“You do this every Sunday morning?”
“Are you kidding? I had to climb up into the attic and find this stuff behind the Christmas ornaments.”
“Lump sugar?”
“And tongs, Julie. These weren’t my mother’s. I got them from Kelly after she told me it wasn’t that cool to pull the cubes out with my fingers. But here, do it the right way.”
The ring was on top of the pile of raw sugar cubes.
It looked like one of the brown lumps had been transformed, by a genie, into crystal. It was that big. Plain and simply set, but the size of Mount Rushmore.
I reached around it and put sugar into my coffee. “Do you have milk?” I asked.
“Well, will you marry me?” he asked.
“Do I get milk then?”
“Now, you think I’m crazy.”
“I think this is a gesture of overwhelming sweetness, Matt. And I’ve never seen a ring like that, much less worn one.”
“Try it on.”
“Matt…”
“That sounds like a big letdown.”
“I don’t mean it to. I thought we were having a good time.”
“And then I had to spoil it by offering to make you my wife?”
“We haven’t seen each other in almost thirty years, Matt! We’ve had six dates. We’ve had sex once. Well, twice.”
“And we’ve written back and forth and spoken on the phone for hours for nearly a year. You’ve seen other men. I’ve seen other women. You know that I love you. I hope you love me. You know people depend on me for more physical challenges than your disease could ever offer us. From now until, well, we kick the bucket.”
“What would you say if I couldn’t see? Or had to zip around on one of those little scooters, if we took Aurora to Disney World? Think about that, Matt. Think about Suzie, climbing mountains and, I don’t know, jibbing the mainsail or whatever she did. What if I couldn’t do that? Or couldn’t always do that?”
He sat down and folded his huge, clean hands. I shivered, looking at those hands. “Well, don’t think I haven’t thought about this. I know that you could remain this way the rest of your life, or be badly disabled. And I want to sign on.”
“What if I lose it all? My mind?”
“I’ll have the privilege of really being the support and help for someone. Really mattering to someone. That’s no small thing. Anyway, you don’t say to yourself, when you fall in love, gee, what am I going to do if my wife can’t talk when we’re eighty? Or if she makes mistakes with words? We’re in our forties. Should I do that? I could easily be the one who ends up buggy.”
“Well, those are the things you should think about long and hard, if you’re marrying a woman with a disability….”
“So you confirm that I am marrying a woman with a disability.”
I waited, as he slipped the ring on my finger, for the flashing red sign that would restore me to my senses.
It didn’t ignite.
I felt only a great and consuming peace of mind. I thought of a forever of last nights, safe in this house. This house! Seeing things with Matt, a man who, apparently, wanted to devour the world. Someone who didn’t hate his work, but who had a passion for it. A big, handsome man with friends! He loved me as I once was, and as I was now. Tears gathered in my eyes. He loved me even as I might become, or thought he could. It took my breath away. I could be…myself again. With someone I knew, or had known, as a good and honest person. My first kiss, and my last. A symmetrical union. The possibility of joy. A loving, comforting presence beside me on quiet nights, or festive ones. When the demons descended and, even better, when they didn’t. Matthew MacDougall, a good man, a patient and, I’d discovered, sensual man.
Did the thought of health insurance occur to me? I’m not stupid, or a liar. Did the thought of a stable home for Rory, a stable father figure who actually wanted a child, did that cross my mind, too? For Gabe, perhaps an understanding friend who might repeal some of the cynicism he felt about the loyalty of men? Was I crazy?
I was not crazy.
I would be crazy to turn him down.
I was knock-over-the-moon lucky.
I was going to walk out of this house with this ring, like a little star, on my hand. The possibility of the book, the luckiest thing that had happened to me in years, now was pallid in comparison with the richer happiness I envisioned. One was a little help, a little payback. For a little while. One was sanctuary. I didn’t kid myself. I wanted Matt now. I would need Matthew as time went by.
But who among us does not need other people?
People have been far bigger fools for far less.
