Men and Dogs (23 page)

Virginia laughs sadly. “But he didn’t leave, did he?” It’s not a question but a bitter statement. “He drowned first.”

“You know, I’ve never thought he was dead.”

She frowns. “I do know that. Warren told me. I think Daisy told me, too.”

“Right.”

She shrugs. “And why do you think that?” she asks.

“Dying just doesn’t seem like something he would do.”

“Well, he did die,” she says curtly.

“I just don’t know, Virginia. The whole thing is so unclosed. The boat. The dog. No note. No—”

“He died.” Her voice goes up a notch. Hannah looks over in surprise. “He wouldn’t have just left all of us.” Embarrassed,
she looks away.

Hannah is quiet for a moment. So I’m not the only one, she thinks, that needs to believe something about my father.

“So what about DeWitt? Why was he at that party?”

“Oh.” Virginia sighs. “Well. That is the question.”

“What question?”

“We used to be together.”

“Yes. Me and DeWitt. We got together twice.”

Hannah pauses, taking this in. “When?”

“Once shortly before your father died.” She hesitates. “And once about ten or eleven years before that.”

“Now, don’t rupture anything.”

“Oh, no!” Virginia laughs. “Good Lord, no. No, that was Ralph, my pathetic ten-month husband. I actually left him for Will,
and things were going well. I think I loved him, even. I won’t lie. I had some dreams of the mansion myself. We were on and off for years. Boredom, mostly. It just wasn’t there. Then I took him to the Nelsons’ party, and he took one look at your mom and flipped his lid.”

“Is that why you don’t get along?”

“Of course. Can’t have two Southern ladies fighting over the same man.”

“Did they get together at the Nelsons’ party? The one the photo is of?”

“No, Hannah,” Virginia says. “Your parents were very, very in love. I really don’t think Daisy noticed Will that night. But he sure as hell noticed her.”

Hannah nods. Her mother is difficult not to notice.

“Your father was my best friend. He . . . he really was a good man.”

Hannah’s eyes sting momentarily. She fights for control. “You know,” she says, “there are some pictures of you . . .”

Virginia frowns. “What pictures?”

“I found them at our house. A box of them. I thought they were Dad’s.”

“Oh,” she says. “No. Those were definitely Will’s.”

“Huh.” Hannah looks out the window. “Why the hell didn’t Warren just tell me about you?”

“Oh, I never told Warren about Will. He was a baby the first time, and the second time was just that party. I never bring a man to the house unless it’s serious. Which, by the way, is an excellent rule of thumb.”

Hannah nervously pulls her hair back. “So all of my theories about my parents were completely wrong?”

“Probably.” Virginia grins.

“I can’t believe it.”

“Face it. Your parents were a boring, semi-happy married couple. End of story.”

“And I still don’t know why he left.”

“He went fishing, Hannah,” Virginia says, tapping the ash.

“I just really feel like I need more of an answer than that.”

Virginia sighs. “But I just don’t think you’re going to get one, sugar.” She tucks a curl behind her ear. Her eyes are still glassy. “Don’t you think it’s time for you to go home? Fix that marriage of yours?”

“It’s too late, I think.”

“Have a kid, maybe? It’s that time. Maybe—”

Hannah shakes her head. “No.”

“What about your career? The sex stuff?”

“No. That’s not going to work out either. We’re bankrupt. I don’t know. Really. I don’t.”

“That’s too bad.” She looks at her cigarette as if she’s surprised to see it, then delicately stubs it out. “We’ve all got to hang on to something.”

“Well,” Hannah says, “I think I’ll leave you all to it.”

Jenny emerges from the kitchen, drying her hands on a bright-yellow dish towel. For some reason, Hannah feels a twinge of fear. Actually, she knows the reason, and fear is highly appropriate.

“Hannah.” Jenny’s smooth cheeks are flushed pink. Her lip is trembling slightly. “I just wanted to say something to you.”

“OK.”

Virginia wisely disappears into the living room.

“Will you come back out here with me?”

“Sure.” Hannah reluctantly follows her outside to the sun-porch. Jenny looks at the used ashtray and wrinkles her nose. “It wasn’t me,” Hannah says quickly.

