“You really are using us for our Internet.”
“I thought we’d established that.”
She read the message again and logged off without replying.
She went into the living room just as Todd was turning off the TV. “Excellent timing. It’s over.”
“Did we win?”
“You can’t say ‘we’ when you didn’t watch,” he said.
“We won,” Sunita said. “Don’t mind him. And you can use the computer whenever you need to. Did you find what you were looking for?” she asked, exchanging a look with Todd.
Jason had been so scared she was going to die that he’d gone to therapy. Back then and again now.
Why hadn’t he told her?
What else hadn’t he told her?
“I’m not sure,” she answered.
54
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] Subject: Therapy?
I wish you’d told me.
From:
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[email protected] Subject: Therapy?
I don’t know why I didn’t. It’s a good question for my therapist.
From:
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[email protected] Subject: Therapy?
Is it wrong that the idea of you in therapy is oddly gratifying to me? I wish I could say it was purely altruistic, that I’m glad you’re getting healthier/happier. (And if you are, I am.) But really, I like the company. I like that it suggests that maybe I’m not the only damaged one in the family.
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] Subject: Therapy?
I think Dr. Lewis would take issue with the idea that being in therapy = damaged. That said, I will fully acknowledge that I have fucked up. We are a family of fuckups. Except maybe not the kids. They’re fuckups in training.
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] Subject: Therapy?
Fuckups in training sounds like a band you would’ve championed back in the day.
From:
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[email protected] Subject: Therapy?
I like that. The Fuckups in Training. We’ll take our act on the road and be like the Partridge Family. Oscar can play guitar. Liv can sing.
From:
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[email protected] Subject: Therapy?
Have you heard Liv sing? You and Oscar handle vocals. Liv will be Reuben Kincaid, only much, much scarier.
From:
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[email protected] Subject: Therapy?
Liv manages, Oscar and I handle music? Are you in this lineup?
From:
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[email protected] Subject: Therapy?
I’m not sure. Shirley Partridge was a widow. So one of us has to die. I’m the more obvious candidate.
From:
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[email protected] Subject: Therapy?
That’s not funny, Maribeth.
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] Subject: Therapy?
I’m sorry. A therapist might say I deflect discomfort with humor.
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] Subject: Therapy?
Every time the phone rings, I think someone is calling with bad news about you.
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] Subject: Therapy?
No wonder you never pick up. (Sorry. I could probably use some therapy, too.)
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] Subject: Therapy?
Pretty much everyone in the world could use some therapy, I’m learning.
And, for the record, I pick up on the first ring now.
55
Janice had still not received the report from Allegheny Children’s Home. And after several lessons, Maribeth had still not graduated from the kickboard.
“Some things take time” was Janice’s explanation for both.
Maribeth had no control over when the report would come in, but after several lessons, she felt fairly certain she was ready to swim on her own.
“Practice makes perfect,” Janice said.
“Yes, but sometimes you can overthink things.”
“You’re not the first person I’ve taught to swim, Maribeth.”
“I know, but I’m just getting impatient.”
“Okay. If you think you’re ready, have at it.” She set the kickboard on the pool deck.
“Fine, I will.”
“Okay. I’ll just go do a few laps,” Janice said.
Janice had been forgoing her own swimming to help Maribeth. Maribeth could at least be a little less of an asshole about it. “Have a good swim,” she said belatedly.
“You too,” Janice replied with no apparent hard feelings.
The slow lane was almost empty, which was good. Every time a swimmer came up behind Maribeth, that ancient part of her brain that still feared predators kicked into gear and made her panicky.
She pushed off, with her straight legs, kicking from her hip crease, her rounded arms, her barely lifted face. All the things she’d learned. See Janice? See what a good student I am? About three strokes in, she breathed in when she was meant to breathe out and swallowed a mouthful of water and went sputtering. After a bit of recovery time, she tried again, and it seemed to be going okay until she drifted out of her lane and into the path of an oncoming swimmer. “Watch it!” the swimmer hissed.
“Sorry!” Maribeth overcompensated this time by kicking and stroking so furiously she banged her head into the wall.
She swam back to the other end, pointing her toes so violently her foot cramped. She also got water up her nose. By the time she had completed a lap, she was panting.
As she rested, she caught a glimpse of Janice in the fast lane, slicing through the water with abundant grace.
Maribeth watched her for a few minutes. Then she pulled the kickboard off the deck and got back to work.
56
Todd and Sunita were in a fight. Maribeth could tell straightaway when she met them by the car for their shopping trip. Todd always drove; Sunita always sat in the passenger seat and played radio deejay—Miles’s car had no iPod hookup. But this time, Todd was up front, Sunita was in Maribeth’s seat in the back, and both of them were glowering.
