Goodbye To All That (4 page)

Frowning, he turned from Brooke and veered around the island to the cordless phone. He and his father played golf every Saturday afternoon. If his father spent his Saturday mornings at synagogue, Doug didn’t know. He didn’t ask. Fortunately, his father didn’t ask him, either. The only time Doug entered a synagogue lately was if someone was getting married or bar mitzvahed. Funerals, most people opted for graveside services these days. Sometimes a memorial at a shul a month later. Doug didn’t know too many dead people, thank God.

But just about every Saturday between late April and early October, he and the old man golfed eighteen holes at Sandy Burr. It was their routine, their manly celebration. Men were outnumbered by women in the Bendel family, and throughout Doug’s life his father had always come up with activities for just the two of them, official testosterone rituals. Boy Scouts, Little League, fishing at Quabbin Reservoir. Hikes through the rolling hills near Amherst during Doug’s college years. And now golfing. Doug’s father wasn’t particularly skilled at swinging a club, but they didn’t play to win. They played for the excuse it gave them to stroll a few miles around gorgeous, manicured lawns and talk about things that had no real importance in their lives: the Red Sox pitching staff, some article on arrhythmia in the latest issue of the
New England Journal of Medicine
, the qualitative differences between this and that brand of golf ball.

Doug couldn’t imagine his father canceling their regular date at the club—especially when they had only a few good weeks of golf left before the weather turned cold—just because Jill, of all people, was making demands. Jill never made demands. Melissa was the one always frantic, always frenzied, in desperate need of guidance or assistance.

He punched in Jill’s speed-dial number and wandered into the pantry while the phone rang on the other end.

Jill answered on the third ring. “Hello?”

“Hey, it’s me,” Doug said, his gaze roaming over the glass-fronted cabinets that lined the pantry’s walls. On the other side of the glass stood neat stacks of Brooke’s special-occasions Wedgwood china, as well as cookbooks and implements—an electric skillet, an ice-cream maker—that he’d never seen her use. “What’s this crap about Saturday? Dad and I are playing golf.”

“No you’re not,” Jill said in an officious voice. It was the same voice she used to trot out when they were all little and he and Melissa would get into a fight. Jill, the noble middle child, the mediator, the one who insisted on their forging a truce before Mom and Dad barged in and started handing out punishments, would always get that I-am-the-only-sensible-person-in-this-room voice. She might be twenty-five years older today, but her tone of voice hadn’t changed at all. “Everyone’s coming to my house. One thirty. Dad will be here, too.”

“Why?”

“I can’t tell you.”

It took him a moment to remember his birthday was in March. Jill couldn’t be planning a surprise party for him—although a birthday party six months early would sure as hell be a surprise.

He didn’t like surprises, birthday or otherwise. If Jill had suggested a surprise party in his honor, Brooke would have vetoed the plan. She would have insisted on hosting the thing herself, and she would have conferred with Doug on the choice of caterer, the menu and the decorations. She would have chosen a theme for the party. He didn’t understand her obsession with themes, but her parties were always classy, and according to her, classy parties had themes. Last June, the twins’ birthday party had had a circus theme, complete with a calliope, a clown who juggled bowling pins and a tightrope set six inches above the ground that all the children got to walk across while clutching Brooke’s and Doug’s hands. The theme of the party she’d thrown for Doug to celebrate the opening of his corrective-eye-surgery clinic was—no surprise—
vision
. She’d decorated the rooms with oversize plastic eyeglass frames and posted eye charts on the walls, and served hors d’oeuvres on round glass plates shaped like gigantic contact lenses. His parents’ fortieth anniversary party a couple of years ago had featured a jukebox filled with rock songs that had been popular during their youth. All the guests had been required to dress like hippies.

His family knew better than to attempt to trump Brooke when it came to entertaining.

So why did he have to go to Jill’s house? Obviously not for a party. A family pow-wow of some sort. Maybe Grandma Schwartz was deteriorating—although that certainly shouldn’t entail a Bendel summit meeting. The woman was ninety-four. She wore diapers and sang unrecognizable melodies most of the time. She seemed happy enough when Doug visited her at her assisted-living community.

“I don’t like secrets,” Doug told Jill.

“I don’t either, but Mom made me promise.”

And you’re Mom’s favorite
, Doug almost retorted, but that wasn’t really true. Their mother loved all her children equally, or so she often insisted. And since Doug was clearly their father’s favorite, he supposed he was ahead by half a length. “Tell me what’s going on, or I won’t come,” he tried. Sometimes ultimatums worked.

Jill made a sound that was halfway between a sigh and a groan. The asthma of frustration, he diagnosed it. “I can’t, okay? It’s just
 . . .
” Another little wheeze. “It’s a mess, and the whole family needs to get together and sort it out. Melissa’s coming up from New York, too.”

Doug frowned again. Melissa created messes. She didn’t sort them out.

“Look,” Jill continued, her tone now conciliatory. “You’ll come, Dad’ll be here, and if everything goes well, you and he can leave and play golf. I don’t care. I don’t want any of this.”

“Then why are we doing it?”

“We have to help Mom and Dad.”

Shit. Were they having financial problems? Doug’s father’s income was lower than Doug’s; preventing patients from dying of heart ailments clearly wasn’t worth as much as reshaping their corneas. Still, his father did very well.

