The Book of Someday (23 page)

The old man sits down onto a cushioned teak bench, with effort and a small grunt, muttering to James: “Inform Andrew that Livvi will be waiting for him in the car.”

After James has gone, the old man tells Livvi: “There isn’t any need to subject you to my wife’s wrath—and inviting you into the house would only serve to do that. My wife is very fond of Kayla—she considers her a daughter. Kayla is the woman my wife personally selected for Andrew. Unfortunately, vengeance is visited on anyone who dares to interfere with my wife’s choices.”

The old man gestures for Livvi to sit beside him. And in a light, amiable tone, he tells her: “I’m a man who understands right from wrong and I recognize that you’re being treated badly—but I’m at a place in my life where I’m unwilling to rock my own boat in order to steady someone else’s.”

He is looking out over the rolling lawns, letting his gaze linger on the ocean view. “When I was middle-aged and at the top of my game I discarded a family—and a wife who was as middle-aged as I was and who was comfortable with me. I married a woman who was young and bedazzled by me. Now that I’m ancient of days, and at the tail-end of my game, I need her to stick around and be happy with me.”

His voice has the faintest hint of a tremor as he adds: “I’ve seen what happens to old men when they’re discarded and alone.” After a long moment, Andrew’s father puts his hand on Livvi’s, then briskly says: “Good-bye. And good luck.”

His touch makes Livvi shiver. Makes her want to leave the teak bench and run as fast, and as far, as she can.

The old man’s hand, which is almost identical in shape to Andrew’s, is weightless. Like the carcass of a small bird. Nothing more than a clutch of hollow bones wrapped in skin as thin, and as dry, as a sheet of parchment.

***

Livvi is walking quickly across Andrew’s parents’ driveway. Listening for a shout, a scream, the roar of an approaching car. Wishing she could vanish into some other place, some other time, where this diabolical afternoon never happened.

She’s in tears—wiping at them with the back of her hand.

The mansion’s front doors are flying open. And Grace, clutching her little pink pig, is running out of the house. Her eyes lit with joy and fastened on Livvi.

Instantly, Livvi is dropping to her knees—with her arms outstretched.

Grace is hurling herself at Livvi. Burrowing into their mutual hug like a rootless drifter suddenly finding home. “Livvi!” is the only thing she says. And in that single word there is absolute euphoria.

“I’ve missed you so much,” Livvi tells her. The sweetness of holding Grace again—the contentment, the rightness of it—is perfect.

“Don’t ever go away. Ever. Ever.” Grace’s arms are around Livvi’s neck, her face buried against Livvi’s shoulder.

For the tiniest breath of time Livvi is in complete bliss.

But then Grace is suddenly stiffening—pulling away—putting distance between them.

Andrew’s mother, the woman in red, has appeared on the doorstep of the mansion. Holding a phone. Her eyes focused on Livvi, and icy cold. As she’s telling Grace: “Go back in the house. You forgot to give your grandpa a kiss good-bye.”

Grace puts her toy pig into Livvi’s care and whispers: “Hold Piglet for me and don’t go away. I’ll be right back.”

As always, Grace’s solemn, earnest look is followed, after a brief uncertainty, by a hopeful smile.

Seeing that look, and that smile—understanding the depth of its vulnerability—is bruising Livvi’s heart.

Grace has left Livvi now and is dashing past Andrew’s mother, into the house. Bree, the blond nanny, is on the other side of the open door.

When both Bree and Grace are out of sight, Andrew’s mother turns toward Livvi—Livvi is surprised by how youthful she is. Her shoulder-length hair is thick, dark; only the slightest hint of gray. Her skin is smooth, except for a netting of fine lines around her mouth. Her eyes are large, olive green. And as they are coming to rest on Livvi, the look in them is murderous.

Andrew’s car is only a few feet away—Livvi is wanting to get to it as quickly as possible and lock herself inside.

But Andrew’s mother freezes her with a withering stare, and says: “I was hoping it was my son who was out here. He’s wanted on the—”

She is being interrupted by the sound of footsteps. Andrew coming around the side of the house, carrying a pink-and-white blanket and a small pink suitcase.

He seems beaten-up, depleted. Like a worn-out copy of himself. The look he gives Livvi is one of exhaustion, and heartbreak.

