Outraged, Piper and Elizabeth and their whole set had rallied around Jilly and her three truculent children. They’d helped with carpooling, babysitting. Kate invited her to her annual holiday party; Piper treated her to a day at Paradise Found, the whole package minus the seaweed wrap, which they all agreed was a waste of money. But after the first few months, the flow of invitations began to dwindle and, in time, stopped altogether. Jilly became a kindergarten teacher at one of the local private schools (not, thank God, Tallyrand), a shocking decision of which no one approved. How awkward, to attend parent/teacher conferences with a woman you used to have dinner with, sitting across the low classroom table from Jilly, who’d begun wearing ethnic jewelry and purple wool-felt clogs.
The truth was that there was no room in Piper’s world for a divorced mother. Parties, cookouts, dinner dates, trips to people’s vacation homes in Stone Harbor or Rehoboth: to participate, you had to be married, preferably with children. One or two married couples without children hung on to the edge of the social circle by the skin of their teeth. But a divorced woman? Piper could imagine becoming a divorced woman about as much as she could imagine becoming a tightrope walker for Barnum & Bailey.
“That’s just it,” said Elizabeth. “I didn’t think about Jilly. I only thought, ‘I want out.’”
“And then?”
“And then I finally went in to have those symptoms checked out, and then I got diagnosed. It didn’t seem like the time to divorce my husband.” Elizabeth gave a bitter little laugh. “I thought I’d get better and then we’d do it later. But if I was going to be sick for a while, Emma and Peter needed a stable home with their dad in it.”
A Christmas cactus sat in the center of Elizabeth’s kitchen table, and Piper began to fiddle with it, pinching off spent blossoms, moving the cactus fronds around. This Christmas cactus is blooming too early, Piper thought, scornfully, and a Christmas cactus is not a centerpiece plant. Paperwhites, yes. Amaryllis, yes. Christmas cactus, no.
“I think Ginny put this plant here. It’s the wrong place for it.”
Elizabeth took one of Piper’s hands, lifted it off the plant, and held it. “I didn’t tell you because I thought you would try to talk me out of it,” she said gently. “I’m sorry.”
Piper didn’t meet Elizabeth’s eyes, but she nodded and squeezed her hand.
“But I’m telling you now because I’m afraid for Tom, and I’m afraid for the kids.”
“Why?”
“He hasn’t been doing well; you’ve probably noticed that. And today he broke down, just—broke. Fell apart. He said he couldn’t stand it that he’d ruined my life by being such a terrible husband. He even said that maybe if he’d been better and I’d been happier, I would not have gotten sick.”
“That’s ridiculous,” scoffed Piper. “Unhappiness doesn’t cause cancer.”
“No. And I don’t think he really believes that. What’s killing him is the idea that I will die unhappy, in a miserable marriage. He hates that my life isn’t ending on a good note.” Until Elizabeth covered her face with her hands, Piper had not noticed that she’d started to cry. “So I told him that he’s a good man and was the love of my life, both of which are true. I tried to tell him all the things I hadn’t told him before. How it was both our faults, how I’d taken over with the kids and not let the two of us be in that together. Mostly, I wanted him to understand the real reason I’d thought our marriage was over. It was over because we forgot to stay in love. Both of us.”
Elizabeth leaned back, exhausted. When she spoke again, her voice was hollow and sad.
“I told him all that, but when I’m gone, I’m so afraid he’s going to let guilt eat him up. It’s bad enough now, but when I die…A man drowning in guilt and hating himself is not going to be a good father for Emma and Peter. They need to feel like they’re allowed to be happy. I want him to set that example for them.”
Elizabeth looked hard at Piper. “So keep it. That information about Mike. I didn’t tell him that. But you keep it. And if you need to use it, even if you need to…embellish it, do it. Add sex. Add orgies. Whatever it takes to make him understand it was my fault, too. Promise.”
“I promise,” said Piper, so adamant she was almost severe, “I’ll help him. You stop worrying about that, now, okay? I’ll take care of everything.”
No one said anything. Then Elizabeth smiled a smile that was like a plant opening in the sun. “Good.” She snapped her fingers in the air. “Now, put on my James Taylor and get those children over here.”
“I’ll be right back.”
