The Birthdays (23 page)

When Daniel took the phone, Jake asked gently whether they planned to come for Joe’s birthday. “Listen, Brenda doesn’t need to come if it’ll be too hard for her to see Hil and Liz pregnant. You could come for a little while on your own,” Jake said. “And if you want, I could try to get you a room at a B&B, you know, if you want some space.”

“We’ll have to play it by ear and see what she’s up for. Definitely not tonight, but maybe tomorrow. Tell Dad we’ll try.” There was a brief silence, and the two said goodbye.

Outside the bedroom, Ellen paced. “You need something, Mom?” Jake asked

“Just to use the phone.”

“To call the clinic? I just called Dan, and they said they’re going to try to come when they can, but no promises.”

“Oh,” she said, a flustered look on her face. “I actually wanted to call the neighbors.”

“For what?”

“To check on things at home,” she said, looking at her hands.

Jake nodded and they continued past her. He whispered to Liz, “What do you think that’s about?”

“Maybe she’s having an illicit affair,” she muttered, raising her eyebrows.

“Ha,” he said. “My parents don’t do that sort of thing.” He couldn’t help himself.

Liz rolled her eyes and went to join Hilary, who was now snapping green beans over the sink in the kitchen. Jake returned to his seat on the couch, where he lifted his legs onto the pile of blankets and closed his eyes.

“Seventy-five.” Joe’s voice was a surprise in the quiet room. He was still on the floor beside Babe.

“Yes?”

“Can you believe your dad is this old?”

Perhaps with age, Joe was turning maudlin and self-pitying. “It’s not that old,” Jake said.

“Bull. It’s old. Your dad is an old man.” Joe reached for the casserole dish with both hands and began to stand. He groaned and leaned forward.

“You got it?”

His knees cracked, but he finally made it upright. “What will you do when I can’t stand by myself?”

“Stop it.”

“You never think about what’ll it be like to get to this point. I don’t mean to be complaining, but still. It’s incomprehensible, sometimes.” Joe sighed and started toward their bedroom.

Maybe he needed to know that he wasn’t the only one worried about his future. Jake called after him, “I’m afraid of the future too, Dad.”

“Hmm?” Joe stopped and turned.

“I worry too, you know, about getting older.”

Joe leaned against the wall and frowned. “My parents were a burden to me, you know,” he said. He rarely spoke about his past or his family. Joe’s father had died before Jake was born, and his mother had lived with him until he was twenty-five, also before Jake was born. Joe had taken care of her and tended to her when she had cancer. But he never spoke of it, and Jake knew only the bare facts. “I suppose I’m better at taking care of people than being taken care of,” Joe finally said.

“Dad, you’re not sick or something, are you?”

“No, I’m fine. Just a little preoccupied on my birthday, I suppose.”

Jake nodded slowly.

Joe shrugged and shook his head. He was done talking about himself. “And what about you? You holding up this weekend?”

“Sure,” Jake said.

“Everything okay with Liz? At work?” He sat down on the edge of the easy chair and set Babe, in his dish, on the end table.

Jake edged closer to his father and told him that in fact he’d had a few arguments with Liz because he’d done some stupid things this weekend. That work would get busier soon,
that his nerves had been frayed, that he’d wanted this weekend to be perfect, for everyone to enjoy the house and the beach and to love this place as much as he did. He’d just wanted to make everyone happy, he finally said, and now so much had gone wrong.

Joe looked at him. “It was a good thing, getting us all together.”

Jake nodded.

“And the rest of it. Well, I think that’s pretty normal, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“All those nerves and everything. They’ve got to be normal for what’s going on in your life.” He seemed as if he wanted to say more.

“You think so?”

Joe gathered the dish and stood again. “Sure.”

Jake set a hand on the dish to steady it. “Thanks, Dad.”

“For what?”

“For saying that.”

Joe adjusted the dish in his hands. “It wasn’t anything.”

“Sure it was.”

“Time for Babe’s nap,” Joe said quietly, and headed back to the bedroom.

