Stiltsville: A Novel (39 page)

In August, Paul and Marse sold their condos and bought a house on the Biltmore golf course, a mile north of ours. After they moved in, I dressed Dennis in a sport coat and put on a dress and invited Margo and Stuart to come with us to the new house for dinner. He wore a tie and she wore a black dress and red heels. Stuart helped Dennis into the passenger seat of our car, then folded the wheelchair and lifted it into the trunk—this was something I could not do on my own—then put out his hand. “Do you mind if I drive?” he said.

His blue eyes flashed with something I couldn’t quite define—anger, possibly, or frustration. We hadn’t exchanged two words since they’d arrived at the house, fifteen minutes late, so I surmised that whatever it was, it had nothing to do with me. “I’d rather drive,” I said.

“Suit yourself.” He stepped into the backseat, forcing Margo to shift over.

In the rearview mirror, I tried to catch my daughter’s eye. It had been months since I’d stopped hunting for clues about Stuart and Margo’s relationship—were they happy?—or, for that matter, about Stuart’s relationship to Lola, who was still an almost daily presence in my home. Nothing had been revealed to me since the day when I’d seen them in the pool, and Margo and Stuart were the same as ever: affectionate in bursts, independent of each other. But as I drove, I found myself wishing they would fight. A fight, in my presence, would at least shed some light on what transpired in the private space between them.

Margo kept her hands in her lap as we drove. We came to the bridge where she’d crashed Dennis’s car when she was sixteen, and as we passed, Dennis raised one hand and made a grunting sound. “My bridge,” said Margo in response, and she reached into the front seat and put an arm on her father’s shoulder. “I think I see the Buick’s fender in that bush over there,” she said. “There’s one of the headlights in the gutter.”

Marse and Paul came outside while Stuart was still helping Dennis into his chair. Paul’s aftershave hit me before he reached the driveway. Marse was stunning in a pink halter dress. It was a crisp, warm early summer evening, and the light streaming through the oak trees was the color of watery tea. The house, which I had seen the day they’d moved in, was a hacienda-style ranch with a gated driveway and long, wide carport. We went inside, Paul driving Dennis even though he was still capable of maneuvering the electric steering. There was a board leading from the brick walk up two steps to the front door; Paul had secured it with sandbags at each corner, and though it buckled a bit when Dennis’s chair rolled onto it, it didn’t shift or drop.

We entered a wide, open kitchen with new appliances and marble countertops, then continued through a family room onto a sunporch, then outside onto a back patio that overlooked a swimming pool. Beyond the fence was the Biltmore golf course, where Paul boasted he’d shot two under par in a round that very morning. Dennis touched Paul’s arm and gestured around the yard, then forced his right hand into a thumbs-up. “Nice, eh?” said Paul, putting his hand on Dennis’s shoulder. “OK if we eat outside?”

Dennis nodded.

“Can I get you a beverage?” said Paul.

Dennis nodded again.

Marse and Margo and I went to the kitchen. Marse handed me a bottle of red wine to open while Margo admired the house. “I’d like a big kitchen,” she said. “Next house, I want a really big kitchen. It doesn’t even matter that I don’t cook very much. I just love a big kitchen.”

“I don’t cook much,” said Marse.

“I don’t remember the last time I cooked,” I said.

“The benefit of having a spouse with a feeding tube,” said Marse. She was the only one who could say things like that to me. “Paul expects dinner at the table every night. He’s had my chicken carbonara a dozen times.”

“And the rest of the time?” I said.

“Takeout.”

Marse collected beers from the fridge and poured one into a plastic cup for Dennis—it would fit perfectly in an attachment that swiveled up from the side of his wheelchair—and in the cup she placed a long, aqua-blue straw. It touched me, the efforts they’d gone to. She left the kitchen to deliver Dennis’s beer, then returned and started arranging a plate of cheese with strawberries. Margo said to Marse, “Are you going to marry Paul?” and we both looked at Marse expectantly.

She looked mischievous. “Do you think I should?”

“Oh, my Lord,” I said. I put my hand to my throat. “Are you engaged?”

Marse held out her hand—I was ashamed that I hadn’t noticed—and on it was a beautiful (and elegant, and not at all showy) diamond ring. I grabbed her and shrieked. Margo came around the counter and hugged Marse, saying, “Congratulations!” and for a moment I just stood there, my hand over my mouth, watching my friend. She was as happy as I’d ever seen her.

