiding Violet more than anyone else, consenting to shopping trips on the Mag Mile when Gracie was home for break and attending tepid dinners at her parents’ house but not much else. She’d ditched Matt and Violet’s housewarming party last month and finally consented to this makeup only because Violet had threatened to bring the kids over to her house if she didn’t.
“I’m so happy you’re here,” Violet said. She reeked of money and Kiehl’s and suburbia. “You look wonderful. Wyatt’s making you a sign as we speak.”
“A sign?” Violet was making her feel huge and clumsy and inarticulate, the urban ogre who had emerged from her spinster cabin to make the rounds in the North Shore.
“A welcome sign,” Violet said. “He’s so excited to see you. So’s this one, aren’t you, babycakes?” She jostled Eli. He appraised her in the blank, unforgiving way of babies. “He’s starving; he’ll perk up in a little bit. Come in, come in. Wy? Buddy? Guess who’s here?”
Her nephew appeared in the entryway of the kitchen bearing a piece of poster board larger than he was that read WELCOME WENDY in a messy spewing of glitter glue, the lack of punctuation giving it an air of comical indifference. “Hi,” he said shyly, ducking behind the sign.
“Hey, Sheriff,” she said. She liked this kid; he was thoughtful and funny and he had kind eyes. “Did you make that for me?” She nodded at his sign. “Or is there another Wendy coming over?”
Wyatt looked to his mother with concern, making sure. Violet winked at him, nodding.
“It’s for you,” he said.
“It’s fabulous,” she said. “It’s the most spectacular sign anyone’s ever made for me.”
He brightened and then faltered. “It’s not done yet. I’m just finishing the stickers.” He hugged the board to his little body and skittered away from whence he’d come.
When she turned around she was confronted head-on by Violet’s exposed breast; her sister was sitting at the dining room table with her shirt lifted for the baby.
“Jesus fuck,” she said, and Violet looked up at her, blunted and dazed, like a panda.
“What?” The baby latched on and Wendy turned her head away sharply.
“Oh my God, Violet, you have a guest.”
It amused her a little, thinking that there were people on the earth who would reply to that with “You’re not a guest; you’re family.” But being a guest trumped blood relation in their family, and so she was allowed to be a little pissy if she wanted, because she otherwise did not have anything resembling the upper hand. This small victory pleased her.
Violet opened her mouth and closed it again. She glanced down at the baby as though she were doing something workaday and normal, filling her gas tank or renewing her library books. Wendy couldn’t help but voyeuristically delight in the silvery stretch marks that fleeced her sister’s breast, the way that, unclothed, she looked less like perfection and more like a PSA.
But Violet was still so lovely. She looked at peace, half-naked in her cavernous dining room, providing sustenance to a skeptical infant. Violet, annoying as she was, could pull shit together. She was beautiful and capable and tranquil in a way that almost made Wendy feel dizzy. And her house smelled like jasmine.
“I got yelled at in a Starbucks last week,” Violet said. “I’m a little sensitive.”
“Well, he’s kind of old, isn’t he?” she asked. Violet cradled the baby closer. In truth, Eli still looked microscopic. She couldn’t remember his birthday. She didn’t know when it was appropriate for a person to stop breastfeeding; she’d shoved all of that knowledge out of her mind after Ivy. Wyatt was lurking in the doorway with his stickers, and it seemed vaguely untoward that he was so comfortable with the sight of his mother’s exposed rack.
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��We’ve talked about weaning but it’s hard,” Violet said. “With his schedule.”
She snorted. “Is he, like, a broker or something?”
Violet looked at her in a tired, bothered way that reminded her of their mother. “It’s harder than it looks, okay?” she said, and though something in her voice bespoke a real kind of sadness, Wendy chose instead to be offended. It was something you were allowed to do when all of the most important people in your life had died.
“Yeah, I suppose I wouldn’t have any idea, would I?” she asked, slapping down the trump card. It was needlessly hostile; she was a little embarrassed for herself.
“I’m sorry, Wendy.” It was too easy with Violet. It was far too effortless to get exactly what you wanted from her. “That was a stupid thing to say. I’m tired. Forgive me.”
“You don’t look tired,” she said, giving Violet something in return. A seesaw, this sisterhood, and Wendy was the jerk who jumped off early so the other person toppled into the sand.