Hilary had told Liz about meeting Alex, about Bellows’ Field and the salt magnate and his heirs, about Alex’s apartment and about what had ultimately happened between the two of them. Hilary had only met her sister-in-law a few times, and in the end didn’t dislike her as much as she thought she might, though there was something in Liz’s healthy complexion
and her wholesome manner—she’d said “fudge” when she dropped a plate earlier; she’d alphabetized the bottles of herbs in her spice rack—that Hilary didn’t entirely trust. But here they were for the first time alone and Hilary found herself strangely eager to tell someone the details of her first few hours on the island (as if to verify that Alex actually had existed), and Liz eager to hear them when they walked down to the water. “You went back to his place?” Liz had asked, more impressed than horrified. “And then he said what?” Hilary had repeated the facts excitedly and set her hands on her hips. “Let’s go to Books & Beans tonight.” “Not a chance,” Hilary had said, “I don’t want him to think that I expect anything from him, or that I’m suddenly smitten with him after one day,” and Liz’d argued, “Oh, come on, let’s go, if for no other reason than so I can get a look at him.” Hilary was surprised at Liz’s interest, as well as her easy acceptance of the whole thing. Hilary had been hesitant to mention it at first, as it felt a bit like admitting promiscuity to a virgin. Not that Liz herself exuded prudishness, but her life with Jake did seem clean and white and pure as new soap. “What would be the point in going back there? I think we both knew that this was a onetime thing,” Hilary finally said. “Is this just some desperate attempt for you to find someone to father my child?” Liz groaned and laughed. “You give me too much credit. I’d never try to scale that mountain.” Hilary swallowed hard, faked a smile and suggested they head back inside.

Now they stood in the kitchen preparing dinner. Hilary found herself wondering about Alex again, trying to guess where he might be and with whom—but what was the point? And why did he keep reappearing in her thoughts? “Liz,”
Hilary said as she snapped off the end of a bean and tossed it into a bowl. “Can I ask you a weird question? You might hate me for it.”

“Sure, those are the best kind,” Liz said.

“What was it about Jake? What made you first want to be with him?” she asked. “And please don’t tell me it was the sex.”

Liz smiled. “It wasn’t the sex,” she said. “I don’t know. He was the opposite of everyone I’d ever gone out with, I guess. Sometimes I think that the preconditions of love determine everything. Everyone I’d been with before, I’d had to chase. I’d always been drawn to these distant types who inevitably broke my heart. And then came Jake, this person who displayed his fears and weaknesses on a tray and wanted more than anything just to be with me.”

Alex was yet another in a line of similar men. Another Bill David, another Jesse Varnum—and why was she, Hilary, still drawn to them? Maybe her heart hadn’t been broken badly enough yet. Maybe she hadn’t allowed it to be completely broken—but why should she? “Were you attracted to him?” she couldn’t help herself.

“I was attracted to someone wanting to be with me, and yeah, that was him. So yeah, I was.”

“Are you still?”

“Sure,” Liz said, and leaned in front of Hilary to grab a bean. She popped it in her mouth and her eyes fell to the floor.

“He’s crazy about you,” Hilary said, and reached for a bean. She felt a flash of sympathy for her brother, but tried to ignore it. “You want me to set the table?”

Dinner was filled with long silences punctuated only by Ellen commenting on the food or Jake on the weather. Hilary glanced around the table at each person quietly eating dinner. Maybe her family had used up all of their conversation. She had always thought that they had a limited number of things to say to each other. After all, here were five very different people. How did any family have anything to talk about after this many years? Such silence was to be expected, she supposed, though she was never comfortable with too much quiet, no matter what the situation was. With men, it seemed to indicate some sort of failure on her part or his. With coworkers, it indicated boredom. She worried she’d have to endure great silences with her child. Before he/she could speak, of course, but later, when it could, when she’d run out of things to say because she and the child were now a family too and by definition had a limited number of things to say to each other.

Liz pulled Hilary aside when she and her mother were washing the dishes and whispered, “Tonight? Books & Beans?”

“I thought we’d scrapped that idea.”

“Not officially.”

“You didn’t tell Jake about it all, did you?” Hilary pressed her fingertips together.

“No, I didn’t. Though he’d probably welcome the distraction at this point.”

The idea of leaving this increasingly quiet house and seeing Alex once more did, despite herself, appeal to Hilary. It was growing dark outside. She heard a heavy gust of wind whistle past. “I guess we could drop by,” she said. “Just for a minute.”

“There you go.”