Paul and Stuart and Dennis came into the kitchen. “I guess you heard,” said Paul.

Margo hugged Paul, and said to her father, “Did you know?”

He nodded.

“You knew?” I swatted his arm.

He nodded again, smiling.

“We’ll toast,” I said, handing everyone a glass. “To our friends. May your life together be long and happy.”

Dennis grunted and we all looked at him. He gestured to me, then to himself, then back to me.

“As happy as yours,” said Paul quietly. Dennis again gave his awkward thumbs-up.

“Hear, hear,” said Marse, and when I looked over at Margo, I saw that she had started to cry. Seeing this, Stuart threw up his hands and left for the backyard. Marse recovered for all of us. “We’ll eat,” she said, pulling a lasagna out of the oven. I put my arm around Margo and, seeing that the lasagna was in a carry-out container, said to Marse, “So sweet—you slaved!”

“Shush,” she said. “I’m going to be a wife.”

We carried water glasses to the back patio, where a table was set. I looked around for Stuart but didn’t see him. Margo said, “He’ll probably walk home.”

“That young man is temperamental,” said Paul “Am I right?” He looked at Dennis and Dennis nodded.

“I remember another temperamental young man,” I said to Paul.

He looked up to see if I was smiling—I was. “Guilty as charged.”

“Don’t defend him, Mother,” said Margo.

“She’s not defending him,” said Marse. “She’s equivocating.”

“Don’t equivocate,” said Margo.

Dennis laughed and a bit of his beer spilled. Paul wiped it up and said, “Better an interesting marriage than a perfect one, I say. Am I right?”

“Absolutely,” said Marse.

“Just you wait,” I said.

Margo was looking at me. “I know you suspect him.”

“Sweetheart, I’m not sure this is the time—”

“Dad and I talked about it,” she said.

I looked at Dennis. I saw something like contrition in his eyes. If times had been normal, if Dennis had been well, I would have told Margo we’d discuss this in private. But these weren’t normal times, and it was rare that Margo wanted to talk, so I put my napkin in my lap and leaned back in my chair. There was a warm breeze off the golf course. It was almost eight o’clock, and still men drove carts this way and that, their deep voices carrying in the breeze. “OK,” I said. “What is it I suspect him of?”

Dennis made a sound to get Margo’s attention, then shook his head.

“You didn’t tell her?” she said to him. She sounded touched. To me, she said, “It was months ago. Dad told me that Stuart and the therapist—well, they’re a little too close for comfort.” She put her fork down on her plate. “That pixie bitch.”

“Oh, my,” said Marse.

Paul said, “Sweetie, he’s a flirt. A lot of men are. It doesn’t mean—”

“He thinks he’s in love,” she said.

Paul looked at Dennis and Dennis shrugged, agreeing. I scooted my chair until I was beside Margo. It made scraping noises on the cement patio. I put my arm around her, but she wasn’t crying anymore. She looked relieved. “People make mistakes,” I said. “They get caught up. They go overboard.” I could scarcely believe I had said it.

“They do, people do,” said Marse. She was on Margo’s other side, holding her hand.

“It’s been a year,” said Margo.

“Has anything
happened
?” said Marse.

“He says no,” said Margo. “He swears. And now he wants to take this contracting job, and move, and he expects me to go with him, even after this.”

“Move where?” I said.

She wouldn’t meet my eye. “Seattle.”

“You can’t possibly move to Seattle,” said Marse. “It rains every day there.”

Paul nodded. “Seattle is out of the question.”

“Well, he’s going,” Margo said. And—it shames me to remember—my first response was panic. I couldn’t have Margo so far away, and—this was possibly even more imperative to me at the time—Stuart could not leave, not yet. We needed him. He was the only one who could lift Dennis out of the bathtub when Lola wasn’t around. He was the only one who liked to do yard work and play poker past midnight when everyone else but Dennis wanted to sleep. He could drive the boat and load the wheelchair into the car, and, most important, he was distracting. If he’d been with us at the table, I might have told him so. As it was, I said to my daughter, “Then you’ll just have to let him go.” I’m glad I said it. It was the right thing to say, I thought, and when Margo looked at me—my daughter, searching my face for guidance—I was sure of it.