Violet laughed, and whatever was askew had been righted. “Well, that’s blessedly kind of you to say. I got a facial yesterday. I was hoping it helped.” Perhaps that was it: expensive self-care. Something about her sister looked eerily different—her face was the same, her body, but there was a shift in the way she carried herself, in the way she seemed to be willing her face into every expression it made.
Wyatt brought in his sign and Eli finished nursing and Violet rose to give her a tour of the house, which nearly made her heave—it was so huge, so bright and open and orderly, artistic but not in a weird way, the house of normal, tasteful rich people.
“There’s the library; there’s Matt’s guitar room; there’s the little tree house, I won’t let Wy go in it yet, Matt says he’s old enough but I can just see him falling out of one of those windows, can’t you?” It was like a very boring episode of Cribs. Violet cracked open another door. “There’s my office,” she said.
Even Wendy couldn’t get away with asking, What the fuck do you need an office for? so instead she chose a more diplomatic phrasing. “Are you working again?”
Violet looked a little sad. “I mean—not—not practicing, no.” She swallowed. “But this is my space for—you know, paying the bills, managing the boys’ schedules and”—at this she blushed—“doing things for the preschool. Listen, I’m desperate to pee; can you take him for just a minute?” Violet pressed Eli suddenly into her arms and she held him awkwardly, arm’s length away from her body. This kid she knew so little about. Dressed in a onesie with a necktie screen-printed on it. Healthy and perfectly formed.
It was all so simple for Violet; it was all so nauseatingly effortless. Her sister was, as always, so fucking calm, confident that life would have her back and that everything was just natural. Wesleyan, the adoption, law school, Matt, the bar exam, marriage: everything was just happening. Things happened to her sister, and the fact that they were happening to her seemed to be enough for Violet. She required no external stimulation because she was a knockout with an advanced degree and a dorky husband who probably ate her out on command, and everything that happened to her was just life. Violet took things in stride, Wendy had to hand it to her; but it always seemed kind of put-on, like Oops, life’s amazing. Meanwhile, Violet treated Wendy like a piece of glassware, an antique beer stein that was very old, very ugly, and very breakable. But there were plenty of times—most times, really—that Wendy had not called her sister for help. She’d spared Violet from so much and her sister couldn’t help but shove her fulfillment in her face.
At Violet’s wedding, not long after they’d lost Ivy, she’d passed out, inexplicably, on the couch in her father’s study, and Miles had carried her to the car and taken her home. Violet had left the next morning for her honeymoon in Greece, and then she came back and worked at her impressive job and then she got pregnant and they had Wyatt and all of the chips kept landing precisely where they were supposed to land.
The baby squirmed, being held up in the air like he was, and she was forced to bring him closer to her, to rest him on her canted hip. “Hi,” she said, trying. “Hey, there.”
He felt strange, like a damp pile of laundry. He smelled nice, though, like Dreft and sleep and the subtle perfume Violet had worn since college. The last kid she’d really held for any significant amount of time was Grace. She’d been good with her, when she was feeling giving enough to allow her mother the satisfaction of help, would wake up in the night sometimes before their parents heard Grace crying and wander around the house with her, whispering stories into her uncomprehending ears, Spencer Stallings is the dumbest person on the earth but he’s so hot, Goose, and See this table? This table is from a hundred years ago; that’s three hundred times as old as you. She tried bouncing Eli, and he smiled at her, a dazzling baby smile, and reached for her necklace, taking it in a tiny fist.
“Isn’t that a beautiful necklace?” she said. “Isn’t it, mister?” He laughed, a great gremlin laugh, and she felt herself laughing too. “I know,” she said. “I’m a riot.” Her eyes drifted to a frightening calendar over Violet’s desk, one that was the size of an overhead projector screen and color-coded, it appeared, by family member, Matt in blue and Wyatt in red and Eli in green, and Violet, appropriately, cloyingly, in purple. Vinyasa. Shady Oaks Fun Run. Dr. Jacobi. Bongos by the Boatyard. Park day w/ Wilhelmina and Grayson. It was like another language, the language of a crazy person, a boring, well-tended-to crazy person. She hoped, for Violet’s sake, that Dr. Jacobi was a shrink.
