Lies You Wanted to Hear (9 page)

Matt

I drove home from Cambridge with my heart in my throat. On the way I kept thinking about two things Mrs. Stansbury said. The first was that before today she hadn’t seen Griffin in ages. The other was that she’d heard Lucy yelling at him. At least Lucy hadn’t been deceiving me for weeks or months, though a cynic (or a realist) might say she dumped me and bolted with Griffin the minute he came back. But what was she yelling about? I pulled over to the side of the road and took out Lucy’s note. I kept trying to read between the lines, hoping to find some clue that she had acted against her will. As if Griffin had come back and kidnapped her and forced her to write it. I kept wanting to believe she was something other than a cold-hearted bitch.

When I got back to my apartment from Cambridge, Kreider was coming out the front door carrying his gym bag.

“Hey,” he said, “I thought you were headed for the Big Apple?”

“Change of plans. Lucy had to go home to her parents’ for the weekend.” I congratulated myself on the innocuous response.

Kreider asked if I wanted to go to the Y and play some hoops. I said sure and went to grab my stuff. We rode in his car. I hadn’t played in any of the Friday night basketball games since I’d started seeing Lucy. Most of the guys were in their twenties and thirties, but there were a couple of older guys who were still pretty good. We played full court. No refs, no harm/no foul, a rough, punishing game that helped me get my mind off Lucy. As I was going up for a rebound near the end of the evening, a sergeant from the crime lab gave me a hip check and I landed hard on my left shoulder. Some guys on my team started pointing fingers, saying it was a cheap shot. When the sergeant told them to go fuck themselves, Paki Epstein walked over and doubled him over with a quick punch to the stomach. Paki was a wiry little guy who could dribble like Earl the Pearl. No one knew what he did for a living, but there were rumors he used to work as a bag man for the Winter Hill Gang. The sergeant didn’t try to retaliate, and we decided the game was over. As I was getting dressed, my shoulder hurt so much I could barely raise my arm. I didn’t mind. It was another distraction and fit my mood.

A bunch of us went to a bar in Back Bay. Free drinks for Paki and me. Someone at the table ordered a Perfect Manhattan. Nice bit of irony given where I was supposed to be going. I had no idea what was in the drink but said I’d take one too. We laughed about Paki’s punch and bragged to one another about our exploits on the court. I drank the Manhattan quickly and ordered another. My shoulder burned deep in the joint. The second drink made everything fuzzy. Kreider picked up a girl with stupendous tits and a face like a ferret.

I got up and went to the bathroom. While I was washing my hands, I looked at myself, bleary-eyed, in the mirror and let out a groan. I left the bar without returning to the table. I walked a few blocks and began to shiver. The temperature must have dropped twenty degrees in the past hour. I was wearing only a light jacket, my head turtled in the upturned collar. A few taxis passed, but I didn’t try to flag them down. I wondered what Lucy and Griffin were doing right now, then tried to chase away the images. I felt less anger and jealousy than a vast, unfathomable emptiness. I windmilled my left arm to get the kink out of my shoulder, or to punish myself with the pain. Lucy had tried to warn me not to fall in love with her, but I kept ignoring the cues, pretending I didn’t know how it would end.

This wasn’t a matter of taking the road less traveled. Anyone with an ounce of curiosity could do that. This was about knowing exactly where the road will lead and taking it anyway, believing you could change your fate. She was everything I ever desired. There were times when we were making love or talking over dinner or simply sitting in a movie theater holding hands that I felt so
connected
my entire body seemed to be filled with light. And I would often find myself thinking,
I’ll bet some people have never felt like this in their whole lives, not even once.
Now it occurred to me that Lucy probably had never felt that way about me. Not even once.

A working girl stepped out of the shadows and said, “Hey, handsome.”

“Hey,” I said and kept walking.

“I could show you a good time,” she called after me.

Halfway down the block I considered turning around and going back to her. Or driving to Cambridge and knocking on Mrs. Stansbury’s door. Either/or—at least I’d be doing something. But I kept walking, not half as drunk as I wanted to be.

***

I was dozing in front of the TV when the telephone rang. I had a hunch it was Lucy and thought about not picking up. She’d wonder where I was, wonder if I knew the truth. I wished we had an answering machine so I could hear her tone of voice. Would she try to keep the lie going? How would I react if she did—or didn’t? I still felt empty, no energy for anger, not yet anyway. It’s the way all dupes feel I suppose. You want to blame the swindler, but somewhere in the back of your mind you’ve known all along the deal was too good be true.

