Between Husbands and Friends (26 page)

“I don’t know. But it’s something that can be easily proven.” I begin to babble, trying to rush us past this moment. “If you take the cheek brushing test and carry the CF gene, then you probably are his father. Then we would need to have Margaret tested. But because of … what I did that summer … Chip should be tested, too, in case he also carries the gene. Then Matthew and Abby will need to be tested. They’ll need to know if they carry the cystic fibrosis gene. Then we can have paternity tests done to see who … who Jeremy’s genetic father is. But first we need to find out who carries cystic fibrosis. Because you both could, you and Chip.”

“And if I don’t carry the CF gene, that’s proof that Jeremy is not my son.”

Oh, God, this hurts. “Not genetically.”

“Not genetically?” Max strikes his forehead. “Are you crazy? Is there any other way?”

“Yes.
Yes.
Max, come on.” I rise, stretch my hand out to him, although he backs away. “Jeremy is your son, no matter whose genes are in his blood.”

“Does Chip know Jeremy’s his child?”

“Of course not.”

“Of course not?”

“We’ve never even discussed the possibility. Max, Chip and I were together—”

“Fucked each other—” Max’s teeth are clenched. “Or would you prefer to say
making love
?”

“Only two times. It was just … loneliness. Consolation. It was nothing.”

“Right. I believe you. It was so
nothing
the first time that you did it again.”

“I want to explain—”

“All right.” Tears well in Max’s eyes and when he speaks, his voice is choked and strained. “Explain.”

I’m crying too hard to speak.

Max stands over me. “I can’t get this through my head. You slept with me and Chip within the same week? Within the same day?”

“Yes.”

“And when you discovered you were pregnant, what did you think?”

“I thought it was your child. I wanted it to be your child. Oh, Max, Jeremy
is
your child.”

“And it never occurred to you to tell me that this baby might be Chip’s? That’s impossible. Jesus, does Kate know about this? Does Chip? Am I the only one who’s been in the dark all along, some poor miserable cuckold?”

“No one else knows.”

“And you’ve kept this secret from me every day for six years. Every time we’ve slept together for the past six years. Every time we’ve lived with them here on Nantucket.”

“It wasn’t like that, Max.”

“Then what was it like?”

“I don’t know! It wasn’t some precious damned secret held close to my heart. I didn’t even think of it.”

“I thought we had a pretty good marriage. I thought we were—ha!” Tears shine in his eyes. “I thought we were fucking soul mates. It turns out I don’t even know who you are.”

“Don’t say that. You know me, Max. You know me.”

He stares at me bitterly, his lip curled in a horrible distaste. Then he goes to the closet, pulls down a duffel bag, and begins to throw clothing into it.

“What are you doing?”

He doesn’t answer. He continues to pack. He drops his duffel bag on the floor, opens his bureau, and tosses boxer shorts into it.

“Come on, Max, don’t do this. You can’t leave. You promised me you wouldn’t leave. You promised you’d help me through this, remember? Just ten minutes ago!”

His laptop computer rests on a table nestled in a bay window. He slides it into its case, gathers papers together, and stuffs them into a briefcase.

As he heads for the door, I grab him by his arm. Now I’m furious.

“You can’t walk away from Jeremy!”

His face is stone, implacable.

“Max, come on. Jeremy is sick. You have to help him.”

“Get his father to help him,” Max says. “Get Chip.”

Roughly he shrugs off my hand and pulls open the door. He storms through the hall, down the stairs, and out the front door.

“Max! Wait!” I run after him, tripping in my haste and catching my sandal on the stairs, stubbing my toe terribly. “Max!”

Outside the sky has turned indigo blue. Up and down the street the windows of houses glow golden with light. Max stops on the driveway. He reaches into the back of the Volvo to get something—his windbreaker—giving me time to catch up with him.

He mutters, “I’ll leave the car for you.”

“Max. Please don’t walk away.”

He doesn’t answer.

“Max, where will you go tonight? It’s too late for any planes or ferries. Stay here. Please.”

Max walks away.

I watch his stiff, damnably stubborn back, his proud precious fucking head held high, as he strides off down the road. It is too much.

“Then damn you!” I say under my breath.

“Mom.”

Margaret is standing on the front porch, looking puzzled and scared. Jeremy stands next to her.

“Where’s Dad going?” he asks.

“Dad and I had a little fight,” I tell my children as I return to the house.

“ ’Cause he has to go back to work?” Jeremy asks.

“Right.” A good lie; it reassures my children. This battle is familiar to them; it doesn’t mean that Max and I are really mad at each other.

“Don’t you want some lasagna, Mom?” Margaret asks.

I look at my daughter. Her voice is neutral but her eyes are wary.

“Of course I want some lasagna!” I hug her against me, but she pulls away. She suspects I’m lying. I will have to force myself to eat because that, in the idiosyncratic vocabulary of our family, will prove that I’m telling the truth about the argument between her father and me, will reassure her that everything is all right.

In the kitchen, Kate asks, “Where did Max go?”

“Back to Sussex.”

“Why?”

“I’ll tell you later.” I flick my eyes toward my children. Margaret catches my gaze and stares back at me steadily, not giving me an inch.

While Chip works upstairs, we watch a video together, Kate and I and our children.

Kate is sandwiched between Abby and Jeremy. Margaret curls at one end of the deep sofa, her feet pressed against my thigh; Matthew sprawls at the other end, his long legs extending into the room. This is normality, our two families nestled together, as content and familiar as
animals from the same pack, and it seems suddenly precious to me, an ordinary moment suddenly rimmed with sacredness, like the silver of a frame around a picture. I don’t think we’ll ever be all together like this again.