“Wait,” said Elizabeth, her eyes full of mischief. “Call Cornelia and Teo. Ask if they’ll walk the kids over themselves.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I want to meet the new neighbors.” She grinned. “And I want them to meet me. I don’t want to be the mystery cancer victim down the road.”
“Ha!” Piper eyed Elizabeth. “I know you, lady, and you want to flirt with that Dr. Sandoval.”
“While I still can,” sang out Elizabeth, and she laughed. “While I still have breath in my body!”
Ten minutes later, as she sat in Elizabeth’s kitchen with her neighbors, hearing the children play in the sunroom and James Taylor sing a lullaby to himself, Piper discovered that she did not dislike Cornelia Brown. She knew that the feeling, or lack of feeling, might not last and half hoped that it wouldn’t, but for the moment, there it was, a smoothness across her forehead, a loosening in the place where her lower jaw met her ear.
From the moment that Elizabeth had become more or less homebound, Piper had kept a mental list of all of Elizabeth’s visitors, and before long, the mental list had grown into a kind of detailed catalog, an internal spreadsheet documenting the behavior of each visitor: what they brought, how frequently they came, how long they stayed, and, above all, how they behaved toward Elizabeth. Some of the information in the spreadsheet came from Elizabeth herself because Elizabeth had not morphed into a sugary, pure-souled cancer patient like the ones on television. She wasn’t above dissecting and dishing about her visitors with Piper, a fact that made Piper want to fall down on her knees with gratitude.
For Elizabeth’s part, the laughing, imitating, and eye rolling that accompanied this dishing was good natured. But Piper was on the job. She was eagle-eyed and keeping watch, and there was nothing amusing about the information she was storing up. There would be a day of reckoning. Piper had no sense of when the day would be or what would happen on it, and the phrase “day of reckoning” almost certainly did not exist in her personal lexicon, but she knew that there would be one, and you could see the knowledge enter her gaze and her posture whenever someone crossed the threshold of Elizabeth’s house. The day of reckoning would come, and when it did, Piper would be ready.
There were many wrong and unforgivable ways to approach Elizabeth. Tentatively, as though she had a bomb strapped to her body. Loudly, with a pasted-on, cheek-splitting smile. Tearfully. Patronizingly. Megan had failed to make eye contact and had addressed all of her remarks to Piper. Liddy, who hardly knew Elizabeth, had immediately taken her hand and held it for the duration of the visit. Allie had stayed, literally, two minutes, shifting her weight from foot to foot, like a kid in the principal’s office. Parvee had wept out loud. Tom’s work colleague Roland had spent ten minutes recalling how good looking Elizabeth used to be, what a “slammin’ bod” she’d had, and smiling a sharky smile that made Piper want to knee him in the groin.
A few visitors had been fine, relaxed and blessedly ordinary. And Kate, ditzy, dismissible Kate, was perfect every time. She’d waft in on a cloud of breezy goofiness, bearing wonderful gifts: the latest Us and People, a box of Hostess Twinkies, a manicure kit with the season’s new OPI colors, or a rumor that the Hollanders and the Tifts had engaged in wife swapping the previous weekend (“Digital videos! They say there are digital videos! How hysterical is that? Digital?”). If it were up to Piper, and Piper believed it might be, Kat
e’s place in heaven was a done deal.
So when Cornelia walked through Elizabeth’s kitchen door, Piper sat serenely in her powder blue sweater and jeans, one toffee-colored loafer crossed over the other, but inside, she was all watchdog, ears pricked, nose in the air, a ridge of hair rising along her back.
Cornelia had Peter in her arms.
She walked over to Elizabeth, smiled an undeniably true smile at her, and said, “Emma laid down the law, I promise you that. She told me in no uncertain terms that never, under any circumstances, is Peter to be carried. Absolutely, positively not.”
Elizabeth smiled back and said, “And yet.”
“He climbed me like a tree frog and gave me this sweet, hopeful look.”
“Oh, yes. I know that look.”
“So you know my hands were tied.”
Elizabeth laughed. Then she reached out and gave one of Peter’s sneakers a tug. “Okay, tree frog of mine, give this poor, manipulated woman a break.”