I answered the phone on the fifth ring.

“Matt? It’s me,” Lucy said. “Sorry if I woke you up.”

“No, no, it’s okay. I’ve been hoping you’d call.”

“Thanks, I…Boy, what a wild day.” She was trying to sound frazzled and relieved at the same time.

“How’s your mother?”

“Better. She’s…”

“What?”

“It wasn’t her, Matt. It was me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m sorry I left that note. It was a terrible thing to do. There wasn’t any crisis with my mother.”

A dash of honesty. I didn’t say anything.

“Matt, this weekend… I’ve had some big things on mind. Maybe you have too. It’s no excuse, but I haven’t been feeling well the past few weeks. It was horrible to leave you a note like that, but I wanted…I needed some space. I got scared and ran. I’m so sorry.” She changed to the voice of a naughty little girl. “Can you forgive me? I don’t want to lie anymore.”

“Where’d you run to?”

“Nowhere. Just drove around. I’m home now. Can I come over? We need to talk.”

“Talk about what?”

“Us. The future.”

She really thought she could get away with it. “Will that include Griffin?”

She let out a soft cry. “Oh, Matt.” Which was the same thing she said the first time I told her I loved her. I let her dangle in the silence. “How did…? I swear I was going to tell you.”

“Right.”

“Please don’t hate me. I
tried
to get him to leave, but he wouldn’t. I was afraid of what might happen if he was still here when you came to pick me up.” I said nothing. “I know how cruel and stupid I’ve been. All I can do now is be honest and hope you’ll forgive me. Griffin showed up out of nowhere. I hadn’t seen him or talked to him in months. We had a long, rocky relationship. The last time I saw him I…Listen, Matt,
you’re
the one I want to be with. Please, let me come over and I’ll tell you everything.”

“I’ll come to Cambridge,” I said and hung up.

I drove like a madman. Lucy left the front door open so I could let myself in. She was waiting at the top of the stairs in black flannel pajamas, shoulders hunched, her hands tucked under her armpits. Her skin was pasty and her eyes full of remorse. She wanted a hug, but I brushed past her. The apartment smelled of fresh coffee. I went into the kitchen and sat down, and she poured me a cup.

“Are you hungry?” she said. “I could make you cinnamon toast.”

“Okay.”

She put bread in the toaster. Neither of us spoke. Her hair was pinned up carelessly. A long strand fell across her cheek. The yellow-and-white-striped canisters on the counter had come from my mother’s house. Lucy had admired them, and I said she should bring them home. She sprinkled sugar and cinnamon on the toast, then sat down across the table.

“You’re not eating?” I said.

“I’m feeling a little queasy.”

A nasty retort came to mind, but I didn’t say it. She reached for my hand, then withdrew hers when I failed to meet her halfway.

“Look, Matt, what I did today was the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life. You have every right to be furious, but
nothing
happened with Griffin. Nothing I’m ashamed of.” She looked me directly in the eyes. “I didn’t have sex with him. We argued and talked and argued some more. There’s a lot of history there. Some stuff that never got resolved. But that’s all over now. You have to believe me. I belong here with
you
, Matt. This is where I want to be.”

I gave a skeptical shrug, as if to say,
So
what
if
I
believe
you? The
damage is already done.
She bit her lip, on the verge of tears. Truth was, I wanted to believe her. A few hours ago, I would have given my soul to have her back, but I wasn’t ready to let go of my anger. Rory came into the room, and Lucy bent down and scratched her ears.

“There are two things I have to tell you,” she said. “One bad, one good, at least from my point of view. God, I wish I had a cigarette.” She had picked her thumbs raw again. “First, I had an abortion last March. It was Griffin’s baby. He took off that same day, and I didn’t see him again until this afternoon. The second thing is…” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m pregnant again. No matter what you decide, I’m not going to have another abortion.”

“Holy shit! Are you positive?”

She gave a brave smile. “I got the test results today. We’re going to have a baby, Matt. Me and you.”

I went around the table and kissed her and said her name. Then I sank to the floor, my face pressed against her belly, and began to cry.