Matt spent the rest of the day asking me, “How’s engaged life?”
Much as I hated to leave him, I knew I had to face the drive to Vermont in the morning. I knew that he would insist on driving me, and that I ought to refuse, but also that it was okay for me to give in! He would go with me. I had a partner. And after the day and the next night, much as I hated to leave him, I couldn’t wait to spill the bittersweet revelation to Gabe, and to Cath. This house! I wandered around, examining the towels, the sunroom, the massive game room with pinball machines and a TV the size of Montana! Gabe would love this house. I examined the old glass doorknobs, the curve-legged table with its frieze of Poseidon on the waves.
I had no idea whether Gabe would be hurt, relieved, or elated. I suspect there would be a tincture of all three.
At least, he would know that he would be free.
Then I thought of Hannah and Gabe Senior.
Every blessing has its blemish.
How could I leave them? Whither thou goest. Perhaps there was a way I could convince them; but no, there were all the friends they had who were in Sheboygan or in Door County. On the other hand, flights to and from there weren’t outrageous.
It was a three-hour drive to Pitt, Vermont, where we stopped at the bed-and-breakfast Gabe and Cat had mentioned, just a map step shy of the New York State line. We brought the owner a flowering plant, and I explained who I was. She had no trouble remembering my children; and her face toughened with disdain, but she made no comment, when she gave us directions to Sunrise Valley. We made the ride in silence, the way obligingly variegated to reflect my mood. I was going to be a doctor’s wife. I was going to be a published-ass poet! My kids were going to be safe.
I was going to see the great love of my life, and the great love of his life. I was going to see my little girl, who’d grown up too soon. When we finally drove down the avenue of maples and turned left, the first thing I saw was the new house, still raw, but glittering with oversized south-facing windows, riotous with plants of every span and plumage, just beneath the crest of the ridge, I grabbed for Matthew’s arm. Who was this man? A complete stranger. I was going to march up to the front door of Leo’s love nest with my seventh-grade crush—and by the way, it had been his crush, not mine! What was I doing? Why had I not thought it over?
I would not have done this, any of this, had I thought it over.
And there was no point starting to think now.
So we walked up the flagstone steps that led to…my ex-husband’s home. Caroline opened the door. Involuntarily, she leapt toward me and threw her arms around my neck. I could have eaten her up. Her neck was wet with both our tears.
“I take it you know this young woman?” Matt asked, gruff, almost abashed, so lost were we in each other.
“This is my daughter! This is my beautiful daughter, Cat Steiner!” I told him. “Cat, this is Matt. That sounds ridiculous. Cat, this is, well, my sweetheart.” I put out my hand.
“Mom! Is that real?” Cat burst out, ever mindful of the important things in life.
“I’m afraid it is, yes, and I’m afraid it’s what you think it is,” I told her. “Ain’t that a kick in the head?”
“Mommy! I’m so happy for you!”
“Are you? Is everything just as…wonderful here as it looks?” Something passed across her face. I’d have called it a
cloud.
“It’s great!” she said, and I thought, she is my daughter, too. Living in Deny, Vermont. “Dad’s out right now…but Joy is here.”
“It was you I wanted to see!” I said. “I’m here only for one day. Cat, will you come to our wedding?”
“Cat!” A voice in the background bellowed. It was okay. I bellowed. “I told you to change that load of whites!”
“How are you doing in school?” I asked.
“Really, really good,” she said. “But I don’t have that much time for it, because of the two babies and with Dad working so much….” I noticed, then, with a bit of alarm, the little blue hollows under Caroline’s eyes. She changed the subject.
“Are you feeling good, Mom?”
I spun around on my boot heel. “Don’t I look like I’m feeling good?”
“Yeah,” Cat said wistfully, leaning against the door frame. An actual cloud pushed across the sun, and she shivered. “You look pretty good. How’re Gabe and Rory?”
“He’s good, Cat. He dropped out, but he’s almost ready to take the GED….”
“You can’t blame him, Mom. You don’t know what it was like for him.”