Hilary went to the bathroom to look herself over in the mirror. Her face had become a bloated moon with the pregnancy, her lips were chapped. She was a lost cause, and considered calling it off and telling Liz that she didn’t feel well. But of course Liz wouldn’t buy it.

Liz knocked on the door. “Ready?”

Hilary opened it and nodded reluctantly.

Her father approached them in the hallway and asked where they were headed, and before Hilary could stop him, he was saying he’d like to join them and Liz was leading him toward the front door.

Hilary and Liz chatted all the way to town, Joe in the seat behind them. “What are you going to say when you first see him?” Liz asked, and Hilary shushed her, gesturing to her father. “He doesn’t care, do you, Joe?”

“No, I’m no one. I don’t hear anything,” he said, and Hilary turned to him. “Liz wants me to go say hi to this person I met at the bookstore earlier yesterday, when I was waiting for everyone.”

“Oh?”

“This
guy
,” Liz added.

“It was nothing,” Hilary said. “She is just unhealthily curious.”

“I see,” he said, and smiled sympathetically. “We can browse the books while Liz talks to him, then.”

“Hilary’s just playing coy,” Liz said. “She likes him. She just won’t admit it.”

“I don’t!” They sounded like teenagers.

Joe smiled at her and shrugged. “It’s okay if you do.”

“I don’t, Dad,” Hilary said. “Honestly.” They were calling
too much attention to the whole matter, and she was protesting too much.

They parked on Main Street and walked quietly past the general store and the small gallery. The air was still thick and warm, the sky almost dark. No one else was on the sidewalk. “How about we just check out that gallery instead?” Hilary mumbled at one point, and Liz said, “Not a chance.”

Inside Books & Beans, Alex leaned against the wall behind the register. Next to him stood a tan girl, a rope of black hair resting on one of her shoulders. The two whispered about something and Alex brushed his hand against her waist. Joe and Liz and Hilary, who quickly ducked behind the tall shelves of books, stood there for a second, watching. Hilary’s chest squeezed at the sight of them. “Let’s go somewhere else. This is idiotic. I don’t want to make him uncomfortable,” Hilary said, but Liz took her arm. Her father headed off to the biography section. “Go talk to him,” Liz hissed. “She probably just works here too.”

“I don’t want to,” Hilary said. She stepped back behind the shelves, which when she looked closer she saw held self-help books, and pulled out one about fatherhood. Liz hovered at the end of the aisle, peeking out at Alex and the girl. “It does seem like they’re just coworkers or friends,” Liz said unconvincingly. “He
is
good-looking. I see what you mean.”

“Liz.”

Liz went over to her and took the book from her hands. “
On Becoming a Father?
”

“Maybe I should buy it.”

“We’re here so you could forget about that for a night.”

“I can’t forget about it,” Hilary said. She grabbed the book. “And anyway, I don’t want to.” She drew a long breath and
looked at her sister-in-law’s expectant face. “God, this is just ridiculous,” Hilary finally said. She pushed past Liz, marched to the counter and handed the book to Alex.

“Hilary!” he said, as if he hadn’t seen her approach.

“Hello. I’m buying this for my brother,” she thought to say. “And my sister-in-law. The one back there, hiding.”

Alex looked behind her and smiled. The girl beside him tugged on her braid and licked her lips. Her eyeteeth protruded just slightly from her other teeth. She had pale blue eyes, heavy lids, a spray of freckles across her face. She was both beautiful and homely.

“How’s it going with your family?” he asked as he rang up the book. The girl watched them closely.

“Not so well, really.” She hesitated, but then the words just came. “My brother and his wife lost their baby yesterday.”

“Oh. God, I’m sorry,” he said dumbly.

Hilary handed him the cash, and he paused at the money between them. He pushed her hand back. “Go ahead. It’s yours,” he said.

She felt like a ridiculous spinster, now beset by tragedy. “Take the money. If you want, keep it,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

The girl looked at Hilary’s stomach.

“I’m pregnant,” Hilary said to her, lest the girl think she was just fat. This probably communicated that there was nothing to worry about, that Hilary was just some friend of Alex’s, someone completely nonthreatening to whatever agenda the girl might have. She turned her eyes to the floor, inched closer to Alex and said, “Congratulations,” with either irony or sincerity, Hilary couldn’t quite tell.