“I love you, Matt.” She was crying too. “I do. I really, really do.”

Part Two

Lucy

Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts—January 1981

When the bacon fat began to sizzle, I scraped the onions and mushrooms from the cutting board into the frying pan and stirred them with a wooden spoon. Amanda, who had arrived a half hour before, was sitting at the kitchen table, sipping a glass of sauvignon blanc. It was a few days past New Year’s, and she and my father had just come back from a vacation in Peru. As soon as they got home, Amanda called and asked if she could come for a visit, which I assumed meant she needed to get away from Thorny for a while. A shopping bag full of presents she’d brought was sitting in a corner of the kitchen.

“Amazing,” Amanda said, watching me slice a cucumber into thin, translucent slices.

“What?”

“You’re so
domesticated
.”

I mooed. Eight months pregnant with my second child, I’d spent the morning cleaning the house—definitely not my forte as Matt was quick to point out—now I was making dinner from a special recipe I’d gotten from Sandor. It was the same housewifely thing Amanda might have been doing herself thirty years ago, the parallel not lost on either of us.

“You disapprove?” I said.

“Not at all, dear. You’re obviously quite good at it.”

“Tell me about Peru,” I said.

“Oh, there were some wonderful moments. Machu Picchu is divine. You’re on top of a mountain surrounded by ruins, and it’s so
spiritual
you’re half expecting some ancient god to appear.” She lit a cigarette, and my nerve endings tingled at the smell. I’d quit smoking when I got pregnant again, but still had the urge. She continued telling me about their trip.

I diced a yellow pepper for the salad. To Matt’s delight, I’d become a pretty good cook since we’d gotten married though I rarely derived much enjoyment from it. The dinners were only for him and me. At two and a half, Sarah was a finicky eater, her diet consisting mostly of Cheerios and peanut butter and jelly. Matt and I were at odds over the issue. She was a healthy, happy kid, and I assumed she’d start eating other foods as she got older. I felt it was a waste of time and energy to try to get her to eat things she didn’t like; Matt thought she should take a bite of everything on her plate. He and Sarah often got into a battle of wills, which he (silent cheer) rarely won.

I said to Amanda, “How’s Daddy?”

“Fine. The same. Still kicking up his heels.”

“Are you worried?”

“Not a bit.” She took off her camel’s-hair jacket.

“And you’re still trying to keep up with him.”

“Oh honey, I’m too tired for that nonsense anymore,” she said, which probably meant she was on the prowl. I pictured her sitting in the club car on the train to Boston, talking to some salesman, laughing her silvery laugh. She was fifty-six, her beauty fading, but she had an air that gave off a hint of danger.

I looked out the window at the windblown snow banking halfway up the ladder of the wooden swing set in the backyard. The check that my parents had given Matt and me as a wedding present was so generous we’d bought a fixer-upper in Jamaica Plain. Built in 1904, the house was shabby and in need of updated wiring and plumbing, but otherwise sound. There was oak flooring in every room, a working fireplace in the master bedroom. I loved the panels of stained glass on either side of the front door and the plaster medallion shaped like a fruit basket around the base of the light fixture in the dining room. Matt and his pals from the police department who moonlighted as tradesmen had worked tirelessly to get the house in shape. The first thing they did was to renovate the apartment on the third floor, which tenants reached by a stairway at the back of the house. We rented the apartment to a couple named Derek and Robin Nevins, who were also expecting their first child. Robin’s baby, Emily, was born six days after Sarah.

Sarah and Emily burst through the back door with Robin, their faces rosy from the cold.

“Nanda!” Sarah ran to Amanda, who scooped her up onto her lap.

“How’s my little angel?”

“Good. Me and Em had ice cream.”

“Brrrrr. Ice cream in the middle of winter?”

“Mm-hmm. I like double fudge. Em likes plain old banilla.”

Amanda looked at Emily. “Good choice. Vanilla is my favorite too.”

Painfully shy around strangers, Emily was peeking out from behind Robin’s pant leg. Robin and I were practically raising the girls like twins, a double stroller to take them for walks, toys and books and clothes migrating from one place to the other till it was hard to remember whose was whose. Sarah was the first to talk, then translated Emily’s gibberish. They begged to sleep in the same room every night, a treat Robin and I reserved for special occasions. Now that was all about to change. Derek, a medical researcher, had gotten a job in Texas, and they were moving at the end of the month. A touch of panic flickered through me when I thought about their leaving. Robin and I traded time taking care of the girls, but she assumed more than her fair share, cheerfully dismissing my concerns.