“Careful with your necklace. He’s hell-bent on destruction lately.”
Eli turned at the sound of his mother’s voice. The simple science of it made her ache. “Aren’t you, little terrorist?” He reached out for Violet, suddenly straining against Wendy when seconds earlier he’d been so content. Everyone liked Violet more than they liked her. “I think I just heard Matt,” Violet said, and she led the way back downstairs.
“Are there guys and gals in my house tonight?” Matt’s voice rang out from the kitchen and she saw Violet lighten at the sound of it. “Wendy, hey, welcome.” She watched as he went over to Violet. “Hi, honey.” He leaned in close and kissed her.
Wendy looked away.
“Hi, love,” Violet said.
She looked back in time to see Violet lift her face to kiss him again, then hand off the baby to him. “Wendy, some wine?”
“God, yes.”
Matt was laughably bland—not even milquetoast, she’d joked once, but like a piece of bread that you intend to toast, but you forget to turn the toaster on—but it still made her insides twist when she saw him rolling up his shirtsleeves like Miles used to, one of the absolute sexiest pedestrian things a man could ever do, in her opinion. The baby looked even tinier against Matt, impossibly fair against the thatches of dark hair on his forearms. Wyatt appeared again, summoned from his picturesque playroom by the sound of his father’s voice.
“Daddy,” he said.
“As we live and breathe,” Violet murmured from over by the fridge.
“The monster,” Matt said, and she watched as he hefted Wyatt up using his free arm and pretended to gnaw at his shoulder. Wyatt squealed with laughter; her gut throbbed. “How did you get past the guards, huh?” Being in such close physical proximity to a man with such big, capable arms was enough to make her need to sit down. The man she was currently sleeping with, a young financial analyst named Todd, was blond and reedy, pleasurably fox-like in bed but unimpressive in his street clothes. Violet brought her an enormous glass of wine, nearly two times a normal ration, and she looked up with amusement, grateful for this break from the unbearable lovefest happening in her peripheral vision.
“Is it passé to make Desperate Housewives jokes? Jesus. So this is how you get through the day.”
Violet blanched, then blushed, white to red. It was a cruel thing to say, maybe; judging by the look on Ma
tt’s face it was definitely a cruel thing to say. “We’re celebrating,” Violet said weakly after a moment, going to pour her own glass. “Honey,” she said to Matt, and something in her voice changed. “I said we’d do the food for the pre-K open house next week; it’s seven to ten on Tuesday so remember to be home on time. And Jax’s birthday party is on Sunday at the pottery-painting place and I’d really love if you’d come with; I think a lot of dads are going to be there. I fixed that light in Wyatt’s bathroom too. Oh! And I built the bookshelf while Eli was napping. It looks good, I think. You might have to check and see if all the screws are tight enough; I started to get that same backache before I finished. I might go to the chiropractor again next week.”
If she wasn’t mistaken, this domestic catalog was being recited for her. It was how Violet got her digs in—artfully, through the unassuming shields of other people.
And then her sister turned to her, swept over in her size-4 Sevens and her practical, stylish Sperry Top-Siders, and her frozen face had configured into something distinctly unkind.
“Cheers to desperate housewifery,” she said, clinking her own full glass against Wendy’s. She went over and kissed her husband again—her husband, who had seemed bored by her talk of bookshelves and back pain but who perked up at this intimate act. She took the baby and kissed his head and took a slug of wine, fixing her gaze on Wendy, buoyed on all sides by the undeniable aesthetic perfection of her circumstance. “It’s really not so bad.”
It wasn’t fair that Violet got to live this life, that Violet got an able-bodied man who loved and took care of her, that her own body produced child after healthy child, that her house had a guitar room, that she was pretty much guaranteed to never be alone again. And it especially wasn’t fair that Violet seemed unwilling to acknowledge any of this, to be grateful for the fact that she was doing okay when Wendy had been so cosmically fucked. That she was content enough with her superior standing in life that she could make jokes about it while canoodling with her husband in front of her recently widowed sister, the sister who had made her good life possible in the first place and would never, ever have what Violet had, despite all the money in the world. That Violet was apparently just fine with shedding any pretense of humility about how goddamn lucky she was.
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