B000FC1MHI EBOK (37 page)

“I was in an accident that could have taken my life, but you didn’t call,” Julia cried. “Didn’t
you
care?”

“I knew you were well. You called and told us so.”

“I also told you I was upset!”

“Yes. Can we get to this later?” It was typical Janet, scheduling things in. “Right now, we’re discussing your father.”

Julia sighed in exasperation. “Of course, he cares.”

“I told your brothers I sent him up there to be with you. I didn’t know what else to say. Does he plan to come back?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“After the holiday weekend.”

“Tuesday? Wednesday?”

“I don’t know, Mom. Why don’t you call him and ask?”

Janet shot her a caustic look and returned her head to the chair.

Julia let it go. She needed a breather. She consciously relaxed her hands, then lifted her hair off the back of her neck. She had forgotten the heat and humidity of Baltimore summers. Island air could be warm, but there was always a breeze. Here, nothing moved. If the past was any indication, half of the neighborhood was at the shore for the Fourth of July weekend, if only to escape the heat. Not that Julia minded either the heat or the neighbors’ absence. Both were childhood memories. Revisited now, as she stood on the brink of a major change in her life, they brought a surprising comfort.

“The yard is beautiful,” she said. “Do you still have the same gardener?”

“Yes.
He’s
very loyal.”

Julia sighed. “So is Dad.”

“Well, it would be nice to think so, but once a man cheats on his wife, it is hard. You have no idea what it’s like to live with that fear all these years.”

Julia held her breath. It was time. If Janet was going to fight her on this, she wanted it over and done.

Carefully, she said, “I know what it’s like, Mom. I’ve lived with it myself.”

Janet opened one eye, saw that Julia was serious, and opened the other—and for the first time since seeing her mother looking so vulnerable at the door, Julia let loose with the defiance she had drummed up during her drive from New York.

I
’ve just come from New York,” Julia said in a rush of courage. “I’m divorcing Monte.”

Janet raised her head off the lounge. “Divorcing?”

“It isn’t working. It hasn’t for a while. Monte’s had a string of affairs. I walked in last night and caught him in bed with the latest.”

She was so braced for an I-told-you-so about having left Monte alone and run off to Maine that when Janet said a simple, “Oh Julia,” she was already on to the next point.

“Molly saw the same thing when she flew back from Paris and showed up unannounced.” She realized that Janet was looking stunned—actually sympathetic—but still she hurried on. Janet was a big one for “studies.” She liked statistics telling about the people her charity served and the success of the service. Julia needed to bolster her case. “All the signs pointed to it. He was relieved when I said I wasn’t coming home after the accident, and relieved when Molly decided to stay on Big Sawyer. I think back on how he urged her to spend the summer in Paris instead of New York. He knew I planned to be in Maine for two weeks. He had been counting on that time to play on his own.”

“A
string
of affairs?” Janet asked archly. “Going back how long?”

Julia was quickly defensive. Old habits died hard. “Well, I don’t
know,
Mom. I didn’t come home from my honeymoon expecting it.

Maybe it started way back then. I didn’t monitor his comings and goings. I’m not that kind of wife.”

“I know.”

“I had suspicions, but only because he seemed disinterested in some regards—”

“Sex.”

“—and I really didn’t want to believe it. What woman does? I’ve only documented the past three years—and yes, I put up with it,” she hurried to say before Janet-the-activist could scold, “for all the usual reasons. But it’s gotten harder to look the other way.”

“And then there’s the fear,” Janet said quietly.

“Oh, yes,” Julia agreed indignantly, and was about to tell Janet that she knew very
well
what the fear was about, when she realized that Janet was commiserating with her. Commiserating. The archness had been directed at Monte, not at Julia. “You’ve felt that fear?” she asked more meekly.

“I have.”

Gratified, Julia relaxed some. As she did, though, the pain emerged. “It was sharpest the first time I realized what was going on. I was convinced he had fallen in love with someone else and would divorce me. I learned to live with the fear, but there was always a new doubt. Did I look young enough? Did I dress stylishly enough? Was I deferential enough and agreeable enough and interesting enough? Was I accommodating enough? Did I do enough for him, so that he would
need
me?”

Janet slid her feet to the ground and sat up. “You were far better at all those things than I was.”