Much as I loved my daughter, I felt like an inept and impatient mother. I managed okay for Sarah’s first year; she nursed gently and regularly, took long naps during the day, and slept soundly through the night. Back then I had time to relax. I read and worked in the garden and started a few small projects around the house. The struggle began when Sarah became a toddler. For me the problem was simply that I didn’t know how to play. I would sit on the floor with Sarah among the dolls and stuffed animals and brightly colored plastic toys that whirred and squeaked and plinked “Eine kleine nachtmusik” over and over, and time stood still. Thank goodness for
Sesame
Street
and
The
Electric
Company
—Sarah mesmerized by the television for an hour and a half, an occasional pun thrown in to amuse the grown-ups—which gave me a chance to fix supper and get a few things done around the house. What baffled me was how much pleasure Robin and Jill (who recently announced she was pregnant with her third) seemed to get from hanging out with toddlers. Did they really enjoy it, or were they just faking? I could never find a way to ask, afraid the question might seem disparaging or show my unfitness as a mother. I’d read articles in women’s magazines telling me I was not alone, with advice to mitigate the boredom and irritability, but nothing to assuage the guilt. I loved watching Sarah grow and discover new things, loved listening to her unfiltered, often hilarious comments on the world. But I needed more. I never should have let Matt talk me into quitting my job; now here I was, pregnant again, playing the role of the happy homemaker for Amanda, who knew all too well how poorly the apron fit. If I weren’t worried about harming the baby, I’d get drunk with her at supper tonight, or sneak off and smoke a little dope (if I still had some).

When Matt came home from work, Amanda gave us the presents she’d brought from Peru: hand-knitted wool sweaters for Matt and me, a stuffed llama for Sarah, a beautiful cotton blanket for the unborn baby. The llama was white, with a dark brown tuft of hair between his ears. Sarah said he looked like a bowl of ice cream with chocolate on top, and we dubbed him Sundae.

After dinner, Amanda insisted on cleaning up. I was sitting at the kitchen table with my tired legs propped up on an adjacent chair. Sarah’s squeals of laughter filtered down from the second floor where Matt was giving her a bath.

“He’s so good with her,” Amanda said.

“Yes, he is.” He was good at almost everything, which wasn’t always easy to live with.

“You got lucky.”

“I know.”

Amanda emptied the wine bottle into her glass. “Is this one going to be your last?”

I shrugged.

“How many does he want?”

“At
least
three.”

“Oh dear.”

I couldn’t claim that Matt had talked me into this pregnancy. He wanted to have another baby and I did too, mostly because I didn’t want Sarah to be an only child. My brother Mark and I had been very close growing up, especially as teenagers, though as adults, we had drifted apart. Mark spent most of his time abroad. I hadn’t seen him in four years, our communications limited to an occasional phone call or letter, but I couldn’t imagine having grown up without him. He had been my ally and confidant, my biggest fan and the first one to call me on my faults, a bulwark of sanity in the family asylum. I wanted a sibling like him for Sarah, someone to turn to when her hormones started raging and her parents became the enemy. To me, this second child seemed like the most precious gift I could give to my daughter—compensation, perhaps, for the inadequacies I felt as a mother. Depending on my mood, the gesture seemed touchingly noble or incredibly stupid.

Amanda finished loading the dishwasher. “Honey, if you want to, you could just go ahead and get your tubes tied. Matt doesn’t have to know.”

“I can’t do that, Mom. We’re just gonna have to fight it out.”

“Fight what out?” Matt said. He had Sarah in his arms, Sarah holding the llama.

“Nothing,” I said.

Matt shrugged, content not to know. No doubt he assumed it was some problem between Amanda and me. Having grown up with a mother whose capacity for love and understanding and a firm guiding hand had become the stuff of legend, Matt seemed perplexed by the strife in my family and a little self-righteous about the harmony in his own. He felt his upbringing gave him a distinct advantage over me when it came to raising children, and I, given my own maternal ambivalence, was inclined to agree. As for getting my tubes tied, Matt was so happy with the prospect of our second child, it seemed unkind of me to toss that issue into the mix when the baby hadn’t even been born yet. I figured we’d work it out in time, which was indicative of how we both operated, as if avoiding the hard stuff was almost as good as not having the hard stuff at all.