“I don’t blame him.”
“You don’t?”
“No, I did, but I don’t. Not everyone goes the same way, like you said on the phone. How’s Dominico?”
“So over. He was, like, sleeping with three other girls. He was so trash.” I froze, and Cat whispered, “I had all the tests. Everything’s okay with me. But what an asshole.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why?” Her back stiffened a bit. “You were right.”
“I’d much rather have been wrong than see you hurt.”
“Mommy, it’s cool to see you happy. You were so lousy—I don’t mean lousy—”
“Yeah, I was pretty lousy. I was lousy to you. You can say it. I was pretty hurting.”
“Well, I didn’t help. It was better I left.”
“I’ll never think that.”
We all turned as a car crunched down the lane behind us. A truck really, an aging Dodge. But the stroller on the porch was a Zooper Baby, with every gadget on it except a foot massager. Leo got out of the truck, slowly, and used a sheaf of papers to shield his eyes as he tried to place the stranger with the big man on his porch, talking to his daughter. Then, he recognized me, and his shoulders seemed to drop from their position of defense.
“Julie,” he said.
“Hi, Lee,” I said, taking his hand. “Mazel tov. I heard you have a baby girl.”
“Yeah,” Leo said to me. “Joy is very fertile. The baby’s a doll, though. Joy, too. And this doll has been my right hand.” He nodded at Caroline. Leo shifted, slipping his sheaf of documents under one arm. “Leo Steiner,” he said, putting out his hand to Matt, who gave it a perfunctory shake (I took smug pleasure). “I didn’t get your name.”
“Matt MacDougall.”
Leo grinned. “You sound like an actor. Look like one, too. One of Cathy’s friends?” he asked.
“I’m a surgeon,” Matt said.
“Huh,” Leo appeared a bit distracted. I watched his eyes flick toward the windows of the house.
“We thought we might take Cat to lunch before I go home.”
“That would be great, Jules, any other day. But she has chores and a whole lot of back homework, and she’s been mouthing off like crazy.”
“Make an exception, Lee,” I urged him. Again, that flick of the eyes, toward the interior. “Gabe, well, he’s doing…okay. He dropped out of school.”
“My dad said. Tough. The longer he waits, the less likely it’s going to be that he ever goes back, so try to steer him toward getting something started….”
“Like I wouldn’t,” I said. “And you can, too.”
“Like he’d listen,” Leo mimicked me, and I had to smile.
“Aren’t you going to introduce us to Joy? Is she your wife? Hannah and Papa don’t…say much about her to me,” I told him.
“Uh, no,” Leo said. “We haven’t quite gotten around to that.” He paused in his door frame. “You look wonderful, Julie. You look like a million bucks. Like a dancer.” The rain-drenched man. I felt a sting behind my eyes.
“I’m happy, Lee. It’s been a long time. No offense meant there. Matt, well, Matt and I just got engaged. We’ve actually known each other since we were kids, with a gap of about twenty-five years.”
“You’re getting married, Julie?”
“Isn’t that something?”
“Well, yes, yes it is.”
Matt put his arm around me, and I leaned back into his great, solid chest. Leo regarded me. Christ, if he didn’t look…no. Well, I was sure he looked a little bit wistful.
“Let me take Caroline, just for lunch.”
“Can’t. She made her bed this morning, and she’s got to lie in it.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re setting limits for her. But, Leo, you’re a lawyer. You know that I have a right to see my daughter. I have a custodial right to my daughter, if you want to make an issue of it—”
“Yeah, okay.” He looked gray, worn. “Go ahead, Caroline.”
We ate at a little restaurant with good pie.
“Are you really happy here, honey?” I asked Caroline.
“Sure,” said Caroline.
“You seem worn out.”
“I have a lot to do. When you’re part of a community, everyone depends on everyone else. There can’t be one weak link.”
“I wouldn’t call being a kid a weak link,” I said.
“Well, a lot is expected of me. But in return I get a lot of freedom.” She let her hair fall across her face.
