Goodbye To All That (46 page)

“I’d love to,” Jill’s mother promised.

“Corelli,
schmelli
. When she’s not listening to Corelli, she goes dancing at rock clubs,” Jill’s father muttered.

“Rock clubs?” More tumult. Noah raised a fist in victory and hissed a
yes!
Doug frowned at Brooke, who turned her hands palm up in the universal “don’t ask me” gesture. Jill simply sipped her wine. She’d known about her mother’s club-hopping, just as she’d known Melissa had fallen in love with the apartment in New York because the second bedroom would make a perfect nursery. She knew Brooke was a lot tougher and smarter than she let on, and she knew Doug was a lot softer and more vulnerable. She knew her father was far more dependent on her mother than her mother was on him.

Everything was different, and she knew all about it.

Down at the other end of the table, Gordon caught her eye. He wasn’t different, she thought with a burst of gratitude. He’d been Gordon when she worked at home, and he would be Gordon when she worked in the minuscule office she’d found for rent on the second floor above the bakery where she bought her father’s rugelach. He was Gordon, the father of a little boy and a little girl, and in a few months he’d be Gordon, the father of a not-so-little boy and a young woman.

Everyone was eating. Everyone was talking. This was definitely a successful party.

“MOM?” ABBIE CALLED through the open bedroom doorway.

Gordon was already in bed, clad in his sweatpants and leaning against his pillow, which he’d turned vertical against the headboard so he could sit comfortably. He was reading the sports section of the
Boston Globe
, which he hadn’t had a chance to read earlier because the house had been full of company.

Now they were all gone. Melissa and Aidan had accepted Doug and Brooke’s invitation to stay with them—“We’ve got more room, and Jill’s got her hands full dealing with dinner,” Brooke had pointed out. Jill’s parents had left, and Jill had watched from the front door as her father had opened the passenger door for her mother and taken her hand as she lowered herself onto the seat. Chivalry, affection
 . . .
whatever it was, it had made Jill’s eyes tear up.

Or maybe they’d teared up because of the monumental mess awaiting her attention in the kitchen. Pots, plates, leftovers, half-burnt candles. Silverware. Stemware. Picked-over
crudités.

But things had gotten cleaned up, with assistance from Abbie, Noah and Gordon. Noah stuffed things into the dishwasher the way professional basketball players stuffed balls into baskets, and Gordon’s concept of clean counters differed drastically from Jill’s, but eventually the kitchen had been restored to its usual state of semi-neatness. Jill had rewarded herself with a Diet Coke once the last of the mashed potatoes had been snapped inside a plastic container and crammed onto an already overcrowded shelf in the refrigerator.

She’d been in the bathroom when Abbie had summoned her. Noah was slumbering peacefully in his bed; ten years old meant he no longer fought her over bedtimes. He seemed to be growing an inch a day, and he needed sleep to recover from the strain. It was too early for Abbie to retire when she didn’t have school the following day, but she was dressed for bed in an L.L. Bean nightshirt.

Jill was dressed in a nightshirt, too. She’d just finished rinsing her toothpaste and Gordon’s down the sink. No way would she complain about his having left blobs of toothpaste stuck to the porcelain. She was in too good a mood, and he
had
wiped down the kitchen counters, sort of.

“What’s up, honey?” she asked, emerging from the bathroom into the bedroom.

“Earlier today, Aunt Brooke told me I needed to have a theme for my bat mitzvah.”

Jill nodded. “You don’t
need
to have a theme. Aunt Brooke thinks that makes for a better party, but we had a great party today and it didn’t have a theme.”

“Yes it did,” Abbie argued.

“What was the theme?”

“Thanksgiving,” Gordon shouted from the bed.

“Family,” Abbie corrected him. “That was the theme.”

Jill pondered Abbie’s statement and found nothing to dispute. “Okay. That still doesn’t mean you need to have a theme for your bat mitzvah.”

“Well, I’ve got a theme.” Abbie lifted her chin slightly, a posture of pride. “Independence.”

“Independence?”

“Yeah. That’s the theme.”

Jill suppressed a smile. “I think Aunt Brooke was thinking along the lines of, you know. Soccer. Or Star Wars.”

“Gross!”