“Mom,” Margaret says in a low voice, “you’re chewing your nails. Gross.”

By the end of the movie the Littlies are yawning. I take my time putting Jeremy to bed. I want to cuddle his slight body against mine and read him all of
Caleb’s Friend
, but he’s had a long day. Hugging his book to him, he curls up beneath his sheet.

“Good night, Jere-Bear.” I kiss his nose. His skin is cool.

“ ’Night, Mom.”

The lamplight shines on his head. His brown curls glint where the sun has bleached them gold. Each separate strand of this hair holds the chronicle of Jeremy’s DNA, which contains in its infinitely twining strands the bead that makes him different from other little boys. It registers his curly hair, his big blue eyes, an ability to read at an early age, love of mermen, easy laughter, and the gene for cystic fibrosis, glinting at me like the gleam in Jeremy’s hair of gold. It is inseparable from who he is. It’s been there all along. It’s part of Jeremy. And, I must remember, even though I never knew before today, it is a part of me.

In her room Margaret lies in bed, lost in a book. I kiss her forehead.

“ ’Night, Mom,” she murmurs absently.

She is so lovely. She has no idea how much her life is going to change.

“Don’t read too late,” I tell her.

When I enter the kitchen, Kate hands me a glass with Bailey’s Irish Cream poured over ice. “Okay. Talk. What’s going on?”

The only light on in the room is the small bulb glowing over the sink and a gentle illumination enters from the hall. A hushed fragrant breeze flows in through the screened windows and door. In this moment of peace we stand, two friends as comfortable with each other, as comfort-giving to each other, as a favorite robe. She is so beautiful, my Kate, with her pale blond hair and her nose and cheeks pink from the sun. The lightest, smallest freckles dot her face in spite of all the sunblock she uses. Halfway up her long tanned neck two rings circle, indenting the skin, like age rings on a tree, growing more pronounced with every year. In her
ears are the delicate gold and amethyst flower earrings I gave her for her last birthday. She was born in July, a Leo.

I have lied for Kate. I have lied to Kate. Will they balance each other out?

I don’t think so. I think I am going to lose my friend.

I ask her, “Could you get Chip?”

Her eyes widen. “Lucy …”

“Please. I’d like to talk to you both together.”

Kate hurries up the stairs to the little room off their bedroom. Once a sewing room, it’s now Chip’s summer office, full of laptop computers and cell phones and file folders.

I want to run out the front door. I don’t want to do this. How can I do this? I walk into the living room, this fine, shabby, comfortable space with its faded chintz sofas and mantel lined with seashells. I was a little girl here once, a good little girl. I have always wondered if my aunt’s spirit somehow remained here, ghostlike, watching. Sometimes I’ve believed she gave me comfort. What would she think of me now? Certainly I didn’t think she was watching when I welcomed Chip into my bed.

Kate and Chip pad down the stairs and into the room in their bare feet.

“What’s up?” Chip asks.

They sit side by side on the sofa. I stand in front of the fireplace. The room seems very cold. I wrap my arms around my waist.

I clear my throat. I begin. “Jeremy has cystic fibrosis. It’s a genetic disease related to the pancreas that affects mucus in the body. Especially the lungs and the digestive system. It’s not curable. It can be alleviated and worked with, and people live longer now than they used to, but it’s still life-threatening; it shortens the lives of those who have it.”

“Shortens the lives,” Kate echoes, stunned.

“The average life expectancy is thirty years.”

“Oh, Lucy, honey.” She’s across the room in a rush, trying to wrap me in a consoling hug.

Gently I push her away. “Kate, don’t. There’s more.”

Kate grasps me by the shoulders. “We’ll help you. You know we’ll help you. Money, anything—”

“Kate, don’t. Listen to me, please.” My voice sounds ancient, some primitive rusting mechanism clogged with dirt. “Seven years ago Chip and I slept together. Twice.”

Chip inhales sharply, the sound of someone hit with a slap of ice water.

Kate flinches. She steps backward and peers at me as if I’m suddenly speaking in a foreign tongue. “I don’t understand.”

“It was the summer Abby was an infant.” I make myself look her in the eye. “You had Abby, and Margaret and Matthew were seven, and they were fascinated by you and the baby. Remember?”

“Go on.”

“You were this clique, this incredibly elite club, and I was left out in the cold. And Max was … depressed. My entire world was upside down.” I look over at Chip. His eyes are closed, his face clenched in pain, and for a bizarre flashing moment he looks like he did all those years ago when he grimaced in ecstasy as he climaxed inside my body.

“Chip?” Kate asks.

But Chip doesn’t speak. He’s gone as pale as snow.

“He felt left out, too,” I tell Kate. I’m leaning toward her, speaking urgently. Trying to make her remember. “You weren’t interested in sex, in him … you know you weren’t, Kate.”

“Of course I wasn’t! I’d just had a baby!” She looks around, confused, as if she needs to answer the phone or a knock on the door, then she grasps the edge of a chair and sinks down onto it, shaking her head as if to clear it. She studies Chip, who will not look at her. When she speaks, she is still looking at him. “Are you saying that my
obsession
with my infant gave you two an excuse to fuck each other?”

Chip doesn’t answer.

I say, “Not an excuse. Perhaps a reason.” I pause. “Remember, Kate, I had just lost my baby. Our son. I thought I’d never have another child.”

“So you were getting revenge on me because I did have a baby?”