“You can come home, Caroline.”
“It’s Cat, and no, I can’t. I told everyone back there that I had the perfect life. And I do. It’s fine. I’m just having a hard time right now.”
“Is Joy hard on you?”
“I’m fine, Mom,” Caroline snapped. “You should be hysterical with joy. All you ever wanted me to do was chores.”
“You know,” I said, “when Matt and I get married, I’ll be moving to near Boston. That’s practically right down the road! You don’t have to live with Dad full time.”
“We’ll see. Dad does really need me,” Caro said, eating the crust first, as she always had. I didn’t hear the ring of conviction.
“I need you, too, and I don’t mean because of my sickness.”
“You have to know how much your mom loves you,” Matt put in. “She talks about it like you’re this princess in a tower. Maybe you could cut her a break.”
“I did. I left.”
“Is part of the reason you won’t even think about it that it won’t be just me living in the house? That you’d have to get used to someone new? But Rory’ll be there. She misses you so much,” I said.
Caroline put down her fork. “I miss her, too. I can’t eat anymore.”
“You could go to”—I looked at Matt—“a residential school.”
“A boarding school? No, thanks. At least I’m part of something here.”
“But if you’re not happy…” I suggested.
“Who said I’m not happy? You can’t judge a whole life in a couple of weeks.”
“It’s been six months, Caro.”
“It’s Cat, and I don’t make judgments quickly.” She glanced up, looking pointedly at my ring. “Maybe it’s a learned thing.”
“Do you want to talk alone?”
“Do you mind?” Caroline asked Matt. He smiled and shook his head.
“Not in the least,” he said.
We sat alone on one side of the aluminum booth, and I felt the struggle wrack her. She didn’t say a word. I finally said, “I know it was hard on you, back when I first got sick. I also know that wasn’t entirely my fault or my choice. You know that, too. But we have a whole future to change things between us. And it’s going to be a much more stable future….”
“How do you know, Mom? How do you know h
e won’t leave you, too?”
I recoiled as if punched. “Caroline, I don’t know. How do you know your father won’t leave Joy?”
“They’re happy, that’s why. It’s not all a show,” she said venomously, but the tears were streaming now, “they’re real. And he would never leave the babies.”
“Rory was a baby.”
“You always twist things, Mom! Always!” Caroline cried, leaping up. “You make it like it’s all everyone else’s fault!”
“Caroline, no. Forget what I said. It isn’t about the past, it’s about the future, and I want a future with you. I love you. You’re my little girl.”
“No, I’m not, Mom,” Caroline said miserably. “I stopped being your little girl a long time ago.”
Matt had to help me back to the car, and Caroline sat in the back, still hiccupping with her sobs. I tried to compose myself as we approached Leo’s house, taking wet wipes to my face and touching it up with powder. “That was a resounding success, huh? Welcome to the family,” I told Matt, trying to plaster over his discomfort with apologetic small talk.
But he wasn’t uncomfortable. “Julie, you two are under a terrible weight. It’s obvious. The love. Yours and hers. But time has to pass for you two to figure out how that’s going to play out. It hasn’t been a daisy path every day for Kelly and me, either. Being a single parent is hard. But being a single parent’s kid is even harder, maybe.” I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Cat give him a watery half smile.
Satisfied as a cat, too pleased even to be as miserable as I should have been, I thought, Hey, that’s my guy.
As we turned up the lane, I saw Leo handing the little baby back through the screen door to a woman with a tumble of curls on her head, though I didn’t catch a real glimpse of her. Caroline kissed me good-bye quickly and went inside. Leo sort of danced down the steps, then walked down to Matt’s car with us. His cocky Leonine quality was back in place.
“Take good care of her, Lee. Our daughter’s going through a hard patch.”
“Adolescence.”
“And a lot more. I think she needs me. Encourage her to come visit me.”
“I’ll try, Jules.” He began to turn away, and then stopped. He swallowed. “Jules. Every blessing. I mean that.”