“I doubt that,” Julia said. “I pale next to you. But Dad’s different from Monte. He’s proud of your career, and anyway, he’s a background kind of guy. Monte’s not. He wants to be up there on a pedestal. He likes being seen and admired. He likes being
coveted
. So I worked harder to be deferential and agreeable and interesting. I knew that if I became a negative asset, he would sell me off.”

“Buy you off,” Janet corrected.

“That’s an awful pressure to live with. After the accident, it just seemed self-defeating.”

“What will you do? Where will you live?”

Julia hadn’t thought that far. All she knew was that having slept with Noah, she had to end her marriage. “For now, I’ll stay on Big Sawyer.”

“You need a lawyer.”

“I have one. I met with him yesterday, before I saw Monte.”

“How did Monte take it?”

“He tried arguing, but I caught him red-handed. I honestly think this is the first time I’ve ever won an argument with him. Toward the end, he was almost looking sad.”

“Almost?”

“I’d say ‘truly,’ if I didn’t know what a good actor he is. That’s the saddest thing of all.”

“The lack of trust.”

“Yes.”

Janet sat back in the lounger again, eyes focused on the pair of tall oaks at the end of the yard. After a bit, without looking at Julia, she said, “You think you’re above it. I run an organization that deals with people who are down-and-out, dysfunctional, impoverished on so many levels, and it’s been easy to feel superior, because I’m none of those things.” She aimed stricken eyes at Julia. “The hubris does you in. Suddenly you see that you’re not above anyone or anything, because right in your own home, things aren’t so good.”

“But they are,” Julia countered. This was part of the awakening she’d had after the sinking of the
Amelia Celeste
. “We’re alive. We’re healthy. What a gift that is.”

Pensive, Janet looked at her dogwoods. Closer to the patio than the oaks, they had lost their blossoms but were lush in size and rich in color. An old wrought-iron bench sat under one. Julia had spent many summer days on that bench, many quiet moments. With so much changing in her life, being here with her mother was a cushion.

After a time, Janet faced her. “You’ve had reason to think about death.”

Julia had. Mere mention of it brought back all the hurt she had felt. In the comfort of the setting, she found the strength to say, “I needed you, Mom. You didn’t have to visit. A call would have been enough.”

“I know.”

“You have an aversion to Big Sawyer, but this was me, not Zoe. I’m your daughter.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

Julia heard the apology. Being Julia, though, she couldn’t make her mother grovel. So she went on, reasoning, “It’s been a growing experience for me. I managed on my own. I’m better off for that. Actually, Mom”—there was more to say, but she needed a time-out—“I’m hungry. Are you interested in lunch?”

Janet looked nervous. “I don’t have much; it’s just your father and me, and now with him gone…”

What she didn’t say was that George did the shopping, and that with his being gone nearly a week, the refrigerator was bare. “I’ll run to the market,” Julia offered. “Want anything special?”

Janet insisted on coming, and it was a first. Julia couldn’t remember a time when she and her mother had walked these aisles together. From the way Janet studied the array of food, she wondered when her mother had last been here, period. Cleaned up and dressed now in a skirt and blouse, she looked more her usual composed self.

Julia chose to take credit for that—and found that it felt good. She was, after all, a nurturer. Yes, the nurturing had been one-sided and she had neglected herself in the process. That had to change. But if she took pleasure in caring for others, she didn’t see why she had to stop.

Understanding that, she relaxed with Janet, who pushed the carriage and pointed at things she wanted to buy, things that went well beyond lunch. But then, lunch wasn’t the point.

“Do they have a market up there?” Janet asked after they had picked up lettuce and fruit in the fresh-produce aisle.

“Not a supermarket, per se,” Julia replied, “just the island store, but it’s upscale.”

“Zoe was never a picky eater. Raisins, Julia. Over there. Is she still slim?”

“Very,” Julia said, putting the raisins in the cart as Janet rounded the corner into the next aisle.

“
Too
thin?”

“No. She’s just right.”

“Um, that cereal, I think. Your father never buys that one. But I like it.”

Julia took the cereal off the shelf, put it in the cart, and they went on.

“She probably hasn’t turned gray, either,” Janet remarked, but questioningly.

“She has. But she colors it. She looks good. She likes her life.”

“Zoe and the rabbits.”