“You’re shotgun tonight, M.B., because Sunny is being a—”
“Because Todd’s having a temper tantrum,” Sunita interrupted.
“You don’t have to come. Me and M.B. can go on our own. We have before. You can find your way to the Asian market. Maybe ask Fritz for a ride.”
“Maybe I will.” She started to undo her seatbelt.
“Hang on,” Maribeth said. “Take a breath. What’s going on?”
“Todd’s all pissy because I went out with Fritz.”
“On a date,” Todd added, as if that sealed the indictment.
“Yes, fine.” Sunita threw up her hands. “On a date.”
“That you didn’t tell me about.”
“That I didn’t tell you about.”
“When it was our night to watch Outlander.”
“We can DVR it. I don’t see what the big deal is.”
“I never flake on you to be with Miles.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, is Miles your boyfriend? I wouldn’t know because you hardly let us in the same room together.”
“Exactly! So you don’t feel left out!”
“Oh, so it’s for my sake?” Sunita flung herself against the backseat.
“Yes!” Todd retorted. “Because everyone knows that the number one friendship killer is a romance.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Is it? Ask M.B. I bet she’l
l tell you differently.”
Maribeth felt momentarily exposed, as if they’d watched the filmstrip of her life. But of course, Todd was just assuming she knew this because she was old and therefore had Life Experience.
“Well, I did have a best friend, and then I fell in love with a guy, and it did complicate things.”
“See?” Todd said.
“Complicated doesn’t mean the friendship was ruined,” Sunita said.
“That’s exactly what it means,” Todd replied.
They were both looking at her.
“Right?” Todd prodded.
“I’m not sure what it means,” Maribeth said. “Elizabeth, that was my friend, she was really protective when this guy and I got together but over time she warmed up to him. We all were friends. Eventually she even helped him pick out my . . .” she stopped herself. “My birthday presents.”
What she’d almost said was that Elizabeth had helped pick out Maribeth’s engagement ring. And this more than anything else had felt like the official Elizabeth Ford Seal of Approval, the completion of a slow thawing and eventual warming between Elizabeth and Jason, or rather Elizabeth toward Jason, though he did seem a little scared of her even though Maribeth had never told him what Elizabeth had said when he’d gotten back in touch, via a Facebook message, nearly ten years after they’d broken up, which was: “Don’t respond. Don’t talk to him. Don’t give him the time of day. He broke your heart once. He does not deserve a second go.”
But by the time they got engaged, the three of them were friendly, even friends. They sometimes went out together, to meals and plays, and one August rented the same summer share on Fire Island. After Jason proposed and Maribeth accepted, Elizabeth was the one to throw them an engagement party at her apartment. It had been a beautiful, opulent affair, full of personal Elizabeth touches. She’d hired eclectic musicians Jason would like—a mandolin and a stand-up bass player—and instructed the caterers to serve all the food in shot glasses because Maribeth had a thing about having to balance plates while standing. Though it had been a party for her and Jason, Maribeth had felt like it was for the three of them. Especially when in his toast, Jason had cracked a joke about Maribeth being such a catch that he was willing to move across the country, accompany her to a Maroon 5 concert, and put up with the fact that she was already married.
Most of the guests had chuckled politely, not quite getting the joke, perhaps thinking it was some reference to the TV show about bigamist Mormons that had just begun airing. Maribeth glanced at Elizabeth, who winked and tapped the gold filigree ring Maribeth had bought her for her twenty-fifth birthday, a piece of jewelry that until Tom and his big fat emerald came along, she’d worn on her ring finger. Maribeth had fingered her own engagement ring, a sapphire eternity band. She never found out what had become of Jason’s mother’s old ring; neither it, nor the aborted engagement, had ever been discussed. Not that she really cared. She preferred this ring so much more.
“So what happened?” Sunita asked. “With the friend?”
In spite of what she’d just said to Todd, sometimes she had held Jason responsible for her and Elizabeth’s drift. It was Jason who had brought them together. And Jason who had split them apart. Not because of anything in particular that he’d done, but because you couldn’t have it both ways—a husband and a wife.
Though when she thought back to that engagement party what she remembered so vividly now was how reassured she’d felt. She was marrying Jason, as she’d wanted to since college, but wasn’t it good to know she’d had Elizabeth, too? She pictured them, her little trio, like a three-legged stool, as sturdy as anything in life.
But then one leg had broken off. And then another. And then everything else toppled over.
57
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] Subject: Closer
We found her. My birth mother. The report should be here any day now. I’m not sure what I’ll find. She could be dead of a heart attack for all I know. Part of me thinks it might be easier if she is. It would be less complicated. I would have found out what I needed to know. Definitively.
I’m a horrible person.