Sarah took the binky from her mouth. “It’s not nice to fight.”

“No it isn’t,” Matt said.

Amanda held out her arms and took Sarah from Matt. “Can Nanda read you a story and put you to bed?”

Sarah nodded enthusiastically. It amazed me how the two of them had bonded. Had my mother been this relaxed when Mark and I were kids? Why couldn’t I remember her as anything other than a crabby, impatient witch with a drink in her hand? When Amanda took Sarah up to her room, Matt squatted next to my chair and began to rub my weary legs.

“Good day today?” he said.

“Yeah, fine.”

“That was a terrific dinner.”

“Thank you.”

“Guess you’re pretty worn out?” It was his way of saying,
Any
chance
of
our
making
love
tonight?
Throughout my pregnancy, I’d been deliciously horny, which Matt never failed to appreciate, but lately I’d been feeling too tired to do much about it.

“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.” I leaned forward to kiss him, but my belly stopped me short.

Matt made up the difference between us. “Do you have any idea how much I love you?”

I smiled. Sometimes I wished I didn’t; I never quite felt like I repaid him in kind.

***

Around noon on Friday, the seventeenth of January, my water broke, and I went into labor two weeks early. I called the police department, and they said they’d try to get in touch with Matt as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, Robin got a neighbor to take care of Sarah and Emily while she drove me to the hospital. Things happened so quickly—twenty-three minutes from arriving at the hospital to giving birth—that Robin ended up staying with me the whole time. The baby was a boy. I was in my own room with him when Matt finally arrived. The baby was much smaller than Sarah had been, with a weak, mewling cry. After they did a few tests, the doctors determined he was so jaundiced that they took him away and put him in a special crib, naked, under an ultraviolet light. He looked like a tiny surfer with his down of blond hair and brownish-yellow skin. We named him Nathan Alexander Drobyshev.

When the baby and I came home from the hospital, the house was decorated with colored ribbons and helium balloons. Sarah and Emily huddled close to me, watching him nurse, touching his tiny fingers and toes. Rory the cat didn’t like the commotion of the homecoming but was curious about Nathan in a way she had never been about Sarah. The first night I put the baby to sleep, Rory cuddled up underneath the bassinet as if she were standing guard.

Matt took a week off work, cooking and doing the laundry and looking after Sarah and Emily while Robin and Derek got ready for their move. The thought of Robin’s leaving upset me so much I had refused to advertise the apartment for rent. I told Matt I didn’t want a bunch of strangers traipsing around upstairs while our friends were still living there. This was true, but I knew I was engaged in a bit of magical thinking: if the place wasn’t rented to someone else, there was still a possibility Robin and Derek would stay. The day the moving truck arrived, Sarah and Emily were inconsolable, and so was I.

Nathan nursed voraciously, as if he knew how small he was and was anxious to catch up. My nipples were cracked and sore, and I began expressing my milk, which I gave to him in a bottle while I healed. When he wasn’t feeding, he was colicky, never sleeping for more than an hour or two at a time. I started smoking again, much to Matt’s dismay. Friends phoned and I had nothing to say. I stopped getting dressed in the morning and spent entire days in my bathrobe, fending off Sarah’s pleas to go here or there. I would ask her if she missed Emily, knowing it was wrong to bring up the subject, but it was almost as if I wanted her to be as sad as I was. She’d nod and her lip would quiver, but she had an innate resilience and curiosity, and three minutes later she’d be cheerful again while I retreated deeper into my despair.

Matt did all the grocery shopping, but I couldn’t bring myself to cook. I’d make tuna fish sandwiches for dinner or call Matt and ask him to bring home some takeout food, rarely eating anything myself. One Saturday afternoon when Nathan was seven weeks old, Matt went off somewhere with Sarah and the baby to give me a break. I took a Benadryl in hopes of getting some sleep, but it didn’t seem to be kicking in. I decided to soak in the tub. Naked, I caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror, my skin loose and sallow, lips chapped, dark circles under my eyes—thirty years old and going on fifty. I got a pair of scissors and began to chop off my hair, thick sheaves dropping into the sink. Matt came home and found me curled up and shivering on the tile floor.