Snide? Julia didn’t know. Giving Janet the benefit of the doubt, she said, “The rabbits are a means to an end. They connect her with people. Some of those people buy the babies, some buy the wool.”

“We need bottled water,” Janet said. She took the bottles as Julia handed them to her, and neatly lined them up in the cart. “Does she smell of rabbit?”

“No, she does not. Angoras don’t smell.”

Janet pointed at coffee, then, in the next aisle, applesauce. They turned onto the pasta aisle. Janet picked up a box of tortellini and read the directions on the side. “Have you ever made this?”

“Not that brand.”

Janet replaced the box and pushed the cart on. When they started down the detergent aisle, she said, “What about men?”

“What about them?”

“Fabric softener sheets, please. Yes, those. Isn’t she interested?”

“She has many male friends.”

Softener sheets went beside applesauce, and the cart moved on. “That’s not what I meant.”

“She’s been with men. Two were long-term.”

“What happened?”

“She decided she liked her independence too much to give it up. She has a nice life, Mom.”

Janet studied the shelves of dishwasher detergent. “But she has no family.”

“Her friends are her family.”

They rounded the end of the aisle and came face-to-face with condiments. “I need mustard. And cucumber chips. Choose whatever brand you like. Did she never want children?”

Julia chose her favorites and set the jars in the cart. “She kept waiting for a husband. She’s pretty conventional that way. By the time she realized there wouldn’t be one, when she might have considered a sperm donor, she was already perimenopausal. It hit early.”

“With me, too. Maybe you, in a few years.”

Julia thought of what she and Noah had done, all unprotected, because they were, after all, forty, with children who were grown, or nearly so. Women with twenty-year-old children didn’t get pregnant. At least, she hoped they didn’t. This wasn’t the time for it at all.

“Why does that embarrass you?” Janet asked curiously.

Julia’s eyes flew to hers. “It doesn’t.”

“You’re blushing.”

“Oh. No. Here’s the bread. What kind would you like?”

“I like rye. Your father does not.”

“I do.” Julia reached for rye.

They hit the deli department next, took a number, and waited their turn. They stood close and spoke low, similar in height and looks, if years apart.

“I didn’t expect Zoe to stay on that island,” Janet said. “She used to be adventurous.”

“She used to be twenty.”

“She was reckless then. What’s her house like?”

“It’s nothing like yours.”

“Obviously. What kind of sandwiches do we want to make? I like their seafood salad.”

Julia’s first instinct was to go along with that. Old habits died hard.

But no seafood salad here could compare with that at the Harbor Grill, and the new Julia had a voice. “Turkey breast for me. Let’s buy some of each,” which was what they did.

At the dairy case, Janet reached for a quart of milk. “So, what’s it like?”

“Zoe’s house?” Julia described the farmhouse as they returned to the front of the store. “Is there anything else you need?”

“Yes. Paper towels. I want the eight-pack. Your father buys one roll at a time. Can you imagine? Not only does it cost more, but he has to think about it every week, rather than once in two months. He shops like a man.”

“If you went with him, you could teach him.”

“But then I’d have to go myself, and I’m too busy.”

Julia thought about that during the drive home. Out on the patio again, now with sandwiches and drinks, she was comfortable enough to be bold. “Dad feels some of that, you know.”

“Some of what?”

“Your being too busy. It’s the bottom line of why he went to Maine.”

“He was angry that I didn’t call you,” Janet argued.

Julia disagreed. “He was angry that you said you were too busy to do it, because it tapped into his anger about
that
. He wants more of your time, Mom. He’s getting old enough to relax some about work. He wants you to do the same.”

“Retirement. It’s a frightening word. I’m not ready.”

“No one’s asking you to retire. Can’t you just cut back some?”

To her credit, Janet didn’t summarily dismiss the idea. “I can, but I’m not sure I want to. Cutting back—going into even semiretirement— it’s a whole new stage. Some of my friends are having a hard time.” She shot Julia an awkward look. “You know, being with their husbands all the time.”

“Do you love Dad?”

“Of course.”

“Then, what’s the problem?”

“We’ve been used to something else. I’m not sure how it would work. He might hate having
me
around all the time.”

“He wouldn’t. He worships you. He would feel
honored
if you chose to spend more time with him.”

Janet was clearly unsure of that, because she got blustery. “Well, he needs to tell me that.”