DO NOT tell my mother about this.
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] Subject: Closer
You’re not a horrible person. You’re just human. And anyway, I don’t think you really mean that.
And don’t worry about your mother. She’s being taken care of.
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] Subject: Closer
Taken care of? Is she locked in the pantry?
And you’re probably right. Because if my mother—the other one—died of a heart attack, then I’d worry even more about what I passed on to the twins. It would seem inevitable then.
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] Subject: Closer
My father had a heart attack. It’s on both sides. You don’t get to take all the credit.
And nothing is inevitable.
From:
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[email protected] Subject: Closer
That’s for sure.I don’t want all the credit. I just don’t want all the blame.
From:
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I think there’s more than enough of that to go around.
After your surgery, I didn’t step up like I should have. I thought I had but now I can see that I didn’t. I’m sorry.
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] Subject: Closer
Wow. I think I like this Dr. Lewis.
From:
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[email protected] Subject: Closer
I figured that out all on my own. In my defense, I didn’t really get all that you did around here until I had to do it myself.
The shrink says that maybe I needed everything to be like it always had been because otherwise I had to think about the alternative, which was what might happen to you. And that was too hot to touch.
From:
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[email protected] Subject: Closer
The terror?
From:
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[email protected] Subject: Closer
Yeah. The terror.
58
Maribeth hadn’t really meant it when she’d said she was using Todd and Sunita for their Internet. She genuinely liked them. But she had been taking advantage of their Wi-Fi and laptop generosity a lot since Thanksgiving, particularly now that Jason’s e-mails were coming regularly and the cold weather had made the trek to the library so much less attractive.
She decided to show her appreciation by cooking for them again. They’d demolished the paella last time so maybe she’d do a bouillabaisse. It was finals week and if it was anything like Maribeth remembered, the studying made you famished.
She texted the invitation.
Is the Silver Fox coming? Todd texted back.
She hadn’t spoken to Stephen since their lunch last week. To see him now, out of the office, now that they’d kissed, now that she was e-mailing Jason, felt different. He hadn’t called her; she sensed he’d left the ball in her court, but she hadn’t returned it. Which wasn’t to say she didn’t want to see him. She did. She suspected that he wanted to see her, too. A dinner party felt like a safe excuse, so she sent him a text: My kitchen will be smelling good starting tomorrow around five if you’d like to come for dinner. The kids from upstairs are coming, too.
I’ll bring an appropriate amount of wine, he texted back.
He arrived while Maribeth was still scrubbing the clams.
“You’re early,” she said. “And I’m running late.”
“I no longer have a four o’clock patient,” he said, smiling. ??
?So I don’t know what to do with my afternoons.”
“You could try golf. I hear doctors like that. Or scheduling a new patient.”
“I’m not really taking on new patients at the moment.”
“Why did you take me?”
“To collect the bounty for returning you to Cambridge Springs prison, naturally.”
“Naturally.”
He came inside. Maribeth was suddenly aware of certain facts: her apartment, empty, the bed in the other room. Her and Stephen. Two kisses. Jason.
“What’s this?” he picked up the scrapbook holding the twins’ letters.
Maribeth grabbed it from him. “Just a scrapbook,” she said, shoving the book into a drawer. “Nothing that interesting.”
She saw him look around, much the way she’d poked around his house for hints of his life. Through his eyes, she now saw the apartment: its bare walls, its generic Best Western artwork, its lack of any sort of personal effects: diplomas, photos. There were no clues about her life here. Which perhaps was the biggest clue of all. It was less an apartment than a foxhole. But Stephen should get that. He lived in a foxhole, too, albeit one with far nicer furnishings.
“Need help in the kitchen?” he asked.
“How are you with a knife?”
“I’m not a surgeon but I could probably remove an appendix if need be.”
“Then you can devein the shrimp.”
They worked in companionable silence, breaking open a bottle of cabernet at the respectable hour of six. Right as everything was being laid out on the table, Sunita burst through. “One more semester and I will be out of here.” She made a fist pump.
Todd was right behind her. “Rub it in.”
“You’re only a term behind,” she said. “Something smells delicious, M.B.”
“Thank you,” Maribeth said.
“Can I have some of that wine?” she asked Stephen. “I just crushed my statistics final.”
“Because of all that studying you did with Fritz,” Todd teased. “He probably didn’t even need to take statistics but just did it to be your study buddy.”
“Only you can make the term study buddy sound lewd,” Sunita said.
Todd put his hands under his chin, cocking his head like an angel. He turned to Maribeth and Stephen. “He invited her to a Hanukkah celebration, with his entire family. They’ve only just met and he wants her to meet the family. I feel it’s my duty to report back to Chandra and Nikhil.”