“Or the Red Sox. Something that would lend itself to the decorations and the invitations.”

“Independence would work. We could have the Statue of Liberty on the cake. And party favors that looked like the Declaration of Independence.”

“You mean, a Colonial theme?” Jill supposed that would work. Stars-and-stripes bunting, red-white-and-blue tablecloths
 . . .

“No, an
independence
theme,” Abbie emphasized. “Like freedom. Liberation. It’s my bat mitzvah, and it means I’m taking charge of my life, and I can be anything I want to be. Anyone can, if they’re willing to fight for it. Like Grandma getting her own apartment. And you getting an office. Liberation.”

It sounded awfully amorphous to Jill, but she loved the idea. More important, she loved Abbie for having come up with it. “We’ll talk to Aunt Brooke about it,” she said. “You and she can brainstorm and figure out how to make it work.”

“You too, Mom. I want you brainstorming, too.”

“All of us, then.”

“We can meet in your office.”

Jill smiled, trying to picture all three of them squeezing into that tiny space. They might all fit if she and Brooke wound up buying a small desk. And maybe only one file cabinet, instead of two.

“Fine. We’ll meet in the office.”

Abbie broke into a joyous grin. “Thanks,” she said, gathering Jill in a surprisingly strong hug. “’Night, Daddy,” she hollered in Gordon’s direction before skipping down the hall to her own bedroom.

Jill waited until Abbie had closed her door before shutting her own bedroom door and turning to Gordon. He folded the sports section and tossed it onto the floor beside the bed.

Jill considered picking it up and putting it on his dresser, then thought, what the hell. Right now his chest was more important. His naked chest. His adorable, familiar smile. His flyaway hair. His strong arms empty, waiting.

“Hey, buddy,” she murmured, crossing the room to the bed and tugging open the buttons of her night shirt. “Wanna show a girl a good time?”

“Let me think about it,” he joked, though his eyes were warm and those strong arms reached eagerly for her.

She had an office. Paying for it meant she might never be able to afford France. Or maybe she
would
be able to afford it, eventually. Anything was possible.

And in the meantime, she thought as Gordon pulled her closer, she had this.

“She can hire Brooke to plan her wedding.”

Ruth grinned. “Maybe her old boyfriend will do her hair for the event. Maybe he’ll do all our hair.”

“Marlon Brando,” Richard muttered, glancing Ruth’s way again. “Don’t let him near your hair. It looks fine the way it is.”

Ruth realized with a start that he’d said something nice about her appearance. She tried to recall the last time he’d given her a compliment, the last time she was even aware that he’d noticed her hair. Not that she blamed him; you live with a person for forty-two years and you stop seeing that person. “Thank you,” she said.

Richard slowed the car as they neared the entry to her apartment complex. His smile faded as he steered a meandering route past the blocky brick buildings and the parking lots, in and out of pools of light from the street lamps, until he reached her building. He pulled into one of the unnumbered visitor spots and shut off the engine. Then he turned to her.

She braced herself. Was he going to plead with her to come home? Point out that the wonderful evening they’d had, not just with their family but with each other, proved their marriage was still solid and healthy and they should be together? Blubber that he missed her?

If he did, how would she respond? Would she break his heart if she told him she wouldn’t come home? She adored her cozy little apartment and her simple suppers. She appreciated her newfound lightness. And while she admittedly felt affectionate toward him right now, maybe even loving—she
had
drunk quite a bit of wine, after all—she didn’t miss him.

“I had a good time tonight,” he said somberly. “I’d like to see you again.”

Like a date. She stifled the urge to laugh at his stilted, polite request. He seemed so solemn, she didn’t want to insult him by bursting into giggles.

“I was going to ask you to come back to the house with me,” he continued when she remained silent. “But I realized
 . . .
this will sound strange, but I’m not ready for you to do that.”

It
did
sound strange. Her urge to laugh waned as she studied him in the uneven light. He looked bemused, as if he didn’t understand his own feelings.

“I don’t know how to say this, Ruth. You’re my wife. I love you. But
 . . .
I like channel surfing. I’m not sure I want to stop clicking the remote.”

She did laugh then, a gentle chuckle, and he allowed himself a hesitant smile.