“First things first,” said Cornelia to Peter, and she placed a kiss on his temple, then set him down. That’s a woman who wants a baby, thought Piper. Cornelia turned to face Elizabeth again and held out her hand.
“Cornelia Brown.”
“Elizabeth Donahue.” Piper watched Elizabeth squeeze Cornelia’s hand, then glance over Cornelia’s shoulder. “And where is that famous husband of yours?”
Cornelia groaned. “The story of my life. The most camera-shy man on the planet and he gets to be the celebrity.” She turned and squinted out the window. “Teo appears to have gotten no farther than your yard, where he is right this second turning Emma, Carter, and Meredith into wild beasts, I’m sorry to report. He has that effect on children.” She walked to the window, rapped on it, then shook her finger at Teo.
“He seems to have had that effect on some of our female friends as well,” said Elizabeth archly.
Piper eyed Cornelia. She knew Elizabeth was watching, too. They both made emphatic fun of the jealous wives they knew, so they were a little disappointed when Cornelia turned back to Elizabeth with twinkling eyes.
“Ooh, be sure to tell him that,” she said, evilly. “He’ll turn eleven shades of red and then die of embarrassment.” Piper noted with grudging approval that Cornelia didn’t flinch, the way some people did after saying the word “die” in front of Elizabeth. On her last (and, if Piper had her way, final) visit, Connie Abernathy had actually apologized for the phrase “drop-dead gorgeous.”
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at Cornelia and asked, “So tell me, what do you think of James Taylor?”
Cornelia winced, just a little, but before she could answer, Teo fell through the kitchen door, children all over him. He was flushed and there were leaves in his hair. Piper shot Elizabeth a glance, but Elizabeth was clapping her hands in the air like a flamenco dancer.
“Kids!” she shouted. “Begone! Playroom! Pronto!”
When Piper returned from settling the kids in front of a Dora the Explorer video, Cornelia and Teo were seated at the table. Teo was pouring San Pellegrino, and the green glass of the bottle in his hand made Piper notice his sea glass green eyes. She wondered if Elizabeth noticed, too. Then Piper saw the glass in Teo’s hand. Granny Bebe’s Waterford. Elizabeth didn’t allow most people to breathe in the direction of Granny Bebe’s Waterford. You’d give a handsome man the shirt off your back, thought Piper, and the thought made her giggle.
“What?” said Elizabeth, turning around. She widened her eyes at Piper for a split second, a signal that meant “He’s amazing.”
“Nothing.”
“Okay, Cornelia,” said Elizabeth, whacking the arm of her chair, “no weaseling out. What’s your position on James Taylor?”
Cornelia bit her bottom lip. “Honestly?”
“Oh, yes,” said Elizabeth. “Honesty is a must.”
“Honestly, I’m not a fan.”
“Did you hear that, Pipe? Cornelia’s not a James fan!”
“Well, who is, Elizabeth?” And before Piper knew what she was doing, she smiled at Cornelia, a natural, guileless, unsardonic smile, and that’s when it hit her that she didn’t dislike her. Well, she thought, startled. Well. It doesn’t mean I like her, either.
“Except,” said Cornelia.
“Except what?” asked Elizabeth.
“There’s one song. About North Carolina. I like it.”
Elizabeth turned to Piper with a triumphant “Ha!”
“It’s like ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree.’ Or Wordsworth’s field of daffodils. Or, oh, you know, Frost’s birch trees. In the same family as those poems. ‘I’d like to get away from earth awhile.’ All that stuff.”
Here we go, thought Piper with disgust. Wordsworth’s daffodils? What the hell was she talking about? Then she saw Teo looking at her and she blushed, hoping her thoughts hadn’t shown up on her face.
They must have, though, because suddenly Teo was grinning at Piper and saying, “She can’t help it. It’s like a mild form of Tourette’s.”
Amazingly, Cornelia didn’t get angry or embarrassed. She laughed. “All right, all right. You know what I mean. It’s a song about keeping a place in your mind that you can get away to.”
“I do,” said Elizabeth, quietly, “I know exactly what you mean.”
In the stillness that followed this remark, Piper waited.
