The Good House: A Novel (18 page)

The day before Thanksgiving, I was doing some paperwork in the office when Rebecca blew in. She was wearing riding britches and boots and a navy windbreaker. She looked windburned and radiant. It was an unseasonably mild day and she and Linda Barlow had trailered her two horses Serpico and Hat Trick down to Hart’s Beach for a ride. The horses were fresh, unaccustomed to the sound of the surf, and they had had a long gallop. They had ridden all the way past Wind Point Road, Rebecca mentioned, in an offhand manner. All the way past Wind Point Road and back.

“We’ve been so lucky with this weather,” I said. “What a great day for a ride on the beach.”

Rebecca had seated herself on one of the armchairs that faced my desk. She rested the ankle of one boot on her knee and leaned back. She looked my office over as if for the first time, taking everything in.

“This is a great office,” she said. “Did your ex do the decorating?”

“Of course,” I said. “I’m hopeless at that kind of thing.”

Rebecca grinned. “Did he used to like to shop with you? For clothes, I mean … your clothes?”

“Yes,” I groaned, and we both started to laugh. Rebecca thought it was hysterical that I’d had all these clues, all those years, and never knew Scott was gay. And it
was
funny when Rebecca made little jokes about it.

“He was constantly bringing me things home from Boston and New York, things that I would never have bought myself but that were actually great.…”

I could see that I had lost Rebecca’s attention. Somebody was unlocking the side door—the entrance to the upstairs offices—then there were footsteps on the stairs. Rebecca’s face was flushed, and it wasn’t just the windburn.

“That must have been Peter,” she said, picking up a paperweight that was sitting on my desk and pretending she was examining it.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Peter rarely comes in on Wednesdays. The Newbolds usually do Thanksgiving at Elise’s sister’s house. In Concord, I think. That was probably just Patch Dwight. There’s a leaky faucet up there.”

“Oh,” said Rebecca. The paperweight—a simple crystal dome with a digital clock set into its center—had suddenly become a source of great fascination to Rebecca. She was examining it very carefully, holding it up to the light and looking at the ceiling through its curved perspective.

“Hey, by the way, did you ever call Patch about getting a water hookup in your studio?”

“Yes,” Rebecca said. “Well, actually, I had Brian call. You were right. He was happy to do it and was really nice when they were doing the work. Now I can wash out my paintbrushes in the studio.”

“Have you been doing a lot of painting?”

Rebecca brightened. “Tons. I’m doing a whole series of these giant oil paintings of the moon over the water. They’re from photos Peter took, mostly. One of them, though, I actually painted at Peter’s one night. It was a night when the moon was full and you just couldn’t capture the size of it with a camera. But as soon as Peter saw it, he called me and told me to bring my paints.”

We heard Patch running down the stairs again, and Rebecca jerked her head around to watch him walk past my window. Then she turned and smiled at me. “You’re right. It was Patch.”

I had glanced down at some papers on my desk when Rebecca said, “Hildy, Peter’s a little upset with me. With both of us, really.”

“Oh? Why?”

She was picking at one of her fingernails.

“Wait, let me guess. He knows that you told me about what’s going on between you two.”

“Yes, I told him how you … came to know about it … and he was really upset. He said that you took advantage of me.”

“Advantage?” I was trying not to laugh. I had taken advantage of Rebecca. That was rich, coming from Peter Newbold.

“Don’t get upset, Hildy. It’s all fine. He just thinks that you made me tell you stuff that I wouldn’t ordinarily tell anybody. He thinks your whole psychic thing is an act.”

“Rebecca, it
is
an act. I told you that. I don’t read people’s minds, not in the way you think I do anyway. But I didn’t make you say anything. I’m shocked that Peter thinks you are so malleable that I could … Well, now that I think about it, I guess I’m not surprised; he seems to have had great success manipulating you.”

“HILDY. How could you say that? That’s one of the cruelest things anybody has ever said to me. We’re very serious about each other, Hildy. You know we are. You know all about it.”

“Well, tell Peter I won’t tell anybody. Who would I tell? Nobody up here even knows his wife. I’m sure people think he carries on with all his patients.…”

This was below the belt. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean that.”