Livvi’s first impulse is to go to him, but she’s not quite sure what’s happening. Today has already held too many unpleasant surprises—she doesn’t want to walk, head-on, into another one.

Andrew’s mother has come down the steps of the house and placed herself directly between Andrew and Livvi.

Andrew moves past his mother without a word and opens the trunk of the Mercedes. She follows him to the car, her voice low and sarcastic. “Ducking out the back? Creeping along the side of the house? Were you planning to sneak off without saying good-bye?”

“I think we’ve said enough for today.” Andrew drops the blanket and the pink suitcase into the trunk, closing the trunk-lid with a slam.

He’s coming around to open the passenger door for Livvi; his mother is once again blocking his way. This time, she hands Andrew the phone that she has been holding.

She’s staring daggers at him as she says: “Kayla needs to talk to you.”

“About what?” Andrew growls. “It’s been all of fifteen minutes since I drove her home.”

There’s a strangled wildness, a trapped animal look in Andrew that Livvi has never seen before—a caged tiger dreaming of sinking its teeth into a sadistic trainer.

“Answer the damn phone,” Andrew’s mother tells him. “It’s about Grace.”

Andrew puts the phone to his ear and looks at Livvi. Mutely telling her he’s sorry. Then he turns away, with his shoulders slightly hunched. As if trying to create some form of isolation. And Livvi wonders, is he trying to shield her from his wife?—or trying to shield his wife from her?

After a brief exchange in which Andrew’s voice is little more than a murmur, he hands the phone back to his mother and says: “Kayla wanted to confirm what time Grace will be home on Sunday night. I told her it would be the same time I agreed it would be when I saw her fifteen minutes ago.”

“Speaking of Grace, you need to take her shopping for new bathing suits. I’m still working on dates…but for the family winter trip this year, I’m thinking in terms of Bermuda.”

“We’ll talk about it later.” Andrew is attempting to maneuver around his mother, making it clear he wants to head in the direction of the car, and Livvi.

His mother says: “Try to have a nice weekend.” She gives him a pat on the cheek. It starts out quick and mean. Then turns slow and tender. A vicious slap—wrapped in a tender caress.

And in that spiteful gesture, Livvi is seeing what James had described when he talked about Andrew sneaking out of the house where his brother and sister were burned to death—
“As far as my parents are concerned…that night split Andrew right down the middle for them. Half of him, a pariah—the brother who slipped out and left his siblings to die. And the other half, a treasure—their firstborn and the only one of their picture-perfect triplets still walking the earth.”

The delivery of that caressing slap—the reminder to Andrew that his mother loves him just as much as she hates him—is showing Livvi why James said,
“…be kind to my brother, he’s dragging a heavy load.”

Andrew’s mother is passing Livvi now, on her way back into the house; and she’s saying: “I want you to know…the circumstances that pushed Kayla to behave as she did today are disgusting. I have a son who is treating his wife, and his marriage vows, like garbage.”

The way this statement has been delivered makes Livvi feel like she’s just been spit on.

Almost instantly, Andrew is wrapping his arms around Livvi, kissing her, cradling her. “Don’t pay any attention. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought you here. I had no idea she’d be so rude—”

Livvi isn’t listening.

She’s saying: “You have a dead sister, and a dead brother, you never told me about. There’s no point to this. I don’t know you, Andrew. I don’t know who you are.”

Andrew has lifted Livvi from the ground, holding her to his chest, turning her in a circle, pleading. “You do know me. You do.”

“I didn’t know about Grace. I didn’t know about your wife, or your sister, or your brother…”

Livvi is in torment.

“You do know who I am,” he’s insisting. “You know the man I am now. You know that I love you.”

Wanting to escape from Andrew, and terrified at the thought of living without him—Livvi is being ripped to shreds.

“None of what happened here today has anything to do with us,” he’s saying. “I’m getting a divorce. I swear.” Andrew releases his hold on Livvi—gently letting her feet touch the ground again.

“What good will it do?” Livvi is exhausted, defeated. “Your mother won’t care if you’re divorced, neither will your wife. They’ll never set you free.”

“That doesn’t make any difference.” Andrew is trying to kiss her tears away. “No matter what happens, no matter what, you’ll always be my first choice.”