But he was getting older. He might have another five years of practice left in him, maybe ten if his patients didn’t mind having their heart palpitations monitored by a septuagenarian. Once the old man was retired, though, how well were the folks set up? They had equity in their house, and Doug was sure his father’s practice had established a 401K plan for their staff. His parents weren’t extravagant. They didn’t take world cruises. They didn’t drop thousands of dollars at the casinos. Unlike Brooke, Doug’s mother wasn’t a big fan of manicures and overpriced perfume.

Where could their money have vanished to?

If they were facing destitution, of course, Doug would be expected to kick in the most to help them out. He had the most to kick in. As an associate with a New York law firm, Melissa earned a generous income, and if she made partner that income would rise. But she lived in Manhattan, and whatever part of her salary didn’t get devoured by rent was spent on sprees at, as she called it, “Cousin Henri’s.” Brooke had had to explain to Doug what Henri Bendel was. Pricey store, no relation.

“What time is this gathering?” he asked Jill, toying with a dish towel that hung over the knob on one of the drawers. Where had that come from? And why did it feel so soft? Like suede.

“One-thirty,” Jill said.

“Make it one o’clock. If we finish early, Dad and I can still get in eighteen holes.”

“One-thirty, Doug. Don’t give me a hard time, okay? I don’t like this any more than you do, and I’m not even a golfer.”

She might not like it, but at least she knew what was going on. Doug was the eldest. And not to get sexist about it, but he was the only son. It wasn’t fair that Jill knew things he didn’t know. “Jill,” he said in his sternest older-brother voice. “You have to tell me what this is about.”

“I promised Mom.”

“Mom put you in an untenable position. We’re sibs, right? United we stand. I covered for you when
 . . .
well, you never did anything wrong, so maybe I didn’t cover for you. But we both covered for Melissa a million times. And I got you through that stupid biology course you took in college.”

“I shouldn’t have signed up for that class,” Jill admitted. “My advisor kept telling me I wasn’t well-rounded and I needed science in my schedule.”

“If it hadn’t been for me, you wouldn’t have made the Dean’s List that semester. I was there for you, Jill. I had your back.”

She fell silent. He imagined guilt and indebtedness simmering through the wires between them. “All right,” she said finally, reluctantly. “But you can’t tell anyone.”

“Fine.”

“Not even Brooke. I mean it, Doug. Mom made me promise—”

“I won’t tell Brooke. What?”

“They’re getting a divorce.”

Doug scowled. “Who?”

“Mom and Dad. Don’t tell anyone. They want to tell us all in person. Except that I made Mom tell me. And now I’ve told you.” Jill’s voice wavered, as if threatened by a sob.

“All right, all right,” he said, too focused on calming her down to digest what she’d just told him. “It’s going to be all right. I won’t tell anyone.”

“Not even Melissa.”

“Especially not Melissa.”
Why the hell not Melissa?
he wondered, then answered his own question: because Melissa would freak out.

Not like him. He had nerves of steel. He made microscopic incisions in people’s corneas several times a day. He could handle this.

A divorce? A fucking divorce? His parents?

“And you have to act surprised,” she added. “When Mom and Dad tell us, you have to act like you didn’t know.”

“Right.” Jill’s news was beginning to sink in. Jesus Christ. A divorce. Mom and Dad. Ruth and Richard Bendel, who’d been together so long their names had merged. RuthandRichard.

He heard his daughters’ voices chirping down the hall as they approached the kitchen. They were chattering about something, both speaking at once, as they frequently did. For some reason, they could talk and listen simultaneously, only with each other and usually in such a way that no one else could begin to absorb their words. Maybe they’d developed that talent in utero.

“I’ve got to go,” he said, peering down the in the direction of the family room. “I’ll see you Saturday.”

“One-thirty,” Jill reminded him.

“Right.”

“And don’t tell anyone.”

“Right.” He thumbed the disconnect button and stifled a groan. A divorce. How? Why?

Son of a bitch. A faint smile caught his mouth as he considered the most obvious
why
. His father—that old fox—must have something going on the side. A patient, maybe. Someone whose life he’d saved with a well-placed stent who simply had to show her gratitude to him. Or a lusty young nurse. Doug had never met the sort of nurses he used to read about in girlie magazines when he’d been in high school, but maybe they existed. Maybe his father had crossed paths with one.

Doug wished more than ever that he’d be hitting the links with his father on Saturday. The old man wouldn’t open up about his extracurricular activities in front of Jill and Melissa. And of course he wouldn’t feel comfortable discussing his peccadilloes in front of his wife. But he and Doug, man to man, somewhere around the fourth hole
 . . .
He’d love to hear what the senior Dr. Bendel was up to.

His amusement was instantly replaced by a remorse-tinged flare of indignation on his mother’s behalf. If the senior Dr. Bendel was performing pelvics on some lusty, busty young nurse, Doug might have to chew him out. He might have to lecture him to shape up, to show some respect for the woman who’d borne his children. For God’s sake, Doug’s father was too old to be having a mid-life crisis.

Of course, if the nurse was
really
hot
 . . .

Shaking his head, he returned to the kitchen and set the phone back in its cradle to recharge. Brooke had moved to the sink and was hunkered down so she could view the girls at eye level while they blathered at her about something they’d just seen on television. Something utterly hilarious, given their shrill giggles and breathless descriptions.