“It’s okay,” Rebecca said. “Peter told me that you’d react very angrily if I talked to you about this, but I had to. You’re my closest friend up here. The thing is, Peter’s not just worried about Elise finding out. He could lose his license to practice if this came out. Psychiatrists can’t have intimate relationships with their clients. It’s against the law. In some states, he could go to jail for what has happened between us. Even though he was my doctor for only a short time.”

“Against the law for two adults to have a relationship? Two consenting adults? I don’t think that’s true, Rebecca. Maybe in Puritan times, but now you’re allowed to have sex with whoever you want, as long as you’re both adults. I hate to say it, but I think Peter’s feeding you a line of bullshit here.…”

“What on earth? It’s not a line.…”

“I’m paying alimony to a man who was carrying on with another man for two years while we were married. The law saw nothing wrong with that. In fact, somehow, I am responsible for supporting him financially, him and, at one time, his partner, because I earn more money. So I don’t see how it could be against the law for you and Peter to be carrying on as you are. Perhaps Peter wants you to think this so—oh, never mind, I’m sorry.”

“Hildy, it’s okay, but you’re wrong. I’ve looked it up. It’s against the law. Because some unethical doctors in the past have taken advantage of their patients. Some patients develop transference and they think they’re in love with their shrink, but it’s not real love. It’s not like what Peter and I have. But I was never really Peter’s patient. Not really. Not for long anyway. We’re in love.”

Rebecca looked so fragile then, so vulnerable, I felt bad about what I had said.

“I know you are. I know.”

Rebecca sat forward in her seat then and looked into my eyes. She wanted a reading.

“You do? You know how he feels? You can tell me, Hildy. Don’t spare me. I really need to know. I know that you know.”

“I don’t.” I sighed.

This is why I stopped doing this kind of thing years ago. People want you to tell them that they’re special; that there’s some kind of cosmic meaning to their life’s journey and a foreseeable fate that is just for them. A bright, happy fate just for special old them.

“Hildy. Hildy, just look at me, just for a minute.”

I did. It made me shiver. Poor Rebecca.

“Yes. Yes, of course he loves you. Now stop worrying. Why don’t you come over tonight? After you put the kids to bed. Come over for a quick glass of wine.”

“I’d love to, Hildy, but I can’t. Brian’s on his way out here. My in-laws are coming for Thanksgiving. I guess I’d better get home and get changed.”

“Have a happy Thanksgiving, Rebecca,” I said, and she wished me the same.

I watched her walk out the side door and heard her pause for a moment at the bottom of Peter’s stairs. Then she stomped along the porch in her riding boots, and in a few moments I heard her car speed off down Church Street.

I worked late that day. I was getting all my accounts organized for the end of the year, and when I left my office, it was dark. The darkness took me by surprise because the clock on my desk had said three-thirty. In fact, the little clock in the crystal paperweight on my desk has said three-thirty ever since then, though I’ve replaced the batteries numerous times. I’m not saying it had to do with Rebecca—still, I did recall what Brian had said that night at Wendy’s party about Rebecca’s strange magnetic field and its destructive effect on electronics. But that paperweight clock is cheap, made in China. It probably stopped days before Rebecca even touched it. I just didn’t notice.

I walked along the driveway between my building and the Congregational church and I turned up the collar on my coat. There’s always a wicked east wind that whips in between the two buildings when the weather turns cold. I blew into my hands and looked up at the church’s tall windows, which were brightly lit from within. It was Wednesday night—the night the church choir usually holds its rehearsal for the coming Sunday’s services. I often see them from my office window, through the church’s fogged panes: Sharon Rice, Brenda Dobbs from the Crossing library, Frizzy Wentworth, old Henry Mallard, and some I don’t know. On nights that I worked late, I enjoyed watching them from my desk. I usually couldn’t help but smile at those earnest townsfolk, their hymnals held aloft, their mouths moving in keen, pious syllables, their eager, submissive eyes fixed on a choir leader who stood just out of sight. That night before Thanksgiving, they were working a handbell recital, and I slowed my steps as I passed. The church’s walls are thick and solid and no music could be heard from where I stood, but I watched the congregants as they held their bells, one bright brass, oak-stemmed clanger in each hand. They moved the bells up and down in what appeared, from where I stood, to be a random sequence. I thought about how these Wendover Protestants looked no different from the folks who peopled the choir when I was a kid. Those Massachusetts women, hair bobbed, no makeup, as sexless as children or Pilgrims. And the men, those paunchy family men, all chiming in with their bells; all together and each alone. Up. Down. Now … now … now … in a sequence set by somebody I just couldn’t see from my driveway.