And Livvi, with a sinking heart, is thinking,
But
I’ll never be your only choice.

Micah

Wiscasset, Maine ~ 2012

“You always chose her over me. Why?”

Micah has asked this softly and suspects her father will answer it softly. For the last few minutes the sound of their footsteps crunching on the leaf-covered path has been louder than either one of their voices. This meeting with her father, uncharacteristically civil. The shocks and losses in Kansas, and Louisville, and Newport, have taken the fire out of Micah.

“I never pushed you aside to choose her.” Micah’s father’s tone is patient, gentle. “I simply went where I was needed.” He has inadvertently walked through a spider’s web and is brushing at the sleeve of his shirt, a pale-blue chambray. An old work shirt beginning to fray at the collar and cuffs, but freshly starched and perfectly pressed.

Micah’s father has always been meticulous about his clothes and his grooming. He’s a small, dapper man with white hair and clean fingernails, and breath that smells like peppermint. “Do you think we should go back to the house?” he’s asking. “Or walk down to the water?”

They are in the woods behind the well-kept farmhouse that he and Micah’s mother own in Maine. The air is bracing and wonderfully fresh. Breathing it during the course of the walk has made Micah feel stronger—less hopeless, less sick. It has made her cancer seem less real.

Her father, finished with the removal of the spider’s web, is bending to admire a tangle of wildflowers growing at the base of one of the trees. And he’s saying, cheerfully: “Back to the house or onward to the water—which will it be, my girl?”

“I was never your girl. She was.” Micah’s words are muted. Jealous.

Her father has heard the jealousy, and there’s defensiveness in his voice. “Your mother had a million invisible fractures running through her.”

“What does that mean,” Micah asks, “a million invisible fractures?”

Her father isn’t bending over the wildflowers any longer; he’s standing up now, holding one of the blossoms. He walks the few steps to where Micah is, and with a gallant flourish, tucks the flower behind her ear.

“Your mother was damaged, Micah. You never were. From the time you were barely more than a baby, you were headstrong and self-directed. Boldly walking your own path. Anyone trying to guide you seemed to just get in your way.”

Her father is looking directly into Micah’s eyes; she’s seeing how proud he is of who she is. It’s making Micah wish that over the years she’d been kinder to him, gentler with him.

In spite of this, there are still things about her father she resents. Unresolved issues she’s determined to make him explain. It’s why Micah has come here, to Maine, after visiting her mother in Newport.

She’s pulling the delicate wildflower from behind her ear and turning it in her fingers, watching it beginning to wilt under the heat of her touch, as she’s telling her father: “When I was growing up you were hardly ever around, you were always off with her.”

Her father takes the flower from Micah and drops it onto the ground. “What can I tell you that you don’t already know?”

A childlike frustration is in Micah as she says: “I know the ‘what’…what I want to know is the ‘why.’”

“They’re the same, Micah. The situation was the explanation. Your mother was a big star and I was her agent and producer. More than that, I was her confidante. Her moral support—”

“But what about me? What about what I needed from you? The whole time I was in high school I saw you maybe three times a year—four if I was lucky. Why did you just forget about me like that?”

“I never forgot about you. I was giving you room. Without it, I thought you’d run so far—and so wild—I’d lose you forever.”

Micah slams her hand against the trunk of the tree. Making her father jump. Feeling as if she’s being blamed for his failures. “What the hell are you talking about?” she whispers.

“You remember how you were as an adolescent. I truly believed if I didn’t back off, you’d self-destruct.” Her father is changing direction and walking away, heading deeper into the woods.

And Micah is running after him, insisting: “That’s such a fucking cop-out.” It’s as if Micah is sixteen again—cut to the quick with adolescent injury. And she’s asking: “Isn’t it a parent’s job to stick by their kid? Support them? No matter what?”

Her father has stopped—waiting for her to catch up. When they are again side-by-side, his response is subdued. “You were on a path to destruction. Does a loving parent support his child in that? Or does he do whatever it takes to get his child onto a safer path?”

To Micah it sounds as if he’s simply offering excuses, and it’s tearing at her. Making her wish she had the strength to scream.

“What goddamn path did you think you were putting me on by walking away?” she asks.