“What?”

“I live in California, Jenny.”

“I heard.”

“How? Warren?”

“My brother told me.”

“Oh.”

“Tom thinks it might be your birth control pills.”

“Jenny, you’re being hysterical.”

“Did you read it? It’s really not very nice. Hardly the sort of book one wants written about herself. Trust me.”

“I can’t read it. I don’t have it.”

“I can—”

“Jenny, come on. Really.”

“He won’t talk to me.”

“Warren doesn’t talk. That’s his thing.”

“Wrong tree, Jenny.”

“What?”

“You’re barking up the wrong tree.”

She shakes her head, blows her nose.

“It’s an expression.”

Jenny is the type of person, Hannah observes with annoyance, who manages to be pretty even while crying. When Hannah cries,
her nostrils actually grow, pouring forth ancient reserves of thick green mucus.

“You just don’t know what it’s like.”

Hannah has to admit, she really doesn’t know what it’s like. She’s never thought about that before. She’s fantasized for years about what it would be like if she had married Warren. But it could very well have been absolutely terrible. All that quiet seemed so alluring once, but over a decade it might just be boring. What if he wasn’t who she thought he was? She’d always assumed he was a deep, complex well. What if, one horrific morning, she got a good look inside and discovered the water was only a few inches deep?

Jenny has not stopped crying. In fact, she is crying harder now. Her face is a dangerous shade of purple.

“Really, I am. Please calm down.”

“Jenny?” Virginia says, appearing in the doorway. She comes in and puts her arm around her daughter-in-law. “Hannah, what’s going on here?”

“I—”

“It’s all right, honey. Don’t cry.”

“Jenny?”

“Mommy?”

And now they are all there. Warren, the girls, Virginia. They gather around Jenny, whispering and tending to her, stroking her hair.

“Hannah, I’m sorry, but you need to leave.”

Where, Virginia? Hannah wants to ask. Where would you like me to—

And then, suddenly, she knows. Of course. She’s been so stupid, wasting all of this time on accusations and pointless rooting through memories. The way to get the answer is just so obvious.

“Hannah, did you hear me?” The Meyers are circling their wagons.

“Sorry,” Hannah says. “It’s OK. I’m leaving, I’m leaving.” It’s a relief to say this, as it’s a promise she can make good on. Especially now that she knows exactly where to go.

23
The Legares’ New Emergency

P
ALMER IS DISCOVERING a new stretch of morning loneliness he cannot master. The rest of the day will be all right. There will be a stack of patients waiting for him; he will go to the gym; maybe tell Jenny about the breakup, which will make her cry. Still, there is this empty place at which he arrives when opening his eyes in the morning. In an effort to ward it off,
Palmer has started to allow Rumpus in bed in the morning. He calls for her, but the dog is still hiding somewhere. She’s been acting strange due to the disruption of the household, wedging herself behind the sofa and under the guest bed.

The shrill ringing of the landline at an ungodly hour causes him to rise slightly from the low place. The phone is too far away to get to, so he lies in bed and waits for the machine to pick it up. It is his mother. She wants him to come to the
DeWitt House.

He dresses for the chilly morning and drives over, wondering if there’ll be breakfast. He is always dubious about coming to meals here. You may sit at a Chippendale dining table, but at the DeWitt House, you will be served Bi-Lo chicken, at best.

“Mom?” he calls, walking in. There is no sign of life in the ballroom or the parlor. He is not surprised. Despite having twenty-plus rooms to lounge in, his mother and stepfather use only the living room, kitchen, and bedroom. Basically, they inhabit a cottage encased in a mansion.

“Hello?”

He pokes his head in the dining room, but the table is not set. There is no evidence of cooking. It doesn’t matter. He is glad the house is quiet, because he has much to talk to her about. Her advice as to how to split up a $6000 aquarium set,
to start.

“Did you walk or crawl? I called an hour ago.” Her voice is coming from the solarium. Palmer frowns. She is not in her usual impeccably strange dress, opting instead for an old-fashioned, Joan Crawford–worthy bathrobe.

“Hi. Are we eating?”

“There’s coffee.”