*   *   *

I have no idea who runs the music program at the church now, but when I was a child, it was Mrs. Howell, the minister’s wife. I was very fond of Mrs. Howell; she was the one who first got me interested in music. She made me love music, really. Mrs. Howell conducted both the adult and the children’s choir. Sometimes the children’s choir joined the adult choir for hymns; on other occasions, we children sang our own hymns during church services. Mrs. Howell said that the sound of children singing made her feel God’s presence most clearly, and she taught us not to be afraid to sing; not to worry about hitting false notes, but to sing out with our hearts. She said that none of our notes would appear off, or false, if we sang like that.

Yes, I was very, very fond of Mrs. Howell.

One year, when I was in second or third grade, she chose me to sing a solo—the opening verse of “O Holy Night” for the Christmas Eve candlelight service.

“O Holy Night!” I began, all alone at the altar, my thin, wavering voice venturing out into the aisles and pews of the old church. It was so dark and so cold in the church that Christmas Eve. Once-familiar faces were distorted beyond recognition by the flickering light and the snaking tendrils of black smoke that arose from the handheld candles. The only person I could see clearly was Mrs. Howell, who stood right before me, smiling calmly, her cupped hand cradling the air in smooth upward motions, her lips mouthing the words along with me.

“The stars are brightly shining,” I warbled on in a semi-whisper. “It is the night of our dear Saviour’s birth.”

The church was full. Most everybody I knew sat in the pews, but I couldn’t see them. My hands shook and I clutched the sides of my red plaid Christmas skirt to steady them. Then I drew a deep breath and continued, my eyes fixed on Mrs. Howell.

“Long lay the world in sin and error pi … i … ning.… [gulp]. Till He appeared … and the soul felt its worth.”

Then (oh how joyous) the choir, young and old, and the entire congregation joined me.

“A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn. FALL ON YOUR KNEES!” (This was where you could hear our old Mr. Hamilton’s baritone, and Mrs. Riley’s sweet, shrill soprano hovering above us all.) “O, HEAR the angel voices! O NI-I-IGHT DIVINE … Oh night when Christ was born.…”

Words can’t describe the sense of comfort and community you feel, singing alone and then, suddenly, being buoyed up by the rest of the choir. I sang the rest of the carol, grinning broadly and searching the pews for the faces of my friends, my father and my mother, and now I could see them in the warm candlelight. There they were. There they all were, singing along with us. I remember my mother that night, how she sang, and how she smiled up at me, tears streaming down her face.

When Mrs. Howell taught us that carol, during Sunday school, she had us all draw pictures to go with each line. I was assigned the line “till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.” I drew a baby in a manger with a little halo over his head and rays of sunshine emanating from him. Mrs. Howell said, “I like the yellow rays of sun you used to express the soul and all its worth.” I grinned proudly, though I had just drawn the baby Jesus the way I had seen him illustrated many times—always with a little halo and the rays of golden light. The soul. Divine in all its worth? Can you imagine an adult feeding this nonsense to children?

*   *   *

The next day was Thanksgiving, and I walked my dogs after breakfast, then put on a wool skirt and sweater. The weather had changed; it was going to be a cold Thanksgiving Day after all.

I left my house around noon. Tess wanted everybody to arrive by one, as she planned to serve dinner at three. Emily and Scott had arrived at Tess’s the night before, and Michael’s parents lived just down the road. They were all there by the time I arrived.

Like I’ve mentioned, it’s hard now to be around people who are enjoying their drinks. Tess and Emily usually are careful to not drink much around me. I knew they’d have a little wine, but they’d act as if they weren’t enjoying it. The Watsons barely drink at all. So I had toyed with the idea of arriving a little later. I had even considered having a small glass of wine before I left the house. Many people have wine with lunch when they’re not working. But I feared they would smell it on me. Plus, really, that’s the kind of thing women at Hazelden talked about doing, during their shameful active-alcoholic days—having a drink to brace themselves for an occasion. I wasn’t like them. I didn’t need it. So I arrived on time, at one, and found old Bonnie on the front porch.