That night, I lay next to Dennis in his little cot, my head on his chest, and listened to his raspy breathing. “I didn’t know you were suspicious,” I said to him. “Did you know I was?”

He shook his head. I wanted him to talk to me. I wanted so badly to talk.

“Did you not tell me because you didn’t want to upset me?”

He shrugged.

“Did you not tell me because I depend too much on Stuart?”

He was still.

“I guess I do,” I said. “Some mother I am.”

He made his sweet, throaty laugh sound.

“Should I have told her?”

He made a noise, a definitive sound that meant no.

“Why is it that you can break her heart but I can’t?”

He shrugged again. It was true—if I had told her, she would have argued with me and been angry. Dennis, though, had leeway. It wasn’t meddling when it was her father. She trusted him never to hurt her intentionally. This wasn’t rational, and I didn’t think it was based on historical evidence, but it was how things were.

I
stopped by Margo’s house later that week, when I knew she would be at work. Stuart was in the backyard, mowing the lawn. It seemed that anytime I stopped by, he was outside, keeping busy. I stood at the sliding glass doors in the living room until he noticed me and turned off the mower.

“I let myself in,” I said when he was standing in front of me, sweating through his shirt.

“That’s fine.”

“I just want to know when you’re moving. I’m not mad.”

He wiped his face with one hand. “I appreciate it. No one likes it when you’re mad.”

“Don’t joke.”

His face fell. I saw that he was sorry he’d let me down. I’m sure that was doubly true for letting Dennis down. I remembered them together on the boat when Stuart was still learning, glancing up at Dennis expectantly, absorbing every direction, every mild criticism or bit of praise. “I told them I have some work to finish in Miami first,” he said. “I’m not leaving yet.”

I searched his face. “Margo’s not going with you.”

“I wish she would.”

“Tough.” I started toward the front door, then stopped. I half-turned back to him, but I didn’t meet his eye. I said, “A couple of years ago, I met a man.” I didn’t know what I meant to say, or why I was saying it. “We became close. Nothing happened. In the end it didn’t matter, I guess. There’s a larger picture. You might not know this yet.” It was a betrayal of Margo, I thought, to talk to Stuart this way. “I’m just saying that marriages go through phases,” I said limply.

“I guess they do,” he said. Then, “I’ll be over by noon. Tell Dennis to get his poker face ready.” I left the house without saying anything else, and as I got back into my car and fastened my seat belt, relief flooded through me. This was not entirely rational, but it was very real.

Later that month, we ordered and received a BiPAP machine that Dennis wore during sleep to help him breathe. At first, the low roar it made kept me awake all night but after a week we’d both gotten used to it. One night around this time I woke spontaneously, for no reason I could name, and when I looked out into the room, I saw a figure standing at the French doors that led out to the swimming pool, and a cry caught in my throat. I looked at Dennis’s bed, thinking all at once that I needed him to protect me and I needed to protect him, but his little low cot was empty and his blanket was on the floor. Then I looked back at the dark figure and realized that it was my husband—standing on his own legs, having walked several paces without assistance. I held my breath. Dr. Auerbach had told us that once a patient is bedridden, the time left is measurable in months, not years. Dennis had been bedridden, more or less, for six months. He was still helped out of bed every few days for a roll or a boat ride, but otherwise he had only enough energy to move his arms a little, play a little bit of a game, maybe smile or laugh a bit, or take a few bites of frozen yogurt. Still, here he was, standing at least six feet from his bed, staring out at the canal. I got up quietly and walked until I was next to him. I had to will myself—it took all my strength—not to touch him, not to so much as take his elbow. He looked over at me when he sensed me beside him, and he smiled. Then he looked out through the glass again. Outside, moonlight washed the blue-black lawn and cast a sheen on the water in the canal. The gumbo-limbo tree at the back corner of our property bent in the wind. In the dark, Dennis’s profile was a mask of contentment and peace. I’d loved him for half my life. I’d loved him beyond the limits of how much love I’d thought I could generate. I missed him less in that moment, as we stood side by side watching the backyard in the moonlight, than I had in a year, maybe two. Then I took his hand, and when I did—it hurts me to remember—he lost his footing, and he fell.