“All right.”

Palmer goes in the kitchen, helps himself to a cup, and returns. “Where’s DeWitt?”

“Looking for Hannah.”

“What?” Palmer succumbs to a wave of annoyance. Can’t something, just for once, be about him? “Did we lose her?”

“Unclear.”

“Should we make breakfast?”

“Palmer, I know the stomach rules the mind, but aren’t you at all curious as to the situation?”

“Sorry.” His belly growls stubbornly.

“We need your help. I didn’t want to alarm you over the phone.”

“What’s happening?”

“She’s missing.”

“What do you mean?” Palmer glances at a row of plants. They are thirsty to the point of expiration.

“She’s off somewhere. She didn’t come home for dinner last night, despite the fact that we had plans to go out to Fish.”

“She missed a free meal?” Very unlike his sister.

“She didn’t even call.”

Palmer drums his fingers. “Is she out with . . . I don’t know. Friends?”

“Friends?” Daisy snorts. He notices that his mother has no makeup on. Without it, her skin looks like blank tissue paper.
“Who? Warren Meyers’s wife? Your sister has no friends here.”

Palmer puts his coffee down. “Wait. All right. Let’s not panic.”

“Certainly not.”

“Did you call Jon?”

“Of course.”

“And?”

“He doesn’t know anything. Except that he’s preparing to file both for bankruptcy and for divorce.”

“Oh, my God.”

“So she didn’t tell you either.”

“No.”

Daisy looks into the bottom of her cup as if there is an answer there. “I thought I was doing the right thing, here, bringing her home. I knew she’d never agree to a real institution.”

“She doesn’t need to be institutionalized, Mom.”

“You wouldn’t call this a nervous breakdown?”

“I’d call this her midthirties.”

“Your father, at least, had the decency to wait until forty.”

“It’s not the same thing.”

“Let’s hope not,” she says.

He takes a sip of lukewarm coffee. “You know, it’s not our job to fix her.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m her mother. Of course that’s my job.”

The phone rings. Daisy rises to answer it.

“Hello. Oh, hi, Will. All right. So no one—” She puts her hand on her temple. “All right. No, I’m fine. She’s not a child.
I’m certain she’s just off somewhere, spending your money. I know you gave her some—it’s in your checkbook. It’s called enabling, darling. No, I’m fine. Keep looking. All right. I love you.”

She hangs up. It strikes Palmer then that he’s rarely heard his mother tell Will that she loves him.

“Should we go to her room?” Palmer says. “See if she left a note?”

“I went up there but didn’t find anything.”

“Let’s just look again.”

“All right.”

They climb up together and push the door open. The bed is made, but the room is disheveled, as if his sister was in a hurry to go to a party. There are photographs scattered in and around the trash bin. Palmer squats next to them.

“I wonder which picture it is?”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“Oh, she’s been going on about this picture she found of you and Dad and DeWitt.”

He turns his attention back to the photographs. “This must be the one.” He extracts a picture that is particularly frayed at the edges. Yes, it’s just what his sister described. His mother, his father, and DeWitt all in one picture. They look so young! He stares at his father, at the likenesses to his own face.

“Let me see it.”

Reluctantly, he hands it to his mother.

“Oh,” she says after a moment. “Look at us.”

“Yes.”

“Well.” Daisy purses her lips. “That certainly was a lovely time. And—you know, I’d forgotten Will was there.”

“Well, apparently we had.” Daisy shrugs. “I’m old. How am I supposed to remember these things? It’s sort of nice, to have a picture of us all, isn’t it? I think I’ll frame it.” She puts it in her pocket. “So would you like some pancakes?”

“What?”

“Well, you’ve been whining like a sick chicken about breakfast for the last hour. Now I’m offering some. Interested?”

“Well, I am pretty—”

“Good. Then come.” Daisy spins around and descends the stairs, her Hollywood dressing gown flaring behind her.

Palmer shakes his head. His mother, as ever, has now moved on to the day’s next activity. Why dwell on blame, or responsibility,
or the minutia of the past? It’s how she gets through things, he realizes. He supposes he’s fine with it. We all have to get through somehow. And at least now he finally gets to eat.