Cornelia looked straight at Elizabeth with frank compassion in her eyes. “I bet,” she said, and her tone wasn’t pitying or sentimental. It was a tone with which even Piper could not find fault. So maybe Cornelia could do that, then, strike the right note. Maybe she could fill a moment without making it spill over. Piper would not have thought so, but there it was: a good moment. Still, after a few seconds, Piper had to end it. It needed to end.
“Hey, Betts,” she called out, “know what I bet? I bet Cornelia was a Talking Heads girl.”
“Cornelia, were you a Talking Heads girl? In college?” demanded Elizabeth.
“Um,” said Cornelia.
Teo laughed. “It’s a band.”
“I know it’s a band!”
“My wife was not a Talking Heads girl,” said Teo, talking to Piper and Elizabeth, but looking at Cornelia. A little shiver went through Piper. There it is, she thought. His eyes when he looked at his wife, his voice when he said “my wife.” The thing Elizabeth wanted to leave Tom to go find. “My wife has been a walking anachronism for years. Decades. Since she could walk.”
“The guy,” Cornelia continued, “with the Laurence Olivier eyes!”
Elizabeth burst out laughing.
“Oh, yeah, that’s him,” said Teo, dryly. “Who were you listening to in college, Cornelia? Chet Baker, wasn’t it?”
Piper hadn’t seen Elizabeth laugh so freely in months.
“And the big suit!” cried Cornelia. “The enormous suit.” With both hands, she traced the shoulders of the enormous suit in the air.
“No, wait, Chet Baker was high school. I remember the poster on your wall. College was…Who was college?”
“College was a lot of people, a lot of—bands. I liked Elvis Costello, remember that?”
“Yeah, yeah. You might have liked Elvis Costello. That sounds like you, sort of. All that wordplay and cleverness. But you loved…”
Cornelia dropped her hands in defeat and sighed, “I loved Hoagy Carmichael.”
“Oh, that’s impossible,” gasped Elizabeth, midlaugh. She reached over and squeezed Cornelia’s hand. “Hoagy Carmichael,” she exclaimed, happily. “I don’t even know what that is!”
Here was Elizabeth, flirting with all of them, making new friends as if she had all the time in the world. Piper wasn’t jealous. Faintly, from the playroom, she heard the kids shouting along with Dora, “Y vámonos!” Let’s go. Piper touched her hand to her mouth. For the second time in twenty minutes, she caught herself smiling without meaning to smile.
The next morning, Monday morning, Piper woke up early to fry eggs and bacon for her husband, a task she perform
ed infrequently even in the best of times. She hated the way grease lay like a mask on her face, the way her hair kept the odor of bacon for hours. As she’d known it would be, this morning’s frying was more unpleasant than ever. Now the hissing and spitting, the white-and-yellow egg floating on top of the oil set her nerves on edge. But when she placed the plate of food in front of Kyle, she felt a little of her worry, a tiny corner of it, dissolve. There. She was doing it. She was paying attention to her husband. Before she walked away, she kissed the top of his head.
Later, after the kids were at school, Piper sat on the love seat in her living room with her book club’s latest selection open on her lap. It was a book about a small town on the plains of Colorado. She hadn’t attended a book club meeting in months and knew that she would not attend the next one, but she liked the book, even though it was not the sort of book she usually liked. When she read it, without knowing exactly why, she felt quiet and clean. It was a life she would never have and had never wanted: working all day under the sky with your muscles straining and the wind chapping your skin. Now, though, it seemed like something to regret, not living that life. Just then, Piper thought that life seemed like the right kind of loneliness.
Piper jumped at the sound of the doorbell, then closed the book and slid it under a cushion, embarrassed to be reading away the morning. She wriggled her feet back into her loafers, then went to open the door.
Cornelia stood on Piper’s front porch with a sippy cup in her hand and outrageously bright running shoes on her feet. Other than the shoes, though, she looked fairly normal in her jeans and black Patagonia fleece. In fact, standing there in the sun with her big eyes and small, finely cut face, Cornelia was pretty. Piper could give her pretty. The hair was a disaster, of course, a train wreck, but if Cornelia grew it out, she might even verge on very pretty.
Cornelia smiled and held up the sippy cup. “My mother’s rule is that if someone leaves a container, you must return it full. But I was pretty sure we didn’t have the right kind of milk.”